Department of Commerce Begins Re-Solicitation for IANA Contract

In follow up to the cancelation of IANA Contract RFP last month, the United States Department of Commerce (DoC), National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) have just issued solicitation of the contract. more

The ISP Industry: Concentrated or Diverse?

In August 2010, we looked at the growth in RIPE NCC membership and concluded that the number of new RIPE NCC members is still growing at an amazing pace, even during the recent economic downturn... This time we are looking at the different sizes of RIPE NCC members over time. It is often claimed that there is massive consolidation happening in the ISP community, especially in times of economic difficulties like in the early 2000s and now. We were curious to find out if this is really the case. more

Name Collisions II - A Call for Research

This post is a heads up to all uber-geeks about a terrific research initiative to try to figure out causes and mitigation of name-collision risk. There's a $50,000 prize for the first-place paper, a $25,000 prize for the second place paper and up to five $10,000 prizes for third-place papers. That kind of money could buy a lot of toys, my peepul. And the presentation of those papers will be in London -- my favorite town for curry this side of India. Interested? Read on. more

The Discrepancy in Confusion and Similarity Decisions of New gTLDs

After more than half of the new gTLD String Confusion Objection determinations that have been published we have updated our popular chart which compares the Visual Similarity (determined by the SWORD tool) with the results of the String Confusion Objections. We found that there is a huge discrepancy in what has been expected in the ICANN community and what the "Experts" have be decided. more

Could Bulk-Registered Typosquatting Domains Be Connected to .ORG DNS Abuse?

Public Interest Registry (PIR) announced the creation of the DNS Abuse Institute about two months ago as it believes that "every .ORG makes the world a better place" and "anything that gets in the way of that is a threat," notably in the form of Domain Name System (DNS) abuse. To show support for the initiative, WhoisXML API analyzed monthly typosquatting data feeds for December 2020, January 2021, and February 2021 to identify .ORG domain trends... more

New gTLD Round 2 Update – Where Are We Really At?

Many industry onlookers and potential future applicants may be aware of the significant step the New gTLD Round 2 Program took recently when ICANN's policy body, the GNSO Council, unanimously approved the recommendations put forward in the final report from the community-led Subsequent Procedures Working Group and sent it to the ICANN Board for approval. more

gTLD Contention Auction in May: Request for Comments

Many gTLD applicants with strings in contention have already heard about the Applicant Auction, a voluntary private auction for resolving string contention that my colleagues and I are organizing. In this post we'd like to share some updates on our progress. Most importantly, we realized that more than just an escrow agent is needed for the success of a private auction of this scale, and we have partnered with Morrison & Foerster, LLP, a global law firm, who will be acting as the neutral party for our auctions. more

France Proposes Internet Tax - An Old War resurfacing

France is proposing an Internet Tax which was reported in the New York Times. The proposal if it follows through will affect the landscape of internet governance in days ahead. The Actual Report was commissioned by President François Hollande, which described various measures his government was taking to address what the French see as tax avoidance by Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook. more

Biggest Botnet Takedown to Date

Yesterday law enforcement officials arrested 6 people and charged them with running a massive internet fraud ring. Over 4 million PCs were part of the botnet. According to the FBI, "the cyber ring used a class of malware called DNSChanger to infect approximately 4 million computers in more than 100 countries. There were about 500,000 infections in the U.S., including computers belonging to individuals, businesses, and government agencies such as NASA." more

Four Promises ICANN Must Meet with New Top-Level Domains

Just back from a week of ICANN meetings in Dakar. Is it just me, or is the new top-level domain program starting to feel like a TLD triathlon, where everyone's now jockeying for position in the final stage -- a grueling marathon? When ICANN's board approved the new gTLD plan in Singapore, it came with the promise of small but substantive changes to improve the program. I hope that wasn't empty rhetoric... more

Google’s Gigabit Gambit

Want a gig (1000 megabits per second) of Internet access bandwidth? Google says you could have it by the end of next year "from Manhattan to rural North Dakota (sic, I think they meant Vermont)" if their proposal to the FCC is accepted forthwith according to CNET's newsblog. Not only a gig but a mobile gig, accessible by cellphone or roaming computer -- no fiber required. Sound too good to be true? -- it isn't, IMHO! Engineering is not the problem... more

What Does Blockchain Have to Do With Voting?

Apropos of recent news stories about a blockchain-based voting system that was hacked before its first election, someone asked: "Perhaps final recognition that a lot of blockchain is hype? Or simply an interesting side-story?" A blockchain can ensure that the lies you see are the same lies that were published, but that doesn't have much to do with voting. more

Dot Travel Still Isn’t Dead Yet

I've writen several blog entries about the continued downward swirling motion of Tralliance, the company that runs the registry for .TRAVEL. In this month's installment, as told in their quarterly 10-Q SEC filing, they flirt with bankruptcy but may well end up more stable than before. One of the more eye-catching paragraphs says... more

IPv4 Market and IPv6 Deployment

IPv4.Global's Lee Howard will be a panelist at the Internet Governance Forum's session, "IGF 2020 WS #327 Believe it or not, the Internet Protocol is on Sale!" Preparing for this session has provided an opportunity to research how the IPv4 address market has affected the deployment of IPv6. There are a few spikes where a large number of addresses was transferred in a single transaction, most recently from APIDT.org. more

Zero Rating: Something Is Better Than Nothing! Or Is It?

One of the primary purposes of global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is to introduce a wide range of topics to newcomers and provide them with the opportunity to take back what they have learned in the hopes of establishing an understanding of the Internet Governance philosophy at the community or national level. As a first time participant at the 10th Global Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2015) that took place in Joao Pessoa Brazil, in early November of 2015, I felt the burden of being a representative from a developing country, a place where discussion of important issues is limited to a small group of individuals, often in informal settings, over coffee or in my case, green tea. more