UN Online freedom resolution passes despite opposition from Russia, China et al

The United Nations officially condemned the practice of countries shutting down access to the internet at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday. A resolution [PDF] entitled The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet effectively extends human rights held offline to the internet. It was passed by consensus, but …

Carnegie Mellon University and MasterCard Foundation Partner to Educate African Tech Leaders

Carnegie Mellon University’s commitment to educating Africa’s next generation of technology leaders and entrepreneurs received a boost recently with a $10.8 million commitment from The MasterCard Foundation. “We are excited to partner with Carnegie Mellon University in Rwanda, an exceptional institution committed to training the next generation of African engineers, innovators and entrepreneurs to meet …

Cybersquatting complaints against .com names are reducing

.COM registrations are at an all-time high. Yet the fact remains: Overall, .COM domains feature in UDRPs less and less. That wasn’t the headline of WIPO’s March article. Instead, their press release bore the provocative title, “Cybersquatting Cases Up in 2015, Driven by New gTLDs”. WIPO – for those just joining the party – stands for the World Intellectual Property Organization. …

Sens. Grassley & Goodlatte Pile Pressure against IANA Transition say it’s Premature

The US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (Va.) sent a letter to the Commerce Department, asking a series of pointed questions. The letter comes as the administration nears its planned date to give up its oversight of the internet domain name system, which helps pair up long strings of …

How Brexit May affect Tech Industry

British withdrawal from the European Union, also shortened to Brexit (a portmanteau of “British” or “Britain” and “exit”), happened last week. The result of this referendum was 51.9% in support of an exit (17,410,742 votes) and 48.1% (16,141,241 votes) to remain with a turnout of 72.2% and 26,033 rejected ballots. The European Union – often …

Senators Cruz, Lankford, Lee, Duffy Continue Fighting IANA Transition

Send letter to NTIA to investigate apparent violation of federal law in preparation for Internet transition   WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), today sent a letter to National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling, questioning the agency’s apparent …

US Court throws out ZACR as Non-Party to .Africa: Denies its Reconsideration, Moves on with DCA vs ICANN

DCA Trust has scored its 3rd victory in the .Africa case, this comes after a US court denied ICANN and ZACR’s Motion for Reconsideration regarding the Court’s Order that granted DCA Trust a Preliminary Injunction preventing ICANN from delegating .Africa until the case had been fully determined. The court had on 14th June 2016 has …

.Africa: Defendant ZACR Dismissed, DCA claims against ICANN will result in relief sought

The Judge presiding over the .Africa new gTLD Case No. 16-CV-00862 RGK (JCx), DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust) v. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) & ZA Central Registry (ZACR), has granted ZACR’s Motion to Dismiss the Complaint (as to defendant ZACR only), concluding, along with other reasons (see embed below): “… the Court …

Why should Businesses care about IANA Transition?

Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced yesterday that the IANA transition proposal developed by the global Internet multistakeholder community meets the criteria NTIA outlined in March 2014 when it stated its intent to transition the U.S. Government’s stewardship role for the Internet domain name system (DNS) technical functions, …