Customer Owned Fiber in Ottawa

Arstechnica had a nice article yesterday by Timothy Lee entitled 'The really long tail' following up on Derek Slater's article last week on the Google Public Policy Blog entitled 'What if you could own your Internet connection?' Both articles are about a pilot project in Ottawa.The "tail" in Timothy's article is the "last mile" (or as I prefer, "first mile") fiber connection from individual homes to a network peering point or other aggregation point where individuals can then choose from among multiple competing ISPs. The importance is, as Timothy Lee puts it... more

.xom, BrandJacking and Error-Search

BusinessWeek is running a column called 'Brandjacking' on the Web. In summary, nobody likes deliberate cybersquatting or typosquatting. But if Typo domain-names did not exist, the traffic would continue to flow to Microsoft or Google via the browser's error search where those very large companies would make money in the same manner as the 'evil cybersquatters'... more

SOPA Could Shutter Registrars and other Domain Name Industry Intermediaries

The Internet Commerce Association has just sent a letter to senior members of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the likely unintended but potentially devastating impact of H.R. 3261 ("SOPA") as introduced upon ICANN-accredited registrars and other participants in the broad domain name industry, as well as upon the domain registrants who use those services. more

AdDomains: A New Weapon for Traditional Advertising

ICANN's new gTLD program was designed in part to boost innovation. The thinking was: give people the canvas and let them paint in new and fascinating ways, with no set direction... and paint they will. Now that the new gTLD dream has become reality, new uses and business models are already emerging to prove this theory correct. One of the industries in which new gTLD innovation is making itself felt is traditional advertising. This is a sector that has been turned upside down by the Internet revolution of the last decade. more

Court of Appeals Avoids “Doomsday Effect” in Iran ccTLD Decision

Earlier today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit issued its decision in Weinstein vs. Iran, a case in which families of terror victims sought to have ICANN turn over control of Iran's .IR ccTLD to plaintiffs. In a unanimous decision the three judge panel stated, "On ICANN's motion, the district court quashed the writs, finding the data unattachable under District of Columbia (D.C.) law. We affirm the district court but on alternative grounds." more

Google and Verizon Offer a Gift to Spammers

Earlier today, Google and Verizon offered a widely publicized "Proposal for an Open Internet." There's been extensive comment with lots of reasons not to like it, but one I haven't seen is that the proposal would make it much harder to filter so-called "mainsleaze" spam. ... The problem is that under the pitifully weak CAN-SPAM law, a lot of spam is entirely legal. more

A Packet of Lies

I've been reading the kerfuffle around Comcast's blocking of various random network protocols with interest. Whilst I remain convinced that blanket "network neutrality" legislation remains just a form of digital gripe water (cures colic for cybernauts), there's clearly a problem. As I previously alluded there's a definite consumer protection issue over what you buy when it says 'Internet' on the tin. So here's tuppence worth of additional input... more

Collisions Ahead: Look Both Ways before Crossing

Many years ago on my first trip to London, I encountered for the first time signs that warned pedestrians that vehicles might be approaching in a different direction than they were accustomed to in their home countries, given the left-versus-right-side driving patterns around the world. (I wrote a while back about one notable change from left-to-right, the Swedish "H Day," as a comment on the IPv6 transition.) more

Who Is Really Behind the Plan to Block .Web?

In May of this year, I questioned whether the continued legal maneuvering of a company called Altanovo Domains Ltd. (Altanovo) could further delay the launch of .web. After reading its second Independent Review Process (IRP) complaint, and ICANN's response, it seems that the unfortunate answer is a resounding "yes," or at least that is Altanovo's intent. more

Berners-Lee Launches Global Campaign to Save the Web From Destruction

Tim Berners-Lee has called on governments, companies and individuals to back a new "Contract for the Web" that aims to protect people's rights and freedoms on the internet. more

Steering Website Traffic with Managed DNS vs. IP Anycast

I recently read an interesting post on LinkedIn Engineering's blog entitled "TCP over IP Anycast -- Pipe dream or Reality?" The authors describe a project to optimize the performance of www.linkedin.com. The web site is served from multiple web server instances located in LinkedIn's POPs all over the world. Previously LinkedIn used DNS geomapping exclusively to route its users to the best web server instance, but the post describes how they tried using BGP routing instead. more

New TLD Update

Here's a chart showing the ten largest new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and the number of domains in each one, going back five days. It's updated every day around 3 AM New York time, so visit early and often. Data is from downloaded TLD zone files. Some new TLDs don't have zone files available yet but I don't think any of them are very big. more

Indian Government Proposes Vast New Powers to Suppress Internet Content

The Indian government has proposed a bill to suppress online content in the country, increase control over messaging and trace messages to their origin. more

Thoughts from ICANN’s Global Domains Division Summit in Vancouver

Last week, several hundred commercial parties involved in the ICANN ecosystem gathered in Vancouver for their annual Global Domains Division (GDD) meeting. Over 600 individuals took part in the meeting which brought together representatives from ICANN's contracted parties. This meeting differs from traditional ICANN meetings as no policy work takes place and discussions are more focused on commercial and operational matters. more

Placing New Domain Names in Temporary “Penalty Box” Could Deter Malicious Use, Says Paul Vixie

Paul Vixie proposes a 'cooling-off period' when domain names are registered in order to help detect and deter malicious activity. "There's no legitimate reason for a new domain name to be registered and go live in less than a minute... more