The Hill: FCC Response to Sen. Cruz Reveals Hidden ICANN Agenda in Net Neutrality Order

Fred Campbell reporting in The Hill writes: "It's no secret that controversy has plagued the Obama Administration's plan to surrender U.S. oversight of the Internet domain naming and numbering systems from the current U.S.-based ICANN to the 'global multistakeholder community.' But the reason the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) declined to exercise its statutory jurisdiction over Internet numbering inside the United States was indeed secret until Senator Ted Cruz forced the FCC to explain itself." more

Bill Gates: No One Was An “Absolutist” on Either Side of the Digital Privacy Debate

Speaking during a discussion on innovation hosted by Reuters in Washington, Bill Gates said that no one was an "absolutist" on either side of the digital privacy debate but that he supports Microsoft's lawsuit against the U.S. government seeking the freedom to tell customers when federal agencies have sought their data. more

Quintessential and Other Acts of Bad Faith in Acquiring Domain Names

There are two essential differences between the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), one procedural and one substantive. The procedural difference is quite minor, a mere quirk that Panels adopted by consensus in the early days of the UDRP and deserves no more than a footnote. Under the UDRP, complainants have standing on proof that they have trademark rights when they file their complaints... more

A New Frontier for the Global South

The Fund for Internet Research and Education - FIRE - is an initiative of AFRINIC that gives Grants and Awards to outstanding projects that use the Internet to provide innovative solutions to Africa's unique education, information, infrastructure, and communication needs. FIRE Africa is part of an initiative called The Seed Alliance that has LACNIC's FRIDA Program, APNIC's ISIF.Asia program, and the Internet Society as members. more

Can Hybrid DDoS Mitigation Stop Large Application Layer Attacks?

We recently received an email from a customer asking about hybrid DDoS mitigation and its ability to stop large application layer attacks. Here's the truth: Hybrid DDoS mitigation works and can stop large application layer attacks. Hybrid DDoS mitigation typically involves a purpose-built DDoS mitigation appliance or software on dedicated hardware that sits immediately in front of or behind an enterprise's edge router. more

Declaring IPv6 an Internet Standard

I've already shared my thoughts following a session of the IPv4 Sunset Working Group at IETF 95 that considered whether to declare IPv4 an "Historic" specification. Of course, as one would expect for a meeting of a Standards Development Organization (SDO), that wasn't the only standards process discussion through the week. Another session, this time in the IPv6 Maintenance Working Group, considered the related topic of whether to make the IPv6 specification a full Internet Standard. Let's look at that proposal. more

French Supermarket Giant LeClerc Turns On DotBrand

Earlier this week French supermarket giant E.Leclerc launched a new site for their sports' goods. The key change? The new site lives at sport.leclerc. Leclerc, which employs over 94 thousand people, is one of the companies that opted to get its own "dotbrand". While some companies have rolled out a variety of different things on their own domain extension it's still rare to see a brand launching anything with mass market appeal using their own TLD. more

H.R. 2666 Bill Proposes Deregulating U.S. Broadband Rates, Obama Threatens to Veto

President Obama has threatened to veto a backdoor attempt by a Republican-backed bill that would undermine net neutrality protection measures. The "No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act", or H.R. 2666, proposes to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from regulating the rates charged for broadband Internet access service. more

GigaNet Call for Proposals: Internet Governance Research a Decade After WSIS

In 2016, the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) will celebrate its 11th Annual Symposium which will take place on 05 December 2016 in Guadalajara, Mexico as a pre-event of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
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The New Marketing Vanguard: Domain Extensions (nTLDs)

Back in 2014, hundreds of new Top Level Domains (nTLDs) rolled out into availability. This means that the .com, .gov, and .org extensions that are typically used for business domains were joined by a multitude of other, more specialized extensions such as .attorney, .cars, and .recipes. As a channel partner, it's crucial to know how these new units will influence your presence online. more

VR Demand Set to Grow, But Little Prospect for Telcos

Over the last 20 years or so we have regularly revisited the developments in virtual reality (VR). I remember experiencing VR for the first time in the late 1980s, so this technology has been in the making for a very long time. And we are still uncertain about its growth over the next decade. There is no doubt that VR is going through a period of revival. more

Split UDRP Decisions on (Almost) Identical Domain Names

A company called Rocketgate PR LLC, which owns a U.S. registration for the trademark ROCKETPAY, filed two UDRP complaints on the same date against two different domain name registrants - for the domain names and . (The only difference is that the latter domain name is plural.) In both cases, the disputed domain names were associated with inactive websites. The UDRP cases were assigned to two different panelists, who issued their decisions one day apart. more

The Strange Structure of ISP Service Semantics

I have been having a number of conversations recently with several clients and colleagues about "semantics". It's clear that there is not a lot of clarity on this philosophical subject! Whilst is may be an obscure issue, it is a very important one. Our ideas lead us to take actions, and if we want those actions to have the consequences we had in mind, then we need to have done our epistemological homework. more

NTIA on IoT - ICANN 2? And Reconsidering IoT as Distributed Process Control

NTIA has published a Notice for Public comment that is titled "The Benefits, Challenges, and Potential Roles for the Government in Fostering the Advancement of the Internet of Things". This could become ICANN-2, bigger, longer, and uncut; and with a much greater impact on the future direction of the internet. However, my thoughts on this go well beyond the possibility of another ICANN. more

Waiting 30 Years for Smart Homes and Still Counting

Back in 1980 when I still lived in the Netherlands I worked with the Dutch futurist Griet Titulaer (an astronomer by trade) in building 'The Home of the Future'. I would say that at that stage it was more built around innovative interior design with automation features. Home entertainment also played a key role in it. At that stage these concepts had nowhere near the amount of technology that we are seeing in the homes of the future that we envisage today, but in essence lots of the elements we are still talking about were present then as well. more