Internet Governance

Whither .XXX?

What's going to happen this week on .XXX? Nairobi is the first public board meeting since the independent review panel's nonbinding declaration in February that ICANN acted against its own rules in refusing to go ahead with .XXX. Reports that ICANN is going to 'do something' about .XXX have gone around the world via BBC news, and even surfaced on the radio in rural Ireland. The ICM team are out in force here in Nairobi, and there is endless speculation about what will happen at the Board's meeting on Friday. more

How to Manage Internet Abundance

The Internet has two billion global users, and the developing world is just hitting its growth phase. Mobile data traffic is doubling every year, and soon all four billion mobile phones will access the Net. In 2008, according to a new UC-San Diego study, Americans consumed over 3,600 exabytes of information, or an average of 34 gigabytes per person per day. Microsoft researchers argue in a new book, "The Fourth Paradigm," that an "exaflood" of real-world and experimental data is changing the very nature of science itself. We need completely new strategies, they write, to "capture, curate, and analyze" these unimaginably large waves of information. more

IPv6 and the Swedish Public Sector

No one can have failed to notice that the last IPv4 address will soon be allocated. We have lived with a shortage of addresses for 15 years, but when the last address is allocated, the shortage will become acute, instead of just a pain, as it is today... In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams describes the least expensive and most effective method for making something invisible. You simply decide that it is Someone Else's Problem or SEP, if you abbreviate. This is an approach that is frighteningly similar to the Swedish public sector's view of the address shortage on the Internet. "It is not our problem -- if we ignore it, it will probably go away." more

Leadership and Persuasion: Internet Freedom

Secretary Clinton's major address on internet freedom made the connection between humanity and technology. We've been waiting a long time for our political leaders to have the courage to express thoughts like this, to have a vision about the role of the internet in human history, and yesterday the day arrived. The speech wasn't an isolated event, of course. more

ICANN’s Weak Accountability Remains a Problem

The JPA is dead, and in its place is the Affirmation of Commitments. Much debated, this change is anticipated to bring more global participation into ICANN's governance. Increased globalization may turn out to be beneficial for the Internet community, if it helps to shore up ICANN's institutional weaknesses. But the Affirmation leaves important questions unanswered... more

Last Decade in Spam

CAUCE, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, has looked back at the notable events of the last decade in our industry. Each year/link in the post explodes to a discrete blog entry with a month-by-month break-out of notable events. more

Bridging the Gaps: MAAWG, IETF, and BITS Establish Formal Relationships

As announced this morning, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) has established formal relationships with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the BITS/Financial Services Roundtable... It's often said that there are too many different organizations working on the overlapping areas of abuse, trust, and related issues. I believe the collaborative approach MAAWG has chosen will bridge these gaps. more

China Tightens Internet Control in the Name of Fighting Porn, Piracy, and Cybercrime

As the year draws to a close, China's blocking of overseas websites - including Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of other websites including my blog - is more extensive and technically more sophisticated than ever. Controls over domestic content have also been tightening. People who work for Chinese Internet companies continue to complain that they remain under heavy pressure... more

Study on Improving Internet Usability: A Framework for Domain Name Policy Evaluation

A domain name is a unique alphanumeric designation that facilitates reference to sets of numbers which actually locate a particular computer on the Internet. Domain names are a fundamental part of the Internet's user interface. Improving the usability of the Internet depends upon effective domain name policy. This study is intended to contribute to improvement in Internet usability for the end users of domain names. Benefits of more usable domain names include: higher sales, customer satisfaction and productivity, and reduced support costs. more

The New ICANN Emerges in Seoul

With the loud crashing of a traditional drum ceremony and an impromptu electric guitar performance by a young Korean whose rendition of Pachabel has been downloaded sixty million times on YouTube, the 36th meeting of ICANN was kicked off this morning (Korean time) by new CEO Rod Beckstrom and his fellow Directors and assembled one thousand or so participants. ICANN has always been about change, but the atmosphere in Seoul this week is charged with a sense of new challenges and new opportunities. more

ICANN’s Positive Affirmation: Good News for Africa and Emerging Markets

Sometimes you get what you are asking for. And this seems to be one of those occasions... and the US government can give itself a pat on the back for having listened to other stakeholder opinions. For years the world of Internet governance has been seen as its own special corner of the technosphere, full of arcane acronyms and quiet power deals. Despite efforts to make ICANN and the broader Internet community more transparent and user-friendly, many observers, including many African governments, still saw the stage as too much of an insider's game -- with the ultimate insider being the US Department of Commerce. more

Is America Getting More Like China?

Since Obama became President -- and yes, I voted for him -- there has been a great deal of optimism and energy around the idea that the Internet can be used to improve or "reboot" our democracy. The Administration has hired some great people to work on making government more open and transparent. This is all great. But how much good will all of this nifty e-government do for American democracy if citizens' rights to privacy and free expression are not also fiercely defended? more

New Agreement Declares ICANN Independent

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has reached a major milestone today with a new agreement in place with the U.S. Department of Commerce allowing the organization greater independence and giving more countries oversight of the organization. more

ICANN’s September Surprise

"Surprise, surprise, surprise!" is how Gomer Pyle would react to the news that the US government has allowed the JPA to expire, thus completing the transition of DNS management to ICANN. Plenty of skeptics doubted the US would let it happen, but today really is ICANN's independence day. more

On New Domains and ICANN Accountability, More Questions than Answers

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) went before a Congressional panel this week to defend its plan to create an unlimited number of new Internet domains (like .web, .food, etc.) I was a witness at the hearing, which made one thing clear: the "consensus" on new Internet domains is not as strong as ICANN would have us think. more