The Narrative: Unpacking the digital political economy; W3C reinvention; India’s new cybersecurity directive; crypto blender sanctioning

Unpacking the digital political economy As the summer begins, with long awaited in-person conferences and intensive research activity, we are busily developing the Call For Papers for our annual IGP conference for fall 2022, which will focus on the global digital political economy. What scholars and policy makers used to...

The Narrative: Have we reached splinternet yet?

March 8, 2022 The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put global interconnection to the test as never before. Every media outlet is now talking about “Splinternet.” The ruptures extend beyond the internet and web to include many forms of cooperation and trade, especially in financial systems. This Narrative briefly comments...

The Narrative: European DNS policy, Apple & competition, Ukrainian cyber incidents, new IGP paper

Europe’s industrial policy for recursive DNS The European Commission’s 2020 Data Strategy is intended “to make the EU a leader in a data-driven society [by] creating a single market for data.” As part of its misguided “digital sovereignty” effort, the plan budgeted an initial 14 million Euro for a recursive...

The Narrative: IGF16 still on; Insurers confront cyber-attribution; India & cryptocurrency

Amid Covid concerns, IGF meets in Poland As of this moment, the UN Internet Governance Forum will still hold a hybrid meeting in Katowice, Poland. The hosts made an announcement affirming that "it goes ahead with the physical meeting as planned as it has taken all necessary precautions to make...

The Narrative: Meta-morphosis, data enclosure effects, 5G sanctions, global encryption day, Pegasus probe

November 1, 2021 Facebook tries to change the subject After becoming the scapegoat of choice for all of society’s ills, from the “death of democracy” to teenage girls’ social comparisons to amplifying hate speech, Mark Zuckerberg announced a change to the company’s name and a shift in its focus. While...

The Narrative: Facebook and ISOC do not get the Nobel Peace Prize

October 15, 2021 Free expression advocates win Nobel Peace Prize The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. Announcing the award, The Nobel Committee clarified that the two working reporters were chosen for the award because they represent “a...

A Fight Over Crumbs: The AFRINIC crisis

AFRINIC is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa: a nonprofit, nongovernmental Internet governance organization. Like RIPE, ARIN, APNIC and LACNIC, it operates a registry for unique internet protocol (IP) numbers that serve as network addresses. The registry records which organizations hold rights to which IP address blocks on that...