Policy & Regulation

The End of the Road: ICANN, Whois, and Regulation

There's a well-documented crisis facing the domain name system: very few who rely on domain name registration data from the Whois database to perform vital functions can do so any longer, which is escalating consumer harm and abuse on the internet worldwide. And the problems, thanks to ICANN's overly restrictive policy post-GDPR and a failing policy process, are piling up. more

A Threat to Europe’s Digital Human Rights Stewardship

In a contemporary era when the human rights, democracy, and the rule of law are under attack, Europe has asserted itself as the leading global digital steward for maintaining those values. However, doing so through its Digital Sovereignty initiatives is significantly dependent on the ability to produce timely technical standards that underpin the implementing legislation. more

The Digital Sovereignty Ecosystem

The terms Digital Sovereignty or Souveraineté numérique have recently risen in prominence to describe the international rule of law as it applies to information and communication technologies. At a time when disinformation is proliferating and the rule of law, democracy, and human rights, together with long-standing relationships, are being cast aside, digital sovereignty is scaling in importance as a key defensive measure among many nations. more

Mark Zuckerberg’s Content Moderation Overhaul: Prelude to a Fragmented Internet and a Threat to Truth

Mark Zuckerberg's recent announcement of sweeping changes to Meta's content moderation policies marks a pivotal moment for the internet, democracy, and truth itself. The decision to replace third-party fact-checking with a decentralized "Community Notes" system and relocate trust and safety operations to Texas signals a shift in Meta's governance approach. This move is not only politically expedient but also a troubling prelude to the tech industry bowing to the political priorities of the incoming Trump administration. more

International Law of Critical Internet Infrastructure [CII]: A Comparative Analysis

On Friday December 13, 2024 at 10:00–12:00 CET (09:00-11:00 AM UTC) the Lodz Cyber Hub at the University of Lodz Law School, an ICANN EURALO ALS, and the United Nations University – Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) hosts an online workshop 'International Law of Critical Internet Infrastructure: A Comparative Analysis of Europe and China'. more

A Collision Between Tech Policy and Foreign Policy: the UN Cybercrime Convention

Sometime by year-end, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) will vote on the proposed UN Convention Against Cybercrime. The treaty is opposed by most civil liberties organizations and Internet businesses, although the US position appears uncertain, mostly for reasons of foreign policy. more

Led by Ted Cruz, the GOP Doesn’t Want Affordable Internet

In the coming months, we're set to witness the largest investment in America's digital infrastructure in history: $42.5 billion that should be a true lifeline for millions of Americans struggling with slow, unreliable, or nonexistent internet connections. But as with any massive government spending program, the devil is in the details - and Republican lawmakers, led by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, are doing their best to ensure those details work against their own constituents. more

Attacking DNS Abuse: The Next Amendments Needed

Abusive behavior that leverages the domain name system (DNS) continues to be a problem, with a reach that has been widely and credibly documented. There is little doubt that bad actors continue to use the DNS for nefarious and costly purposes. While the amendments made in 2024 to ICANN's Registry Agreement (RA) and Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) were a step in the right direction, more advanced tools are needed to bring abuse rates down. more

Project 2025: The Internet and Cybersecurity

As the saying goes, elections have consequences. The consequences are underscored in the recent U.S. Presidential election and the potential impact on the Internet, infrastructure and cybersecurity. In the context of the CircleID global community, it seems worth asking where things are headed? It does beg for an analysis of what is actually proposed in Presidential Transition Project 2025 related to things internet and cybersecurity. more

NIS2 Article 28 Guidance: A Positive Step Toward Reducing DNS Abuse Across Europe

The European Union (EU) has set a high bar by tackling domain name system (DNS) abuse head on via government regulation and seems to have successfully resisted attempts to water down DNS stewardship obligations. Recent guidance from a key European Commission cooperation group (the NIS Cooperation Group) handling sections of the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) intends for a robust implementation of Article 28, which will go a long way toward helping to mitigate some of the longstanding problems that persist in the DNS. more

NIS 2 Directive Set for Implementation with New Guidelines, But Concerns Remain

The NIS Cooperation Group has released critical guidance for the implementation of Article 28 under the NIS 2 Directive, focusing on registration data accuracy obligations for top-level domain (TLD) registries, registrars, and related services in the EU. more

Decoding Internet Governance Stakeholders, Part 1: Technical Community

The "Decoding Internet Governance Stakeholders" series of articles invites the community to ponder what underlies the labels that define our interactions, roughly 20 years after the "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society" called for the "full involvement of governments, business entities, civil society and intergovernmental organizations," as well as to "make full use of the expertise of the academic, scientific and technical communities." more

Human Rights and Standards Development Organizations

Do human rights come into the picture when technology and policy work are involved? If so, where? This is a question that has come up multiple times during the last dozen years, and occasionally even before, in Internet Governance discussions. These discussions have included debates on whether human rights were specifically applicable to protocol design or to the organizations developing protocol standards. more

Will We Ever End Legacy Telephone Networks?

Anybody not involved in the telephone business will probably be surprised to find that the old TDM telephone networks are still very much alive and in place. The old technologies were supposed to be phased out and replaced by digital technologies. The FCC started talking about this before 2010. In 2013, Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman at the time, announced an effort to force the needed changes, which was dubbed the IP Transition. more

Alternative Insights on Article 28 of the NIS2 Directive

On June 9 CircleID published an insightful article by Thomas Rickert entitled "Demystifying Art 28 NIS2." In that piece Thomas set forth two alternative interpretations of Article 28(6) of NIS2, and argued that TLD registries should not be required to maintain a separate database of the registrant data under NIS2. In my view, Thomas' approach is inconsistent with the remainder of Article 28, and would not achieve the goals of NIS2 to improve cybersecurity across the EU member states. more