Policy & Regulation

Is ICANN Opening up Public Comment Periods in Bad Faith?

I read with interest that ICANN opened up yet another comment period on new TLDs. I believe that I speak for many when I question whether ICANN is opening up these comment periods in good faith, or instead whether these are smokescreens, mere distractions to pretend that ICANN is "listening" to the public while staff and insiders proceed with predetermined outcomes. more

Supporting Dot Amazon Strengthens Global Internet Cooperation

With the backlash against tech companies gaining steam, we've seen certain contrarian members of the media taking indiscriminate aim at companies and issues without due cause. This is what happened when Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett, in a paywalled March 7th editorial, inaccurately portrayed a process involving the Amazon's gTLD application for .AMAZON, an issue the i2Coalition has been engaged in for years. more

National Broadband, Leadership or Procrastination

There is no doubt that any national infrastructure plan of the magnitude of national broadband networks as they are currently rolled out in 9 countries and which policies have been put in place in another 110 countries will have questions attached to it. Furthermore, this infrastructure is being developed for the digital economy, which, in itself, is a fast-moving world. Five years ago there were no smartphones, tablets, mobile apps or smart TVs. more

Internet Society Seeks Nominations for 2023 Board of Trustees

Are you (or someone you know) passionate about protecting the global, open Internet? And ensuring that it is available to everyone? Do you have experience in Internet policy, standards, or development? If so, please consider submitting a nomination for a seat on the Internet Society Board of Trustees to help guide the future of the organization. The Internet Society supports and promotes the development of the Internet ... more

Broadband Demand-Side Management

Countries, cities and commercial organisations around the globe are facing problems associated with the rollout of fibre-to-the-home networks... We have been warning about these issues for well over a decade. The problem arises because the telecoms industry has been based on the principle 'build and they will come'. more

Governments Should Promote Cultural Diversity on the Internet

The entire new gTLD applicant community is awaiting, patiently, the forthcoming Brussels meeting between the ICANN Board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to take place from February 28th. After years of delays to the new gTLD process, ICANN and the GAC will try to reach an agreement on how and when to launch the new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) programme. The expectations for the outcome of the Brussels meeting is huge among potential new gTLD applicants. Despite this, the media attention will be negligible when compared to the news coverage that the next ICANN public meeting in March will receive. more

Upcoming Domain Pulse 2008 Within Central Europe

Domain Pulse, the yearly get-together of the German-speaking registries of nic.at (Austria), Denic (Germany) and SWITCH (Switzerland) is happening on February 21 and 22 in Vienna. The conference alternates between the countries -- last year it was Switzerland, this year Austria and next year Germany... Domain Pulse covers everything in the domain name arena from management of the DNS, what's happening in each of the ccTLDs, after market and domaining, security threats to the DNS and internet as well as wider issues affecting the internet's development such as internet governance. more

Would the Internet Survive a Trump Apocalypse?

Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his supporters are pursuing platforms to create an altered America in a different world that is profoundly different in almost every respect from what has existed until now -- it is a new world best described as the Trump Apocalypse. Would the Internet as we have known it continue to exist? The short answer is probably not. Here is why. more

Satellite and Space Debris Tracking as a Service

On February 2, 1989, the Soviet Union launched its Cosmos 2004 satellite and the Chinese launched a rocket on December 15, 2009. Cosmos 2004 is now defunct, as is the third stage of that Chinese rocket, but both remain in orbit. They were long forgotten until recently when LeoLabs, a satellite tracking service, predicted that they had a good chance of colliding at 971 km over the sea near Antarctica. more

ISOC-Bulgaria Asks Worldwide Internet Community to Bring Top Priorities During the Coming IGF

The IGF has a tendency of slowly shifting from a place of a discussion about the way the world accesses information resources, into a place where only topics that make the headlines are being highlighted, with many of the same players being among the loudest speakers. We believe that due to cross-cultural reasons, these people are mainly coming from North America and Western Europe. We urge the IGF to allocate equal time for people from regions outside of those two. more

There Is No Cuban Home Internet Plan - And That’s Good News

I've followed Cuba's home-connectivity "plan" from the time it was leaked in 2015 until the recent Havana home Internet trial. I thought the plan was a bad idea when it was leaked -- it calls for installation of obsolete DSL (digital subscriber line) technology -- and now that the Havana trial is complete, I question whether the plan was real. ETECSA denied the validity of the leaked presentation at the time, and their definition of "broadband" was "at least 256 kb/s." more

Who Would You Nominate for the Internet Hall of Fame? (Nominations Open Until March 15)

Who do you think deserves recognition in the Internet Hall of Fame? Do you know of someone who has played a key role in the Internet's development who should be recognized? (And is not already among the existing IHOF inductees?) If you know of someone who deserves the recognition, nominations are open until March 15, 2017. As outlined by Internet Society President & CEO Kathy Brown in a blog post today, the Internet Hall of Fame seeks to honor three types of inductee. more

Politically Correct Rhetoric at a Technical Conference in Cuba

In a recent post, I argued that the US embargo, the poor state of the Cuban economy and fear of free information had stifled the Cuban Internet at its inception in 1996, but that twenty years later, those constraints were significantly reduced. I suggested that the Cuban Internet was being held back by mundane bureaucracy and political correctness. We got an example of that at the Latin American and Caribbean Network Information Center (LACNIC) conference in Havana this week. more

Thumb on the Scales

Does the ICANN Board putting its thumb on the scale, change the status quo assumption of a Policy Development Process (PDP)? The primary assumption of most PDPs is that, in the absence of consensus for change, the status quo remains. Otherwise, Policy would be made by fiat by the PDP's Chair or Co-Chairs and there would be a mad rush to occupy those unpaid, thankless positions. more

Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 4: Article 13-15

This is Part 4 of a series of articles published (here in CircleID) on the UDHR and human rights in the cyberspaces of the Internet Ecosystem. Here we discuss Articles 13-15 and touch on other topics such as the role of cyber governance, empowered digital citizenship, and whistleblowers. At this point in this series of articles on the UDHR in the digital age, it is useful to pause and remind ourselves of the purpose of this analysis. more