2012: A Year in Review, End of Year Message from DotConnectAfrica

“As Executive Director of DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust) and spearhead of the Yes2DotAfrica Campaign, it gives me great pleasure to send this end of year message at Christmas to our entire Pan-African constituency and global community of supporters and well-wishers all over the world.” —Sophia Bekele 2012 was truly and eventful and memorable year. It …

Bloomberg Asks Online Experts What To Expect From New gTLD’s, ICANN IN 2013

Bloomberg issued its Electronic Commerce & Law Report where they asked asked several dozen leading attorneys and online experts “for their views on the most important legal developments in online law during 2012 and on what policy areas they believed would be the most important to their practices in 2013 including our own Phil Corwin …

China requires Internet users to register names

BEIJING (AP) — China’s government tightened Internet controls Friday with approval of a law that requires users to register their names after a flood of online complaints about official abuses rattled Communist Party leaders. Authorities say the law will strengthen protections for personal information. But it also is likely to curtail the Internet’s status as …

2012 Domain Dunce: TAS and Digital Archery

“Glitch” filled system gets Domain Dunce honors in 2012. ICANN’s new top level domain program is the most watched initiative in the non-profit’s entire history. So you’d think ICANN would have double and triple checked all of the technology supporting it, including the TLD Application System (TAS). Alas, TAS failed. Big time. Read More

Mike Silber and Chris Disspain Fried: Update their conflicts profile after .africa complaint

ICANN directors Mike Silber and Chris Disspain have updated their official statements of interest — used to identify potential conflicts on the board — after a complaint from a .africa applicant. The new SOI statement more clearly specifies the relationship between South African ccTLD policymaker ZADNA — for which Silber acts as treasurer — and …

A digital cold war?

THE International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has always prided itself on being one of the most pragmatic organisations of the United Nations. Engineers, after all, speak a similar language, regardless where they come from. Even during the digital cold war they managed to overcome their differences and negotiate the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR), a binding global …