Global Domain Name and Internet Policy News
The Justice Department and a group of eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing it of illegally abusing a monopoly over the technology that powers online advertising, in the agency’s first antitrust lawsuit against a tech giant under President Biden and an escalation in legal pressure on one of the world’s biggest internet companies.
The worldwide web was originally developed on ambitious principles: free and universal access, agreed common standards, and consensual, public development. But today those principles are being challenged, as commercial platforms take increasing ownership of aspects of the internet and autocratic regimes fragment the online space.
The Iranian government’s latest attempts in recent months to stifle protests through internet blackouts, digital curfews, and content blocking have presented a particularly extreme example of how far regimes can go in restricting digital access. But a new report from the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, released today, highlights the stunning global prevalence of connectivity disruptions and their increasing relevance to people and organizations all around the world.
The long overdue launch of .au second level domains has been a success to date with over 700,000 registered as of the end of November 2022. And even retired Australian cricketers are getting in on the act. Listening to the ABC Radio cricket commentary today during coverage of the Australia v South Africa test match, former Australian players Shane Watson and Glenn McGrath were discussing Watson’s self-published book Winning the Inner Battle where Watson made reference to it only being available from shanewatson.au. Watson also has the .com.au domain, but it redirects to the .au.
Meta suffered a major defeat on Wednesday that could severely undercut its Facebook and Instagram advertising business after European Union regulators found it had illegally forced users to effectively accept personalized ads.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns in Vietnam last year, blogger Bui Van Thuan took to Facebook to criticise a government plan to use soldiers to deliver groceries to people confined to their homes in Ho Chi Minh City.
Three out of four children as young as 12 dislike their bodies and are embarrassed by the way they look, increasing to eight in 10 young people aged 18 to 21.
ICANN Thursday announced the sudden resignation of Göran Marby, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective immediately. Sally Costerton has been named as Interim President and CEO while a search is undertaken for Marby’s replacement. No reason was given for Marby’s sudden decision to resign.
The internet has come a long way since Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in 1989. Now, in an era of growing concern over privacy, he believes it’s time for us to reclaim our personal data.
Global domain name registrations have hovered around the 350 million market for the past three quarters, according to Verisign’s recent Domain Name Industry Briefs. The past three quarterly Briefs have seen total domain name registrations of 350.5 million (end Q1, 2022), 351.5 million (Q2, 2022) and in the most recent, 349.9 million (Q3, 2022).