IGF 13 & Paris Peace Forum: Europe Should Take Lead in Shaping a “New Deal” on Internet Governance

The development of the Internet has arrived at a new Crossroads. The growing Internet Governance complexity is leading also to a higher level of confusion on how the digital future should be shaped. The French president Emanuel Macron and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will open both the Paris Peace Forum and the 13th IGF where Internet Governance is a key issue. Is the time ripe for a "New Deal" on Internet Governance? And which stakeholder should bear the primary responsibility for the normative framing of the key challenges internet governance is facing? more

Running DNSBLs in an IPv6 World

DNS blacklists for IPv4 addresses are now nearly 15 years old, and DNSBL operators have gathered a great deal of expertise running them. Over the next decade or two mail will probably move to IPv6. How will running IPv6 DNSBLs differ from IPv4? There aren't any significant IPv6 DNSBLs yet since there isn't significant unwanted IPv6 mail traffic yet (or significant wanted traffic, for that matter), but we can make some extrapolations from the IPv4 experience. more

The Tempest in the TLD Teapot

At its recent meeting in Seoul ICANN announced with great fanfare that it's getting ever closer to adding lots of new Top Level Domains (TLDs). Despite all the hype, new TLDs will make little difference... I agree with my old friend Lauren Weinstein that this is a tempest in a very expensive teapot, because all of the purported reasons that people want new TLDs have been proven false, and the one actual reason that a new TLD would be valuable has no public benefit. more

WordPress Announces New .BLOG TLD, to be Available This Year

Automattic, the parent company of the popular blogging platform WordPress, today announced plans to make the new .blog TLD available for registration this year. Earlier this year, the company secured the rights to oversee and operate the registration of the highly contested new generic TLD. more

Wireless Broadband vs Fixed Broadband - The Story Continues

This never-ending story is used by opportunistic telcos and their lobbyists to confuse the issue in order to gain regulatory or political advantage. The debate is now raging again in the USA. In an attempt to talk down their monopolistic position in the market the three telcos - and this time in particular, Comcast - are claiming that real competition does in fact exist in the American broadband market, citing competition from the mobile 4G LTE services as an example. more

Examples of Where ICANN Can Be More Accountable

During the "GNSO Discussion with the CEO" at the recent ICANN meeting in Durban, I stated that ICANN talks a lot about the importance of supporting the public interest, but in reality the organization's first priority is protecting itself and therefore it avoids accountability and works very hard at transferring risks to others. In response to my comments, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé asked me to provide him examples of where ICANN can be more accountable. Copied below is my response letter to Chehadé, which provides seven examples. more

The Domain Industry in 2025: Infrastructure Consolidation, Regulatory Milestones, and the AI Pivot

The domain industry in 2025 saw rapid consolidation, rising regulatory pressure, and a strategic pivot toward AI, trust infrastructure, and tokenization, reshaping domains from static web addresses into dynamic assets for digital identity and commerce. more

Microsoft Cancels Plans to Move Its Internal Wireless Network to IPv6-Only

Microsoft has digressed from a previously announced plan to move its internal wireless guest network to IPv6-only. more

Macabre Result Avoided in Mortician Domain Name Case

If a court won't let you use your own name, you might feel like you're a mere ghost of your former self. That happened to Ed Kalis of Broward County, Florida. In a recent case, Florida's court of appeal considered whether a trial court's order against Kalis, enjoining him from using his own last name in various means of advertising and in the URL for his company's website, was proper. The appellate court held that the injunction was overkill. more

Blocking a DDoS Upstream

In the first post on DDoS, I considered some mechanisms to disperse an attack across multiple edges (I actually plan to return to this topic with further thoughts in a future post). The second post considered some of the ways you can scrub DDoS traffic. This post is going to complete the basic lineup of reacting to DDoS attacks by considering how to block an attack before it hits your network -- upstream. more

Irish Government To Kill IE ccTLD?

While I was in LA last week John sent me details of the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007. While there are some potentially positive aspects in the Bill some of the Bill's contents are, for lack of better word, simply crazy... more

Limitations and Laches as Defenses in Domain Name Cybersquatting Claims

UDRP Paragraph 4(c) states as a preamble that "[a]ny of the following circumstances, in particular, but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be proved based on its evaluation of all evidence presented, shall demonstrate your rights or legitimate interest to the domain name for purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(ii)." Three nonexclusive circumstances are listed. more

ICANN Reaches Landmark Agreement With Country Domains

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) concluded its Montreal meeting with a landmark agreement that cements the relationship between ICANN and the worldwide community of country-code top-level domain registries. "Today's agreement represents both a historic achievement for the ICANN process, and a powerful vote of confidence in the newly reformed ICANN 2.0," said Paul Twomey, ICANN's president and CEO.

Finalizing four years of dialogue and negotiation, the creation of the Country-Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) heralds a new era of cooperative and productive relations among ICANN and the country-code domain registries. The structure and rules for ICANN's new ccNSO were endorsed by domain registry organizations and individual managers representing every region and populated continent. "Today's agreement is a testament to how ICANN is seen as a forum the international Top Level Domain administrators can come together and jointly address issues," said Twomey. more

Words and Descriptive Phrases as Trademarks Registered as Domain Names

In a trademark context, who owns or controls, or would prevent others, from using words and phrases commonly available to speakers in a language community, is in persistent tension. While common words alone or combined may become protected from infringing uses under trademark law, their protection is contingent on factors such as linguistic choices and strength or weakness of marks in the marketplace. more

University of California Identifies the Next Hard Target in a Never Ending War

This is, of course, about the recent NYT article that showcases the results of Prof Stefan Savage and his colleagues from UCSD/Berkeley. As my good friend and longtime volunteer at CAUCE, Ed Falk, points out, this is a great find, but hardly a FUSSP. The nice thing about the fight against bots and spammers is these little victories people on "our" side keep having in an endless series of skirmishes and battles... more