The Coding of Online Brand Protection

Moore's law postulates that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit will double every two years. That law has given us smartphones and other devices with astonishingly diverse capabilities at ever lower costs. However, while it does not encompass online brand infringement, many trademark managers feel that their task is likewise expanding at exponential speed and imposing escalating costs. Potential cybersquatting based in the more than one thousand new generic top level domains is only one new source of anxiety. While the jury is still out on the level of harmful cybersquatting and the efficacy of the new Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) for new gTLDs, that ICANN program is hardly the only challenge. more

Microsoft’s Size Means Malicious Cyber Actors Thrive

Last month, the Russian state-sponsored hacking group "Midnight Blizzard" gained access to the email accounts of Microsoft leadership, even exfiltrating documents and messages. The group reportedly used a simple brute-force style attack to access a forgotten test account and then exploited the permissions on that account to access the emails of employees in the cybersecurity and legal teams. more

What are TLDs Good For?

Yesterday I said that the original motivations for adding new TLDs were to break VeriSign's monopoly on .COM, and to use domain names as directories. Competitive registrars broke the monopoly more effectively than any new domains, and the new domains that tried to be directories have failed. So what could a new TLD do? more

Mitigating DNS Abuse and Safeguarding the Internet

The internet is a beacon of global connectivity and information, but it has also become a battleground where malicious actors exploit vulnerabilities for various immoral purposes. Domain Name System (DNS) abuse stands has proven a constant in the internet threat landscape, posing risk to the overall digital trust. more

Phishers Exploit the Cybercrime Supply Chain Despite the Availability of Effective Countermeasures

Interisle Consulting Group today released its fourth annual Phishing Landscape report investigating where and how cybercriminals acquire naming and hosting resources for phishing. Our study shows that cybercriminals evolved their tactics for obtaining attack resources, including sharply increasing their exploitation of subdomain and gateway providers. more

Demand for Online Video Drives Akamai Single Day Traffic to 3.45 Tbps

Leading Internet content distribution service provider, Akamai, has announced that its global network is now serving as much as 3.45 Terabits per second (Tbps) of content per day. "The traffic peak of 3.45 Tbps is roughly equivalent to the capacity needed to download the entire printed contents of the U.S. Library of Congress in less than a minute," says the company. Paul Sagan, Akamai's President and CEO, says increasing demand for high definition video streaming is a key factor in these recent delivery milestones. more

ICANN Receives 67 Unique Applications for Chinese gTLDs

At the press conference held in London on June 13, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) officially announced a list of 1930 applications for the new generic top level domain (gTLD). During the 40 years since the launch of the Internet, there are only 22 gTLDs such as .com. The 1930 applications represent a historical change to the Internet; For the first time, Chinese gTLDs will become available and there are 67 unique applications for Chinese gTLDs. more

Morgan Freeman Wins Transfer of morganfreeman.com from Cybersquatter

Perhaps Morgan Freeman never learned about the high profile domain name disputes involving celebrity names (e.g., Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Julia Roberts), because he didn't register morganfreeman.com before it was snatched up by Mighty LLC in April 2003. After learning about Mighty LLC's (no stranger to domain name disputes) cybersquatting, Freeman filed a complaint before a WIPO arbitration panel under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy... more

UN Cybercrime Convention: Time Is Running Out to Address Draft’s Urgent Risks to Human Rights

In two weeks, final negotiations will begin on the UN's proposed Cybercrime Convention, a document which has elicited widespread concern from civil society, industry groups, and some states due to the serious risks it poses to human rights, including privacy and freedom of expression. Since 2022, GPD and other groups, including EFF, Human Rights Watch and Privacy International, have sought to alert stakeholders within the process to the need for substantial revisions... more

Putting String Similarity into Context: Bulgaria’s IDN (.??) vs. Brazil’s ccTLD (.br)

Bulgaria is a nation which is directly impacted by the current Fast Track automatic disqualification when Top-Level Domain (TLD) strings are "confusingly similar" to other TLDs, in this case an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD). Bulgaria has already been declined twice (in late 2009, and in May of 2010) to register the *.?? Cyrillic IDN on the premise that it looks confusingly similar to Brazil's *.br ASCII TLD. Being a native Bulgarian, I did not see how these two strings are similar more

Questioning the Illusion of Internet Governance

I confess, I don't get it. Much has been written about the apparent desire by the United Nations, spurred by China, Cuba, and other informationally repressive regimes, to "take control of the Internet." Oddly, the concrete focus of this battle -- now the topic of a Senate resolution! -- is a comparatively trivial if basic part of Net architecture: the domain name system. The spotlight on domain name management is largely a combination of historical accident and the unfortunate assignment of country code domains like .uk and .eu, geographically-grounded codes that give the illusion of government outposts and control in cyberspace. more

In Rem Domain Name Proceeding: Sometimes “may” Means “must”

Investools, Inc. recently filed an in rem domain name proceeding against a Canadian entity that registered the domain names investtools.com and investtool.com. In rem domain name proceedings are provided for under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA"), 15 U.S.C. 1125(d), and are a handy way for a trademark owner to acquire a domain name from a cybersquatter when the cybersquatter can't be found e.g., is located outside the U.S. ...The ACPA requires that a plaintiff demonstrate four things to establish in rem jurisdiction over a domain name... more

Verisign’s Perspective on Recent Root Server Attacks

On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2015, some of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) root name servers received large amounts of anomalous traffic. Last week the root server operators published a report on the incident. In the interest of further transparency, I'd like to take this opportunity to share Verisign's perspective, including how we identify, handle and react, as necessary, to events such as this. more

Why We Need to Find Solutions on Internet Governance As Soon As Possible

Internet Governance is the buzzword, especially over the past couple of years, with debates and negotiations taking place almost with the same intensity and pathos of delicate issues, such as terrorism. But Internet Governance is a delicate issue. At the beginning, there was the web that made everything better... Life was good and exciting. That was Internet 1.0. But consider Internet 2.0, currently in development. No longer an egalitarian utopia, it has become much like the rest of our society -- divided by class, geography, culture, religion and politics. And its growing fragmentation threatens us all -- because we will be asked to take sides. more

Consumer Trust? Not at ICANN Compliance

Every person and every entity must have a philosophy if they are to be successful. Consumer trust is one of the key issues at the heart of keeping the Internet open as well as prosperous. The ICANN Affirmation of Commitments was signed in 2009 and has been the guiding principle for ICANN's activities going forward. The title of section 9.3 is Promoting competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice. This section is in essence the embodiment of the commitment of ICANN. more