With the COVID-19 pandemic an ongoing crisis across the globe many businesses are currently closed. Some of them may never open again. While some governments are offering packages of financial assistance the current situation is going to hit many sectors really hard. Against the backdrop of the current pandemic companies in the internet infrastructure have become even more … [Read more...] about COVID 19: What Registrars and Registries are Doing to Help
RIPE Appoints New Chair and Vice Chair
RIPE has announced the appointment of both a new Chair and a Vice Chair. It's the first time that the selection of Chair has been carried out by the RIPE Community, as explained by RIPE in today's announcement: This is the first time that the RIPE Chair has been selected by the community according to an established procedure. For the first 25 years, RIPE was chaired by Rob … [Read more...] about RIPE Appoints New Chair and Vice Chair
Africa DNS Forum Goes Virtual
In common with most events this year's Africa DNS Forum will not be taking place "face to face". They've decided instead to adopt a virtual format. This year's event will be centred around the theme "DNS as a Catalyst for Social and Economic Resilience in the Face of Calamities". The event, which is organised by ICANN, AFTLD and AfRegistrar will take place 27-28 … [Read more...] about Africa DNS Forum Goes Virtual
PIR Launches ORG Impact Awards
PIR, the .org domain name registry, has launched the 2020 ORG Impact Awards. The awards are open to organisations and individuals worldwide (with a couple of exceptions due to US government sanctions) and covers activities between June 1st 2019 and June 1st 2020. The categories are as follows: Combatting Coronavirus: Recognizes an organization or individual whose … [Read more...] about PIR Launches ORG Impact Awards
All US Government Websites to Start Using HTTPS
From September 1st this year all US government websites that use the .gov top level domain name will be obliged to use SSL and be available over HTTPS only. Eventually they plan to add the .gov zone to the HSTS which would make it technically obligatory to have an SSL in order for a site to load in any modern browser. When an entire domain extension is added to the HSTS … [Read more...] about All US Government Websites to Start Using HTTPS
Olivier Crépin-Leblond Awarded by ICANN
The ICANN meeting taking place this week is "virtual" so several of the more formal ceremonies which would normally be part of the event are not taking place, or at least not in their normal format. While if the meeting was being held face to face there would have been a short ceremony to announce the awarding of the "Community Excellence Award" that couldn't happen this time … [Read more...] about Olivier Crépin-Leblond Awarded by ICANN
IGF 2020 Goes Virtual
Yet another event has fallen victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. The upcoming IGF meeting which was meant to be held in Poland in early November in the city of Katowice will now move online only. The IGF organisers have announced that the 2021 IGF will be hosted by Poland, while the event in 2022 will go to Ethiopia, with the 2023 event being scheduled for Japan. More … [Read more...] about IGF 2020 Goes Virtual
No ICANN Meeting in Person This Year
ICANN normally holds in person meetings three times a year, with the locations rotating between the global regions, as defined by ICANN. In 2020 the organisation was meant to be meeting in Cancun, Kuala Lumpur and Hamburg. However due to COVID-19 the meeting in Cancun was cancelled a few weeks before it was meant to take place and a cutdown version of the meeting took place … [Read more...] about No ICANN Meeting in Person This Year
Irish Broadband Usage Increases
The latest report from the Irish Communications regulator (Comreg) includes a nice little graphic that sums up the highlights of their latest report on the Irish market: The report is for Q1 2020, so it only captures part of Ireland's "lockdown" which many people and companies started doing voluntarily from around the 12th of March 2020. Even without the data for the … [Read more...] about Irish Broadband Usage Increases
RIPE 81 Goes Virtual and Shifts Dates
RIPE 81, which had originally been slated to take place in Milan will be held virtually. Not only will the event move to being 100% online only for a second time, they've also decided to push back the event dates. Originally RIPE 81 would have taken place at the end of September. It will now be held at the end of October from October 27th to October 30th. In an … [Read more...] about RIPE 81 Goes Virtual and Shifts Dates
Kelly Hardy Joins CentralNic as Policy Chief
Domain industry veteran Kelly Hardy is now Head of Policy for Centralnic's Registry Services division. The announcement was made at the end of last week and it sounds like she'll be covering both ICANN's GNSO, the ccNSO as well as several other Internet governance fora: Kelly will head up CentralNic's Policy Consultancy, helping both ccTLD and gTLD registry partners with … [Read more...] about Kelly Hardy Joins CentralNic as Policy Chief