One of the primary purposes of global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is to introduce a wide range of topics to newcomers and provide them with the opportunity to take back what they have learned in the hopes of establishing an understanding of the Internet Governance philosophy at the community or national level. As a first time participant at the 10th Global Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2015) that took place in Joao Pessoa Brazil, in early November of 2015, I felt the burden of being a representative from a developing country, a place where discussion of important issues is limited to a small group of individuals, often in informal settings, over coffee or in my case, green tea. more
Last week, Synacor joined other major mailbox providers by introducing a complaint feedback loop service -- powered by ReturnPath. This increases the number of public complaint feedback loops available today across the internet. more
KPIs are industry-specific and should be aligned carefully with your AI strategy. My course at UC Berkeley drills down heavily on how to define success when implementing your AI strategy, and measurement, like anything else, is the top priority. One technique that can potentially be used in your organization as you embark on your AI strategy is to use the SMART method for KPIs. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Sensitive. more
In his latest blog post, Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond reports that Chinese authorities aren't happy with the automatic redirection of Google.cn to Hong Kong. They are threatening not to renew Google's Internet Content Provider license, which is required to legally operate any kind of Internet business in China. more
Tim Berners-Lee has called on governments, companies and individuals to back a new "Contract for the Web" that aims to protect people's rights and freedoms on the internet. more
In all the recent uproar (New York Times, "Google Told to Turn Over User Data of YouTube," Michael Helft, 4 July 2008) about the fact that Google has been forced to turn over a large pile of personally-identifiable information to Viacom as part of a copyright dispute (Opinion), there is a really interesting angle pointed out by Dan Brickley (co-creator of FOAF and general Semantic Web troublemaker)... more
In a blog post today, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, has revealed various new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) which the company has submitted applications to ICANN for. Vint Cerf writes: "Given this [TLD] expansion process, we decided to submit applications for new TLDs, which generally fall into four categories..." more
When I read government arguments in defense of the NSA, an oft-repeated line was: We're not targeting Americans. We're targeting foreigners. Foreigners. I really dislike that word. And I'm sure companies like Apple, Google and Facebook do as well. Why? more
Over the past decade Simplified Chinese has grown to become one of the most popular languages on global websites, second only to English. According to the Web Globalization Report Card, which has long monitored languages supported by the world's leading brands, Chinese was seen on only about six out of ten websites in 2006. Today, it is seen on virtually every global website. more
I have written about the problems with the "little green lock" shown by browsers to indicate a web page (or site) is secure. In that article, I consider the problem of freely available certificates, and a hole in the way browsers load pages. In March of 2017, another paper was published documenting another problem with the "green lock" paradigm - the impact of HTTPS interception. more
This year's Cisco Collaboration Summit was a step up from last year, and I say that for good reason. Last year's event was good -- all of Cisco's events are good -- but the venue was too small and it took away from the messaging. For 2010, Cisco went out of town to the classy and classic Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. They don't build them like this anymore, and to me, this setting did far more justice for what Cisco has to say about collaboration. more
The approach is growing in popularity, and Google, Microsoft and Amazon are among the many large companies working on ways to attract users to their offerings, with Google Apps, Microsoft's Live Mesh and Amazon S3 all signing up customers as they try to figure out what works and what can turn a profit... In the real world national borders, commercial rivalries and political imperatives all come into play... The issue was recently highlighted by reports that the Canadian government has a policy of not allowing public sector IT projects to use US-based hosting services because of concerns over data protection. more
Last year I wrote about big disruptive outages on the T-Mobile and the CenturyLink networks. Those outages demonstrate how a single circuit failure on a transport route or a single software error in a data center can spread quickly and cause big outages. I join a lot of the industry in blaming the spread of these outages on the concentration and centralization of networks where the nationwide routing of big networks is now controlled by only a handful of technicians in a few locations. In early October, we saw the granddaddy of all network outages... more
The regulatory environment for brands and retailers that do business online is getting stricter thanks to regulatory changes in Europe with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as well as existing regulations in the U.S. Companies that adapt quickly can turn these changes into a competitive advantage. As we grapple worldwide with the implications of the incredible amount of personal data generated every day, consumers are pressuring brands and legislators alike for more control over their information. more
Call it outreach, call it propaganda or call it brilliance or even desperate measures, spammers (people) who favour the Georgian side in the recent conflict have been spamming using email, to get their point across. Depending on where in the world you are from, your ideological standpoint on Russia and your beliefs, when it comes to what email should be like, can be different and you may judge the action as you will. I call it spam. An Estonian colleague Viktor Larionov was quoted saying that whether there is a cyber war in Georgia or not, we know there is in fact a media war in play... more