The European regional Internet address registry, RIPE-NCC, has finally passed an IPv4 address transfer policy. This means that a legal market for trading in rapidly-depleting IPv4 address resources will go into effect for any member of RIPE-NCC. To discourage speculation, the proposal retains a simple form of needs assessment and prevents buyers of address resources from reselling them for two years. RIPE's decisive action contrasts markedly with the contentious drama surrounding IPv4 transfer markets in the North American region. After months and months of debate ARIN is still paralyzed and riven by ideological disagreements. However, the implementation of the idea in the European region will provide a chance to prove the concept. It is also possible that the RIPE market will turn into a global one, as addresses can be transferred by any RIPE member, and it is (we think) possible for Internet service providers from outside the region to join RIPE. For a description of the new policy see section 5.5 of RIPE NCC's IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies.

The Wall Street Journal published an article alleging that Google was trying to arrange a “fast lane for its own content” with telecom carriers and contending that Google and Professor Lessig were in the midst of changing their position on network neutrality policy. The WSJ reporters received a lot of flak for the piece - justifiably so. The WSJ’s sudden interest in the topic seemed more like an attempt to poison the well as the Obama Administration and its net neutrality-friendly team ascends to power. There is one useful outcome of this incident, however.   more »

ICANN, which coordinates and sets policy for the global domain name system (DNS) and IP addressing, is linked to the US Government through a Joint Project Agreement (JPA) that expires in September 2009. The JPA and its renewal process provides what, during WSIS, became known as "political oversight" over ICANN. The US government says that it is committed to "completing the transition" to private sector coordination of the DNS, which implies an expiration of the JPA. During the 2008 mid-term review, ICANN made it clear that it also strongly supports an end to the JPA. ICANN's call was supported by some stakeholders. Other parties, however, expressed concerns about its accountability without some kind of governmental oversight.

This workshop, held on Wednesday December 4, 2008 at the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India, was designed to provide a careful and balanced exploration of whether ICANN is ready to be free of US government oversight, and if so what kind of external oversight - if any - should replace it.   more »

While the uncertainty surrounding attendance at this year’s IGF was mostly unfounded (there were more than 1200 attendees despite the Mumbai attack, an amount comparable with previous years IGFs), the usual doubts surfaced about what the Forum is accomplishing. Nonetheless, it seems that more participants are pushing the Forum to engage in substantive policy debate, and to identify a process for producing tangible outputs.   more »

Patrik Fältström, one of the panelists at the IGF security session blasted by IGP’s Michel van Eeten in a December 5 blog, has responded. Patrik’s response makes it clear why the IGF often generates so much frustration among the people working “together” on it. It’s very good that this disagreement has taken place. It tells us a lot about what is going on. Two very different – and almost inherently incompatible – visions of the Forum are revealed by this exchange. I would go further and say that if Patrik’s conception prevails, the IGF will not last for the next five years.   more »

At the Hyderabad Internet Governance Forum, the Chinese delegate threatened to withdraw from IGF and "use other mechanisms" unless the IGF stops trying to avoid the controversial issues that led to its creation. The strong reaction from China came because a clear discussion of the problem of U.S. government control of the root and "enhanced cooperation" in the Tunis Agenda had been all but sabotaged by defenders of the ICANN regime.   more »