Google, Facebook Latest to Join Net Neutrality Protest on Wednesday

Google and Facebook, two companies that generally stay on the other side of the Net Neutrality debate, have told reporters they will be participating in the July 12th net neutrality protest. more

Realizing the Promise of AI in a World Where Human Rights Matter

Artificial Intelligence, AI, is often portrayed and perceived as just one more innovative stage in a long line of ever more sophisticated and powerful tools that humans use to survive and prosper. AI is different! As its name states, its ambition and goal is not to be just another tool but to introduce an artificial (digital) intelligence that is free from the weaknesses humans confront when doing some tasks. more

EU Standards Must Be Freely Available

In 2019, two organisations - Public.Resource.org of Sebastopol, California, and the Right to Know GLC of Dublin - brought suit against the European Commission for violating the fundamental rights of citizens to access the standards they are required by law to know, and attempting to protect intellectual property by copyright which lacked originality because it was, inter alia, provided by public governmental and industry sources. more

Fourth Round of Initial Evaluation Results for New TLDs

Mary Iqbal writes to report that ICANN has released the fourth round of Initial Evaluation results, bringing the total number of applications that have passed the Initial Evaluation phase to 131. ICANN is targeting completing Initial Evaluation for all applicants by August 2013. more

VoIP: Beyond the Status Quo

On New Year's Eve 2008 I felt compelled to respond to the stories being written about the Death of VoIP which lead to my recent blog post: VoIP is NOT Dead!. Since then, I've enjoyed many of the conversations that have continued to take place in the comment sections of a number of blogs, including this one. My belief is the future is unwritten and if the conditions are right people will return to the space. But we need to embrace innovation and change and encourage people to be disruptive. What follows is a continuation of the conversation. more

ISOC-NY Forum: Civic Representation in ICANN: What Now?

Joly MacFie writes: The Internet Society's New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) will be holding a public forum at NYU on Oct 8 2009 to discuss, in the post JPA world, civic representation in ICANN. Specific concerns are the current restructuring of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council, and the replacement of the At-Large Liaison to the ICANN Board by a seated member. Will the creation of new constituencies serve to balkanize the Noncommercial users and dilute their influence? Will an At-large board member be less answerable to the rank and file? These questions and more will be discussed. The public are welcome to attend and the event will be webcast live. more

Gall’s Law and the Network

In Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail, John Gall says: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system." In the software development world, this is called Gall's Law... more

Documents from the Independent Review of .XXX TLD Bid Held Last Month are Available Online

An independent review of the .XXX Top-Level Domain application by ICM Reegistry was held in Washington DC last month, September 2009. All the documents from the hearing have now been posted online including witness statements from Vint Cerf, VP and chief Internet evangelist for Google and former Chairman of ICANN; Milton Meuller, Professor and Director of the Telecommunications Network Management Program at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies; Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of ICM Registry and others. more

FCC Launched Investigation Into Exclusive Handset Deals

Grant Gross of IDG News report: "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will launch an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said. Copps has instructed FCC staff to open an inquiry into exclusive handset deals, he said during a speech at the Pike and Fischer Broadband Summit Thursday." more

Broadband Speed and Market Signaling: Strategic Constraints in U.S. ISP Policy

Despite early dismissals from cable giants, consumer demand and real-world use cases proved the value of gigabit broadband. Today, slow uploads and strategic pricing continue to signal an industry reluctant to embrace speed. more

Google Announces Its Super Fast Fiber for Kansas City

Google today announced the launch of its "ultra-high speed" Internet access in Kansas City as part of its Google Fiber project... "Google Fiber is 100 times faster than today's average broadband. No more buffering. No more loading. No more waiting. Gigabit speeds will get rid of these pesky, archaic problems and open up new opportunities for the web."
 more

Limiting Large Network Outages

As telecom networks grow more interconnected, local outages can now trigger regional or national disruptions. A recent article by Ookla outlines five critical steps operators must follow to prevent small faults from cascading into systemic failures. more

The Illusion of Internet Governance

There's been a lot of controversy over the U.S. Government's proposal to give up their supervisory role over ICANN. This lead Karl Auerbach, one of the only people ever elected to represent end-users in cyberspace, to write this letter to Congress. Karl did an excellent job as North America's first elected representative in cyberspace. He fought for things that would have made Internet governance more representative, and more transparent. more

ISOC-NY EVENT: Dot NYC - How Are We Doing?

The Internet Society - New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) has for some years been following the .nyc and ICANN process on behalf of the NYC community and will, on May 8 2010, host a symposium "dot nyc - How are we doing?" at NYU. At 1pm NYC Council Member Gale Brewer will deliver keynote remarks, then Vendor Eric Brunner-Williams of CORE Internet Council of Registrars will reveal details of their proposal to the City, and Antony Van Couvering of Minds + Machines earlier comments to the City Council concerning their proposal will be shown in video. ...there will be a discussion "What's it for?" about possible applications - civic, community, commercial, and "outside the box" - for a local top level domain. more

On the Way to the G7 ICT Ministers’ Meeting in Japan

This week in Japan I have been invited to address the Multi-Stakeholder Conference that will officially open the G7 ICT Ministerial summit in Takamatsu. The focus of the ICT Ministerial will be on four distinct areas: (1) Innovation and economic growth; (2) Unrestricted flow of information, and ensuring the safety and security in cyberspace;
(3) Contributing to the resolution of global issues, including digital connectivity; (4) International understanding and international cooperation in the future. more