Mapping Google

Byte Level Research has released a new version of its world map illustrating country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) in use by Google for its local search engines. Using information available on Google's Language Tools page, the new map shows over 160 ccTLDs that Google has currently in use including Andorra, Kenya, Ukraine, and Ghana. Why pick Google? John Yunker president of Byte Level Research says that he knows of no other company that hosts localized websites across so many different ccTLDs. Countries the Google currently serves even include Cuba — "I doubt many Americans are aware of that."... more

Public Sharing and a New Strategy in Fighting Cyber Crime

A couple of years ago I started a mailing list where folks not necessarily involved with the vetted, trusted, closed and snobbish circles of cyber crime fighting (some founded by me) could share information and be informed of threats. In this post I explore some of the history behind information sharing online, and explain the concept behind the botnets mailing list... we may not be able to always share our resources, but it is time to change the tide of the cyber crime war, and strategize. One of the strategies we need to use, or at least try, is public information sharing of "lesser evils" already in the public domain. more

Multi-Orbit Broadband Internet Service

Three satellite companies, SES, Telesat, and Hughes, are working toward integrated, multi-orbit broadband Internet service and Eutelsat may join them... It is too soon for these companies to be offering integrated multi-orbit services, but they have begun testing and demonstrating switching and antenna technology. more

Chehadé Sends ICANN Board Farewell Letter

ICANN's current CEO Fadi Chehadé is leaving the organisation in a few weeks time. His replacement has been announced and the upcoming public meeting in Marrakech, Morrocco, will be Chehadé's final public engagement as ICANN CEO. A couple of days ago Chehadé sent the ICANN board a letter entitled "Summary of My Tenure". While the letter may have been addressed to the board, it was published on the ICANN website immediately. more

CADNA Returns to Lobby for Stronger Cybersquatting Laws

Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, the lobby group that campaigned for stronger cybersquatting laws and against new gTLDs, is back. more

The Dangers of Building a Brand on a Tenuous Country Code

About two years ago I wrote with concern about Bit.ly's use of Libya's country code. I noted that It's always important to keep in mind that a company can't "own" a domain the way it owns real estate. Now it appears that companies that have built brand names on Libya's country code are facing difficult times. more

Back from RightsCon Manila: Trading Freedoms for Security?

In Asia -- a region that at various points in its recent history has been a hotbed for civil unrest, secessionist movements and political instability -- the line between national security and public interest can be difficult to draw. A session organised by the Internet Society at the recently held RightsCon Southeast Asia in Manila shed some light on the perceived trade-offs between national security objectives and digital rights, in particular freedom of expression and privacy. more

TLDs or No TLDs for Cities? Berlin Senate Wants Out

A fight has begun over the virtual existence of Germany's capital: Does a .berlin address space have a right to exist beside the old standby berlin.de? The outcome of the fight could have a broader effect on the future of city names on the Internet. After a recent hearing at Berlin's City Parliament, Michael Donnermeyer, speaker of the Berlin Senate, said the right to the name Berlin belonged to the city and has to be protected. For the young company dotBerlin GmbH that is applying for a new city top level domain (TLD) with the ICANN, the Senate's blockade could kill a long-nurtured project and could set a bad example for other initiatives like .london, .paris or .nyc, sources said. more

Scrutinize ICANN’s Thousand New-TLDs Limit

I am skeptical about how ICANN has arrived at a technical limit of a thousand new TLDs per year. The ICANN study driving this number must be made public so that our industry's risk management experts can size up the finding. Why am I skeptical? more

New York City Mayor Announces Next Step For Public Launch of Dot NYC (.nyc) Domain

Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the start of the first “sunrise” phase of the roll-out of the .nyc web address, beginning a five-month countdown towards the full-scale public launch in October 2014. Through .nyc, the city plans to generate revenue, help residents take advantage of government services, encourage local businesses to thrive, market and promote tourism, and spread the dynamic image of New York City around the world. more

Reputation and “The Cloud”

As Reddit recently learned it's not a great idea to use the Amazon EC2 cloud to host mailservers. There are a number of reasons for this, most of them related to the reputation of mail coming from EC2 servers. When you're using machines in the cloud, changing IP addresses is as simple as initializing a new server. Spammers discovered this almost as soon as the EC2 cloud became public. more

Do We Really Need a New BGP?

From time to time, I run across (yet another) article about why Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is so bad, and how it needs to be replaced. This one, for instance, is a recent example. It seems the easiest way to solve this problem is finding new people - ones who don't make mistakes - to work on BGP configuration, building IRR databases, and deciding what should be included in BGP? more

How Not to Take Russia Off the Internet

Last week the Ukrainian government sent a letter to ICANN asking them to revoke the ".ru", ".рф" and ".su" top-level domains. It also said they were asking RIPE, which manages IP addresses in Europe, to revoke Russian IP addresses. Both ICANN and RIPE said no. Other people have explained why it would have been a policy disaster, but beyond that, neither would actually have worked. more

Former ICANN Board Member to Congress - ICANN Needs Oversight

Karl Auerbach has written a quite long but very detailed and well thought out letter to Congress. It's not clear which members of Congress were sent the letter. Karl Auerbach is a former member of ICANN's board and is probably best remembered by many as having taken ICANN to court (and winning) in order to gain access to the organisation's financial records. more

Popular ccTLDs for Domain Name Disputes

As I've written before, the registry operators for many country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) have adopted the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) or a variation of it, while other ccTLDs have crafted their own dispute policies, or none at all. Although no ccTLD appears as frequently as .com in domain name disputes, it's interesting to see which ccTLDs are subject to dispute the most often. more