Washington Post: ICANN Departures After Web Suffix Vote Draws Criticism. How Damaged is ICANN?

ICANN Chairman and other departures after the board's vote to approve the New generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) in Singapore draw criticism, reports The Washington Post. Shortly after the vote, Peter Dengate Thrush joined a New gTLD Group which stands to greatly benefit directly from this vote on the program he led on for nearly 3 years. This appears to have caused grave damage to ICANN's credibility internationally drawing international Press and Governments criticism over conflict of interest. more

Another Year, Another ICANN NomCom

Another challenging year due to the Corona pandemic is coming to a close, and ICANN has held another virtual annual general meeting (AGM) -- the 6th in a row. Unlike last year, today, we can hope for a better next year. In many regions of the world, the figures look better, and the opening is progressing. That at least gives us hope that ICANN will hold face-to-face meetings again next year -- at least they are planning it so. That should also make it easier for the new Nominating Committee (NomCom). more

DNS: The Basis for Billions

In the midst of "Cyber Monday", the day traditionally seen as one of the year's busiest days for online shopping, it is only appropriate to examine the importance DNS plays for online economies. With DNS being at the heart of Internet connectivity it is easy to understand why DNS is important to the growing health of economies whose online health in dollars and euros rest in the billions. more

WCIT’s Security Issues

Another contentious issue at the WCIT in Dubai is 'security'. There has been a dramatic increase in nervousness regarding a whole range of security issues, especially in relation to the internet. They include: SPAM, denial-of-service-attacks, identity theft, cybercrime, cyberwarfare, and privacy issues on social media. From the list above it is clear that some of these issues are related to content, while some can be classified as national security and others as criminal offences. In other words, there is no clear-cut issue on what constitutes security. more

DNSSEC Successes, Statistics and Innovation Streaming Live from ICANN 53 on 24 June 2015

Where has DNSSEC been successful? What are some current statistics about DNSSEC deployment? What are examples of innovations that are happening with DNSSEC and DANE? All of these questions will be discussed at the DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 53 in Buenos Aires happening on Wednesday, June 24, 2015, from 09:00 – 15:15 Argentina time (UTC-3). You can watch and listen to the session live. more

New TLD Vertical Integration, Market Forces and the Path of Least Compliance

The ICANN Board will soon make many decisions, one of which is to decide whether to continue or reverse ICANN's longstanding policy of vertical separation of registries and registrars. Since new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are supposed to benefit registrants with lower prices, choice and what we trust will be a decision for 'market-differentiated' competition, the Board will no doubt consider market forces as well as compliance and enforcement issues in choosing the path that can maximize these goals. more

When Proxy Services Enable Abuse

People are growing increasingly alarmed by recent examples of bad actors abusing proxy services offered by registrars. While proxy services are designed to protect the privacy of legitimate domain name users - they do the opposite when abused by cybercriminals. Responsible Proxy providers play a key role in mitigating abuse. When they don't act responsibly - it's clear they contribute to the problem. more

Satisfying the Evidentiary Demands of the UDRP

It continues to surprise that some counsel in proceedings under the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) are unaware or oblivious of its evidentiary demands, by which I mean they file and certify complaints with insufficient evidence either of their clients' rights or their claims. Because the UDRP requires conjunctive proof of bad faith registration and bad faith use (as opposed to the disjunctive model of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act), it should be ingrained for counsel experienced in the jurisprudence to know they cannot hope to succeed with marks postdating registration of domain names. more

Thoughts on the Open Internet - Part 6: Final Thoughts

Today we just don't have an "Open" Internet. The massive proliferation of network-based middleware has resulted in an internet that has few remaining open apertures. Most of the time the packet you send is not precisely the packet I receive, and all too often if you deviate from a very narrowly set of technical constraints within this packet, then the packet you send is the packet I will never receive. more

The Future of AI in Broadband: Impacts on Network Demand and Power Consumption

AI technology seems to be a hot topic in every industry, and broadband is no exception. It seems inevitable that AI will be used to help monitor and control complex broadband networks. It looks like the biggest ISPs are already phasing AI into the customer service process. Nobody seems to be able to answer the big question of whether AI will change the amount of broadband the average household uses. more

The Discrepancy in Confusion and Similarity Decisions of New gTLDs

After more than half of the new gTLD String Confusion Objection determinations that have been published we have updated our popular chart which compares the Visual Similarity (determined by the SWORD tool) with the results of the String Confusion Objections. We found that there is a huge discrepancy in what has been expected in the ICANN community and what the "Experts" have be decided. more

SOPA Could Shutter Registrars and other Domain Name Industry Intermediaries

The Internet Commerce Association has just sent a letter to senior members of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the likely unintended but potentially devastating impact of H.R. 3261 ("SOPA") as introduced upon ICANN-accredited registrars and other participants in the broad domain name industry, as well as upon the domain registrants who use those services. more

On Internet Centrality and Fragmentation

I attended a workshop on the topic of Internet Fragmentation in July. The workshop was attended by a small collection of Australian public policy folk, some industry representatives, folk from various cyber-related bodies, and those with a background in Internet Governance matters. It was a short meeting, so the perils of fragmentation were not discussed at length, as they often can be, but the concerns about the breakup of the essential bonds that keep the Internet together were certainly palpable in that meeting. more

The Greatest Free Riders of Our Time

Former Southwestern Bell CEO, now General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre famously accused Google of free-riding his network, despite the obvious truth that Google pays for traffic delivery to peering points and ISPs gladly enter into reciprocal peering agreements in lieu of cash transactions that would likely result in a near zero payment as roughly equivalent traffic balances out. Mr. Whitacre did raise a legitimate question whether there are free riders and I'm seeing one darling and one unexpected group flying below the radar. more

IRP Panel Sanctions Afilias, Clears the Way for ICANN to Decide .web Disputes

The .web Independent Review Process (IRP) Panel issued a Final Decision six months ago, in May 2021. Immediately thereafter, the claimant, Afilias Domains No. 3 Limited (now a shell entity known as AltaNovo Domains Limited), filed an application seeking reconsideration of the Final Decision under Rule 33 of the arbitration rules. Rule 33 allows for the clarification of an ambiguous ruling and allows the Panel the opportunity to supplement its decision if it inadvertently failed to consider a claim or defense, but specifically does not permit wholesale reconsideration of a final decision. more