Internet Governance

Washington Post: ICANN Departures After Web Suffix Vote Draws Criticism. How Damaged is ICANN?

ICANN Chairman and other departures after the board's vote to approve the New generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) in Singapore draw criticism, reports The Washington Post. Shortly after the vote, Peter Dengate Thrush joined a New gTLD Group which stands to greatly benefit directly from this vote on the program he led on for nearly 3 years. This appears to have caused grave damage to ICANN's credibility internationally drawing international Press and Governments criticism over conflict of interest. more

China Carries Out Drill with ISPs to Practice Taking Down Websites Deemed Harmful

China carried out a drill on Thursday to practice shutting down websites that are deemed harmful amidst country's preparation for a sensitive political reshuffling set to take place later this year. more

Stress Test: Accountability Reconsideration Request Filed with ICANN Board

In a rapid follow-up to the unprecedented joint letter sent on August 26th by all members of the ICANN community questioning the proposed Accountability Process imposed by ICANN staff, three of the groups that signed that letter have now submitted a formal Reconsideration Request (RR) to the ICANN Board. The August 29th RR -- submitted jointly by the Business Constituency, Registry Stakeholders Group, and Non-Commercial Stakeholders group -- requests that ICANN "confer with the community as soon as possible to address these concerns and amend its plan in such a way that the community input is taken into account as the plan goes forward.  more

Never Invited, but Always Present

Listening today to the U.S. Congress' House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing on ICANN governance reminded me just how often Vox Populi Registry, the company bringing dotSucks names to the Internet, is a guest at parties to which it has never been invited. Sometimes, like today, we are able to view it all from a distance and mostly we have refrained from trying to correct every misstatement or argue each odd point. more

How the Clinton “Village” Transformed Internet Paradigms: Together Making a Difference

U.S. Presidential elections and the resulting Administrations can make an enormous difference on many levels and become profound points of inflection. This reality is certainly starkly visible today. Perhaps for the Internet community as well as the general public, some of the largely unknown events and actions surrounding the Internet and the Clinton team from 25 years ago can provide a basis for engagement over the coming months. more

ITU’s Wise WTSA DOA Decision

The venerable old International Telecommunication Union (ITU) tradition finished up yesterday. Indeed, very late yesterday. The 568 representatives from 92 National Administrations met in a Tunisian town on the Mediterranean to make some key decisions about intergovernmental standards meetings for the next four years -- a body known as the WTSA (World Telecommunications Standardization Assembly). In the end, they avoided what could have been a dreadful mistake and emerged a better organization. more

Congress Must Approve Transfer of IANA Function to ICANN

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration announced its plans to turn over the very heart of the Internet to the control of ICANN. On Monday, Republican leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees sent a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to study whether a Congressional vote on the transfer is required under the Constitution's Property Clause because administration of the root zone file is a government asset, created under government contract. Some will no doubt dismiss the letter as Republican obstructionism. more

NEW CEO, Trademark Clearinghouse, URS and RAA Take Center Stage at ICANN 45 in Toronto

At his first meeting as CEO of ICANN, Fadi Chehade showed up ready to work AND to listen. ICANN's new CEO described his objectives for the organization which included 1) affirmation of purpose, 2) operational excellence, 3) internationalization, and 4) evolution of the multi-stakeholder model on which ICANN is built. He also described significant organizational changes to ICANN leadership and staff... more

IPv6 and IP Convergence: Are International Treaties About to Govern the Internet?

Contributing to international telecommunications standards, not in the IETF but in a more august and imposing body, the ITU-T, part of the United Nations, was quite an experience. Still called CCITT in those days, it was formal and solemn; everybody was part of and sat with their national delegation, countries were aligned in alphabetical order; nobody spoke out of turn, every word was simultaneously translated in the three official languages of the time and we wore suit and tie.  more

NIS2, ICANN and “Thick” WHOIS: A Mandate to Move Forward

The recent adoption at the end of December of the new EU Directive for a high level of cybersecurity across the Union -- commonly referred to as "NIS2" - paved the way for important updates to the domain name system (DNS). Most significantly, Article 28 of NIS2 and its related recitals resolved any ambiguities about the public interest served by a robust and objectively accurate WHOIS system that permits legitimate access by third parties to data... more

On Internet Centrality and Fragmentation

I attended a workshop on the topic of Internet Fragmentation in July. The workshop was attended by a small collection of Australian public policy folk, some industry representatives, folk from various cyber-related bodies, and those with a background in Internet Governance matters. It was a short meeting, so the perils of fragmentation were not discussed at length, as they often can be, but the concerns about the breakup of the essential bonds that keep the Internet together were certainly palpable in that meeting. more

WCIT - So Far So Good - Recap of Week One

So far the world has survived WCIT-12 and the internet has not been taken over by anybody. So, in the end, what was all the fuss about? Those who have followed my reporting on these issues from the very beginning more than a year ago - long before the media frenzy on this topic started - will have seen that we never took the sensational approach. We fully understood the issues that were emerging, but at the same time we could also place them in the right context, to explore how they should be addressed. more

IS3C Report: Socio-Political and Technical Impacts of Post Quantum Cryptography Policies

At the 20th Internet Governance Forum in Lillestrøm, Norway, the UN Internet Governance Forum's dynamic coalition Internet Standards, Security and Safety (IS3C) released its new report on post-quantum policies. This report presents the findings of a collaborative study undertaken by IS3C and the French domain name registry Afnic and examines the critical need for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to achieve greater security in the ever-expanding global IoT landscape. 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

Protection of Intellectual Property: The Core of the Net Neutrality Debate

It didn't take long for criticism of the Verizon/Google net neutrality proposal to start pouring in. "nterest groups, bloggers, and even Google fanboys [have started] discrediting the plan" according to one trade publication. Although most of the commentary simply echoes various groups' long-held positions, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nation's foremost cyber-rights watchdog, provided a crucial insight about the plan that goes to the core of the net neutrality issue. more