Policy & Regulation

Why SOPA Defender Joins Internet Society as Regional Director

Internet Society recently announced the appointment of former chief technology officer of Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The decision has raised concerns within the Internet community as Paul Brigner had campaigned for SOPA while at MPAA as well as being on record opposing net neutrality while being an official at Verizon. more

WIPO Proposal for Paperless UDRP

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

Is America Getting More Like China?

Since Obama became President -- and yes, I voted for him -- there has been a great deal of optimism and energy around the idea that the Internet can be used to improve or "reboot" our democracy. The Administration has hired some great people to work on making government more open and transparent. This is all great. But how much good will all of this nifty e-government do for American democracy if citizens' rights to privacy and free expression are not also fiercely defended? more

Lessons from Egypt: We Need to Protect Our Connected Minds

We need to protect the power that allows us to connect our collective intelligence, as described a few weeks ago in my blog on connected minds. I argued that in order to address some of our global challenges we have to start looking at a radically new way to address them. The events in Egypt brought home the fact that if it comes to the crunch any government can disconnect us simply by bringing the Internet and other communications systems down at will... more

NTIA’s FOIA Disclosures Shed Limited Light on IANA Transition Decision

On March 27, 2014, shortly after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) March 14th announcement of its intent to transfer its counterparty status on ICANN's IANA functions contract to the global multistakeholder community, the conservative advocacy organization Americans for Limited Government (ALG) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with NTIA. ALG's request was for disclosure of "All records relating to legal and policy analysis developed by or provided to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that support its decision to "transition key internet domain name functions," including any analysis showing whether the NTIA has the legal authority to perform the transition." more

Most Government Domains in the US Have Adopted Email Authentication Program to Prevent Fake Emails

According to reports, the majority of the U.S. federal domains have met the deadline to adopt an email authentication program to prevent fake emails from being sent. more

New TLDs: Time For a Do-Over on Plural Similarity

Mandarin is a tricky language, but ICANN may want to learn the expression chóngfù before leaving the Beijing meeting. Chóngfù means "do-over" and that's what ICANN needs to forestall an entirely preventable disaster in the delegation of new top-level domains (TLDs). The issue of "string similarity" seems straightforward. Nobody inside ICANN or out there in the real world wants Internet users to be confused by new TLDs that are confusingly similar. Imagine hearing an ad offering low rates at car.loans but you encounter something completely different at car.loan instead? more

Internet Society Calls the US Clean Network Program a Political Act, A Push Towards “Splinternet”

The Internet Society (ISOC) has condemned the U.S. Clean Network Program announced last week, which proclaims to safeguard America's critical telecommunications and technology infrastructure. more

What Does “Network Neutrality” Mean?

A lot of ink and pixels have been spilled about the FCC's new rules for network neutrality. It's impossible to comment sensibly yet about the actual proposal, since as far as I know it's not been published anywhere, but the various news reports have left me confused about just what is being addressed. There are a number of different sorts of behavior that can result in performance differences to the end user... The purpose of this post is to give a simplified (with luck, not too horribly oversimplified) explanation of the different issues here. more

The G7 and EU Join China in Call for Space Debris and Collision Regulation

Last month, the Chinese government published space situational awareness and traffic management regulations and procedures designed to guard against collisions in orbit and mitigate space debris, and this month, at the G7 summit, delegates from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USA, the UK, and the EU pledged to take action to tackle the growing hazard of space debris as our planet's orbit becomes increasingly crowded. more

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... more

The Multistakeholder Moment of Truth: Will Stakeholders Hold ICANN Accountable?

During the two-year period preceding the IANA transition in 2016, there was a near-superhuman effort put forth by the community of stakeholders to design, debate, and deploy an accountability framework for ICANN that would serve to check and balance the coordinator of the global DNS. One of the overriding concerns that stakeholders sought to address was the possibility of ICANN being captured, and it was argued that the global community of stakeholders would serve as a "backstop" that would hold ICANN accountable. more

Where We’re Going: Leviathan or Golem?

The Internet never ceases to fascinate. I am referring not to its content, but to its governance. The IANA transition is the latest example in a world of interesting possibilities. At the core, we find ICANN, and that is why we need a Human Rights Advisory Committee. Any future model, with or without the NTIA, needs to seriously consider this option. But I prefer the hard truth over my own ideals. Maybe this idea will be dismissed, simply because human rights are discussed as some kind of inconvenience. more

.Pharmacy Registration Policy Restrictions Harm Legitimate Pharmacies

The Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) recently commented on the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team (CCTRT) Draft Report of Recommendations for New gTLDs. In particular, on the primary questions posed: The CCTRT is seeking input on its Draft Report, which assesses whether the introduction or expansion of gTLDs has promoted competition, consumer trust and consumer choice in the DNS... more

Dotless Domains Considered Harmful, Says IAB

In light of recent controversies around the implementation of dotless domains, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) has released a statement calling the practice harmful. From the executive summary: "It has come to the attention of the IAB that there are proposals for so-called "dotless" domains in the root zone, and that some existing top-level domains (TLDs) are already operating in such a mode. TLD operators of dotless domains are intending that single label names -- those containing no dots -- resolve to the TLD itself, rather than be resolved locally, within the context of the local site at which the user resides." more