Premium Generics, the Domain Industry’s Luxury Goods

Categories. The mere mention of the word risks eliciting groans from any domain industry specialist. In the run up to the new gTLD program, this concept was oft discussed. It seemed obvious to most that TLDs were not a homogenous ensemble but instead, could exist in many different shapes and sizes. Except to ICANN staff. They systematically refused to entertain the notion of categories. Even when ICANN Board members suggested some kind of recognition for different TLD types should be hardwired into the program! more

The DNS Still Isn’t a Directory

Back in the mid 1990s, before ICANN was invented, a lot of people assumed that the way you would find stuff on the Internet would be through the Domain Name System. It wasn't a ridiculous idea at the time. The most popular way to look for stuff was through manually managed directories like Yahoo's, but they couldn't keep up with the rapidly growing World Wide Web. Search engines had been around since 1994, but they were either underpowered and missed a lot of stuff, or else produced a blizzard of marginally relevant results. more

Freedom of Expression Chilled by ICANN’s Addition of Speech Restrictions in DNS

Freedom of expression on the Internet is at risk from ICANN's recent decision to prohibit anyone but one specific type of doctor from using the word within the .doctor new gTLD space. Last month, ICANN's New GTLD Program Committee decided that only "medical practitioners" would be allowed to register a domain in the .doctor name space. ICANN's decision to exclude numerous lawful users of the word, including a broad range of individuals who are in fact doctors, comes at a time when the world is watching ICANN to see if it can adequately protect Internet users' rights in the absence of US Government supervision. more

ISPs to Enforce Copyright Law

A group of major ISPs and major content providers have agreed on a a mechanism to enforce copyright laws in the network. While full details have not yet been released, the basic scheme involves using previously designed IP flags to denote public domain content. That is, given general copyright principles, it is on average a shorter code path and hence more efficient to set the flag on exempt material. more

Consumers Are the Serfs of the Feudal Internet Companies

In one of the email conversations with my expert colleagues from around the globe, an interesting article was discussed written by Bruce Scheier in Wired: When it comes to security, we're back to feudalism. An interesting aspect of the discussion was the conclusion that Google's and Facebook's consumers are not their customers. The distinction is important, because consumers are the product being sold to their actual customers who are their advertisers. more

Dot-Sucks TLD Accused of Predatory, Exploitative and Coercive Practices

Kieren McCarthy reporting in the Register: "The intellectual property constituency (IPC) of domain overseer ICANN has formally asked the organization to halt the rollout of the controversial .sucks top-level domain, due to start on Monday." more

Low Cost Economy Depends on Ubiquitous Affordable High Speed Broadband

Around the world there are ongoing developments to reform and transform industries and whole sectors with the assistance of new information & communications technologies (ICTs). There is a clear understanding that reforms are essential in order to provide the level of services and the quality be it in business or elsewhere. Lifestyle issues are under threat in relation to the quality and the affordability of healthcare, social services, education, energy and the environment... more

M3AAWG Releases Anti-Abuse Best Common Practices for Hosting and Cloud Service Providers

Jointly published by the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2C) and the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group, the new document outlines proven activities that can help Web hosting services improve their operations and better protect end-users. more

No Easy Solutions to TLD Branding and Labeling

The introduction of unlimited numbers of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) has increased customer and company confusion about the role of brand names and their product labels, as noted in an earlier post. This essay outlines the various possible scenarios for coupling TLD branding and labeling, and it explains why duplicating the benefits of branding under.com may be difficult. more

Save the Date: .US Public Stakeholder Town Hall (April 22, 1-3 ET / 10-12 PT)

.US is the top-level domain for the United States of America. As stakeholders in the .US ccTLD, we all share a vested interest in making sure that .US continues to be a vibrant namespace that reflects the diversity, creativity and success of our people. As the Internet continues to grow and evolve, it's important that the .US domain does too. To meet these needs, Neustar and the usTLD Stakeholder Council plan to hold a virtual .US Public Stakeholder Town Hall Meeting. more

Why the 1# Vulnerability for Cyber Attacks Will Be Apathy

Everyone has heard of the cyber security attacks on Target (2013), Home Depot (2014), Neiman Marcus (2014), Sony Pictures (2014), and the United States' second-largest health insurer, Anthem (reported February 2015), but have you heard of the security breaches for Aaron Brothers, Evernote (denial of service attack), P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Community Health Services, Goodwill Industries, SuperValu, Bartell Hotels, Dairy Queen, U.S. Transportation Command contractors, and more. more

End-to-End Email Encryption - This Time For Sure?

Phil Zimmerman's Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and its offspring have been encrypting and decrypting email for almost 25 years -- but require enough knowledge and determination to use them that adoption has never taken off outside the technoscenti. Now initiatives from several quarters aim to fix that -- but will it all "just work," and will end users adopt it even if it does? more

The .DOCTOR Quarantine

ICANN should reconsider its decision to quarantine .DOCTOR, given that it's not even sick. In an utterly surprising move, ICANN staff and the Board's New gTLD Program Committee ("NGPC") recently informed the applicants for .DOCTOR that it has singled out the gTLD as a test case for controlling content and limiting speech on the Internet. In the epitome of top-down policy making, ICANN issued an edict that it will implement nearly year-old advice from the Government Advisory Committee ("GAC") differently from all other similarly situated gTLDs and in contravention of subsequent GAC advice. more

Estimating Trademark Claims Notice Suppression of Non-Infringing New gTLD Registrations

On February 2nd ICANN staff announced the release of a Draft Report: Rights Protection Mechanisms Review that is open for public comment until May 1st. This Draft Report is preliminary to an Issues Report requested by the GNSO Council that is due to be delivered by September 30th, and that may set the stage for a Policy Development Process (PDP) on Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) that could commence in 2016. Such a PDP could consider comprehensive reform of these RPMs as well as of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). more

Don’t Confuse Brand and Category-Label New gTLDs

The domain name industry gets brand and label confused. A brand sums up what makes a company unique to its customers. A label tells what category a company goes in; it sums up what the product has in common with other products of that type. Sedan and SUV are category labels; Volvo is a brand, one that means safety to customers. Similarly Tesla Motors has its distinctive "Tesla" brand, but it introduces products to its users as "electric vehicles." more