The Web is Dead: What This Means to ICANN, New gTLD Program and the Domain Industry

While we are spending years figuring out how to create the perfect generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch and guidebook, the Internet is moving along at an extraordinary pace without any care about ICANN policy-making. The fact of the matter is ICANN is a ghost to the ordinary person or Internet company. You can not imagine how many times I had to explain what ICANN is, what ICANN does and why ICANN is important. more

IP Network Transformation: Waiting Costs More Than You Think

Few CSPs would dispute that IP-based mobile communications are the future. But some still see little reason to replace TDM switches that, on the surface, cost them little beyond energy and housing expenses. At the recent Neustar Interactive Insights Summit, telecommunications experts Jennifer Pigg, Vice President at Yankee Group, outlined the conundrum -- and revealed the cost of doing nothing is higher than many think. more

Mitigating Harm Caused by the ICANN “Draw”

The gTLD Prioritization "Draw" was a mistake. But its negative impact can still be mitigated. The best course of action follows directly from information that can be gleaned from available data. Let us start with the latest piece of intelligence: who "played" in the "Draw"? 1766 of 1917 applications had a lottery ticket. This is much worse than expected. Very few abstained. Even the purely defensive applicants saw no other choice but to "play". more

Newly Discovered Malware Called VPNFilter is Targeting at Least 500K Networking Devices Worldwide

Cisco's security arm, Talos, today revealed a several-month-old research on a sophisticated modular malware system dubbed "VPNFilter. more

Spanish Police Raid the Offices of .cat gTLD Registry

The offices of the .cat gTLD registry Fundació puntCAT were raided by the Spanish police this morning. The company reported the incident via a series of tweets as the raid was being carried out. more

U.S. Congressional Trademark Caucus Haggles Over Price

It was standing-room-only at the Congressional Trademark Caucus session in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, April 6. The topic, brand protection in the new top level internet domain names, is still, it seems, a draw. With nearly two years' experience and statistical evidence of far fewer problems at far lower costs to brand owners than opponents of the program said would occur, it might be expected that the tone would cool. But the price of peace, I guess, remains eternal vigilance. more

The Dot Green gTLD and the Domain Name Delusion That Foretells General gTLD Disaster

I admire Annalisa Roger. I know from my single email interaction with her that she means well. Nonetheless, dot Green apparently ranks below 330 in the list of operational new gTLDs with an apparent total of 117 domains, give or take a few. Why is this the case? It seems to me that dot Green is one the few new gTLDs that actually deserves support... The notion that most generic gTLDs [like dot Green] are already positioned to accommodate brand channel partners such as this or that 'brandchannel.green' is illusion. more

Confirmed: Bill Clinton to Address ICANN Meeting in SF

A personal source close to Bill Clinton has confirmed to us that the former president will give the keynote speech ICANN meeting in San Francisco March 14-18. The meeting promises to produce far more electricity than sleepy NGO-lawyer-techie-academic-lobbyist ICANN attendees are used to. more

Cryptocurrency and DNS: Phishing Domains, Cryptomining and More

When we look at the intersection of cryptocurrency and domain data, we see something insidious: The prevalence of crypto-related threats. And it's not just cryptojacking. It's not even the use of cryptocurrency which has made ransomware attacks easier for threat actors to commit and all the more widespread. As with nearly every trend, there is always someone looking to capitalize on it and use it for their own, personal gain. Ever since cryptocurrency became the pandemic hobby of choice, threat actors have begun to target crypto novices for their schemes. more

Broadband Usage in 2Q 2025 by US Households: Persistent Demand, Hardware Strain

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the second quarter of 2025. OpenVault is documenting the continued growth in broadband usage by U.S. households. One of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per household in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the first quarter of 2021. more

Yemen’s Submarine Cable Repairs Hindered by Political Dispute

Repair efforts for three crucial submarine internet cables damaged in the Red Sea are being obstructed by political disputes over access to Yemeni waters. more

Response to Inaccurate .travel Wild Card Assessments

Bret Fausett's recent assessment of Tralliance's ".museum-like" wild card is just dead wrong. If Tralliance is so focused on monetizing its search results, why, then, would we not capitalize on the cornerstone of our registry, directory.travel? The fact is .travel is a sponsored space on the Net that is designed to do one thing and one thing only: Serve its constituency. For years the community has heard me at the open forum microphone reminding the ICANN board of directors that the industry was anxious to have its own domain to enable it to improve business efficiency... more

Market Forces Should Control Registry Services?

Sonia Arrison, a director of the Center for Technology Studies at the California-based non-profit Pacific Research Institute, writes an interesting op-ed piece in the Internet news publication CNET News.com. She argues that the job of privatizing the domain name system should be completed and that market forces should control registry services such as SiteFinder deployed by VeriSign for about three weeks in September...While not a position I would agree with, as I would prefer more government control and additional regulation, it is definitely insightful and well written. She makes some interesting quotes... more

IPv6… the Year NAT-Enforced IPv4 Dam Showed Seepage

We don't give enough credit to people who will sacrifice themselves trying to plug the IPv4 dam with some NAT-putty. They even dream of a NAT66 filled afterlife. The growing IPv6 traffic trickle was given evidence at the recent RIPE 57 meeting in Dubai in a number of presentations, including a most edifying Google presentation. Noteworthy to see France with a 0.65% IPv6 penetration... more

Why the Cloud Is the Solution for Telecom Upgrades

With so much "cloud-talk" across every industry -- many presume that every company with serious telecom operations has already moved there -- but they haven't. In fact, 20 to 25% of global companies are still using legacy PBX systems and MPLS networks and waiting to replace them and move over to SD-Wan/mesh solutions. These advancements can be done successfully after an infrastructure audit has been conducted to identify operational weaknesses and threat vulnerabilities and measuring efficiencies of each feature for usage optimization and increased productivity. more