Recent Enhancements to ARIN’s whoIS-RWS Service

ARIN deployed a series of enhancements to its Whois-RWS service today. This includes enabling CIDR support and IPv6 lookups in the search box on the web page, provided plain text rendering of lists of ASNs and networks on the web - plus enhanced CIDR query matching on WHOIS port 43. more

A Single Price Index for Domain Names Is Misleading

Having a single price index for the domain name industry would be worse than useless. Such an index is presented in a recent study by Thies Lindenthal. The index is intended to be a benchmark for domain owners and investors. But it's out of line with other studies and the common sense of how a market operates. A much better barometer to follow is average prices for groups of domain names with similar characteristics. more

Celebrating Six Years Since World IPv6 Launch - and How Far IPv6 Has Come!

Six years ago today, organizations all across the Internet came together as part of World IPv6 Launch to permanently enable IPv6 on their networks. Today, from that tiny launch the global Internet has grown to where over 25% of users are regularly connecting over IPv6. In some regions, this is significantly higher. For example, 237 million people in India connect over IPv6. Some mobile operators have over 80 or 90% of their devices connecting over IPv6. more

DOJ Closes Probe of VeriSign Over .Web TLD

The Justice Department has closed its investigation into VeriSign Inc.'s involvement in an auction for the .web internet domain. more

Haiti’s Telecommunications Sector in the Aftermath

The scale of the devastation inflicted by Haiti's earthquake a little over two weeks ago, meant that no industry has been left untouched by its effect. The telecommunications sector is no exception. Ever since the earthquake struck on Tuesday 12th January, fixed line and wireless communications have been virtually unavailable. more

A Failed Whois Policy

ICANN's two-year effort to purportedly preserve the Whois public directory to the greatest extent possible while complying with GDPR has failed. Under the latest proposal, the Whois database, once a contractually-required directory of domain name registrants, will be gutted to the point of virtual worthlessness, as registrars, registries, academics, and hand-wringing others ignored the public interest and imposed ever-higher barriers to legitimate, GDPR-compliant access to registration data. more

IPv6 or IPv4? What Will We See in the First Wave of LTE Networks?

All the talk early this year seems to be about LTE deployment to alleviate chronic Apple and other smartphones induced indigestion on the AT&T and other major Mobile Networks swamped by data traffic. The telluric shift albeit the user will not care or should not notice is that when he or she will power on that smartphone or whatever the communicating Swiss Knife will be called, it will request an IP address to complete an IP based call. more

New York Times Sues FCC for Net Neutrality Records Concerning Possible Russian Involvement

The New York Times Co. filed a lawsuit today against the Federal Communications Commission concerning records the newspaper alleges may shed light on possible Russian participation in a public comment period before the commission rolled back Obama-era net neutrality rules. more

IP Addresses as Money

It's no secret that the supply of IPv4 addresses, on which the Internet has been based since the dawn of digital time, is rapidly running out. The official replacement is much larger IPv6 addresses, but I can report from experience that the task of switching is not trivial, and for a long time there will be a lot of the net that's only on IPv4. So once the initial supply of IPv4 addresses run out, and the only way to get some is to buy them from someone else, what will the market be like? more

Thinking Outside The ICANN Box: Creating A Prototype Based On Internet Experience - Part II

The proposal "The Internet an International Public Treasure" ("Public Treasure") offers a means of creating a prototype for an international collaborative management structure for the Internet (see Part I of this article).
 more

Domain Name Registries Must Do More to Protect Highly-Trafficked Domains

With the recent attacks against high-profile New Zealand domain names including Coca-Cola.co.nz and F-Secure.co.nz, fingers are naturally pointing to Domainz, the registrar of record for these domains, as the party responsible for this lapse in security. While domain name registrars certainly need to ensure the security and stability of their systems, domain name registries must also step up and take responsibility for mitigating risks posed by hackers... more

Confusingly Similar But No Likelihood of Confusion in UDRP

The word "confusion" in the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) signifies two separate states of mind. The first in ¶4(a)(i) appears in the phrase "identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights." It is a test to determine whether the mark owner has standing to maintain a UDRP proceeding. more

ICANN’s Board Decisions in Nairobi Will Determine Its Credibility and Respect for Years to Come

Today is the morning of the most revered Thursday in the ICANN meetings calendar -- The public forum. It is tradition personified. It is the day when the show and the showcasing really begin. It is the stage and the choreography of the open microphone that can help influence ICANN decisions one way or another and make the supposed bottom up model appear at its best. more

IPv6: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

The theory put forward by the IETF was simple enough... while there were still enough IPv4 addresses, use transition technologies to migrate to dual stack and then wean IPv4 off over time. All nice and tidy. The way engineers, myself included, liked it. However those controlling the purse strings had a different idea. more

Where Domain Security Meets the Supply Chain Crunch

Over the last two years, we've all faced supply shortages on items we previously never thought could be in short supply. Most recently, the baby formula and semiconductor markets were hit. Before that, supply chain attacks on Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods showed us that an attack on one company through a singular point of compromise has the potential to disrupt an entire network of connected companies, products, partners, vendors, and customers. more