Fair Use Registration of Domain Names for Artists and Hobbyists

There is in the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act a provision not expressly found in the UDRP (at least, not in so many words) but the concept is nevertheless present in the Policy by construction... The term "fair use" is typically associated with protected speech (criticism and commentary), fan websites, and nominative use of domain names but it is not limited to those uses. It's a flexible principle in both trademark and copyright law. more

Explaining Growth in Broadband Demand

I haven't talked about the growth of broadband usage for a while. However, I was explaining the exponential growth of broadband usage to somebody recently, and I suddenly realized an easy way for putting broadband growth into context. The amount of data used by the average broadband user has been doubling roughly every three years since the advent of the Internet. This exponential growth has been chugging along since the earliest dial-up days, and we're still seeing it today. more

Over $1 Billion in Payments Made on Venmo in January 2016

I was fascinated to read today that over $1 billion (USD) in payments were made on Venmo in January 2016. What is Venmo, you might ask? Essentially it is a mobile app (on both iOS and Android) that provides an easy payment system, in many ways like a "digital wallet" where you can securely reach in and pull out some cash to give to someone... more

J.D. Falk Award

This morning M³AAWG announced the creation of the J.D. Falk award to recognize and honor people like J.D. who work to make the Internet safer for all users... J.D. was a legend in the abuse prevention world when I first started learning about spam and abuse prevention back in the late 90's. more

ICANN, NTIA, Verisign and ANA Weighing In on ‘Name Collisions’ and the Readiness of New gTLD Program

Gregory S. Shatan of Reed Smith writes: "Last week, ICANN (the organization that oversees the domain name system of the Internet) was busy with nothing less than the security and stability of the Internet. At ICANN's recent meeting in Durban, those of us attending heard a drumbeat of studies, presentations and concerns regarding "name collisions": the conflicts that will arise when new gTLDs go live and conflict with existing top-level extensions in private networks..." more

Is Cable Broadband Equal to Fiber?

As I have blogged over the years, I have to give kudos to the folks at the big ISPs who have steadily provided controversial quotes that are worth writing about. The latest comes in an article by Linda Hardest at FierceTelecom. She quotes Charter's CEO Tom Rutledge talking about comparing cable broadband to fiber. She quotes Rutledge as saying... more

In Whose Language? Cybersquatting by Foreigners

There are no gatekeepers to prevent registrants from acquiring domain names incorporating marks that potentially violate third-party rights. Anyone anywhere can acquire domain names composed of words and letters in languages not its own through a registrar whose registration agreement is in the language of the registrant. For example, a Chinese registrant of a domain name incorporating a Norwegian mark as in <statoil.store> in which Complainant requests the proceeding be in English notes that Chinese is not an official language in Norway. more

First Root Zone DNSSEC KSK Ceremony

ICANN will hold the first Root Zone DNSSEC KSK Ceremony on Wednesday 2010-06-16 in Culpeper, VA, USA. ... Attendance within the key ceremony room itself will be limited to just those with an operational requirement to execute the ceremony. However, since this event has generated significant interest, we have made additional space available in an adjacent room for observers who wish to attend the event. more

Centralizing DNS Data for Security, Compliance, and Performance

Private DNS data lakes consolidate fragmented logs into a centralised platform, improving visibility, security, and compliance. They enable advanced analytics, strengthen threat detection, and help organisations optimise network performance in increasingly complex IT environments. more

Activist Hackers Target Government Websites Amid Escalating Israel-Hamas War

Hackers have intensified attacks on government websites and media outlets, both on the Israeli and Palestinian sides. more

New TLD Applications: What’s the Status of the Next Round?

For many industry participants, the timing around opening the next round of new Top-Level Domain applications has been frustrating, to say the least. However, with the recent ICANN Marrakech meeting now complete, we thought it timely to provide an update for those who may be interested to apply in the next round or for those merely following the journey. more

World’s Growing Refugee Population Requires Access to Broadband to Mitigate Problems, Says Report

Many of the problems refugees and their host countries face can be mitigated and made easier to solve if internet connectivity gaps are closed, says a team of senior communications experts working with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). more

Real-Time Email Recommendation Engine Part IV: Image Optimization

Before we dive into optimizing predictive analytics for images using #RealTimeML, at our neighborhood Email Service Provider, there are a few people we need to acknowledge. First, we would like to recognize the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and its managing director Christie Ko. Christie reached out to us to potentially write articles for them, and we talked about several topics in the world of Machine learning (ML). She found our blog here on CircleID and ... more

Broken Policies

As an email policy wonk, I think a lot about how specific policy implementations can go wrong. Sure, every policy can go wrong, or not fit a common case. A lot of people only write polices that address common cases and don't worry about the rarer cases. The problem is there are some rare cases that may cause significant harm and those cases should be addressed. Consumerist has a case up about email policy gone wrong with a clear path to harm but no policy for handling the issue. There are a couple places I see where this policy hole can be fixed. more

Why 5G Won’t Be Here Tomorrow

I just saw another article yesterday written by a major-city newspaper telling the public that 5G is coming in 2020. I hate to see reporters who have accepted the nonsense being peddled by the carriers without digging a little deeper to find the truth. At some point in the near future, the public will finally realize that the 5G talk has mostly been hype. more