Internet Governance

ICANN Con Rocas (or ‘ICANN On the Rocks’)

ICANN Meetings can be an intimidating place for first-timers or even those who have only attended for the few years. The acronyms fly fast and furious. The participants, or at least most of them, have been working on the issues for years (even decades). The technical and policy issues are complex. Luckily, however, an attendee can overcome these barriers to entry with a few drinks at the hotel bar. .. more

Domain Name Registration: Not a Technology Service Any More?

It didn't seem to make any headlines, but it is an interesting sign of the Internet times that, effective January 1, 2009 , the United State Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") changed the International Classification of "domain name registration services" to Class 45 (defined below). The reason that the move is interesting is that it is just one more indication that the world of the Internet is becoming less and less about technology and more and more about law and policy. more

Threat of Tiered Pricing Continues in New gTLD Guidebook Version 2

The draft New gTLD Applicant Guidebook (version 2) has been released along with an analysis of the comments to the prior version. The documents are voluminous. I glanced at the revised draft Base Agreement, and it's clearly unacceptable as there continue to be no price caps in place to protect domain name registrants... more

Resolving the ICANN-Proposed TLDs Debate

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has recently decided to allow any entity to register a top-level domain name (TLD). The best mechanism for valuing this decision, a mechanism that outperforms crowdsourcing, blogs, and committee decisions, is the legal and easy-to-implement solution known as prediction markets.
In handing down its TLD decision, ICANN never identified the problem it was trying to solve... more

What is Good Policy for a Domain Name Registry?

Back from the holidays I must admit I was thinking quite a bit on what is good policy for a registry? Of course I have my own personal favorites that I can not walk away from easily, but instead of thinking for too long, I decided to write down now immediately what is in my head. The main reasons for this are two: the decision by ICANN to change the rules for change in policy regarding the Add Grace Periods. more

ICANN Must Address Domain Tasting Ripple Effects

A registrar who also engages in domain tasting can inadvertently create ripple effects throughout the domain name industry. Thus, domain name owners must exert pressure on ICANN to reduce this risk. We are now experiencing ripple effects from the subprime market and its repercussions on related markets. ...there can be a problem when registrar functions and domain tasting are conducted by the same entity. Unmonitored coupling of seemingly unrelated markets can be devastating to our industry. more

Aging the Internet Prematurely, One PDP at a Time

After blogging about ICANN's new gTLD policy or lack thereof [also featured on CircleID], I've had several people ask me why I care so much about ICANN and new top-level domains. Domain names barely matter in a world of search and hyperlinks, I'm told, and new domains would amount to little more than a cash transfer to new registries from those trying to protect their names and brands. While I agree that type-in site-location is less and less relevant, and we haven't yet seen much end-user focused innovation in the use of domain names, I'm not ready to throw in the towel. I think ICANN is still in a position to do affirmative harm to Internet innovation. more

Discussion at the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva

While travelling home from Geneva, I was thinking quite a lot on the relationship between a ccTLD (registry) and a Country. This is because many countries are starting to talk louder and louder about the responsibilities Countries have on critical infrastructure, or (possibly more important) the management of the critical infrastructure. Will for example any (none?) of ccTLD operators (servers) sustain a denial of service attack of a scale similar to the attack on the root servers? What can ccTLD operators do to resist the malicious attacks? Should this be discussed? more

Who is ICANN and Where Does it Fit With Internet Governance?

You'd be surprised how many people are asking that question at the moment, but you won't be surprised to know that the only thing they agree on is that they either don't know, or that they disagree with the people that believe they do. I am not going to attempt to provide my own answer, but I will point to a paper just released by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). POST, among other things, produces regular, concise briefings for the UK Parliament on whatever are the important topics of the time. And they have now done one on Internet Governance. more

What Will Be the Outcome of the Internet Governance Forum Meeting in Athens?

Since the Tunis WSIS mandate was given to the UN Secretary General to convene the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), interest on the new emerging entity and its possible effects on the IG debate has been allegedly high. But as time is approaching when the IGF inaugural meeting will start its activities in Athens, Greece, now, almost 10 days before its first -- ever meeting, participation of all stakeholders and key actors in the meeting has proved to be even more than expected in the first place. more

How Could the Internet be Governed: Perspective from Bulgaria

In the last few years there have been many discussions on how the Internet is governed, and how it should be governed. The whole World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) ended talking about this problem. It caused exchange of letters between the US Secretary of State and the European Union presidency. And it caused a public discussion, organized by the US Department of Commerce on that issue. I saw some reflection of this discussion and here are some comments on that. My colleague Milton Mueller of the Syracuse University sent me an e-mail today in which, among other, it says, "A global email campaign by IGP generated comments from 32 countries... more

XXX Litigation Looms

The XXX drama isn't over. Today ICM Registry announced that it would file a reconsideration request with ICANN and a judicial appeal to challenge redactions and omissions from the internal US government documents released to it under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. These could prove to be opening moves in a more extended round of litigation. In connection with its judicial appeal, ICM Registry released 88 pages of internal US Commerce Department documents obtained under the FOIA showing how the U.S. handled its application. more

The XXX Train Wreck in Vancouver

It is now clear that by sending its letter of August 12 blocking approval of the .XXX domain, the US Government has done more to undermine ICANN's status as a non-governmental, multi-stakeholder policy body than any of its Internet governance "enemies" in the ITU, China, Brazil, or Iran. And despite all the calls for a government role that would ensure "rule of law" and "accountability" of ICANN, the interventions of governments are making this aspect of Internet governance more arbitrary and less accountable. more

Would the Real Network Neutrality Please Stand Up?

I'm sure this is something that's been raked over before, but I don't see a common understanding of what 'Net Neutrality' actually is. Despite many of the Internetorati demanding it by law. There appear to be several different camps, which you could paint as "bottom of IP", "middle" and "top". The bottomistas would see enforced Internet Protocol itself as a premature optimisation and violation of the end-to-end principle. Unhappy that you only get IPv4 or IPv6? Still grumpy that you only have IPv4 and not even IPv6? Really miserable that your VoIP packets are staggering under the poisonous load of IPv6 headers? You're a bottomista. more

Internet Governance: Countdown to Tunis

In a paper entitled "DNS Détente", written in the authors' personal capacities, Tricia Drakes (a former member of the ICANN Board) and Michael D. Palage (a current member of the ICANN board) have attempted to address some of the unresolved issues of the recent Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) 3 session in Geneva as discussions head to the final phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis (Nov 16 to 18, 2005). More specifically, the paper focuses on one of the "fundamental stumbling blocks to the continued evolution of Internet Governance"; The insistence of the United States Government (USG) that it retain its historically exclusive role in connection with authorizing changes to the Root A server, particularly with respect to country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Shared further is the content of this paper. more