Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 1: Foundations

One could think that the authors of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) -- adopted in 1948 -- had the Internet in mind when they declared in Article 19: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." All human beings are entitled to certain rights, and it makes no difference if they choose to exercise them in a town square or an Internet chatroom. more

Excessive Offers to Sell Domain Names: Evidence of Bad Faith or Bona Fide Business Practice?

Not infrequently heard in domain name disputes are cries of shock and gnashing of teeth that domain name holders may lawfully offer their inventory at excessive prices. Take for example TOBAM v. M. Thestrup / Best Identity, D2016-1990 (WIPO November 21, 2016) (<tobam.com>). Respondent accused Complainant of bullying which Complainant denied... more

Whatever Happened with Namespace Collision Issues and the gTLD Round of 2012

The new gTLD program of 2012, based on the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) policy recommendations of 2007, has been both a success and mess. In terms of its success, many new and innovative names are being introduced on the Internet, more most every day. The mess has involved ad-hoc, independent decisions by the Board and implementation decisions by ICANN staff that have resulted in variety of problems including a broken community evaluation process... more

Are You Ready for the Launch of New gTLDs?

It seems as though the inevitable is now upon us, and though there are many that have wished this day never come, the launch of the first new gTLD registries is approaching. Now whether the first new gTLD registry will launch within the next few months or be delayed due to Advice from world governments remains to be seen. However, most companies with which I have spoken desperately need any extra time to prepare for the launch of new gTLDs. more

ITU-T Takes Lead on Drone IoT Identification in 2019

In today's fast-paced world of IoT, perhaps one of the most significant involves the rapid identification of civilian drones -- more formally known as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The identification of civilian UAVs has become a critical public safety concern today. Establishing a flexible, trusted global means for identifying these objects through worldwide supply chains and resolving the identifier tags to a responsible party rapidly via a network-based resolver is a high priority. more

China: We Lead 3GPP Wireless Standards

In 2018, nothing can get approved in 3GPP that China strongly opposes. In the past, 3GPP often was a battle between a few American giants and their European peers. A Qualcomm or a Nokia will still be heard, but the power has shifted. I haven't seen evidence that the Chinese influence has made for better or worse standards. There are now over a billion 4G subscribers at the big 3 Chinese telcos, by far the largest equipment buyers. Nokia, Ericsson, and the other vendors do not dare oppose their largest customers. more

Halftime Is over for the New gTLD Applicants: Musings of a Hungry Marketer

As I sit in Schiphol airport awaiting the final leg of my journey home from ICANN Toronto, I'm thinking of all the work that lies ahead in the coming months. The sense of being caught in the holding pattern that descended over the industry after the Prague meeting and lasted into September, is evidently over. The wheels have thankfully begun to turn again on the path towards the new TLDs finally going live. more

Telephony is Disrupted Because Voice No Longer Matters… (As Much)

Does "voice" communication really matter as much today in business communications? Think about it. When you need to reach someone today, what do you do? Do you call them on the phone? Or do you send them email? Or a text message? or IM? I know personally that my normal communication flow usually goes something like this: Instant Messaging; I check first to see if I can reach the person on some form of IM... SMS; if the matter is relatively important... E-mail/Facebook/Twitter/other; Previously that would have just been email, but these days I find myself very often sending messages via Facebook or Twitter... more

The Journey of IPv6 Implementation 9 Months Later

ICANN 43 in Costa Rica was in the heart of IPv6 implementation with everybody touching on how much it was needed as part of the internet ecosystem to fully utilize the ICANN expansion of the new gTLD namespace from 21 to the maximum number that will manage to get delegated at the beginning of 2013. more

New TLDs: Finance Dept. Role, Part 2

Last week I wrote about accounting, reporting and promotions. This week, I want to focus on the financial department's role in launching services, renewals and foreign exchange risk management. ... In most businesses, the finance team usually takes a back seat during launch of services as business activity slowly increases in the months that follow. However, in the domain industry, with up to 30 percent of lifetime sales earned in the first three months of launch, it's essential that finance takes a hands-on role from the start. more

.site Domain Names Eclipse .xyz in Dispute Proceedings

Despite the launch of more than 1,200 new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) in recent years, .com remains - far and away - the top-level domain that appears most frequently in decisions under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). But, some new gTLDs are attracting more disputes, including .site, which has become the new gTLD that, so far this year, has appeared in the most UDRP decisions. The rise of .site represents a change from last year, when .xyz was the most-often disputed new gTLD. more

Big Internet Outages - There Is No Such Thing as a Routine Software Upgrade

Last year I wrote about big disruptive outages on the T-Mobile and the CenturyLink networks. Those outages demonstrate how a single circuit failure on a transport route or a single software error in a data center can spread quickly and cause big outages. I join a lot of the industry in blaming the spread of these outages on the concentration and centralization of networks where the nationwide routing of big networks is now controlled by only a handful of technicians in a few locations. In early October, we saw the granddaddy of all network outages... more

And the Wait Continues for .Corp, .Home and .Mail Applicants

On 6 March 2017, ICANN's GDD finally responded to an applicant letter written on 14 August 2016 to the ICANN Board. This was not a response from the ICANN Board to the letter from 2016 but a response from ICANN staff. The content of this letter can best be described as a Null Response. It reminded the applicants that the Board had put the names on hold and was still thinking about what to do. more

The Design of the Domain Name System, Part VI - Overloaded Record Types

In the five previous exciting installments, we've been looking at aspects of the design of the DNS. Today we look at records types, and how you can tell what a DNS record means. All the records in the DNS are strongly typed. Each record includes an RRTYPE, a small number, which defines both the format of the record and what the record means. It is possible and common to have different record types with the same format, but different meanings. more

The True Faith of Internet Governance: Statism Finds Its Champion

A portion of me sympathizes with Richard Hill. He argues passionately in his recent article, "The True Stakes of Internet Governance" for a statist position on Internet governance. It is hard to be an unheeded prophet; difficult to take positions that are not in the comfortable mainstream of what, as you perceive, are lemmings heading for the cliff. I know the feeling. more