Ethiopian Government shuns African Union Hosted ICANN Africa Strategy Meeting In Addis Ababa

Absence may be attributed to the AU bypassing Ethiopian immigration protocol without declaring itself as the host of the event officially and providing behind the scene logistical accommodation for ICANN and participants. ICANN participated with the regional IG community in two important events in March 2013.  These events were attended by regional stakeholders from government, the private sector and civil society. The …

Arab Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance Meeting Wraps Up in Dubai

Last week, the Arab Internet community came together to discuss Internet governance issues and priorities related to the region. The Arab Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance meeting took place in Dubai as part of the Arab IGF open consultations. The meeting, hosted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the United Arab Emirates brought together over 100 …

Prominent Google executive disagrees with company requiring use of real names

In the face of increasing government-led crackdowns on social media, Google should not force Internet users to reveal their real names for some services, including its Google+ social network, said Vint Cerf, a senior Google executive known as a “father of the Internet.”   In an interview with Reuters, Cerf acknowledged that the search giant’s …

DotConnectAfrica Responds to Kevin Murphy’s ‘Nutty’ commentaries – 2 Rejoinders in 48 hours!

A flurry of response exchanges were featured in last week between the Domain on industry columnist Kevin Murphy of DomainIncite and DotConnectAfrica (DCA), one of  gTLD applicants for .africa.   DCA sent two rejoinders in 24 hours responding to his comments and  to provide detailed answers with an aim to clarify what it has termed …

ICANN CEO Chehade graces the Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance events in Africa and promises ICANN’s increased participation

  ICANN has in the last few months been traversing the globe in a move to globalize its services, in his maiden speech when he joined ICANN, Fade Chehade promised “I am all about inclusion, and inclusion starts by stepping out of the organization and looking at it from the outside, not being inside and …

Vint Cerf, Father of internet says “Anonymity and pseudonymity are perfectly reasonable” May be .africa should learn

Speaking recently to Reuters in an interview, Vint Cerf, a senior Google executive better known as a “father of the Internet.”, acknowledged that the search giant’s increasing push in the past 18 months to institute real-name authentication for Google+ and other services has sparked intense debate within its Mountain View, California, headquarters. Google has also …

.HEINZ & .KETCHUP New gTLD Applications Withdrawn

ICANN has posted on its site the withdrawal of two more new gTLD applications bring the total of withdrawn applications to 21. “ProMark Brands Inc. (“ProMark”), a subsidiary of H.J. Heinz Company (“Heinz”), had filed this application for a .KETCHUP gTLD with the intention of bringing to market a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace for …