Internet Governance

Creating a Russian No-Cyber Zone

In response to Russia's horrific invasion and war against the Ukrainian nation ordered by Dictator Putin that will live in infamy, an array of nations, organizations, and companies have responded to shun and shut off Russia in every possible manner. The actions include no-fly zones, removal from ICT network services, and essentially universal declarations of condemnation. For the first time ever, all Russian proposals to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) quadrennial standards body plenary known as the WTSA have been "bracketed"... more

What Is Privacy?

Ask ten people what privacy is, and you'll likely get twelve different answers. The reason for the disparity is that your feelings about privacy depend on context and your experience. Privacy is not a purely technical issue but a human one. Long before computers existed, people cared about and debated privacy. Future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis defined it as "the right to be left alone" in 1890. Before the Web became a ubiquitous phenomenon, people primarily thought of privacy in terms of government intrusion. more

Ukrainian Representatives to ICANN Ask for Russia’s Domain to Be Revoked, Local DNS Root Servers Shut Down

A letter sent to ICANN and IANA by a Ukrainian representative to ICANN’s Government Advisory Council (GAC) asks for urgent and strict sanctions against the Russian Federation in “the field of DNS regulation.” The letter urges ICANN to permanently or temporarily revoke Russia’s top-level domains “.ru”, “.рф” and “.su” and to shut down DNS root servers located in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. more

Is Technology the Problem?

We do live in turbulent times. There is such a lot happening, with many people feeling overwhelmed and lost. One of the reasons given why we do have these problems is technology. I would argue against that. In all reality, technology is a tool that we can use, and yes, we all know that we can use it for the wrong reasons (cars kill people, atom bombs, killer robots, chemical and biological warfare and so on). However, we have learned to live with it, and in general, the outcome from science, innovation and technology has been positive. more

Watch the Online Events Series on “Digital Citizenship and Bill of Rights”

DataPrivacyBR and the Internet Integrity Task Force, IITF, in collaboration with CircleID and IGF recently held 2 online events focusing on digital citizenship, governance, and a digital bill of rights and responsibilities. A diverse group of high-level presenters and speakers spanning all stakeholder groups, addressed questions such as: What are the foundational principles that define and protect the rights and responsibilities of digital citizenship? Do existing internet governance models take digital rights sufficiently into account? Are there alternatives to business models that are based on digital exploitation and servitude? Why do we need a digital Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and how can it be created? more

Content Blocking at the DNS Level in Germany

For those who follow the issue of blocking illegal content from the Internet, there is an interesting development in relation to this issue here in Germany, and I will tell you a little about it. One way to make it difficult to access illegal content is to block it directly in the DNS. But what is DNS for? Basically, it serves to translate the domain name into the IP of the server that is hosting the content. By blocking directly at the DNS level, a query to a domain will no longer bring the server's IP number, and with that, the user no longer accesses that content. more

WHOIS Policy at ICANN Continues to Fail

ICANN has once again acceded to the wants of contracted parties and is at risk of abdicating its duty to act in the global public interest when it comes to WHOIS policy. Its inability or unwillingness to date to reign in bad WHOIS policy, driven by contracted party interests, flies in the face of its previously-expressed policy goal “to ensure the continued availability of WHOIS to the greatest extent possible while maintaining the security and stability of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers.” more

Regulating Big Tech. This Time, for Sure!

United States President Biden has recently commented: “But let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want. […] So, we know we’ve got a problem – a major problem.” It’s not every day you hear the President of the United States take on the very industry that supported his national economy remaining the world’s richest over the past couple of decades. Yet his tone resonates with a growing unease within the US... more

Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 9: Articles 26-30

As we work on this final CircleID essay addressing the last four Articles in the UDHR, we explore how the UDHR provides the principles on which to build the rights and responsibilities of digital citizenship and bring integrity and trust to cyberspace and the Internet ecosystem. We reflect on what we have learned. For us, the authors of this series, we are reminded that trust in the processes of government, business entities, and society is central to the wellbeing of society, our communities, our families, and ourselves. more

The Long-Run Effect of Cuba’s Recent Internet-Augmented Protests

It’s now more than 6 weeks since the Cuban political protests and accompanying Internet service disruption. Will they lead to a long-run change in the Cuban Internet or the Cuban political situation? Let’s start with the Cuban Internet. Many of the Internet changes during the protests have disappeared. Total daily traffic, the ratios of mobile to fixed traffic, and human to automated posts, and the proportion of blocked Signal sessions are about what they were before the protests. more

Learning in a Multistakeholder Environment: 15 Years of Summer School on Internet Governance

The 15th edition of the European Summer School on Internet Governance (EuroSSIG) took place recently in Meissen/Germany, from August 15 -20, 2021. It was the second hybrid meeting under the challenging condition of the pandemic. Eighteen fellows from 15 countries representing all regions of the world traveled to Germany, as well as five faculty members. Fifteen faculty members joined via Zoom from California to Beijing. The agenda of the one-week course included a broad range of topics such as cybersecurity, digital diplomacy, IGF+, DNS Abuse, human rights, digital trade and taxation, as well as artificial intelligence. more

Massive Changes to the Chinese Tech Industry

It was on the cards. For weeks, Jack Ma, the digital tycoon of China, founder of Ant and of e-commerce giant Alibaba (the Chinese Amazon), disappeared off the radar after he was summoned by the Chinese Government and most likely lectured on the fact that his company was out of step with official Chinese policy. Consequently, the Government levied a multi-billion dollar antitrust fine against Alibaba, deleted its popular web browser from app stores and took several other actions against the company. more

The Cuban Internet in the Aftermath of the Anti-Government Protests

In an earlier post, I looked at the use of the Internet by anti-government protesters last month and the government's attempt to block them. Now, a few weeks later, let's see how the Internet changed after my July 18 post. The protesters used messaging and social media services, which the government tried to block, and posted images and videos of protests around the island. more