Policy & Regulation

Interview: Antony Van Couvering on the New TLD Opportunity

I recently caught up with a former colleague Antony Van Couvering. Many here on CircleID probably know him, he's been active in the domain name business since the late 1990's. With the new Top-Level Domain (TLD) issue so white hot and with Antony's firm right in the mix, I thought it was time to get his take via an interview. If anyone has questions (or challenges perhaps?) to anything below, I'm happy to forward to Antony for a response. more

The Next Network Policy Battle

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The biggest threat to the Internet innovation ecosystem from network operators is not discrimination but terms of interconnection. Metered billing, bandwidth caps, and wholesale transit fees can all be implemented consistently with net neutrality rules. And in practice, net neutrality will be limited to "legal" content... more

The Future of the Internet Economy: Chapter 2

The OECD held a "high-level" meeting in June 2011 that was intended to build upon the OECD Ministerial on The Future of the Internet Economy held in Seoul, Korea in June 2008. I was invited to attend this meeting as part of the delegation from the Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC), and here I'd like to share my impressions of this meeting. This 2 day meeting, "The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth", had the objective of exploring a number of current issues in the public policy space... more

Beyond Limitations and What Good It Would Do to ICANN to Operate from Abundance

The ICANN community is conservative. A considerable number of dedicated ICANN volunteers from various constituencies believe that ICANN should follow the unusual logic of limiting its revenues to the levels of its CURRENT estimates of expenditure. The Board, acting on the advise of the ICANN community brought down the ICANN transaction fee per domain name from 25 cents to 16 cents and in the case of numbers, for various reasons the Address Registry fees that it collects from the Regional Internet Registries have been historically kept at a negligibly low level. more

INET New York - Remote Participation Details

The Internet Society (ISOC) will present an INET Regional Conference today June 14 2011 at the Sentry Center in NYC. The theme is "It's your call. What kind Of Internet do you want?". The distinguished line up of speakers will include 'Father of the Internet' Vint Cerf, World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners Lee, and Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the U.S. Department of Commerce Lawrence Strickling. more

Deceptive Assurances of Privacy?

Earlier this week, Facebook expanded the roll-out of its facial recognition software to tag people in photos uploaded to the social networking site. Many observers and regulators responded with privacy concerns; EFF offered a video showing users how to opt-out. Tim O'Reilly, however, takes a different tack... O'Reilly's point - and face-recognition technology - is bigger than Facebook. more

Editorials Against PROTECT-IP

First the Los Angeles Times, now the New York Times have both printed editorials critical of the PROTECT-IP bill. Both the LAT and NYT support copyright - and announce as much in their opening sentences. That doesn't mean we should sacrifice Internet security and stability for legitimate DNS users, nor the transparency of the rule of law. more

Internet Three Strikes Laws Violate International Law, Says UN Report

Michael Geist reporting in his blog: "The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has released an important new report that examines freedom of expression on the Internet. The report is very critical of rules such as graduated response/three strikes, arguing that such laws may violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Moreover, the report expresses concerns with notice-and-takedown systems, noting that it is subject to abuse by both governments and private actors." more

RSA Breach Fallout?

Back in March, it was widely reported that RSA had suffered a serious security breach that (to some extent) weakened the security of its SecurID token. However, the NY Times reported then that the chairman said that the penetration wasn't absolute but "it could potentially reduce the effectiveness of the system in the face of a 'broader attack.'". more

At the Start of the NL IGF

At the annual Dutch "delegation" dinner at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, I voiced that it may be a good idea to start a Dutch IGF. This followed a discussion in which we discussed the possibilities of involving more people and organisations from the Netherlands in Internet governance. The, now, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation followed this thought and made it possible for the ECP/EPN foundation to start the NL IGF. more

Network Neutrality Becoming a Major Concern for Europe’s Governments

There is no single definition of network neutrality, though generally it is recognised as the principal that there should be no restrictions by fixed and mobile ISPs, or governments and the like, in providing consumers with access to internet networks. Nor should there be restrictions or discrimination against associated content and platforms. A number of European regulators and governments are now making forthright statements defending the principal. more

Mobile Consolidation - A Threat to Competition

The global financial crisis and the very rapid growth in mobile broadband, thanks to smartphones, have combined to create havoc in the mobile market. On the one hand, we see that customers, especially those in countries seriously affected by the GFC, such as Southern Europe and Ireland, have reduced their mobile use, with the result that there has been a significant drop in Average Revenue per User (ARPU). On the other hand, phenomenal growth has taken place in mobile broadband, but without a significant increase in ARPU... more

Building Caribbean Internet Infrastructure… One IXP at a Time

Encouraging the development of Internet-based services and accelerating the development of local content are often touted as noble objectives. It is also widely acknowledged that reaping the benefits of technology is dependent on reducing Internet connectivity and bandwidth costs, improving infrastructure, and improving quality of service to all Internet users. Yet in a region with over 20 million potential Internet users and great ambitions to create a "knowledge-based society" and develop "technology-driven economies", the cost of access remains prohibitively high and there is a glaring absence of critical Internet infrastructure. more

Facebook vs Google: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

In case you missed it a few days, a story broke that said that Facebook was caught hiring a PR firm to spread stories about Google about how they invade people's privacy... Even though I work for Microsoft and therefore can hardly be considered unbiased, I think Microsoft would be in a position to call out others for lack of privacy protection. I say this based on the fact that in my division, every new feature that we implement has to go through Privacy reviews... more

Debugging Legislation: PROTECT IP

There's more than a hint of theatrics in the draft PROTECT IP bill that has emerged as son-of-COICA, starting with the ungainly acronym of a name. Given its roots in the entertainment industry, that low drama comes as no surprise. Each section name is worse than the last: "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online" (Sec. 4) gives way to "Voluntary action for Taking Action Against Websites Stealing American Intellectual Property". more