Why US Broadband Service Continues to Stagnate - Some Simple Numbers to Drive the Point Home

I've been fascinated by the recent announcement that Australia is spending $31 billion USD to upgrade its broadband. With all the excitement and fuss over the broadband stimulus funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it may seem strange to be claiming that the $7.2 billion is a pitifully small amount -- but let me bring this home for you... more

USA Today: Spam Is Bad

A reasonably well informed article in Thursday's USA Today reminds us that in 2004 Bill Gates said the spam problem would be solved in early 2006, but here at the end of 2007 there's more spam than ever. They go through a laundry list of problems of spambots, new kinds of PDF and MP3 spam, and phishing, and a list of of partial or non-solutions including filters, walled gardens, and an odd system called Boxbe, a hybrid of whitelists, challenge/response, and pay for delivery. Oh, and Bill says he never said spam would be solved... more

M3AAWG and APWG Do the Best Survey Yet on WHOIS Redaction

M3AAWG, the Messaging, Malware, and Mobile, Anti-Abuse Working Group and APWG, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, surveyed their members about recent WHOIS changes. With over 300 results from security researchers, it's the broadest report yet on WHOIS use. The survey results confirm our concerns that WHOIS was a vital resource for security research, and its loss is a serious and ongoing problem. more

Current Security Measures Not Enough to Protect Data in Lost or Stolen Laptops, Experts Warn

A weakness in modern computers allows attackers to steal encryption keys and other sensitive information, according to the latest discovery by cybersecurity firm F-Secure. more

EFF Urges EURid to Refuse EU Commission’s “Misguided Advice” to Eliminate UK-Registered .EU Domains

In response to the European Commission surprise announcement last week that British domain owners may no longer be entitled to keep their ".eu" domain names, EFF is urging the registry for .eu (EURid) no to follow through. more

Google Puts Its Foot Down

Google's announcement that it will "review" its business operations in China and is no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, is generating a range of reaction in China. Conversation over at the #googlecn hashtag on Twitter -- created shortly after the announcement -- has been raging fast and furious. more

Everyone Can Participate in ICANN Decisions ? Come On…

I participated in the French RINDD last week in Paris: RINDD stands for "Rencontres Internationales des Noms de Domaine". The translation would be "The International Domain Name Conference". This event is organized once a year by SafeBrands, a French Registrar. Many participants were there: the ICANN, Law Firms, Donuts, other new gTLD applicants, back-end Registries and many experts. more

Three Kinds of UDRP Disputes and Their Outcomes

There are three kinds of UDRP disputes, those that are out-and-out cybersquatting, those that are truly contested, and those that are flat-out overreaching by trademark owners. In the first group are the plain vanilla disputes; sometimes identical with new tlds extensions (mckinsey.careers> and <legogames.online>); sometimes typosquatting (<joneslang lassale.com> and <wiikipedia.org>); and other times registering dominant terms of trademarks plus a qualifier (<pleinphilipp-shop.com> and <legostarwars2015.com>). more

Don’t Give up on Membership

Most of the ICANN community is headed to ICANN 54, the critical meeting in Dublin where some kind of an agreement on accountability reforms needs to be reached if the historic IANA transition is to take place. Only a few months ago, an open, multi-stakeholder process proposed to enhance ICANN's accountability by creating a very limited form of membership. It did not allow any individual in the world to become a member. It did not even allow any individual or organization with a domain name to become a member (as it should have). more

Google Partners with Internet Archive for Historical Web Context in Search Results

Google Search is rolling out a new feature that allows users to access historical versions of websites directly through The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. more

Beware of Extra Fees in UDRP Proceedings

The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is known as an inexpensive alternative to litigation (and that's true), but some proceedings can end up costing a trademark owner more than it may have expected. There are generally two additional types of expenses that can arise during the course of a UDRP proceeding: (1) extra filing fees for certain aspects of a case filed at the Forum, and (2) an increased filing fee if the domain name registrant wants a three-member panel to decide the case. more

Important Milestone in IANA Stewardship Transition: NTIA Says Proposal Meets Criteria

Today, the global Internet community reached an important milestone. The US Department of Commerce National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) announced that the community-developed proposal to transition the stewardship of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions meets the criteria it set out in March 2014. more

FCC Open Internet Rules

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Tom Wheele, the FCC Chairman, gave a range of spirited responses to a grilling from the Director of the GSMA, Anne Bouverot. She was following the line of the telcos and questioned if the FCC intervention would stifle growth and investments in the market; however she had problems reconciling her position with the fact that, despite these regulatory changes, the American industry was still prepared to invest a whopping $45 billion in new spectrum. more

Connectivity Policy and the Open Internet

The goal of public policy for connectivity should be to assure access to our common facilities as a public good by adopting sustainable business models that don't put owners and users at odds with each other. Such balances are typically difficult to achieve which is what makes connectivity so unusual - we can achieve both once we fund the facilities as a public good apart from the particular applications such as telephone calls and cable content. more

‘Avalanche’ Network Dismantled in an International Cyber Operation Including Europol and the FBI

After over four years of investigation, the international criminal infrastructure platform known as 'Avalanche' is reported to have been dismantled via a collaborative effort involving Public Prosecutor's Office Verden and the Lüneburg Police (Germany) in close cooperation with the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Department of Justice and the FBI, Europol, Eurojust and global partners. more