Last night millions of people were left without electricity in two of Brazils' biggest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as a result of a massive power failure. Consequently the outage has also had a significant impact on telecommunications and the Internet routing system in a number of South American regions. According to a related report released today by Renesys, while Brazil took the largest hit, Paraguayan and Uruguayan networks also went out "as a result of the largest regional power outage to hit Brazil and its neighbors in several years." more
In another unpredicted development the entire community of ICANN stakeholders has sent a joint letter to CEO Fadi Chehade and the ICANN Board that strongly questions the "Enhancing ICANN Accountability and Governance - Process and Next Steps" document published by ICANN staff on August 14th over widespread community objections. Signatories to the August 26th letter include the GNSO Council and all of the GNSO's stakeholder groups and constituencies, the Country Code Name Supporting Organization, the At-Large Advisory Committee, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee - and, most surprisingly, the Governmental Advisory Committee. more
I just wanted to call people's attention to this International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) paper on Internet governance. I don't endorse it; haven't actually read it yet, but their say will play a big role and should be widely known: "Coming barely a month after the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, and prepared by ICC's Commmission on E-Business, IT and Telecoms, the paper divides the issue of Internet governance into three main components - technical engineering, coordination of the names and numbers system and public policy matters." more
Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, or CRIDO, released a plan they called a "peacemaker" three days before the Jan. 12th, 2012 launch, which would allow brands to begin the ICANN application process but would allow organizations and companies the opportunity to place their brand names, without cost, on a temporary "do not sell" list. ICANN so far has not responded to the "do not sell" list, and CRIDO is getting restless and threatening lawsuits. more
From time to time the IETF seriously grapples with its role with respect to technology relating to users' privacy. Should the IETF publish standard specifications of technologies that facilitate third-party eavesdropping on communications or should it refrain from working on such technologies? Should the IETF take further steps and publish standard specifications of technologies that directly impede various forms of third party eavesdropping on communications? more
The Malaysian government has backtracked on its recent decision to require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to redirect Domain Name System (DNS) traffic away from third-party servers like Google Public DNS and Cloudflare. more
When last we wrote, trademark lawyers had written an outraged letter to ICANN about the $2500 price to preregister trademark.sucks names, and ICANN, reliably panicking in the face of legal threats, wrote to the US Federal Trade Commission and Canadian Office of Consumer Affairs saying please tell us that's illegal so we can shut down this registry with whom we just signed a long-term contract. (The mysterious $1 surcharge turned out to be a weak attempt by ICANN to collect debts that affiliates of registry owner Momentous defaulted on long ago.) more
In ICANN's "President & CEO Goals for Fiscal Year 2021", Göran Marby went out to make a curious distinction in the document's second stated goal, according to which he intends to "Implement a common strategy for Internet governance (IG) and technical Internet governance (TIG)". Proceeding to state that "we will begin by identifying the most important issues we need to address, followed by an assessment of where and how we can intervene, the venues we should use, and the resources required to be effective". more
The Internet Society today announced a new working partnership with Consumers International, the membership organization for consumer groups around the world. more
US government agencies are accelerating the transition to IPv6 and ensuring their public websites are accessible via IPv6. more
Who would dare to predict the year the Internet will reach 50 billion addressable devices? Thomas Noren, head of LTE product development at Ericsson sees one day 50 billion devices shouldered by LTE. He sees LTE as the truly global standard putting to rest the long and acrimonious rivalry between CDMA and GSM protagonists and even sees the Chinese third way with their TD-SCDMA aligned on LTE. Mobile WiMax is, in his mind, already relegated to the dustbin of history... more
Heads of 20 or more gTLD registries will meet privately this month to discuss various topics including the possibility of a reduction in their ICANN fees. more
Section 3.18 of the ICANN 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) contains language requiring registrars to investigate and respond to abuse complaints. Nearly one year into the new RAA's effective period, what do we know about Section 3.18? If a person or entity wants to submit a complaint, what should they keep in mind? This article reviews the meaning of Section 3.18, how to leverage it, offers a list of do's and don'ts for complainants, and offers a few recommendations for registrars. more
Join IPv6 networking professionals from across North America, who will attend to learn the latest on IPv4 exhaustion and how to transition to IPv6. The INET Denver agenda will bring together top experts in the networking field to discuss the latest on IPv4 exhaustion in our market, and the TCO of IPv6. more
A 2026 outlook charts Internet governance between fear and hope, tracking cyber conflict, digital trade and taxation, shrinking rights, and global AI rivalry, while asking whether multistakeholder cooperation can still steer the network toward stability. more