The transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions is finally in the history books. After almost two years of working groups and multiple rounds of meetings, most of us want to take a long vacation and never hear the acronym "IANA" again. However, the transition is just the beginning. Now is the time for the multistakeholder community to exercise its new authorities and responsibilities to ensure ICANN remains accountable to every internet user. more
Michela Menting, Research Director at ABI Research sharing a cybersecurity perspective amidst Brexit aftermath: "It is likely that the UK will continue in a similar direction as the rest of the EU with regards to cybersecurity and cybercrime. However, there may be a dampening impact on the country with regards to the skills pool." more
Last week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was forced to extend the deadline for the new gTLD application to April 20th, after the application system crashed and the technical issue which enabled some applicants to see file names and user names that belonged to other applicants. ... ICANN's decision to extend the deadline is reasonable in the circumstances. more
The United States and India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) today to promote closer cooperation and the timely exchange of information between the organizations of their respective governments responsible for cybersecurity, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "The MOU was signed in New Delhi by Jane Holl Lute, Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and R. Chandrashekhar, Secretary, India Department of Information Technology." more
Milton Mueller, reporting today on the Internet Governance Project (IGP) website: "Although you may not have heard about it yet, there are plans afoot for an Internet Governance Forum for the U.S. The location has been set for Washington, DC at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The date is set at October 2. The purpose of the affair is to debate, discuss and seek out common ground on some of the issues facing the global Internet Governance Forum operated by the United Nations, which will be held in Egypt November 15-18." more
It is very sad to see that Huawei has become a victim of US-China trade war politics and it will be very interesting to see how their court case against the US Government will pan out, the company claims that the ban of its products is "unconstitutional." There is no indication that Huawei has been involved in any spying activity; nor does it appear to have any intention of doing so. more
Michele Neylon, CEO of Blacknight, announced today his election as Chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group of ICANN, the first European to ever hold this position. more
The Internet is contributing more to the American economy than the entire federal government, according to a new study by the Boston Consulting Group. The Internet accounted for $684 billion, or 4.7% of all U.S. economic activity in 2010, according to latest report released by Boston Consulting Group. more
One of the most common questions I'm being asked these days is from local politicians and economic development folks who want examples of other communities that are tackling and solving the digital divide. I'm able to trot out the big-picture stories because they come to my attention in reading about the industry. As an example, just before I wrote this blog, I read an article that says that the State of Maryland will be providing 150,000 laptops to homes... more
During a conference, "Internet of Things," in France, the U.S. Department of Commerce made the announcement that it will hold a public consultation on the different proposals to cryptographically sign the DNS root zone file, and determine who will hold the root zone trust anchor for global DNSSEC implementation, says Milton Mueller on the Internet Governance Forum blog. The blog, titled "Commerce Department asks the world to comment on its plans to retain control of the root," continues... more
The State of California often leads the country in addressing regulatory issues. This makes sense since the State has a population of nearly 40 million and an economy that would be the fifth largest in the world if California were a separate country. A new law was enacted on the last day of the California Legislature that was signed by Governor Gavin Newson this month. more
Companies today manage hundreds or even thousands of domain names that support their organization, their visitors from different countries, and their brands and trademarks. They register misspelling of their names as a defensive strategy to protect their brand from online fraud, or from losing traffic to simple user typos. more
An Internet Bill of Rights may or may not be a good idea. The point here is that, besides highly commendable topics such as net neutrality and privacy, some of them seem to mandate cybersecurity. Approved in Brazil last May, the Marco Civil includes the principle of preservation of stability, security and functionality of the network, via technical measures consistent with international standards. more
The Swedish morning daily Svenska Dagbladet on their editorial page yesterday writes about the EU threat to intervene at mobile roaming costs for voice, SMS and data. The editorial is pushing the point that it's wrong for the EU to try and price regulate the market, but instead the free market will prevail. They even seem to be indicating that the current pricing is fair and that an EU price regulation would hamper investments. In very general terms I would agree with the editorial... more
Om has burnt the midnight oil analyzing Vonage's S-1 filing, coming to the conclusion that, while churn may not be as ugly as people thought, it's still cause for concern, and apparently intensifying. His point at the end about definitions is particularly good, as excluding cancellations in the first 30-days is undoubtedly flattering to the numbers. The net present value of Vonage's lifetime customer revenues is an issue which VoIP-watchers have long speculated about with trepidation -- what if marketing spending, churn, and price competition combined to form a toxic soup which fatally poisoned the economic proposition for access-independent VoIP? more
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