The signs are that the Australian Government and Google are close to a compromise. The Government's main demands stay in place, but some of the details will be changed. This allows the Government to claim victory, while the damage to Google will be limited... Publishers will, in one way, or another be paid for news, either through a payment based on the value of the news and the value of the Google search facility. more
In a significant service disruption early Thursday, AT&T's network experienced widespread outages, affecting cellular service and internet connectivity for users across the United States. According to the tracking site Downdetector, the issues began around 4 a.m. ET, with over 32,000 reports of outages, which surged to more than 71,000 by 8 a.m. ET. more
Chancellor George Osborne announces government plan to almost double its investment in cyber security initiatives over the next five years, spending an additional £1.9 billion. more
An open letter from nearly 150 individual and organizational members of ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) has been submitted to ICANN's board of directors and CEO. The letter has expresses serious concern over a recent ICANN Board decision regarding the restructuring of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). From the letter: "We believe that the Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) chartering process has been seriously flawed on both procedural and substantive grounds. We appeal to you to address these problems before permanent damage is done to ICANN's reputation, to the GNSO reform process, and to the interests of noncommercial users of the Internet." more
The Eastern Caribbean island of Grenada has been selected as the venue for the fifth regional meeting of the Caribbean Internet Peering and Interconnection Forum, CarPIF, set for June 12 to 13. The annual international event, which draws Internet giants like Facebook and Google to the region, is focused on developing the Internet in the Caribbean by improving policy and building relationships between network operators and content providers. more
ICM Registry (proponents of the .xxx initiative) and Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of the organization, have filed a 522-page brief in the ongoing Independent Review Process that began last June. "In what may prove to be the biggest sleeper Internet governance issue of the year, ICM Registry has publicly posted its filings for the Independent Review Panel that will decide whether ICANN acted improperly in rejecting its application for a .xxx domain," writes Brenden Kuerbis in a post on the IGP blog. more
The Internet Society today published the results of a study that demonstrates the far-reaching economic and societal benefits of establishing Internet Exchange Points (or IXPs) in emerging markets.The study, commissioned by the Internet Society and conducted by independent strategy and research consultancy, Analysys Mason, examined the critical cost and performance benefits of IXPs in Kenya and Nigeria - two sub-Saharan countries that have been on the leading edge of Internet growth in Africa. more
By 2020, some 50 billion devices are expected to connect to the Internet and the economic value created by IoT could be worth as much as $11.1 trillion -- roughly 11% of the global economy by 2025, according to a new report released by AT&T. more
Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has announced that it is working with Afilias and Neustar, Inc. in the effort to support ISC's DNSSEC Look-aside Validation (DLV) registry by providing secondary DNS service for the DLV zone. DLV is a mechanism that provides many of the benefits of DNSSEC (short for DNS Security Extensions), enabling domain holders to secure their domain information today in advance of broader DNSSEC deployment and adoption. "Adding Afilias and Neustar as secondary DNS providers for the DLV zone demonstrates our collective understanding that DLV is a vitally important production service bigger than any single provider in the same way that there are 13 root server operators, not just one." more
"Such a meeting has been a long time coming, large operators have been losing revenue as the communication market has diversified, network optimization should lend to them finding new revenue streams as the level of service can expand" -- Nick York, NGT Summit Director Asia Pacific. more
Yahoo recently become the latest company to join Twitter, Facebook and Google for promising to alert users suspected of being spied on by state-sponsored actors. However UK ministers want to make it a criminal offence for tech firms to warn users of requests for access to their communication data made by security organizations. more
Kieren McCarthy reporting in the Register: "Plans to create a new internet governance body have grown increasingly desperate... and confusing. A conference call between the organizers of the 'NetMundial Initiative' and business organization the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) earlier this week saw ICANN's CEO Fadi Chehade pleading with the group to withdraw their rejection of the program and join its 'coordination council'" more
At a staggering $100 billion dollar valuation and reported 900 million users, Facebook represents a massive presence in the global economy. From an Internet infrastructure perspective, Facebook also ranks amongst the largest of the "hyper giants" generating a significant share of daily global Internet traffic. This blog explore Facebook's size in terms of its Internet traffic contribution. more
An independent review of the .XXX Top-Level Domain application by ICM Reegistry was held in Washington DC last month, September 2009. All the documents from the hearing have now been posted online including witness statements from Vint Cerf, VP and chief Internet evangelist for Google and former Chairman of ICANN; Milton Meuller, Professor and Director of the Telecommunications Network Management Program at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies; Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of ICM Registry and others. more
During a speech at Mobile World Congress today, Ajit Pai said that net neutrality was "a mistake" and that the commission is now "on track" to return to a much lighter style of regulation. more