#ICANN video explaining #newgtlds
ICANN has released a video – Get Ready for the Next Big .Thing – explaining the new gTLD program
Updates from July, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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ICE seeking extraditions of foreign website owners #copyright #netfreedom
Peter Walker of UK newspaper The Guardian reports that United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is looking to extradite owners of websites it believes are breaking US copyrights – even if their servers are not based in America or are legal in their own countries. The rationale is that the use of generic top level domain names like .com and .net, administered by Verisign in the US, provides “nexus” thus giving them jurisdiction. At issue is the case of tvshack.net – a linking site run by British student Richard O’Dwyer. The domain already was seized by ICE. O’Dwyer now faces extradition. Walker quotes ICE Assistant director Erik Barnett:
“Without wishing to get into the particulars of any case, the general goal of law enforcement is to arrest and prosecute individuals who are committing crimes. That is our goal, our mission. The idea is to try to prosecute.”
On linking:
“I’ll give you an analogy. A lot of drug dealing is done by proxy – you rarely give the money to the same person that you get the dope from. I think the question is, are any of these people less culpable?”
In England there are calls to amend the extradition agreement with the US so that a UK judge can decide jurisdiction on individual cases..
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#NYCBigApps Ideas Challenge – $5k in prizes! #nyc #opengov @nycbigapps
New York City is kickstarting the third edition of its BigApps competition to design mobile applications based on government data by polling the public for a wishlist. The poll uses the ChallengePost platform, and is sponsored by BMW. $5,000 in prizes for best ideas will be awarded by a panel of judges that includes Clay Shirky.Submissions are open until July 28
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#FCC calls for nominations to Open Internet Advisory Committee #OIAC #netneutrality #broadband
The FCC is seeking nominations for membership on its Open Internet Advisory Committee (OIAC), established pursuant to the Commission’s net neutrality order aka Order on Preserving the Open Internet.The FCC envisions an OIAC comprised of
“consumer advocates; Internet engineering experts; content, application, and service providers; network equipment and end-user device manufacturers and suppliers; investors; broadband service providers;” and others
The OIAC’s mission will be to
observe market developments regarding the freedom and openness of the Internet and focus in particular on issues addressed in the FCC’s Open Internet rules, such as transparency, reasonable network management practices, differences in treatment of fixed and mobile broadband services, specialized services, technical standards, and the state of competition.”
Further the FCC will rule out egregious conflicts of interest:
In addition, all applicants are advised that the Commission adheres to the President’s policy, as announced in his memorandum of June 18, 2010, “Lobbyists on Agency Boards and Commissions,” prohibiting federally registered lobbyists from serving on federal agencies’ advisory boards and committees. Registered lobbyists are thus ineligible to serve as members or representatives of members of the OIAC.
Deadline for nominations is September 1, 2011.
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90+ Law & IP Professors sign letter opposing Protect IP Act #copyright #netfreedom
Writing on the Volokh Conspiracy blog on July 4 David Post – author of In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace – notes that over 90 Law and IP professors have signed a letter opposing the proposed Protect IP Act. He says:The bill, which will allow the government to obtain injunctions against domain names hosting allegedly copyright-infringing or trademark-infringing material, and to have those domain names deleted from the Internet’s databases, represents a serious assault on the fundamental principles that have built the Net — the design principles at the heart of its technical infrastructure, and the free speech principles it has done so much to foster and cultivate around the globe, all at the behest of your friends in the recording and motion picture industries.
The full text of the letter is below
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New York Times editorial on Free Speech and the Internet #netfreedom @nytimes
Today, July 4, Independence Day in the USA the New York Times has chosen to speak out on the freedom on the Internet in an editorial entitled Free Speech and the Internet.Endorsing the recent UN rapporteur’s report, and noting heavy-handed moves like Chinese censorship, Italy’s defamation case, data retention in Brazil, three-strikes laws, & the United States’ dubiously legitimate domain seizures, the Times concludes:
The U.N. has proposed sound guidelines to defend free expression: censorship of content online must be transparent and enforced only through the courts. Governments should not rely on private entities like service providers to censor content and should not hold them liable for user content. Counterterrorism should not be an excuse to bar expression, unless it is to prevent imminent threats.
With few exceptions, governments should not adopt Internet registries that require users to reveal their identities. And defamation — so often used as a legal tool to repress political speech — should be decriminalized. Finally, nobody should be banned from the Internet. It is a fundamental tool for enabling free speech.
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tw telecom to #FCC – regulate #VOIP! #telecom
Joan Engebretson of Connected Planet has filed a report – TW Telecom asks the FCC to declare IP voice a telecommunications service. tw telecom (formerly Time Warner Telecom), a large midwest based fiber service provider, says that, despite having the necessary switches, incumbent telcos are refusing to negotiate IP-to-IP peering connections. The incumbents want to preserve the archaic time-based ‘access charge’ structure – admittedly the financial lifeblood of rural telcos. The public suffers through 1) higher costs, and 2) signal degradation due to conversion processes. Access charge reform is already slated but uncertain. tw telecom wants the FCC to make the move to 1) force the telco’s to come to the table, and also to give providers the right to appeal to State utility regulators for intervention if required.
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