Google’s Domain Name Land Grab: Consumer Convenience Or Coercive Control Point?

Privacy

Internet naming decisions are the sort of Internet plumbing inside baseball that only interests policy wonks and marketing mavens. That is until an 800 pound gorilla like Google GOOGL +0.54% decides to pay $25 million for a single generic top-level domain name (gTLD). Buying “.app” for almost four-times the previous record for a gTLD not only raised eyebrows, but questions about the strategy behind Google’s expansive and expensive domain name land grab. Although the most costly, .app is merely one of over 100 gTLDs, Google had already spent nearly $20…

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Sophia Bekele: The rise of “Exclusive Multistakeholder” – Analysis on ICANN Africa Strategy

Sophia Bekele has taken an inside look into the ICANN Africa Strategy in the article on CircleID quoted below… ICANN Africa Strategy – A View from the Inside: The rise of “Exclusive Multistakeholder” “In fact, the implementation of the strategy, so far, in the opinion of many Africans, is a failure in the multi-stakeholder model of Internet Governance we aspired for. The entire ICANN Africa Strategy is an apparent usurpation of the model by a Special Interest Group who has appointed themselves as “Leaders of the African Internet Community” and…

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DCA Trust Summarizes Year 2014, .Africa IRP and Internet Governance in its Seasonal Greetings

DCA Trust has summarized its entire year of activities in its annual 2014 seasonal greetings report focusing on major issues such as Internet Governance, .Africa IRP and its various expert commentaries to global organizations. “The year 2014 proved to be another eventful year for DCA Trust, and its technology sector affiliates; namely, DCA Registry Services (Kenya) Ltd., and the Internet Business Council for Africa (IBCA) says DCA.”  said Bekele in her year end message. The Seasonal Greetings touching on the IRP says “DCA Trust had filed its Official Notice for…

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NETmundial Initiative to use crowd-sourcing as way to fix Internet problems

NETmundial Initiative consists of Brazil’s Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) (Reuters) – Responding to a dizzying array of issues that threaten to break the Internet, from privacy to tax dodging to cybercrime, a group of the world’s leading governance organizations say greater user involvement, not top-down control, is needed. Three organizations — Brazil’s Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) — said on Thursday they were…

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CentralNic contracts to acquire Internet.BS

CentralNic has contracted to acquire the business and certain of the assets of Internet.BS Corp, a leading retailer of domain names registered in The Bahamas, for a maximum consideration of $7.5m. CentralNic says Internet.BS is one of the world’s top 30 domain name retailers, and it serves a global customer base from 199 countries. It has been trading for eleven years and it is accredited by the global regulator ICANN as well as the numerous operators of country codes including .eu for Europe and .in for India. Internet.BS is a…

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New Multistakeholder Initiative: “My Data Belongs To Me”

A new initiative by the World Summit Award (WSA) initiative seeks to use its global multistakeholder network to push forward personal data ownership and big data issues at UN discussions. At an open discussion, the WSA invited participants to share views on issues with the current system of data use, the need for permission-based access, and steps for further action. The workshop on “Data citizen rights, my data belongs to me” was organised by the WSA on 9 June, parallel to the United Nations World Summit of the Information Society…

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House of Representatives vote threatens Obama Administration planned internet giveaway

For years, conservative activists have prodded the House of Representatives to use their unique Constitutional power of the purse to rein in Obama Administration excesses. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is doing just that through a series of amendments that will be considered to the bill that appropriates money for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, along with other science related agencies. One particularly important rider is being offered by Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI). The Duffy amendment prohibits the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from using any…

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More IPv4 exhaustion alerts as ICANN address pool dwindles

The impending exhaustion of the IPv4 address space has been raised as an issue once more by ICANN, as it begins allocating the remaining blocks of addresses to the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). According to ICANN, this move signals that the global supply of IPv4 addresses is now reaching a critical level. With more and more devices coming online, especially with new trends such as the Internet of Things, the demand for IP addresses continues to rise, and IPv4 is incapable of supplying enough to meet demand, ICANN said.…

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WSJ: Brace for increased domain registration fees should the UN oversight ICANN

The Wall Street Journal just published a story by Karl Borden who is a professor of financial economics at the University of Nebraska who warns that if the US gives up its oversight control over ICANN and the United Nations winds up in that roll, expect that fees are going to be imposed on every domain registration to support not only ICANN but UN activities. The world may see history repeat itself with the Internet, and the unintended consequences are likely to be profound. The United Nations has long craved…

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Critical ‘homework’ before the U.S. relinquishes stewardship of ICANN

The Department of Commerce announced on March 14 that it will give up its last bit of control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2015. As is often the case with government decisions announced late on a Friday, this decision is controversial. The U.S. has exercised light oversight of ICANN since it established the organization and emphasized the need for a free and open Internet. Other nations do not share America’s perspective and have sought repeatedly to work through U.N. organizations such as the International…

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