A battle involving Michael Pack and a U.S.-funded tech group revolves around software from Falun Gong, the secretive, anti-Beijing spiritual movement with pro-Trump elements.
New Trump Appointee Puts Global Internet Freedom at Risk, Critics Say
Tag: united states
California begins enforcing digital privacy law, despite calls for delay
California’s privacy law, often called the broadest law for digital privacy in the United States, can finally be enforced starting Wednesday. And despite industry calls for the state to hold off because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Attorney General Xavier Becerra is forging ahead.
UK and Europe renew calls for global digital tax as US quits talks
Britain and other European countries are continuing to push for a global digital tax on technology companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, despite the US pulling out of the negotiations this week.
Neustar, PIR and Verisign Participate in U.S. Government Pilot To Prevent Illegal Online Sale Of Unapproved Opioids
Neustar (.us), Public Interest Registry (.org) and Verisign (.com/.net) are participating in a four month trial with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Food and Drug Administration to curb illegal online sales of unapproved opioids.
ICANN Announces 2 2021 Public Meeting Locations: Cancún and The Hague
ICANN announced Monday the 2 remaining public meeting locations for 2021 that were yet to be announced: Cancún and The Hague.
Cancún, Mexico, will host ICANN70 from 20 to 25 March 2021. The Community Forum will be held at the Cancun International Convention Center (CICC).
The Hague, Netherlands will host ICANN71 which will take place from 14 to 17 June 2021. The Policy Forum will be held at the World Forum.
Earlier this year, ICANN announced that Seattle, Washington, U.S., will serve as the location for ICANN72, which will be held from 23-28 October 2021 at the new
Hyatt Regency Seattle.
This makes up the 3 Public Meetings ICANN holds each calendar year in different regions of the globe.
US Government Reiterates Opposition to Changes to WHOIS Resulting From EU’s GDPR
The US government continues to be opposed to changes to Whois that they believe will have little benefit for consumer privacy and major benefits for cyber-criminals. The comments were made, again, in a speech by the the NTIA’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, David J. Redl, at a FDA Online Opioid Summit in Washington, D.C. on 2 April.
In his speech, Redl said âthe WHOIS is a resource that, prior to the GDPR, provided public access to domain name registration information, including contact information for the entity or person registering the domain name. This information is a critical tool that helps keep people accountable for what they do and put online. Law enforcement uses WHOIS to shut down criminal enterprises and malicious websites, including those that illegally sell opioids. Cybersecurity researchers use it to track bad actors. And it is a first line in the defense of intellectual property protection, including the misuse of opioid brand names.â
The European Unionâs General Data Protection Regulation has been developed by the European Commission to give individuals more control over their data that businesses hold, including domain name Registries and Registrars. It also applies to businesses outside of the EU that hold data on citizens and residents of the EU. Itâs impact is far-reaching and penalties for breaches are severe â fines of up to â¬20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater.
âUnfortunately, when GDPR went into effect, those companies responsible for providing WHOIS stopped publishing much of the data because they feared it would make them vulnerable to the massive fines GDPR imposes for privacy violations. The U.S. governmentâs position on this is clear: the loss of a public WHOIS without a predictable and timely mechanism to access redacted information has little benefit for consumer privacy, and major benefits for cyber-criminals.â
But Redl says there has been some progress on this issue within ICANN. âFirst, ICANN put in place last year a temporary policy that clarified that WHOIS data should continue to be collected and reasonable access should be provided. This kicked off an intensive global multistakeholder discussion about how to develop a long-term solution. NTIA continues to actively push U.S. interests in these discussions. In March, policy recommendations were finalised and submitted to the ICANN Board for approval.â
Redl says he wants âto congratulate the people who have worked on developing these policy recommendations for how to handle the processing of WHOIS information in a manner that is compliant with GDPR. This was the first step we needed to ensure that the WHOIS system is preserved.â
âHowever, it must be noted, issues remain. Yet to be addressed is development of a technical solution, and policies associated with disclosure and access to non-public WHOIS information. Now it is time to deliberately and swiftly create a system that allow for third parties with legitimate interests, like law enforcement, IP rights holders, and cybersecurity researchers to access non-public data critical to fulfilling their missions. NTIA is expecting this second phase of the discussion to kick off in earnest in the coming weeks, and to achieve substantial progress in advance of ICANNâs meeting in Montreal in November.
Redl concluded by saying the âNTIA remains a staunch defender of the free and open Internet. Thatâs not going to change. But we also arenât going to turn a blind eye to the real issues that are raised by this freedom and openness.â
âWe reject the notion that a free and open Internet must tacitly condone illegal activity. We believe thereâs a path to solving these issues without turning our backs on innovation and prosperity. And that path begins with honest discussions and debates, with compromise and collaboration. So if you have concerns or solutions youâd like to offer, I invite you to talk to NTIA. We welcome all thoughtful approaches to building the Internet of the future.â
Over 33,000 Domain Names Seized Selling Counterfeit Goods in Latest Operation In Our Sites
As part of an international operation, Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC3) seized 33,654 domain names distributing counterfeit and pirated items online. This takes the total to more than one million that have been seized in the past 12 months.
As part of an international operation, Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC3) seized 33,654 domain names distributing counterfeit and pirated items online. This takes the total to more than one million that have been seized in the past 12 months. Continue reading “Over 33,000 Domain Names Seized Selling Counterfeit Goods in Latest Operation In Our Sites”
.US Announces Live Town Hall Webcast
Neustar and the usTLD Stakeholder Council will hold a virtual .US Public Stakeholder Town Hall Meeting on Thursday November 29, 2018 at 11AM ET. The Town Hall will provide an opportunity for the community to hear from the .US team on the 2018 developments and for community discussions on how to build and grow the .US domain to meet the demands of the future
Neustar and the usTLD Stakeholder Council will hold a virtual .US Public Stakeholder Town Hall Meeting on Thursday November 29, 2018 at 11AM ET. The Town Hall will provide an opportunity for the community to hear from the .US team on the 2018 developments and for community discussions on how to build and grow the .US domain to meet the demands of the future.
Please take a moment and register here for the Town Hall.
In addition to an âopen floor,â where your thoughts, suggestions and questions can be addressed, we plan to focus on two key topics:
- Marketing and .US: The Voice of .US
- 2018 Policy Year in Review and Whatâs ahead: Our Policy Recommendations, The world of GDPR, California Consumer Privacy Act and More
The meeting will take place virtually, and details will be circulated to all registered participants in advance of the meeting. If youâre interested in the .US domain space or internet growth and trends, you donât want to miss this discussion. Register now.Â
UPDATE: This posted was updated on 9 November after Domain Pulse was advised the agenda was changed to delete a discussion on “a place for the next generation: kids and participation in .US” so more time can be spent on the remaining 2 agenda items.
U.S. Govt’s NTIA Has Preservation of WHOIS As Priority With Concerns It May Go Dark
Preserving WHOIS has become of the 2 main priorities internationally for the U.S. government’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration with fears the service may go “dark and become a relic of the Internet’s history.”
Preserving WHOIS has become of the 2 main priorities internationally for the U.S. government’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration with fears the service may go “dark and become a relic of the Internet's history.” Continue reading “U.S. Govt’s NTIA Has Preservation of WHOIS As Priority With Concerns It May Go Dark”
E-Shops Selling Counterfeit Goods Often Use Re-Registered Brand Domains, European Study Finds
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.
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