Internet Governance

UK Online Safety Act Becomes Law Amid Controversy

The UK's Online Safety Bill has received Royal Assent and is now officially the Online Safety Act. This law mandates tech companies to incorporate new standards for the design, operation, and moderation of their platforms. more

The New Privacy Law in California

The State of California often leads the country in addressing regulatory issues. This makes sense since the State has a population of nearly 40 million and an economy that would be the fifth largest in the world if California were a separate country. A new law was enacted on the last day of the California Legislature that was signed by Governor Gavin Newson this month. more

Internet Governance in 2023

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for me, in mid-October 2023. I presented in a couple of panels at the 18th Internet Governance Forum meeting, held in Kyoto, Japan, and I also listened in to a couple of sessions in their packed agenda. The following week, I followed the presentations at NANOG 89, the meeting of the North American Network Operator's Group, and listened to a presentation by John Curran, the President and CEO of ARIN, where he gave his impressions of the current state of Internet Governance. more

Russia to Block VPNs in 2024

Russia's communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, intends to block Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) starting March 1, 2024, according to Senator Artem Sheikin of the United Russia party. more

An Equal Seat at the Table: My Journey Into Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance at ICANN 53

ICANN 53, in beautiful Buenos Aires, was the first time I experienced multi-stakeholder Internet governance Back then, I represented, as chair, the Latin American Forum of Telecommunications Regulators (REGULATEL), an observer org in GAC. I remember my amazement... more

ICANN Celebrates Its Quarter-Century Milestone

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) commemorates 25 years of fostering international cooperation in managing the Internet's naming system. Originally established by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1998, ICANN's primary objective has been to ensure a stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifiers, most notably the Domain Name System (DNS). more

Online Safety Bill: UK’s Digital Overhaul

The UK Parliament has given the green light to the controversial Online Safety Bill, putting Ofcom, the communications watchdog, in charge of internet regulation. This step brings the legislation closer to becoming law. more

Unbundling the Social Media Stack - Could a Decentralized Protocol Bring Real Choice and Control?

Project Liberty's Institute sat down with Wendy Seltzer, an advisor to the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP). Wendy was counsel to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and has served on the boards of The Tor Project, Open Source Hardware Association and ICANN. more

EU CRA: Regulatory Extremism and Exceptionalism

European Union (EU) legislators, like most of the world, are troubled about the increasing number and severity of cybersecurity incidents. However, unlike most of the world, which is taking a flexible, adaptive Zero Trust Model approach of continuous controls for cyberdefense, the EU government is pursuing a vastly expanded version of the failed Common Criteria certification model coupled with regulatory extremism and exceptionalism strategies. more

U.N.‘s Global Digital Compact Faces Criticism for Overlooking Technical Experts in Internet Governance

ICANN, APNIC and ARIN recently voiced concerns about comments made by the United Nations (UN) Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology (OSET), Ambassador Amandeep Gill. These remarks seem to conflate the roles of the technical community and civil society in the Internet ecosystem. more

The Standards Myth That Does Not Stop

The latest iteration of the most expansive, omnipotential cybersecurity legal regime ever drafted appeared a few days ago. The European Union (EU) Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is attempting to assert jurisdiction and control over all "products with digital elements" defined as "any software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components to be placed on the market." more

Human Rights and the Digital Domain Primer - Part 4

The digital domain encompasses the different spaces and spheres we use to relate and interact with the people and things that surround us using digital technologies. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, as the globally accepted standard, should serve us as the guiding light when it comes to striking the delicate balance between our rights and responsibilities on and off-line. more

On Internet Centrality and Fragmentation

I attended a workshop on the topic of Internet Fragmentation in July. The workshop was attended by a small collection of Australian public policy folk, some industry representatives, folk from various cyber-related bodies, and those with a background in Internet Governance matters. It was a short meeting, so the perils of fragmentation were not discussed at length, as they often can be, but the concerns about the breakup of the essential bonds that keep the Internet together were certainly palpable in that meeting. more

China’s Top Diplomat Calls for Global Cyberspace Fairness, Urges Resistance to Technological Dominance

In a call for "fairness and justice" in cyberspace, China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, has encouraged emerging economies to collectively resist any attempts at dominance in science, technology, or the internet. more

Human Rights and the Digital Domain Primer - Part 3

The digital domain encompasses the different spaces and spheres we use to relate and interact with the people and things that surround us using digital technologies. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, as the globally accepted standard, should serve us as the guiding light when it comes to striking the delicate balance between our rights and responsibilities on and off-line. more