Broadband Subscribers Reaching 300 Million Worldwide

According to a recent report by Point Topic, there were 298 million broadband subscribers worldwide as of the end of March 2007 -- and assumed to have passed 300 million by now. From the report: "China continues to push hard for the top spot however and has cut the gap to the US from 5.8 million at the end of 2006 to 4.1 million at end of March 2007." more»

Canadians Now Pay for Different Levels of Internet Speeds

The The Globe and Mail reports today that Canadians now pay for different levels of Internet speeds. Telecommunications companies say they need to raise prices in order to offset the hefty investments required by the network, which is increasingly used by consumers for activities beyond sending emails and surfing the Web. From the article: "Canada's biggest Internet service providers, including Bell Canada and Telus Corp. argued yesterday that new business models are necessary as users increasingly listen to music and watch videos online..." more»

AOL Spammer Pleads Guilty, Facing Up To 11 Years in Prison

A Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty today for sending spam emails to over 1.2 million AOL subscribers in a scheme that foiled the Internet company's spam-filtering system. Reuters reports: "Adam Vitale, 26, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to breaking anti-spam laws. He was caught making a deal with a government informant that sent spam e-mails advertising a computer security program in return for 50 percent of the product's profits, prosecutors said." more»

California Man Gets 6 Years in Prison for Phishing

A California man who was found guilty earlier this year for operating a sophisticated phishing scheme that attempted to deceive thousands of AOL users has now received a prison sentence of 70 months -- a fraction of the 101 years he could have been given. InformationWeek reports: "In the first jury conviction under the Can-Spam Act of 2003, Jeffrey Brett Goodin, of Azusa, Calif., was convicted of sending thousands of e-mails set up to appear to be from AOL's billing department to the company's users, prompting them to reply with personal and credit-card information. He then used the information to make unauthorized purchases, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles." more»

Over Half of U.S. Households Using Broadband Service

A new consumer research conducted by Leichtman Research Group finds that 53% of all US households now subscribe to a broadband high-speed Internet service at home. Broadband services now account for about 72% of total home Internet subscriptions as compared to 60% last year. his report has also noted that income still plays a major role in broadband adoption... Leichtman Research Group forecasts that the total number of broadband subscribers will increase by over 40 million over the next five years. more»

Domain Name Registrations Reach 128 Million, 31 Percent Increase from Previous Year

VeriSign today released the VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief for the first quarter of 2007. The brief, which highlights key industry data for worldwide domain name activity, reports that the total number of domain name registrations reached 128 million, representing a 31 percent increase over the same quarter in the previous year, and a 6 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2006. From the report: "Registrants around the world registered 10.7 million new domain names in the first quarter of 2007. Coming off an extremely strong new registration rate..." more»

Phishing URLs Skyrocket, Overwhelming Browser Blacklists

Computerworld reports that the number of phishing related URLs have nearly tripled from March to April as cybercriminals returned to a late-2006 tactic designed to do an end run around browser-based antiphishing filters. From the report: "In one month, the number of unique sites soared 166%, from 20,871 in March to 55,643 in April, said the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), an association of more than 1,600 companies and government agencies." more»

GoDaddy to Take Over Management of RegisterFly's Domains

Leading domain registration company GoDaddy announced today that it has agreed to take over and manage more than 850,000 domain names belonging to customers of a troubled rival, RegisterFly. The deal, reached with the support of ICANN, will allow the owners of the domain names at the troubled company to once again renew their names, or transfer them elsewhere if they do not want to stay with GoDaddy. Those names had been in limbo following financial and operational troubles at RegisterFly. more»

Analysts Suggest Domain Names as Direct Navigation Ventures Could Represent Next IPO Wave

The New York Times has reported on NameMedia, a privately held owner and developer of domain names. "They're paying nothing to acquire a customer," says one investment firm analyst. "I think the next wave of I.P.O.'s will be around this area." From the report: "The direct navigation market attracted more than $800 million in ads last year, which publishers largely shared with Google and Yahoo. That figure could reach $1.1 billion in 2007, said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets..." more»

U.S. Government to Spend Up To US$10M on Internet Redesign, aka GENI

As reported by the Associated Press this week, the National Science Foundation has announced that BBN Technologies Inc. will receive up to $10 million over four years to oversee the planning and design of the Global Environment for Network Innovations, or GENI... Many researchers want to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, saying a "clean-slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since the Internet's birth in 1969. The construction on GENI could start about 2010 and expected to cost $350 million, as reported by the Associated Press. more»

Dot Asia: First TLD Awarded to a Transnational Entity Without Formal Government Structure

In a story at SFGate, Jeff Yang has written a report on the upcoming role out of the recently approved top-level domain name .asia. The ceremony of .asia's approval by ICANN last year in Brazil was largely ignored. But Jeff points out that as the "fall launch of this new domain approaches, it raises some interesting, perhaps even historic, implications". more»

IETF Has Approved DKIM, DomainKeys Identified Mail

There has been unofficial announcement today that Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has approved DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) as a proposed Internet standard, RFC 4871. ...A diverse number of organization have been reported to have played a role on moving the DKIM proposal forward including: Cisco, IBM, Earthlink, Microsoft, Spamhaus, Google, PayPal as well as FTC and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). more»