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An IPv6 Update for 2020

The Australian Domain Name Administration, AUDA, recently published its quarterly report for the last quarter of 2020. The report contained the interesting snippet: "The rapid digitization of our lives and economy -- necessitated by COVID-19 -- continued to underpin strong growth in .au registrations. New .au domains created in December 2020 were up 23 percent from December 2019, while total domains under management were up more than 2.1 percent over the same period." more

Missing in Action - ICANN’s 2010 Annual Report

In preparation for some upcoming long-haul international flights, I was looking for some "light" ICANN reading material. One document that came to mind was ICANN's 2010 Annual Report. Over the last four years ICANN has produced a year end report. While this document was probably originally conceived as a means to demonstrate ICANN's progress... more

Verisign Receives Subpoena Relating to Stock Option Backdating

VeriSign has reported that they are cooperating with a grand jury subpoena and a SEC inquiry into their historical stock option grants. More can be found here. Backdating of options is essentially a fraud against existing shareholders, as noted in the press or simply searching Google for "backdating fraud". Under the existing 2001 .com Registry Agreement, section 16.C would allow for termination of the agreement by ICANN in the event that VeriSign "is convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction of a felony or other serious offense related to financial activities... more

Google Does the Right Thing Opening Several Closed Generic TLD Applications

Over the last few months one of the areas of attention in the new TLD project has been "closed generics". I've written about this several times in the past and I've also raised the issue in as many fora as possible. Yesterday ICANN published a letter they'd received from Google with respect to several of their new TLD applications. more

ICANN@15: Born in the USA - But Will It Stay?

This article was originally intended to be a short one focused on indications that ICANN was exploring the establishment of a legal nexus outside the United States and discussing what that might mean - and whether it was consistent with the Affirmation of Commitments (AOC) entered into with the United States in 2009. Then, as completion neared, came the sudden and nearly simultaneous release of the October 7th Montevideo Statement and the announcement two days later of a proposed 2014 Brazil "Summit" focused on restructuring Internet governance. At that point the task vastly expanded. more

Wireless Innovations for a Networked Society

Last week, I had the honor of moderating an engaging panel discussion at Mozilla on the need for community networks and the important role they can play in bridging the digital divide. The panel highlighted the success stories of some of the existing California-based initiatives that are actively working toward building solutions to get under-served communities online. more

Neustar Professional Services: Additional Expertise to Improve Productivity

While it would be nice if your company had IT staff members that were experts in every technology, that is just not realistic. And today, many companies face the challenge of finding the appropriate and specialized expertise that is required to deal with ongoing issues such as network optimization, performance degradations, network risks, and more. more

Oh, Those Wild and Crazy New TLDs

Among the many issues affecting ICANN's thousand new TLDs is collisions, that is, the same name already used elsewhere. The other uses are non-standard and unofficial, but some names turn out to have been used a lot. One approach to see how bad the collisions are is controlled interruption, in which the TLD publishes wildcard records with obvious impossible values, in the hope that systems that use colliding names see them and do something about it. more

Register.com’s Director of Policy Responds to WLS Issue

Register.com has not taken a position for or against WLS. If and when the registry launches this service, Register.com will consider whether to offer it based on the price and conditions attached to the service. We are committed to delivering to our customers the best in class services available. Therefore, the registry's price will be an important factor. Moreover, we are concerned about some of the conditions currently being considered by ICANN - primarily, the "black out period." This is a period of time prior to the final deletion of a name, during which a registrar would be prohibited from selling a WLS subscription on a domain name that it sponsors. We consider this a condition that could confuse consumers and dampen domain name competition. more

SpaceX’s Rural Development Project in India

Sanjay Bhargava, Starlink Country Director for India at SpaceX (source)SpaceX Starlink is moving quickly in India. Last April, they said they would be offering service in 2022 and began accepting pre-orders. In July, SpaceX committed to manufacturing antenna systems and terminals in India and, at the end of September, Sanjay Bhargava, who had been with Elon Musk at Paypal, was selected to head Starlink in India. In the last week or two, they set up a wholly-owned subsidiary that will apply for licenses, seek Indian distribution partners, and attempt to sell 200,000 units - 80% in rural districts - in 2022. more

The Evolution of the ITU’s Views on Internet Governance (2006-2012)

Someone was talking the other day about the ITU and what they think about the issue of Internet Governance. I know what the ITU Secretariat wrote in a paper some years ago (Bulgaria was one of the governments heavily criticizing the errors and flaws in the ITU paper), but also decided it might be interesting to show how this question has evolved in the words of the ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure, by finding out how his positions on that issue, and on the role of the ITU have changed through the years. more

Zero Rating, a Poisoned Chalice for the Developing World

A very Interesting meeting The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) with an ambitious theme of connecting the worlds next billion people to the Internet took place in early November 2015 in a beautiful resort city of João Pessoa in Brazil under the auspice of the United Nations. Few citizens of the world paid attention to it yet the repercussions of the policy issues discussed affect us all. more

IPv6 Presents a Security Paradox for the Network

The capabilities IPv6 provides will enhance online security, but the shift to the new Internet address scheme may also present risks if not properly managed. Previously, Internet security was largely an after-thought for the early Internet, as its primary purpose was to facilitate open, end-to-end, any-to-any communications and information exchange for bridging and accelerating research efforts. Today, we have a much more complex online ecosystem that spans billions of users across the globe and serves not only as an engine for e-commerce, but as an engine for all commerce. more

What’s New In the Field of Cybersecurity Cooperation

The last few months have shown a number of signs that cooperation in cyberspace is not just necessary, but it is vital for the survival of the Internet as we know it. There is no need to provide links to all the articles and news stories that talk about the dangers of cyberattacks on the infrastructure in the USA or other countries - you can find plenty of them. ... What misses really in these stories is the answer to the question "So, what?" more

The Meeting That Changed the DARPA Datagram Internet

The National Science Foundation awarded a small contract to the IEEE to host a small two-day meeting on 30 Sept 1994 of selected invitees at the IEEE's Washington DC 18th Street offices on "Name Registration For The '.COM' Domain." Being part of the InterNIC contract oversight committee, I was one of the eight invitees. It turned out in many ways to be the single most important meeting in the long, checkered history of what is today referred to as "the internet," that made an extraordinarily bad decision. more