Policy & Regulation

Neustar Analysis Shows ICANN Study Overstates Risk of Harmful Domain-Name Collision

As we blogged about recently, Neustar is committed to ensuring that the domain name system is secure and stable and has been operating top-level domains (TLDs) for over a decade. Tuesday, Neustar submitted comments to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in response to ICANN's proposal to delay the launch of hundreds of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). ICANN's decision to delay the launch is based on a study it commissioned that measured the potential frequency of domain-name collision.

Mass Surveillance: A Turning Point in Internet History

So far, the debate on mass surveillance has dwelt on the immense resources made available to the agencies (NSA in the US, GCHQ in the UK), on the technological advantage that enables them to access any data and bypass encryption, and on the lack of proper oversight in those two countries. But in order to make their voices heard by their elected representatives, Internet users around the world need to have an even more complete view of the emerging reality.

Plumbing Neutrality

I've been having arguments about Network Neutrality with a lawyer. My position is that you can't adequately regulate ISPs to be neutral, because there's no agreement what "neutral" means in practice. He points out that the courts aren't interested in technical details like what packets are dropped, it's that all traffic has to be treated the same, and ISPs should just figure out how to do that. So I contemplated a city with Plumbing Neutrality with the simple rule that all people must be treated the same...

Reflections on EUI’s New Community Priority Evaluation Guidelines for New gTLDs

The new Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) guidelines prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and published by ICANN are now past their feedback period. We, at Radix, believe that ICANN has received feedback from approximately 10 stakeholders, and I for one, am looking forward to those being published. In light of the fact that none of the comments that ICANN received have been made public yet, I decided to blog about my multiple concerns with the new guidelines. Sparing a thought for the not-so-involved reader, I have limited my rant to some of the more important issues.

Time for Outrage! (continued)

When the scale of global surveillance carried out by the NSA (USA) and by the GCHQ (UK) was exposed by Edward Snowden through The Guardian, people around the world were shocked to discover how two established democracies routinely resort to methods that they have long deplored -- and rightly so -- in dictatorships, theocracies and other single-party arrangements. In a previous article, I lamented the fact that by carrying out this surveillance on an unprecedented scale, the US and the UK are, in fact, converging with the very regimes they criticize.

OIAC Report: Views on Economic Impacts of Open Internet, Mobile Ecosystems, Specialized Services

Having been a member of the Committee for this past year, I'm pleased to share that the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) "Open Internet Advisory Committee" has published its first annual report... The report is weighty - 98pp if you kill trees to print it. The OIAC was established as part of the US FCC Open Internet activity and Open Internet Report and Order from 2010. The FCC appointed expert committee members from a broad range of commercial, academic, and not-for-profit organizations.

Examples of Where ICANN Can Be More Accountable

During the "GNSO Discussion with the CEO" at the recent ICANN meeting in Durban, I stated that ICANN talks a lot about the importance of supporting the public interest, but in reality the organization's first priority is protecting itself and therefore it avoids accountability and works very hard at transferring risks to others. In response to my comments, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé asked me to provide him examples of where ICANN can be more accountable. Copied below is my response letter to Chehadé, which provides seven examples.

Name Collision: Why ICANN Is Looking at It the Wrong Way (Part 1)

ICANN has, once again opened up a veritable can of worms, with their latest decision on the 'horrors' of Name Collision. While we are sure that ICANN and the Interisle Consulting Group have very good reason to make the decision that they have - delaying the delegation of several TLDs - we believe that the findings contained in Interisle's report do not give sufficient cause to delay the new gTLD program in the manner proposed by ICANN staff.

I Had a Dream: ICANN Has 2 Billion Reasons to Support Developing Countries

Last week, the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech was marked with much fanfare. Well, I too had a dream the other day, almost two weeks ago. I dreamt I was in a conference. Which is no news. The conference was an ICANN-sponsored conference. No news there either; I've been to many ICANN meetings. And it was on food security! An ICANN-sponsored conference on food security?

Trademarks for TLDs

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently circulated proposed examination guidelines to allow the USPTO to begin providing Trademark Protection for Top Level Domains (TLDs). This is an important new development. TLDs today are currently ineligible for Trademark protection on the basis that they do not constitute a source-identifying mark. The USPTO is currently in the process of rectifying this situation by extending Trademark protection to Registry Service providers and has released its proposed examination procedures for that purpose. However, there are some very concerning elements to their proposed examination guidelines.