Internet Governance

Privacy and the Future: Are We Good Trustees of the Internet?

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

Wow. That’s a Lot of Reserved Names

ICANN recently updated the list of reserved second level domain names. Those are names that you won't be able to register in any of the 1500 or so new domains they're planning to add. There's rather a lot of them, currently 629. The names are in three groups, the ICRC (the Red Cross), the IOC (the Olympic games) and everyone else. Several years ago the Red Cross and later the Olympics came to ICANN and insisted that they make a special list of forbidden names, separate from the various trademark registries. more

Mass Surveillance: A Turning Point in Internet History

So far, the debate on mass surveillance has dwelt on the immense resources made available to the agencies (NSA in the US, GCHQ in the UK), on the technological advantage that enables them to access any data and bypass encryption, and on the lack of proper oversight in those two countries. But in order to make their voices heard by their elected representatives, Internet users around the world need to have an even more complete view of the emerging reality. more

Hints and Solution for the Protection of Wine Geographical Indications in the ICANN New gTLD Program

This article is a copy of a letter sent today, 3 of April 2013, to the attention of Mr Fadi Chehadé, CEO of ICANN and other members of the ICANN board. Protecting wine Geographical Indications in the new gTLD program is a problem. This letter is also an article providing hints for the protection of Wine Geographical Indications in the ICANN new gTLD program. more

Bruce Schneier: Government and Industry Have Betrayed the Internet, and Us

Bruce Schneier in an op-ed piece published in the Guardian on Thursday writes: "Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract..." more

Trademarks for TLDs

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently circulated proposed examination guidelines to allow the USPTO to begin providing Trademark Protection for Top Level Domains (TLDs). This is an important new development. TLDs today are currently ineligible for Trademark protection on the basis that they do not constitute a source-identifying mark. The USPTO is currently in the process of rectifying this situation by extending Trademark protection to Registry Service providers and has released its proposed examination procedures for that purpose. However, there are some very concerning elements to their proposed examination guidelines. more

Time for Outrage! (continued)

When the scale of global surveillance carried out by the NSA (USA) and by the GCHQ (UK) was exposed by Edward Snowden through The Guardian, people around the world were shocked to discover how two established democracies routinely resort to methods that they have long deplored -- and rightly so -- in dictatorships, theocracies and other single-party arrangements. In a previous article, I lamented the fact that by carrying out this surveillance on an unprecedented scale, the US and the UK are, in fact, converging with the very regimes they criticize. more

I Had a Dream: ICANN Has 2 Billion Reasons to Support Developing Countries

Last week, the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech was marked with much fanfare. Well, I too had a dream the other day, almost two weeks ago. I dreamt I was in a conference. Which is no news. The conference was an ICANN-sponsored conference. No news there either; I've been to many ICANN meetings. And it was on food security! An ICANN-sponsored conference on food security? more

ICANN 47: Policy Debates and Cautious Optimism

A strange feeling came over me after I got home from ICANN 47 in Durban, something I haven't felt after an ICANN meeting before. The feeling? Optimism. I'm optimistic, albeit cautiously so, about the future of ICANN and by extension, hopefully that of Internet governance in general. If the meeting in Durban is any indication, we've come a long way in the past year. There were no indicted war criminals invited to dinner. And though it may be too soon to say for sure, I don't think a letter will be sent to the government of South Africa about the quality of the hotel. more

The Long Gestation and Afterlife of New gTLDs

ICANN continues to flail, pointlessly. The latest in a series of missteps that could easily have been avoided is its recommendations on what to do about a report on the potential for confusion and misaddressing when someone's internal network names match the name for a new gTLD, and they have misconfigured their routers and/or DNS to the extent that someone typing in a new gTLD name might end up in the middle of someone else's network. more

Avoiding an ICANN Monopoly on Policy

With all the focus in the TLD world on the imminent arrival of more than a thousand new TLDs and the still unfinished discussions within ICANN on what policy framework those TLDs will need to follow, it is often forgotten that there are hundreds of other TLD policy frameworks that are mature, stable and well tested. These of course are the ccTLD policy frameworks that have been actively developed over 20 years. more

Voluntary Initiatives As a Source of Policy-Making on the Internet

For many years, I have observed that the Internet is adopting many self-regulation frameworks to address a variety of issues. Indeed the Internet has benefited from self-regulation as an efficient way to address jurisdictional conflicts -- particularly as compared to traditional law making. Since the Internet is global, jurisdiction is often the most difficult policy issue to address. To this end, voluntary initiatives are becoming increasingly popular in the digital space due to their ability to address dynamically issues related to the Internet. more

Senate Appropriations Committee Critical of NTIA Role Within ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee

On July 18th the Senate Appropriations Committee issued Report 113 - 78 on S. 1329, the "DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, AND SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2014". more

The Importance of Contributing to the ITU CWG-Internet Open Consultation by 1 August 2013

The Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet) was established as a result of resolutions at the 2010 ITU Plenipotentiary to discuss a wide range of Internet issues that had public policy implications... These are all issues that concern all stakeholder groups in the Internet ecosystem. And, indeed, these are all issues being discussed in varying levels of detail by all stakeholder groups. The difference with the CWG-Internet, however, is that both its documents and meetings are closed to all non-Member State representatives. more

ICANN Mission Creep is Becoming Mission Leap

Under the leadership of Fadi Chehade and Steve Crocker, ICANN finally runs like an organization that has grown up. When it comes to process, accountability, and transparency, this is excellent news for the Internet. But it also raises a new question: how far will we let ICANN grow "out" of the limited technical mission for which it was created? In his opening remarks here in Durban, Chehade announced the expansion of local engagement centers and significant expansion of ICANN staff - for the second straight year. more