Internet Governance

Internet Governance / Most Viewed

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

Suggestions for the Cuba Internet Task Force

The Cuba Internet Task Force (CITF) held their inaugural meeting last week. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs John S. Creamer will chair the CITF, and there are government representatives from the Department of State, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agency for International Development. Freedom House will represent NGOs and the Information Technology Industry Council will represent the IT industry. more

California Attorney General Asks ICANN for Detailed Information On the .ORG Sale

A notice released by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has disclosed that the Office of the Attorney General of the State of California has requested extensive information from the agency regarding the proposed sale and transfer of Public Interest Registry (PIR) from the Internet Society (ISOC) to Ethos Capital. more

Deadline of Dec 21 To Submit Nominations for 2016 Internet Society Board of Trustees

Are you passionate about preserving the global, open Internet? Do you want to help guide work to connect the unconnected and promote / restore trust in the Internet? Do you have experience in Internet standards, development or public policy? If so, please consider applying for one of the open seats on the Internet Society Board of Trustees.
The Internet Society serves a pivotal role in the world as a leader on Internet policy, technical, economic, and social matters, and as the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). more

Deceptive Assurances of Privacy?

Earlier this week, Facebook expanded the roll-out of its facial recognition software to tag people in photos uploaded to the social networking site. Many observers and regulators responded with privacy concerns; EFF offered a video showing users how to opt-out. Tim O'Reilly, however, takes a different tack... O'Reilly's point - and face-recognition technology - is bigger than Facebook. more

Deadline TOMORROW to Apply to Represent the “Technical Community” at the Brazil Meeting and in 1Net

Are you interested in being a representative of the "technical community" to the "Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance" happening in April 2014 in Brazil? Or would you like to represent the technical community on the "1net Steering Committee" that is guiding the future of the 1net initiative? If so, THE DEADLINE IS TOMORROW, Friday, January 10, 2014, to submit your expression of interest in being considered for a role on those committees. more

Closing the Gaps: The Quest for a Secure Internet

Over the last year the world has been virtually buried under news items describing hacks, insecure websites, servers and scada systems, etc. Each and every time people seem to be amazed and exclaim "How is this possible?" Politicians ask questions, there is a short lived uproar and soon after the world continues its business as usual. Till the next incident. In this blog post I take a step back and try to look at the cyber security issue from this angle... more

Vint Cerf: Internet Freedom Under Threat from Governments Around the World

Internet freedom is under threat from governments around the world, including the United States, warned Vint Cerf on Monday. Andrew Feinberg reporting in the Hill: "Cerf, a computer scientist who was instrumental in the Internet's creation, now employed by Google as its 'Internet evangelist,' said officials in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe are using intellectual property and cybersecurity issues 'as an excuse for constraining what we can and can't do on the 'net.' 'Political structures ... are often scared by the possibility that the general public might figure out that they don't want them in power,' he said." more

Google and China: What Business Are Telcos Really In?

It seems like there's a different headline story about Google every day lately, and there's a lot here that service providers should be paying attention to. The launch of Nexus One around CES earlier this month is especially important for all mobile operators as well as the handset vendors partnering with them. A few days later, we started hearing noise about Google Energy. more

A Multistakeholder Model if We Can Keep It: 25 Years of ICANN

I go back to the International Forum on the White Paper (IFWP). (Like Jeff, I was very young.) The Department of Commerce had just issued the White Paper, and there was a proposal that we pass control of the critical Internet identifiers to a new not-for-profit corporation with a bottom-up Multistakeholder way of making policy and an international board of directors. more

White House on SOPA: Protecting Intellectual Property Must Not Threaten Open, Innovative Internet

The White House today released a response to SOPA and PIPA petitions and the legislative approaches to combat online piracy. The response is prepared by Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff. more

DotEco Bids Heat Up - Catfight Anyone?

The new Top-Level Domain (TLD) process is occupying a lot of people in the domain name industry at present. While some people are obviously very much against the entire concept of new TLDs, there are plenty of people and organisations who support the project. But what happens when you have more than one organisation vying for the same namespace? ...Seemingly the competition between two rival bids for .eco (doteco) has been getting more than a little dirty in the past few weeks. more

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Canadian Anti-Spam Bill C-27

CAUCE just posted a blog entry about C-27; we will be speaking to the Industry, Science, and Technology committee reviewing the bill this afternoon. The meeting will be webcast starting at 15:30 eastern... more

The Ageless Warning of Icarus

It wasn't that long ago that, during a visit home, my brother asked me, "Why are you so stuck on this Internet thing?" His direct question caused me to realize that I had never actually stopped and considered why I was investing so much time – and in such a highly visible manner – into Internet governance when I wasn't being compensated for doing so and, in fact, was – not putting too fine of a point on it – flat broke. more

ICANN Must Simultaneously Reveal TLD and Second-Level Registration Rules

I outline two possible drawbacks with the idea of first revealing rules for the new proposed Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and then for second-level registrations. I propose a lottery process to initially allocate second-level domain names. A number of people have voiced concerns about the idea of automatically granting the winner of the TLD a monopoly power over second-level domain registrations. We should also be worried about the financial interest ICANN has in not providing the rules for the two-level registrations simultaneously. more

Industry Updates