Donald Trump recently issued an executive order banning TikTok on the grounds that it was necessary to deal with the national emergency he had declared in an earlier executive order. He says he is concerned that TikTok might turn user's "information such as location data and browsing and search histories" over to the Chinese government. Trump does not site evidence of TikTok having shared data with China and TikTok says they have never shared user data with the Chinese government... more
CENTR has published a white paper separating registry lock services into two standardized models. This categorization and the included recommendations can help top-level domain registries (re)design their registry lock services. The aim of the paper is to reduce fragmentation in implementation between registries to explain the value of registry lock to domain holders more easily. more
There are two kinds of new domain name extensions: those dedicated to selling domain names through the network of accredited Registrars and those dedicated to a personnel use. I call these "dotBRANDs" or ".brand" new gTLDs since they are used - most of the time - by Trademarks for their own benefit. This article focuses on .BRAND new generic Top-Level Domains. In the ICANN vocabulary, these are "Registry Agreements with Specification 13". more
Today's Internet is a network of networks and seen through the lens of the web. We need to look beyond the engineering history to see the Internet in the context of the broader vision of JCR Licklider, an acoustic psychologist, and his vision of man/computer symbiosis... JCR Licklider would've been thrilled to see such a powerful man-machine symbiosis becoming so normal and having it work so well. Lick, as he was called, can be considered the grandfather of the Internet. more
With the publication of the Australian Governmental report on Digital Platforms1and in the light of the ongoing work on the EU's Digital Services Act, the spotlight of policymaking is on platforms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. It is natural that members of the ICANN community want to discuss the role of platforms within the ICANN framework, but sadly and predictably, the usual bylaws jockeys and keepers of the true ICANN faith were quick to stifle the conversation. more
In the coming days, the Internet Governance Forum Dynamic Coalition on Internet Standards, Security and Safety will be announced on the IGF website. The following is an invitation to participate, share ideas and best practices, the willingness to take on a new approach towards mass deployment of internet standards and ICT best practices. Feel free to reach out to us and start working towards a kick-off meeting at the global, virtual Internet Governance Forum in November. more
This isn't the blog post I had hoped to write. When I signed up to participate in ICANN's Expedited Policy Development Process for gTLD Registration Data, I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us, but I was cautiously optimistic that we would, eventually, reach a successful outcome. Today, I find myself looking at things differently. After hundreds of hours and countless meetings and emails, Phase 2 of the EPDP's work has wrapped up with the delivery of our final report to the GNSO Council. more
The battle to purge child abuse images from the Internet has been lost. That doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't continue to work towards the elimination of image-based abuse. But it is widely acknowledged by law enforcement, reporting hotlines, and prevention groups alike that this can't be achieved merely by censoring images from the Internet and by criminalizing those who access or share them – which are the only strategies that society has focused on until now. more
The topic of satellite broadband has been heating up lately. Elon Musk's StarLink now has over 540 broadband satellites in the sky and is talking about starting a few beta tests of the technology with customers. OneWeb went into bankruptcy, but it is being bought out by a team consisting of the British government and Bharti Airtel, the largest cellular company in India. Jeff Bezos has continued to move forward with Project Kuiper, and the FCC recently gave the nod for the company to move ahead. more
Analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta looked at the long-term impact of working from home on the economy and ranked different parts of the economy on two factors related to working at home – the likelihood that an area will generate a lot of work-at-home opportunities, and the ability of an area to support a work-at-home economy. more
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