Internet Governance

Refutation of the Worst IANA Transition FUD

Of all the patently false and ridiculous articles written this month about the obscure IANA transition which has become an issue of leverage in the partisan debate over funding the USG via a Continuing Resolution, this nonsense by Theresa Payton is the most egregiously false and outlandish. As such, it demands a critical, nearly line by line response. more

Whose Customers Are Those Typing Brand Names in the Browser’s Address Bar?

Fourteen years ago, we had so much hope at the start of a new century. We thought the global economy was going to improve a lot because of the emerging Internet technologies. But where are we today? What has happened in the last 14 years? We know that even advanced countries are suffering from economic difficulties today. What happened to these advanced countries with high speed Internet? more

Avoiding an ICANN Monopoly on Policy

With all the focus in the TLD world on the imminent arrival of more than a thousand new TLDs and the still unfinished discussions within ICANN on what policy framework those TLDs will need to follow, it is often forgotten that there are hundreds of other TLD policy frameworks that are mature, stable and well tested. These of course are the ccTLD policy frameworks that have been actively developed over 20 years. more

The “ICANN Africa Strategy” Is Not the Same as the ‘African Agenda’

The ICANN-45 International meeting of the ICANN Global Community in Toronto, Canada provided an opportunity for the unveiling of the initial draft of the ICANN Africa Strategy, an episode that will always be remembered as a landmark moment which signaled the official commencement of ICANN's new approach to Africa. Indeed, a new chapter has started regarding how ICANN will relate henceforth to Africa. more

Proposed New IETF Standard Would Create a Nationally Partitioned “Internet”

For those worried about the threat of a state-based takeover of the Internet, there is no need to obsess over the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) exclusively. Three Chinese engineers are proposing a way to alter Internet standards to partition the Internet into autonomously administered national networks, using the domain name system (DNS). The idea was not proposed in the ITU; no, it was sent to a multi-stakeholder institution, the granddaddy of the Internet itself, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). more

New Top-Level Domains Approved by ICANN

The Board of ICANN today gave final approval to the most dramatic change to the Internet in four decades -- allowing the expansion of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). This monumental decision will allow companies and organizations to turn their own brands into Internet domain extensions (that is .brand) or to create broad generic strings such as .CAR, .SPORTS or .BANK. ICANN's TLD expansion plan was first announced three years ago on June 26, 2008 at the 32nd ICANN Meeting in Paris. more

Inquiring About the “Unthinkable”

There has been no shortage of speculation within the ICANN community regarding the continued show down between the ICANN Board and its Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) over new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) and the pending expiration of the IANA contract this September. Now one of the more interesting topics of discussion that I have had with multiple independent parties was the potential of ICANN making changes to the L root zone file... more

At the ARIN Meeting

I have been attending the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) meeting in Toronto. ARIN is one of the RIRs, i.e., the Internet address registry and policy making authority for North America. Although I have observed and participated on RIR lists for some time and interacted with RIR representatives at ICANN, WSIS and IGF, this is the first time I have been able to attend a meeting. I'm glad I did. more

Comcast vs the FCC - A Reply to Susan Crawford’s Article

This is a reply to Susan Crawford's circleid article "Comcast v. FCC - "Ancillary Jurisdiction" Has to Be Ancillary to Something". I started writing a reply to her article, adding some comments I had and also reminding her that she'd predicted this herself, in an earlier circleid article, but it turned out long enough that I decided to submit it as a circleid post instead. On the whole, the facts agree with this CNET article. This court decision was correct, and expected... more

Will Stonewalling on .xxx Be Beckstrom’s First Big Mistake?

The .xxx controversy is a legacy of the Bush era. In the dark period of WSIS and the Iraq invasion, ICANN's independence was fatally undermined when a political appointee of the Bush administration, in response to an email campaign from rightwing groups in the Bush "base", issued a direct threat to Paul Twomey that if ICANN approved the .xxx Top-Level Domain (TLD) it would not put it in the root. more

XXX Saga Continues

Sex and the internet. Put the two together and you are bound to find an interesting story. While the saga surrounding sex.com took a new twist in the last couple of days, with the current owners going dotbomb, the .xxx story also took an interesting turn... For several years ICM and ICANN tangoed. more

What’s Driving Spam and Domain Fraud? Illicit Drug Traffic

Spam is not about who sent it, it's about who benefits from it. For a moment forget everything you know about filters, zombie PCs, firewalls, spoofing, viruses, beisyan algorithms, header forgery, botnets, or blacklists. These are all methods for sending spam or preventing spam delivery. None of these explain why spam is sent and for far too long all the attention has been paid to the effects and not the driving force. Under the endless onslaught of junk mail it is easy to feel that the goal of the game is send spam and annoy us all. more

New gTLD Expressions of Interest: Proceed with Caution

The ICANN Board, at its October 2009 annual meeting in Seoul, passed a resolution directing staff to prepare an analysis regarding the feasibility of ICANN soliciting Expressions of Interests (EOIs) from prospective applicants for new Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs)... While this latest initiative should not distract ICANN from the remaining four overarching issues, if well executed, this EOI initiative could provide valuable insights into two of the four overarching issues: economics and root scaling. more

Getting a Handle on IDNs

Internationalized Domain Names or IDNs are back in the news. ICANN recently released a document entitled "Proposed Final Implementation for IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process"... In a nutshell, ICANN has now offered a path toward authorizing the adoption of ccTLDs in many countries' native languages. This marks a welcome advance for millions of Internet users who do not speak English or who do not use another language covered by ASCII. But with this advance comes some concerns. more

ICANN Should Pay Even More and Increase Its Spending Several Fold

Where does this idea that the employees of all non-profit organizations alike shall lead a public-transportation lifestyle come from? ICANN's monetary resources do not come from war widows and pensioners, for ICANN to feel guilty about every penny that it spends on administration. Nor does its resources, wherever they come from, are any that are earmarked to be spent on famine relief or on basic health care for the most unfortunate. more