X-Force Report: Corporations Becoming No. 1 Security Threat to Their Own Customers

With the alarming increase in cyberattacks, criminals are literally turning businesses against their own customers in order to steal consumer's personal data, warns the latest annual X-Force Trend and Risk report from IBM. "The security industry puts a lot of effort into the technical evaluation of security threats, examining, sometimes at great length, the potential threat that each issue might present to corporations and consumers. Criminal attackers out for profit, however, have considerations that the security industry does not always take into account, such as monetization cost and overall profitability." more

Identical or Confusingly Similar to Trademarks but Noninfringing Domain Names

Domain names may be confusingly similar to trademarks or even identical or but not infringing. This is particularly true of trademarks acquired later than the allegedly infringing domain names ArcBest Corporation v. Domains By Proxy, LLC, Registration Private / Vernon Troupe, D2016-2381 (WIPO January 13, 2017) (<arcbest.com>, in which "ark" is a contraction of "Arkansas"), but it can also apply to marks composed of common element that predate domain name registration... more

Macro Musings for Digital Strategies Using Unstructured Data

When Doug Dawson wrote his article in February on Artificial Intelligence, he felt that #ai is saddled with too much hype as is its current counterpart, 5G. Certainly, there is a great deal of technology out there that deserves the hype and others that do not. After receiving a certification (Intro to AI) from IBM (while using Watson), I'm here to share that artificial intelligence, and its subsets of machine learning and deep learning definitely deserve a soundbite. more

The Great Inevitable: From Broadband Internet to Cloud Application Access

Some inevitable changes are hard to see in prospect, yet are 'obvious' in retrospect. The next communications revolution is 'made for cloud' access. A colleague pointed me to a Forbes article "For Today's Telecoms Companies, Customer Experience Is Just As Important As Download Speeds". It was written by Huawei's global president of assurance and managed services. Well, I told you so! more

Accidentally Importing Censorship

With advancements in hardware and software, sophisticated filtering technologies are increasingly being applied to restrict access to the Internet. This happens at the level of both governments and corporations. .. given the open nature of the trust-based Internet, one country's restrictions, if not handled very carefully, can easily foul the global Internet nest we all live in. This blog is about one such story of Internet restrictions in China becoming visible (seemingly at random) from other parts of the world and going undetected for 3 weeks. more

US House and Senate Democratic Leaders Announce Bill to Restore Federal Net Neutrality Rules

The United States House and Senate Democratic leaders are about to unveil new legislation today proposing to restore federal net neutrality rules on Internet providers. more

Fadi Chehadé Announces His Departure - What’s Next for Businesses at ICANN?

Last week, the CEO of ICANN, Fadi Chehadé, announced his intention to leave his position in March 2016, after almost four years as head of the organization. He plans to take a position in private industry, outside of the domain name space. Although the impact to the business community is unclear at this point, Chehadé's departure throws a spotlight on how important ICANN leadership can be in ensuring that business and brand interests maintain their voice in the Internet governance sphere. more

Internet Society’s New Policy Brief Series Provides Concise Information On Critical Internet Issues

Have you ever wanted to quickly find out information on key Internet policy issues from an Internet Society perspective? Have you wished you could more easily understand topics such as net neutrality or Internet privacy? This year, the Internet Society has taken on a number of initiatives to help fill a need identified by our community to make Internet Governance easier to understand and to have more information available that can be used to inform policymakers and other stakeholders about key Internet issues. more

House Committees Taking Aim at IANA Transition Proposal

In an unanticipated move a third Committee of the US House of Representatives has weighed in with concerns regarding the NTIA's proposed transition of the US role as counterparty to ICANN's IANA functions contract to one with the "global multistakeholder community". On May 13th the House Armed Services Committee Report for HR 4435, the Defense Authorization bill, was released. more

Annual Datacenter Forum in Copenhagen Changes Conference Programme Following Nord Stream Explosions

In light of Tuesday's Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipeline explosions, Datacenter Forum is updating its programme. Ask Tonsgaard Hjordt Brüel (Strategic Consultant, Rambøll), who has been tasked by the Nordic Council of Ministers to analyse the supply, security, and pricing of Nordic energy sources will share his preliminary findings at Datacenter Forum Copenhagen this week. more

Domain Name Registry and Registrar Separation Now Probably Going to Be a Policy Debate

Again on the subject of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) ... One of the "issues" that concerned a number of people is the concept of "vertical separation". The basic idea is that domain name registries and registrars should be kept separate. While that is a wonderful Utopian ideal, the reality is that in the real world companies own other companies, people trade in stocks and shares etc., etc. So it's far from being a simple "cut and dried" situation. more

European Commission on the Future of the Internet

The European Commission has just published a communication which describes the broad lines of its Internet policy in the coming years. Vint Cerf, on the Google Public Policy blog sees this as a very interesting vision. Indeed, it closely links the issue of openness of the Internet to several obvious and not-so-obvious factors. more

How to Donate Safely to Charity

Please share this post. After a tragedy, many of us want to donate to funds and charities to show our support for a community. However, scam charities immediately pop up, looking to steal your well intentioned donations. There are at least 30 newly-registered domains over the past 48 hours related to the tragic shootings at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut: Most, if not all are scams and rip-offs. How then, to donate so that your funds make it to the deserving victims? more

Red Tape Set to Snuff Out Online Identity of Wales

Wales, a small Celtic country that has proudly withstood the depredations of Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and tourists, which has given the world everything from an enduring mythology to the world's longest single-world domain name, has been informed that they will not be allowed to proceed with .CYM (short for the Welsh name for Wales, Cymru) because that three-letter code is already claimed by the Cayman Islands. more

In Which We Explore the Federal Laws that Apply to Cyberstalking

Tragedies frequently result in flurries of legal activity. Last years witnessed the Myspace tragedy in which a 13 year old girl committing suicide. Unfortunately stalking laws have been clumsy tools that are difficult if not impossible for law enforcement officials to wield. Where existing laws respond poorly to tragedies, the option behind Door Number One is to enact a new law, and the option behind Door Number Two is to argue for a reinterpretation of current law that would somehow miraculously shoehorn the tragedy into the law. Unlike game shows, legal contestants can pick both doors -- which is what happened in this case. more