2015 in Review: The Year That Was in New TLDs

In looking back at what has occurred in the new TLD world in 2015, it is hard to believe that it's all taken place in just a short 12 month period. As an industry, we set off into this year realising that we had a hard game ahead -- as with all innovation, we knew that each step forward would require significant effort, knowhow and collaboration. We'd made big steps in 2014 to get started, but would 2015 move us forward or fizzle out? more

A Unique Seven-Month Long Study of the Typosquatting Landscape

A group of researchers from Belgian University of Leuven and US-based Stony Brook University have conducted a one of a kind content-based typosquatting experiment that studies the typosquatting phenomenon "longitudinally", i.e., in time.  more

Video Continues to Drive Broadband Usage

Nielsen recently published some statistics about how we watch videos that show a continuing trend of migration from traditional video to watching video online. One of the most striking statistics is the total volume of online videos. December 2021 saw an aggregate of 183 billion minutes of online video viewing. And even that, the number is likely small since there are many uses of video on the web that are not likely counted in the total. more

Security Psychology

I just came across a post telling of the Security and Human Behavior workshop. As some of you may be aware, I've been researching this subject for about two years now, and I am very excited that a conference has now happened! It means I did not waste the last two years of my life after all! more

5 Common Misconceptions New Registries Have About Domain Revenue

It is wonderful to see the floodgates open and see so many new gTLDs launch -- 417 delegated as of October 4th. As registry senior management's focus switches to operational matters post launch, it is now time to consider how the new registries will deal with revenue recognition and its impact on financial reporting. This is primarily the CFO's responsibility, but senior management must be mindful that improper domain revenue accounting will lead to corporate reputational damage. more

Finland’s Broadband USO an Inspiration for Europe

Europe's governments are increasingly acting on the popular belief that the Internet should be a basic right, and that citizens not disposed to using IP-based services should nevertheless have access to its infrastructure. As such, governments either have already introduced legislation to this effect or are in the process of doing so. First off the block was Switzerland: from January 2008 Swisscom's 10-year renewed USO (universal service obligation) has included the provision of broadband at a regulated price. more

The Path Toward Increasing the Security of DNSSEC with Elliptic Curve Cryptography

How do we make DNSSEC even more secure through the use of elliptic curve cryptography? What are the advantages of algorithms based on elliptic curves? And what steps need to happen to make this a reality? What challenges lie in the way? Over the past few months we've been discussing these questions within the community of people implementing DNSSEC, with an aim of increasing both the security and performance of DNSSEC. more

Limitations of .Brand Search Engines

The essay outlines the necessary success factors for a niche search engine and raises doubt regarding the role of .Branding in niche engines' success. Some search engines want to target a niche market, not Google. Unlike Google, they're targeted and they are profitable that way. Consider Kayak (travel), Zillow (real estate), Yelp (reviews), and .xxx (adult websites). more

Fighting for Smaller New gTLD Applicants

Will new gTLDs just be more of the same, or will they bring real diversity and innovation to the Internet's namespace? For Hong Kong based Stable Tone, applicant for two Chinese character IDN TLDs (?? or "Dot WORLD" and ?? or "Dot HEALTHY"), it's the smaller applicants that give the new gTLD program its soul. more

The Emergence and Consolidation of a Jurisprudence of Domain Names

One of the fallouts of disruptive inventions is the need for new laws to counter their unexpected consequences. As it concerned the Internet, these consequences included a new tort of registering domain names identical or confusingly similar to trademarks and service marks with the intention of taking unlawful advantage of rights owners. Prior to 2000 the only civil remedy for "cybersquatting" or "cyber piracy" was expensive and time-consuming plenary actions in courts of competent jurisdiction under national trademark laws. more

M-Commerce Market in China and Globally

M-commerce (mobile e-commerce) incorporates a range of mobile-driven applications, including payments for parking and theatre tickets (m-payments) to mobile banking (m-banking). M-commerce is a broad field incorporating a large variety of services and business models. In 2011, according to Gartner Group, over 15 billion apps are expected to be downloaded worldwide via app stores. They also estimated app store revenues alone reached over $5 billion in 2010 (incorporating revenue generated from both apps purchases and advertising). more

Massive Iberian Power Outage Raises Cybersecurity Questions

On April 28th, a widespread blackout plunged millions across Spain, Portugal, and parts of south-west France into darkness, disrupting homes, transit systems, and even sporting events like the Madrid Open. more

House of Cards

Time flies. Although it was over 18 months ago, it seems just like yesterday that a small Czech provider, SuproNet, caused global Internet mayhem by making a perfectly valid (but extremely long) routing announcement. Since Internet routing is trust-based, within seconds every router in the world saw this announcement and tried to pass it on. Unfortunately, due to the size of this single message, quite a few routers choked -- resulting in widespread Internet instability. Today, over a year later, we were treated to a somewhat different version of the exact same story. more

A DeLorean, 88 Miles an Hour and a Fully-Charged Flux Capacitor…

For a brief moment earlier this week, I thought my days spent dreaming of hover-boards, flying cars and Biff's elusive Sports Almanac were finally over. From reports circulating online, we had finally reached "Back to the Future Day". Those movie buffs out there will know exactly what I'm referring to... But it got me thinking. What would the Domain Name world look like if that crazy cat Doc Brown swung past in his DeLorean, with a fully-charged flux capacitor and a return ticket to October 21st 2015? more

EI, EI - NO!

For those closely following the ICANN Meeting in Nairobi this week, the EOI (Expression of Interest) model seemed like a foregone conclusion. In fact, ICANN had scheduled a webinar on March 18th to explain the process despite the complaints of the community and large-scale disagreement amongst proponents of the EOI. more