Spain is undergoing a traumatic crackdown on freedom of expression, as part of a larger political convulsion over the Catalan province’s attempt to hold a binding referendum on independence. As one resident tweeted: Webs R closed or blocked. Media are summoned not 2 "inform" about referendum. Anybody expressing support [for...
Recently, the Internet Association, a trade group for online service providers, introduced a praiseworthy idea into the NAFTA re-negotiation. It asked for the revised trade agreement to include a principle that online platform providers should be immunized from liability for the content that some of their users post. As the...
The turmoil in Brazil's politics has now touched on the Internet governance situation. For many years, Brazil's Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil (CGI.BR), known in English as the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, has been touted globally as the model of enlightened multi-stakeholder governance at the national level. Members of...
Guest Blog By Holly Dragoo In November 2016, the National People’s Congress (NPC) of China passed the Chinese Cybersecurity Law (CSL), governing a broad range of issues from securing personal information to data leaks and governance, to hacking. International technology firms are especially concerned, however, as the law uses ambiguous...
In a victory for fairness and rule-based Internet governance, an independent review panel (IRP) has decided that ICANN was wrong to deny retailing giant Amazon, Inc. the top level domain AMAZON. Key elements of the decision were unanimous, particularly the conclusion that the Board “cannot accept GAC consensus advice as...
As this blog post shows, ICANN's management is now thinking about how to comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They'd better be. Everyone knows ICANN’s Whois policies, which require registries and registrars to provide indiscriminate public access to personal data about domain name registrants, violate European privacy laws. In...
Initiatives to globalize cybersecurity governance took a step forward this weekend with the release of a RAND Corporation study of an international attribution organization. The Microsoft Corporation’s idea for a global attribution agency modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency was the catalyst for this report; the research was funded...
Participants at the 3rd annual IGP workshop went for a deep dive into the complexities of governance as it pertains to the Internet, cybersecurity, and national security. Held in Atlanta on the Georgia Tech campus, the 25-person workshop featured a complementary mix of academic researchers, industry representatives and military and...
IGP led two thought-provoking discussions of the relationship between cybersecurity and Internet governance in Brussels last week. An event at the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS) opened with Milton Mueller’s thoughts on “Cybersecurity as an Internet governance problem,” followed by Jan Neutze’s talk on Microsoft's call for a Digital...
Microsoft President Brad Smith delivered a remarkable speech at the RSA Conference February 14, 2017. Two ideas, two big memes, shot out into media reports: 1) we need a "digital Geneva Convention" that would protect civilians from nation-state attacks; 2) private tech firms should become a "neutral digital Switzerland" 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.”
