Why Don’t We Have Peak and Off-Peak Pricing for Broadband?

I saw a poster on the London Underground yesterday, and as is often the case it got me thinking about the parallels with telecoms. The poster explains the peak and off-peak fare structure for tube travel. The purpose of this pricing system is to manage the relationship between supply and demand in a system that is capacity constrained. Over short and medium timescales the supply is essentially fixed, and demand can oversaturate that supply. more

Several New TLDs in Limbo as ICANN Conducts Investigation

A number of new gTLD applicants, including .gay and .music are criticizing ICANN for conducting an investigation into its own controversial practices. more

French Presidential Candidate Confirms Massive Hack, Emails Dumped Online Two Days Before Election

Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign confirmed on Friday a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online less than two days before the election. more

First Two-Day School on Internet Governance in Afghanistan

On Wednesday April 26, 2017, Afghanistan had its first two-day long school on Internet Governance. The event was organized by a home grown civil society by the name of National IT Professionals Association of Afghanistan (NITPAA). Afghanistan School on Internet Governance (AfSIG) is a new initiative by a group of volunteers at NITPAA, who worked tirelessly for months to put up an event that comprised of speakers from multiple organizations and multiple stakeholders across the country. more

Seattle Restores ISP Privacy Rules. Could be First of Many Cities to Defeat FCC’s Privacy Roll Back

The city of Seattle this week will move forward with its own plan to restore broadband user privacy rules despite the recent law passed by U.S. Congress, signed by President Trump in April, which gave ISPs the green light to collect customer data. more

The Economist: Data, the Oil of the Digital Era

In its latest print edition, The Economist calls the world's most valuable resource to be no longer oil, but data. more

China Steps Up Media Pressure, Extends Restrictions to Blogs, Apps and Other Digital Media

China's latest restrictions on online news and commentary will extend to blogs, online forums, mobile apps, instant messaging tools and other forms of digital media under rules published May 2 by the Cyberspace Administration of China. more

Germany Investigating Legal Grounds to Destroy Servers Used to Carry Out Cyberattacks

Hans-Georg Maassen, Germany's head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution says large amounts of data were seized during the May 20015 cyberattack on lower house of parliament (Bundestag). more

Brand Control: The Next Stage for Digital

Social and Digital Marketing are two of the fastest growing, and arguably the most important, pieces of branding today. According to eMarketer, 2017 digital marketing expenditures will account for 38.4% of total ad spending and are projected to be almost 45% by 2020. This is double what they were just a few years ago and growth doesn't seem to be slowing down. more

Internet Heavy Weights Staying Out of Net Neutrality Battle

Tech giants including Aamzon and Tiwtter are staring out of the contentious, public fight over the future of the Obama-era net neutrality rules. more

Oh, Those Wild and Crazy New TLDs

Among the many issues affecting ICANN's thousand new TLDs is collisions, that is, the same name already used elsewhere. The other uses are non-standard and unofficial, but some names turn out to have been used a lot. One approach to see how bad the collisions are is controlled interruption, in which the TLD publishes wildcard records with obvious impossible values, in the hope that systems that use colliding names see them and do something about it. more

NSA to Stop Collecting American Emails To and From Overseas

U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) will halt its controversial warrantless surveillance program which collects Americans' emails and texts sent to and from people overseas and that mention a foreigner under surveillance, according to a New York Times report today. more

New Chapter Working Groups Open Closed Doors

One thing was clear from a recent presentation by the new leaders of the SF-Bay Internet Society (ISOC) Chapter Working Groups: inclusion and collaboration will be the key to these groups' success. As Dr. Brandie Nonnecke, the Internet Governance Working Group (WG) Chair said, "We haven't yet cracked the code on what 'multistakeholder' means." But that won't stop her and Dr. Jaclyn Kerr, the Data Protection, Privacy, and Security WG Chair, from trying. more

Over 800 Startups Send Letter to Pai: Focus Instead on Policies for Stronger Internet for Everyone

The coalition led by Engine, Y Combinator, and Techstars, along with over 800 tech startups sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to focus "on policies that would promote a stronger Internet for everyone," rather than dismantling the existing net neutrality framework. more

Fierce Political Battle Expected as FCC Chair Elaborated on Plan to Reverse ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaking in Washington today, said he wants to reverse rules that boosted government regulatory powers over Internet service providers. more