Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms

The Internet is at a crossroads. And while high-profile events like the introduction of new gTLDs and revelations about governments and online surveillance may be a catalyst for recent Internet governance reform initiatives, their necessity isn't exactly new. After all, the current structures and processes in place were set up a decade and a half ago, an eternity in Internet years. A key step in reviewing and renewing these structures is the Panel on the Future of Global Internet Cooperation, announced at the recent ICANN meeting in Buenos Aires. more

Rewiring Internet Governance: U.S. Government Will Likely Be Forced to Jettison ICANN (Part 3)

The survival thesis mentioned in Part 2 goes like this. ICANN's imaginary mandate is global. But the mind set is provincial. The latter is defensive; focused on keeping power and therefore control over internet policy. But the evidence points to policy actions that contradict policy rhetoric. Discrepancies disclose the delusion. Here's ICANN "core value" from Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 6 (amended April, 2013): "Introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names where practicable and beneficial in the public interest." more

The Mosque and the Bazaar: Islam, ICANN, and the New gTLD Program

The launch of the new gTLD program in January, 2012 was undoubtedly one of the finest moments for ICANN; and rightly so. The launch was a culmination of thousands of hours of hard work by thousands of people from various countries, interests, and walks of life. In the end, a 338-page Applicant Guidebook with details about how the new gTLD program was to be implemented was produced. Thus was set the stage for the greatest cyberland rush in history. more

Are We Ready to Switch Off IPv4?

At the RIPE 67 meeting in Athens, Greece, the RIPE IPv6 Working Group ran a little experiment to test the feasibility of an IPv6-only network and to identify challenges in user experience. While the results were highly encouraging, they indicated that there is still work to be done before IPv4 can be switched off once and for all. As IPv6 is slowly but surely deployed around the world, we've entered a phase where it's necessary for your devices to be able to communicate using either of the two IP protocols currently in use. more

Global Technical Internet Related Issues That Need Fixing

Given its engineering background, many positive contributions can be made by the engineering community in the broader ICT world to assist in addressing some of the broader internet issues, often addressed within the more limited telecoms environment.. Of course some of this is already happening; however much more work would be needed to strengthen the technical foundations of the internet. Just as an example, the type of issues that could be addressed by a broader ICT engineering foundation could include... more

Rewiring Internet Governance: Step One Is About ICANN (Part 1)

It is time for some straight talk about governance. The word "governance" used here means authority. It does not merely mean rules, or coercion, or any other weasel-worded definitions that deflect our attention from the art of good governance as distinct from self-serving opportunism and illusory power sharing. Politics, as Theodore Lowi reminded us, is ultimately about "who gets what". Quibbling with endless essays about who rules the root is useful, but not demonstrative. more

ISOC Bulgaria Urges Chapters to Help Governments Answer to a Question from the ITU

ISOC-Bulgaria has been following the developments around Internet governance on the global arena since 2001, when we started participate in the WSIS process. Our representatives supported the efforts of the Bulgarian government to make sure the Internet is developed in an open, bottom-up, and transparent way. Last week in Geneva (November 11-12) at the ITU there was a meeting of the ITU Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues. more

Who Uses Google’s Public DNS?

Much has been said about how Google uses the services they provide, including their mail service, their office productivity tools, file storage and similar services, as a means of gathering an accurate profile of each individual user of their services. The company has made a very successful business out of measuring users, and selling those metrics to advertisers. But can we measure Google as they undertake this activity? How many users avail themselves of their services? Perhaps that's a little ambitious at this stage, so maybe a slightly smaller scale may be better. Let's just look at one Google service. more

In Praise of ICANN

ICANN comes in for a lot of criticism. That's because people care very deeply about it. The multi-stakeholder model, of which ICANN is the exemplar, is such a radical and revolutionary departure from how global affairs have been managed in the past that many of us are constantly on guard lest ICANN degrade into the command-and-control structure that characterizes other global regulatory bodies. At ICANN, it's the volunteers, those who care (as well as, yes, those who are paid to pretend to care) who set policy more

ICANN@15: Born in the USA - But Will It Stay?

This article was originally intended to be a short one focused on indications that ICANN was exploring the establishment of a legal nexus outside the United States and discussing what that might mean - and whether it was consistent with the Affirmation of Commitments (AOC) entered into with the United States in 2009. Then, as completion neared, came the sudden and nearly simultaneous release of the October 7th Montevideo Statement and the announcement two days later of a proposed 2014 Brazil "Summit" focused on restructuring Internet governance. At that point the task vastly expanded. more

Will the ICANN Auctions Kill off New gTLD Innovation?

As the launch of the first of the new gTLDs draws ever closer, more and more applicants are beginning to publicise their business models and ideas for putting the Domain Name System (DNS) to good use. By doing so, they are also shedding light on what promises to be a far less uniform Top Level for the Internet than might have previously been feared. A schism is appearing in the type of applicant/TLD model being enacted. Up until now, Donuts, Google et al have tended to hold the spotlight, and for good reason. more

“ICANN Urged to Rule on .LLP ‘Breach’”

There is probably no worldwide community without at least one member located in the US. But does this qualify the closing of a community to only US based members and, by extension, to exclude all other eligible entities from around the world solely because of arbitrary geographical circumstances based upon company whims? more

Enhanced Cooperation in Internet Governance: From Mystery to Clarity?

After three days of intensive discussion the UNCSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC) ended its second meeting last week in Geneva. It discussed the results of a questionnaire, which was send out after the 1st meeting of the WGEC (May 2013) and agreed on procedures how to move forward. The WGEC has to report to the forthcoming UNCSTD meeting in May 2014 in Geneva. more

We Have a Paradigm for Surveillance That’s Broken, Fit Only for the Analogue Past

As each day brings new revelations about surveillance online, we are starting to see increasing activity in national legislatures intended either to establish more control over what the security services can do to their nationals (in countries like the US), or to limit access by foreign secret services to the personal information of their citizens (countries like Brazil). Unfortunately, neither of these approaches address the underlying problem: we have a paradigm for surveillance that's fit for the analogue past, not the digital present, let alone the future. more

Technical Viability of Dotless Domain Names

It was never obvious at the outset of this grand Internet experiment that the one aspect of the network's infrastructure that would truly prove to be the most fascinating, intriguing, painful, lucrative and just plain confusing, would be the Internet's Domain Name System. After all, it all seemed so simple to start with: network applications rendezvous with their counterparts using protocol-level addresses, but we users prefer to use "natural" identifiers that act as aliases for these addresses. more