Policy & Regulation

Policy & Regulation / Recently Commented

China Sets Up Internet Oversight Body, Has Authority to Investigate and Punish

Caixin reports that the State Council, China's cabinet, has set up an office to regulate internet activity, according to an announcement released on May 4 via an official website. The new department, called the State Internet Information Office, will supervise online content management and process approvals of businesses involved in online news reporting, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. The new agency is reported to have the authority to investigate and punish online content-providers if necessary. more

Questionable Impact for US House Hearing on New gTLDs

This morning, the US House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet led by Representative Goodlatte (R - VA) conducted a hearing on New gTLDs. Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President from ICANN did his best to alleviate concerns about the risks posed to intellectual property rights and consumers as the result of the New gTLD Program and reiterated that the process to launch new gTLDs has been underway for 7 years. more

EU launches Future Internet Public Private Partnership

Wout de Natris writes to report: "EU Commissioner for the Information Society Neelie Kroes today launched the EU co-funded project for the Internet of the future in which everything will be connected to everyone in the cloud. Here's the link to Mrs. Kroes' speech." more

Privacy is a Growth Market in Search of Leadership

Within a single month, privacy has moved to the top of the "to-do" list for government, business and consumers. In fact, the confluence of activity is the best indication in the last ten years that the will exists to establish regulatory and self-governance programs that complement consumer protection. Privacy is a growth market. more

Stumbling Forward Means Promoting IDNs

A couple of weeks ago during the 40th ICANN meeting in San Francisco I got up to talk at the microphone. I spoke about the needs of developing markets on the web, about the importance of focusing on the 56% of the world that doesn't use Latin character scripts and about the struggles they still face as they go about their everyday lives - chatting, shopping or when pushed, promoting regime change - all using the internet... more

FedRAMP: Critical to Cost-Effective Cloud Computing Cybersecurity

In September 2009, the Obama Administration announced the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative. As the government's CIO explained, cloud computing "has the potential to greatly reduce waste, increase data center efficiency and utilization rates, and lower operating costs." The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) addresses the key elements of a cloud computing framework for federal agencies. more

2nd Annual RIPE NCC - LEA meeting: Cooperation Unfolds

On Wednesday 16 March the Serious Organised Crime Agency organised a meeting in London with the RIPE NCC. For the second time law enforcers from the whole world met with the RIPE NCC and RIPE community representatives to discuss cooperation. RIPE NCC staged several very interesting presentations that showed the LEAs the importance of the work done within RIPE and ARIN, the information RIPE NCC has and the relevance of all this to LEAs. Also issues were addressed that can potentially be harmful to future investigations. more

KnujOn Releases New Security, Abuse and Compliance Report

We have just issued a new report detailing abuse of the Domain Name System and Registrar contract compliance issues. The report specifically discusses several items including: Registrars with current legal issues; Illicit Use of Privacy-Proxy WHOIS Registration; A study on the contracted obligation for Bulk WHOIS Access; and more. more

Ottawa Committed to Overturn CRTC Decision on Usage-Based Internet Billing

Canadian Industry Minister Tony Clement has announced that the Harper government will overturn the CRTC's decision that effectively ends "unlimited use" Internet plans if the regulator doesn't rescind the decision itself. more

Proxy-Privacy User Higher for Illicit Domains

WHOIS issues are looming large for the ICANN meeting next week, starting with an all-day WHOIS Policy Review on Sunday (background). WHOIS is a subject that has been the recent topic of a number of issues including a debacle over potentially disclosing the identities of compliance reporters to spammers and criminal domainers. more

Conflict Over Efforts to Develop a Best-Practices Document for Blacklist Operators

Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "Ken Magill covers the current rake fight on the IRTF's Anti-Spam Research Group mailing list concerning anti-spam DNS Blacklist, or Blocklist, (DNSBL) operators charging for delistings, that is well worth a read, he has quotes from many experts and leaders in the industry who are decidedly against the practice." more

NTIA Request for Comments on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions

On Feb. 25, 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration released the following request for comments concerning the USG's contract for the IANA function. As indicated, the USG's contract for the IANA function with ICANN expires later this year. Interested parties can file comments with NTIA by March 31, 2011. more

No Government Veto Over Future Top-Level Domain Names

Declan McCullagh reporting in CNET News: "The Obama administration has failed in its bid to allow it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a proposal before ICANN that raised questions about balancing national sovereignty with the venerable Internet tradition of free expression. A group of nations rejected that part of the U.S. proposal last week, concluding instead that governments can offer nonbinding 'advice' about controversial suffixes such as .gay but will not receive actual veto power." more

Registries, Registrars, Resellers and the Fight Against Cyber Crime: The EU-US Meeting

On 24 and 25 February 2011 the European Commission, DG Home Affairs, organised a meeting on cyber crime in cooperation with the US government, Department of Justice, with representatives of the law enforcement community, registries and registrars. The basis of the discussion was the RAA due diligence recommendations (hence: the recommendations) as presented by LEAs in the past years during ICANN meetings. The meeting was constructive, surprising and fruitful. I give some background, but what I would like to stress here is what, in my opinion, could be a way forward after the meeting. more

ICA Tells DOC of Concerns Over USG and GAC “Scorecards”

The ICA has just dispatched a letter to Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling in advance of the talks scheduled in Brussels on February 29-March 1 between ICANN's Board and its Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). Our letter expresses strong concerns that the positions being advocated by the U.S. government and the GAC regarding the proposed Final Applicant Guidebook (AG) for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) would be detrimental to ICANN's multi-stakeholder policy process and would undermine the rights of legitimate registrants at new gTLDs. more