Yet Another Unfortunate CAN SPAM Case

The case Melaleuca v. Hansen has been moving slowly through Idaho federal court since 2007. On Sept 30 the court decided in favor of the defendants. Although the outcome is probably correct, the court's decision perpetuates the misreading of CAN SPAM from the infamous Gordon case that makes it in practice impossible to win a CAN SPAM case in the 9th Circuit. more

Big Rumble in Tokyo Over JPRS’s Announcement to Offer gTLD Domains

In an announcement at a registrars meeting in Tokyo on October 19th 2010, JPRS announced that they would be offering generic Top-Level Domains (.com, .net, .org, etc.) to their .jp accredited registrars in the near future. JPRS is already famous for their double-dipping practices, acting as both registry and registrar for .jp domains, for their dubious "campaigns" which are aimed at being dis-advantageous to smaller registrars and for their famous registrar back-end "system" which is circa 1995 technology and even prone to accidental DOS attacks by registrars trying to simply drop-catch domains. more

China and Taiwan to Lead the Development of 4G

China missed out on playing a leadership role in the development of 3G and as we predicted at that time, China would most certainly start looking at 4G for a major involvement in developing the technologies for it. more

How Not to Get Your Mail Delivered

A small company in suburban Philadelphia called Holomaxx recently filed two lawsuits against large webmail providers, complaining that they weren't delivering mail from Holomaxx. The first suit is against Microsoft and Return Path, and the second suit is against Yahoo and Cisco/Ironport. Neither is going anywhere. more

GFC Slows Down Cloud Computing Developments

The ongoing Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has also had a significant impact on some of the developments in our industry -- for example, cloud computing. It looks as though the GFC is the key reason that developments in cloud computing have not happened more quickly. Industry evidence suggests that shifting to the cloud saves 20%-50% off current IT deployments, and, according to its advocates, it can be many times more than that. more

Ed Felten Named FTC’s First Chief Technologist

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

4% of Americans Online Use Location-Based Services, According to Pew Survey

In its first report on the use of "geosocial" or location-based services, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life project finds that 4% of online adults use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. On any given day, 1% of internet users are using these services. more

Myanmar Internet Down from Massive DDoS Attack

Craig Labovitz of Arbor Networks reports: "Back in 2007, the Myanmar government reportedly severed all Myanmar Internet connectivity in a crackdown over growing political unrest. Yesterday, Myanmar once again fell of the Internet. Over the course of the past several days, Myanmar's main Internet provider, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (or PTT for short), suffered a large, sustained DDoS attack disrupting most network traffic in and out of the country." more

ICANN Publishes New gTLD Timeline

On October 28th, at a Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors, an updated New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) timeline was adopted as a working plan. The new Launch Scenario indicates that the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook will be declared final at the December ICANN Meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. more

Global Spam Levels Drop Following Certain Events

If you haven't noticed lately, spam levels around the world have started dropping especially in October after a couple of events occurred. The first is a Russian crackdown on alleged spam king Igor Gusev, thought to be involved in the operations of SpamIt.com. SpamIt mysteriously shut down in late September, perhaps because Gusev caught wind of law enforcement starting to take notice of him. more

Survey Indicates Fair Demand for Brand Based Top-Level Domains

Kevin Murphy reporting in DomainIncite.com: "Almost half of trademark-conscious companies are considering a '.brand' top-level domain, according to a survey carried out by World Trademark Review magazine. The survey also found that there is much more interest in new TLDs among marketing folk than lawyers, which is perhaps not surprising. So far, only a few potential .brand applicants have been revealed..." more

Study Reports .COM Domain as Riskiest, .JP Safest Country Domain

Latest research suggests the world's most popular top-level domain, .COM, is also the riskiest. According to McAfee's fourth annual 'Mapping the Mal Web' report released today, 56% of all risky sites end in .COM! The study, which according to the company analyzed more than 27 million websites, also reports that while .COM is the riskiest top-level domain, the riskiest country domain is Vietnam (.VN). Japan's .JP ranks as the safest country domain for the second year in a row. more

IPv6 for Mobile Networks: Time to Act Now!

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) serve the largest constituent of connected devices. There are over 4.6B GSM (and its derivatives) subscriptions today. When you add the CDMA family along with technologies with smaller footprints such as WiMax, IDEN to this list, that number tops 5B mark. On the other hand there are only (yes only!) 800M Internet hosts per ISC. Considering such a small percentage of those 5B or so devices are capable of being an Internet host and out of that percentage even a much smaller percentage is connected at a given time, one can understand the sheer potential of explosion in the number of Internet hosts as mobile devices in the next 3-5 years. more

Google Internet Traffic Continues to Soar

Craig Labovitz reporting today on Arbor Networks blog: "In their earnings call last week, Google announced a record 2010 third-quarter revenue of $7.29 billion (up 23% from last year). The market rejoiced and Google shares shot past $615 giving the company a market cap of more than $195 billion. This month, Google broke an equally impressive Internet traffic record -- gaining more than 1% of all Internet traffic share since January. If Google were an ISP, as of this month it would rank as the second largest carrier on the planet..." more

Recognizing ICANN’s Failures

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has failed on a number of fronts, resulting in sub-par products and services in a global monopolistic environment. Failures will continue if not recognized and immediately addressed. Leadership is about the future, a journey into uncharted territory, and it requires vision supported by technical, operational, and mind-changing competencies. ... It does not require a rocket scientist to recognize that ICANN has fallen short because it lacks... more