Probably few people involved with the Internet, either as users or suppliers, have ever heard of the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC). In fact, on January 31 this United Nations-based working group with grand ambitions for making “global public policy” for the Internet terminated its activities without accomplishing anything....
The cyber norm panel that took place in early February at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace sheds light on how “cyber norms” came about. States’ negotiations over international cybersecurity strategy evolved from focusing on 'control of weaponization of information technology' to 'managing states’ behavior through cyber norms'. Moreover, it...
Nowadays the Internet community has a laundry list of things to be frightened about. In the Internet Governance Project’s new paper, we try to reduce that list by one. With the governments' attempts to localize data, increase surveillance and curb freedom of expression, civil society especially is concerned with how...
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...
ICANN is a California nonprofit headquartered in the United States. ICANN’s accountability reforms included a discussion of how U.S. jurisdiction affects ICANN’s accountability and domain name users. Not satisfied with ending U.S. control over the DNS root, a few stakeholders wanted to get ICANN out of the U.S. altogether. It...
Will the Internet fragment? Professor Mueller gave a talk about his book "Will the Internet Fragment?" at Clemson University (his talk starts around 4:30). He says the network effects of global compatibility are powerful enough to defeat a technical fracturing of the web. The real threat comes from governments' attempts to align...
The impact of ICANN’s U.S. jurisdiction has been a subject of intense debate. Some say it doesn’t matter, some say it does. The time to provide evidence of domain name related problems caused by ICANN’s jurisdiction has arrived. If your domain names were confiscated because you live in a country...
We join the chorus of protest and outrage caused by the Trump administration’s Executive Order on immigration. In the name of protecting the country from terrorism, the Order restricted travel from 7 arbitrarily-designated countries, and has even refused entry to people with well-established legal immigrant status, such as Green Card...
One of the outstanding accountability issues at ICANN after the IANA transition is the jurisdiction of ICANN and how that affects its ability to execute its mission. As part of Work Stream 2 of the accountability reforms, an ICANN working group focuses on the issue of jurisdiction. While the accountability...
On May 11-12, 2017, the IGP's 3rd Annual Workshop convened at Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy in Atlanta. This year's topic: Who Governs, States or Stakeholders? Cybersecurity and Internet Governance Cybersecurity problems challenge existing institutions of governance. Global coordination is impeded by national boundaries, and government-industry cooperation is...
“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.”
