Internet Governance

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ICANN’s Accountability Mechanisms – in Name Only?

On December 14, 2021, Dot Hip Hop, LLC (DHH) filed an Urgent Reconsideration Request following ICANN staff inaction (for its over four-month delay) of its Assignment Request for the .hiphop Registry Agreement. Not only did the ICANN Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee (BAMC) decide against considering the Reconsideration Request on an urgent basis, but on its last day of business for 2021, ICANN Org decided to retaliate against DHH for filing the Reconsideration Request in the first place ... more

Will VeriSign Be Able to Engage in Tiered Pricing for .com Soon?

According to the draft of new Generic Top-level Domains (gTLD) contracts for Section 7.3, "Price controls have been removed for 2008 in favor of the transparent pricing model outlined above." Section 3.2.b) of the .com registry agreement states: "ICANN shall not apply standards, policies, procedures or practices arbitrarily, unjustifiably, or inequitably and shall not single out Registry Operator for disparate treatment unless justified by substantial and reasonable cause." In my opinion, VeriSign (and other existing gTLD operators) are almost being invited to ask for their contracts to be amended... more

Is ICANN’s .IR Response at Odds with the ACPA and ICE Domain Seizures?

An initial review of ICANN's response to litigation seeking it to turn over control of the ccTLDs of Iran, Syria and North Korea led to the conclusion that it had opened a "legal can of worms". A few more just wriggled out, and they threaten the basic assumption that underlies the U.S. statute governing cybersquatting and the practices engaged in by Federal officials seizing domain names engaged in intellectual property infringement. more

Is NIST’s Recent Letter on o.com a Bureaucratic Coup d’Etat?

Verisign recently informed ICANN that it had received a letter from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, regarding the proposed auction of o.com described in the Second Amendment to the .com Registry Agreement agreed to by ICANN and Verisign in March 2019. This letter, which doesn't appear to be on official letterhead, is from a NIST Grants Officer and purports to overturn a letter raising objections to the auction... more

WSIS Deal: Oversight

The UN Secretary-General has been invited to "convene a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue." Everyone can see his/her hearts' desires in the WSIS deal: ICANN can believe that it has survived for another day; governments can believe that they will have "an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance"; and there will be an enormous meeting in Greece by the second quarter of 2006 to start the Internet Governance Forum going. more

We Must Keep Track of How Countries Will Confront Cybercrime in a New UN Convention

As a designated committee of experts prepares to draft a new treaty to combat the use of information and communications technologies in cybercrime at the UN in January 2022, it is paramount that other stakeholders oversee these discussions to avoid violating human rights on the Internet. This initiative was kickstarted by a 2019 resolution led by Russia and endorsed by other countries considered by many to behavior controversially on cybersecurity matters, such as China, Venezuela, Cambodia, North Korea, and others. more

Video: IETF Chair Jari Arkko Summarizes The Activities of IETF 87 In Berlin

The 87th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Berlin, Germany, concluded on August 2, 2013. IETF Chair Jari Arkko recently published his summary of IETF 87 on the IETF Blog highlighting what he felt were some of the more important aspects of what was a very successful IETF meeting. I also had the privilege of interviewing Jari on video about the meeting. more

Egypt’s Internet Blocked - I Call on My Friend Tarek Kamel to Unblock It and Join His People

Internet all over Egypt has been blocked in an unprecedented revolt. I call on my friend Tarek Kamel, Egypt's Minister of Telecommunication, to overturn this oppressive decision and to unblock the Internet in all Egypt immediately and to join his people in their peaceful revolt. I have known Tarek Kamel for more than a decade and long before he became minister back in the days when he used to say he had no authority and that the decisions were in the hands of his boss and that he was a mere decision-less adviser to then Minister of Telecommunication, Mr. Nazif. more

.XXX Exposes the Naked Truth for ICANN

Internet governance can be a little on the dry side. So when tech policy reporters get a chance to write an ICANN story that features porn stars on picket lines, it's hard to blame them when they run with it. But all the media hype about ICANN's .xxx decision at last week's meeting in San Francisco exposed the real dilemma facing ICANN: how to engage governments in a multi-stakeholder model that's led by the private sector. more

ICANN Approves .XXX Again

At Friday's board meeting, ICANN once again narrowly approved the contentious .XXX domain intended for pornography. What this vote primarily shows is that ICANN's processes have been broken for a long time, and aren't getting fixed. Two board members made thoughtful and eloquent statements before the vote outlining the reasons they were about to vote for or against the domain. more

The Empire Fights Back!

Even as we increasingly discover that every facet of our modern lives now revolve around, and are dependent on the Internet, for which reason its availability, functionality, safety, stability and security are now of great and continuing concern to all of us. These issues have a profound impact on its overall governance. To most of us, during the past three decades, the Internet has always been available, stable, affordable and open; and it should continue this way even as it is controlled and administered in a secure manner... more

From Connecting Computers to Connecting Stakeholders: Stanford Univ. Hosts NetMundial Initiative

1974, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf checked in the Crown Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto, worked a couple of days and presented to the world the TCP/IP protocol. Stanford hosted one of the four computers connected on equal footing (ARPANET) in 1969... A framed document in the hotel lobby remembers the historic moment. On March 31, 2014 a crowd of about 30 people from all over the world checked in the same Crown Plaza hotel for the first working meeting of the new Coordination Council (CC) of the NetMundial Initiative (NMI). more

Internet Multistakeholder Model: A Trade Association With Multistakeholder Theater

Did you know that we are swimming in Domain Name System abuse? As an Internet user, you probably were not aware. Apparently, doomsday is near, and the Internet is going to explode in our face if we do not do something about "domain name system abuse." This doomsday narrative has nearly jeopardized multistakeholder governance. However, it may also compel us to reconsider the multistakeholder model and its relevance in governing the Internet and its associated technologies. more

As WGIG forms, Ideas about Defining its Scope Circulate

The Internet Governance Project (IGP) issued a set of reports analyzing the current "state of play" in Internet governance. The reports were commissioned by the United Nations ICT Task Force as an input into the deliberations of the UN Secretary-General's Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). The report identifies the international organizations and agreements affecting the Internet, and points out where there are conflicts and gaps. more

Russia Wipes Out Over 17 Million IP Addresses In Efforts to Block Telegram

Post Russia's April 4th blockage of Telegram, increasing number of users in the country are turning to VPNs and proxies to continue their access to the messaging platform. As a result, the government has gone a step further and started blocking every possible way of connecting to Telegram. more

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