Internet Governance

Internet Governance / Most Commented

New Book Released: International Domain Name Law, ICANN and the UDRP

A new book by David Lindsay, an academic at Monash University's Law School and a widely published expert on internet law, intellectual property law and privacy, has recently been published. ...In this path-breaking work the author examines the extent to which principles of national trade mark law have been used in UDRP decisions. It will be essential reading for anyone, whether academic or practitioner, interested in internet law, intellectual property, and e-commerce law. more

Internet Governance: The Issue, The Myths, The Problems, The Solutions

I have written a short paper on the topic of Internet Governance. Since it includes a number of resources, it would be easier for me to just point to a link with the document itself. Below are some selected excerpts from the document. "Several myths have been spreading around the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), but especially after the first Internet Governance Forum (IGF): The critical Internet resources (CIR) consist only of the IP addresses and the domain name system... There are only 13 root servers..." more

Change of Leadership at ICANN as Cerf Makes Way for Intellectual Property Expert

Intellectual property and computer law barrister Peter Dengate-Thrush has been elected as new Chairman of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The former chairman of InternetNZ, the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry for New Zealand (.nz), and cofounder of the Association of Asian Pacific ccTLDs, succeeds the legendary Vinton Cerf... more

Online Critics and Unlawful Harassment from Trademark Holders

The following is based on my experience and interpretation of the UDRP and the relevant laws of the United Kingdom and European Union. This is not legal advice but just my own experience and interpretation. How does a UK citizen create a non-commercial trademark.tld parody criticism website and avoid harassment from the trademark holder? Here are the steps... more

Myanmar Internet Shutdown

There have been lots of press stories in the last day reporting on what the Internet shutdown in Myanmar looked like for people there, and that's the important story. This is what it looked like to the rest of the world, from an Internet infrastructure standpoint. The connection between Myanmar and the rest of the world appears to be turned back on, at least temporarily. The 45 megabit per second circuit connecting Myanmar to Kuala Lumpur that is Myanmar's primary connection to the Internet came back up at 14:27 UTC today. It had mostly been "hard down," indicating either that it had been unplugged or that the router it was connected to was turned off, with the exception of a few brief periods since September 28. Myanmar's country code top level domain, .MM, disappeared... more

TLDs or No TLDs for Cities? Berlin Senate Wants Out

A fight has begun over the virtual existence of Germany's capital: Does a .berlin address space have a right to exist beside the old standby berlin.de? The outcome of the fight could have a broader effect on the future of city names on the Internet. After a recent hearing at Berlin's City Parliament, Michael Donnermeyer, speaker of the Berlin Senate, said the right to the name Berlin belonged to the city and has to be protected. For the young company dotBerlin GmbH that is applying for a new city top level domain (TLD) with the ICANN, the Senate's blockade could kill a long-nurtured project and could set a bad example for other initiatives like .london, .paris or .nyc, sources said. more

ICANN: Keep the Core Neutral, Stupid

ICANN's travelling circus is meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico this week. One of the main subjects of discussion has been the introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), after a GNSO Report [PDF] proposed 19 "Recommendations" for criteria these new domain strings should meet -- including morality tests and "infringement" oppositions. ...It's important to keep ICANN from being a censor, or from straying beyond its narrow technical mandate. The thick process described in the GNSO report would be expensive, open to "hecklers' vetos," and deeply political... ICANN should aim for a "stupid core"... more

Infrastructure ENUM

After much initial fanfare a couple of years ago ENUM has matured to a state where it is currently yet another under-achiever in the technology deployment stakes. ENUM initially presented itself as a very provocative response to the legacy telco position of monopolising public voice services through their exclusive control over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the associated controlling position over the telephone number space... The perception was that ENUM was going to dismantle these levers of control and open up the voice market to a new wave of competitive carriers. If the address plan was the key to the PSTN, then ENUM was intended unlock this network and position the new wave of Voice Over IP (VOIP) carriers to take over any residual treasures of the traditional voice market. Events have not played out according to these expectations... more

Cybersquatting and Geopolitics Heats Up

Cybersquatting is so 2000, or so we thought. The Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) at WIPO has been chugging along for several years now, methodically determining if complainants IP rights have been violated and reassigning "ownership" of domain names. Typically, the cases are fairly boring. But some recent developments in the world of 800 lb search gorillas, Google and Baidu, suggests that the regime could be faced with substantial pressure in the near future. more

.Mobi Premium Name Auction Off to Wild Success at TRAFFIC in Miami

I'm in attendance at the the TRAFFIC EAST 2006 show, in Hollywood [Miami], Florida. There has been a lot of buzz here about the .Mobi top level domain, ranging from the talk of early registrants hoping to create the next big mobile portal to those that were keen to see implementations of mobile content. There was a domain name auction this evening where flowers.mobi sold for $200,000.00 (USD), and fun.mobi for $100,000.00 (USD) from a long list of domain names in the com, net, info, org, us and mobi extensions. more

League of Nations, United Nations, Next: United Cyber Nations

Though the "Techies" have been heavily involved in many initiatives like Internet Governance, Internationalized (Multi-lingual) Domain Names, Identity Management, Information Security, Access Rights Management etc., they still have to correctly apply the technologies at hand to be able to replicate many accepted norms that have matured in the physical world such as federated identities, non-repudiation, notarizing, witnessing, co-signing etc. more

Two New Sites Launched for Commentary Internet Governance Forum

Two new sites for commentary on the Internet Governance Forum have launched ahead of its inaugural meeting in Athens which is due to take place from 30 October to 2 November 2006. The first is an official forum, at which the only topic presently available for discussion is the important one of how to best enable remote participation in the IGF's deliberations... more

GigaNet Announces Global Scholar Network, Issues CFP

The Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet), an emerging scholarly community initiated in Spring 2006, has issued a call for proposals (CFP) to speak at its first conference to be held on 29 October 2006 in Athens, Greece prior to the inaugural Internet Governance Forum meeting. more

The Burr Proposal: Beginning of the End of Unilateral Control of the DNS Root?

The results of the recent NTIA consultation made it clear that there is no real public or industry support for unilateral control of the DNS root by the U.S. government. The latest and most interesting sign of collapsing support for US unilateral control of the DNS root, which the Internet Governance Project learned of today, is a proposal being circulated by G. Beckwith Burr... more

New WHOIS Definition Survives Marrakech ICANN Meeting

For now, it appears that the new, more technically focused and privacy-friendly definition of the purpose of Whois survived the Marrakech meeting. The U.S. Government and the copyright and law enforcement interests mounted a major onslaught against the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) action, using the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) as their pressure point.  more

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