IPv6 Enabled Networks Before and After World IPv6 Day

In our last post on CircleID, Measuring World IPv6 Day - First Impressions, we showed exactly when World IPv6 Day participants switched on IPv6 on their networks (by way of announcing DNS AAAA records). Now, a few weeks after World IPv6 Day, it's interesting to see what the longer-term effects have been. more

Why African Telecom Union (ATU) Proposal Should be Rejected

My attention was drawn to the recent African Telecom Union (ATU)'s proposal for the modification and expansion of Resolution 47... As an affected party to the proposal, I feel obliged to make a comment: Recalling my last article to The Hill titled "ICANN is already under the influence of Foreign Governments", I drew an example of how ICANN allowed the African Union Commission, an Intergovernmental body to heavily interfere in the .Africa application so as to delegate it to itself, which led me to take ICANN to Court. more

RIM’s Secret Weapon

The US analyst community has been holding a wake for RIM in the last few days... It's a pile-on that has driven the stock price down from the upper fifties to the mid forties in the last month. And yeah, RIM's stock price is going to suffer in the short term, not just because of these analyst reports, but because their existing software technology is long-in-the-tooth, to put it politely... I wouldn't count them out, though. RIM's secret weapon is the man I nearly bumped into last week... more

Megaupload Domains Seized by FBI Now Link to Scam Ads and Malware Due to Renewal Failure

Sean Gallagher reporting in Ars writes: "Earlier this week, something suspicious started happening with Web addresses related to sites seized by the FBI from Megaupload and a number of online gambling sites." more

Don’t Make the Internet Safe for Monopolies

This week I'm going to Washington to argue against regulating Internet access as if it were phone service. Twenty years ago I was there for the same reason. My concern now as it was then is that such regulation will damage the economy and reduce opportunity by stifling innovation and protecting the current dominant players from the startups which would otherwise threaten them. more

Developing the Next Generation of Internet Champions – Internet Society’s Early Career Fellowship

How do we help develop the next generation of champions for an open Internet? As many of us who were involved in the early years of the Internet are getting older, how do we help inspire a new wave of advocates for an open Internet available to everyone? As we face so many threats to "the Internet way" from many different forces - governments, corporations, criminals, and other organizations - how do we help build the corp of people who understand Internet technology and policy issues and can help shape the future of this Internet we have all come to rely on? more

ICANN in Hollywood: Foreshadowing a Happy Ending?

As we arrived in Hollywood -- the land of happy endings -- ICANN had just given us cause to hope that the ICANN accountability process might get its own Hollywood ending, despite a fitful start. As one who's been critical of ICANN management's heavy-handed attempts to control the accountability process, it's only appropriate to give credit where credit is due. In accepting the community's strenuous -- and nearly unanimous -- calls for a cross-community working group to lead the process of improving ICANN's accountability mechanisms, ICANN management says it's now prepared to follow the community's lead, rather than dictating and constraining it. more

LTE: Another Way to Estimate when It Will Be Real

Hardly a week goes by without a press release touting how soon we'll be using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network. Verizon has promised a major commercial launch in 2010 and a two-city trial before the end of 2009. Let me show you a little chart I put together for my 3G Tutorial and have repeatedly updated... more

WTSA-2020: Reflecting on a Contemporary ITU-T Role

Every four years – as it has done for nearly a hundred years – the ITU-T as the world's only global intergovernmental standards body for all telecommunication, invites its 196 sovereign state members to a meeting where they examine their work and set the stage for the next four years. There is no treaty prepared, but they do examine major developments and decide needed standardization work, priorities and structure of the organization itself – including their leadership. more

What’s Abusive in Registering Domain Names, and the Reverse?

The two major providers of arbitration services for adjudicating cybersquatting complaints under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Forum, issue daily lists of decisions. In approximately 90% of those disputes, the registrations cannot be described as anything less than mischievous in acquiring second level domains incorporating well-known or famous marks. more

Rodney Joffe Wins a Well-Deserved Mary Litynski Award

Every year M3AAWG gives an award for lifetime work in fighting abuse and making the Internet a better place. Yesterday at its Dublin meeting they awarded it to Rodney Joffe, who has been quietly working for over 20 years. I can't imagine anyone who deserves it more. more

Sanctionable Conduct for Abusing the UDRP Process

To claim a superior right to a string of characters mark owners must (first) have priority (unregistered or registered) in using the mark in commerce; and secondly, have a mark strong enough to rebut any counter argument of registrant's right or legitimate interest in the string. A steady (albeit small) number of owners continue to believe it's outrageous for registrants to hold domain names earlier registered than their trademarks and be permitted to extort amounts far "in excess of [their] documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name." more

No Time Bar for Cybersquatting Claims Under UDRP

Headline in TheDomains.com, June 18, 2016: "Wow: 20 Year Old Domain Name WorldTradeCenter.com Lost in UDRP." For those who don't follow UDRP decisions carefully this may elicit, how can this be? Well, surprised or not, and assuming complainant has priority in the string of characters that is both a domain name and a trademark... delay is not a factor in prevailing on cybersquatting claims when there is an alignment of other factors... more

Bringing a Responsible Closure to the gTLD Implement Process

Last Friday ICANN released an updated new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Applicant Guidebook that appears to have taken a number of positive steps toward closing the divide between the ICANN Board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). One of the more important changes to the Applicant Guidebook was the following text... more

Observations in and Around the UN Broadband Commission

The 7th meeting of the UN Broadband Commission in Mexico City was again a good combination of announcements about new plans, results of previously undertaken activities, and views on the future of broadband. Very noticeable was the enthusiasm and acknowledgement of the impact of ICT, and of broadband in particular. In September 2012 the Commission launched its working group on gender equality. Research undertaken by the various members of the workgroup provided somewhat similar results. more