Here are some edited down versions of NeusNews.com Blog from the past 2 weeks:
CHINA BLOCKS ACCESS TO NEW YORK TIMES WEBSITE
The Chinese government swiftly blocked access Friday morning to the English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The New York Times from computers in mainland China in response to an article in both languages describing wealth accumulated by the family of the country’s prime minister.
As President Ronald Reagan used to say, “There they go again!” China is once again censoring what it’s people can read and hear.
The authorities were also blocking attempts to mention The Times or the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, in postings on Sina Weibo, an extremely popular mini-blogging service in China that resembles Twitter.
China maintains the world’s most extensive and sophisticated system for Internet censorship, employing tens of thousands of people to monitor what is said, delete entries that contravene the country’s extensive and unpublished regulations and even write new entries that are favorable to the government.
IS ICANN ABOUT TO GET A MAJOR COMPETITOR?
Government officials, tech industry representatives, and nongovernmental groups will be meeting in Azerbaijan next week to discuss Internet governance issues and may provide a peek into some of the proposals that could emerge at a highly anticipated telecommunications conference that some fear could result in more regulation of the Internet.
ICANNs’ new CEO Fadi Chehadé and other ICANN officials will be at the IGF meeting and will help lead discussions related to the domain name system.
“The IGF meeting in Baku will afford us a fantastic opportunity to talk further with the broad Internet community about our global stakeholder engagement initiatives,” Chehadé said in a statement this week. “It also allows us a chance to work hand-in-hand with other key organizations in the Internet ecosystem.”
I think that the “powers that be” are getting just a little nervous about maintaining their power over the internet and will be doing whatever they can to maintain that power for years to come.
D O J REVIEWING VERISIGN DOTCOM CONTRACT WITH ICANN
Both, the Departments of Commerce and Justice, are scrutinizing Verisign’s bid for a six-year renewal of its contract to continue running the .com registry, the Internet’s most popular generic top-level domain name.
Verisign said Commerce informed it earlier this month that both Commerce and the Justice Department are examining the agreement’s “pricing terms.” If Commerce doesn’t approve the contract before it expires, Verisign’s current contract will be extended for six months, Verisign President and CEO Jim Bidzos said during an earnings call last week.
in June, ICANN, who many believe are “in bed” with Verisign, approved Verisign’s contract to continue operating the .com registry.
The proposed contract renewal would maintain the current pricing structure, which allows Verisign to increase prices four times during the six-year contract by as much as 7 percent each time. The company, which also manages the .net registry, receives $7.85 for every domain name that is registered in .com by registrars.
Verisign has an uphill battle to convince the Departments of Commerce and Justice that it is entitled to increase the cost of registering .coms by 7% in ANY year, let alone 4 out of 6.
Thanks for “listening”
Howard
The Neu Facebook
