First Geographic NewgTLD, .RUHR, Now Delegated

Each week ICANN has been delegating more new generic top-level domains (newgTLDs) and it's been somewhat entertaining to watch the list of delegated strings to see what new TLDs will enter the domain name space starting sometime in early 2014 when they become generally available for people to register new domains under. more

IPv6 and the Browser Wars

IPv6 adoption continues to gain ground at a slow pace. This is to be expected. The complications associated with hardware and software upgrades, as well as the lack of reachable content, means that IPv4 is still king of the hill. To me, this situation seems to mirror one a few years back with web browsers. Sometime around the turn of the century, Internet Explorer became the dominant browser. Riding on a 90% market share for Windows, the incumbent - Netscape Navigator - did not stand a chance. However, with it came a dark age for web developers. more

Looking Ahead - UDRP Bad Faith Analysis and New gTLDs

The Internet, at nearly every stage of its evolution, has effected change in existing intellectual property industries as those industries struggle to keep up with the march of technological advancement. For example, the entertainment industry has seen widespread piracy and bootlegging of just and soon-to-be released movies as a result of the increased availability of broadband Internet access in the home, and efficient peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies online. In response the entertainment industry has backed a wave of proposed legislation including the maligned Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). more

What ICANN Participants Have in Common with (and Could Learn from) Quakers

Throughout my childhood, I was a practicing member of the Religious Society of Friends (the 'Quakers'). Now, for the first time, I am participating in an ICANN meeting (specifically, the 34th in Mexico City). While at first blush these to two experiences seem to have little in common, it is actually striking how much they are alike... more

Email Portability, DKIM, and Socio-Political Implications on Tech Development

A few years ago, cell phone portability was introduced in the United States which caused a major shift in the market. The same thing happened this past year in Israel, following a major battle involving the cell carriers, consumer groups and the Israeli parliament (The Knesset). What if the same happened with email addresses? Ridiculous, you say? May be so, but there is chatter here in Israel to create a law which forces the local service providers hands to do just that. more

End of Cybersquatting? The gTLD Advantage

On the other hand, major dot brand generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) are for internal and controlled sub registrations, they would not be open to first come public offerings and therefore it makes no sense for IBM to plan advance purchase of ibm.canon, as Canon, owner of their own gTLD dot canon, unless mutually agreed between two brands, would have no incentive to sell such a registration to a cyber squatter or to anyone else for that matter. more

Is Proprietary Dead?

A new age of openness is coming upon us. At least that's what we're being told. For instance -- "The reign of closed solution suites is over, shifting to the rise of open, heterogeneous software ecosystems." Maybe it's my 30 years in the information technology business (how many people remember Thomas-Conrad ARCnet hardware?), but I'm not convinced. It's worth taking a moment to consider the case. more

Will the GNSO Review Be Pushed Back Another Year?

ICANN bylaws mandate periodic reviews of the organisation's main structures. For the body that handles gTLD policy making, the GNSO, that review was due to start in February this year. The review appears much needed. The GNSO Council is the manager of the gTLD policy process and as such, it has representatives of all GNSO groups. But according to repeated statements by many of those representatives, the Council's current bicameral structure has not lived up to expectations. more

RIPE NCC to Conduct Live Measurements for World IPv6 Day

RIPE NCC has announced plans to conduct live measurements for World IPv6 Day on 8th June 2011. The not-for-profit organization has set to measure connectivity to World IPv6 Day participants; "the IPv6 Eye Chart tests visibility of all World IPv6 Day participants and other sites that are already dual-stacked on a single web page." RIPE NCC says the process will help to find out if there are problems accessing these websites, both before and during World IPv6 Day. more

Russia Invests $660 Million to Boost Internet Censorship and Block VPNs

Russia's Ministry of Digital Development is set to invest nearly 60 billion rubles ($660 million) over the next five years to enhance its internet censorship system, according to a government proposal revealed by Reuters. more

Registrars That Complied With “Shakedown” Requests May Now Be in Violation of ICANN Transfers Policy

At the time we posted 'Whatever Happened To Due Process,' we were unaware that we were just one of many registrars receiving these notices from the London (UK) Police. We have since been made aware that this was part of a larger initiative against the BitTorrent space as a whole, and that most if not all of the other registrars in receipt of the same email as us folded rather quickly and acquiesced to the shakedown orders. more

New LIRs and Their IPv6 RIPEness

The RIPE NCC's membership grew steadily over the course of 2012. In Q3, the RIPE NCC received 417 requests to become a Local Internet Registry (LIR); the highest number we have seen so far. This surge in membership growth exceeds the previous record set 12 years ago during the dotcom bubble in 2000. One reason for the surge is probably the anticipation of the last /8 of IPv4 addresses. more

European Commission Can Register ‘galileo.eu’, Even if It Deprives Owner of Identical Trademark

When it drafted the .eu regulation EC 874/2004, the Commission reserved for itself a (long) list of domain names. One of them was galileo.eu. For obvious reasons, Galileo Lebensmittel GmbH & Co. KG claimed before the Courf of First Instance that the Commission's decision to reserve galileo.eu should be annulled... more

Will ICANN Drop Its Biggest Revolutionary New Idea? Five Reasons

ICANN, the Internet Authority is up against the wall, and here are the top five reasons for which it may simply drop its greatest revolutionary idea of offering a brand new type of a designer domain name to fit the next generation of widely expanded Internet and cyber realities of tomorrow. This new proposed platform will surely revolutionize the marketing and branding for big and small businesses around the world, offering highly affordable tools for global reach than ever before but the strong opposition would like to kill this idea. more

Google Announces Major Data Center Expansions, Finland Investment Tops $1 Billion USD

Jason Verge reporting in Data Center Knowledge: "Google's data center spending and investment continues to soar. The Internet giant announced a EUR450 million (which is about 608 million U.S. dollars) expansion at its Hamina data center in Finland. This comes in addition to an already announced EUR350 million (or about 473 million U.S. dollars) investment. Worldwide, the company recorded a whopping $2.29 billion (in U.S. dollars) in capital expenditures in the third quarter of 2013 alone, driven primarily by massive expansion projects." more