Like many people, I was taken by surprised by Google's announcement about its threatened withdrawal from China in the wake of continued censorship and attacks that appeared to emanate from there. My immediate reaction was quite simple: "Wow". There's been a lot of speculation about just why they pulled out. Some reports noted that Google has been losing market share to Baidu... I don't think, though, that that's the whole story. more
Need a good reason to cancel your Twitter account? Well, Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards basketball team may have about $111M reasons to do so. Last Thursday, following his indefinite suspension from the National Basketball Association in the wake of a gun-related altercation with a teammate, Arenas canceled his Twitter account. His tweeting had factored somewhat into his suspension and, under his father's advice, he canceled his account so as not to be tempted to make matters worse. more
Trying to make sense of the nearly 2000 new TLD applications is not something that anyone can do quickly. Sure, you can look at the list and see who has applied for what, but it's only when you actually read the "public" part of their submission that you can get an insight into their plans. Let's call a spade a spade. If a big brand wants to get its own TLD then it's pretty much their own business how they use it, as long as they don't do any "harm" to the rest of the internet ecosystem... more
The current revelations about Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data illustrate an important drawback to using a Facebook account as your business' online presence: Facebook knows and sells your customers! Millions of companies - especially small companies and start-ups - rely on a Facebook account for their online presence. On the surface, it seems like a great idea... more
How can the open standards organizations of the IETF and W3C "strengthen the Internet" against large-scale pervasive monitoring? That is the topic up for discussion at the "Strengthening the Internet Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)" workshop planned for February 28 and March 1, 2014, and jointly sponsored by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the W3C. The workshop is by invitation-only and has a deadline of Monday, January 20, 2014 (by 11:59 UTC) for submission of either position papers or Internet drafts. more
I'm pleased to announce the publication of The 2015 Web Globalization Report Card. Here are the top-scoring websites from the report... You'll notice that Google is once again ranked number one. The fact is, no other company on this list invests in web and software globalization like Google. While many software companies are happy to support 40 or even 50 languages on their websites, Google is looking at 60 or more languages across its many products. more
Google has announced the release of a new open-source font called Noto that supports 800 languages and covers 110 writing systems. more
United States President Biden has recently commented: “But let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want. […] So, we know we’ve got a problem – a major problem.” It’s not every day you hear the President of the United States take on the very industry that supported his national economy remaining the world’s richest over the past couple of decades. Yet his tone resonates with a growing unease within the US... more
There is a very interesting video posted on YouTube.com from Matt Cutts of Google who answered the question about how ccTLD's are viewed by Google especially when they are being used as domain hacks. Here is the question: "We have a vanity domain (http://ran.ge) that unfortunately isn't one of the generic TLDs, which means we can't set our geographic target in Webmaster Tools. Is there any way to still target our proper location?" more
In an open letter to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced on Tuesday that it is resigning from World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in response to the organization publishing Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a standard. more
While we are spending years figuring out how to create the perfect generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch and guidebook, the Internet is moving along at an extraordinary pace without any care about ICANN policy-making. The fact of the matter is ICANN is a ghost to the ordinary person or Internet company. You can not imagine how many times I had to explain what ICANN is, what ICANN does and why ICANN is important. more
Let's take a second to look back some 50 years to the world of 1972 and the technology and telecommunications environment at that time. The world of 1972 was one populated by a relatively small collection of massive (and eye-wateringly expensive) mainframe computers that were tended by a set of computer operators working around the clock and directed by specialized programmers, trained in the obscure symbol set used by the job control systems on these computers. more
Do you know of someone who has made the Internet better in some way who deserves more recognition? Maybe someone who has helped extend Internet access to a large region? Or wrote widely-used programs that make the Internet more secure? Or served in some capacity behind the scenes in Internet services? Or maybe someone who has been actively working for open standards and open processes for the Internet? more
Those who have been involved in the ICANN process as long as I have naturally become accustomed to ICANN controversies at all levels. But the latest is a "wrong" of international ramifications. The four (4) versions of the Guidebook for the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) have been hundreds of pages long with a lot of The Good, The Bad, and to some, The Ugly. However, something new has appeared in the 4th and latest version called DAG4 can be called: "The Disturbing". more
One thing was clear from a recent presentation by the new leaders of the SF-Bay Internet Society (ISOC) Chapter Working Groups: inclusion and collaboration will be the key to these groups' success. As Dr. Brandie Nonnecke, the Internet Governance Working Group (WG) Chair said, "We haven't yet cracked the code on what 'multistakeholder' means." But that won't stop her and Dr. Jaclyn Kerr, the Data Protection, Privacy, and Security WG Chair, from trying. more