Internet Governance

2013 Domain Name Year in Review

Well folks, it's that time of year again. It's time for our countdown of the top 10 biggest domain stories for 2013. And while my predictions from last year were accurate, in that we did see a record number of registry and registrar breaches, I had no idea that this year's biggest story would even appear on the list. So with that said, let's get started. more

Internet Is Transforming Governments and Politics

All round the world we are seeing massive social changes in the way people interact with their leaders and with their political elite. In many cases governments and politicians seem to be behaving as though they are immune to the changes that are following on from these new grassroots-based democratic processes. They often do mention reforms and recommend reforms, but there is an equal need for them to transform their own sector and their own way of conducting politics and government. This applies to both the political leaders in developed and the developing economies. more

A Framework for Recent Internet Governance Discussions - From Montevideo Statement to 1net

There have been many significant Internet Governance developments in the last several weeks, and so I'd like to take this moment to provide a framework in which to consider these recent events. For the last several years, the leadership of several recognized Internet organizations (ISOC, ICANN, IAB/IETF, IANA, the 5 Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), and W3C; sometimes referred to as the "Internet technical organizations") have met periodically to promote better coordination between these groups. more

“African Women to Watch” - Sophia Bekele on Bloomberg TV

In its TV Special program, Bloomberg TV recently featured Sophia Bekele, Founder and Executive Director of DotConnectAfrica Trust along with Juliana Rotich as "two of Africa's leading ladies in the ICT sector" presenting their stories in their prime TV program ,"African Women to Watch". In the interview, Bekele talks about her ICT career journey and focus on helping bridge the "digital divide" that currently exists between Africa and the developed countries. more

The Rapidly Changing Governance Environment of International Telecoms

Late last year I participated in the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-2012) in Dubai, organised by the UN agency the ITU. I reported extensively on that event, which was aimed at updating the International Telecommunications Regulations... From the outset there were several reasons WCIT might fail, not the least of which was the fact that the various technological, political and regulatory issues facing the new much broader telecoms environment were not sufficiently separated and so could not be addressed in a rational and systematic manner. more

Nov 25th Deadline To Nominate Technical Community Reps for IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG)

Would you (or someone you know) be interested in representing the "technical community" on the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)? If so, the deadline to nominate someone (including yourself) is Monday, November 25, 2013. Under-Secretary-General Wu Hongbo of UNDESA has issued a statement on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) renewal process for 2014 with the stated aim of rotating one third of the MAG members. more

Booting Up Brazil

The improvised alliance between ICANN and the government of Brazil is now beginning to take shape. The "summit" that President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil announced last month now has a name: the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance. It's no longer a summit, it's a GMMFIG. (Shall we pronounce it gum-fig?) The meeting will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 23 and 24. Don't book your tickets yet, though -- we are still debating how open this meeting will be. more

The ICANN Quilombo

Argentines use the word "quilombo" to describe "a real mess", which is what I feared was awaiting us at the outset of ICANN's meeting in Buenos Aires this week. Since then, ICANN President Fadi Chehade has done a good job cleaning-up the internal process quilombo he and the board created. But ICANN's leadership has left the ICANN community struggling to answer deep and ongoing questions about the future of the Internet and the multistakeholder model. more

TPP IP Chapter Leaks Reveal New U.S. Proposed Regulations for Country-Code Domain Names

The leaked Trans Pacific Partnership intellectual property chapter has revealed a number of U.S. proposals including U.S. demands for Internet provider liability that could lead to subscriber termination, content blocking, and ISP monitoring, copyright term extension and anti-counterfeiting provisions. This post discusses Article QQ.C.12 on domain names. more

LAC, the DNS, and the Importance of Comunidad

The 1st Latin American & Caribbean DNS Forum was held on 15 November 2013, before the start of the ICANN Buenos Aires meeting. Coordinated by many of the region's leading technological development and capacity building organizations, the day long event explored the opportunities and challenges for Latin America brought on by changes in the Internet landscape, including the introduction of new gTLDs such as .LAT, .NGO and others. more

High-Level Panel Formed on the Future of Internet Governance

ICANN released a report today announcing that a diverse global group of stakeholders from government, civil society, the private sector, the technical community and international organizations has formed a Panel on the Future of Global Internet Cooperation. The Panel's first meeting is scheduled for December 12 13 in London. more

A Hospice Strategy for the ITU-T

After the Dubai World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) debacle last year, the exit of almost everyone out of the ITU-T was accelerated. The ongoing meeting of its former "crown jewel" Study Group 13 that claims to be the global coordinator of all things Internet, Cloud Computing, SDN, IoT, and Future Networks, attracted only 80 people - mostly from three countries plus the host. Only a single person from the Americas attended. more

IETF Reaches Broad Consensus to Upgrade Internet Security Protocols Amid Pervasive Surveillance

Internet security has been a primary focus this week for more than 1100 engineers and technologists from around the world gathered at the 88th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Participants are rethinking approaches to security across a wide range of technical areas. more

PRISM, Multistakeholderism Cancer Scare, Montevideo Declaration, Brazil Summit: Where’s ICANN Going?

Many who attended the ICANN Durban meeting this summer will recall the open forum were speakers lined up to call on ICANN to either speed up or slow down the new gTLDs depending on their position or interest. I chose to address a different topic that no one was yet willing to tackle publicly. It was PRISM and the NSA surveillance scandals. In my intervention I was also the first to also publicly warn ICANN and Fadi Chehade directly that "Trust" in ICANN and Multistakeholderism face serious perils from the Snowden revelations... more

Policy Advisory Boards - A Cornerstone PICS (Public Interest Commitment Specification)

Six months following the April 11th issuance of the Beijing Communique by ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), ICANN continues to wrestle with whether to accept the bulk of the GAC's proposed safeguards for new gTLDs as set forth in Annex 1 of that document. On October 1st ICANN Board Chairman Stephen Crocket sent a letter to GAC Chair Heather Dryden summarizing the results of the September 28th meeting of the New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) that considered the remaining and still undecided advice received from the GAC. more