At ARIN, yet another intense controversy is swirling around the problem of IPv4 address transfers. At its 18 March 2009 meeting, the Board declared an emergency and revised a transfer policy that we all thought it had adopted a month earlier. The Board explained the new draft policy, 2009-1, with the statement, "The Board has been concerned for some time that the lack of a liberalized transfer policy would create legal risk: that we had not provided a mechanism to improve the efficient utilization of previously-allocated resources, and that this risk was significant enough to jeopardize ARIN’s ability to fulfill its stewardship mission."   more »

RIPE's Enhanced Cooperation Task Force has released a report, calling for the establishment of a standing working group to discuss improving coordination and communication between the Internet community and public sectors on Internet policy matters. The report states it is "clear that the conventional channels and processes of the Internet community are not, of themselves, sufficient to meet the demands of enhanced cooperation."   more »

The Consumer Council of Norway, the Consumer Ombudsman, Norwegian Internet service providers and the Norwegian regulatory authority have come to an agreement on joint guidelines for net neutrality. [Note: An earlier version of this post made some assertions based on the understanding that the Norway blocking list was compulsory, which we have learned is not true.]    more »

ICANN has encouraged new constituencies to get involved in the GNSO. Now it has got what it asked for. This month, Cheryl Preston filed a petition with ICANN to form a new “Cyber-safety Constituency.” It turns out that this constituency is nothing more than an extension of the CP80 Foundation. CP80 is devoted to systematic, global censorship of internet content in order to eradicate pornography.   more »

The World Intellectual Property Organization, which operates the dominant domain name - trademark dispute resolution service, has ripped off someone else's trademark with a domain name registration. The discovery was made by US patent and trademark lawyer John Berryhill, known for defending domain name registrants against UDRP claims.   more »

Compared to other international and intergovernmental negotiations, which move at a snail’s pace, the Internet Governance Forum is still a highly dynamic process with a continuing openness towards change and experimentation. This year's most interesting area of experimentation concerns the outcomes of the Internet Governance Forum. The IGF is a space for policy dialogue; it is a non-binding process without any oversight functions. Even recommendations are permitted only in one specific area of "emerging issues". But after a year of less polarized discussions in the MAG, the original antagonism inherited from WSIS had a comeback at last week's meetings.   more »