Policy & Regulation

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While Cyberspace Is Entering an Era of Warring States, There Remains a Chance to Make a Difference

For the non-state actors who are making efforts to approach cybersecurity issue in a different and creative way, the state actors, however, have given clear signs that they have exhausted their patience and insisted on doing things alone by bringing traditional old tricks back into cyberspace. This is exemplified in the bilateral meeting of two cyber sovereigntists - the Chinese and U.S. presidents on April 6-7, and in the multilateral G7 Declaration on Responsible States Behavior in Cyberspace on April 11. more

Would the Internet Survive a Trump Apocalypse?

Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his supporters are pursuing platforms to create an altered America in a different world that is profoundly different in almost every respect from what has existed until now -- it is a new world best described as the Trump Apocalypse. Would the Internet as we have known it continue to exist? The short answer is probably not. Here is why. more

Best Practices: A Meaningless Term

Chad White wrote an article for MediaPost about best practices which parallels a lot of thinking I've been doing about how the email marketing industry treats best practices. After several conversations recently about "best practices," I'm convinced that the term is now meaningless. It's been bastardized in the same way that the definition of "spam" has shifted to the point that it has very different meanings to different groups of people. more

ICANN New gTLD Auctions - Apparently No Antitrust Concerns?

There has been much discussion in ICANN circles concerning auctions to resolve new gTLD contention sets. This article summarizes the discussion and events to date, and suggests there should be little worry for applicants seeking to resolve their contention sets via private auction, rather than ICANN's "last resort" auction. more

Thoughts of an ICANN Public Interest Stakeholder on the Intended Sale of the .ORG Registry

The announcement of the intended Internet Society (ISOC) sale of the .ORG registry to Ethos Capital has caused a lot of frustration and anger while raising a lot of questions.
It's more than just about the money. It's more than who is behind it. It's about the soul of the DNS and the ICANN community with its multi-stakeholder model. Let's remember that the Public Interest Registry (PIR) was created, with ISOC as its sole legal owner, to provide ISOC with the funds to operate and to run the registry more-or-less as a Social Business. more

The Role of the Internet in the UN Sustainable Development Goals

We see the Internet as a critical enabler for sustainable development. Our vision is that it can unlock human capabilities and we are committed to working with all stakeholders to fulfill the Internet's development potential. To that end, next week in New York the United Nations will be convening an Expert Group Meeting on "Advancing a Sustainable Information Society for All". The Internet Society (ISOC) has been invited to participate to this discussion among other experts. more

Editorials Against PROTECT-IP

First the Los Angeles Times, now the New York Times have both printed editorials critical of the PROTECT-IP bill. Both the LAT and NYT support copyright - and announce as much in their opening sentences. That doesn't mean we should sacrifice Internet security and stability for legitimate DNS users, nor the transparency of the rule of law. more

Obama Reinforces Belief in Net Neutrality

Following his State of the Union Speech last week, Obama was asked a number of user-submitted questions via prepared via YouTube. Popular questions included the issue of open internet and neutrality, to which Obama responded: "I'm a big believer in Net Neutrality. I campaigned on this. I continue to be a strong supporter of it. My FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has indicated that he shares the view that we've got to keep the Internet open..." more

FCC Chair Releases Draft to Abandon Net Neutrality, Says Gov’t Must Stop Micromanaging the Internet

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai today released a statement on his draft "Restoring Internet Freedom Order", circulated to Commissioners this morning and will be voted on at the FCC's Open Meeting on December 14 more

KPN’s Focus on FttC Misses the Broader Picture

The Netherlands remains one of the few countries in Europe to have significant FttH networks. Until 2009, the main characteristic of Dutch fibre rollouts was the dominant role played by housing corporations and municipal governments. This focus changed following KPN's acquisition of a 41% stake in the fibre provider Reggefiber and the subsequent ramping-up of their efforts and investment through their joint venture Glashart. more

Internet Governance Survey: What You Told Us

What do people perceive to be the top issues facing the Internet today? How can stakeholders work more effectively together to strengthen the governance mechanisms meant to address these issues? And when it comes to the Internet Society, what should our role be and where should we focus our attention? To help inform our work in Internet governance, we posed these and other questions to our community in February. We had an overwhelming response with over 800 people taking a few minutes of their time to answer our survey. more

Watch Live Oct 1 - Dyn’s Techtoberfest: Internet Trends, Security, Net Neutrality and More

On Thursday, Oct 1, 2015, from 9:30am-4:30pm US EDT (UTC-4), Dyn will be holding their "TechToberFest" event in Manchester, NH, and also streaming the video live for anyone interested. There are a great set of speakers and a solid agenda. As I wrote on the Internet Society blog, I'll be part of the security panel from 3-4pm US EDT... and we who are on the panel are excited to participate just for the conversation that we are going to have! It should be fun! more

US Congress Hearing on “Privatizing IANA” - Thursday, March 17 (Live Video Feed Available)

On Thursday, March 17, 2016, a U.S. Congressional committee will hold a hearing on the topic of "Privatizing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" (IANA) starting at 10:15am US EDT (UTC-4). You can learn about the hearing and view the written testimony at and watch live on the included pages. The hearing is before the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. more

KSK Rollover, Elliptical Curve Vulnerabilities, Surveillance and Privacy. Are We Building Trust?

ICANN just recently performed a Root Zone DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) Key Signing Key (KSK) Rollover. The recent KSK Rollover that took place on the 11th October 2018. The KSK Rollover has been successful and congratulations are in order. The Root Zone DNSSEC Key Signing Key "KSK" is the top most cryptographic key in the DNSSEC hierarchy. The KSK is a cryptographic public-private key pair. more

Protests Erupt Over EU’s Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

In a blog post today, Michael Geist writes: "The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. and elsewhere (mounting Canadian concern that Bill C-11 could be amended to adopt SOPA-like rules), but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia). This has generated a flurry of furious protest..." more