Internet Governance

Authority Formation and Legitimacy in Parallel Governance Tracks

Africa's internet governance faces parallel tracks as AFRINIC's community-led reforms unfold alongside a continent-wide blueprint, raising questions over whether legitimacy will stem from participatory processes or increasingly coordinated external alignment. more

Building RIPE SEE: A Conversation With Jan Žorž About Community, Trust, and the Work Behind a Regional Event

Jan Žorž reflects on SEE RIPE's role in uniting a fragmented region, where trust built through informal exchange now underpins internet resilience and helps align engineers with policymakers as regulatory pressures intensify. more

Iran’s Internet Blackout Hits 60 Days - Deepening Economic Crisis, Two-Tier Access

Iran's now 60-day internet blackout is inflicting heavy economic losses, disrupting exports and daily life, while a tiered access plan deepens inequality and signals a shift toward tighter state control of digital connectivity. more

Beyond Connectivity: How Submarine Cable Resilience Dictates Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Fragmented Governance

Subsea cables underpin global data flows, yet resilience, control and deep sea access now define digital sovereignty as governance fragments, hyperscalers consolidate ownership, and states prioritize survivability over efficiency in an increasingly contested geopolitical seabed. more

No Safe Harbor: SCOTUS Scuttles the DMCA

America's Supreme Court, in Cox v Sony, recast online copyright liability, effectively sidelining the DMCA safe harbor and replacing it with a narrow inducement standard that leaves service providers little obligation to meaningfully police infringement. more

Afnic Reports Record Year for .fr Domain Names in 2025

Afnic's 2025 review finds .fr registrations at a record 4.3m, with strong new domain creation and steady retention, even as competition from .com and shifting digital trends temper expectations for future growth in 2026 overall. more

China and the Geopolitics of Africa’s 6.2 Million IPv4 Addresses

AFRINIC's fight over 6.2 million IPv4 addresses exposes how legal pressure, offshore vehicles and scarcity economics can strip Africa of leverage, turning a technical dispute into a test of sovereignty, institutional resilience and Internet governance. more

The Kinetic Frontier: Lessons From Geopolitical Violence and the Bunkerization of AI Infrastructure

Kinetic attacks on Gulf data centres expose the cloud's physical fragility, recasting AI infrastructure as strategic targets and accelerating bunkerisation, while outdated data laws leave firms choosing between legal compliance and digital survival. more

Mandate Laundering: From RIR Fantasy to Transition Architecture

Private internet registries have inflated narrow technical roles into quasi-sovereign authority, laundering mandate through ritual and rhetoric; a fragile system now faces legal, economic and political reckoning, prompting calls for coordinated transition urgent global reform. more

Iran’s Record Internet Blackout Deepens Civilian Isolation, Fuels Humanitarian Concerns

Iran’s unprecedented internet blackout, imposed after February’s strikes, has reduced connectivity to near zero, tightened state control over information, and set a global precedent for wartime digital isolation with significant humanitarian consequences. more

The Internet That Works for Some: Universal Acceptance Failures Across Asia Pacific

Across Asia Pacific, millions are excluded from digital services because systems fail to recognise non Latin scripts, exposing how flawed design assumptions about internet users entrench inequality across the region in welfare, finance and education. more

Africa Can’t Skip IPv4 on the Road to IPv6

Africa's push toward IPv6 cannot bypass IPv4 scarcity, as uneven infrastructure, market dynamics, and governance disputes raise costs, entrench inequality, and risk turning transitional address shortages into a lasting brake on digital development across regions. more

The Misinformation War Over Africa’s Internet Registry

Afrinic crisis exposes how legal pressure, proxy advocacy and owned media reshape narratives, potentially threatening global internet registry governance and shifting Africa's IP resources from public stewardship toward market commodification with broader far-reaching institutional consequences. more

When the Internet Doesn’t Recognize You: Universal Acceptance and India’s Welfare Crisis

India's digital welfare systems, built without universal acceptance, have excluded millions from vaccines, wages and food, revealing how technical design choices can entrench inequality and reshape access to basic rights across rural regions today in India. more

China, AFRINIC, and the Dangerous Precedent That Could Destabilize the Global Internet

A dispute over 6.2m IPv4 addresses at AFRINIC exposes how litigation and market incentives could erode regional stewardship, setting a precedent that risks turning the Internet's allocation system into a vehicle for global arbitrage. more