ICANN, holding its 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting June 22-26, 2008 in Paris, France, is set to vote on an substantial expansion of opportunity for new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). gTLDs are top-level domain extensions such as (.com, .net, and .org). It is expected that the voting bloc will approve the proposal when it comes up for the vote Thursday. Late last summer, the ICANN Generic Names Read More
Japan to Expand Fair Use in Copyright
Japan is preparing to grant more “fair use” in its copyright laws that is intended to increase competition and bring the nation’s intellectual property laws more in line with the United States and other industrialized nations. Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 107) sets out certain exceptions to a creator’s copyrights. These exceptions are generally known as “fair use” exceptions. A Read More
Update on Verizon Blackberry 8830 Case
Not much has happened in the proposed class action lawsuit against Verizon for it’s disabling of the built-in GPS in the Blackberry 8830. The parties have primarily been engaging in some preliminary procedural matters. The biggest issue so far addressed was whether an arbitration provision in the Customer Agreement could be enforced. The Court issued an order on May 13, 2008 denying Verizon’s Read More
Riskiest Domain Extensions
McAfee is releasing a report that identifies the highest risk domain extensions. McAfee reports that the “most dangerous” domains to navigate to are ".hk" (Hong Kong), ".cn" (China) and ".info" (information). About 19% of .hk domains were dangerous, 12% of .cn sites, and 12% of .info sites. Of course, the majority of sites with these extensions are still safe, but Read More
ICANN’s Weak Grip on WHOIS
A recent article discusses the continuing problems with accurate WHOIS records, many registrars’ complacent allowance of such inaccuracies, and ICANN’s limited involvement in enforcing the accuracy of such records. Specifically, there is a discussion about the concentration of inaccurate WHOIS registration at certain registrars. Unsurprisingly, the registrars that have the most inaccurate WHOIS Read More
Presidential Candidate Views on Technology
Technology Review has a nice tool that allows visitors to see the remaining presidential candidates’ positions on various technology issues, including net neutrality, broadband, privacy, stem-cell research, global warning and biofuels. You can also see some of the applicable legislation each introduced or handled in their time in the Senate. Overall, this is a nice resource for “at a glance” analysis of the Read More
.ORG May Adopt DNSSEC
Public Interest Registry (PIR), one of the more progressive domain extensions, may be the first major top level domain extension to adopt the DNA Security Extension (DNSSEC) on .ORG top level domains. The system is a method of authentication that helps to ensure that clients (such as a home computer) requesting a particular domain name is sent to the appropriate IP address hosting that Read More
Spam Turns 30
Saturday, May 3, 2008 was the 30th anniversary of bulk e-mailing, popularly known as spamming. On May 3, 1978 an employee of Digital Equipment Company mass-mailed some of his colleagues an advertisement for a computer for sale over ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), which was a technological precursor to the Internet. Unsurprisingly, many of the recipients found the unsolicited Read More
FBI Pushes for ISP Data Retention
The FBI is renewing its push for legislation that would mandate that ISPs keep records of its users’ activities for longer periods of time. Records retained would be available for review by police in cases where a search of such records is warranted. The FBI’s proposed length of time for retention of records is two year. Types of data retained could be as minimal as IP addresses assigned to each Read More
Comcast Proposes P2P Policy
Comcast is publicly proposing a “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities,” which would apparently define certain obligations of peer to peer application users on the Comcast data network. Reports indicate that the “Bill of Rights” would align itself with “self–regulation” standards as to content, such as movie and television ratings, which Comcast asserts would help to curb copyright infringement. Critics Read More
