Policy & Regulation

Section 3.18 of the 2013 RAA: Reasonable Investigations, Appropriate Responses

Section 3.18 of the ICANN 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) contains language requiring registrars to investigate and respond to abuse complaints. Nearly one year into the new RAA's effective period, what do we know about Section 3.18? If a person or entity wants to submit a complaint, what should they keep in mind? This article reviews the meaning of Section 3.18, how to leverage it, offers a list of do's and don'ts for complainants, and offers a few recommendations for registrars.

A Brave New World or Do We Need to Discuss IT and Ethics?

Every day comes with another digital security breach, surveillance disclosure and what not. The world seems to have grown used to it and continues its business as usual. It doesn't seem to be bad enough to really act. Every day comes with new stories about the end of the Middle Class, IT taking over jobs in places where up to very recently that was inconceivable, not in people's wildest dreams would these jobs disappear.

Cable & Wireless US$3B Deal to Acquire Columbus Exposes Vulnerabilities in Caribbean Telecom Sector

When Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) announced an agreement to acquire Columbus International, news of the deal sparked widespread concerns about the impact of reduced competition on consumer pricing, infrastructure investment and wider economic development in the Caribbean. If approved, the deal will make CWC the Caribbean's largest wholesale and retail broadband service provider. At the same time, it will return several Caribbean territories into monopoly or near-monopoly markets...

Content - The Next Regulatory War Zone

At the 2014 TelSoc Charles Todd Oration the former Chair of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel, warned against the looming content monopoly... "There is a constant risk that the exclusive tie-up of rights to content for new and emerging markets will allow the right holders to shut out competition across a wide range of services delivered over new networks." He didn't think that the current telcos have the right expertise to enter the content market...

New .WINE and .VIN Are Now Political Tools

The more I follow the .WINE & .VIN opera, the more I start to believe that the idea is either to kill both new gTLD applications to free space in Round 2 of the ICANN new gTLD program or make this subject a political tool "only" to increase Europe's presence in ICANN decisions. If there still is a wish from the European Commission to help .WINE and .VIN to become the strongest identity European wines could ever have on Internet, I would like to understand why the situation is still blocked...

Combating Counterfeit and Substandard ICT Devices

Counterfeiting is a negative activity that is affecting almost all areas of economies, incidentally it has become a menace in the Internet world. Apart from selling of fake products online, the production and sale of imitated or counterfeit products create huge market for products that hurt the producers of the genuine goods and also create a menancing health risk to the users.

Does the Internet Need “Governance”?

It's remarkable to me that there are now two powerful agencies fighting to "govern" the Internet -- the ITU and the FCC. On any given day, it's hard to tell whether they are on the same side or different sides. The ITU process apparently began in earnest with the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) meetings, where the concept of "Internet Governance" became an urgent goal. The FCC process began when incumbent Internet Access Providers (IAPs) argued that "Net Neutrality" was a stalking horse for government control...

ccTLDs Might Be Property

The long-running saga of victims who are pursuing 'state sponsors of terrorism' via ICANN has taken yet another turn. Some time back the Plaintiffs in Rubin & ors -v- Islamic Republic of Iran & ors managed to obtain Writs of Attachment in the Federal court district in Washington (D.C.) courts ordering that the ccTLDs of those respective countries be seized in part-payment of the damages they are owed. ICANN, fairly predictably, became involved at this point.

Scaremongering from Spy Agents

In an article for the Financial Times, Mr Hannigan -- the chief of the British spy agency GCHQ said: "I understand why they [US technology companies] have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics." "But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism."...

ICANN 51: Los Angeles - Getting Ready for a Big 2015

Earlier this month, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) held its 51st public meeting in Los Angeles. Once again, MarkMonitor joined stakeholders from across the globe to discuss issues ranging from government control over the Internet, to key lessons learned thus far from the new gTLD rollout. This coming year promises to be a big one for ICANN, and for the business and brand community as a result.