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Helping the Internet to deliver economic value

by Jeff Brueggeman | 25 Apr 2013 |

I am a believer in the power of open markets to bring about positive change in the world, drive economic growth and create jobs. Based on an open principles, the Internet has become an indispensable part of the world trade landscape, but I wonder if we have begun to take its impact for granted, expecting it to continue to deliver new opportunity without reminding ourselves that it in fact needs to be protected by robust mechanisms that will safeguard its continuity and influence for the next generation?

Syria disappears from Internet

The Internet technical community reported early on Thursday that Syria had started disappearing from the Internet. The story was quickly picked up and reported worldwide, leading to fears that the Syrian government was about to embark on a huge campaign against rebels who have been battling the Assad regime for nearly a year. In an eerie reminder of when Egypt's Internet was shutdown at the height of its revolution, the country's IP address blocks stopped responding. A Syrian government representative blamed terrorists for the action but such a swift and controlled collapse of the country's Internet had led observers to conclude it was a deliberate act on the part of the government.

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We believe that the multi-stakeholder model - where everyone impacted by policies is entitled to have an equal say in their development - is the best solution for deciding Internet policy and governance issues and are dedicated to strengthening and improving that model of decision-making.

IETF 84

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the premiere Internet standards organization.

This means its aim is to make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.

IETF 84 will be taking place in Vancouver, 29 July - 3 August 2012. The IETF website will provide you with all of the necessary details including registration information, attendee list, venue and hotel information, and much more.

Security standard for Australian registrars "onerous"

A proposal to create a new security standard - among a raft of other certification standards - for companies that wish to sell dot-au domains has been criticized as "onerous". The plan to introduce an Information Security Standard (ISS) as a "world first" was proposed by auDA last month alongside a further 11 measures that would provide a certification standard for registrars. The idea resulted from a security breach last year at registrar distribute.IT that ended up ruining the company after all its customers website files were deleted, including backups. The plan has been broadly welcomed by the industry (which only comprises 40 or so registrars) but CEO of NetRegistry, Larry Bloch, told ITWire that he thought the approach was "overkill" and could result in the loss of 50 percent of the market as they struggled to deal with the extra provisions.

Russia passes website blocking law

The Russian Parliament passed a law that would allow government officials to blacklist domains and so block access to them by its citizens. An earlier version of the law, passed by the Lower House was written so broadly that even bad language could be used to justify blocking a website. Following an outcry led by Wikipedia, Google and Russian search engine Yandex the law was tightened so only websites that deal with child abuse images, drug ads or suicide can be banned, and a court decision or specific approval from specific government departments will be required. Regardless, critics fear the new laws will be used to censor or intimidate journalists, politicians and activists. The law was one of three passed that have raised fears of a crackdown on critics of President Vladimir Putin after protests earlier this year against his third term. The other laws make slander a criminal offense and required non-government organizations to be audited annually as well as publish a biannual report on their activities.

Dot-co domains second only to dot-com in value

A market report [pdf] from Sedo revealed that dot-co domains are now, on average, the second most valuable domains on the Internet. The average price of a dot-co domain in 2012 so far is $1,826, up from $1,769 last year. That compares to $2,775 for dot-coms, and $1,602 for dot-nets. Over two years, the market for dot-co domains has stood at $1.65 million. The report comes as .CO Internet celebrated two years since the country code was relaunched amid great fanfare. It also put out an infographic to celebrate. The company also announced that it had poached Neustar's director of product management Eric Brown to become its new VP of product and technology.

Estonian presidential speech on Internet openness

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves gave an impassioned speech for Internet openness at the start of the country's fourth International Conference of Cyber Conflict. Painting the current situation in cyberspace as "a struggle between competing systems of government and economic organization", Ilves warned that free trade and open markets was as much as spur to authoritarian regimes and economies as it was to democratic ones. He also noted that the very openness of the Internet meant that users were no longer protected from destructive influences outside their countries. He gave five suggestions for how to improve the situation: embracing the digital revolution more fully; identifying new models of working; becoming much more open and transparent; expanding international cooperation; and creating a community ethic when it comes to Internet issues. The conference was started in response to a cyberattack on the country by Russia in 2007 that brought down the websites of the country's parliament, banks and media outlets. It stemmed from a political row over a statue.

Estonian president speech on cybersecurity and Internet openness

The following speech was given by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on 8 June 2012 at the 4th International Conference of Cyber Conflict in Tallinn. You can also read it on the Presidential website.

Cyber-security and liberal democracies

For the last three conferences here in Tallinn, I have focused on technological threats from cyberspace. I shan't spend much time on these matters today. Recent events only have confirmed and brought into the public eye what you at this conference have been discussing for years.

CENTR releases bi-annual domain report

CENTR released the latest issue of its domain name "Stat Report", focusing on country-code top-level domains within Europe. The report showed that Germany continues to lead the ccTLD market with over 15 million dot-de domains, followed by the UK with just over 10 million. Meanwhile, dot-co showed the fastest growth of any ccTLD over the past 12 months, growing by an extraordinary 48 percent (compared to 15-17 percent for the four next largest growth registries). Around 78 percent of domains registered under ccTLDs are renewed each year, compared to 73 percent for dot-coms, the report noted.

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