internet society

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected this week to approve a resolution (PDF) strongly critical of growing efforts to transfer key aspects of Internet governance to the International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations.

The resolution was introduced by Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) as part of a hearing last month on the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications, which will convene in Dubai late this year to rewrite an international treaty on communications overseen by the ITU.

The WCIT process is secret, but proposals drafted by the 193 ITU member nations and nonvoting affiliate organizations … Read more

European network providers that want the United Nations to consider a new Internet tax targeting Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix today defended their proposal, which was leaked earlier this week.

The idea of requiring content providers to pay fees based on usage is an "innovative" change to the way the Internet currently works and will create a more "fair" environment "where operators' revenues will not be disconnected from the investment needs made necessary by the rapid growth of Internet traffic," the providers said in a statement (PDF).

Last night, CNET reported that the European … Read more

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.

The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.

The documents (No. 1 No. 2) punctuate warnings that the Obama administration and Republican members of Congress … Read more

The Internet Hall of Fame officially kicked off today, inducting big tech names like Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Mitchell Baker, and Brewster Kahle. This was the inaugural award ceremony sponsored by the Internet Society to celebrate more than 30 pioneers, innovators, and global connectors of the Web.

"This historic assembly of Internet visionaries, innovators, and leaders represents an extraordinary breadth of vision and work," Internet Society president and CEO Lynn St. Armour said in a statement. "While the inductees have extremely diverse backgrounds and represent many different countries, each individual has an incredible passion for their work.&… Read more

The Internet Society is hardly a fan of the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect IP Act. The venerable non-profit, which acts as the umbrella organization for the Internet's key standards bodies, bluntly warns that the pair of copyright laws would end the "viability of the Internet."

Which is why ISOC's decision this month to hire a senior executive from the Motion Picture Association of America -- a lawyer who has championed the wildly controversial legislation that would blacklist Web sites that supposedly violate copyright -- is raising eyebrows.

ISOC announced last week that it had hired Paul Brigner, … Read more

Reassured by a relatively smooth test of IPv6 last week, some Web sites are choosing to keep servers available over the next-generation Internet technology.

And that's good news for an Internet that's bursting at the seams. The results of the test, called World IPv6 Day, may help encourage others to make the IPv6 upgrades.

In the test, a number of organizations broadcast that their servers were available on IPv6. That meant anybody who had an IPv6 Internet connection would get that version of the server rather than the usual IPv4 one.

"There is a great sense of … Read more

Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two major Internet service providers, will participate in the World IPv6 Day testing June 8 to help test readiness for the next-generation Internet Protocol.

Because the two companies are crucial gateways to the Internet for millions of people, their test will be an important--both for trying their own technology and for supplying some IPv6 users who can help other's setup. The companies announced the test today.

Internet Protocol version 6 supplies a vastly larger address space for attaching computers to the Internet than IPv4, which was established with a paltry 4.3 billion addresses … Read more

Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Based on a survey of 45 groups, the report "Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Against Independent Media and Human Rights Sites" found that a large percentage said they've been targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from those who disagree with their viewpoints. The Web sites typically have been knocked offline for short periods of time but in some cases have … Read more

John Palfrey, one of Harvard's leading thinkers on the Internet, has recently finished a study on kids raised in the digital age. He now has a few tips to share about Web porn, online piracy, and Sen. John McCain's lack of tech know-how.

Palfrey, a Harvard law professor and director of the school's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, visited CNET's headquarters on Tuesday to discuss the findings of a recent study of a group he calls "digital natives." These are people who don't know life before cell phones, computers, and the Internet. … Read more