Will the Trademark Clearinghouse Fulfill its Potential?

ICANN created the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) as a way to streamline the repetitive process forced on trademark owners during the launch of new top-level-domains. With the expected tsunami of hundreds of new TLD's starting later this year, the TMCH should generate a clear benefit for trademark owners who elect to participate in Sunrise and Claims Periods. The side effect of introducing new TLDs is that the legacy TLDs will be making changes to make sure they are competitive against the new TLDs. more

CERN Celebrates 20 Years of The Free And Open Web

Of all the many applications and services that run on top of the Internet, arguably none has been more successful than that of the World Wide Web. Invented by Tim Berners-Lee back in 1989 while he was a physicist at CERN, the "Web" has fundamentally changed almost every aspect of our life... and become a part of basically every aspect of our life. Think of a part of your life... and then think of the websites that are part of that. more

Announcing the Final Terms of the First Applicant Auction for Contested gTLDs

We received several emails and phone calls with thoughtful comments on the proposed plan for the first Applicant Auction and have made several small changes to the plan. The final terms will be sent to applicants who requested the RFC, and can also be requested on our website. Here is a quick summary of the changes. more

Typosquatting Claims Against Security Researcher Are Legally Complicated - Gioconda v. Kenzie

Kenzie is a security researcher who has registered numerous domain names that are typographic errors of well-known trademarks (e.g., rnastercard, rncdonalds, nevvscorp, rncafee, macvvorld, rnonster, pcvvorld). He points the domain names to the actual sites in question (e.g., rncdonalds points to mcdonalds.com), but he is looking to demonstrate how these typo domains are used for "social engineering" attacks. more

Arrest Made in Connection to Spamhaus DDoS Case

According to a press release by the Openbaar Ministerie (the Public Prosecution Office), a dutch man with the initials SK has been arrested in Spain for the DDoS attacks on Spamhaus. more

Why Most Discussions for Fibre Optic Infrastructure Take Place from the Wrong Perspective

Fibre-based infrastructure requires vision and recognition of the fact that many of today's social, economic and sustainability problems can only be solved with the assistance of information and communications technology (ICT). In many situations the capacity, robustness, security and quality necessary for this calls for fibre optic infrastructures. This need will increase dramatically over the next 5 to 10 years as industries and whole sectors (healthcare, energy, media, retail) carry out the process of transforming themselves in order to much better address the challenges ahead. more

Wrap-up: ICANN 46 in Beijing

Earlier this April, the largest ICANN meeting ever -- more than 2,500 attendees -- kicked off in Beijing. Given the imminent addition of hundreds of "dot Brands" to the Internet, the topic of new gTLDs was at the top of the discussion list for all attendees. So far, well over 100 new gTLD applications have passed the Initial Evaluation stage, meaning they're on their way to becoming live domains. more

Will LTE Steal the Broadband Revolution?

There is no doubt that LTE is going to take a prime position in broadband developments. With competitively priced services, innovative smartphones and an increasing range of very innovative apps this market is set to continue to boom. So how will all this impact the overall broadband market? ...this is not an 'us or them' issue between fixed and mobile broadband. As a matter of fact, the companies that are rolling out LTE are increasingly dependent on deep fibre rollouts as they need to handle massive amounts of data, to which the mobile infrastructure technology is not well-suited. more

Breaking Down Silos Doesn’t Come Easy

"We need to break down silos", is a phrase often heard in national and international meetings around cyber security and enforcing cyber crime. So it is no coincidence that at the upcoming NLIGF (Netherlands Internet Governance Forum), the IGF, but also an EU driven event like ICT 2013 have "Breaking down silos" and "Building bridges" on the agenda. But what does it mean? And how to do so? more

Spanish Joint-Network Investment in FttH Seeing Returns

Spain's economic anguish has had a number of repercussions for the country's telcos, with stable or declining revenue causing much nervousness as operators struggle to fund essential investment in spectrum and both fixed-line and mobile networks. Earlier this year Vodafone felt the pinch, announcing plans to cut its Spanish workforce by up to 1,000. Though general economic conditions have not helped, the move partly resulted from its own decisions. The company saw revenue drop for several quarters and so decided to save money by cutting handset subsidies. more

SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC) Starts Tonight in Herndon, Virginia

Tonight begins the third annual SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC) in Herndon, Virginia, where technical and operations staff from service providers around the world with gather to share information and learn about the latest trends in IP communications services - and specifically those based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Produced by the nonprofit SIP Forum, SIPNOC is an educational event sharing best practices, deployment information and technology updates. Attendees range from many traditional telecom carriers to newer VoIP-focused service providers and application developers. more

ICANN Releases 5th Round of Initial Evaluation Results - 169 TLDs Pass

Mary Iqbal writes to report that ICANN has released the fifth round of Initial Evaluation results, bringing the total number of applications that have passed the Initial Evaluation phase to 169. ICANN is targeting completing Initial Evaluation for all applicants by August 2013. more

Why Donuts Should Win All Wine New gTLD Applications

There are 2 reasons why Donuts, applicant for more than 300 Top-Level Domains, should become the official Registry for wine applications. It is not because of the content of its application: There are 3 applicants in total and all of them followed the rules provided by ICANN in its applicant guidebook. It is not because they protect the wine industry: the Applicant Guidebook did not "force" applicants to do so. It is not because they are American: there are also very good wines in Gibraltar and Ireland. In Gibraltar in particular... more

Questions About the Robustness of Mobile Networks

With mobile phones having become a utility, people are beginning to rely completely on mobile services for a large range of communications. All mobile users, however, are aware of some level of unreliability in these phone systems. Blackspots remain all around the country, not just outside the cities, and in busy areas the quality of the service goes down rather quickly. Drop-outs are another fairly common occurrence of mobile services. more

Are There Countries Whose Situations Worsened with the Arrival of the Internet?

Are there countries whose situations worsened with the arrival of the internet? I've been arguing that there are lots of examples of countries where technology diffusion has helped democratic institutions deepen. And there are several examples of countries where technology diffusion has been part of the story of rapid democratic transition. But there are no good examples of countries where technology diffusion has been high, and the dictators got nastier as a result. more