Check out http://auda.org.au/domain-news/ for the most recent edition of the domain news, including an RSS feed - already online! The domain name news is supported by auDA. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ U.S.: No Net governance changes expected http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6150613.html Triple X, Internet Content Regulation and the ICANN Regime Drafted by Milton Mueller http://internetgovernance.org/pdf/new-xxx-contract.pdf Push resumes for new .xxx domain for Internet pornography, but opposed by Christians http://sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=24776 au: Tennis Australia plays with domain 'scalper' http://www.cnet.com.au/software/internet/0,239029524,339273096,00.htm Breach of .eu domain rules may trigger instant cancellation http://out-law.com/page-7666 ***************** GOVERNANCE ***************** U.S.: No Net governance changes expected Are tensions related to the United States' historic influence over key Internet management functions a thing of the past? At a meeting in Washington DC organized by the Federal Communications Bar Association, U.S. Ambassador David Gross and Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Kneuer said they view the question as settled: no United Nations body will be exercising additional control over tasks like handing out numeric Internet addresses or operating the root servers that power the Internet anytime soon. http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6150613.html http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6150613.html The Road to Rio and Beyond: Results-based Management of the UN Internet Governance Forum The IGF was given a five-year charter by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. In 2010 the Forum?s effectiveness in implementing the objectives of the World Summit on the Information Society will be assessed by the Assembly. This paper argues that the road to the 2007 meeting of the Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro and beyond must be paved with effective management practices. Results-based management principles employed elsewhere in reform of United Nations agency practices provide that base. http://internetgovernance.org/pdf/roadtorio.pdf ********************** DOMAIN NAMES ********************** Triple X, Internet Content Regulation and the ICANN Regime Drafted by Milton Mueller The backers of the controversial .xxx domain have negotiated a new contract with ICANN. Final approval of the contract is still vehemently opposed by an amusing alliance of anti-pornography conservatives and pornographers with investments in existing adult domain names. Nevertheless, chances are now good that it will finally succeed in gaining the approval of the ICANN Board. What are the implications of this probable resolution of the .xxx drama for the Internet and Internet governance? They are major. But no one seems to be talking about them. The paper begins with the most direct implication. The .xxx contract sets an important precedent by giving ICANN policy making and enforcement responsibility over web site content. The paper concludes "the Internet Governance Project has long maintained that ICM's .xxx application deserved to be successful. We took this position because we don't believe ICANN should discriminate among TLD applications on the basis of the content or meaning of the string, and because we believe that ICANN (and its oversight authority, the US Government) should not arbitrarily change the rules in the middle of the game. If there are problems here, they are not problems with the .xxx gTLD application. They are problems inherent in ICANN?s institutional structure. http://internetgovernance.org/pdf/new-xxx-contract.pdf Push resumes for new .xxx domain for Internet pornography Efforts to create a .xxx domain name for pornographic websites have resumed, and conservative leaders are urging citizens to speak out against the proposal while the agency in charge is taking public comments through Feb. 5. ... The Family Research Council is opposed to the .xxx domain name. ?FRC opposed this action the first time around, on the grounds that it would be unenforceable -- and grant a legitimizing status to the porn industry,? Jared Bridges, web editor for FRC, wrote on the group?s blog Jan. 9. ?While there have been a few revisions to the initial proposal, they don't appear to offer much incentive for pornographers to leave the .com domain. http://sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=24776 au: Tennis Australia plays with domain 'scalper' Tennis Australia has admitted it paid a "hefty fee" to a scalper of the domain name kind in order to obtain the Web address it wanted as part of a rebranding campaign. http://www.cnet.com.au/software/internet/0,239029524,339273096,00.htm http://zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Tennis_Australia_plays_with_domain_scalper_/0,130061791,339273096,00.htm Breach of .eu domain rules may trigger instant cancellation The administrators behind .eu domain names will gain new powers to block, suspend and even cancel domain names that break its rules. The new rules will come into effect on 19th February. http://out-law.com/page-7666 IPv6 offers data packet security and quality of service ? but so does IPv4 One frequently claimed benefit of IPv6 is that it is inherently superior to IPv4 in two areas: quality of service and security. Although true enough when comparing the basic IPv4 protocol to IPv6, the picture this paints is very far from complete. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/01/17/221230/ipv6-offers-data-packet-security-and-quality-of-service-but-so-does.htm Second Highest .Mobi Sale To Date Heads New DN Journal Top 20 A lot of jaws hit the floor when Flowers.mobi sold for $200,000 in an auction at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East conference in October. This time it was Sportsbook.mobi commanding the big bucks - a whopping $129,800 in a private sale. http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2007/domainsales01-23-07.htm VeriSign Helps Market .TV Domain VeriSign announced it has joined with Demand Media to market the .tv top level domain name as the preferred Web address for rich media content. http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/011707_VeriSign_Helps_Market_.TV_Domain.cfm DigitalTown buys 8,000 more domain names BDC Capital Inc. said Friday it completed the acquisition of 8,000 domain names for its DigitalTown social network portal. The portal, still in development, consists more than 30,000 domains such as www.burnsvilleblaze.com and www.edinahornets.com. http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2007/01/08/daily41.html ******************** OTHER INTERNET NEWS ******************** First ladies urge joint attack on child abuse Their husbands may not always agree but when Bernadette Chirac, Laura Bush, Lyudmila Putin and Suzanne Mubarak met here on Wednesday to discuss the fight against child pornography and pedophilia, they spoke with one voice. http://iht.com/articles/2007/01/17/news/children.php us: MySpace developing parental-notification software Under fire from both the U.S. government and parental organizations, MySpace.com has announced that it is creating software to give parents a window into what their children are putting on their online profiles. http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-6150824.html http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-01-17T061237Z_01_N16209418_RTRIDST_0_TECH-MYSPACE-ZEPHYR-DC.XML us: Plan to let parents track MySpace profiles met with skepticism A plan by the popular social networking site MySpace.com to let parents monitor the basic personal information their children give out was met with skepticism by officials considering legal action against the site. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-17-myspace-tracking_x.htm nz: Kiwi kids at risk from international sex predators New Zealand children are under threat from overseas sex predators, according to police. They say they have dealt with cases where people overseas tried to groom young New Zealanders for sex. http://stuff.co.nz/3931838a19715.html Interpol targets paedophiles Interpol is launching a special task force to tackle a growing problem of paedophiles using fake "modelling" sites on the internet to gain access to children. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/962452 eu: EU to study ways to keep violent video games from kids European justice and interior ministers agreed Tuesday to look at ways to prevent the sale of violent video games to children across Europe amid worries that national controls are too lax. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/16473029.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/18/ec_violence/ uk: Police maintain uneasy truce with cybervigilantes Metropolitan Police are treading a fine line by working with online activists in the fight against internet fraud http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39285512,00.htm China reports soaring online racketeering in 2006 China's Internet watchdog last year received a surge of citizen's reports on online racketeering, many of which involved distributing forged information to people who are eager to hit the lottery jackpot. http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=81039 EU law ?will hit selling on internet? Retailers are warning that a planned European Union law on contracts will curb the growth of online sales and impose ?serious? costs on businesses that trade overseas via the internet. The proposed regulation, to be voted through the European parliament next month, will mean that companies which sell products across borders will have to deal with customer complaints under the different legal systems of all 27 EU countries. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13130-2545899,00.html au: Govt to appoint next-gen telco adviser Government policy surrounding next generation networks (NGN) will be shaped by the appointment of an external consultant to advise on regulatory issues. http://zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Govt_to_appoint_next_gen_telco_adviser/0,130061791,339273131,00.htm http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;534067308;fp;8;fpid;0 Why Spam Won't Go Away Spam is filling up the Internet, and it's not going away anytime soon. It's not just e-mail. We have voice-over-IP spam, instant message spam, cellphone text message spam, blog comment spam and Usenet newsgroup spam. And, if you think broadly enough, these computer-network spam delivery mechanisms join the ranks of computer telemarketing (phone spam), junk mail (paper spam), billboards (visual space spam) and cars driving through town with megaphones (audio spam). It's all basically the same thing--unsolicited marketing messages--and only by understanding the problem at this level of generality can we discuss solutions. http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/11/spam-security-email-tech-security-cz_bs_1212spam.html Trench Warfare in the Age of The Laser-Guided Missile The historical development of spam fighting is allowing computer-aware criminals to take the upper hand in the fight against what has now evolved into a completely technologically and organizationally merged threat to public safety. If we do not change our strategic approach immediately, the battle, indeed even the war may be all but lost... Of late, much has been said in the popular and computer press about a vector that is annoying, but hardly critical in nature: 'Image spam'. Spammers have jumped on the new technology of 'image-only' payloads, which morph one pixel per message, rendering them unique, and traditional check-sum blocking strategies ineffective... Fortunately this fraudulent stock-touting scheme leaves a paper trail that has allowed for some successful prosecutions in the latter half of the year. Stock spamming, while popular at present time is likely to decline as legal actions increase. http://www.circleid.com/posts/anti_spam_virus_trench_warfare/ New spam trick: mimic legit newsletters Spammers have something new in their bag of tricks. Those ubiquitous Viagra ads have been disguising themselves as e-mail newsletters, the kind you get to find out the latest airline deals or keep up with your fantasy football team. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/18/1168709870501.html IE 7 reaches 100 million users More than 100 million people have installed Internet Explorer 7, making it the second most used browser in the U.S., trailing only its predecessor--IE 6, the software maker said Friday. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6150449.html kr: Internet pushes concept of 'free' content "FIFA 07," a video game for soccer fans, costs around ?50 in Europe. In South Korea, five million players have downloaded the online version free ? yet Electronic Arts, the publisher, is cheering them on. Realizing that it was impossible to sell "FIFA Online" in a country where piracy is rampant, Electronic Arts started giving away the game last spring. Once the players were hooked, the company offered for sale ways to gain an edge on opponents; extending the career of a star player, for instance, costs less than $1. Since May, Electronic Arts has sold 700,000 of these enhancements. http://iht.com/articles/2007/01/17/yourmoney/media.php uk: Computers baffle 50% of adults, says survey Half of British adults feel overwhelmed by new technology and struggle to understand the jargon, according to a survey today. The research also expresses concern about the large number of older people who are frightened to use computers or the internet, despite the many practical and social benefits. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1987558,00.html sg: 18-month Net ban, community service for PC game addict Nothing, it seems, would stop Garyl Tan Jia Luo from getting his computer game fix. Even when his parents disconnected his modem at night to stop him, the 17-year-old game addict would cycle around his neighbourhood with a laptop, trying to find an unsecured wireless network to tap into. http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-southeastasia.asp?parentid=61414 China plagued with two million teen Internet addicts Chinese teenagers are getting addicted to the Internet and taking to crime at a younger age than in any other country, state media reported http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2007-01-17T083726Z_01_PEK296452_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-CHINA-INTERNET-ADDICTS.XML Designers work to make Web accessible Cynthia Ice is blind and lives in the suburbs, so shopping on the Internet can make her routine easier. But it also leads her into odd dead ends ? like the time a technical shift in a Web grocery site made its meat department inaccessible to her screen-reading software. "Everybody could go on the Atkins diet but me," she joked. Such troubles are especially common for computer users with disabilities as the Web takes on many features that make sites appear more like dynamic programs than static documents. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-17-web-accessible_x.htm Making 'Web 2.0' and Screen-Reading Tools Work Together While many people find the dynamic programs of "Web 2.0" more engaging than the older standard's static documents, the latter can be much easier for screen-reading software to decipher and narrate to the blind. But experts see progress on programming that will help screen-reading tools. http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1169028144785 Motorola, Nokia expect payoff in bridging the digital divide It feels perverse to meet amid the spectacle of 108-inch TV screens, automatic scalp massagers and cars with 20,000-watt stereos and talk about the digital divide. It's like ordering a seven-course spread at Spago and then discussing world hunger. But for at least two of the CEOs at this month's Consumer Electronics Show - Ed Zander of Motorola and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo of Nokia - the billions of unconnected, undigitized, underserved people around the globe are often top of mind. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2007-01-16-digital-divide_x.htm IT drives wedge between workers A lack of user-friendly technology in the marketplace is exacerbating a digital divide in the workforce between those who can use technology effectively and those who can't and is likely to provoke a backlash among users, according to a new Technology Predictions for 2007 report from consultancy Deloitte. http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2172521/drives-wedge-workers us: Union Calls For Several New Internet Policies The United States has fallen behind smaller and once less-advanced countries and risks falling further behind unless lawmakers work to improve Internet access for all, a new paper by the Communications Workers of America suggests. Schoolchildren, healthcare providers and media across the U.S. are on the have-nots' side of the digital divide, according to the union. http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196901647 Digital music sales nearly doubled in 2006 Global digital music sales almost doubled in 2006 to around $US2billion, but have not yet reached the industry's "holy grail" of offsetting the fall in CD sales. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/18/1168709870567.html uk: Music firms talk tough on file-sharing The music industry has threatened to sue internet service providers that allow customers to share digital music files illegally http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2553030,00.html Skype founders move into net TV The firm that made its name with free net calls is making a grab for the lucrative market of internet TV. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6266391.stm http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2549463,00.html eu: Open source gets European boost A European Commission report says that organisations who switch to open source software could make considerable savings. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6270657.stm Convergence Convergence! More than 140,000 people were expected to flood Las Vegas for the 40th annual Consumer Electronics Show, where the industry traditionally shows off its latest and greatest--and some stuff that never will be. Then many turned their attention to San Francisco, where Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs was set to show off his own set of wonder-gadgets at Macworld. By following this link you can go to the Forbes coverage of both events. http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/05/ces-gadgets-tech-media_0107CES_land.html Businesses too scared to switch to VoIP: But should they be? Companies are missing out on the long-term benefits of VoIP because they're too afraid of the short-term pain of putting in the systems, a new survey has revealed. http://networks.silicon.com/telecoms/0,39024659,39165221,00.htm au: Ex-teacher sentenced for net child porn A former teacher, who used Google to find pictures of naked young girls on the internet, has been sentenced to a four-month suspended prison term. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/17/1168709812627.html http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21074044-29277,00.html nz: x-minister caught downloading child porn A former church minister has been caught downloading child porn at an internet cafe - more than two years after he was convicted of molesting a boy on a camping trip. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=137&objectid=10419491 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (c) David Goldstein 2006 --------- David Goldstein address: 4/3 Abbott Street COOGEE NSW 2034 AUSTRALIA email: Goldstein_David §yahoo.com.au phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home) "Every time you use fossil fuels, you're adding to the problem. Every time you forgo fossil fuels, you're being part of the solution" - Dr Tim Flannery Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.comReceived on Mon Jan 22 2007 - 10:54:19 UTC
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