The Congressional Internet Caucus held its 15th annual State of the Net conference today at The Newseum in Washington, DC. This is traditionally a start the new year networking and information update day for the capital's technology policy set. Immediately following the lunch break, at a session titled "Internet Functions in Transition: Is the US and the World Ready?", NTIA head Lawrence Strickling provided the first official Obama Administration reaction... more»
As we have previously observed, the efforts undertaken by ICANN, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and CGI.BR to launch a NETmundial Initiative (NMI) to follow up on last spring's NETmundial meeting in Sao Paulo has encountered heavy skepticism and substantial resistance from the major civil society and technical groups from which endorsement and participation was sought. more»
2014 was a big year for us and for our clients. The new gTLD program forced us to rethink, reprioritize and implement new and different strategies to protect our brands online. The uncertainty largely behind us, and with more information at our fingertips about just how well (or not) brands are faring in the new environment, it's time to look forward to what we can do in 2015 to fix what's broken, throw away what's useless, fight for what's important... more»
As I read through multiple postings covering the proposed Computer Fraud and Misuse Act, such as the ever-insightful writing of Rob Graham in his Obama's War on Hackers or the EFF's analysis, and the deluge of Facebook discussion threads where dozens of my security-minded friends shriek at the damage passing such an act would bring to our industry, I can't but help myself think that surely it's an early April Fools joke. more»
The internet has become almost part of our daily involvement and reality is that it affects every facet of our modern lives. We are increasingly becoming dependent on the Internet, for which reason its availability, functionality, safety, stability and security are now of great and continuing concern to all of us and most importantly to US Congress, who so far has maintained stewardship over these key functions. more»
The White House has announced a new proposal to fix cybersecurity. Unfortunately, the positive effects will be minor at best; the real issue is not addressed. This is a serious missed opportunity by the Obama adminstration; it will expend a lot of political capital, to no real effect... The proposals focus on two things: improvements to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and provisions intended to encourage information sharing. At most, these will help at the margins; they'll do little to fix the underlying problems. more»
A group of twenty-four civil society organizations and individuals today submitted a joint statement regarding a proposal from an ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) sub-group on the use of "geographic names" in top-level domains. The joint civil society statement cautioned against the adoption of the GAC proposal that would give governments veto power on domains that use "geographic names." more»
Here we are with CircleID's annual roundup of top ten most popular posts featured during 2014 (based on overall readership). Congratulations to all the participants whose posts reached top readership and best wishes for 2015. more»
On December 1, 2014 the Cross Community Working Group (CWG) on Naming Related Functions published a Draft Transition Proposal. The comment period on the Proposal extended for twenty-one days; due to a requirement imposed by the separate IANA Coordination Group (ICG) that a final proposal be received by mid-January, there was no provision for a follow-up reply comment period as is standard ICANN Practice for issues of far less consequence. more»
2015 has just started, but the calendar of events related to Internet Governance is already fully packed until the end of the year. The list of issues under discussion gets longer and longer and more and more people expect concrete results from the numerous meetings. Whether we will see the next stumbling step forward on the long march through the Internet Governance Ecosystem will depend to a high degree from the outcomes of two different, but interrelated processes which will overshadow the Internet discussion in 2015. more»
On December 17th a US proposal for online commerce in a major trade negotiation, the Trade in Services Agreement ("TISA") leaked. A flurry of press releases and opinion pieces claim that TISA is a threat to the Internet. The headlines are lurid: "TISA leak: EU Data Protection and Net Neutrality Threatened" and "Leaked TISA text exposes US threat to privacy, civil rights"... Because I've spent years in Geneva regularly meeting with and advising negotiators on the networked economy I have a very different perspective. more»
Wait and see approach on abuse attracts ICANN Stakeholder attention: A few weeks ago I made a detailed argument as to why product safety applies to domains, just like it does to cars and high chairs. I also argued that good products equal good business or "economically advantaged" in the long run. Then I really made a strong statement, I said if we don't actively engage other Internet stakeholders -- those that interact with our products, we would eventually lose the opportunity to self-regulate. more»
The nation's leading organization of government, corporate and academic privacy executives -- the International Association of Privacy Professionals -- recently did what good groups do, it issued a report that validated the pursuit of the career it supports... the IAPP reminded all what has long been understood -- privacy is an important and growing risk management activity under the watchful eye (mostly) of general counsels. With $2.4 billions being spent this year and $3 billion next, it is a growth industry. more»
Two quick facts about American industry's resilience against cyber-attack, (1) our critical infrastructure is inadequately protected and (2) federal regulation will be required to fix the problem, reliance on market forces alone will not be sufficient irrespective of whether or not Sony Pictures survives. Although regulation is needed, it needs to be coordinated and, above all, cost-effective. Which agency is charge of regulating cybersecurity? Right now, it's a free for all with agencies staking out turf and claims of authority. more»
On the evening of Tuesday, September 9th, Congressional leaders unveiled a 1,603 page, $1.01 trillion FY 2015 appropriations bill to fund the U.S. government through the end of September 2015. One provision of the omnibus bill would delay the IANA transition until after the September 30, 2015 expiration of the current contract between the NTIA and ICANN. more»
