ICANN* has a problem. One could even call it a disease - an organizational version of Sydenham’s chorea. What are the symptoms? This: ICANN has in place elaborate, well-defined, and reasonably balanced representational mechanisms for making policies. But every time it has an important decision to make, ICANN tries to...
The Internet Governance Project has prepared a draft response to a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) issued by the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on "International Internet Policy Priorities." We were happy to see that the NOI asked specifically about challenges to free expression and the free flow of...
As we anticipated, ICANN the organization, under the pressure of powerful interest groups, decided to come up with its own model for access to personal information of domain name registrants data. It is a draft for "discussion." But there is a timeline as well: Phase 1: Community discussion and consultations on...
Now that Whois has been changed to become compliant with the GDPR, the battleground over Whois and privacy has shifted to the question of how people can get past the restrictions and gain access to all the personal information about domain name registrants that used to be there. This process...
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on 25 May 2018. As a result, ICANN allowed registries and registrars to cloak the personal information of domain name registrants in WHOIS, with a caveat that those who had legitimate and proportionate purpose should be allowed access to this cloaked,...
On May 24-25, 2018, the Internet Governance Project (IGP) at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy held its 4th Annual Workshop in Atlanta. This year’s workshop theme was “Digital Free Trade or Cyber Nationalism? Setting the Course for a 21st Century Digital Trade Policy.” The workshop explored the scientific and...
The collision between ICANN’s Whois regime and the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took a decisive turn May 25, 2018, when ICANN filed injunction proceedings against EPAG, a German registrar affiliated with Tucows. EPAG had notified ICANN that as of May 25 it would no longer collect administrative and technical...
What can we do to stop the militarization of cybersecpace by States? One answer might be convening a transnational cyber attribution organization. States need to be held accountable if they carry out cyber attacks. However, up until now, this has not been feasible. The infeasibility does not mean that cyberattribution...
In Chinese online discussions, many people are using the expression “one sword throat-slashing strike.” [一剑封喉] This forbidding term refers to the United States’ seven-year export ban on China’s second-largest telecom supplier, ZTE, which threatens its very existence and has put the company “in a state of shock.” In the Chinese...
“Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Martha: Amen.” Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Since February, the prominent security reporter Brian Krebs has been writing on his widely-read blog, Krebs on Security, that...
“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.”
