We Urgently Need a New Internet

Let's be honest about it. Nobody -- including those very clever people that were present at its birth -- had the slightest idea what impact the internet would have in only a few decades after its invention. The internet has now penetrated every single element of our society and of our economy, and if we look at how complex, varied and historically different our societies are, it is no wonder that we are running into serious problems with the current version of our internet. more

To Serve the Public Interest You First Have to Define ‘Public Interest’

In the ancient parable, six blind men are asked to describe an elephant, with each coming up with wildly different answers, depending on which part of the animal they touched. Now, while I would hesitate to call participants in the ICANN process "blind men," I am starting to think that "public interest" is their elephant. ICANN is on the threshold of completing its first major obligation under the Affirmation of Commitments it signed with the U.S. Government in 2009. more

Time to Play Offense

The United States is under cyber-attack. An article in Time magazine titled "The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies" discusses a computer-network security official for Sandia National Laboratories who had been "tirelessly pursuing a group of suspected Chinese cyberspies all over the world." The article notes that the cyberespionage ring, known to US investigators as Titan Rain, has been "penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies." more

UDRP Does Not Apply To Bad Faith Domain Name Renewals: Part II

The first part of this article offered background examination on why Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) fails to apply to domain name renewals. Here, in the second part of this two part series, we will examine UDRP further by reviewing cases involving the renewal of domain name registrations. more

Time of Registration in Determining Cybersquatting

While Panels under the UDRP and judges under the ACPA draw upon a similar body of principles in determining infringement -- both mechanisms, after all, are crafted to combat cybersquatting -- and though arbitration panels and judges undoubtedly view alleged tortious wrongdoing by abusive registrations of domain names through similar lenses and apply laws that may be outwardly similar, each protective mechanism has developed its own distinct and separate jurisprudence. more

Study Finds 75% of Malicious Websites from Legitimate, Trusted Sources

New report released today finds 75 percent of malicious websites are from legitimate, trusted sources with "Good" reputation scores. According to the report, 60 percent of the top 100 most popular websites either hosted malicious content or contained a masked redirect to lure unsuspecting victims from legitimate sites to malicious sites. more

How Much Money Do Spammers Make?

News reports say that high profile Ryan Pitylak was fined $10 million by the Texas Attorney General. A few days ago, he paid a $1M settlement to Microsoft. Since it had been widely reported that he'd made between $3M and $4M during his spamming career, that seemed like a pretty good deal for him. As I commented to the San Antonio Express, this new fine is more in line with what he did, and at least relieves him of all his ill-gotten gains... more

The Slow Death of Satellite TV?

There have been rumors for years about merging Dish Networks and Direct TV to try to gain as much market synergy as possible for the two sinking businesses. It's hard to label these companies as failures just yet because between two companies collectively still had 21.8 million customers at the end of 2020 (DirectTV 13.0 million, Dish 8.8 million). This makes the two companies collectively the largest cable TV providers, with Comcast at 19.8 million and Charter at 16.2 million. more

Network Neutrality and the FCC’s Inability to Calibrate Regulation of Convergent Operators

For administrative convenience and not as required by law, the FCC likes to apply an either/or single regulatory classification to convergent operators. Having classified ISPs as information service providers, the Commission unsuccessfully sought to sanction Comcast's meddling with subscribers' peer-to-peer traffic. Now Chairman Genachowski wants to further narrow and nuance regulatory oversight without changing the organic information service classification. more

IMP Continuing Despite Industry Backlash

Back in November 2008 a colleague of mine, Neil Watson (Head of Operations at Entanet International Ltd), published an article on Entanet's opinion blog about the government's proposed plans to centrally store records of all electronic communications throughout the UK. The Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) will be the largest surveillance system ever created in the UK and calls for a 'live tap' to be placed on every electronic communication in Britain including telephone calls, emails and visited websites. more

ICANN Investigating Domain Tasting

ICANN has announced that it is seeking input and feedback on the topic of domain tasting. (See their announcement for full details) Interestingly enough Michael Gilmour published an article a couple of days ago covering the same topic - "Why domain tasting is great!", which will probably raise a few hackles! One point that in particular caught my eye... more

CPH TechOps Retrospective 2018

From the perspective of the domain name industry, 2018 was strongly influenced by, among other things, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Temporary Specification and especially the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP). For the Contracted Parties House (CPH) TechOps Group, one year after its foundation, it was a very exciting and intensive time. This initiative was created to tackle technical and operational needs and challenges plus ideally to create best practices. more

Jerry Falwell Critic Can Keep Domain Name, Appeals Court Says

I want to call your attention to a very important Internet free speech decision, perhaps the most significant of our domain name cases from the past several years. In Lamparello v. Falwell, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held today that the use of the domain name www.fallwell.com for a web site devoted to denouncing the views of Rev. Jerry Falwell about homosexuality neither infringes Falwell's trademark in his name nor constitutes "cybersquatting." more

Independence and Security Online Have Not Yet Been Won

As we, here in the United States celebrate our independence this Fourth of July, we are reminded that the liberties and freedoms that come with that independence have yet to be won online. As citizens of this country we are blessed with safety and security from threats both foreign and domestic, but those guarantees have not yet extended to our citizenship in the global Internet community. This is true not just for American citizens, but for all Internet users throughout the world. more

Internet Governance: Analogue Solutions to Digital Problems

This is an overview of the booklet, "Internet Governance: Issues, Actors and Divides," recently published by DiploFoundation and the Global Knowledge Partnership. "Internet Governance is not a simple subject. Although it deals with a major symbol of the DIGITAL world, it cannot be handled with a digital - binary logic of true/false and good/bad. Instead, the subject's many subtleties and shades of meaning and perception require an ANALOGUE approach, covering a continuum of options and compromises." Update: This article was reposted with additional information and a new title. more