Policy & Regulation

Cyber Security and the White House

A few months ago, an article appeared on arstechnica.com asking the question "Should cybersecurity be managed from the White House?" During the recent presidential elections in the United States and the federal elections in Canada, the two major players in both parties had differing views that crossed borders. In the US, the McCain campaign tended to favor free market solutions to the problem of cybersecurity, and the Conservatives in Canada took a similar position... more

US Federal Trade Commission Says It Lacks Resources to Go After Privacy Violations Effectively

At hearing on Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urged Congress to pass data privacy legislation and enhance its authority to police large tech companies. more

Inter Mundos: ICANN’s Accountability is a Matter of Human Rights

The debate over the IANA Functions transitions has captivated the minds of all stakeholders. The U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has announced that they intend to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community. Thus, we find ourselves in the midst of a transition between worlds. All stakeholders are pondering the following questions: what should be the appropriate transition? What should be our goal? more

A Month in Africa Charts the Promise and Perils of Internet Governance

There may be no better illustration of how far we've come in Internet governance, than this: twice in the past 30 days, the global Internet community has gathered in sub-Saharan Africa to plot a path to bring the Internet to its next billion users. Just weeks after wrapping up the sixth annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Kenya, Internet stakeholders from around the world traveled back to Africa for ICANN's 42nd meeting in Dakar, Senegal. more

New Book: Managing Mission Critical Domains & DNS

The idea behind my recent book "Managing Mission Critical Domains & DNS" is to provide a unifying overview around the area of domains and naming where I think there exists an artificial divide, and that divide exists between domain policy, and managing ones' domain portfolio; and the DNS ops side of things: running your nameservers or outsourcing to a vendor, or both. I've been doing this for over 20 years, I've seen almost every failure condition that can happen to your domain or DNS... more

A Peek Inside the FCC

I write a lot about the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but I imagine a lot of folks don't realize the many functions the agency handles. Like any regulatory agency, the FCC staff and Commissioners have been tasked by Congress with a wide range of responsibilities. The public gets to hear from the FCC formally once each month ... more

Internet Commerce Association Calls for ICANN to Withhold Approval of .Org Sale

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) in an open letter issued today, has asked ICANN to withhold the approval of the assignment of the .ORG top-level domain to the private equity company Ethos Capital. more

Unpacking the Framework to Address DNS Abuse

As the Internet has grown, so too have the abuses that go along with one of the world's most transformative technologies. For all of the positives the Internet brings, negatives like phishing, malware and child exploitation are a reality online. As of December 9, 2019, 48 registrars and registries have signed onto the "Framework to Address Abuse." This initiative was launched last month by a number of domain name registries and registrars, just prior to the ICANN meeting in Montreal. more

Accountability and Redress

In ICANN circles these days, accountability is the buzz word. Nearly everybody is talking about it. Generally everybody is in favor of it, but that's where the agreement ends. This paper urges action by ICANN to provide a means for redress of grievances as an essential element of accountability. I would like to review the ICM case (the delegation of the .xxx domain), and the role of ICANN's Independent Review Panel (the IRP). As you will recall, the ICANN Board had originally awarded .xxx to ICM, but in a subsequent reconsideration had reversed the award. more

Meeting Report: ICANN’s Registration Data Request Service Requestor Experiences

During CSG Open Working Session at ICANN79, Members from the ICANN Community were invited to an open meeting to share their experiences with Registration Data Request System (RDRS) from the Requestor side. As President of the Edgemoor Research Institute (ERI), I had the honor to present the keynote address and I am pleased to be able to provide you with ERI's report of the meeting. more

Out of .Africa - Process Failures Don’t Change the Facts

I've heard a lot of discussion of the .africa controversy of late -- from conspiracy theories to questions about staff competence to concerns about the role of the GAC. And it's hard not to find faults galore in the way this process and the IRP reporting has played out. But before we get too lost in the weeds of procedure or the future of ICANN, lets not lose track of what this debate was first and still is fundamentally about: a string. more

Solving the .US Registrant Data Directory Services (RDDS) Conundrum

Recently ten Democratic Members of Congress wrote a letter to Alan Davidson, head of the NTIA, requesting that the "NTIA immediately cease the public disclosure of personal information about users of .US" country code top-level domain (ccTLD). This communication highlights a significant concern regarding domain registration data: the need to protect the privacy rights of Registrants. However, an equally significant concern regarding registration data was raised... more

NTIA Seeks Nominations to Serve on the Online Safety and Technology Working Group

In the midst of the election season, Congress passed a plethora of Internet related laws. Most involved child protection. One involved webcaster protection. Wasting no time, the impact of the new laws is already being felt through federal agency implementation. On Friday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the Department of Commerce released the following notice... more

Provoking National Boundaries on the Internet? A chilling thought…

The impact of the recently revealed US government data collection practices may go well beyond the privacy ramifications outlined in the Internet Society's statement: expect a chilling effect on global, resilient network architecture. As governments of other countries realize how much of their citizens' traffic flows through the US, whether or not it is destined for any user or service there, expect to see moves to curtail connections to and through the US. more

Broadband Access: What Should We Regulate?

Network Neutrality is a hot topic in the US. The FCC held hearings in my neighborhood recently (while I was in Asia). Now I see Professor Susan Crawford will be testifying next Tuesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "Net Neutrality and the First Amendment." I look forward to her remarks, but I worry that the whole discussion will be focused on "IP Pipes," that is connectivity at network layer 3. This distracts us from the fundamental problem... more