There are still a number of countries who have Queen Elizabeth as their titular head of state. My country, Australia, is one of those countries. It's difficult to understand what exactly her role is these days in the context of Australian governmental matters, and I suspect even in the United Kingdom many folk share my constitutional uncertainty... In the United Kingdom every year the Queen reads a speech prepared by the government of the day, which details the legislative measures that are being proposed by the government for the coming year. Earlier this month the Queen's speech included the following statement in her speech. more
In an unexpected move, the two top U.S. officials charged with the Obama Administration's Internet policy have issued a joint statement severely criticizing draft Chinese domain policies. On May 16th, the State Department's Ambassador Daniel A. Sepulveda and NTIA's Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Lawrence E. Strickling issued an official statement titled "China's Internet Domain Name Measures and the Digital Economy". more
In January Jörg Schweiger, DENIC's CTO from 2007 to 2014 and CEO since 2014, announced he was stepping down from his position in December. It's been quite a ride, and the domain name industry has evolved quite a lot. So we asked Jörg a few questions about his time with DENIC and the changes he's seen... he came up with some insightful views on why he thought new TLDs missed a great opportunity to do something with "innovative new business models," the importance of security to DENIC... more
A letter sent earlier this month by the ICANN Board to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) should cause every new gTLD applicant's ears to prick up. Having been through every one of the applications for 1,396 different Internet extensions, the world's governments not only issued formal warnings for 199 of them, but also asked what mechanisms were in place to make sure that people did what they said they would in their applications. more
In September 2015, John Levine asked why ICANN should be considered a tax-exempt organization following the completion of the U.S. government's transition of technical management of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) determined that ICANN was an exempt organization in 2000 and, inarguably, circumstances have evolved materially since then. more
It is not often I go out to my driveway to pick up the Washington Post -- yes, I still enjoy reading a real physical paper, perhaps a sign of age -- and the headline is NOT about how the (insert DC sports team here) lost last night but is instead is about an IT technology. That technology is the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), a major Internet protocol that has been around for more than a quarter century, before the Internet was commercialized and before most people even knew what the Internet was. more
The UK IGF was held on 1st July 2014 at St. Ermin's hotel, London, England. The Nominet Chair Baroness Rennie Fritchie gave the sponsor's welcoming remarks. She said "The IGF provides an opportunity for discussion, dialogue, divergent views, and encourages people to speak-up". The event had about 50 participants. The Minister for Culture, Communication and the Creative Industries Hon. Ed Vaizey, MP gave his keynote speech and fielded questions from participants. more
One of many controversies surrounding the introduction of new domain names is the special protection given, though a moratorium, to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (RCRC) and International Olympic Committee (IOC). Although the RCRC and the IOC are discussed together, they are very different. more
"If at first you don't succeed, try and try again." A famous saying, that some within the ICANN world seem to think actually means: "if at first you don't get what you want, try and try again." The basic premise of the ICANN system is simple and fair: get all parties to work together, give everyone an equal voice, and act on whatever consensus emerges. ICANN insiders have coined this the "multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, policy development process". more
The Intellectual Property Constituency's draft report on trademark issues is now available for comment. The draft report was put together behind closed doors, which would appear to go against the normal policy development process at ICANN, which is quite worrying. Its contents, however, are even more disturbing... more
The UK Parliament has given the green light to the controversial Online Safety Bill, putting Ofcom, the communications watchdog, in charge of internet regulation. This step brings the legislation closer to becoming law. more
In a move, unprecedented in scale, ISOC moved to sell PIR, the registry for .ORG, to a for-profit entity which intends, in turn, to convert PIR into a for-profit entity itself. This move has, understandably, raised concerns from around the Internet community and cast a bright light on ICANN, the nature of its contracts with Registries and the responsibilities of the ICANN Board... As the Vice Chair for Policy of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), I've tried to navigate a consensus involving ALL of those parties because of our diverse membership. more
It has been about six months since I got together with four of my friends from the DNS world and we co-authored a white paper which explains the technical problems with mandated DNS filtering. The legislation we were responding to was S. 968, also called the PROTECT-IP act, which was introduced this year in the U. S. Senate. By all accounts we can expect a similar U. S. House of Representatives bill soon, so we've written a letter to both the House and Senate, renewing and updating our concerns. more
I'm not even sure how to begin this post, but let me tell you -- my head explodes when I try to contact WHOIS "contacts" about criminal activity - FAIL. I think ICANN wants to do the right thing here, and has stated on multiple occasions that inaccurate WHOIS data is reason for registrar termination. That's a Good Thing... more
In a letter released on Monday, the Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. "Policies mandating DNS filtering undermine the open architecture of the Internet and raise human rights and freedom of expression concerns," says Internet Society (ISOC). more
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