1) IANA Transition Unwind? ICANN Nightmare OR Ted Cruz Fantasy?
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| U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) (above left), and NTIA's David Redl (right) at Redl's confirmation hearing June 8, 2017 |
Make the internet American again? Trump pick opened the door | Politico.com Jan 23, 2018: "[David] Redl promised the senators [Cruz and Lee] that he would recommend convening a "panel of experts to investigate options for unwinding the [IANA] transition," according to a letter that POLITICO obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request ... Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) briefly blocked Redl himself over concerns that he'd cut some deal with Cruz ... Schatz said the idea of undoing the internet transition "may be an interesting political topic" but is ultimately a "fantasy."
Remarks of Assistant Secretary David Redl at CES 2018 | NTIA.doc.gov Jan 9, 2018: "I'll also focus on being a strong advocate for U.S. interests within ICANN. We need to ensure transparency and accountability in ICANN's work. And in light of the implementation of the European General Data Privacy Regulation, or GDPR, we need to preserve lawful access to WHOIS data, which is a vital tool for the public."Editor's note: Messrs. Redl, Cruz, and Lee, would do well to read on Domain Mondo:
After which they would understand how we got to this point, and what the U.S. government needs to focus on going forward. ICANN may have already sown the seeds of its own destruction with its hundreds of gTLD contracts in perpetuity, against the advice and counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (pdf) delivered to ICANN by NTIA in 2008 (pdf). If so, the good news is that what comes after ICANN could be a lot better for the global internet community and restore the principles of Jon Postel's RFC 1591 to the governance of the global DNS and root. The bad news is that what comes after ICANN could be as bad, or even worse.
2) ICANN news
a. As goes France.com so goes new gTLD .AMAZON? (or even Amazon.com?)
French government claims back "France.com" (as trade mark and domain name) [from France.com, Inc.] | ipkitten.blogspot.ca comment "the French government interestingly argued that under Art L.3111-1 of the Public Property Code, "the property within the public domain are inalienable and imprescriptible" and that the TM and domain name "France.com" fall within this category."
"this term ["France"] refers to the national territory in [terms of] its economic, geographic, historic, political and cultural identity"--French Court of Appeal ruling in favor of the French government against trademark holder and domain registrant France.com, Inc.b. GDPR & WHOIS Webinar:
"The community is encouraged to provide input on the proposed models [PDF, 623 KB] by 29 January 2018. Please send your feedback to gdpr @ icann.org. More information on ICANN's data protection/privacy activities is available here."Comments submitted: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/gdpr-legal-analysis-2017-11-17-en
Webinar 2 February 2018 15:30 UTC / 10:30am ET (U.S.) via Adobe Connect Send dial-in requests to gdpr-questions @ icann.org. Dial-in Information. Participant Codes: English – Participant Code: 9001; Français – Participant Code: 9002; Español – Participant Code: 9003; 中文 – Participant Code: 9004; Pусский – Participant Code: 9005; العربية – Participant Code: 9006; Português – Participant Code: 9007.
ARTICLE 29 Data Protection Working Party Letter to ICANN 6 Dec 2017 (pdf): "At first glance it would seem that since ICANN and the registries jointly determine the purposes and means of the processing of personal data for the WHOIS directories, ICANN and the registries are joint controllers. This would mean that both ICANN and the registries must ensure that personal data are processed in accordance with the obligations of the European data protection laws."
17 Dec 2018 Letter from Manal Ismail [GAC] to Göran Marby | ICANN.org (pdf)--Issue: WHOIS Compliance with GDPR--excerpt (highlighting added):
"The GDPR is likely to have a global impact in two main ways. First, the EU is extending its jurisdiction globally by requesting that the data of European citizens be managed according to European regulation, wherever data processing takes place. Secondly, other countries may follow suit. With a high Internet penetration of 500 million citizens with strong purchasing power, the EU is the most lucrative Internet market in the world. The EU has the digital ‘hard power’ to negotiate with Internet companies on an equal footing." (emphasis added)The Looming Battle over the GDPR and the Purpose of Whois in ICANN | InternetGovernance.org: ".... The Hamilton report has not identified a viable way forward, neither long term nor short term. The real solution to this problem is to identify a purpose of Whois that is consistent with ICANN’s limited mission ... the analysis in the Hamilton report actually points away from a complicated layered model to continued public access to a far more limited set of data. This is the easier, and most legally correct path to follow. That is where ICANN should go."--Professor Milton Mueller
Europe's GDPR Meets WHOIS Privacy: Which Way Forward? | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org: ".... There are other cases in which it makes sense to allow members of the public to contact the owner of a domain, without having to obtain a court order. But this could be achieved very simply if ICANN were simply to provide something like a CAPTCHA-protected contact form, which would deliver email to the appropriate contact point with no need to reveal the registrant’s actual email address [or even name]. There's no reason why this couldn't be required in conjunction with ICANN's Model 3, to address the legitimate concerns of those who need to contact domain owners for operational or business reasons, and who for whatever reason can't obtain contact details in any other way."
Editor's Note: Read EFF's submitted comment here (pdf), with which I concur.
c. New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation UPDATE: (emphasis added)
d. 2018 Nominating Committee (NomCom) vs ICANN org Dysfunction (pdf)(embed below, highlighting added):
e. New gTLD Program Auctions | ICANN.org 23 January 2018 – Updated Auction Schedule:
f. ICANN Public Comment Periods closing in February 2018 at 23:59 UTC on the dates indicated below (subject to change):
- Operating Standards for ICANN's Specific Reviews: 2 Feb 2018
- Maximal Starting Repertoire version 3 (MSR-3) for Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR): 26 Feb 2018
3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
- Verisign | NASDAQ: VRSN Feb 8, 4:30pm ET (.COM registry operator)
- GoDaddy | NYSE: GDDY Feb 22, 2018 5:00pm ET (world's largest domain name registrar)
b. Trademarks: "Infamous troll" Michael Gleissner involved in 5% of all live contested trademark cases in UK | Lexology.com
c. Trump Antitrust Policy after One Year (video) | The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org: "The Trump Administration has brought leadership changes at the two federal antitrust agencies, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission." See also: Trump nominates 4 to FTC: Joseph Simons, antitrust attorney from the Paul Weiss law firm, as new FTC chairman; as well as Noah Phillips, chief counsel for Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Delta Air Lines executive Christine Wilson for a third GOP slot. Trump also nominated consumer advocate Rohit Chopra for a Democrat slot, which will leave one (Democrat) vacancy on the completely revamped Commission.
4) ICYMI Internet Domain News
- Top Dems call on Twitter, Facebook to investigate Russian bot campaign | TheHill.com: "A source familiar with Twitter's analytics, though, said "the hashtags appear to be organically trending," and not the result of a Russian-led influence campaign."
- Your Phone Is a Prison | VICE.com: "Han conceives of the digital world as a prison (a “digital panopticon”) in which you are an isolated inmate, sitting there staring at your phone, but can be monitored by a whole host of prison guards, such as Google, Facebook, and Acxiom.com."
- How Will Macau’s New Cybersecurity Legislation Impact Freedom of Speech? | GlobalVoices.org: "It also mandates that ISPs retain their users’ online activity logs for at least one year."
- NSA "Sincerely Regrets" Deleting All Bush-Era Surveillance Data It Was Ordered To Preserve | ZeroHedge.com: "There is a growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy ..." #DeepState
- EFF Asks Ninth Circuit Appeals Court To Strengthen Privacy Protections Of Smart Phones At The Border | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: "Warrantless Border Searches of Phones, Laptops, Are Unconstitutional"
- Trump signs bill renewing NSA's internet surveillance program | Reuters.com
Censorship:
- Canadian app in the fight for internet freedom in Iran | CBC.ca: "approximately 15 million Iranians were using the Canadian app Psiphon."
- U.S. Sanctions Abet Iranian Internet Censorship | ForeignPolicy.com: U.S."should liberalize rules that impede access to cutting-edge tools against repression."
- The Rapid Rise of Censorship in Southeast Asia | TheDiplomat.com: "From Myanmar to Indonesia, governments are clamping down on the internet and social media."
Net Neutrality: It's up to Congress to save the internet | LATimes.com
5) Four Most Read Posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com:
1. News Review | China Disrupts Global Companies’ Web Access (video)
2. Tech Review | Cryptocurrency & Government Regulation (video)
3. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018, Davos, Jan 23-26 (video)
4. China's Mobile Wallet-Free Lifestyle via WeChat Pay & Alipay (video)
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo