SpaceX Authorized by U.S. Federal Communications Commission to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved an application by Space Exploration Holdings (SpaceX) to provide broadband services using satellite technology in the United States and around the world. more

New German Legislation Provides Copyright-Related Internet Platform Obligations

Recently, there has been an interesting development in the liability of Internet intermediaries in Germany, and I will comment here in this text. The "Act on Copyright Liability Online Content Sharing Service Providers" began to apply on August 1, 2021 in the country. This act is a German attempt to deal with the controversy generated by the approval in 2019 of the new European directive on copyright, specifically with article 17. more

Greece Announces Plans to Install Free Public Wi-Fi Nationwide

Greece's Department of Telecommunications and Post (EETT) has announced plans to install 3000 public Wi-Fi hotspots around the nation beginning next year in both open-air and enclosed public spaces. more

US, European Consumer Groups Call on FTC to Investigate Google for Deceptive Tracking of Users

Over 75 consumer groups in U.S. and Europe have asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Google for unfairly and deceptively manipulating users of mobile phones with its Android operating system by constantly tracking location. A letter sent to the FTC by the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), a forum of US and EU consumer organizations, says Google manipulates users into constant location tracking. more

Is the New gTLD Program Approval Even a Chance for This Year?

As I noted in my recent comments on CircleID, the recent resolutions from the Special Meeting of the ICANN Board held in Norway in late September left a few important new gTLD issues up in the air and created a little uncertainty in the marketplace. ... However, whilst sign-off on the program is still not guaranteed to occur in December, a recent interesting post on the GNSO mailing list from ICANN's Senior Vice President... more

Do You Know Someone Who Should Be in the Internet Hall of Fame? Nominations Now Open Until March 24

Do you know someone who deserves recognition for helping build the Internet in their region or country? Or someone who made the Internet more secure through the work they've done? Or someone who made some major technical innovation that made the Internet faster or better? more

White Spaces: Timing

Last week's emergency petition by the broadcasters to delay the FCC's Nov. 4 vote is just part of the white spaces atmosphere right now. Ars Technica reports that the mud is really flying -- the broadcasters are accusing proponents of white space use of wanting to kill off television. It's a familiar argument -- "If you do Y, broadcast television as we know it will be destroyed." more

Security, Backdoors and Control

Encryption is a way to keep private information private in the digital world. But there are government actors, particularly here in the US, that want access to our private data. The NSA has been snooping our data for years. Backdoors have been snuck into router encryption code to make it easier to break. Today at M³AAWG we had a keynote from Kim Zetter, talking about Stuxnet and how it spread well outside the control of the people who created it. more

The Issue Is the Digital Economy, Not Broadband

After some five years of public debate on the national broadband network it is heartening to see that more and more people are getting the message that the network means more than just fast internet access. Increasingly key decision-makers in business and government are reaching an understanding of the transformation that is underway in the economy. more

NJ Man Arrested for Domain Name Theft and Sale on eBay

A man from the northern New Jersey area was charged and arrested for stealing a domain name belonging to the owners of P2P.com. According to reports, he allegedly transferred the ownership of the domain name to himself and succeeded in reselling it on eBay to a professional basketball player Mark Madsen of the Los Angeles Clippers. more

Blocking Shodan

The Internet is chock full of really helpful people and autonomous systems that silently probe, test, and evaluate your corporate defenses every second of every minute of every hour of every day. If those helpful souls and systems aren't probing your network, then they're diligently recording and cataloguing everything they've found so others can quickly enumerate your online business or list systems like yours that are similarly vulnerable to some kind of attack or other. more

IPv6 Stat Leapfrogs Expectations and Illustrates Important Role Registrars Play in Uptake

Since 2005, Infoblox has commissioned a survey by The Measurement Factory, a research firm that specializes in performance testing and protocol compliance. The studies examine key aspects of the Internet's Domain Name infrastructure with results that uncover trends in DNS server configuration and deployed features. Some topics that have helped define the survey over the years have been arguably more leading edge (DNSSEC), while others are best described as quotidian (lame servers). more

Set-Top-Box Revisited: How Does the Gateway Solution Increase Competition?

The FCC seems determined in revisiting and repairing the current CableCard rules fiasco in which it chose to mandate a universal Set-Top-Box for Cable, Telco, and DBS providers. Where does a solution lie, and is the FCC going down another road of improbable acceptance? The problem with a CableCard solution, in an attempt to create more competition, was the opening of current provider STB's to access other venues, which turned out to be both technically and business concept unfriendly. more

Mobile World Congress and the Big Business Model Clash in Barcelona

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona attracted some of the most important people in the broader telecommunications industry. While they were not necessarily all together at the same time it was good to analyse their presentations and the comments they made within the broader context of the market, to get a clearer picture of where the industry is heading -- or, perhaps more importantly -- where those players are trying to push the industry from their own positions. more

Europe and Data Protection: We Need a Real Debate - Exactly What We Don’t Have Now

Europe is at the forefront of the global debate about data protection and privacy. Unfortunately that debate is characterised more by hyberbole and scaremongering than real discussion. Europeans deserve better -- and so does the world, who rightly see Europe as a leader on this subject. The new Commission has a chance to truly lead in partnership with governments, like Brazil, that agree with us. more