CircleID

John Yunker reporting in Global by Design: "Google has gone live with one if its many Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs): みんな. I want to emphasize here that this is a top-level IDN - that is, the equivalent of a .com or .org. This TLD, according to Google, stands for 'everyone.' So you could in effect register 'someword.everyone,' which sounds a bit odd to me but I'm not Japanese. And, frankly, the Japanese have not been blessed with much in the way of IDN options up to this point." ›››

A proposal involving removal of root zone management functions from ICANN and creating an independent and neutral private sector consortium is to be presented at the Singapore ICANN meeting March 21, and then formally submitted to the "NETMundial" Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance in SaoPaulo, Brazil. ›››

A widespread compromise of consumer-grade small office/home office (SOHO) routers has been discovered by threat intelligence group Team Cymru. According to the report, "attackers are altering the DNS configuration on these devices in order to redirect victims DNS requests and subsequently replace the intended answers with IP addresses and domains controlled by the attackers, effectively conducting a Man-in-the-Middle attack." ›››

CNET News – Netflix and Comcast have reached an agreement aimed at smoothing the streaming of Netflix content to the cable company's customers, ending a dispute that included suggestions of throttled traffic. Under the so-called "paid peering" deal, Netflix will be able to connect directly to Comcast's network and skip the intermediaries as it formerly did. The agreement comes less than two weeks after Comcast announced a $45 billion deal for Time Warner Cable. ›››

In a blog post today in IGP, Milton Mueller writes: "[I]t's not surprising that the [NSA] revelations sent ripples through the world of Internet governance. Although there seemed to be no direct connection between the controversies, the native internet institutions -- already worried about their alleged competition with the ITU -- seem to have felt as if they might be tarred with the NSA brush. On October 7, 2013, we got the Montevideo statement. In it, the ICANN President, all 5 RIR Directors, the IAB Chair, the IETF Chair, the Internet Society President, and the W3C Chief Executive Officer made two key points..." ›››

The Hill – The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday said it plans to revamp its rules for net neutrality, ushering in a new battle over whether the government should flex its regulatory powers over the Internet. The future of the FCC's "open Internet" rules was left in doubt last month after an appeals court overturned them on the grounds that the agency overstepped its authority. But Tom Wheeler, the FCC's chairman, said the agency is not backing down... ›››

Between 2010 and 2013, 120 million Machine to Machine (M2M) connections have been added globally reaching a total of 195 million in Q4 2013, according to a recent study by the GSMA. Globally, M2M connections account for 2.8% of total mobile connections in 2013, up from 1.4% in 2010. Global M2M connections will reach a quarter of a billion (250 million) in 2014, said the GSMA. ›››

BBC – German Chancellor Angela Merkel is proposing building up a European communications network to help improve data protection. It would avoid emails and other data automatically passing through the United States. In her weekly podcast, she said she would raise the issue on Wednesday with French President Francois Hollande. ›››

Reuters – China criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday for his "naive" call for more Internet freedom in the country, and wondered why his discussion with Chinese bloggers had not touched upon Edward Snowden. During an approximately 40-minute chat with bloggers in Beijing on Saturday, Kerry expressed his support for online freedom in China, as well as for human rights in general. ›››

Comcast has reached an agreement to acquire Time Warner Cable, according to a tweet from CNBC reporter, Dave Faber. The new company, based on the $44 billion purchase, will be by far the largest cable provider in the U.S. with over 33 million subscribers, and is assumed to face tough review from the Federal Communications Commission. ›››

On October 30 – 31, 2013, The New York Review of Books held a conference called "Power, Privacy, and the Internet," taking a look at the role of the Internet both as a vehicle of political and cultural dissent and, in the hands of the state, as a weapon of repression and control. The recordings from the event have recently been released where listeners can stream or download the audio. ›››

PC World – Grant Gross reporting from the IDG News Service: "The European Union will push for diminished U.S. influence on Internet governance because of 'loss of confidence' in the current U.S.-centric model, according to a news report. The European Commission, the executive arm of the E.U., is set Wednesday to propose a series of steps to globalize Internet governance functions, reported The Wall Street Journal, citing an E.U. draft policy paper. The proposal is sparked by revelations of mass U.S. surveillance activities online, the newspaper said." ›››

Turkey's Parliament has passed a bill that includes controversial arrangements concerning the protection of online privacy despite concerns raised by the European Union as well as Turkish NGOs and opposition parties, according to a report today by Turkey's Daily News. ›››

The Asia Pac Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress for first and prospective second round applicants will be held in Hong Kong and timed to take place in conjunction with the International Trademark Associations' (INTA) 136 Annual Conference at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) starting on May 10. ›››

Rich Miller reporting in Data Center Knowledge: "Google continues to pump big bucks into its data center operations, investing a massive $7.35 billion in capital expenditures in its Internet infrastructure during 2013. The spending is driven by a massive expansion of Google's global data center network, which represents perhaps the largest construction effort in the history of the data center industry." According to company's reported capital expenditure, total spending adds up to $7.35 billion - more than double the $3.27 billion in CapEx the company reported in 2012. ›››

A top secret document retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden indicates that Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal, according to a report from CBC. After reviewing the document, one of Canada's foremost authorities on cyber-security says the clandestine operation by the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) was almost certainly illegal...  ›››

Reuters – U.S. wireless providers like AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday received a nod from regulators to test a transition of the telephone industry away from traditional analog networks to digital ones. The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted in favor of trials, in which telecommunications companies would test switching telephone services from existing circuit-switch technology to an alternative Internet protocol-based one to see how the change may affect consumers.
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Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR) has published an Issue Paper entitled "Internet Governance Landscape this year and next." The following is a summary from the paper along with links to download the document in full. ›››

Milton Mueller reporting in IGP: "On January 23 Daniel Sepulveda, the State Department's Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, gave a notable speech in Washington on Internet governance. This is the first US official statement on the topic since the NSA spying scandal broke and altered the landscape. Entitled 'Internet Governance 2020 - Geopolitics and the Future of the Internet,' the speech signaled the Obama administration's openness to reform as long as it is conducted within a multistakeholder framework..." ›››

CircleID in collaboration with the team from Dyn Inc. and ICANNWiki, brings you the following interviews conducted during NamesCon 2014 held in Las Vegas (13-15 January). ›››