Brand abuse increased across all industry categories measured by the Index with the automotive and media industries drawing the most abuse. Abuse targeting luxury brands demonstrated the greatest increase, growing 23 percent year-over-year, followed by abuse targeting apparel brands which grew 14 percent year-over-year. For the third straight year cybersquatting, the method of using brands in bad faith within the domain name system, continued to be the most prevalent form of brand abuse. In addition, phish attacks reached a new record high with 565,502 attacks in 2009, growing 62 percent over 2008's total.

"MarkMonitor Brandjacking Index: 2009—The Year in Review" measures the effect of online threats to brands quarter-over-quarter throughout 2009. The Brandjacking Index investigates trends, including drilled-down analysis of how the most popular brands are abused online and the industries in which abuse is causing the most damage. The report examines how brandjacking tactics—such as cybersquatting, false association, pay per click scams, offensive content, and phishing—have changed over the past year.

"As scammers continually seek new methods of monetizing traffic, brands face a growing and pervasive problem from online abuse," said Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer, MarkMonitor. "With billions of dollars worth of eCommerce sales, intellectual property and online marketing investments at stake, companies need to take proactive roles in fighting brand abuse online now more than ever."

Brandjackers cast a wide net

• The luxury industry saw the greatest increase of brand abuse, growing 23 percent year-over-year.
• Media and automotive brands attract the greatest amount of brand abuse by volume.
• Brand abuse targeting the apparel industry grew 14 percent year-over-year.
• Brand abuse involving an eCommerce component increased by 39 percent in the consumer packaged goods industry and by 60 percent in the luxury industry.

Cybersquatting on the rise

• Cybersquatting continues as the most prevalent brand abuse technique, growing eight percent from 2008.
• Online advertising abuses are more targeted and harder to identify.
• Fraudsters are coordinating the use of multiple methods to conduct brand abuse.

United States leads in hosting brandjacking websites

• While brand abuse is prevalent throughout the world, for the third straight year the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom are home to the majority of brandjacking websites.
• 69 percent of websites that host brand abuse are hosted in the United States. Germany hosts seven percent followed by the United Kingdom at five percent.

Phish attacks at all-time high

• The number of organizations phished for the first time decreased, with only 33 percent of 2009's total being first-time targets. However, the number of phish attacks reached an all-time high, with 598 phish attacks per organization, indicating fraudsters are being more targeted with their attacks.
• Phish attacks reached a new record high with 565,502 attacks in 2009, increasing 62 percent from 2008.
• Phishing attacks targeting payment services brands grew 154 percent in 2009, increasing to 37 percent of the total by industry in 2009 from 24 percent in 2008.
• Attacks targeting financial brands grew 36 percent in 2009, but declined to 40 percent of the total by industry in 2009 from 48 percent in 2008.
• 2009 phish attacks targeting social network brands numbered 11,240, growing 376 percent from 2008.
• Phish attacks targeting social network brands represented two percent of all phish attacks in 2009.
• The U.S. retained the top position for hosting the largest amount of phishing attacks, increasing its share of phish to 44.7 percent in 2009 from 36.5 percent in 2008.
• Canada, Germany and Korea increased in position from 2008 to 2009. North America held the top spot, increasing to 51.2 percent in 2009 from 40.3 percent in 2008.

Methodology

The Brandjacking Index is an independent report produced by MarkMonitor that tracks and analyzes online abuses of leading brands. The cornerstone of the report is the volume of public data analyzed by MarkMonitor using the company's proprietary algorithms—no customer data or proprietary customer information is used to create the Brandjacking Index. This year, MarkMonitor introduced a new measurement for cybersquatting, gauging the persistence of these sites during the study period.

During the study period, MarkMonitor searched approximately 134 million public records daily for brand abuse in domain data. In addition, MarkMonitor analyzes spam feeds from leading international Internet Service Providers (ISPs), email providers and other alliance partners to detect phishing and other fraud. The company has analyzed billions of web pages since 2004 and processes up to 30 million suspected URLs daily.

Read full story: BBC

Google won't make us stupid: 76% of these experts agreed with the statement, "By 2020, people's use of the Internet has enhanced human intelligence; as people are allowed unprecedented access to more information they become smarter and make better choices. Nicholas Carr was wrong: Google does not make us stupid."

Reading, writing, and the rendering of knowledge will be improved: 65% agreed with the statement "by 2020 it will be clear that the Internet has enhanced and improved reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge." Still, 32% of the respondents expressed concerns that by 2020 "it will be clear that the Internet has diminished and endangered reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge."

Innovation will continue to catch us by surprise: 80% of the experts agreed that the "hot gadgets and applications that will capture the imaginations of users in 2020 will often come 'out of the blue.'" Some of the best answers are in Part 3 of this report. Respondents hope information will flow relatively freely online, though they expect there will be flashpoints over control of the Internet. Concerns over control of the Internet were expressed in answers to a question about the end‐to‐end principle. 61% responded that the Internet will remain as its founders envisioned, however many who agreed with the statement that "most disagreements over the way information flows online will be resolved in favor of a minimum number of restrictions" also noted that their response was a "hope" and not necessarily their true expectation. 33% chose to agree with the statement that "the Internet will mostly become a technology where intermediary institutions that control the architecture and ...content will be successful in gaining the right to manage information and the method by which people access it."

Anonymous online activity will be challenged, though a modest majority still think it will possible in 2020: There more of a split verdict among the expert respondents about the fate on online anonymity. Some 55% agreed that Internet users will still be able to communicate anonymously, while 41% agreed that by 2020 "anonymous online activity is sharply curtailed."

Related Links:
The Future of the Internet IV (Webpage / PDF)
Doc Searls sharing his my full responses to all the questions

But what about the poorer nations of the world that use scripts other than the largest IDNs and the typical Latin character set currently available on the net? What about Amharic, or Georgian, Azeri or Thai, Burmese or Cambodian? Doesn't the internet community have a goal of reaching out to them in their own languages too? The answer is yes, but I fear that despite the rhetoric, some of ICANN's policies may actually end up creating disincentives for companies wishing to fully build out the IDN space.

To listen to the words of Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's new-ish leader, the community's goal is to help make the internet available to anyone in their own language—and in their own character set or script. And, as we heard during the Seoul ICANN meeting last year—there was actually a celebratory cocktail to usher in the new IDN age—IDNs are the future. Still, work on Chinese, Korean and the like is only the beginning. There are dozens of scripts out there.

However, there is potentially a real flaw in ICANN's planning that threatens to upend this vision of universal IDN access, effectively leaving some scripts "out in the cold". Under ICANN's new gTLD implementation plan as presently proposed, registries operating existing gTLDs (or those hoping to operate new ones) will be required to apply for each IDN version separately… and pay full fees for each one. This directly impacts the go/no go decision for registry operators who need to make a reasonable "business case" for each script that they apply for, in order to justify the high application costs. And, while these costs might seem trivial for gTLDs in, say, Chinese or Arabic, this policy pretty much ensures that registry operators (new or old) will leave some scripts undeveloped.

The likely upshot is that the gTLD revolution going on around the world will bypass Georgian, Burmese, and Amharic entirely… furthering the digital divide.

There may be a solution, if ICANN has the flexibility to adjust its policies. Many of the evaluation costs in the new gTLD process are duplicated. As just one example, if a potential registry operator applies for multiple gTLDs, it is likely that most technical qualifications will only have to be evaluated once. This would lower ICANN's evaluation costs, and should lead to reduced application costs as well, leading to more competition for (and interest in) smaller scripts. And there may be other ways to lower the barriers to entry so that companies large and small will be able to make the business case for a truly, fully IDN-friendly internet.

At every ICANN and Internet Governance Forum meeting we hear about the need to make the internet an equal- (or at least more equal-) access platform, one that respects language and culture diversity. Lowering the costs for companies wanting to provide IDN access in less popular scripts is one obvious, tangible way to make this happen. A little flexibility could go a long way to providing a real internet future for the millions that speak and write Armenian or Burmese or a host of other languages.

Written by Andrew Mack, Principal at AMGlobal Consulting

The Internet is like that doll… and not because it's used by some for smuggling drugs! Rather, the Internet is seen as a thing filled with interconnection relationships, when in fact the Internet is interconnection. The relationships make the internetwork. They are more significant than the TCP/IP protocol, the end-to-end design philosophy, the bandwidth, or the routing algorithms, as important as all those things are. Kill interconnection, and a network disappears from the Internet. Kill the culture of interconnection, and the Internet dies. Another analogy is Arthur Koestler's concept of a holon—something that is both a whole and a part of the whole. (Thanks to Miko Matsumura for the pointer at a recent retreat.)

The value of interconnection is often missed, because it's the space between networks. It's much easier to grasp the impacts of those individual networks on their customers. Every piece of the Internet, however, must interconnect to serve its users, which means its internal policies and practices are never the whole story. Interconnection is generally reciprocal, so if you want to benefit from a link with a network, you take on some obligations in return. The details get complicated, and network interconnection is constantly evolving, but that's the core magic.

Today, John Markoff published a New York Times article on how Internet interconnection may be changing. (The short version is that private peering is short-circuiting the major backbones, with unpredictable consequences.) Markoff deserves credit for giving a serious summary of academic network science research that bears on Internet structure. You usually don't see these concepts in the popular press. It matters whether or not the Internet is a scale-free network, however, as esoteric as that may sound. As Markoff notes, even the experts can't agree on what the Internet looks like today, raising serious questions about its performance going forward. They just know that it's changing. One reason is the lack of public traffic data on Internet-connected networks, which KC Claffy of CAIDA has been warning about for years.

I wrote three law review articles about interconnection over the past three years. I didn't realize it, but they form a trilogy. Only Connect argues that interconnection, not non-discrimination, should be the central focus of telecommunications policy today. The Centripetal Network delves into the network science that Markoff's article summarizes, raising the concern that the Internet's interconnectivity may not be as robust as it seems. And in Off the Hook, coming out shortly, I develop a detailed legal theory for an interconnection-based policy regime under the Communications Act.

Interconnection is poised to become even more important, because it's not just a factor at the network layer. Internet applications and content are increasingly becoming interconnected, moving toward the syndication model of business I proposed a decade ago. Twitter interconnects with Google for real-time search, while YouTube interconnects with blogs for content distribution. Everyone's a platform, and virtually everyone is both a consumer and a producer of external information. I'm firmly convinced that the dynamics of interconnection will keep policy-makers and business executives busy for years to come. All the more reason to make it a focal point now.

Written by Kevin Werbach, Professor at the Wharton School and Organizer of the Supernova Conference

According to the BBC, the Buzz development team bypassed Google's standard trial and testing procedures in order to launch the product quickly. Apparently, the company only tested it internally with Google employees and failed to test the product with a more diverse range of users who are more likely to have brought up the issues which were so glaringly obvious after launch. Google has apologized and moved to correct the most eggregious privacy flaws, though problems—including security issues—continue to be raised. PC World has a good overview of Buzz's evolution since launch.

Meanwhile, damage has been done not only to Google's reputation but also to an unknown number of users who found themselves and their contacts exposed in ways they did not choose or want. Exposing vulnerable users without their knowledge or choice even for a few hours can potentially have irreversible consequences. While Google is scoring some points around the tech policy world for reacting quickly and earnestly to the strident user outcry, the Electronic Information Privacy Center (EPIC) has filed an official complaint with the FTC, and that Canada's Privacy Commissioner has expressed disappointment and asked Google to explain itself. (UPDATE: A class complaint has been filed in San Jose, claiming that Google broke the law by sharing personal data without users' consent.)

Earlier this week I asked people in my Twitter network how they're feeling about Buzz after the fixes they've made. Some are now reassured but others aren't. For example, Joseph Lorenzo Hall wrote:

@rmack totally lost me for good.. I just can't believe that they won't do it again. It will have to be very useful/different to get me back

Some are leaving GMail altogether. Judson Dunn reported:

@rmack my boyfriend deleted his long time gmail account for good :(

I was so concerned about exposing people in my GMail network during the first week after launch that I stayed off Buzz entirely until Monday afternoon. By then I felt that the worst privacy problems had been fixed, and I understood well enough how to tweak the settings that I could at least go in without doing harm to others. After playing with it a bit and poking around I posted some initial observations and invited the people in my network to respond. There are still plenty of issues—some people who claimed in Twitter that they had turned off Buzz are still there, and I think Buzz should make it easier for people to use pseudonyms or nicknames not tied to their email address if they prefer. From Beijing, Jeremy Goldkorn of the influential media blog Danwei responded: "I like the way Buzz works now, and it seems to me that the privacy concerns have been addressed."

I've noticed that some Chinese Buzz users have been using it to post and discuss material that has been censored by Chinese blog-hosting platforms and social networking sites. If Buzz becomes useful as a way to preserve and spread censored information around quickly, it seems to me that's a plus as long as people aren't being exposed in ways they don't want. My friend Isaac Mao wrote:

It's more important to Chinese to make information flowing rather than privacy concern this moment. With more hibernating animals in cave, we can't tell too much on the risks about identity, but more on how to wake up them.

Buzz has unleashed some potentials on sharing which just follows my Sharism theory, people actually have much more stuff to share before they realize them.

But I agree with any conerns on privacy, including the risks that authority may trace publishers in China. It's very much possible to be targeted once they were notified how profound the new tool is.

The "Great Firewall" is already at work on Buzz, at least in Beijing. While most people seem to be able to access Buzz through GMail on Chinese Internet connections, numerous people report from Beijing that at least some Google profiles—including mine and Isaac's—are blocked, though people in Shanghai and Guangzhou say they're not blocked. Others in China report having trouble posting comments to Buzz, though it's unclear whether this is a technical issue with Buzz or a Chinese network blocking issue, or some strange combination of the two.

It will be interesting to see how things evolve, and whether activists in various countries find Buzz to be a useful alternative to Facebook and other platforms—or not. Whatever happens, I do think that Google fully deserves the negative press it has gotten and continues to get for the thoughtless way in which Buzz was rolled out. There are senior people at Google whose job it is to focus on free expression issues, and others who work full time on privacy issues. Either the Buzz development team completely failed to consult with these people or were allowed to ignore them. I am inclined to believe the former instead of the latter, based on my interactions with the company through the Global Network Initiative and Google's support for Global Voices. Call me biased or sympathetic if you want, but I don't think that the company made a conscious decision to ignore the risks it was creating for human rights activists or people with abusive spouses—or anybody else with privacy concerns. However, if we do give Google the benefit of the doubt, then the only logical conclusion is that in this case, something about the company's management and internal communications was so broken that the company was unable to prevent a new product from unintentionally doing evil. Nick Summers at Newsweek thinks the problem is broader:

Google is so convinced of the righteousness of its mission statement that it launches products heedlessly. Take Google Books—the company was so in thrall with its plan to make all hardbound knowledge searchable that it did not anticipate a $125 million legal challenge from publishers. With Google Wave, engineers got high on their own talk that they had invented a means of communication superior to e-mail—until Wave launched and users laughed at its baffling un-usability. Last week, with Buzz, Google seemed so bewitched by the possibilities of a Google-y take on social networking that it went live without thinking through the privacy implications.

Whatever the case may be in terms of Google's internal thinking or intentions, we have a right to be concerned. Too many of us depend on Google for too many things. They have a responsibility to netizens around the world to develop more effective mechanisms to ensure that the concerns, interests, and rights of the world's netizens are adequately incorporated into the development process.

I'd very much like to hear your ideas for how netizens' concerns around the world—particularly from at-risk and marginalized communities who have the most to lose when Google gets things wrong—might be channeled to Google's development teams and product managers. Rather than wait for Google to figure this out, are there mechanisms that we as netizens might be able to build? Are there things we can proactively do to help companies like Google avoid doing evil? Can we help them to avoid hurting us—and also help them to maximize the amount of good they can do?

Written by Rebecca MacKinnon, Open Society Fellow; Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org

Fraudulent websites are designed to divert online traffic from legitimate commerce and cause legitimate brands to lose revenue and customer trust. These sites are often well-trafficked and pose a significant risk to companies and to consumers by offering pirated or counterfeit goods. They may also erode the efficiency of search engine marketing efforts, causing lower ROI on marketing campaigns. MarkMonitor estimates that $133 billion in legitimate revenue was lost in 2009 due to the sale of counterfeit goods online

"Confronting the challenge of online counterfeiting is complex, in part because of the inherent ability of counterfeiters to avoid detection and the cross-border nature of the Internet, which reduces the ability of brand owners to engage law enforcement in policing this new frontier," said Deborah Greaves, Secretary and General Counsel for True Religion Brand Jeans. "An option like the Site Staydown Service from MarkMonitor provides an effective alternative for brand owners to shut down infringing sites quickly, protecting consumers and reducing the profit potential for fraudsters."

Research by interactive agency Razorfish highlights the importance of quickly taking down fraudulent sites that can confuse customers and provide a negative brand experience. The 2009 Digital Brand Experience study by Razorfish measured the influence of online brand experiences on consumer behavior. The study found that 63 percent of surveyed consumers said that a digital brand experience influenced their decision to buy or not buy a product from that brand*.

MarkMonitor builds upon the trust earned by its Security Operations Center (SOC) in taking down fraudulent sites by working with more than 4,200 ISPs and 1,200 registrars located around the globe. During the pilot of this new service, the Site Staydown Service was used by leading brands in the apparel, transportation and footwear categories to shut down more than 100 sites offering counterfeit or pirated goods, identified by the brand holder.

"While brands address the problem of counterfeit and pirated goods with time-consuming traditional enforcement methods, fraudsters continue to profit from illicit activities," said Frederick Felman, CMO of MarkMonitor. "The MarkMonitor Site Staydown Service provides brands with a cost-effective, fast and efficient alternative for taking action against fraudulent activity that erodes sales and dilutes marketing investments."

The MarkMonitor Site Staydown Service is available to customers of the MarkMonitor Brand Protection™ solution, with pricing based on the level of engagement. For more visit http://www.markmonitor.com.

In her recent book entitled Summer Players Carol Velthuis uses the four seasons of the year to plot where the various companies are in relation to their ongoing performance in the market. When comparing successful companies with those that are lagging behind it becomes clear that the differentiating variable is the ability and willingness to adapt to the new environment that has been developed over the last decade.

While Google and Apple are 'Summer Players', Microsoft is an 'Autumn Player'. Nevertheless there is no reason for the software giant not to leap back into the race and position itself alongside those other leaders in the emerging digital economy market.

I have always found it difficult to understand why Microsoft has left it so late to fully embrace the new environment—in relation to both the Internet in general and mobile broadband. The Windows Phone7 should be able to provide that seamless transition between the many Microsoft applications that more than a billion people already use and the mobile world. For too long it has left it to handset manufacturers to take the lead, but in the process it began to lose traction, with Blackberries and iPhones offering far more appealing products.

This will be one of those decisive moments for Microsoft. If it fails here it will become increasingly difficult to keep pace with this rapidly changing market. It should try to quickly manoeuvre itself back into 'summertime', a place it was occupying a decade or so ago.

The PC version of Windows 7 has been given the thumbs-up by our very critical BuddeComm office team, so, together with the new phone, the company certainly could have a winning formula to compete with Apple and Google.

Looking at it from the telecoms side, I see this development as another nail in the coffin of the mobile operators' business models. These new smart phones are generating an enormous demand for access to mobile broadband and this is rapidly becoming a commodity. With their totally flawed mobile portal business models the telcos have lost the lead in this market and they are now being forced the follow the market led by the device vendors. They need to adjust their business models quickly and start looking for wholesale services they can offer as value-added services to content and application providers.

M-billing could be a possibility—but never, ever, at the current rate of approximately 35% of revenues generated by these apps. I think 10% would be the upper limit of such a charge.

So the new Microsoft phone will not only change the situation for Microsoft; it will also put further pressure on the mobile telecoms operators to make significant changes to their industry.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

At the time he raised obvious concerns over the impact on privacy, the security of the data, the enormous cost involved and the feasibility of the project. His concerns were echoed by LINX, a major UK peering organisation who stated "We view the description of the government's proposals as 'maintaining' the capability as disingenuous: the volume of data the government now proposes CSPs should collect and retain will be unprecedented, as is the overall level of intrusion into the privacy of the citizenry."

Then in December 2009 it emerged all of the UK's mobile operators had also announced their concerns over the project. Vodafone, Orange, 3 and T-Mobile all voiced their concerns in the form of submissions to the government's consultation.

The mobile operators also questioned the IMP's feasibility, accuracy of estimated costs, morality, legality and even its usefulness, questioning whether or not access to all communications records is even necessary for law enforcement and intelligence.

T-Mobile stated "We have not yet seen persuasive evidence of credible research into the extent to which these new communications technologies will actually be used for the purposes of serious and organised crime."

After such widespread industry and public criticism it was expected that development of the IMP would slow down and that the project may even be placed on hold until after the election. However last month news emerged that the IMP was far from on hold. The government instead announced the establishment of the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) which will provide a structure for the implementation of the IMP which is apparently continuing as planned.

As a communications provider Entanet has a number of obvious concerns regarding the IMP which are reportedly shared by many of our colleagues within the industry. The government expects providers such as Entanet to maintain massive databases of our customers' online communications including social networking, emails, VoIP calls and browsing, basically anything our customers do online. Currently CPs are required to keep basic communication records for use by the authorities but this is a huge increase in the level of 'snooping'. This raises a number of obvious privacy concerns and raises the question: Where do we draw the line between protecting our privacy and ensuring security?

A home office spokesperson states "The Directorate will continue to consider the challenges posed by new technologies, working closely with communications service providers and others to bring forward proposals that command public confidence and demonstrate an appropriate balance between privacy and security."

However many critics would argue that we are a long way off a 'balance' between privacy and security with the proposed IMP. If anything the scales are swaying vigorously in favour of security at the expense of the public's privacy.

Ignoring for a minute the huge privacy and ethical argument that this ignites, we also have concerns over the usefulness of the data in terms of fighting crime and even the feasibility of collection and storage. This will be the largest IT project ever undertaken by the UK and previous attempts leave us far from confident in its success, take the NPfIT in the healthcare sector for example.

We will be watching the progress of the IMP and the CCD very closely over the next few months.

Written by Jon Farmer, Voice Technical Lead, Entanet International Ltd

Read full story: PC World

This post isn't about Mr. Toure's proposal. It's about a comment the story attributes to Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer for Microsoft. According to The Raw Story, Mundie "called for a `driver's license' for internet users." According to the same source, Mundie also noted that "[i]f you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you are capable of driving a car". U.N. Agency Calls for Global Cyberwarfare Treaty, Driver's License for Web Users, The Raw Story (January 30, 2010).

That's what this post is about—the notion of requiring a driver's license (a surfing license?) to go online. It's not a new idea. Courtesy of Google newspapers, I found a 1996 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article which explained that students "who want to cruise the information highway" at a Milwaukee-area high school "had to earn a driver's license first—not a regular driver's license, an Internet driver's license. Anne Davis, Students Cruise Web with Licenses, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (December 2, 1996). I assume the students earned their Internet driver's licenses by taking courses or training in how to surf the web without falling prey to cybercriminals, malware, etc. The article says the students had to "display their licenses while they on line" (I'm not sure how that worked) and could have their licenses revoked if students were "caught visiting chat rooms or making other unauthorized use of the Internet." Students Cruise Web with Licenses.

I found it interesting that one school board member, who seems to have been knowledgeable about computer technology and the Internet, voted against the policy because he didn't think it could be enforced. The article quotes him as saying that the driver's license requirement was "`a futile exercise because it can't be enforced'". Students Cruise Web with Licenses.

We'll come back to that point in a bit. I did a little googling, and it looks like some K-12 schools use the phrase "Internet driver's license" to refer to their Internet use policies. It looks like schools may have students do some training to qualify to use the Internet at school, and revoke the privilege if they're caught doing things the policy prohibits. I'm guessing, though, that this isn't what Mr. Mundie was talking about or, more precisely, that it isn't the sum total of what he was talking about. I'm reasonably sure Mr. Mundie was primarily concerned with adults who use the Internet irresponsibly in varying ways, which is a concern many other people (including me) have voiced.

For example, I found a November 2, 2009 point on The West Australian's website in which Jason Jordan asks "Is It Time for an Internet Driver's License?”—and not just for children. He makes a very good historical point: Mr. Jordan points out that when cars were introduced at the end of the nineteenth century, "anyone who could afford one was free to drive it as they saw fit." Is It Time for an Internet Driver's License?. He also points out that this changed as it became apparent that cars were potentially dangerous implements. And Mr. Jordan accurately notes that once automobile accidents began to become commonplace, "legislators decided to step in to implement . . . driver's licenses" because the "greater good was seen as more important than the individual's liberty to do as they pleased." Is It Time for an Internet Driver's License?.

I've read a couple of books on the history of automobiles and the evolution of laws governing the operation of automobiles, and Mr. Jordan's description of what happened is absolutely correct. Traffic laws and driver's operator requirements had to be invented; I'm assuming it wasn't necessary to devote a lot of time to formulating and implementing horse-carriage and horse operation laws, because accidents were much less likely to occur and/or because they weren't as devastating when they did occur.

That, though, is not the point we're dealing with here. I, personally, am far from keen on the idea that I'd have to obtain (and display?) an Internet driver's license to be able to go online. I'm not exactly sure why; I have a driver's license, after all. I think it's because one of the attractions of the Internet is that it's an open, unstructured environment, which is a refreshing change from the structured environments in which most of us live our daily lives. I don't KNOW that an Internet driver's license requirement would alter that aspect of the Internet, but I somehow suspect it would; if it were to be effective, after all, there'd have to be some way of tracking what people are doing (and aren't doing) while they're online . . . which raises the specter of surveillance, of tracking what we do online . . . and I really, really don't like that (even though there isn't anything incriminating about what I do online).

The point I really want to make here, though, isn't that I personally don't like the idea of an Internet driver's license. It's that I see the notion of an Internet driver's license as inherently unworkable (at least as the Internet is configured now). In other words, I agree with the Milwaukee-area school board member who voted against the school's Internet driver's license policy because he said it was futile and unenforceable.

Let's think about what implementing an Internet driver's license requirement would entail. The first issue would be what skills, exactly, we'd all need to master to get our Internet driver's license. Mr. Jordan, whose post I described above, suggests that it would be relatively easy to formulate the required skill set; he says it would encompass "the essentials of the Web; social networking, viruses and spyware, keeping personal data sacrosanct" and why we don't type emails in all capital letters. Is It Time for an Internet Driver's License?. I didn't hear all of Mr. Mundie's remarks, and haven't found them online, but my sense is that he'd probably agree with Mr. Jordan because he was talking about the need to "clamp down on" cybercrime, economic espionage and the dissemination of viruses and other malware. U.N. Agency Calls for Global Cyberwarfare Treaty, "Driver's License for Web Users.

Okay, let's assume, then, that we can come up with the core skill set people would have to master to get their Internet driver's licenses. The first real problem I see (we'll get to enforcement in a minute) with implementing the requirement is the question of how long an Internet driver's license is valid for. I had to renew my Ohio driver's license last year and I think (I could check, but I'm lazy) it's good for another 5 or 6 years. That makes sense, because the skill set needed to operate a motor vehicle is pretty constant; I have the regular old automobile driver's license (not one for driving semis or other complex motor vehicles) and what you need to know to drive a car hasn't changed much in . . . how many decades? Cars have changed in varying ways, but driving one really hasn't changed much in, what?, I'm guessing 40 or 50 (60? 80?) years.

My point here is that a motor vehicle driver's license can be valid for years because the technology doesn't change. That's not true for the Internet. The threat environment online changes constantly . . . which inferentially indicates that an Internet driver's license should have a much shorter lifespan than an automobile driver's license. The question them becomes, how short? How often do I have to renew the thing . . . every time a serious malware plague erupts?

Mr. Jordan notes, again quite correctly IMHO, that we could take our Internet driver's license exams online. That would make re-administering the test much easier, but it still doesn't resolve the issue of the relative frequency with which it would need to be re-administered. I see this as a significant problem because the premise behind requiring Internet driver's licenses is that they help keep Internet users qualified to deal with the threats that lurk online. If a license is based on an antiquated (say, 6 months old) skill set, I don't see how it's accomplishing the purpose it's supposed to accomplish.

And that brings me to what I see as the other major problem area: Enforcement. The motor vehicle driver's license requirement is enforced by (i) having laws requiring those who are operating motor vehicles to have the appropriate license and imposing penalties for failing to comply with these laws and (ii) having law enforcement officers check to see if people have driver's licenses. In some states, at least, it's an arrestable offense to be caught operating a motor vehicle without the appropriate license, which goes quite a ways (at least in my opinion) toward creating an incentive to get one and keep it current.

I know the frequency with which officers check to see if we have licenses is pretty sparse, out of necessity. There are only so many officers and millions of drivers in the U.S. (and many millions more elsewhere). But when I get in my car, I know that an officer can ask me for my license if he/she pulls me over for a traffic violation, if I wind up going through some kind of checkpoint or for other reasons. I know I'd better have it because I run SOME risk (however minimal) of being caught if I don't have it and I know (or at least have a pretty good idea) that it's not going to be pretty if I'm caught without it. You combine both of those factors with the fact that getting and keeping a current motor vehicle driver's license isn't all that onerous and you have a pretty effective system for ensuring that automobile drivers have current licenses and are, therefore, presumptively qualified to operate their vehicles.

Like the Milwaukee school board member, I don't see how we can effectively enforce the Internet driver's license requirement. At one time (in 1996, as the Milwaukee new story illustrates), it was common for some, anyway, to refer to the Internet as the "information highway", a reference that pretty logically leads to the idea of an Internet driver's license. I don't see the Internet we have today—or the Internet as it will evolve—as analogous to a highway. It's too complex, for one thing.

For another, I don't see that we have the inevitable, persistent visibility online that we have when we're operating a motor vehicle on city streets or on highways. We don't (as far as I know) have the digital equivalent of traffic cops trolling the Internet to see if we're obeying the online traffic laws (would we also need to invent those if we're going to introduce Internet driver's licenses?). As this story notes, in 2007 China implemented a system in which cartoon police officers would "pop-up" to warn users they were required to "steer clear of unapproved websites." Beijing Police Pop Up to Warn Internet Users, The Telegraph (August 30, 2007). I don't know how effective they were; I'm guessing not very. (I can't find any recent stories that tell me what ever happened with this.)

I don't think that's a good idea. Again, I think it's the product of reasoning based on a flawed analogy. The Internet as we know it (and as it will evolve) simply isn't analogous to physical space highways and the real-world activity of operating motor vehicles. It's a mistake, IMHO, to try to transpose an enforcement system that works reasonably well in one context (physical space) to another context (virtuality).

I do agree, as I said, that we need to take steps to ensure that people are more sophisticated in their use of the Internet. A few years ago, I published a series of articles in which I argued for an approach I thought might work; you can access one of them here. My approach might work, or it might not. What I'd like to see is an effort to come up with creative solutions that are appropriate for an online context and do not impinge upon or, worse yet, eliminate the Internet's best qualities.

Written by Susan Brenner, Professor of Law and Technology

The company has also launched a website—www.25yearsof.com—that will host a variety of multimedia content throughout the coming months, showcasing the innovators and entrepreneurs who have shaped the Internet.

While I was giving my .music presentation at ICANN Studenkreis in Barcelona, Spain last week, it dawned upon me. There was not one single ICANN staff member sitting in the room taking notes on any of the presentations given by TLD applicants. I was convinced that it would be beneficial to ICANN staff to observe our presentations and perhaps receive useful feedback from TLD applicants that could be used to better draft the Expressions of Interest recommendation. What better way than to watch applicants talk about the TLD they are applying for, discuss the Expressions of Interest in new gTLDs (EOI) and provide useful feedback.

In light of recent developments, I decided to raise my concerns and provide my feedback and opinion about issues that plague ICANN and the process revolving how we can innovate the domain space, promote competition as well as give consumers/communities choices. My concerns include:

Competition and Monopolies

ICANN bylaws state that it is mandatory for ICANN to introduce policies that promote competition and are beneficial to public interest. All the delays in the gTLD process have served the monopolies of companies such as VeriSign (.com, .net) pretty well. Our .music initiative is a relevant case study that has NOT been used by ICANN to illustrate to any doubters that there is economic demand. No economic studies and academic papers need to be written since we have real results submitted by users that reflect considerable demand. We have broken the world record held by the "Free Tibet" movement which received 1.25 million signatures. ICANN can point towards our initiative that has received over 1.3 million signatures from the at-large music and Internet community for launching .music. We have also amassed 2 million friends/followers across social media such as Myspace and Twitter. Are all of these milestones unimportant? We believe we have showcased that there is a viral effort by the music community that is screaming for attention that has not been recognized yet.

There is a clear demand for .music and further delays are resulting in lost opportunity and the continuance of the monopoly of VeriSign and ".com." ICANN's protection of VeriSign's ".com" domain and the preservation of monopolies is treading on anti-trust or anti-competitive waters. I have not seen VeriSign (.com, .net) or Afilias (.org, .info) support new TLDs or make a push to end all the delays. ICANN is working in the best interests of the current monopolies that dominate the domain industry.

Furthermore, there is an unfair first-mover advantage for the newly introduced Fast Track Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) ccTLDs which faced the same overarching issues that new gTLDs face. Why were these IDN ccTLDs voted in without addressing these issues? There will be ZERO competition to IDN ccTLDs and as a result no IDN alternatives for non-Latin domains. Further delays in the gTLD process will ensure that an IDN ccTLD monopoly will exist in the IDN space.

Timelines

Timelines have been given by ICANN to launch new gTLDs many times and every time there has been a postponement which has cost me and other applicants a lot of money and time. As a newcomer to the ICANN process I find these delays and broken promises damaging to myself, the music community that we represent and other initiatives. How come it seems like we are all singing the Jamiroquai song that is called "traveling without moving"? I hope ICANN keeps its promise and that the Board votes on EOIs in February.

Community Definition

If one follows the definition of community in the latest DAG, even current gTLDs that serve communities such as .cat would fail. The .music initiative has gathered 1.3 million signatures from the music and Internet community and has amassed over 2 million followers/friends across social media such as Myspace and Twitter and based on the ICANN community definition, it does not matter. The .music initiative created a multiple-stakeholder community governance model to accurately represent and guarantee fairness and transparency within the music community. Any other definition of community is flawed, impractical and unrealistic. The .music serves ALL global cultures irrespective whether they represent commercial or non-commercial constituents.

The .music gTLD must be legitimate and be in the public interest and not be controlled by a major corporation or coalition of commercial groups who want to benefit themselves. I suggest ICANN staff address this important issue and use some common sense as opposed to a mathematical point-system to address an initiative such as .music and how to serve the at-large music community. The .music gTLD is of great global and cultural significance since music is universal and represents world culture not just commercial interests. Definitions of community in the dictionaries are plentiful and can be interpreted in many ways. The way that the current DAG defines community is troublesome and attention needs to be given to bringing together a definition that is in the global public interest.

I have proposed "multiple-stakeholder group" community as a more realistic, practical definition that can serve communities such as music that has multiple stakeholder groups which range from commercial constituency groups to non-commercial constituency groups. In the .music example, the multiple stakeholders community governance model includes musicians, bands, industry professionals, government music export offices/art councils, major labels, indie labels, major publishers, indie publishers, manufacturers, ticketing companies, agents, managers, promoters, engineers, technology companies, music universities/educational institutions, music websites, associations, broadcasters, collection societies, media and other music companies.

Secondary Market for Pre-Registration Slots

I believe this should NOT be permitted because it undermines the very nature of new TLDs and the process to represent the true interests of the public. An initiative such as .music has invested millions of dollars in development over the last half decade, allocated significant resources and performed global outreach efforts to create our multiple-stakeholder governance model for fair and guaranteed representation of both commercial and non-commercial constituents within the music community.

The EOI should not be used as an opportunistic investment by parties only interested in selling slots. If ICANN is truly looking for legitimate applicants with real business plans and credibility, then such behavior should not be permitted, because the ICANN TLD process should not be about buying and selling ICANN slots. ICANN is not a Ticketmaster secondary ticket selling agency. Applicants should not be allowed to flip their EOI slots to illegitimate 3rd party candidates.

GAC Input

I am disappointed that ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) has chosen not to participate in the EOI comment period. The only active GAC participant has been Bertrand de La Chapelle and I commend him for his efforts and his input in regards to multiple-stakeholder community issue which .music finds crucial to community applications. GAC input is important but it seems quite unacceptable that a day before the EOI comments close that GAC puts in a comment saying that they need to comment at a later date i.e Nairobi ICANN meeting. I find it inconsistent from GAC that they applaud new IDN ccTLDs, 4 of which are already accepted (Egypt, the Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia) WITHOUT addressing any of the overarching issues plaguing the gTLD process. As a possible IDN gTLD applicant for .music, I am disappointed about this double-standard from the GAC.

The GAC knew about the EOI process and chose not to comment. Why does GAC not participate in these public comments? GAC members could have sent an email outlining their opinion but in vast majority chose not to. ICANN alerted them about the comment period and should not be responsible for others lack of interest or inactivity. The official comments from GAC were submitted 1 day before the SECOND comment period expired, which merely alerted ICANN that "face-to-face" meetings are necessary with the community. So what is the point of public comments? Aren't they important?

I suggest GAC take a more active approach towards its obligations to the Internet community and put in its comments in a TIMELY manner. Where in the bylaws of ICANN does it say that the GAC is mandated to provide feedback on everything related to ICANN? I can point to countless public comment periods and issues where GAC has not provided official feedback. Please let me know where in the Affirmation of Commitments there is a clause that states that every ICANN affair needs to have formal "face-to-face" discussions with GAC. This is the 2nd comment period for EOI and GAC is missing in action and then complain to ICANN for not participating. This is not how policy making works. If you choose not to comment then your inactivity should be addressed appropriately by ICANN.

Trademarks

As mentioned in an email I sent to ICANN, the International Trademark Association (INTA) invited 6,000 lawyer members to flood the EOI public comments with input that is not useful or encouraging. No solutions were offered by any of the attorneys nor did they offer any constructive feedback.

The process has been delayed a few times and despite the efforts of the IRT team, there has been an outcry of unrealistic complaints from the trademark community, citing that their trademarks are in danger and that they will be forced to defensively register their brand names across all TLDs. Furthermore, they cite that new TLDs will create user confusion and will increase malicious conduct and unethical behavior.

I embarked on some research of these trademark owners to see if they had indeed registered their names across other existing generic TLDs, such as .travel, .pro, .aero, .name and .tel. The resounding answer is that they had not. I have read comments from companies such as Heinz, which did not offer solutions, but just reiterated the legal arguments that the International Trademark Association has asked them to utter in the EOI public comments. A significant amount of "me too" comments from the trademark community resulted in the flooding of the EOI public comments with opinions with no apparent proposed solutions or useful information on how to fix the problems they feared.

Let us make things clear. These were the opinions of their legal department exclusively. However in most cases, these comments do not represent the opinions of the whole organization or their sales/marketing departments. I encountered an interesting case with Sun Microsystems , who has submitted such as similar bland comment with no useful feedback to ICANN about any proposed solutions they had to fix the current issues at stake. I have been attending multiple conferences and events as part of the global outreach initiative of .music and have been approached by Sun Microsystems to collaborate together and be a possible technology partner to power our global marketplace platform we built for .music. I quote their representatives: "We are looking for exciting new projects and we believe .music is unique and Sun Microsystems can provide great value to you and help you with your technology needs." So in one hand, the Sun legal team wants to stop new TLDs from happening and on the other hand their company is trying to partner with me and come up with a deal worth quite a significant amount of money. There is certainly a disconnect as well as a lack of communication between departments within corporations. As a result, the process lacks useful feedback and builds roadblocks to reaching solutions. How do we bring innovation in the Internet space if ICANN is being indecisive about resolving issues?

Individuals such as Michael Palage who represent the trademark community serve as ICANN insiders to stall the process. As an ex-ICANN Board member, Palage is using his vast insider knowledge, influence and connections to do whatever it takes to delay the process in exchange of pushing big corporate agendas and monies for his services. He has attacked the authenticity of .music numerous times and labeled our initiative as front-running, potentially using trademarks in bad faith as well as calling me an insider when I am new to this process and never in my life ever witnessed an organization like ICANN that never wants to move forward with anything. It is time for ICANN to do its job and serve the community and not continue to bow to corporate interests and agendas. I have had enough of watching these corporate attorneys drink champagnes at these meetings because ICANN is unable to make swift, timely decisions. The music community or any of the new gTLD initiatives have never even received a formal apology from ICANN for wasting our time and breaking their promises.

Let me remind ICANN that companies such as Time Warner, Yahoo, Verizon and others have used illegal practices and wild redirects to abuse as well as profit from others trademarks. This kind of typosquatting behavior has made these corporations a lot of money and they did not even get a slap on the wrist. Now they are crying foul play when entrepreneurs such as myself are trying to launch something meaningful. VeriSign even launched SiteFinder, which used wild-card DNS redirect typosquatting, in an attempt to redirect any top-level .com or .net domain that didn't exist (either because they were not yet registered or mistyped) to a parked page that had affiliate links, information about VeriSign products, and advertisements. There are plenty of cases that were revealed by George Kirikos that address the issue of ICANN's lack of transparency, inconsistency in policy development and favoritism towards big corporations despite their "not-so-pleasing" track record. George Kirikos reveals that corporations like these do not represent "good" actors and that they do not work in the best interests of Internet users and society as a whole. It is all about increasing shareholder value and profits. Michele Neylon reiterates this point by outlining in a recent CircleID article (Big Brands Shooting Themselves In The Foot) that "a lot of the big brands and companies aren't as "clean" as they'd like us all to be."

Conclusion

Let us move forward with the EOI and new gTLDs. I urge ICANN to make timely decisions on the overarching issues and finally offer solutions that are pragmatic, realistic and serve public interest not corporate attorney agenda. Let us work together to introduce some new innovations in the domain space. The overarching issues should be carried out in parallel with the EOI communication/outreach process and be finalized before the EOI begins. This way by the time the EOI starts, most overarching issues should be addressed and there is a movement towards the right direction. If not, ICANN will face what I call the "Adverse Snowball Effect."

P.S I would love to hear any feedback from the ICANN community. I believe there needs to be an open dialogue in order to solve these issues. Proposed solutions are welcomed.

Written by Constantine Roussos, CEO & Founder of .Music & Music.us