Staff Writer - itbusinessdirect

ICANN picks Beijing to open first engagement center

April 12, 2013 Staff Writer

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will open its first new global engagement office in Beijing, China. “Engagement with China is not merely an option, we simply must engage at every level or we will lose our legitimacy,” said Fadi Chehade, ICANN CEO and President, in a statement Monday. He was making the announcement during the welcoming session at ICANN’s 46th public meeting in Beijing which will run through the rest of the week. adapted from Zdnet.com

Google Announces Plans to Share the Internet at Crucial ICANN Summit

April 12, 2013 Staff Writer

names.co.uk reveals Google’s letter to ICANN saying .app and .search will be shared with the wider Internet community names.co.uk, one of the UK’s top domain name registrars, has today confirmed that Google will have to compromise on its share of generic Top Level Domains on the Internet, after attending today’s 46th ICANN meeting in Beijing (http://beijing46.icann.org). Google has previously made a play for some of the most valuable new Top Level Domains including .app, .search, .blog and .cloud. Last night it became clear that the Internet giant would have to…

Computer outage in South Korea hits broadcasters and bank

March 20, 2013 Staff Writer

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) — South Korean police said Wednesday they are investigating a computer outage that is affecting servers at three leading television broadcasters and a large bank. One television station, YTN, reported that 500 of its computers had been disabled by the outage. Another, KBS, said that its internal networks had been “paralyzed,” but that the problem didn’t prevent it from broadcasting live. A third broadcaster, MBC, was also reportedly experiencing problems. Customers of Shinhan Bank are unable to log into the lender’s website at the moment, the…

25 years on, Tim Berners-Lee wins ‘UK’s Nobel prize’ for siring the internet

March 19, 2013June 20, 2014 Staff Writer

Just the other day we were contemplating the tragic irony of the internet’s inventor Tim Berners-Lee having just 125,000 Twitter followers, while Jersey Shore’s trainwreck-in-chief ‘Snooki’ had over 6 million. Wasn’t it about time Sir Tim, who NBC’s presenters admitted they “hadn’t heard of” during the Olympic opening ceremony, got a little more recognition for his planet-altering creation of the world wide web? Well it turns out the judges for the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, our new answer to the Nobel prize, felt the same way and have…

In youthful Africa, the Internet is mobile

March 18, 2013March 18, 2013 Staff Writer

After a week of business meetings in the cities of sub-Saharan Africa, we can say three things are new for the continent: a) The despotic leadership from the 1970s and 1980s is in decline, replaced by younger and more democratic leaders b) A huge youth demographic boom is underway, with a majority of the population being 25 or even under 20 years old c) Mobile phones are everywhere, and the Internet in Africa will be primarily a mobile one. Many of the older problems are still severe, including a lack…

Time to Take Stock: Twelve Internet and Jurisdiction Trends in Retrospect

March 15, 2013March 18, 2013 Staff Writer

With the growing tension between the cross-border Internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions, it becomes crucial to keep track of key global trends that drive the debate on appropriate frameworks. One year ago, the Internet & Jurisdiction Project initiated a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process on these issues. To provide a factual basis for such discussions, it established an Observatory, supported by a network of selected international experts, to detect and categorize relevant cases via an innovative crowd-based filtering process in order to identify high-level patterns. The following twelve trends…

IBCA Called for Inclusion of African Businesses at ICANN Africa Strategy Meeting in Addis Ababa

March 15, 2013March 19, 2013 Staff Writer

The Internet Business Council for Africa (IBCA), an initiative of DotConnectAfrica that was Unveiled at ICANN 49 Public Forum in Toronto Canada and seeking to partner with ICANN and the African Businesses in a multi-stakeholder model of IG was invited to present its ideas at the just concluded African Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance meeting held at the UNECA Conference Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 6-8 March 2013. Invited to speak on the different sessions as a panelist, Ms. Bekele analyzed the African business scenario, noting that there was a need…

ICANN SARP: 3 new gTLD Applicants submit application for financial assistance

March 15, 2013March 18, 2013 Staff Writer

Today, ICANN is publishing the New gTLD Applicant Support Program results identified by the Support Application Review Panel (SARP) for applications that have requested for financial assistance. There were three financial assistance requests submitted to ICANN by applicants to the New gTLD Program. Each of these requests were carefully considered and extensively reviewed against the criteria outlined in the New gTLD Financial Assistance Handbook. Below lists the three applications that have submitted for financial assistance, and includes the SARP determination for meeting the minimum criteria for financial assistance: Per the…

ICANN President Announces Major Expansion in Africa

March 15, 2013June 20, 2014 Staff Writer

Chehadé Calls for an Increase in African Registrars Addis Ababa, Ethiopia… The President of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said he is moving ahead immediately with plans to have six new ICANN representatives on the African continent. “ICANN used to say if you want to participate in Internet governance come to ICANN,” said Fadi Chehadé. “We’ve changed that, now ICANN is coming to the stakeholders. We’re not waiting for you to come. We’re coming to you.” Chehadé made his comments during the Africa…