Are Domain Names Recession Proof?

We'll only be able to tell whether domain names are recession proof by waiting for the performance of e-commerce sites during the holiday shopping season. Domain name owners and buyers have to remain in suspense a while longer. Some domainers are experiencing drops in sales and prices. However, it is not clear whether those drops are because of changes in valuations by buyers, sellers, or both. more

How Much Money Is There in Complaining?

Although I don't have a lot of sympathy for the trademark lawyers' argument that trademark holders need to register .sucks domains cheaply before anyone else can, there is one point at the end of their letter that's worth a look. The registry contract for .sucks, between Vox Populi and ICANN, has this sentence that appears (as far as I know) in no other registry contract, in the section on Registry-Level fees. more

A Cool Simulation of SpaceX’s Revised Satellite Broadband Plan

On November 15, the FCC approved a revision to the plan for Starlink, SpaceX's forthcoming broadband satellite service. The new plan reduces the number of satellites from 4,525 to 4,409 and lowers the altitude of the phase-1 satellites from 1,100 to 550 km. Mark Handley, a professor at University College London, has created videos based on simulations he ran of both the original and revised phase 1 plans. more

Why I’m No Longer So Worried About ICANN

"No, the new gTLD program isn't ready!" ... "Yes, I was wrong on the Trademark Clearinghouse!" Fadi Chehadé showed some strong leadership qualities during last week's ICANN regional registry and registrar meeting in Amsterdam. Honesty and courage... What started out as a speech soon turned into a heart to heart. As he responded to questions, Chehadé made some surprisingly honest comments. more

Generic Top Level Domain Insights for Q4 2015

2015 has been a busy year for the new gTLD industry and 2016 will undoubtedly, be another interesting year. Anticipation of the General Availability for some of the highly contentious TLDs, the development of existing generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) in terms of registrations, and business proposition with the majority of the first round of applicants reaching delegation by the end of the year. While 2015 had over 7 million new gTLD domain registrations, the top 25 Top Level Domains accounted for almost a half of both registration revenues and volumes highlighting the need for the industry to garner further momentum and fortune. more

Registration Patterns of Deceptive Domains

A key requirement for a bad actor wanting to launch a brand attack is the registration of a carefully chosen domain name. The most convincing infringements frequently use a domain name that's deceptively similar to that of the official site of the target brand. This allows a variety of attacks to be executed, including phishing attacks... more

IGF 2024 in Riyadh: AI, WSIS+20 and the Global South

"Building our Multistakeholder Digital Future" was the theme of the 19th edition of the UN-based Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It attracted more than 11.000 participants (Offline and Online) from all over the world in Riyadh/Saudi Arabia, December 15-19, 2024. In the 307 plenaries, workshops, open fora, lightening talks and other conversations in the meeting rooms and the lobby halls of the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center (KAICC), nearly everything... more

Is a New Set of Governance Mechanism Necessary for the New gTLDs?

In order to be able to reply to the question of whether a new set of governance mechanisms are necessary to regulate the new Global Top Level Domains (gTLDs), one should first consider how efficiently the current Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has performed and then move to the evaluation of the Implementations Recommendations Team (ITR) recommendations. more

Skype Issues Official Statement About the End of Skype for Asterisk

Before writing my story yesterday about Skype killing off Skype For Asterisk, I had reached out to Skype's PR agency to see if there was any statement from Skype. There wasn't at the time, but today they sent over this statement from Jennifer Caukin, a spokeswoman for Skype... more

The Cycle of E-Mail Security

Stepping back from the DMARC arguments, it occurs to me that there is a predictable cycle with every new e-mail security technology... Someone invents a new way to make e-mail more secure, call it SPF or DKIM or DMARC or (this month's mini-fiasco) PGP in DANE. Each scheme has a model of the way that mail works. For some subset of e-mail, the model works great, for other mail it works less great. more

What’s Going on at ICANN in Cairo

Following up on the big decision at the Paris ICANN meeting in June to make new Top-Level Domains available, there's lots of activity at the ICANN conference in Cairo, Egypt this week. A few of the hot topics of discussion that we are following are the applications process for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), Registry/Registrar Cross Ownership, and restructuring of the ICANN Board. more

Measure Your Bufferbloat! New Browser-based Tool from DSLReports

All things come to those who wait, and bufferbloat measurement tools are no exception. When we hosted a workshop on reducing Internet latency way back in 2013, one of the identified outcomes was the need for better tools to help users understand when they had a bufferbloat problem, and now we have just such a tool from the awesome folks over at DSLReports. Before going any further I should probably clarify what we mean by bufferbloat. 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 35: What’s Going Down, Down Under (Want the Low Down?)

As I've been getting ready to catch my plane for ICANN 35 (Sydney), I can't help but thinking that there are a lot of things going down these days that will dramatically affect makeup of the Internet for years to come. Next year at this time, the root could be a very, very different place. A few of the items that will be getting deconstructed, discussed, debated Down Under are outlined below... more

Spam Kings: Book Review (Part 2)

I'd like to continue on in my review of the book Spam Kings (read part 1) and make some more comments, particularly regarding the antispammers. One thing that I really liked about the book is learning the history of some of the spam tools. I was never a participant on NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email; a USENET newsgroup which discusses e-mail spamming), that was before my antispam time. But I was intrigued by its history. People would gather together and discuss spammers and tools for stopping them, and sometimes spammers would stop by and the flame wars would ensue. more