8 Facts About 3-Member Panels in UDRP Cases

Proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) can be heard by either a one- or three-member panel. Here are eight important facts that every complainant (trademark owner) and respondent (domain name registrant) should consider when deciding whether to select one or three members... Either party - complainant or respondent - has an opportunity to select a three-member panel... more

US Department of Commerce Reports on Open Internet, Privatization of DNS

Report form U.S. Department of Commerce: "Enabling Growth and Innovation in the Digital Economy" ... "The report articulates the Department of Commerce’s philosophy for digital economy policymaking and demonstrates the many ways in which the Department has pursued its policy agenda consistent with that philosophy." –Penny Pritzker, U.S. Secretary of Commerce more

Annual Review of .fr ccTLD, With Growth of +6% in 2021

Like 2020, the year 2021 saw exceptional conditions, with the persistence of the health crisis. As the registry for the .FR TLD, Afnic was well placed to observe the adaptation of French society to these exceptional conditions, particularly from the viewpoint of the digital transition process. Following on from a historical record in .fr domain name creations in 2020 (793,441), the 776,514 in 2021 have confirmed the take-up of digital benefits by French users, with registrations still up 12% as compared to 2019. more

NANOG’s Edward Mc Nair to Deliver Keynote Address at CaribNOG 17 in April

Edward Mc Nair will deliver the keynote address at the next regional meeting of the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), to be held in Bridgetown, Barbados from April 10 to 12. The featured talk will take place on Thursday 11 April at 9 am AST. A live netcast will be available. Mc Nair is the Executive Director of the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG). more

The hiQ Decision Legalized Infrastructure Theft - We Need a Federal Fix

The hiQ ruling erased legal protections against commercial scraping, leaving infrastructure providers to absorb escalating costs. Without federal action defining data misappropriation, a free-rider AI economy could undermine open networks, investment, and long-term data integrity. more

DCA Trust Strongly Urges ICANN Board Not to Adopt the Proposed Amendment to Its Bylaw

ICANN has been busy in managing several parallel processes that are also closely tied together in one way or the other. The processes include the new gTLD process, the IANA transition and most currently and important action yet that would act as the synergizing factor is the accountability process. ICANN has also posted for public comment proposed Bylaws revisions that would incorporate a higher voting threshold for the Board to determine not to follow the advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee. more

Facebook Building Its Next Datacenter in Ireland, Most Advanced in the World Company Says

Facebook has announced the construction of a new $220 million (€200 million) data centre in Clonee, County Meath, Ireland. This will be Facebook's sixth data center worldwide and the company's second in Europe, after Luleå in Sweden. more

Carlton: ICANN TLD Expansion to “Increase Output, Lower Price and Increase Innovation”

According to the latest update from ICANN related to the introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), Dr. Dennis Carlton has reiterated that the planned introduction of new gTLDs will not burden trademark owners with additional defensive registrations. Carlton writes: "I conclude that ICANN's proposed framework for introducing new gTLDs is likely to facilitate entry and create new competition to the major gTLDs such as .com, .net, and .org. Like other actions that remove artificial restrictions on entry, the likely effect of ICANN's proposal is to increase output, lower price and increase innovation. This conclusion is based on the fundamental principles that competition promotes consumer welfare and restrictions on entry impede competition." more

Internet Association Meets With the FCC In Efforts to Preserve Net-Neutrality Rules

Jon Brodkin reporting in Ars Technica: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and his staff met yesterday with the Internet Association, a trade group whose members include Amazon, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal, Reddit, Spotify, Twitter, and about 30 other Web companies. The meeting occurred about a week after Pai reportedly met with broadband industry lobby groups to discuss his plans for eliminating net neutrality rules." more

4 Items for Applicants to Consider in Planning, Even As You Wait

With the effective deregulation of the domain name industry through the imminent launch of up to 1,000 new gTLD's, the competitive landscape is going to get a whole lot hotter over the next 24 months. We will likely see some financially and commercially successful ventures. It is likely that we will see many unsuccessful ones as well. The gap between success and failure will be slim. more

Digital Sovereignty and Internet Standards

There have been a number of occasions when the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has made a principled decision upholding users' expectations of privacy in their use of IETF-standardised technologies. (Either that, or they were applying their own somewhat liberal collective bias and to the technologies they were working on!) The first major such incident that I can recall is the IETF's response to the US CALEA measures. more

Security Flaw in TPM Chips Allows Attacks on RSA Private Keys

Details of Infineon’s RSA key generation vulnerability was made public today after several announcements by vendors last week. more

CAICT Holds ICANN 58 China Internet Community Readout Session

In the afternoon of March 29, the CAICT held the ICANN 58 China Internet Community Readout Session in the CAICT together with the ICANN Beijing Engagement Center. Mr.Li Xiangning, Deputy Director General of Information and Communication Administration under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), attended the event and gave a speech on the meeting. Over 60 representatives from related governmental agencies including the Office of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Beijing Communications Administration, domain name registries and registrars, industrial organizations, institutes and universities participated in the seminar. more

Trust Binding

A few months ago, there was a lot of discussion that despite its claims, Zoom did not actually offer end-to-end encryption. They're in the process of fixing that, which is good, but that raises a deeper question: why trust their code? (To get ahead of myself, this blog post is not about Zoom.) If Zoom has the key but doesn't abuse it, there isn't a problem, right? Let's fast-forward to when they deploy true end-to-end encryption. Why do we trust their code not to leak the secret key? more

Internet Shut Down in Iraq in Response to Mass Protests

The Iraqi government shut down internet access in the country for nearly four hours in response to mass protests in Baghdad. more