The Crypto Wars Resume

For decades, the US government has fought against widespread, strong encryption. For about as long, privacy advocates and technologists have fought for widespread, strong encryption, to protect not just privacy but also as a tool to secure our computers and our data. The government has proposed a variety of access mechanisms and mandates to permit them to decrypt (lawfully) obtained content; technologists have asserted that "back doors" are inherently insecure. more

U.S. Senate Voted to Eliminate Broadband Privacy Rules

"The US Senate today voted to eliminate broadband privacy rules that would have required ISPs to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other companies," Jon Brodkin reporting in Ars Technica. more

Trump, Tides, and the US Tech Sector

When a tax is too high people avoid it, and when the political cost of supporting the US government becomes too high, foreign governments will avoid it too. Add to that cost America's new inclination to withdrawal, and consider the muddy tidal flat on which could soon list the hull of what used to be American technological primacy... When countries try to develop technology policies to compete with the United States, they often begin with rules over immigration. more

New Report on Performance Measurements of the DNS Root Service in China

Zhiwei Yan writes to report: "CNNIC recently lunched a monitoring to measure the performance of the DNS root service in China (mainland). The results reflect that the service diversity from different ISPs and different geographical locations is obvious for different root servers. Besides, the stability of the DNS root service is directly affected by the BGP routing system. CNNIC will continue this work and anticipate the wide participation from the community." more

Coronavirus Online Threats Going Viral, Part 4: Phishing

In part four of this series of posts looking at emerging internet content relating to coronavirus, we explore phishing. In times of crisis, cyber criminals invariably take advantage of the growing concerns of the public. In the case of the coronavirus, they have done so by sending phishing emails that play on the fears surrounding the spread of the illness. A number of reports have emerged of emails purporting to provide advice or assistance relating to COVID-19... more

ICANN Publishes gTLD Statistics and Trends Report, Asks for Community Feedback

The gTLD Marketplace Health Index presents statistics and trends related to generic top-level domains. ICANN intends to publish these statistics biannually to track progress against its goal of supporting the evolution of the domain name marketplace to be robust, stable, and trusted. more

The Social Responsibility Imperative - TLDs Leading the Charge

Last month at CIRA's annual general meeting, I had the pleasure of meeting Tracy Axelsson, the executive director of the Vancouver Community Network. Her organization is working to connect street-involved citizens in downtown Vancouver with critical life-saving information via SMS messages. Chatting about her program was a vivid reminder for me of what many technology companies around the world have recognized, that the benefits of our wares can have a profound impact on our economies, culture and social fabric of our countries. more

Last Days to Register for TLD Operator Webinar

The TLD Operator Webinar today announced that Ingrid Baele (Head of Operations, Philips) and Ken Nishida (Manager, Internet & Domain Strategies, Hitachi) are the latest speakers to be confirmed for next week's Webinar. more

The .BEST Brand Protection (Interview)

Launching a social network based on a single domain name extension is seriously innovative, but such a concept also implies to give Trademarks a chance to protect themselves. I recently interviewed Cyril Fremont, the new operator of the .BEST Registry and also CEO of "THE.BEST Social Network" on his plan to allow Trademarks to protect their assets prior to the launching of the review network. more

2.7 Billion Using the Internet by Year End, Estimates UN

UN's Millenium Development Goals Report released this week estimates that by the end of this year, 2.7 billion people (39 percent of the world's population) would be using the Internet. more

Another Look at the Latest Domain Name Numbers and Trends

There are now 177 million domain names across all top-level domains, which is an increase by 16% (24 million domain names) compared to a year ago. These numbers are from the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, a quarterly report from VeriSign about the growth of the domain name industry. In this review, Royal Pingdom has broken down the numbers in order to demonstrate the growth of both gTLDs (generic TLDs, such as .com and .net) and ccTLDs (country-code TLDs, such as .cn, .se, .uk and .us). more

Is Call Forwarding an “Information Service” and Why It Matters for FTC Jurisdiction

Time to brush the dust off your Computer II notebooks. Are voicemail, electronic fax, and call forwarding enhanced services or telecom services? Today's case: FTC v. American eVoice, Ltd... The FTC brought an action against Defendants claiming that they were engaged in cramming, adding unwanted voicemail, electronic fax, and call forwarding services to consumers bills to the tune of $70 million. more

AI Musings: Using Image Classification Creatively and the Coming Collision in City Centers

Within this supercycle of digital innovation, we are experiencing globally; AI is revolutionizing business both in predictable and unpredictable ways. With an expectation of more than $20 trillion added to the global economy by 2030, the impact of AI on business is real. While most of the patents and citations are still coming from the US, China is rapidly gaining citations. more

The Value of Openness for Building Tomorrow’s Digital Economy - Reflections on the OECD Ministerial

Yesterday marked the last day of the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy, but also the culmination of a week where the need for an open and trusted Internet has been the main message from all stakeholders. Back in 2008, the OECD was one of the first intergovernmental organizations to open its discussions to the wider Internet community. more

Those Who Don’t Remember 2014 Are Doomed to Repeat It

J. Gordon Crovitz is making his case against the IANA transition again today, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. I think it's useful to once again go on record opposing his flawed logic against the transition. i2Coalition was among those that publicly praised the IANA transition report when it arrived this week. When the Washington Post covered our announcement, I was frustrated by a commenter who has a different take on the transition than I. more