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Domain Registrations Hit 112 Million

VeriSign is reporting that over 112M domains have been registered as of the end of Q3 2006. A record number of domain names are now registered, at 112 million, which is 30% higher than just one year ago and 6% higher than the previous quarter. The five largest TLDs remain .com, .de (Germany), .net, .uk (Britain), and .org... more

Did Navigation Catalyst Systems Get Off Easy in Verizon’s $100 Million Plus Lawsuit?

Navigation Catalyst Systems (NCS) has settled the well publicized cybersquatting lawsuit brought against it by Verizon. The terms of the settlement are simple and straight forward, amounting to little more than an agreement by NCS to no longer register domains similar to Verizon's trademarks again. No money was apparently paid by NCS as part of the resolution. more

Live Streaming Apps: Piracy Trends Are-A-Changing

Until recently, digital pirates have used both P2P sites and cyberlockers to upload and share pirated content. But as Internet connection speeds have increased, the piracy landscape has changed, and the appearance of streaming content has proliferated. In fact, 38% of online sporting fans are watching live streaming of their favorite events. However, the recent introduction of live streaming apps is further compounding issues surrounding online piracy... more

Catching Spam Email with Project Honey Pot

Since its launch in October, 2004 Project Honey Pot has made some interesting progress in their war against spam email. The project is a distributed system used to identify spammers and spambots operating across the Internet. To put it simply, Project Honey Pot lays millions of traps around the Internet (66,393,293 as of this writing) baited with specific email addresses that are configured to forward received emails to the Project Honey Pot system. Since these are not email addresses used by real individuals virtually every email received is positively identified as spam. more

New gTLD Discussion Draft - Top 10

Okay, so spending my Monday morning printing out and reviewing 348 pages of the "New gTLD Discussion Draft" is not exactly what I had mind when I woke up today, but kudos to ICANN for keeping to the timeline that they had released last month. Since, most of you do not have the time or the patience (and probably have real work to do), I've taken it upon myself to highlight the most important changes in this version. more

Opt-In Permission for Mailing Lists: Is It Enough?

For some time now I have contended that Confirmed Opt-in, 'COI' is dead, or at the very least on life support. It certainly is not a major factor in the continued relation between sender and receiver; that relies far more heavily on the ongoing and historical reputation of the mailer and the mail stream. Proof of permission doesn't scale; end-users complain all the time, but it is rare if not impossible for a receiving site to request proof when an end-user complains, then the receiver complains to the sender, and the sender says that permission was actually in place. Much more commonly, the sender unsubscribes the address and moves on, permission or not, since the subscriber doesn't want the mail any more. But then, I recently had two eye-opening experiences... more

A Brooklyn Bitcoin Mining Operation is Causing Interference to T-Mobile’s Broadband Network

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday sent a letter to an individual in Brooklyn, New York, alleging that a device in the individual's residence used to mine Bitcoin is generating spurious radiofrequency emissions, causing interference to a portion of T-Mobile's mobile telephone and broadband network. more

Massive Cyberattack Aimed at Flooding .Gov Email Inboxes With Subscription Requests

"Massive Email Bombs Target .Gov Addresses," Brian Krebs writes in Krebs on Security: "Over the weekend, unknown assailants launched a massive cyber attack aimed at flooding targeted dot-gov (.gov) email inboxes with subscription requests to thousands of email lists." more

President of easyDNS Responds to WLS Issue

When I came out of the Verisign Product Round-Table at the ICANN Meeting it became clearer to me why I sometimes feel that registries were dangerous things to put in the hands of a for-profit corporation. Here in Canada the .CA namespace is regarded as a "Key Public Resource", thus the registry is administered by a non-profit corporation. The monopoly over the root (which is what it is) is treated very carefully, almost with a "necessary evil" mentality, which if done properly cultivates private enterprise and competition at the registrar level, where it should be. more

Amazon Announces IPv6 Support for Amazon CloudFront, AWS WAF, and Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration

Amazon has made an announcement that CloudFront, AWS WAF, and Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration have all been updated to support IPv6. more

ICANN Releases Temporary WHOIS Specification Plan for GDPR Compliance With Deadline Two Weeks Away

ICANN has released temporary specifications for gTLD registration data in order to establish temporary requirements needed for the organization and gTLD registry operators to continue to comply with existing ICANN contractual requirements and community-developed policies. more

The Need to Keep Congress Fully Informed

The MOU between the Department of Commerce and ICANN includes a series of specific milestones that the corporation is required to accomplish by certain specified dates. One of the specific requirements placed on ICANN by the agency is to define "a predictable strategy for selecting new TLDs using straightforward, transparent, and objective procedures that preserve the stability of the Internet...." The MOU goes on to state that "(strategy development to be completed by September 30, 2004 and implementation to commence by December 31, 2004)." more

Free, Slow, Censored Internet: A Bad Idea

The FCC is looking for an organization to provide free, slow, and censored Internet access. The censorship apparently would include email as well as websites. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal: "Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups [nb. and from me]... The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service [nb. the WSJ hasn't got that part quite right]." more

End of Domain Name Auction Sites

Having eBay has worked out pretty well for the world at large; now it's time for the world of domain names to start using it. We need to throw away the jumble of different auctions and dealer sites. Speculators may not like having their haunts cleaned out, but corporate (end-user) buyers and investors will welcome the chance to deal with one centralized auction mechanism with one set of rules. more

Enhanced Confusion: The European Council and the Governance of the Internet

On November 1, 2014, the new European Commission started its work. One of the priorities of its new president, Jean Claude Juncker, is the digital agenda. The European Union wants to be a leader in the Internet world of tomorrow. Vice President Andrus Ansip from Estonia (some people spell the country name "e-stonia") and Commissioner Günter Oettinger from Germany will have special responsibilities to implement the big plans. Juncker was elected by the European Parliament, although the green light for his nomination came from the European Council. more