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Michael Geist writes: "The bills contain a three-pronged approach focused on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers. The first prong mandates the disclosure of Internet provider customer information without court oversight. Under current privacy laws, providers may voluntarily disclose customer information but are not required to do so. The new system would require the disclosure of customer name, address, phone number, email address, Internet protocol address, and a series of device identification numbers." more
While many were expecting a decision of strict Registry/Registrar separation, in an unexpected ruling, it was announced that ICANN will not restrict cross-ownership between Registries and Registrars. While the current set of agreements prohibits Registries from acquiring Registrars, they do not prohibit Registrars from applying for or operating TLDs. The Board Resolutions also made note of the fact that while individually negotiated contracts have included restrictions on Registry ownership of Registrars, cross-ownership provisions have varied over time and no formal "policy" on this topic has ever been recommended by the GNSO or adopted by ICANN. more
Michele Neylon writes: "Earlier this morning ICANN made public the resolutions from the most recent board meeting of November 5th 2010. The meeting was not a "normal" meeting - it was deemed a "special meeting" and its sole topic was vertical integration and cross-ownership between registrars and registries. This topic, often simply referred to as VI, has been a subject of debate - often very heated - for the last 12 months." more
NIST's release of their initial public draft of SP 800-137, Guide for Continuous Monitoring of Information Systems and Organizations will create a set of challenges for the federal cybersecurity community. Agencies and contractors will need to shape the document through the multi-stage revision process while continuing to implement their own continuous monitoring measures. more
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has named Edward Felten, a Princeton professor of computer science and public affairs, as its Chief Technologist, effective January 1. Felten's main role will be to provide advice on technology policy issues. more
Skype has cut Nimbuzz off. What that means is that users of Nimbuzz' popular mobile clients will no longer be able to make calls using the SkypeOut network. According to Skype themselves, it was for unspecified violations of the Skype API terms and license... more
Anyone who has been part of the community during its soon-to-be 12-years of existence will be the first to tell you that while ICANN's intentions are good, its execution, time and again, has been lacking. Unfortunately, the global business world does not and cannot accept only good intentions. Businesses require surety, consistency and clear evidence of stability before they can establish the foundation for their enterprises. more
As an email policy wonk, I think a lot about how specific policy implementations can go wrong. Sure, every policy can go wrong, or not fit a common case. A lot of people only write polices that address common cases and don't worry about the rarer cases. The problem is there are some rare cases that may cause significant harm and those cases should be addressed. Consumerist has a case up about email policy gone wrong with a clear path to harm but no policy for handling the issue. There are a couple places I see where this policy hole can be fixed. more
The Twitterverse is awash with catchy URL shortening services, which allow what would otherwise be long URLs to fit within the strict character limit of individual Tweets. Before the Twitter phenomenon really took hold, tinyurl.com was one of the more popular services; now much shorter options are available, using various Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) which have the significant advantage of being only two characters after the last dot. more
ICANN's plan to increase competition and bring innovation in the domain space by launching top-level domains (TLD) seems to be in full swing following the resolutions at the last ICANN Board retreat in Norway. However one area that seems unclear is who will take responsibility in determining the TLD winners. After years of continuous additions, retractions and amendments, the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) is not yet finalized. However, the word in the ICANN community is that the TLD program launch will be in effect immediately after the ICANN San Francisco meeting held in March 2011. more
The ICANN Board resolutions adopted during the retreat in Trondheim, Norway on the 25th of September, 2010, painted yet another question mark for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), despite its positive outlook. While the Board seems dedicated to resolve all the outstanding issues, applicants were still left in the dark in regards to some key issues that affect the economics of launching new TLDs. more
The current battles being fought over net-neutrality were over before they began. Whether you regard it as a good thing or a bad thing the world already has a multi-tiered internet and it's likely to become even more stratified in the coming years. Most markets, or perhaps countries is a better grouping, depend on commercial organisations to deploy broadband access and to serve the consumers that sign-up. The internet service providers that governments and customers depend on to reach more and more consumers and in increasingly difficult locations (read 'less likely to generate revenue') are there to make money. more
Over the weekend, ICANN's Board of Directors met in Norway to discuss the fate of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). As a result of the meeting, two resolutions were passed related to new gTLDs. First, the Board resolved to recommend further actions based on comments recently submitted by the Governmental Advisory Committee. The second resolution directed the ICANN CEO to incorporate a number of items into the fifth version of the Guidebook including... more
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is hosting a workshop today discussing the state of IPv6 in the U.S. and its impact on the industry, government, and the Internet economy. The moderators for the workshop are Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer of the United States. Participants include... more
The FCC's recent decision allowing license-exempt access to TV White Spaces, i.e. unused TV channels, is a small but very important step in spectrum policy. But, more important than the TV bands, is the policy approach and the fact that it was adopted in the face of extreme lobbying by well established vested interests. more
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