Policy & Regulation

Indian Government Proposes Vast New Powers to Suppress Internet Content

The Indian government has proposed a bill to suppress online content in the country, increase control over messaging and trace messages to their origin. more

Registry-Registrar Cross Ownership: Framing the Issues

There has been much said and written recently about the issue of registry-registrar cross ownership with regard to New Top Level Domains ("New TLDs"). It is clear that there appears to be a fair amount of confusion about the issue and the positions espoused by various parties. To assist the ICANN community in understanding the issue -- the points of agreement and debate -- I offer the following overview on behalf of Network Solutions and Central Registry Solutions... more

Three New Cyber Security Threats in One Day

Internet crooks never cease to surprise me. The inventiveness in being bad is super. If these guys lent their thinking power to the economy, the economic crisis would be solved within a week. Today I ran into three brand new cyber security threats that were reported on. In one day. So I thought to share them with you. more

The Broadband Adoption Rate

Yesterday's FCC report estimates that at least 80 million Americans don't have high-speed Internet access - defined as download speeds of at least 4 Mbps and upload 1 Mbps - at home. (Soon the Commission will release another report comparing these results to those in other countries.) This service is completely unavailable to at least 14 million Americans - the FCC estimates that "1,024 out of 3,230 counties in the United States and its territories are unserved by broadband[, and t]hese unserved areas are home to 24 million Americans living in 8.9 million households." more

The Irritating Irresolution of ICANN Jurisdiction

The ICANN community review and Board approval of the draft Bylaws intended to implement the Work Stream 1 (WS1) recommendations of the Cross-Community Working Group on Accountability (CCWG-ACCT) are nearing completion. As we approach that marker, it is worth remembering that a major impetus for the approaching transition of IANA functions control away from the U.S. Government (USG) to the multistakeholder community was the notion that termination of the remaining "clerical function" performed by the USG within the context of the current IANA contract would dampen criticism of ICANN's relationship with the USG... more

VeriSign Anti-Trust Lawsuit Paves Way for More Suits If There Are No Vertical Integration Exceptions

The Coalition for Internet Transparency (CFIT) filed an anti-trust suit against VeriSign for their monopoly control of the .COM registry and the expiring market of .COM domains. The claims were many including excessive financial pressure lobbying and lawsuits to force ICANN into renewing the VeriSign .COM agreement under very self-serving terms. ICANN inevitably was paid millions of dollars to settle the suit. However, the saga continues once again. ... In the light of continuous and relentless discussions and proposals by the Vertical Integration working group, one question is in the back of everyone's mind. Could the decision on Vertical Integration backfire on ICANN and invite similar suits in the domain name space? more

On the Need to Separate the Telecom Business Agenda from Government Policy

At Guadalajara, Mexico this week, in the policy debate kicked off by the ITU, Russian Federation's Minister of Communications proposed that the ITU should give itself veto power over ICANN decisions. This proposal by the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC) calls for the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to be scrapped and replaced by an ITU group. more

The Importance of the FCC

My friend Om Malik, dean of the telecom bloggers, posted on the importance of the Federal Communications Commission Chair appointment Obama will make as President... Om is dead on about the importance of this appointment. Decisions made by the five member FCC commission have had and will have an enormous effect not only on the tech sector but on the entire US and even the global economy. more

Too Little, Too Late? Why ICANN’s Proposed WHOIS Access System Isn’t Worth It

After two years of grueling, complex and contentious debate, the ICANN EPDP team delivered its Phase 2 Final Report on July 31st, 2020. Unfortunately, and disappointingly, the policy recommended for the so-called "System for Standardized Access/Disclosure" (SSAD) fails to meet the needs of the users it supposedly is designed to benefit. more

The Google Telephone Company?

Google has undertaken a beta-test of a telephony platform that includes the opportunity to route incoming calls to multiple devices and telephone numbers as well as free domestic long distance service. Google offers a service that fits somewhere between computer-to-computer, Internet telephony and Voice over the Internet Protocol telephony with access to and from the public switched telephone network. These service categories present polar opposites for U.S. regulatory purposes... more

Unlimited VoIP Offers Starting to Appear in Africa

VoIP has been banned across most of Africa for a long time, feared by the state-owned telcos as a way for alternative service providers to bypass them with international calls, eroding a very lucrative part of their business. At profit margins of several thousand percent in some cases, it is not surprising that unlicensed operators have sprung up all over the continent, risking huge fines, confiscation of their equipment and even jail terms. more

Examining the Reality of Convergence

If there is one word in the telecommunications that has suffered from over-abuse for many years now, it's convergence. The term has been liberally applied to each successive generation of communications technology for their supposed ability to solve a myriad of service delivery problems within a single unifying converged carriage and service delivery solution. Unfortunately, the underlying reality has always been markedly different from these wondrous promises, and we continue to see an industry that deploys a plethora of service delivery platforms and an equally diverse collection of associated switching and service delivery technologies. One can't help but wonder at the collective gullibility of an industry that continues to herald the convergent attributes of each new generation of communications technology, while at the same time being forced to admit that previous convergent promises have never been realized. more

Calling Stumps at WCIT: Win, Lose or Draw?

The problem with setting expectations is that when they are not fulfilled the fallout is generally considered to be a failure, and while everyone wants to claim parenthood of success, failure is an orphan. In that sense it looks like the WCIT meeting, and the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) that were being revised at that conference this month are both looking a lot like orphans. There have been a number of reports of the outcome of the two week... Most of the blogs were quick to characterize the outcome as a loss for the dark forces that lurked somewhere in the closets of the ITU's headquarters in Geneva. But there is more to it than that. more

The Standards Myth That Does Not Stop

The latest iteration of the most expansive, omnipotential cybersecurity legal regime ever drafted appeared a few days ago. The European Union (EU) Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is attempting to assert jurisdiction and control over all "products with digital elements" defined as "any software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components to be placed on the market." more

Don’t Make Us Treat Our Customers Like Criminals!

Crime, fraud, scams etc., they're all very bad things. They're also not going to go away anytime soon. As a domain name registrar and hosting provider we're constantly "at risk", as we sell a lot of services that are both cost-effective and also give criminals the tools they need to attack 3rd parties. Again, this isn't exactly news. We've always taken a very pro-active approach to dealing with criminal activity and network abuse... But recently I've been losing sleep. more