Is There a Positive Business Case for IPv6? We Are About to Find Out, If You Help Us…

Large-scale IPv6 deployments suggest that IPv6 is at least a technical success, the technology works. Time to visit the other important question: does it work commercially. Does IPv6 really come with a positive business case? We are about to find out, if you help us... The Internet technical community has spent about two decades making IPv6 work on a technical level. We have developed the protocol, modified and expanded a few others; we set up the registry system and distributed the addresses. more

Heritage Holding Anti-IANA Transition Event With Cruz

The Heritage Foundation are conservative, in the American political sense. So it's not surprising that they've been linked to some of the anti-IANA transition stuff coming from Ted Cruz and Co. Tomorrow they're holding an event, which is clearly not aimed at bolstering support on Capitol Hill for the IANA transition... While I, and many others, would find the entire "jeopardizing free expression and enterprise" angle to be total bunkum, it is aimed at tapping into US conservative fears. more

A Year Later: Insights from dotSucks

This week marks the first birthday of the general availability of dotSucks domain names. It has been a year notable for both heat and light, adding up to a set of insights relevant for any new gTLD... Be clear about who you serve and use their vocabulary (not domain name industry jargon) to tell them about it. Engage in marketing... Emotional resonance is more effective than even overwhelming facts-and-figures. The right story helps people see themselves in you. more

Brexit Could Impact EU Domain Registrants

The current policies for .eu domain name registration restrict registration to organisations, businesses and individuals that meet certain criteria. In order to get a .eu domain name you need to be resident within the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein. This is laid out in the current policy... Post-Brexit it is unclear whether UK registrants will still qualify to hold their .eu domains. more

Assessing Current Generic New gTLDs

If we are already familiar with new generic Top-Level Domains from the ICANN new gTLD program, also called "new gTLDs", are we just as familiar with these new domain name extensions, which are called "generic" and which could be an alternative to the existing ".com" domain name extension? Not so many... As the list of new gTLDs is very long, we can easily say that there is a Top-Level Domain for any kind of business: a ".club" for Clubs, a ".news" for News, a ".dentist" for Dentists, a ".actor" for Actors, etc... more

.brand Progress - The Mid-Year Analysis

Google. BMW. Dell. Canon. Deloitte. Chanel. Microsoft. Audi. Cisco. Leaders in their industries, household names, game changers in business and technology. And just some of the brands that have launched their .brand TLDs so far in 2016. As we reach the mid-way point of this year, it provides a fitting checkpoint at which to reflect on the progress we've seen over the last six months. more

How Diverse Is ICANN? New Study Explores Organisation’s Makeup

ICANN is a strange beast. Even the term "ICANN", which is itself an acronym, has more than one meaning. There are at least two "ICANNs", one is the "community", which is made up of everyone who engages with the ICANN "circus" and then there is ICANN the organisation itself -- a California not-for-profit. While people outside the internet industry probably have never heard of ICANN or had any direct dealings with it, the policies that get decided at ICANN have a tangible impact on how the internet operates. more

The DotBible Litmus Test for Domain Name Dispute Panelists

A dispute policy for the new '.bible' top-level domain name requires panelists who agree to hear cases to affirm that they "enthusiastically support the mission of American Bible Society" and that they "believe that the Bible is the Word of God which brings salvation through Christ." The DotBible Community Dispute Resolution Policy appears to be the first domain name dispute policy that requires panelists to take a religious oath - or, for that matter, an oath other than anything related to maintaining neutrality. more

7 Key Questions to Ask When Choosing a Domain Name Extension

In the last three years, almost 1,000 new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs) have entered the market, increasing the previous 22 options for generic domain name extensions, like .com, .net and .org, by almost 5,000 percent. While expanded choice can be good for consumers, small businesses and website owners may be overwhelmed by the many different options and have a lot of questions about which domain extension is right for them or their brand. Recently I spoke with editors at WIRED about what their readers should ask themselves when determining how to choose the right domain name and it came down to the following seven key questions. more

Who Is Responsible for Your Application’s Security?

The dividing line between developers and IT operations used to be distinct. Developers were responsible for adding new features securely, but it was IT operations who had responsibility for infrastructure and network security. For the most part, developers didn't have to think too much about the wider security context. With the advent of the cloud, and of devops, things changed radically. more

“Non-Discriminatory” Broadband: Just Carriage, or Miscarriage of Justice?

The foundational idea behind "net neutrality" is one of fairness by constraining ISP power over network mechanisms. The theory is this: if there is "non-discriminatory" local traffic management, then you have "fair" global outcomes to both users and application providers. There are thousands of pages of academic books making this assumption, and it is the basis of recent EU telecoms law. more

Can Trump’s Twitter Account be Deleted Under the New EU Hate Speech Code?

On 31 May 2016, The Commission together with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft unveiled a code of conduct that includes a series of commitments to combat the spread of illegal hate speech online in Europe. These IT Companies support the European Commission and EU Member States in the effort to respond to the challenge of ensuring that online platforms do not offer opportunities for illegal online hate speech to spread virally. more

Google’s IPv6 Stats Hit 12% on Fourth Anniversary of World IPv6 Launch

Four years ago today, thousands of websites, including Facebook, Google and Yahoo, and hundreds of networks permanently enabled IPv6 in what was called "World IPv6 Launch". One year before, on June 6, 2011, there had been a 24-hour test in "World IPv6 Day" but by June 6, 2012, IPv6 was enabled permanently for the participating sites and networks. One of the many IPv6 statistics sites many of us have watched since that time has been Google's statistics. more

IP Addresses Are Not Telephone Numbers - The Fundamental Flaw with the FCC’s Proposed Privacy Rules

Last month the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), the information telcos collect about consumers' phone calls. The Commission's proposed rules would adapt and apply privacy rules that have historically applied to the traditional telephone space to broadband carriers. It would also regulate how broadband providers use and share that data. more

IETF’s Descent Into the Political Rabbit Hole

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has a curious, non-linear history as a "non-organization" of technical innovators now approaching 47 years. As it approaches a landmark 100th official meeting, it has become embroiled in a controversy that takes it further down the political rabbit hole it has been deepening in recent years. The IETF is considering cancelling its 100th meeting now scheduled in Singapore in November 2017... because "concerns were raised about anti-LGBT laws." more