Just in time for Ada Lovelace Day comes the news that Susan Crawford (Wikipedia, CircleID) is headed to the White House as special assistant to the president for science, technology, and innovation policy... more
Nearly ten years ago, the Government of Canada wrote a letter to the chair of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) that set out the framework for the management of the dot-ca domain. The government articulated a vision of the dot-ca domain as a “key public resource” and called on CIRA to act in an open and transparent manner. CIRA has long sought to live up to those standards, but in recent months the organization has shown an unmistakable shift toward prioritizing commercial gain over the public interest along with a troubling move toward secret decision making... more
The Technology Policy Institute (TPI), an IT and communications policy think tank, has just released a paper proposing that "ICANN's governance structure should be dramatically reformed to make it more accountable before the current tie with the U.S. Department of Commerce is allowed to expire." The paper titled "ICANN At a Crossroads: a Proposal for Better Governance and Performance" is written by Thomas M. Lenard, President and Senior Fellow at TPI, along with Lawrence J. White, Professor of Economics at the NYU Stern School of Business. The 52-page study also asserts that ICANN must have a clear focus on encouraging competition with minimal role as a regulator with respect to the creation of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). more
Willis Alan Ramsey, who wrote "Muskrat Love," recorded one and only one studio album. The cognoscenti of country think it's a gem, an all time top ten. There's an apocryphal story that when Ramsey was pushed to make another record he allegedly retorted, "What's wrong with the first one?" We who use the Internet every day risk losing sight of what a miracle it is, and the openness that keeps it so miraculous... We also lose sight of the fact that even as the Internet's miracles occur, it's almost always broken or malfunctioning or threatening or worse in many places along the line. more
This very interesting document was released by ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) for public comment yesterday. And it asks some fundamental questions while at the same time pointing to sources such as the Honeynet Alliance's reports on fast flux. more
Julius Genachowski, Obama's nominee to head the FCC, is a friend of Fred Wilson. Fred gives ten reasons why he likes the nominee on his blog. Genachowski was a top technology advisor to Obama during his campaign and reportedly advised the campaign on its superb use of the Internet. He is also a supporter of "net neutrality" although the devil is in the details on that issue. Even though the nominee is a lawyer, he has business experience as a VC, as an Internet executive, and as a board member of various Internet companies -- all good reasons to be hopeful about this very important policy post. That's the good news. The bad news from several days ago... more
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has sent to ICANN a letter proposing Paperless Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)... This would save considerable amounts of paper, reduce courier charges (as the notice weighs far less than the full complaint), and thus would be good for the environment. more
Just after the government announces a crackdown on Internet smut. Yesterday, they announced plans for "Netizen Day" on September 14th, which apparently marks 15 years since the first e-mail message was sent from China in 1987. The new celebratory day (I don't think it's an official holiday) was unveiled at an official ceremony presided over by Chinese government officials and Internet execs, many of whose companies - including Google, Sina, and Sohu, who were named in the smut crackdown just 24 hours before. more
Early this month I attended the 3rd Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India. The overall theme of the 4-day meeting was "Internet for All"... Last Friday, I spent a couple of hours in the morning on email before I got cutoff around 10am. I have 2 DSL lines at home through 2 different ISPs, I tried both lines but they were both down. I thought something wrong happened at the local exchange and decided to turn off my computer and enjoy my weekend. The last thing I could have thought about then was that what happened back in January 2008 was happening again in less than a year! more
Today's Wall Street Journal has a bogus, misleading story claiming that Google has been making deals with telephone and cable carriers that violate Network Neutrality. My BS detector was triggered by paragraph five, which reads: "One major cable operator in talks with Google says it has been reluctant so far to strike a deal because of concern it might violate Federal Communications Commission guidelines on network neutrality. 'If we did this, Washington would be on fire,' says one executive at the cable company who is familiar with the talks..." more
The FCC is looking for an organization to provide free, slow, and censored Internet access. The censorship apparently would include email as well as websites. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal: "Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups [nb. and from me]... The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service [nb. the WSJ hasn't got that part quite right]." more
This morning, the CRTC issued its much-anticipated ruling in the CAIP v. Bell case, the first major case to test the legality of Internet throttling. The Commission denied CAIP's application, ruling that Bell treated all of its customers (retail and wholesale) in the same throttled manner. This points to the challenge in this case -- it was not about discriminatory network practices per se, but rather about wholesale shaping in a specific context. more
Google's Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, a member of President-elect Barack Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board, said the government needs to focus on the areas of broadband infrastructure, research and alternative energy in an effort to rebuild the nation's economy. Openness is critical for that, he argued. The end-to-end principle that underlies the Internet, the open network, is a must. "It is that openness, the ability that anyone can play ... that drives the modern economy... Why don't we do the same thing with the energy grid? ...isn't it obvious?" more
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been taking a lot of people to court -- basically, harassing folks in an attempt to curb file-sharing. The $220,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas got a lot of news (and probably worried a lot of folks). However, on appeal (i.e., after a new court not cherry-picked by the RIAA to try the case looked things over), the RIAA lost... again. ...At its heart, the verdict reaffirms that simply making a copyrighted work available is not the same as actually distributing the work. more
Atrivo (aka Intercage), a Concord, California-based Internet hosting service, disappeared from the Internet for around two days recently. They didn't go bankrupt or suffer a physical catastrophe. Their providers simply shut them down by refusing their traffic. This might very well be the first time in history that the Internet community, a cooperative association of networks with no governing body, has collectively put someone out of business, if only briefly. more
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