As part of its effort to improve the security of inter-domain routing traffic exchange, NIST has issued a request for comments on a proposed project to test RPKI and Route Origin Validation (ROV), a process by which route advertisements can be authenticated as originating from an expected Autonomous System (AS)....
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...
Late Wednesday September 28 the U.S. Congress passed a short-term funding bill to avert another government shutdown. The bill did not include any restrictions, prohibitions or riders related to the ICANN transition. As an organization that has been consistently advocating the end of unilateral U.S. government control for more than a...
A few Republican congressmen are still waging a futile campaign against the reform of ICANN. Yesterday four of them sent a letter to the Justice and Commerce Departments casting fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) upon the transition. The letter does not raise any new, specific legal or policy concerns that...
Since 1999, governments have asserted sovereignty over the delegation and re-delegation of country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) at ICANN. Such assertions have no basis in international law, but that does not stop them. Now, ICANN has paved the way for them to assert sovereignty and property rights over two letter...
Someone needs to lose their job over this. An Independent Review Panel has exposed discrimination and unfairness in ICANN's evaluation of new top level domain applications. The case involves Dot Registry's applications for the top level domains .INC, .LLC and others. This is the third time ICANN has lost an...
The legal regime around ICANN and Internet governance will be affected by a milestone court decision handed down this week. Claiming that Iran was a terrorist state responsible for the deaths of their family members in the Jaffa Road bus bombings of 1996, a group of plaintiffs sought to take...
The longer it was delayed, the more conspicuous its absence became. Yet ICANN and Verisign have finally come to an agreement on a contract to perform the vital domain name root management functions. The draft was published for public review two days ago. The root zone management agreement (RZMA) controls...
Nationalist Republicans who want to retain governmental control of ICANN have based their argument on a false premise. To call it a false premise, in fact, is to be polite. It would be more accurate to call it a rhetorical ploy, what Washington calls “spin.” This “spin” is invisible to...
The revision of ICANN’s bylaws to reflect the new accountability measures is proceeding on schedule. Public comments close May 21 and it is clear that only a few revisions will be needed to fully align the draft bylaws with the proposals of the IANA transition and enhanced accountability working groups....
Declaring Independence in Cyberspace tells the story of the struggle between governments and the global Internet community over control of the Internet registries (IANA). It offers new insights into a pressing question with profound implications: is state sovereignty the immutable foundation of global governance, or can new technological capabilities change the model?
“This is a book that needed to be written, and no one is better placed to write it than Milton Mueller. This full, rigorous account provides researchers and policymakers with a precious resource on global internet governance.”
