The United States is pressing China to explain why its "national firewall" extensively block U.S. companies from providing Internet services in the country. "Having a presence on the Internet that is visible in China is increasingly a critical element for service suppliers aiming to reach Chinese consumers and business," Ambassador to the World Trade Organization Michael Punke said in a letter on Monday to his Chinese counterpart. more»
U.S. securities regulators formally asked public companies for the first time to disclose cyber attacks against them, following a rash of high-profile Internet crimes. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines on Thursday that laid out the kind of information companies should disclose, such as cyber events that could lead to financial losses. more»
On September 25th, 2011, Nik Cubrilovic, a hacker and writer, published a blog post that showed that a particular Facebook session cookie wasn't being deleted after a user logged out. He noted that the session cookie included your Facebook user id number, which would presumably facilitate Facebook associating any data they collected about your browsing the web with your Facebook account. Cubrilovic's review showed that, based on what the cookies were transmitting, Facebook could easily connect some of your browsing habits to your unique Facebook account. more»
Verisign, the manager of top-level domains .com and .net, is seeking authority to shut down "non-legitimate" domain names when asked to by law enforcement. The company said today it wants to be able to enforce the "denial, cancellation or transfer of any registration" in any of a laundry list of scenarios where a domain is deemed to be "abusive". more»
The U.S. departments of Commerce and Homeland Security (DHS) has met with other agencies and private-sector leaders in the information technology industry discussing the need to create a voluntary industry code of conduct to address the detection and mitigation of botnets. The meeting, hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), included topics such as the problematic and at time controversial issue of notifying individuals whose computers have been infected with malware and are part of a botnet. more»
The Council of Europe plans to establish an Internet user charter to guarantee the rights of consumers in an era of increasing government attempts to seize control of the Web, its deputy secretary general said on Tuesday. "We want to emphasize the development, perhaps in the form of a charter on the rights of Internet users so they can claim openness, universality, access and affordability and possibly to know who to turn to if these principles are not respected," Maud de Boer-Buquicchio said. more»
Nick Wood reporting in Total Telecom: "Google on Tuesday shared some of the lessons it has learnt so far during the deployment of its FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) network, claiming that regulation has been one of the biggest hurdles it has had to overcome. 'Regulation can get in the way of innovation,' said Kevin Lo, head of access at Google, during a keynote presentation at Broadband World Forum in Paris. 'Regulations tied to physical infrastructure sometimes defer the investment altogether.'" more»
ICANN needs ethics rules says U.S. lawmaker, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, in a letter to the U.S. Commerce Department. Any group overseeing the system "is hugely important in regulating the multimillion-dollar domain name industry" and should be "subject to the same financial-disclosure, ethics or conflict-of-interest rules as executive leadership at federal agencies or in Congress," Wyden wrote. more»
Wout de Natris: "In this decision OPTA revokes the registration of Diginotar as a so called Trusted Third Party. Diginotar issued certified certificates for digital signatures. The security breach by Iranian hackers over the summer, which Diginotar did not report to the authorities, lead to severe credibility issues for all Diginotar certificates issued before. This included Dutch government websites, but also led to severe breaches of privacy for Iranian end users, in multiple countries. As a result of OPTA's decision all certificates issued by Diginotar have to be revoked, while at the same she is forbidden to issue new ones. more»
Nominet, the registry that handles .uk domains, is moving ahead with proposed rules (PDF) that could allow law enforcement agencies to request a domain be shut down without a court order. The registry launched the process in response to a request from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). more»
Kieren McCarthy reporting in .nxt: "An extraordinary series of policy papers drawn up by the European Commission and seen by .Nxt have called for greater governmental control over the Internet's domain name system. ...the measures would provide governments with de facto control over the Internet's naming systems and bring an end to the independent and autonomous approach that has defined the Internet's domain name system since its inception." more»
Kevin Murphy reporting in DomainIncite: "The UK Direct Marketing Association has added its voice to the collection of advertising trade groups that oppose ICANN's new generic top-level domains program." ... The Association of National Advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the American Association of Advertising Agencies have already made similar calls." more»
Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "CAUCE reports that the CRTC published long-awaited regulations (a big step towards Canada's Anti-spam Law (AKA C28) coming into force), late June 30, the day before Canada Day. The regulations are, as anticipated, very terse and do little to water down the strong nature of the law; they move to clarify certain aspects of express vs. implied consent, among other things." more»
The Netherlands on Wednesday became the first EU member state to enshrine in law the concept of net neutrality, the idea that there should be no hierarchy of information or services in the internet. The measure, passed by a large majority in the lower house and expected to pass without hitch through the senate, will prevent Dutch mobile telephone operators from blocking or charging consumers more for using internet-based communications services. more»
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has urged a federal court to return two domain names seized in what the organization calls U.S. government's fundamentally flawed anti-infringement campaign. "This misguided intellectual property enforcement effort is causing serious collateral damage to free speech rights," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "These domain seizures should cease unless and until the government can fix the First Amendment flaws inherent in the program." more»
