As we run out of IPv4 addresses, should the Regional Internet Registries allow address blocks to be traded? In a paper released last month, we argued that a liberalized transfer policy would serve a number of important purposes. Transfer policy proposals are quite controversial, however. In an attempt to gauge levels of support, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has taken a survey of its public policy mailing list. About 200 people responded. Overall, the survey found that 87% of the respondents supported a liberalized transfer policy of some kind. It is a level of support much larger than one would have anticipated from the debates on the lists, which seem to have been dominated by vocal opponents.
The IGF’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) has been renewed, adding 17 new appointments, which brings the total number of advisers up to 50. We provide a quick review of the new appointees.
Wednesday the U.S. Federal Communications Commission released the text of its Order sanctioning Comcast, a U.S. provider of broadband Internet access over cable lines, for selectively targeting and interfering with connections of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications. The Commission concluded “Although Comcast asserts that its conduct is necessary to ease network congestion, we conclude that the company’s discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management.”
About ten days ago the US Commerce Department sent ICANN a letter slapping it upside the head for suggesting in its President's Strategy Committee report that the US might actually keep its 1998 promise to turn over root zone file to ICANN/IANA. On August 1, Commerce sent ICANN another letter, warning ICANN that it had better continue to allow unrestricted public access to personal information in the Whois database. Specifically, it made its opposition known to ICANN's proposed legalization of services that offer domain name registrants some shield against the indiscriminate display of their personal data to anyone in the world who wants it. This letter, too, was part of a public comment period on proposed changes in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. These letter speak to a shift in relations between the USG and ICANN, one that is in some ways encouraging, but also potentially very dangerous as well.
“In characteristically rigorous fashion, Mueller’s outstanding book punctures the alarmist myth of Internet fragmentation and helps us to understand what is really at stake as nations and other groups vie for power over the Internet.”
Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law School