What happens to companies when they get too big for their own good? Do they inadvertently do things that potentially harm our privacy (think Facebook)? Or, do they simply make mistakes that violate our privacy? Well, last month Google revealed that its Street View cars "mistakenly" captured content flowing over wireless networks -- a potential invasion of privacy. more
The California Supreme Court issued its opinion in Kleffman v. Vonage, a case certified from the Ninth Circuit. The California Supreme Court held that the transmission of "commercial e-mail advertisements from multiple domain names for the purpose of bypassing spam filters" does not violate California's spam statute. more
When it comes to accountability, ICANN would rather be compared to other U.S. nonprofit companies than to the regulatory bodies it more closely resembles. If they truly wish to be treated like a nonprofit, rather than a regulator, there is a very simple solution: make all contributions strictly voluntary. more
Reporting from Brussels, Belgium. Since January KnujOn has been conducing its own audit of ICANN Registrar contractual compliance and illicit commerce within the generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) space. Our findings are shocking. more
Introduced by ranking Senate members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, S.3480 is intended to create an Office of Cyber Policy in the executive branch of the government, confirmed by the Senate and ultimately reporting to the president. Senators Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln and Tom Carper introduced the bill publicly on June 10, and a critical part of the bill is that critical infrastructure networks such as electricity grids, financial systems and telecommunications networks need to cooperate with the Office of Cyber Policy. more
My book, "The Current State of Domain Name Regulation: Domain Names as Second Class Citizens in a Mark-dominated World" is now available by Routledge. The following is an overview of the book. more
In a previous CircleID article, it was discovered and documented that NAF Panelists and Complainants were systematically copying/pasting nonsense into UDRP decisions. It has been a couple of months with no action by ICANN, and no public statement by NAF. In a shocking new development, though, it turns out that NAF has quietly edited a past UDRP decision! more
e360 v. Spamhaus is one of these cases that's been around so long it feels like an old friend. A few years ago, e360 got some press for winning an eleven million dollar damage award against Spamhaus. In a less heralded development, following a bench trial on damages, last week a district judge modified e360's damage award down to only $27,000 on its tortious interference and defamation claims. more
KnujOn has retrieved a document indicating that the ICANN-Accredited Registrar Abacus America is in Corporate Delinquency in the state of Kansas. Kansas defines a company as Delinquent if "The business entity has not filed its annual report and fee by the due date." ... This incident is significant because Abacus America was cited by LegitScript and KnujOn for sponsoring an unlicensed pharmacy selling Schedule 3 substances... more
A federal court granted a request for attorney's fees (in the amount of $806,978.84) against prolific CAN-SPAM plaintiff Asis Internet. I thought things were looking good for Asis - whose lawsuits have generated substantial blog fodder - when it recently obtained a 2.5 million dollar default judgment in a spam case. more
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