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While most of the recommendations included in the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) Report are much needed reforms to ICANN's accountability mechanisms, the proposal also contains a fundamental flaw, which jeopardizes its overall acceptance and risks delaying the IANA transition process further: it changes the role of governments from "advisory" to "decisional" over ICANN's governance, and it separately enhances the power of governments over ICANN's board of directors. more
Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft are among tech companies that have joined Apple in its iPhone fight with the U.S. government, according the latest report from the Wall Street Journal. more
On 18th February, 2016, Uganda Communications Commission, the Telco regulator, ordered all ISPs to sever access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. 11 million Internet users, including myself were forced to live through a four-day Internet blackout. With this unprecedented move, Uganda joined Syria, Russia, Egypt, Burundi and other regimes that have weaponized the Internet to curtail free speech and access to information. more
ICANN's current CEO Fadi Chehadé is leaving the organisation in a few weeks time. His replacement has been announced and the upcoming public meeting in Marrakech, Morrocco, will be Chehadé's final public engagement as ICANN CEO. A couple of days ago Chehadé sent the ICANN board a letter entitled "Summary of My Tenure". While the letter may have been addressed to the board, it was published on the ICANN website immediately. more
As promised, 2016 is off to a busy start at ICANN, with important discussions about Whois/Registration Directory Services, subsequent rounds of the New gTLD Program and internet governance already underway, and more to come. Brand owner concerns will be front and center in the coming months, as community stakeholders set priorities and begin discussions of key challenges and desired results. more
On 8th February, 2015, Internet users celebrated news that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had passed regulation prohibiting ISPs from discriminating access to data services based on content". This directive follows similar developments in the U.S, E.U, Chile et al, and is a huge milestone in the fight for Net Neutrality: the principle that ISPs should treat all Internet traffic the same way. Meanwhile, Net Neutrality issues are not unique to India. more
The U.S. Senate today passed legislation placing a permanent ban on states' taxing Internet access, sending the measure to President Obama for signing into law. more
Republican senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz is not very happy with ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade. In a letter dated today, Cruz along with two other senators, have dropped some pointed questions for Chehade in relation to his involvement with a recent meeting in China... "As you must know, the World Internet Conference is not a beacon of free speech..." more
Later this week, ICANN's Chartering Organizations will indicate whether they will support the third draft proposal of the CCWG-Accountability Work Stream 1 Recommendations. This is a significant moment in the IANA transition process. Support for the accountability proposal by the ICANN community will mean that we are very close to a point when the transition can move to its next phase. more
An event titled, The Future of the Internet Ecosystem in a Post-Open Internet Order World, took place Last week organized by the Technology Policy Institute and the University of Pennsylvania Law School's Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition. more
Last week I asked on a post elsewhere, why we, at the MLi Group, chose to consider speakers, panelists, supporters and sponsors at our Global Summit Series (GSS) as "Thought Leaders" and "Trend Setters? Many wrote me directly offering their answers and then it dawned on me that my answer may (or may not) get appreciated by many at the ICANN community. So here is why we do. more
Once again it is time for CircleID's annual roundup of top ten most popular posts featured during the past year (based on overall readership). Congratulations to all the 2015 participants and best wishes in the new year. more
The original title of this article was "ICANN CEO Hugs China's Multilateral Internet Governance Initiative". CEO has been dropped from the final version. That deletion helps make one of its two essential points. Which is that since ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade accepted a formal advisory role with China's World Internet Conference (WIC, which is a proprietary project of the Chinese Communist Party) while still engaged in leading the U.S.-based technical coordinator of the DNS, and as that ICANN role almost surely played a decisive role in his being offered the position... more
Data may be moving to the cloud, but understanding the physical geography underlying the cloud is becoming increasingly critical. October's decision by the European Court of Justice, striking down key portions of the Safe Harbor rules that some companies had relied on to legally transfer personal data between Europe and the U.S., was only the latest example of the regulatory uncertainty involved in cross-border data flows. While Internet companies have begun to address challenges at the static geographic points where data is resident, understanding the actual paths that data travels is an important and sometimes overlooked part of the compliance analysis. more
For the WSIS community to be effective in meeting its ambitious goals adopted in December 2015, it will have to become more evidence-based and innovative. At the beginning of the new millennium -- before the arrival of Facebook and Twitter -- Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, called for the creation of an inclusive "information society" -- "one in which human capacity is expanded, built up, nourished and liberated, by giving people access to the tools and technologies they need, with the education and training to use them effectively." more
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