Major European legislation, the General Data Protection Regulation, evoked substantial change in the way we deal with the visibility of domain name registration information, and understandably those that use that data to solve problems are concerned about these changes, and some have even called for a U.S. legislative fix. However, a more in-depth look at the issue and the policy-making surrounding it will show that there is, in fact, a process already well underway to address the situation. more
The first element of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) requires a complainant to prove that the disputed domain name "is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights." It's unusual for a complainant to fail on this first of three prongs, but one recent case demonstrates just how uncertain the UDRP can be sometimes. more
It is interesting that when governments and financial investors, such as superannuation funds, talk about infrastructure investments and infrastructure investment funds they rarely include telecommunications in their deliberations... Most politicians and infrastructure investors have problems seeing telecoms infrastructure in that context. From a visionary and strategic aspect one could argue that, at a political level at least, telecoms should be seen as, and included in any policies on, national infrastructure. more
Thousands of Russians in Moscow and other cities rallied on Sunday against tighter internet restrictions. The protest is reported to be one of the most prominent in the Russian capital in years. more
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will charge customers for public IPv4 addresses effective February 1, 2024. The charge will be $0.005 per IP per hour for all public IPv4 addresses, irrespective of whether they're attached to a service. more
"It's possible that application fees for new gTLDs could be artificially propped up in order to discourage gaming," reports Kevin Murphy in Domain Incite. more
Total number of domains names across all top-level domains grew to 326.4 million in the first quarter of 2016, Verisign reported today. more
Most developed nations are now revisiting their telecoms policies with a view to using telecoms infrastructure as a tool to revive the economy. And when exploring this it quickly becomes clear that open networks are necessary if we are to achieve the economic benefits that the digital economy has to offer. The multiplier effect of open infrastructure is obvious. It stimulates developments in healthcare, education, energy, media and Internet -- this in stark contrast to the closed (vertically-integrated) networks that are currently operated by most incumbent telcos around the world. more
Apple announced its decision to trust only one-year digital certificates on its Safari browser in February 2020. This decision created a domino effect, with Mozilla and Google following suit; certificate providers announced they would not issue two-year certificates after Aug. 19, 2020. We wrote an article in March to help brands to prepare for this change. more
A rival tells me how hard it is to compete with Huawei because they manufacture so many products. “We had a good opportunity at one customer. Our software is just right for them. “They wanted to buy a complete system. We bundled our software with $4 million of equipment and bid aggressively at $7 million. Huawei came in with a bid of $4 million for hardware and software combined. They manufacture their own servers at a much lower cost than he could buy servers. more
We all know that the Internet is one of the most important tools of our time, but we can't afford to take the Internet -- or its future -- for granted. There are uncertainties facing the Internet's future and how they evolve will have a profound impact on society and our ability to solve some of the world's biggest challenges... To help answer these and other questions, the Internet Society is embarking on a collaborative initiative to envision scenarios for the evolution of the Internet. more
Recently I was reminded of the words, "responsibilities and service to the community." To individuals involved in internet governance, these words should be well known. But have we lived by the code exemplified by these words? Have we lived up to the high standards that they represent? I have always been a student of history because it never fails to show me that humanity, on many occasions, tends to repeat the same mistakes. more
Since the RIPE NCC launched its Resource Certification service, there is a steady increase in the number of prefixes covered by certificates. The Resource Certification (RPKI) service was launched at the beginning of 2011. The system enables network operators to perform Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) origin validation, which means that they can securely verify if a BGP route announcement has been authorised by the legitimate holder of the address block. more
A team of Scientists in Pisa, Italy are reported to have set a new world record in wireless data transmission speed. Italian researchers from Sant'Anna University along with the Japanese Waseda University and the National Institute of Information and communication technology in Tokyo, for the "first time in the history of telecommunications" achieved throughput speeds of above 1.2 Terabits per second. Previous record, set in Korea, had been160 Gigabits per second. more
I have learned that lesson many times over. In many of the issues that we are facing, as a society or in our industry, I am reasonably confident that common sense will eventually prevail. Sometimes the road twists and turns, but in the end water flows around rocks. In our industry I can refer to developments we have been advocating for (structural separation, utilities-based telecoms infrastructure, broadband for social and economic benefits, ICT-based industry and sector transformation, FttH, internet as a tool for more direct democracies, etc). more