.ORG, The Public Interest Registry has, since its inception, advocated for policies designed to reflect the public interest, namely of fair and open competition that benefits not only .ORG, but all Internet users. ICANN is now faced with a critically important decision on whether to remove the trusted and proven safeguards that prevent domain name registrars from owning and operating domain name registries. Because of its concern for end users, support for the success for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), and strong belief in the benefits of fair competition, .ORG vigorously opposes removing these critical safeguards and strongly supports registry-registrar separation... more
There has been a lot of talk, blogging, tweeting and press reportage about the Epsilon breach, but little in the way of concrete information to consumers as to where they stand, if their personal information (PII) such as their name and email address has been lost to criminals. The CAUCE Board of Directors have developed the following FAQ that provides facts and guidance for those affected by the breach. more
An investigation by New Food Economy has revealed GrubHub and its subsidiaries have been registering thousands of domain names consisting of existing restaurant names, with over 23,000 domains registered directly under GrubHub. more
A blog post by Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, today announced that company plans over $13 billion in investments throughout 2019 in data centers and offices across the U.S., with significant expansions in 14 states. more
As some of us are continuing to learn this week the Monster.com service has again been successfully hacked. According to a security bulletin posted on Monster.com on January 23rd, 2009, the intruder gained access to the user database, while no resumes were apparently compromised... As a user of Monster.com what I find incredibly upsetting about this situation is that I had to find out about this through a security blog. more
The Internet's users rely on domain name registration information for vital purposes, including providing security, problem-solving, and legal and social accountability. The data is so important that users perform more than two billion WHOIS queries every day. ICANN has instituted new data policies over the last two years, and is also directing a migration to a new technical protocol, RDAP, that will replace WHOIS access in the near future. So at this critical juncture, how is it all going? more
The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference wraps up at the end of the week. The more than 2000 people present in Busan Korea from 171 countries -- overwhelmingly government bureaucrats -- have been busily polishing nearly a hundred resolutions on everything that ails them. The good news is that some sanity seems to have prevailed and most of the really extreme provisions apparently disappeared during the ensuing dialogue. One of the reasons for the change of heart is the realization that the ITU emperor's budget for clothes is disappearing. more
"Domain name sellers rub ICANN's face in sticky mess of Europe's GDPR," Kieren McCarthy reporting in The Register. more
In part 1, we explained that the DKIM "d=" value identifies the domain name which signed the message, which may be a different domain name from the author of the message. Tying the signing and author domains together will require an additional standard: Author Domain Signing Practices (ADSP). In IETF parlance, the "author domain" is the domain name in the From: header, so ADSP is a way for the author domain to publish a statement specifying whether any other domain name should ever sign a message purporting to be From: that author domain... more
If you're interested in learning more about Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), UNESCO and EURid recently released a report on the evolution and challenges of IDNs. It's a good read and it highlights some of the struggles that countries and registries face and taking IDNs mainstream. Though Russia has so far proven to be a major success story - with more than 800,000 IDN registrations so far (and counting) - most other IDNs are have a long ways to go yet. more
ICANN released its sixth version of the draft Applicant Guidebook for the new Top-Level Domain (TLD) program in April following three years of debate surrounding the rules and procedures that will outline how potential applicants will apply to own their own piece of Internet real estate. Overall, the response has been positive. more
For a long time, arguments about the meaning of "DNS Abuse" prevented fruitful discussions within the ICANN community on when and how it is appropriate to act at the level of the DNS to address abuses online. The proposed amendments to RA and RAA agreements represent a significant and welcomed step in the right direction. As Secretariat of the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network (I&JPN), we strongly encourage their adoption... more
In virtually all governmental legislative bodies, the staff is there to provide secretariat services for the government representatives. The staff role does not include telling the representatives what decisions they should be making. The stricture is supposed to be the same at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for its treaty making activities. It is with some amazement that last week, the ITU secretariat staff showed up at a seminar in Bangkok they helped schedule... more
On November 15, the FCC approved a revision to the plan for Starlink, SpaceX's forthcoming broadband satellite service. The new plan reduces the number of satellites from 4,525 to 4,409 and lowers the altitude of the phase-1 satellites from 1,100 to 550 km. Mark Handley, a professor at University College London, has created videos based on simulations he ran of both the original and revised phase 1 plans. more
The possibility of unauthorized access to EPA information raises an array of concerns since EPA-held data includes various types of Confidential Business Information, scientific research data, environmental databases, agency plans for responding to "incidents of national significance" and other security-related matters, and environmental monitoring data used in regulatory enforcement actions. more
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