For the first time ever bankers have launched an EFTPOS advertising campaign. Could this be an indication that they are becoming worried about the competition they are getting from internet companies such as PayPal, Amazon, Google and Apple (iTunes)? The digital economy is growing much faster than the bricks-and-mortar economy and, while EFTPOS is not going away anytime soon, an increasingly large amount of money is now bypassing their systems. more
The December 21 deadline for submission of public comments on the latest CCWG-Accountability draft proposal is quickly approaching. In this second draft of the proposal, great strides have been made toward addressing the accountability issues that members of the community have raised (notably, Lawrence Strickling's recent remarks). As I have previously emphasized, any plan to ensure the accountability of the ICANN Board of Directors must be closely scrutinized before ICANN pursues its implementation. more
The Updated Supplementary Procedures for Independent Review Process ("IRP Supplementary Procedures") are now up for review and Public Comment. Frankly, there is a lot of work to be done. If you have ever been in a String Objection, Community Objection, or negotiated a Consensus Policy, your rights are being limited by the current way the IRP Supplementary Procedures proposal is structured. With timely edits, we can ensure that all directly-impacted and materially-affected parties have actual notice of the IRP proceeding... more
Regular readers of this site would be familiar with the ongoing legal battles involving the practice of typosquatting; the registration of misspelled domain names of well know brands with the intention of making a profit. Taking advantage of the fact that millions of online users mistype addresses of websites they intend to visit, typosquatters register common misspelled versions of popular sites and make money by displaying ads. Google's AdSense for Domains (AFD) program, often used for displaying such ads, has been particularly targeted by trademark owners which according to McAfee's SiteAdvisor, serves ads on more than 80% of typosquatting sites recently uncovered. more
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa today announced that the Full Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking on security, jobs and the Internet community. The Committee will hear testimony from cybersecurity experts and others from the technology community. more
It looks as if new top-level domains are getting ever closer to the opening bell. Preliminary minutes from the December 9 2009 ICANN Board of Directors meeting suggest that the Board may authorize Expressions of Interest (EOI) at their February 10th meeting. The vote was unanimous. more
U.S. Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security have released a road map setting out steps to stop the cyber threat to nations internet infrastructure, announced NTIA. more
The Caribbean suffered six major storms in 2017, including the record-breaking Category 5 hurricanes Irma and Maria. In the unprecedented destruction, the islands of Dominica and Barbuda lost all communication and telecommunications service, and eight other Caribbean countries were severely disrupted. Each hurricane season wreaks greater devastation than the last, yet decreased telecommunications competition, inadequate regulation, and high national debt burdens in the region yield ever-diminishing infrastructural investment. more
United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Galveston Division has denied plaintiffs motion for a temporary restraining order thus allowing IANA transition to proceed as planned. more
As countries begin to fully understand the implications of universal broadband, a mind-shift is taking place in the minds of the people involved in the decision-making processes, and the split between infrastructure and content is becoming more apparent. Futile regulations from the past are making this crystal clear. more
On Friday, the decision to deregulate "special access" circuits was upheld. The case had been brought by the Ad Hoc Committee, a long standing body of large business users, one of the main categories of buyers of high capacity leased lines to interconnect business premises. more
Two years after the initial wave of WannaCry attack in May of 2017, security researchers say the ransomware continues to spread to vulnerable devices. WannaCry infection has affected close to 5 million devices to date. more
A few weeks ago, on Oct. 1, 2016, Verisign successfully doubled the size of the cryptographic key that generates DNSSEC signatures for the internet's root zone. With this change, root zone DNS responses can be fully validated using 2048-bit RSA keys. This project involved work by numerous people within Verisign, as well as collaborations with ICANN, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). more
United States Department of Commerce on Monday announced the official date for privatization of the DNS to be September 30, 2016 -- formerly set to expire on September 30, 2015. more
More than a year has passed since the first organizational review team delivered its final report on ICANN's accountability and transparency. Disappointingly, ICANN has done precious little to act on a key recommendation in that report. Its failure to act threatens to damage ICANN's credibility, just as it enters one of the most critical periods in its history. more
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