The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has issued a stern open letter to the Government of Mauritius and the court-appointed receiver of AFRINIC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa and the Indian Ocean. The letter, dated July 16th, expresses grave concern over AFRINIC’s governance failures, opaque election practices, and recent attempts by a controversial resource member to dissolve the organization. more
To date, proponents of a neutral internet have had relatively scant reason to raise their voices beyond anything more than a murmur in Australia. While the FCC's Open Internet Order of 2015 has been hailed as a significant win for consumers in the US, and the wording of proposed legislation to institute ex-ante regulation of service providers is soon to be considered in the EU, Aussies have been quarantined from anything other than the fringes of the Net Neutrality debate. more
The .ORG domain is at a crossroads: What will it be? A simple registry offering domain names for organizations, individuals and others? Or something bigger, as Ethos Capital and the Public Internet Registry propose? Will proposed changes make .ORG better? Or worse? There are valid points on both sides, but as an Internet safety advocate who for two decades has worked to teach children how to be safe online, stop the next young girl from being sex trafficked, and... more
Recently I was reminded of the words, "responsibilities and service to the community." To individuals involved in internet governance, these words should be well known. But have we lived by the code exemplified by these words? Have we lived up to the high standards that they represent? I have always been a student of history because it never fails to show me that humanity, on many occasions, tends to repeat the same mistakes. more
In the recent years, a new form of multilateral cooperation has emerged that is more inclusive and open than the traditional intergovernmental approaches. A solutions oriented governance model where multiple stakeholders work in collaboration to achieve the purpose. These stakeholders could be from various states working at the global level or it could be bound to a nation-state which is referred to as the mutlistakeholderism at the regional or local level. more
Under a draft legislation approved by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee on Tuesday, national enforcement authorities would be required to have a set of powers to detect and halt online breaches of consumers' rights across the European Union. more
Major European legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation, evoked substantial change in the way we deal with the visibility of domain name registration information, and understandably those that use that data to solve problems are concerned about these changes, and some have even called for a U.S. legislative fix. However, a more in-depth look at the issue and the policy-making surrounding it will show that there is, in fact, a process already well underway to address the situation. more
The headlines surrounding bribes and corruption within FIFA are an ominous sign for those in the United States, especially the White House, who are advocating for the transfer of control of the main root zone of the Internet to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"). Specifically, these charges against FIFA are undermining the public's trust in quasi-government organizations like FIFA, ICANN, the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee ("IOC") (to name a few), that operate outside the purview of a national government. more
With the publication of the Australian Governmental report on Digital Platforms1and in the light of the ongoing work on the EU's Digital Services Act, the spotlight of policymaking is on platforms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. It is natural that members of the ICANN community want to discuss the role of platforms within the ICANN framework, but sadly and predictably, the usual bylaws jockeys and keepers of the true ICANN faith were quick to stifle the conversation. more
Thailand's military-appointed parliament on Thursday passed a controversial cybersecurity law which gives sweeping powers to state cyber agencies. more
In a recently released paper by the Council of European National Top-level Domain Registries (CENTR), authored in collaboration with Chris Buckridge, the spotlight is once again on the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance. more
Senator Cruz' crusade against the IANA transition is back in full swing. With the deadline for the expiry of the IANA contract approaching both he and other anti-transition types have been working hard on their campaigns to block the transition. The latest addition to the Cruz website is a special lander page featuring a countdown clock... Yes, that's an image of President Obama shaking hands with China's Xi Jiping. more
Thousands of Russians in Moscow and other cities rallied on Sunday against tighter internet restrictions. The protest is reported to be one of the most prominent in the Russian capital in years. more
In 2015, a significant focus of the United Nations will center on the future of global development, including negotiating a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at guiding policy in achieving dignity, well-being, and equality for all the world's people -- especially the poor and underserved. The currently proposed SDGs consist of an ambitious set of 17 goals and 169 specific targets. more
Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers have released a report on the extensive surveillance system in China that monitors and archives text conversations that include politically charged words. The research group, called Information Warfare Monitor, is a joint project of The SecDev Group, and the Citizen Lab, at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. The following are introductory excerpts from the study... more