DOTZON Study: Digital Company Brands 2023

DOTZON presents the sixth edition of the Digital Company Brands study. After having introduced the study in 2018, DOTZON continued to expand and enhance the underlying data to display how companies successfully use their Digital Company Brands. The Digital Company Brand is the digital dimension of a company brand and mirrors the "digitalness "of a company. more

Regulation and Reason

Imagine living in a country where it was necessary to register with your community government by providing a copy of one of the following... This may be necessary in perhaps a large number of nations. However, as a United States citizen and resident, I was quite surprised when my local community issued the request. I investigated and found much to my dismay, that my community in fact was required by regulation to survey its residents on a biennial basis. more

Is Cybersecurity a Priority? You Wouldn’t Know It If You Go by Top Level Defections

In the US administration, we see important people like incoming Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta say at his Senate confirmation hearing that "a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor" could well be a cyberattack that cripples the U.S. power grid and financial and government systems. He also said that cybersecurity will be one of the main focuses of his tenure at the Pentagon. But when you look at what is actually happening in cyber security, there is more position jockeying than there is real progress. more

Connecting Clouds

History is littered with manifestos, the public statements of principles and intentions that announce policies, revolutions or ambitious visions in politics and the arts... And now we have a new manifesto for the modern age of distributed computing. The ‘open computing manifesto’ was launched this week with the support of some very large computer companies including Cisco, AT&T, Sun Microsystems and Telefonica as well as over fifty other players in this growing market, all under the leadership of IBM. more

Neustar and Afilias Jump on the No-Tasting Bandwagon

In a message posted to the ICANN GNSO list, Avri Doria forwarded along a most interesting document from Neustar, who runs the .biz domain... Neustar proposes to change their registrar agreement so that each registrar will only get credit for deletions of 10% of their new domains, with a few minor exceptions for tiny registrars and bulk registrations due to one-time mistakes. They say they expect Afilias to propose the same change for .info.  more

ITU: The Communication Wonderland

I kept wondering if all that I had said about Dr Toure was fair -- I hadn't met him before and had written so much to comment on the transcript of his speech at ICANN, Cairo . My discomfort was short-lived and even before a month elapsed I met him at the Internet Governance Forum, Hyderabad. Exchanged pleasantries before saying "I wrote some strong comments about your speech at Cairo". Dr Toure looked happy to see me, beamed with a bit of surprise and said he read my comment... more

Better “Always-On” DDoS Mitigation

Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks have been the frustration of information technology professionals for many years. When asked, most tell you they wish their internet service providers (ISPs) would simply provide them "clean pipes" all the time and take care of DDoS attacks upstream before they ever get to them. Unfortunately, the resources (equipment and personnel) necessary to clean Internet connections all the time are very expensive and come with several downsides. more

ICANN 47: Policy Debates and Cautious Optimism

A strange feeling came over me after I got home from ICANN 47 in Durban, something I haven't felt after an ICANN meeting before. The feeling? Optimism. I'm optimistic, albeit cautiously so, about the future of ICANN and by extension, hopefully that of Internet governance in general. If the meeting in Durban is any indication, we've come a long way in the past year. There were no indicted war criminals invited to dinner. And though it may be too soon to say for sure, I don't think a letter will be sent to the government of South Africa about the quality of the hotel. more

African Union Commission Formally Objects Through GAC to DotConnectAfrica’s Application for .africa

This is the African Union Commission's formal objection, through the ICANN GAC Early Warning Process, to the DotConnectAfrica Trust's amended application 1-1165-42560 for the .africa TLD. Here, it objects to the DCA .africa bid as not having the requisite government support for a Geographic name, and further characterizes DCA's bid as an "Unwarranted Interference and Intrusion" more

Is racing.com a Half-Million Dollar Mistake for Racing Victoria?

What's a domain name? What business function do they serve? Can a domain name generate ROI? I imagine these were the questions the Board of Racing Victoria asked before signing off on the purchase of racing.com to support a Victorian racing industry joint initiative to establish a digital media and content platform similar to that of the AFL. more

Mass Surveillance: A Turning Point in Internet History

So far, the debate on mass surveillance has dwelt on the immense resources made available to the agencies (NSA in the US, GCHQ in the UK), on the technological advantage that enables them to access any data and bypass encryption, and on the lack of proper oversight in those two countries. But in order to make their voices heard by their elected representatives, Internet users around the world need to have an even more complete view of the emerging reality. more

Rapidly Changing Triple and Quadruple Play Business Models

It is interesting to follow what is happening with triple and quadruple play broadband prices in competitive markets. Through triple and quadruple play, customers are increasingly getting more services for the same money. As most fixed telecoms markets are still largely monopolistic in nature, basic access charges remain high; but good prices are even available in markets with healthy wholesale competition, if one shops around. more

How Do You Know if You’re Choosing the Best IP Geolocation API?

If you can't address your customers and the people interacting with your network face to face, at least know where they are -- anywhere in the world, anytime you want to. That's possible with geolocation technology, and many businesses are keen on acquiring the best IP geolocation API for cybersecurity and other purposes. However, before committing to a particular solution, each product needs to be carefully evaluated according to the exact needs of a prospective buyer. more

ION Conference At USENIX LISA This Week Features IPv6 and DNSSEC Sessions - Will Be Livestreamed

If any of you are attending the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference in San Diego this week, the Internet Society's "Internet ON" (ION) Conference is co-located with LISA12 and will take place tomorrow, December 11, 2012, from 1:30 - 5:00 pm US Pacific time. more

The .Corp, .Home & .Mail Quandary

On 24 August, fifteen applicants for the .corp, .home, or .mail (CHM) new gTLDs sent a letter to the ICANN Board asking for action on the stalled process of the their applications. This points to the answer for the question I asked in march of this year: Whatever happened with namespace collision issues and the gTLD Round of 2012. As the letter from the applicants indicates, ICANN has done little to deal with issues concerned with namespace collisions in the last 2 years. Is it now time for action? more