Every day comes with another digital security breach, surveillance disclosure and what not. The world seems to have grown used to it and continues its business as usual. It doesn't seem to be bad enough to really act. Every day comes with new stories about the end of the Middle Class, IT taking over jobs in places where up to very recently that was inconceivable, not in people's wildest dreams would these jobs disappear. more
The Internet Society Board of Trustees has issued an announcement stating that it cannot agree to participate in or endorse the Coordination Council for the NETmundial Initiative. "We are concerned that the way in which the NETmundial Initiative is being formed does not appear to be consistent with the Internet Society’s longstanding principles," says the statement released today. more
The more I follow the .WINE & .VIN opera, the more I start to believe that the idea is either to kill both new gTLD applications to free space in Round 2 of the ICANN new gTLD program or make this subject a political tool "only" to increase Europe's presence in ICANN decisions. If there still is a wish from the European Commission to help .WINE and .VIN to become the strongest identity European wines could ever have on Internet, I would like to understand why the situation is still blocked... more
Last Friday, following three weeks of dazzling diplomacy, the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference came to a conclusion in Busan, South Korea. For those unfamiliar with the event, the "Plenipot" is the ITU's most significant gathering... At the Plenipot, ITU members elect new office-bearers, set general policies and determine the Union's strategic plans and activities for the next four years. It is this last part that is of most interest to stakeholders in the Internet community... more
It's remarkable to me that there are now two powerful agencies fighting to "govern" the Internet -- the ITU and the FCC. On any given day, it's hard to tell whether they are on the same side or different sides. The ITU process apparently began in earnest with the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) meetings, where the concept of "Internet Governance" became an urgent goal. The FCC process began when incumbent Internet Access Providers (IAPs) argued that "Net Neutrality" was a stalking horse for government control... more
In a landmark ruling, a U.S. federal court has agreed with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that the country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) are not property subject to attachment and thus overruled an attempt to seize Iran's, Syria's and North Korea's domains as part of a lawsuit against those countries' governments. more
In an article for the Financial Times, Mr Hannigan -- the chief of the British spy agency GCHQ said: "I understand why they [US technology companies] have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics." "But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism."... more
As you might imagine, I've been following the ITU's Plenipotentiary Conference very closely. It was built up to be the great showdown of our time -- the pro-'free and open' Internet in one corner (comprised for the most part of developed and democratic nations), in the other corner a contingent of totalitarian regimes bent on a fractured, censored Internet -- a near battle royale for control of one of the greatest communications tool the world has ever seen. more
The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference wraps up at the end of the week. The more than 2000 people present in Busan Korea from 171 countries -- overwhelmingly government bureaucrats -- have been busily polishing nearly a hundred resolutions on everything that ails them. The good news is that some sanity seems to have prevailed and most of the really extreme provisions apparently disappeared during the ensuing dialogue. One of the reasons for the change of heart is the realization that the ITU emperor's budget for clothes is disappearing. more
Europe is at the forefront of the global debate about data protection and privacy. Unfortunately that debate is characterised more by hyberbole and scaremongering than real discussion. Europeans deserve better -- and so does the world, who rightly see Europe as a leader on this subject. The new Commission has a chance to truly lead in partnership with governments, like Brazil, that agree with us. more
During the last Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, a day was devoted to Net Neutrality with three panels devoted to the subject. The first was exactly about Zero-Rating: Net Neutrality, Zero-Rating & Development: What's the Data? the second was Network Neutrality: a Roadmap for Infrastructure Enhancement and last, the main session Network Neutrality: Towards a Common Understanding of a Complex Issue and Zero-rating was discussed on all three panels. more
China's high-profile "World Internet Conference" will be held next month where more than 1,000 representatives from tech firms and regulators are expected to attend. The event will be held from Nov. 19-21 in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province. The conference is planned to cover topics including global Internet governance, mobile Internet, cross-border e-commerce, cyber security and terrorism. more
I attended the 46th ICANN meeting in Beijing, China, and made a statementat on the panel "Internet Governance -- The Global Agenda", questioning the limits of the multistakeholder model, or more precisely the "bottom" of the bottom-up concept. My expectation was enormous, just at the time when two important meetings on governance and information society are in evidence: the WCIT and WSIS +10. more
The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan South Korea is the quadrennial gathering where its Nation State Members gather to elect new leadership of its four permanent secretariats and populate a few other of its assorted bodies. The next two weeks are spent in endless sessions where several regional blocs of Members still enamored with pre-liberalization telecom models complain about the new world of telecommunications that they did not invent -- while engaging in copious use of their new smart phones and online services. more
Hon' Prime Minister, Why would India table Proposal 98 for the work of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference? Contribution 98 wants the ITU to develop an IP address plan; wants it to be a contiguous IP address platform so as to enable the Governments to map and locate every Internet user; suggests that the ITU may coordinate the distribution of IP addresses accordingly; instructs the ITU Secretary General to develop policies for... naming, numbering and addressing which are [already] systematic, equitable... more
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