1 January, 2022 Happy New Year! To start off 2022 we look back - and forward - at the granddaddy of Internet governance issues, domain names. TLDs go Hippety Hop ICANN is embroiled in a controversy about approving the transfer of a TLD (.HIPHOP) from its original owner (Uni Registry...
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...
September 16, 2021 App Stores’ Market Power Challenged Legal and regulatory actions are beginning to target the economic leverage of Apple’s and Google’s mobile app stores, but the cases make it clear that the conflict is primarily among competing suppliers rather than between the platforms and their users. The two...
Crisis at AFRINIC The African Network Information Centre (Afrinic), the African regional Internet registry (RIR) for IP addresses, has had its bank accounts frozen by court order, crippling its operations. The Supreme Court of Mauritius ordered the RIR’s $50 million account frozen as a result of its contractual dispute with...
June 30, 2021 The USG goes after the platforms The attitudinal backlash against digital platforms (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter) has quickly been translated into public policy. The Biden Administration has appointed Lina Kahn, an Ivy League law professor whose work on antitrust has been praised and promoted by...
Ever since the GDPR thwacked it on the side of its head, ICANN has been trying to bring its registry of domain names into compliance with basic privacy principles. The good news is that ICANN has largely succeeded in doing that. Go to this URL, enter our domain name, internetgovernance.org,...
China fines Ali Baba for competing vigorously; platform governance becomes a thing; reports of a digital currency war are greatly exaggerated; NSA’s “we need visibility” thesis is contested. From China, with love China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has fined Ali Baba 18.228 billion yuan (about 2.79 billion U.S. dollars)...
In November 2020, amidst increased conflict, violence and human rights abuses, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology issued the Ministerial Regulation #5 (MR5). With the MR5 the Ministry has granted itself the authority to compel any individual, business entity or community that operates “electronic systems” (ESOs) to restrict or...
In December 2020, a Committee of Experts (CoE)) appointed by the Indian government to deliberate on data governance released its report on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework (NPD Framework). The CoE has proposed creating national legislation and a regulator, the Non-Personal Data Authority (NPDA), to establish rights of India, Indian citizens...
We focus on India and Europe, where frameworks for the regulation of non-personal data are emerging. We add a bit of SolarWinds followup, and peek at ICANN hiding in the corner Governance of Non-Personal Data Although most data governance efforts in recent years have been focused on the collection, storage,...
“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.”
