It seems outlandish. However, as incredible as it may seem - especially in these times of sequestration and dire Federal budget cuts - the U.S. has potentially fallen prey to a ploy hatched by Russia and allies artfully carried out at a 2010 ITU treaty conference to relinquish the nation's sovereign right to choose its own ITU membership contributions. Here is how it happened and what can be done about it. more
Now that ICANN has stuck to its guns and only placed 4 new gTLD's strings that look confusingly similar into contention sets, rather than those that sound identical, such as .inc and .ink or those that have the same meaning like .Law and .Lawyer or those that are singular and plurals of the same word, like .deal and .deals, we now that many new gTLD's are going to have a very a tough marketing road and face a lot of consumer confusion. more
Kevin Murphy reporting in Domain Incite: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said today that all new gTLD applicants, even those that have not already been hit by government warnings, should submit Public Interest Commitments to ICANN. In a rare comment sent to an ICANN public forum today, the NTIA suggested that applicants should use the process to help combat counterfeiting and piracy. ... NTIA said that applicants should pay special attention in their PICs to helping out the "creative sector". more
I'm on the record multiple times over the last few months for my opinions on "closed generics"... Since then I've sent several letters to ICANN (supported by many others) and have been quoted and referenced in several articles on the subject including Politico.com... If you're not a domain "geek" then the danger of this issue might not be that easy to understand, so here are five reasons why "closed generics" are a really bad idea. more
ICANN is currently seeking public comment on the subject of "closed generic" gTLD applications. It asks "whether specific requirements should be adopted corresponding to this type of application". It invites comments on what it defines as an "issue". In particular, ICANN wonders how an applied-for domain can be deemed a "closed generic" TLD, and whether there should be rules governing the way this TLD will be operated. more
With WICT-12 over, and now the preparation for the forthcoming WTPF underway, and of course also we have the WTDC and WTISD coming up, one could be excused for thinking that that world famous, but hopelessly unintelligible, cartoon character from the 80's and 90's, Bill the Cat, has come out of retirement to work as head of Acronym Engineering at the ITU. However, no matter how unintelligible the acronyms of these meetings can get, the issue of how we come to terms with a technology-dense world is a serious matter. more
The second installment in my four-part series on New gTLD objections will focus on the limited public interest ("LPI") variety. The overarching theme however is essentially the same: new gTLD objections are generally more complicated (and costly) than UDRP actions and need to be approached with care. In fact, LPI represents one of the best examples of the tough climb that would-be objectors are likely to face. Understanding exactly what is required beforehand - and whether or not you can deliver - is absolutely critical. more
Many nations, particularly from the developing world, look to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for advice on telecommunications issues and, increasingly, Internet governance issues. The ITU's Fifth World Telecommunication / ICT Policy Forum (WTPF-13), 14-16 May 2013, Geneva, Switzerland, will be the first WTPF to focus exclusively on Internet issues. more
In a court case running since 2007 Australia's High Court judged Google not responsible for the content of paid ads it presented after an end user's search request. In the example Reuters gives a car sales company presented itself under the name of a car brand, thus misleading the end user. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) deemed this misleading advertising by Google and stared a court case. The High Court judged differently. more
On his blog Bruce Schneier recently published a post called "Power and the Internet". An article that most people in the western world will agree with. Internet freedom against Internet safety and security, the powerful have a lot of power to wield and the rest is at best ad hoc organised or fairly powerless lobby organisations. So who is likely to win? Vested interests, he warns. more
Since speaking last fall on community-based TLDs at the New gTLD Summit in Los Angeles, I have been asked a number of times to provide input on the objections ICANN allows in its New gTLD Applicant Guidebook ("AGB" or simply the "Guidebook"). As the March 13 deadline approaches, I now present the first of a series of four spotlight articles on the subject -- one on each of the four permissible grounds for objection. more
The Communications Decency Act has been described as the greatest Internet law. The first major Internet law designed to censor the Internet actually enabled the interactive Internet. While the censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act went down in unanimous supreme court flames, a separate provision remains standing. The Good Samaritan provision of the CDA (47 U.S.C. § 230) declared that networks and online services are not publishers and therefore are not liable for the content of third parties. more
France is proposing an Internet Tax which was reported in the New York Times. The proposal if it follows through will affect the landscape of internet governance in days ahead. The Actual Report was commissioned by President François Hollande, which described various measures his government was taking to address what the French see as tax avoidance by Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook. more
I have a "We the People" petition up on the White House website to decrease the US government funding to the ITU from $11M/year to the minimum $22K/year and minimize the USG head-count at meetings, with all of the reclaimed resources going to support Internet governance and diplomacy supporting the multistakeholder Internet governance model. more
Here are the top ten most popular news, blogs, and industry updates featured on CircleID during 2012 based on the overall readership of the posts for the past 12 months. Congratulations to all the participants whose posts reached top readership and best wishes to the entire community for 2013. more
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