When a team of 20 police officers demanded to search journalist Oktay Candemir’s flat earlier this month, he feared the worst: members of the Turkish media who are critical of the government are often arrested on spurious terrorism charges, and he has been in trouble several times before.
Turkish lawmakers passed legislation on Wednesday that would give the government sweeping new powers to regulate social media content, raising concerns that one of the few remaining spaces for free public debate in the country could fall under greater government control.
Turkey’s parliament is preparing to vote on a bill that would effectively block sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube unless they comply with strict new regulations, as Ankara significantly steps up its efforts to control social media content.
The Turkish president’s ruling party is submitting draft legislation to parliament that would enable the government to tighten its grip on social media, an official said Tuesday. The opposition fears the legislation will lead to greater censorship in the country.
ICANN is organizing the fifth edition of the Middle East DNS Forum. The event, hosted by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority of Turkey (ICTA), will take place on 25 and 26 April in Ankara, Turkey.
The Middle East DNS Forum brings together field experts and affected parties to discuss the latest developments in the global domain marketplace and ways to strengthen the DNS industry in the Middle East. Internationalized Domain Names, EU General Data Protection Regulation, Universal Acceptance and the Root Zone Key Signing Key (KSK) are among this year’s key discussion topics.
The DNS forum offers participants opportunities to:
ICANN is pleased to hold this year’s Middle East DNS Forum in Turkey. This country has demonstrated increasing interest and participation in ICANN over the past few years, especially during the recent Turkey DNS Forums.
ICTA was established to constitute a competitive telecommunication sector in Turkey. The Authority oversees tasks on sectoral competition, information technologies, and technical regulations. ICTA has previously supported the Turkey DNS Forums.
Information is available on the forum’s website.
You can register for the event here.
Remote participation will be available. The link will be provided as the event approaches.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2018-04-09-en
Companies letting their domain names expire are often finding e-shops are re-registering their domain names and using them to market trademark infringing, or counterfeit, goods. But there’s no correlation between the use of the domain name prior to the e-shop and what the e-shop sells.
The study by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) [pdf], through the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights, was on online business models used to infringe intellectual property rights. The study found when domain names were available for re-registration the entities operating the e-shops would systematically re-register the domain names and shortly after set up e-shops marketing goods suspected of infringing upon the trademarks of others. It was a characteristic that the prior use of the domain names was completely unrelated to the goods being marketed on the suspected e-shops. There were examples of domain names previously used by politicians, foreign embassies, commercial businesses and many other domain name registrants.
The study was conducted in 2 phases. Phase one looked at .dk (Denmark) from October 2014 to October 2015. During this period 566 .dk domains were re-registered by suspected infringers of trademarks immediately after the domain names had been given up by their previous registrants and became available for re-registration. Phase 2 looked at Sweden, which as a Scandinavian country would be assumed comparable with Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, which have very well-developed and large e-commerce sectors, and a country with a large e-commerce sector in southern Europe, Spain.
Phase 2 found the same phenomenon previously documented in Denmark also occurs in the Swedish, German, British and Spanish ccTLDs.
According to the study, the “total number of detected e-shops suspected of infringing the trade marks of others using a domain name under the ccTLD” ranged from 2.9% in .de (Germany) to 9.5% in .se (Sweden) while the “total number of detected e-shops suspected of infringing the trade marks of others using a domain name under the ccTLD where the domain name had been previously used by another registrant” ranged from 71.1 % of suspected e-shops in .uk (United Kingdom) to 81.0% in .es (Spain). The average was 5.41% across all ccTLDs in the study and 75.35% respectively.
Based on the research, the researchers believe it must be considered likely that the same also occurs in other European countries with well-developed e-commerce sectors.
An analysis of the 27,970 e-shops in the study identified a number of patterns including shoes were the product category most affected, accounting for two-thirds (67.5%) of the suspected e-shops and then clothes, accounting for 20.6%, while 94.6% of the detected suspected e-shops used the same specific e-commerce software.
Additionally, 40.78 % of the detected suspected e-shops in Sweden and the United Kingdom were registered through the same registrar, 21.3 % of all the e-shops used the same name server and a quarter (25.9%) of the suspected e-shops had the hosting provider located in Turkey, 19.3 % in the Netherlands and 18.3 % in the United States.
Even if the domain name was previously used for the marketing of goods, the study found the current e-shops were marketing a different type of product at the time of analysis. The study examined 40 case studies that indicated the sole reason for re-registration of the domain names is to benefit from the popularity of the website that was previously identified by the domain name. The benefits would include search engine indexing, published reviews of services and/or products and links from other websites that have not yet taken the current use into consideration. The case studies used also indicate a high degree of affiliation between the e-shops is likely. The research seems to indicate that what on the surface seems like thousands of unrelated e-shops are likely to be one or a few businesses marketing trade mark infringing goods to European consumers.
The 140 page study is available for download from:
https://euipo.europa.eu/tunnel-web/secure/webdav/guest/document_library/observatory/documents/reports/Research_on_Online_Business_Models_Infringing_IP_Rights.pdf
ICANN is hosting the second Turkey Domain Name System (DNS) Forum, which will take place from 18-19 January 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. A key focus of the forum will be to discuss the status of the Internet industry in Turkey and the Turkish domain name market, exploring both the opportunities and challenges businesses, entrepreneurs and Internet users face.
Launched last year, the Forum aims to connect interested parties with international experts and key players in the industry, update Turkish stakeholders on the latest developments at ICANN, and educate and inform attendees on the DNS industry in general.
“We’re excited to hold the second edition of the Turkey DNS Forum in Istanbul after last year’s success. Our engagement in the Turkish market continues to deepen, building solid relationships with our partners here, working together to enhance the industry and exploring potential the opportunities available in the market. This is an important forum for the Internet community in Turkey,” said Baher Esmat, ICANN Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement in the Middle East.
ICANN is currently overseeing a major expansion of the DNS with the introduction of up to 1,300 new domains, known as generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). The new gTLD program represents one of the biggest changes to the Internet since its inception, and is aimed at enhancing innovation and competition in the domain name industry. Recently, top-level domains .IST and .ISTANBUL were announced here in Turkey. These city-specific domain extensions were launched to assist local businesses to thrive, market and promote tourism in Istanbul, and spread the dynamic image and brand value of Istanbul around the world.
President of the Board of Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), Dr. Ãmer Fatih Sayan, and ICANN‘s Istanbul Hub General Manager, David Olive, will be addressing the audience during the forum’s opening ceremony. The forum, which is open to anyone interested the DNS industry and the business opportunities it can bring, will be attended by participants from ICANN, gTLD and ccTLD Registries, Registrars, service providers, brand owners, legal firms, civil society members and academia.
More information about the Turkey DNS Forum is available here: www.turkeydnsforum.org/.
To register online, please go here: www.turkeydnsforum.org/registration/.
WHEN: 18-19 January 2016.
WHERE: The Renaissance Ä°stanbul Polat Bosphorus Hotel (Barbaros Bulvari No 145, Besiktas, Istanbul 34349).
About ICANN
ICANN‘s mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer – a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn’t have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers. ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/resources/press-material/advisory-2016-01-12-en
ICANN announced today (13 November) that, for the first time, it will host a Turkey Domain Name System (DNS) forum in Istanbul on the 18th November 2014. This Turkey DNS Forum is the first edition of what will be an annual event.
The forum will bring together interested participants with key players in the domain name field, to discuss current topics in Turkey’s industry. Representatives from ICANN, the Government of Turkey and Garanti Bank will provide welcoming remarks to kickoff this daylong session.
“Our newly opened hub in Istanbul is poised to engage with our local stakeholders in all aspects, this event being one of them, with the aim of building a stronger domain name industry in Turkey. At ICANN, our mission to the public is dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. Our hub is uniquely positioned to not only cater to our host country, but also to be a bridge connecting Europe, Africa and the Middle East,” said David Olive, Vice President, Policy Development Support and General Manager, ICANN-Istanbul.
During this forum, presentations and panel discussions from experts of the Internet sector in Turkey will address topics such as:
“We are very happy with the cooperation and support of the local community in helping making this happen and look forward to a fruitful collaboration in our future efforts to support and develop the emerging domain name markets, with all the expert knowledge we can provide,” said Baher Esmat, Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement for the Middle East, ICANN.
Participants from ICANN, other Internet organizations, registries, registrars, registrants, ccTLDs, new gTLD applicants, policy makers, Internet service providers, IT businesses, brand owners and legal firms, academics and civil society will attend the event in an effort to share experiences and best practices.
For more information, please visit the event website at: https://community.icann.org/display/MES/Turkey+DNS+Forum
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ICANN‘s mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer â a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn’t have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers. ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet. For more information please visit: www.icann.org
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/resources/press-material/release-2014-11-13-en
âOnly by pursuing a policy of multilingualism in Internet access can we give effect to our policy of an Internet that is truly global, and truly accessible to all,â states European Commission Vice-President, Neelie Kroes, in the foreword of the IDN World Report 2014 produced by EURid with UNESCO in cooperation with Verisign and the country code Top Level Domain regional organisations (CENTR, LACTLD, APTLD and AFTLD).
The annual report is being presented today during a workshop at the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, which takes place from 2 to 5 September.
Internationalised domain names (IDN) were first launched at the second level (eg ÏαÏάδειγμα.eu) in 2000. From 2009, it became possible to register domain names entirely in non-Latin scripts (eg ä¾å.ä¸å½). At the end of 2013, there were 6 million IDNs (including second level names and IDN TLDs). Although this is a large number, it is just 2% of the worldâs registered domain names (270 million).
EURid, the registry manager of the .eu Top Level Domain, has been supporting IDNs at the second level since late 2009 and has applied for the .eu in Greek and Cyrillic to ensure that the EU citizens can enjoy a complete IDN experience when writing languages that are not based on the Latin alphabet. âWe are proud to have supported multilingualism through IDNs since the very beginning and to offer an extended customer support in all 24 official EU languages and, hopefully in the near future, the .eu TLD in Greek and Cyrillic,â commented EURidâs External Relations manager Giovanni Seppia.
The report contains evidence that shows that, far from being âinternationalisedâ, IDNs are intensely localised. They are strongly linked to local language content, and although they occur in diverse writing systems, the location of such scripts is closely coupled to countries and regions where related languages are spoken.
New gTLDs promised to fulfil unmet needs in the domain name system. One obvious need is for enhanced linguistic diversity. With 90% of new gTLD strings (eg .photogra- phy) either in English language, or understandable in English, that opportunity has been lost â for now.
âThe growth potential for Internet penetration is in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America where English is not the primary language. For IDNs to fulfill their potential, multiple actors need to make changes to hasten universal acceptance, so that IDNs can be used seamlessly in every environment,â concludes the reportâs main author Emily Taylor.
This EURid announcement was sourced from:
www.eurid.eu/en/news/sep-2014/languages-move-internet-landscape
ICANN looks forward to participating in this year’s 9th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. The overarching theme of the Istanbul meeting is: Connecting Continents for Enhanced Multistakeholder Internet Governance.
This year’s meeting will build on previous IGFs and further the dialogue on Internet governance and emerging Internet issues. It will also build on the success of NETmundial and promote its outcomes. ICANN believes that the IGF plays an effective role in fostering global multistakeholder cooperation in Internet governance and strongly supports its continuation beyond its 2015 mandate.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-3-2014-08-25-en
