The Sad Story of Private Public Interest Commitments (PICs)

The voluntary Public Interest Commitments (PIC) have a long and sad history at ICANN. They were a process never created or evaluated by the Multistakeholder process, thrown together for one purpose and allowed to morph into a mechanism for an almost unlimited number of un-reviewed other purposes. Disputes are delegated to a resolution process which itself was never evaluated for... more

Google Building a Third Data Center in Singapore to Keep up With Rapid Growth in the Region

Google built its first Southeast Asia data center in Singapore back in 2011 and quickly expanded to a second building in 2015. more

The Christmas Goat and IPv6 (Year 8)

This is the eighth year we measure IPv6 on the Christmas Goat. And with the crazy climate we have to live in now where there is no snow on the goat or ground. But IPv6 is doing better than the climate this year. This year we increased from 27% 2016 to 40% 2017. In Sweden Tele2, Tre and Comhem are still the only major ISPs with IPv6 enabled. Tele2 (with IPv6 since ~three years) and Tre is mostly mobile operators, and Comhem has enabled IPv6 in their Docsis network. more

Gripe Site Triumphant Over AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protect Act Complaint

Today's case involves the classic alleged scenario of a gripe site which used a Plaintiff's trademark in Defendant's web site domain name -- and whether this might be a violation of the Anti Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). more

ICANN and the Data Quality Act: Part III

This is the third part of a multi-part series reported by ICANNfocus. In this part, the focus is on how ICANN implementation of the Data Quality Act would address congressional concerns. "Congress is deeply concerned by ICANN's management and is demanding meaningful change in how the organization governs the internet. Congressional concerns regarding ICANN and Congressional oversight activities were detailed in Part II of this series." more

US Department of Defense Getting Aggressive on Adoption of Cloud, Machine Learning

The US Department of Defense is seeking private sector's help to "vault DOD" into the world of elastic computing, data management and analytics, cybersecurity, and machine learning. more

Jakarta Declaration Calls on Governments to Recognize Legitimacy of Encryption

Today in Indonesia, media leaders gathered at UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day event issued the "Jakarta Declaration" calling on governments of the world to recognize the importance of a free and independent media in creating "peaceful, just and inclusive societies". The declaration calls on governments to take steps to support the freedom of the press, and, in the midst of the many actions was this statement: Recognise the legitimacy of the use of encryption and anonymisation technologies more

Client-based WDS: Providing Application Acceleration in Mobile and VPN Environments

Wide-Area Data Services (WDS), aka "WAN Optimization" is becoming the most effective way to improve application performance while reducing network traffic. In scenarios where there is significant network latency that would otherwise render many applications unusable, WDS can deliver almost LAN-like speed. Where bandwidth constraints exist and there is no practical or economical option, WDS can help reduce network traffic, allowing you to postpone or avoid circuit upgrades altogether. The technology provides the ability to centralize applications and servers, furthering the cost savings on hardware, software licensing, maintenance and the operation of a distributed architecture. more

NSA Takes a Leadership Seat at the Global 5G Security Table

It has been a long time coming. In the world of global 5G security, there is only one principal forum. The somewhat cryptically named 3GPP SA3 is dedicated to 5G security and holding its 103rd meeting electronically next week from 17 to 28 May with 772 submitted documents and 189 participants registered. SA3 meets every 60 days and exists at the security center of an ecosystem of numerous technical groups encompassing many hundreds of companies, industry organizations, and government agencies worldwide. more

China Accuses Washington of Damaging Global Trade With Huawei Sanctions

Today, China accused Washington of damaging global trade with sanctions against the tech giant Huawei and says it will protect Chinese companies. more

Finland First Country to Make Broadband a Legal Right

Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications announced today that from July 2010, every person in the country will have a legal right to at least 1Mb of broadband connection. Finland is the first country to guarantee broadband access and has already initiated plans to increase the 1MB minimum to 100Mb by 2015. Communications Minister Suvi Linden says the universal service and Internet connection at the specified minimum speed will help improve the quality and availability of connections in sparsely populated areas. This will in turn contribute to maintenance of rural vitality, increase business opportunities and e-commerce. more

An Open Letter to Big Tech CFOs: Save the Internet Before You’re Forced

Dear Chief Financial Officers of tech giants, the internet is in crisis, and you can lead your organization to help solve the problem. You'll be well compensated, and you'll enjoy massive public relations benefits. I fear that if you don't, global governments will force your hand. There is a shortage of available IPv4 addresses but we are years away (possibly a decade or more) from IPv6 viability and adoption in North America. more

Avoiding an ICANN Monopoly on Policy

With all the focus in the TLD world on the imminent arrival of more than a thousand new TLDs and the still unfinished discussions within ICANN on what policy framework those TLDs will need to follow, it is often forgotten that there are hundreds of other TLD policy frameworks that are mature, stable and well tested. These of course are the ccTLD policy frameworks that have been actively developed over 20 years. more

Turning the Tide of Online Scams: Interview With Prof. Jorij Abraham, Global Anti-Scam Alliance

Professor Jorij Abraham has been a part of the international eCommerce community since 1997. From 2013 -- 2017, he has been Director of Research & Advise at Thuiswinkel.org (the Dutch Ecommerce Association) and the European Ecommerce Association with 25.000+ members in 20 countries. He is now Managing Director of Global Anti-Scam Alliance, whose mission is to protect consumers from getting scammed. He is also e-commerce professor at the University of Applied Sciences, TIO. more

First Private Auction for New Generic Top Level Domains Completed: 6 gTLDs Valued at Over $9 Million

On behalf of Innovative Auctions, I am very happy to announce that we've successfully completed the first private auction for generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). Our auction resolved contention for 6 gTLDs: .club, .college, .luxury, .photography, .red, and .vote. Auction winners will pay a total of $9.01 million. All other participants will be paid from these funds in exchange for withdrawing their application. more