South Korean Ruling Party Chief Offers Resignation Amidst DDoS Scandal

South Korea's ruling party chairman has offered to resign over a cyberattack reported to have been orchestrated by an aide to one of the conservative party's lawmakers. The move comes after police concluded the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the election watchdog's website on the day of by-elections in October was masterminded solely by a 27-year-old aide to the ruling Grand National Party. The aide has also admitted to orchestrating a similar cyberattack on the website of Park Won-soon, who was elected Seoul mayor in the Oct. 26 elections. more

How Safe Are Your .KIDS?

This year has been one of the busiest years for domain launches in quite a while. Before the end of 2022, we'll see one more significant domain launch, namely .KIDS, on November 29, 2022. This extension is being launched as a safe space on the internet for children and parents. The registry has set out some very strict use policies to make this happen. Some companies have already registered their brands during the Sunrise Period, while others have taken up names in the Community Sunrise. more

FCC Implements Broadband Labels

The FCC voted recently to implement consumer broadband labels. This was required by section 60504 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The new rules will become effective after the Office of Management, and Budget approves the new rules and after the final notice is published in the federal register. ISPs will then generally have six months to implement the labels. The labels look a lot like the nutrition labels that accompany food. more

The Digital Age and Education of the Future

For some years I hear people discuss that education needs to transform and adapt to the Digital Age. In one way education has: I am told that so called MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, are a huge success. Classes from lecturers at (top) universities are freely available online. But this is traditional education distributed and made accessible in a modern form. The debate ought to focus on education for the jobs and skills of the future. more

Open Internet Access on the Line in Brussels

This summer EU regulators are finalizing their guidelines for member states on legal protections for wired, wireless and mobile open Internet access service. European citizens, businesses and NGOs have one last chance to make their voices heard on the so-called "net neutrality" guidelines by writing a comment for Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) by July 18. more

Expect Big Changes from Streaming Video

One of the biggest uses of bandwidth continues to be streaming video from the many online vendors like Netflix, Disney, Hulu, and many others. Final 2022 earnings reports show that this is an industry segment in crisis. Altogether, the losses for just these four video platforms were almost $11 billion in 2022. There are other big platforms like Apple, Google (YouTube), and Amazon that don't specifically report on the performance of the video streaming segment. more

Announcing the Final Terms of the First Applicant Auction for Contested gTLDs

We received several emails and phone calls with thoughtful comments on the proposed plan for the first Applicant Auction and have made several small changes to the plan. The final terms will be sent to applicants who requested the RFC, and can also be requested on our website. Here is a quick summary of the changes. more

Internet Companies in Negotiations for Agreement on Code of Conduct in China

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, in negotiations with other Internet companies and human rights organizations, have reached an agreement on a voluntary code of conduct for activities in China and other countries that censor the Internet. The participants are reviewing the agreement for final approval. more

China One Step Closer to Implementing Controversial Cybersecurity Law

China is moving forward towards implementing a controversial cybersecurity law that could have significant implications for foreign businesses operating in that lucrative market, reports Katie Bo Williams in The Hill. more

US Congress Website Recovers from a Crippling 3-Day DNS Attack

A number of websites owned and operated by the United States Congress are recovering from a three-day DNS attack. more

USA Fibre Investments Encouraging Further Operator Expansion

According to data from the FttH Council, the number of homes passed with fibre in the US increased 13% in 2015, year-on-year, to 26 million. Combined with Canada and Mexico, the number of passed homes has reached 34 million. The take-up rate is excellent by international standards, at more than 50%. Commonly operators look to about 20% to 30% take-up before work can begin on new fibre infrastructure to communities. more

Applicant Auction Set for Dec. 11th, Buenos Aires Workshops, Icann Last Resort Information Released

The Applicant Auction team is heading to ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires this month, and as we start to pack our bags, we thought it was time to share some updates with the community. Last week, ICANN held a webinar to present Auction Rules for its forthcoming Last Resort Auctions. more

It’s Auction Time Again

This week ICANN will auction off .WEB or .WEBS. There are seven live applications for .WEB and one for .WEBS. The string contention process decided that the two names are so similar that they'll only assign one of them, so all eight applications are in one auction... There are some deep pocketed bidders in this round including Google, Donuts, web.com which owns Network Solutions and a lot of other web properties, and Schlund which owns the largest web hoster 1&1. more

ICANN Gets an In-House Physical Security Operations Professional

ICANN has announced a new hire, Mark Jardina – an expert in global security and health and safety as Vice President of Security Operations. more

My Name is Vint Cerf, I’m a Scientist and I am Voting for Barack Obama

Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist who is also credited as the co-founder of the Internet, has endorsed U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama in a YouTube video submitted to AVoteForScience channel. In the video, Cerf discusses the importance of Net Neutrality (NN) and the fact that Obama is the candidate that supports NN. The following excerpt is a portion of what Cerf says in the video... more