Policy & Regulation

Parsing Hype From Hope: Will ENUM Spark Changes In Telecom?

In the beginning there was silence; then, silence begat communication, and communication begat more communication and, ultimately, group communication formed and begat a primordial "network" of communication that gradually and inevitably increased in effectiveness and complexity: there were only signal fires at first but, then, there were cave drawings, carrier pigeons, shouting from hill-tops, smoke from fire, lines of cannon fire, the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell, and, finally, the network of networks known as the Internet. But, is that it? Is there not something more impressive in its impact upon communication than the Internet? What more might one desire than the dynamic wonders of the Internet, you ask? Well, what about ENUM? "E-What!?" more

Removing Need at RIPE

I recently attended RIPE 66 where Tore Anderson presented his suggested policy change 2013-03, "No Need -- Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Cleanup." In his presentation, Tore suggested that this policy proposal was primarily aimed at removing the requirement to complete the form(s) used to document need. There was a significant amount of discussion around bureaucracy, convenience, and "liking" (or not) the process of demonstrating need. Laziness has never been a compelling argument for me and this is no exception. more

Questioning Innovation: An Interview with Bob Parsons

In a press release issued Wednesday, March 03, 2004, Go Daddy Software, Inc., defended ICANN's right to regulate VeriSign's registry services and called for a formal review of the company's position as an "exclusive registry." This announcement from Go Daddy, which comes one week after VeriSign filed a lawsuit against ICANN, pledges $100,000 to ICANN for its defense of the VeriSign lawsuit. Go Daddy, which ranks among the top 3 largest domain name registrars in the world and one of VeriSign's largest customers, has also sent a letter to both the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) strongly urging both groups to undertake a formal review of VeriSign's registry position.

In this special interview, CircleID has caught up with Bob Parsons, President and Founder of Go Daddy, where he provides in-depth discussions of Internet Innovation, ICANN, VeriSign's Global Registry Services, Top-Level Domains and the current legal battles. more

Report on Reaction to FOISA

On February 4, 2004, United States Congress held a hearing on a new proposed bill called the Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act (FOISA). This bill will increase prison sentences by up to seven years in criminal cases if a domain owner provides "material and misleading false contact information to a domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority." What follows is a collection of commentaries made in response to this proposed bill. more

Google DNS to Be Discontinued in Brazil Ahead of New Law

Doug Madory from Renesys reports: "In response to recent NSA spying allegations, Brazil is pressing ahead with a new law to require Internet companies like Google to store data about Brazilian users inside Brazil, where it will be subject to local privacy laws. The proposed legislation could be signed into law as early as the end of this week. However, Google's DNS service started leaving the country on September 12th, the day President Rousseff announced her intention to require local storage of user data." more

If WHOIS Privacy is a Good Idea, Why is it Going Nowhere?

ICANN has been wrangling about WHOIS privacy for years. Last week, yet another WHOIS working group ended without making any progress. What's the problem? Actually, there are two: one is that WHOIS privacy is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be, and the other is that so far, nothing in the debate has given any of the parties any incentive to come to agreement. The current ICANN rules for WHOIS say, approximately, that each time you register a domain in a gTLD (the domains that ICANN manages), you are supposed to provide contact information... WHOIS data is public, and despite unenforceable rules to the contrary, it is routinely scraped... more

Internet Governance Outlook 2020: The Next Generation of Players and Problems Is Coming

The beginning of a new decade is always an invitation to have a broader look into the future. What, in the next ten years, will happen in the Internet Governance Ecosystem? Will the 2020s see the usual swinging pendulum between more liberal and more restrictive Internet policies in an interconnected world? Or will we move towards a watershed? more

Public Policy Questions for Internet

There is little doubt that the Internet has formed part of the impetus for a revolutionary change in the nature of the global communications industry. "Revolutionary" in the sense that the past decade has seen fundamental and highly disruptive changes in the nature of the underlying technologies used by the industry, changes in the composition, ownership and role of industry players, changes in the nature of services offered to the end consumer, changes in the associated financial models used by the industry, and changes in the regulatory environments in which this industry operates. Considering that this industry was, in the latter half of the twentieth century, one of the largest and most influential industry sectors on a global basis, these revolutionary changes will doubtless have consequences that will echo onward for some time yet. more

Internet Governance Outlook 2016: Cooperation & Confrontation

In 2015 we saw many agreements on Internet Governance. 193 Governments agreed in the UN General Assembly on the WSIS 10+ Outcome Document. They agreed to extend the mandate of the IGF for ten years. They agreed to strengthen the multistakeholder approach. And they agreed to make more efforts to bring the next billion users online until 2020. The UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) agreed on a number of confidence building measures to strengthen cybersecurity. more

Canada’s Anti-spam Bill C-28 is the Law of the Land

It's been a long time coming, but Canada has an anti-spam law, and one, which sets a new world standard, and a tough, but fair, opt-in protocol for everyone in North America who sends commercial email and other electronic messages. Yesterday, The Canadian Senate voted to accept Bill C-28, and today, December 15, at 13:00 eastern, it will be given Royal Asset of the Governor General of Canada, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston. more

CircleID’s Top 10 Posts of 2009

Looking back at the year that just ended, here are the top ten most popular news, blogs, and industry news on CircleID in 2009 based on the overall readership of the posts. Congratulations to all the participants whose posts reached top readership in 2009 and best wishes to the entire community in 2010. more

Problems With Defining Jurisdiction on the Internet

The term "jurisdiction" has various definitions in law, but for our purposes here we can say it is the power of some legal body to exercise its authority over a person or subject matter or territory. In the Internet today, it is territory that gives rise to many major issues. As in real estate, what matters in jurisdiction is "location, location, location". When the Internet and trademark rights began to intersect, it quickly became apparent that traditional concepts of the jurisdiction of courts and legislatures would be seriously strained by situations where a registrant in one country could use a registrar in a second country to register a domain name in yet a third country. more

CENTR Publishes Comment on the European Commission’s DNS Abuse Study

CENTR, which represents European national top-level domain name registries (ccTLDs) such as .si or .eu, has published its comments on the European Commission's DNS abuse study, calling out some of the "misleading analysis and unfortunate conclusions in the study." more

Internet Governance Outlook 2021: Digital Cacaphony in a Splintering Cyberspace

In 2020, the pandemic accelerated digitalization around the globe. Homeoffice, Online Shopping, Zoom Conferences became part of the daily life for billions of people. But if somebody would have expected that the Covid-19-Desaster is a wake-up call for the world to be more united, work hand in hand, and pool resources reducing risks of a borderless threat, this "somebody" was wrong. 2020 was dominated by "My country first." more

CircleID’s Top Ten Posts of 2012

Here are the top ten most popular news, blogs, and industry updates featured on CircleID during 2012 based on the overall readership of the posts for the past 12 months. Congratulations to all the participants whose posts reached top readership and best wishes to the entire community for 2013. more