News

Recently, the 4 regional ccTLD organisations AfTLD (Africa), APTLD (Asia and the Pacific), CENTR (Europe) and LACTLD (Latin America and the Caribbean) submitted a a contribution to the IGF2014 preparatory process. The Ninth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on 2-5 September 2014. The preparations for IGF2014 are discussed this week in Geneva  during the IGF Open Consultation and an MAG meeting. LACTLD’s Carolina Aguerre will be present in Geneva. The 4 organisations make the following points in their answer to the public consultation:

• Reinforcement of the IGF as an interface between different discussions and a platform to exchange ideas and voice opinions to all stakeholders
• Investigation into preservation of open standards developed particularly from the IETF which remains low in commercial reward relative to other parts of the Internet
• Explore how developed world successes in commerce (both public and private sector) can be replicated for the developing world particularly involving end users
• Considerations of how to combine a bottom-up approach whilst respecting local needs in terms of Internet Governance
• Greater structure of IGF agenda, less workshops and updated information on the website aimed at promoting it as a legitimate source of information

Read the full submission here

More on CENTR’s activities at previous IGF meetings here

The public consultation on the new Ordinance on Internet Domains (OID) runs from 12^th February 2014 to 17^th April 2014. The Ordinance stipulates, among other things, that end customers will no longer be able to register their .ch Internet addresses directly with SWITCH in future and must instead register them via a registrar. SWITCH welcomes this new regulation.

The SWITCH foundation is currently tasked by the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) with performing a dual role for .ch domain names. In its role as the registry, it is responsible for maintaining the domain name database. At the same time, it also has the role of registrar, which involves selling .ch domain names directly to end customers. This dual role is to come to an end. With effect from 2015, SWITCH will focus on regulated registry activities. It will thus continue to ensure the secure and stable operation of the country-specific top-level domain .ch.

Regulation no longer necessary

The European Commission has published its waited for Communication on Internet Governance.

“The Commission is committed to an internet that continues to serve fundamental freedoms and human rights, Kroes noted: “Our fundamental freedoms and human rights are not negotiable. They must be protected online.”

The Commission proposes:

1. Concrete actions such as:
- Establishment of a clear timeline for the globalisation of ICANN and the “IANA functions”
- A strengthening of the global Internet Governance Forum
- Launching an online platform for creating transparency on internet policies, the Global Internet Policy Observatory
- A review of conflicts between national laws or jurisdictions that will suggest possible remedies

2. An ongoing commitment to improve the transparency, accountability and inclusiveness of the multi-stakeholder processes and those who participate in these processes

3. A commitment to creating a set of principles of Internet governance to safeguard the open and unfragmented nature of the Internet

4. A commitment to globalise key decision-making (for example the coordination of domain names and IP addresses) to safeguard the stability, security and resilience of the Internet.”

Press release:  http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-142_en.htm

Communication:  http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=4453

APTLD 2014 Board Election voting period has closed on Feb. 2^nd, 2014. The results from the election for members of the APTLD Board have been reviewed and agreed by independent scruitineers with the following results in alphabetical order by ccTLD:

June Seo (.cc & .tv)

Ghalib Ali Mohammed Kharabsheh (.jo)

Kelly Hyeyoung Kang (.kr)

Stafford Guest (.nu)

 

Verisign Labs is working with a number of parties who are planning on holding a workshop to discuss the causes and potential mitigations of domain name collisions.  To support the event, we are seeking research submissions on this topic for presentation in the workshop and there are prizes given for the most valuable research contributions.   The submission of the extended abstract ends very soon (actually Monday next week!) and you have hopefully been made aware of this deadline via alternative channels of communication - however I wanted this list to be aware that if the abstract is accepted, the papers themselves are not due until March 2.  

The workshop is called “Workshop and Prize on Root Causes and Mitigation of Name Collisions (WPNC)” and is being held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in London between March 8-10 this year.  The organizers are seeking sponsors and additional participation in this workshop from DNS and infrastructure organizations; full details are available at http://www.namecollisions.net/

The mojeID service, which allows users to store their personal data in one secure location and keep them up-to-date, registered its 300,000th user today. The service has been in operation since the autumn of 2010, and the last 100,000 accounts have been added since May of 2013.

In the past year, the mojeID service was expanded to include several important new features and changes, one of the most prominent being the redesign of the website atwww.mojeid.cz. The new layout, selected to bring the site’s design in line with modern trends and enhance readability, also introduced new functions.

“In terms of functionality, the homepage has the most changes; the dominant feature is with a menu that’s easier to navigate and a main rotating banner. The banner informs users about the greatest benefits of mojeID: secure login to many internet services without the need to remember dozens of username/password combinations, easier and faster utilization of new services and full user control over information that is shared”, says Ondřej Písek, the marketing director of the CZ.NIC Association. “A brand new part of the website is a catalogue of services that support logging in with mojeID.”

More information 

Nominet Cyber Assist, a pilot cyber security support and advice service aimed at small businesses, was announced by Nominet, the internet company best known for running the .uk internet infrastructure. The three-month pilot, which will run in the summer and be the first of its kind in the UK, will research whether an independent and authoritative advice service could effectively help businesses detect and combat cyber crime.

• Small businesses are now experiencing cyber security incident levels only seen previously in larger organisations
• 87% of small businesses had a security breach in the last year, up from 76% a year ago
• 63% of small businesses were attacked by an unauthorised outsider in the last year, up from 41% a year ago
• The average cost to a small business of its worst security breach was £35-65K a year