Domain Name Rights Coalition

Top News Article | Reuters.com:


AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words.

Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a Web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent.

"The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.

UnifiedRoot offers practically unlimited numbers of suffixes, unlike the short list of suffixes currently in use. Its offer is different from other "alternative root" providers such as New.net which offers to register names in front of a small range of new suffixes, such as .club and .law.

"We've already had thousands of registrations in a single day," said Seeboldt after the official opening of his 100-strong company which has installed 13 Internet domain name system (DNS) root servers on four continents.

Dutch airport Schiphol is one of the early customers. Registering a name costs $1,000 plus an annual fee of $240. Companies can then invent additional Web site addresses in front of their top-level domain (TLD) name, such as flights.schiphol or parking.schiphol.

Critics argue alternative root companies such as UnifiedRoot introduce ambiguity because they bring a new set of traffic rules to the Web which are, certainly in the beginning, only recognized by a limited number of computers around the world.

"Those who claim to be able to add new 'suffixes' or 'TLDs' are generally pirates or con-men with something to sell," said Paul Vixie, who sits in several committees of the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) with day-to-day control of the Web, on his CircleID blog.

WELCOME

Others are more welcoming.

"The existence of alternate roots, and the possibility of new ones, provides a useful competitive check on ICANN," said Jon Weinberg, a member of ICANNwatch which keeps a critical eye on ICANN.    Continued ...

Posted by mikki at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Study suggests DMCA takedown regs abused:


Surprise surprise

Posted by mikki at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BS?:

Recently ICANN's
Chairman was thus quoted:

Q: Critics say the U.S. government basically controls the Internet.

A: That's bulls—t. I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to say that to reporters, but that's just a very bad misunderstanding. Ninety-nine percent of the Internet is in private hands. If you've got a computer at home, and a cable box or DSL line, you own a piece of the Internet. Most of the Internet is owned by the private sector, by businesses, by ISPs, by individuals, by governments—well, that's not [the] private sector, but it's not ICANN either and it's not the United States.

Rubbish.

The Internet is like the sea - the vast bulk is not subject to any particular
authority.

However like the seas, the Internet has its Panama and its Suez; the internet
has its Molucca Straits.

ICANN stands astride the naming systems of the internet just as Panama,
Egypt, and Indonesia stand over the oceans' most critical shipping lanes.

ICANN sprung from the loins of United States Department of Commerce. 
The DoC frequently denies its role as parent, but it has most overtly and
forcefully confirmed ICANN's dependency on, and subservience to, the United
States.

Nothing happens at the top layer of the internet's naming system without
ICANN approval.  And nothing happens in ICANN that is not subject to the
advice and consent of the United States Department of Commerce.

The Department of Commerce/ICANN system has suppressed competition, has cost
consumers of domain names billions of dollars, and has obstructed innovation
across the entire internet.  ICANN has destroyed the internet end-to-end
principle by forcing decisions about top level domains to flow through ICANN's
expensive and arbitrary procedures.

So for ICANN's chairman to imply that the US government is not using ICANN to
control a critical part of the internet is an exercise in misdirection and is,
ultimately, untrue.

And to add insult to injury, ICANN has adopted rules, most notably the
privacy-busting WHOIS and the trademark-uber-alles UDRP that reach out and
impose a supra national law on all of those end-user "personal"
computers that ICANN's chairman claims are not the property of the US or under
the control of ICANN.  If the US or ICANN do not have internet-wide powers,
then why are we users of the internet forced to list our names, addresses, and
other information in the WHOIS database and why are we forced to submit to
ICANN's UDRP?

Posted by mikki at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whither .ARPA?:


From the Proposed ICANN-Verisign Root Server Management Transition Agreement: "ICANN

and VeriSign agree that they shall:... (c)

Work

together to establish a timetable for the completion of the

transition to ICANN of the coordination and management of the ARPA

TLD...in particular to enable ICANN to edit,

sign and publish the...ARPA zone[] commencing in 2005 and

completing by 2006."

Bill Manning, former head of the IANA and one of the operators of the B Root, posting to the ICANN Comment Forum: "A

final point is the hijacking of the .ARPA domain from the IAB. It is

notclear to me which party incalculated this component into the

agreements (I have my ideas) but theft of the management of this domain

without the approval of the IAB and the US DoC is ... theft."

Posted by mikki at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Five More Years! There Was No "Deal" and WSIS Resolved Nothing:


The basic problem posed by WSIS was the role of national governments and national sovereignty in global Internet governance. That conflict remains completely unresolved by the WSIS document. The document's thinking is still based on the fiction that there is a clear divide between "public policy" and the "day to day operation" of the Internet, and assumes that governments should be fully in control of the policy-setting function. Moreover, new organizational arrangements are being put into place which will carry on that debate for another 5 years, at least. The new Internet Governance Forum is a real victory for the civil society actors, but also fails to resolve the basic issue regarding the role of governments and sovereignty. Although called for and virtually created by civil society actors, the language authorizing its creation asks to involve all stakeholders "in their respective roles." In other words, we still don't know whether this Forum will be based on true peer-peer based interactions among governments, business and civil society, or whether it will reserve special policy making functions to governments.

Posted by mikki at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Flushing the 'Net Down the Tubes:


Doc Searls has written a brilliant piece framing the battle for the 'Net at Linux Journal. The piece is long, but if you take the time to read just one essay on the 'Net and the politics surround it this year, read this one. If you're involved in public policy, it's especially important that you take the time to understand what's at stake here. One of Doc's main points: we haven't framed the conversation correctly and our poor choice of words makes the argument seem overly technical and arcane when it's really about freedom, markets, and innovation.

Posted by mikki at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Internet Users Lose Big:

There is a lot of hoopla about the US
"winning" at the WSIS meeting.

While it may be true that the US browbeat its way to what it wanted, the
result is a stunning defeat for the interests of users of the internet.

There exists no body today that is watching over the internet to ensure that
it continues to operate.

ICANN does not do that, and the WSIS participants were not asking to do it
either.

The fact is: The internet remains in at risk.

There is no body that is responsible to the public that oversees the
operation of critical core resources of the internet to ensure that packets
traverse the net from source IP address to destination IP address with dispatch
and reasonable (but not guaranteed) reliability.

There is no body that is responsible to the public that oversees the
operation of the upper tier of DNS servers to ensure that domain name queries
are answered quickly, accurately, reliably, and without preference for, or prejudice
against, anyone.

The only thing that the United States "won" was a continuation of
the status quo, which is to say ICANN will continue as almost nothing more than
a body that regulates business practices of those who sell domain names.

So, if, or rather when, a network-Katrina hits the internet, we can blame the
folks in the US government who confound business regulation with technical
oversight.

The community of internet users requires more from internet governance than
this.

Posted by mikki at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

US court rules for 'gripe website' owner | The Register:


A US court has ruled that a disgruntled customer of an insurance firm cannot be sued for defamation over statements he made on his “gripe site” because those statements are protected free speech.
The case dates back to May 2000, when Ronald DiGiovanni obtained a service warranty – provided by Pennsylvania insurance company Penn Warranty Corp – for his 1994 GMC Sonoma truck.

The truck broke down, but Penn Warranty denied DiGiovanni's warranty claim. Consequently, he brought a small claims action against the firm, alleging breach of contract. The dispute eventually settled with a payout of $2,500.
But DiGiovanni was still unhappy. He set up a 45-page website – PennWarrantyLitigation.com – complaining about the firm. The site was available online for a few weeks in January 2004 but is no longer operating.

Posted by mikki at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

News Website Can Keep Domain Name After Trademark Fight:

AcompliaReport.com Settles Fair Use Dispute with Drug Company

San Francisco - A medical news website, with the assistance of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has settled a dispute with a French pharmaceutical giant over using the name of a trademarked medication, Acomplia.

The settlement came after EFF filed suit on behalf of the AcompliaReport.com, an independent online newsletter devoted to reporting about a drug called Acomplia. Acomplia may help consumers lose weight and quit smoking, but is not yet approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since March 2004, AcompliaReport.com has published original news and commentary about Acomplia's clinical trials, the drug approval process, and anti-obesity drugs in general—all aimed at helping consumers make more informed decisions about their health.

To emphasize the newsletter's impartiality, every page has always included the subhead "your independent source of news and reviews about the new diet drug Acomplia." Nevertheless, drug maker Sanofi-Aventis claimed that the use of the term "Acomplia" in the AcompliaReport domain name created a "risk of confusion." Sanofi asked an international arbitrator to order the domain name transferred, alleging that the publisher of the AcompliaReport, Milton R. Benjamin, was a cybersquatter. Benjamin promptly sought a declaration from a U.S. district court protecting his right to the domain name, claiming both fair use and First Amendment rights to the name as an online publisher.

"Sanofi's tactics threatened to quash free and accurate speech," said EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry. "The website uses the Acomplia mark solely to refer to Sanofi's product. That use is a textbook fair use. And basic First Amendment principles barred Sanofi from using trademark law to shut down an independent news site."

Under terms of Tuesday's settlement, AcompliaReport.com keeps its domain name, as long as there is a disclaimer stating that the website is not associated with Sanofi-Aventis.

"We are happy to have this absurd dispute behind us, enabling us to focus on independent coverage of the regulatory process and further development of a novel drug that appears to have the potential to be of considerable benefit to many people," said Benjamin. "A news site needs to be able to use a trademarked name in order to report on a trademarked product."

Contact:

Corynne McSherry
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
corynne@eff.org

Posted by mikki at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Political bloggers jailed, detained:


It's been a bad week for bloggers in Libya, Egypt and China, where authorities are cracking down on online critics.

Posted by mikki at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech firms back Bush Net effort | CNET News.com:


WASHINGTON--Less than two weeks before a United Nations summit on the Internet begins, technology firms including Google, IBM and Microsoft are supporting the Bush administration's efforts to maintain the United States' unique influence over domain names.

In what amounted to a public effort to back the status quo, those firms sent representatives to an event here organized to highlight what some participants touted as the security and stability of the current form of Internet governance. MCI, BellSouth and Cisco Systems also participated.

Because it's home to 200 million Internet users and nearly half of the world's electronic commerce, the United States is in a unique position to ensure there's not a slowdown in Net growth, Michael D. Gallagher, the U.S. Commerce Department's assistant secretary for communications and information, said at the event. The gathering was organized by the Information Technology Association of America.

"The U.S. does not support top-down intergovernmental control of the Internet," Gallagher said at a panel discussion composed of technology industry and government representatives. "We do not believe in adding an inter-governmental layer of bureaucracy over such a dynamic medium as the Internet."

Posted by mikki at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft scans British Library:


About 100,000 books in the British Library are going to be scanned and put online by software giant Microsoft.
The books, which are out of copyright, will be digitised from 2006 and put online as part of Microsoft's book search service next year.

Microsoft is already working with the Open Content Alliance (OCA), set up by the Internet Archive, to put an initial 150,000 works online.

A separate global digital library plan by Google is also under way.

The search giant is spending $200m (£110m) to create a digital archive of millions of books from four top US libraries. It is also digitising out-of-copyright books from the UK's Oxford University.

Posted by mikki at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Broadcast Flag Hearing Today:

Public Knowledge posts information about today's Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, "Content Protection in the Digital Age," including a link to the webcast, at 2:45 PM EST.

Along with a bill giving the FCC a blank check to reimplement the once-killed Broadcast Flag Rule, the hearing has proposals on the table to close the "analog hole" and to restrict digital radio receivers. Like the Broadcast Flag, these additional controls won't stop "piracy," but they will block user innovation and non-infringing uses of media content.

Posted by mikki at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More on That .COM Metadata:


Karl Auerbach has his own take on the value of the .COM metadata: "The contract gives Versign the right to develop a real-time data mining feed

of a value that can not be easily overestimated.  Verisign, for example,

can develop marketing data about the effectiveness of URL's in TV advertisements

during sports games while the game is still in progress.  The data mining

ability now granted to Verisign by ICANN will allow Verisign to recognize almost

instantly 'what's hot and what's not'.  Advertisers and marketers

are willing to pay big bucks for this kind of information.  It's not only a

potential gold mine for Verisign but it's also a large step in the

transformation of the internet into nothing but a giant advertisement and

internet users into nothing but consumers. But wait, there's more!...."

For even more on this, I talk about the same contract provision in IPR55 (yesterday's podcast).

Posted by mikki at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ICANN+Verisign == Fishy * 3:

There's something very fishy about the new ICANN-Versign
Agreements: internet users get scrod
three different ways.

First we get scrod in the pocketbook.  Even though we get no say
in either ICANN or in this contract, we, the community of internet users, are
going to have to pay higher domain name fees.  The new built-in rate of
inflation will compound at 7% per year on top of an already absurdly high base.

Second we get scrod in the stockroom.  The new contract gives
Verisign the explicit green light to data mine the domain name queries that hit
its servers.

You might be thinking - huh, data mining?  What you probably do not
realize is that every time you enter a URL into a web browser, send an e-mail,
or make a VOIP phone call the entire domain name part of the address goes
into DNS and very frequently makes it all the way to Verisign's servers. 
The contract lets Verisign capture those domain names and your source IP address
so that Verisign can know that you have been visiting the website of www.hampsters_n_ductape.com
every night after the kids have gone to bed.

(Not every query will go to Verisign's servers - many will be handled by
local caches in resolvers near the users.  But with enough samples, and on
the internet samples can accumulate very quickly, Verisign will be able to use
statistical methods to generate rather revealing profiles of trends in mass and,
with more work, preferences of individuals.)

The contract gives Versign the right to develop a real-time data mining feed
of a value that can not be easily overestimated.  Verisign, for example,
can develop marketing data about the effectiveness of URL's in TV advertisements
during sports games while the game is still in progress.  The data mining
ability now granted to Verisign by ICANN will allow Verisign to recognize almost
instantly "what's hot and what's not".  Advertisers and marketers
are willing to pay big bucks for this kind of information.  It's not only a
potential gold mine for Verisign but it's also a large step in the
transformation of the internet into nothing but a giant advertisement and
internet users into nothing but consumers.

But wait, there's more!  The real-time data mining capability that ICANN
is giving to Verisign can also be used by governmental reconnaissance
agencies.  The flow of domain name queries is a kind of "chatter"
which one can blend with other data sources to construct interesting
intelligence.  And whether intelligence is considered valuable very much
depends on whether you are the observer or the observed.

And third, we get scrod in the waiting room.  The new agreement
imposes a plethora of service level obligations on Verisign for the benefit of
domain name registrars and intellectual property lawyers digging through the
privacy-busting whois.  But the agreement imposes no similar service
obligations on Verisign to provide accurate and prompt performance of the
primary job of the domain name system - domain name queries.  In other
words, the contract subordinates the thing that internet users need - prompt and
accurate domain name resolution - and elevates secondary concerns.  The
message is clear - ICANN has obligated Verisign to provide first class service
to registrars and intellectual property lawyers while sending the interests of
internet users into steerage.

To paraphrase Grouch Marx from Cocoanuts: "You can have any kind of a
contract you want.  You can even get scrod.  Oh, how you can get
scrod."

Posted by mikki at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)