Internet Governance

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The Future of Religions on the Internet

Internet is facing the biggest change in its history. New brands, ideas, groups, communities,... have now found the chance to apply for their own specific space on internet naming system through ICANN's new gTLD program. One of the most interesting points of this courageous program was the motivation it created among communities to try to represent their specific webspace on the internet by applying for their own TLD; and among them were the religious communities as well. more

Why ICANN Doesn’t Need to Go Back to the GAC Over Dot-XXX

This Friday, it looks as though the ICANN Board will follow the clear conclusions drawn by its independent review and approve dot-xxx. Given the importance of the first use of the review process, the importance of the Board being seen to be accountable and the fact that the community was pretty unanimous in recent public comment, it is pretty much the only reasonable course of action. The question then is: how do things move forward? more

Proposed Changes to Australia’s Data Retention Laws Likely to Be Costly

Australians may lose their right to privacy online if the attorney-general has her way. Nicola Roxon's discussion paper is before a parliamentary inquiry. Proposals include storing the social media and other online and telecommunications data of Australians for two years, under a major overhaul of Australia's surveillance laws. The government passed a toned down version of these proposals last week, giving police the power to force telcos to store data on customers for a specific period while a warrant is sought. more

Watch the 2014 Internet Governance Forum (#IGF2014) Live All This Week from Istanbul

The Ninth Annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Meeting is taking place all this week, September 2-5, 2014, in Istanbul, Turkey and live video streams are available for all the sessions... I watched the opening session live stream today from my home office in New Hampshire, USA, and the quality was excellent. There was also a live text transcription. more

Provoking National Boundaries on the Internet? A chilling thought…

The impact of the recently revealed US government data collection practices may go well beyond the privacy ramifications outlined in the Internet Society's statement: expect a chilling effect on global, resilient network architecture. As governments of other countries realize how much of their citizens' traffic flows through the US, whether or not it is destined for any user or service there, expect to see moves to curtail connections to and through the US. more

It’s Time for the New gTLD Delays to End

The next few short weeks in the run-up to ICANN's Cartagena meeting could prove the most important time yet for the organization to show that it is a credible and capable overseer of the domain name system. After over two years of delays, tens of thousands of email exchanges, weeks of heated face-to-face discussions, and many millions of accumulated frequent flier miles, the time has arrived for ICANN to finally draw a line under the new top-level domain policy-development process and name the date for the opening of the first-round application window. more

Building a New Era of Trust on the Internet

Since Tim Berners-Lee first introduced us to the world wide web, we have seen several major phases of its growth. From the early years -- where researchers and open Internet pioneers led the way; to the dot-com boom; to the era of social media domination; the web has come a long way. While the pandemic circling the globe has undermined many critical systems and institutions of our society, I believe it also has the potential to strengthen is the resolve of the Internet community... more

ICANN Celebrates Its Quarter-Century Milestone

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) commemorates 25 years of fostering international cooperation in managing the Internet's naming system. Originally established by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1998, ICANN's primary objective has been to ensure a stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifiers, most notably the Domain Name System (DNS). more

Internet Commerce Association Calls for ICANN to Withhold Approval of .Org Sale

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) in an open letter issued today, has asked ICANN to withhold the approval of the assignment of the .ORG top-level domain to the private equity company Ethos Capital. more

Former ICANN Board Member to Congress - ICANN Needs Oversight

Karl Auerbach has written a quite long but very detailed and well thought out letter to Congress. It's not clear which members of Congress were sent the letter. Karl Auerbach is a former member of ICANN's board and is probably best remembered by many as having taken ICANN to court (and winning) in order to gain access to the organisation's financial records. more

Making ICANN History in the Shadow of the Magna Carta

Two miles (and a short Tube ride) from where ICANN is gathering in London, rests an original copy of the Magna Carta, which introduced the concept of imposing limits on the powers of the king. I'm taking the proximity of this icon of constitutional history as a good omen for our task: to create a charter to limit ICANN's powers and enhance its accountability, in the wake of the U.S. Government's decision to terminate its legacy role. more

Beyond Words: Diverse Voices at ICANN and Miscommunications

A few days ago, I sat in a meeting here in Ottawa with our IT Director and Director of Marketing and Communications. These are two highly intelligent people working on the same team, for the same company, talking about a common subject. And yet, something was amiss in achieving mutual understanding. Each was seeing things from his own distinct perspective and as such, speaking his own language. As I reflected on my team's internal dynamic, I began to see parallels in areas that have an even more direct impact on the Internet ecosystem. more

Time to Take Stock: Twelve Internet and Jurisdiction Trends in Retrospect

With the growing tension between the cross-border Internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions, it becomes crucial to keep track of key global trends that drive the debate on appropriate frameworks. One year ago, the Internet & Jurisdiction Project initiated a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process on these issues. To provide a factual basis for such discussions, it established an Observatory, supported by a network of selected international experts, to detect and categorize relevant cases via an innovative crowd-based filtering process in order to identify high-level patterns. more

Who is Wagging Who? Same Dog, New Tale.

Today, my company AusRegistry International signed an open letter to the United States House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet as a show of support for ICANN and its new Top-Level Domain program. I'm disappointed by the nature of the oversight hearing the Subcommittee has called and I believe it will only be a distraction. Let's not kid ourselves; the reason for this hearing is to beat up ICANN over the new TLD program. I think this is unfair and unjustified... more

What May Happen to GAC Advice? 3 Fearless Predictions

Many TLD applicants are likely to respond to the GAC Advice in a manner that is like story telling: Based on a mixture of fiction garnished with some facts from their applications, applicants will write savvy responses with only one aim -- to calm down the GAC's concerns and survive the GAC Advice storm. The "duck and cover" strategy... According to the Applicant Guidebook, material changes to applications need to go through a Change Request process. more

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