Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) might be a slightly "hot" topic at the moment following on from ICANN's launch of the IDN country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) program recently. However, IDNs are NOT a new topic. Far from it. They've been around for quite some time. Unfortunately neither The Times Online or Mashable seem to have done any homework. more
I have written a short paper on the topic of Internet Governance. Since it includes a number of resources, it would be easier for me to just point to a link with the document itself. Below are some selected excerpts from the document. "Several myths have been spreading around the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), but especially after the first Internet Governance Forum (IGF): The critical Internet resources (CIR) consist only of the IP addresses and the domain name system... There are only 13 root servers..." more
Larry Strickling, who runs the NTIA (the part of the U.S. Department of Commerce that handles ICANN), yesterday gave an important and remarkable speech to the Practicing Law Institute about Internet governance. His speech, timed to coincide with an orchestrated ICANN-bashing across town in the Senate, was a striking defense of the ICANN model and a repudiation of special pleading outside the process. more
Google has posted details on Ranking of new gTLDs (new gTLDs) in search. John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, said that new gTLD's will be treated the same as other gTLD's such as .com. He stated: "Overall, our systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs (like .com & .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search." The ambiguous use of the word "overall" in the statement, may leave some doubt as to whether the 600 .brands -- new domain extensions operated by brand owners -- are included or excluded in any VIP search ranking treatment. more
During the last week of December, two US Government agencies released papers on IPv6. NIST released Special Publication 800-119, Guidelines for the Secure Deployment of IPv6. This comprehensive 188 page paper provides guidelines for federal agencies (and anyone else who might want to take advantage of it) to securely deploy IPv6. more
A paper by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger and Malte Ziewitz was recently published at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University titled, "Jefferson Rebuffed: The United States and the Future of Internet Governance". The following excerpt provides an overview of the paper: "Over the last several years, many have called for an internationalization of Internet governance in general, and Internet naming and numbering in particular. The multi-year WSIS process that culminated in November 2005 was intended to create momentum in such direction. The United States has long resisted such internationalization, fearing in particular the growing influence of China and similar nations..." more
Over the past couple of years I've posted several times on the issue of "closed generics". In essence these are new TLD applications where the string is a "generic term" AND the applicant wanted to keep all domains in the registry for their own use. The baseline registry agreement with ICANN now contains language that resolves the issue, or at least it would appear to do so. more
There is a very interesting video posted on YouTube.com from Matt Cutts of Google who answered the question about how ccTLD's are viewed by Google especially when they are being used as domain hacks. Here is the question: "We have a vanity domain (http://ran.ge) that unfortunately isn't one of the generic TLDs, which means we can't set our geographic target in Webmaster Tools. Is there any way to still target our proper location?" more
For three years, I've been a member of ICANN's "Interim" At-Large Advisory Committee, ALAC. At this Vancouver meeting, for the first time, the ICANN Board met with us, and Bret captured it on mp3 for podcast. ALAC criticized ICANN's proposed settlement with VeriSign, and then spoke about the problems with the current structure for at-large participation. more
If we are already familiar with new generic Top-Level Domains from the ICANN new gTLD program, also called "new gTLDs", are we just as familiar with these new domain name extensions, which are called "generic" and which could be an alternative to the existing ".com" domain name extension? Not so many... As the list of new gTLDs is very long, we can easily say that there is a Top-Level Domain for any kind of business: a ".club" for Clubs, a ".news" for News, a ".dentist" for Dentists, a ".actor" for Actors, etc... more
It seems everywhere I turn, there's someone throwing around statistics for how the Internet and broadband will drive economic growth, create jobs, end world hunger and bring world peace (ok, maybe not the later). Sure enough, government officials are buying into that rhetoric and extending it in initiatives like national broadband strategies, cybercrime and cybersecurity plans as well as e-governance strategies. more
The Federal Trade Commission is challenging the public to create an innovative tool to help protect consumers from security vulnerabilities in the software of home devices connected to the Internet of Things. more
Internet Society's DNSSEC Deployment Maps are now available as part of a larger set of Global Internet Maps from its annual Global Internet Report. The map is based off of the 5 stages of DNSSEC deployment that the organization tracks as part of the weekly DNSSEC deployment maps generated. more
Many administrators misconfigure cloud storage, such Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets, resulting in the contents being publicly-accessible. more
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has made a long term commitment to taking the actions necessary to reform ICANN. Specifically, the Department of Commerce's Strategic Plan for FY 2004-2009 discusses the need for NTIA to take action to reform ICANN. The Strategic Plan details three Strategic Goals for the Department to achieve over the next five years. The second goal is to "Foster science and technological leadership by protecting intellectual property, enhancing technical standards, and advancing measurement science." more
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