News Review | How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-04-08) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) a. How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online, b. US Data Protection Regulator? c. Facebook Hearing Tuesday, 2) ICANN news: a. Data Protection and Privacy: ICANN WHOIS vs EU GDPR & Article 29 Working Party, and more, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks, 4) ICYMI, 5) Most Read.

UPDATE 11 April 2018 Reply from EU Article 29 Working Party to ICANN (full embed below): No moratorium given to ICANN, in fact "The WP29 continues to have concerns, however, regarding several aspects of the Proposed and Final Interim Model. Attached to this letter you will find the areas for which the WP29 considers it of utmost importance that ICANN either reconsider or further evaluate its current approach. The concerns highlighted here are without prejudice to additional concerns, further inquiries or findings being made by the WP29 or its members at a later date."

UPDATE 10 Apr 2018: LIVE Video of US Senate Facebook Hearing Tuesday: "Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data"--

U.S. Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees Joint Hearing with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Tuesday, April 10, 2018, 2:15 p.m. EDT. Video courtesy PBS NewsHour. Video also available here.

Original Post:
1) a. How Cloudflare Is Helping Protect Personal Data Online

Bloomberg.com video above published Apr 5, 2018: Michelle Zatlyn, Cloudflare co-founder and chief operating officer, explains how the company is helping to improve the protection of online personal data. She speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."

Cloudflare, Inc. (domain: cloudflare.com) is a US-based company, founded in July 2009, providing a content delivery network (CDN), DDoS mitigation, internet security services and distributed domain name server services, as well as acting as a reverse proxy for websites. Cloudflare is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional offices in London, Singapore, Champaign, Austin, Boston and Washington, D.C. Cloudflare's founders are Matthew Prince (CEO), Lee Holloway, and Michelle Zatlyn.

Domain Name System (DNS): Cloudflare offers free a Domain Name System (DNS) service. SolveDNS has found Cloudflare to consistently have one of the fastest DNS lookup speeds worldwide, with a reported lookup speed of 8.66ms in April 2016. Cloudflare provides DNS services to 6 million websites, and is adding approximately 20,000 new customers every day.

On April 1, 2018, Cloudflare announced a 'privacy-first' consumer DNS service, hosted at IP addresses "1.1.1.1" and "1.0.0.1". Alternatively, the service can be accessed via IPv6 at "2606:4700:4700::1111" and "2606:4700:4700::1001".

b. U.S. Needs A Data Protection Regulator Like The EU says The Atlantic's Foer

Bloomberg.com video above published Apr 6, 2018: Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic (domain: theatlantic.com) and author of "World Without Mind,"  discusses possible U.S regulation to secure social-media user data, and Facebook's influence on journalism. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology."

c. US Senate Hearing Tuesday: Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data

Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees Announce Joint Hearing with Facebook CEO | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary: Tuesday, April 10, 2018, 2:15 p.m. EDT; sole witness will be Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer, Facebook. LIVE video of the hearing above.

See also Why Mark Zuckerberg’s 14-Year Apology Tour Hasn’t Fixed Facebook | WIRED.com. Despite Mark Zuckerberg's repeated apologies over 14 years, Facebook has continued to violate users' privacy, driven primarily by its business model.

2) ICANN News
a. Data Protection and Privacy: ICANN WHOIS vs EU GDPR & Article 29 Working Party

In contrast to other global US-based corporations like Cloudfare (above) and Salesforce.com, Inc.,  ICANN has resisted and delayed implementing protections for personal data and privacy for domain name registrants (see WHOIS policies), particularly in the context of complying with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted by the EU on 14 April 2016, and enforceable worldwide effective May 25, 2018. See on Domain Mondo last week's News Review | ICANN's GDPR Train Wreck, A Day Late And A Dollar Short.

ICANN now says it is "hopeful" that the EU's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29), will come to the rescue of ICANN at the WP29's plenary April  10-11:

Discussion with Article 29 Working Party | ICANN.org 29 Mar 2018: "... we anticipate that ICANN and the WHOIS system will be on the upcoming Article 29 plenary's agenda for 10-11 April 2018 ... We look forward to receiving advice following the plenary, which we may rely on to complete the model [pdf], and are hopeful that we will also be provided with a moratorium on enforcement that would allow sufficient time to implement the model and build the appropriate accreditation system."--Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO (emphasis and link added).

Article 29 Working Party plenary April 10-11 agenda (highlighting added):

Editor's note: Like everyone else (see Salesforce video), ICANN had two years to prepare for the GDPR prior to 25 May 2018. Perhaps the WP29 will grant ICANN a special extended moratorium on GDPR enforcement (but for how long? the next 2 to 4 years?). We may know more after the Article 29 plenary this week.

Prior correspondence from the EU's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party to ICANN:

See also 29 March 2018 Letter from Lena Lindgren Shelin to Göran Marby (pdf).

There are basically three different approaches to data protection and privacy in the world right now:

1. EU: The European Union stands firmly for the interests of the individual as reflected in the GDPR which requires any company, anywhere, respect the data rights of EU citizens, or face stiff penalties.
2. US: In the United States, corporations are allowed to trade in personal data for profit, and those practices have expanded largely unchecked.
3. China: The third approach is state control of data, emerging as China’s social credit system, presently an internal policy.

The EU policy puts control of personal data in the hands of the individual, while the U.S. approach grants control to corporations.

"... Now, weeks before the GDPR goes into effect, the evidence is mounting that the EU’s approach will dominate. One good measure of this dominance is the speed with which countries around the world are recognizing the supremacy of the EU data protection standard by adopting models that align closely with the GDPR ..."--The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data | WIRED.com 28 Mar 2018 (emphasis added).

b. In a related ICANN GDPR matter, I attended the online meeting Friday, April 6, of the ad hoc  group trying to draft an "Accreditation and Access Model for Non-Public WHOIS Data." On a technical level, I found the ICANN-provided WebEx conferencing inferior to Adobe Connect (I received pop-ups that said I had "messages" but could not see or access the "messages," which may have been because I was using the browser version of WebEx in lieu of downloading and installing java). Info on the Intellectual Property and Business Constituencies drafts are on this ICANN webpage and also here. Without getting into all of the details, I will note I found the group's latest draft deficient, and I doubt any responsible data controller subject to the GDPR would rely on it or adopt it as a "model" for accreditation and access.

c. Afilias press release re EU’s GDPR 5 Apr 2018: "Afilias today announced that it is temporarily suspending plans to limit the display of WHOIS data to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) currently scheduled to take effect on 25 MAY 2018. Afilias has received a number of questions about its plans, and anticipates that they may be affected by guidance from data protection authorities that has been requested by ICANN ..."

d. ICANN Webinar on the Draft Final Report of the NomCom2 Review | ICANN.org: 10 April 2018,  20:00 – 21:00 UTC [local time]. To participate, request a calendar invitation by email to mssi-secretariat@icann.org. More details here including dial-in instructions and webinar slide deck.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. GDPR Impact on Domain Name Transfers and Registrant Contact Changes (pdf)

b. Domainer Scammed For $26k On A Stolen Domain! | NamePros.com

c. Where did the domain name investors go? | OnlineDomain.com

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. Facebook's Ideological Imperialism | TheAtlantic.com: It’s mostly forgotten now, but for a time, expanding the reach of social networks—making Facebook, Twitter, and others like it as large as possible—was an avowed foreign-policy goal of the United States. That is, at least, what the Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] said in the early days of this decade ... Facebook is sometimes accused of a kind of corporate imperialism, but Bosworth’s memo speaks more of an ideological imperialism. We will do these ugly things, because our cause is just—this is the cry of imperial ideologues throughout time (link added).

b. Turkey: Crackdown on Social Media Posts | Human Rights Watch | hrw.org: Detention, Prosecutions Over Criticisms of Turkish Army Actions in Syria.

c. China’s New Cyber Rules Add to Cost of Doing Business There | WSJ.com: Effective March 31, 2018, businesses can use only government-approved virtual private networks to bypass the country’s internet restrictions. See also Websites blocked in mainland China | Wikipedia.org.

d. Uruguayan journalist and TeleSUR news network founder Aram Aharonian: It's Time to Review 'Fairy Tale of Absolute Internet Freedom'.

e. Chomsky, Brian Eno Demand Ecuador #Reconnect Julian Assange | teleSURtv.net

5) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma: From KFC Reject to Asia's Richest Man

2. News Review | ICANN's GDPR Train Wreck, A Day Late And A Dollar Short

3. AWS Summit 2018 | San Francisco | LIVE Stream April 4

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review | IANA Transition Unwind? ICANN Nightmare or Fantasy?

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-01-28) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) IANA Transition Unwind? ICANN Nightmare or Fantasy? 2) ICANN news: a. As goes France.com so goes new gTLD .AMAZON? b. GDPR & WHOIS Webinar, c. New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation Update, d. NomCom & ICANN Dysfunction, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: Q4 2017 $VRSN,  $GDDY, 4) ICYMI: Russiaphobia and more, 5) Most Read.

1)  IANA Transition Unwind? ICANN Nightmare OR Ted Cruz Fantasy?

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) (above left), and NTIA's David Redl (right) at Redl's confirmation hearing June 8, 2017

Fantasy or Nightmare? Will the REAL David Redl please stand up:

Make the internet American again? Trump pick opened the door | Politico.com Jan 23, 2018: "[David] Redl promised the senators [Cruz and Lee] that he would recommend convening a "panel of experts to investigate options for unwinding the [IANA] transition," according to a letter that POLITICO obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request ... Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) briefly blocked Redl himself over concerns that he'd cut some deal with Cruz ... Schatz said the idea of undoing the internet transition "may be an interesting political topic" but is ultimately a "fantasy."

Remarks of Assistant Secretary David Redl at CES 2018 | NTIA.doc.gov Jan 9, 2018: "I'll also focus on being a strong advocate for U.S. interests within ICANN. We need to ensure transparency and accountability in ICANN's work. And in light of the implementation of the European General Data Privacy Regulation, or GDPR, we need to preserve lawful access to WHOIS data, which is a vital tool for the public."

Editor's note: Messrs. Redl, Cruz, and Lee, would do well to read on Domain Mondo:

• My submitted comment to the CCWG (WS2) jurisdiction subgroup (pdf)

• News Review | 12 Questions for 2018: Domains, ISOC, Internet, ICANN

• News Review | ICANN Board Executive Committee, Conflicts of Interest

• The Day Jon Postel Freed The Internet Root From US Government Control

After which they would understand how we got to this point, and what the U.S. government needs to focus on going forward. ICANN may have already sown the seeds of its own destruction with its hundreds of gTLD contracts in perpetuity, against the advice and counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (pdf) delivered to ICANN by NTIA in 2008 (pdf). If so, the good news is that what comes after ICANN could be a lot better for the global internet community and restore the principles of Jon Postel's RFC 1591 to the governance of the global DNS and root. The bad news is that what comes after ICANN could be as bad, or even worse.

2) ICANN news

a. As goes France.com so goes new gTLD .AMAZON? (or even Amazon.com?)

French government claims back "France.com" (as trade mark and domain name) [from France.com, Inc.] | ipkitten.blogspot.ca comment "the French government interestingly argued that under Art L.3111-1 of the Public Property Code, "the property within the public domain are inalienable and imprescriptible" and that the TM and domain name "France.com" fall within this category."

"this term ["France"] refers to the national territory in [terms of] its economic, geographic, historic, political and cultural identity"--French Court of Appeal ruling in favor of the French government against trademark holder and domain registrant France.com, Inc.  

b. GDPR & WHOIS Webinar: 

Data Protection/Privacy Update Webinar Scheduled for 2 February | ICANN.org:

"The community is encouraged to provide input on the proposed models [PDF, 623 KB] by 29 January 2018. Please send your feedback to gdpr @ icann.org. More information on ICANN's data protection/privacy activities is available here."

Comments submitted: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/gdpr-legal-analysis-2017-11-17-en

Webinar 2 February 2018 15:30 UTC / 10:30am ET (U.S.) via Adobe Connect Send dial-in requests to gdpr-questions @ icann.org. Dial-in Information. Participant Codes: English – Participant Code: 9001; Français – Participant Code: 9002; Español – Participant Code: 9003; 中文 – Participant Code: 9004; Pусский – Participant Code: 9005; العربية – Participant Code: 9006; Português – Participant Code: 9007.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) is a regulation by which the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission intend to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU). It becomes enforceable 25 May 2018. EU website: Data protection | European Commission | ec.europa.eu

ARTICLE 29 Data Protection Working Party Letter to ICANN 6 Dec 2017 (pdf): "At first glance it would seem that since ICANN and the registries jointly determine the purposes and means of the processing of personal data for the WHOIS directories, ICANN and the registries are joint controllers. This would mean that both ICANN and the registries must ensure that personal data are processed in accordance with the obligations of the European data protection laws."

17 Dec 2018 Letter from Manal Ismail [GAC] to Göran Marby | ICANN.org (pdf)--Issue: WHOIS Compliance with GDPR--excerpt (highlighting added):

The Internet: 10 predictions for 2018 | DiploFoundation | diplomacy.edu by Jovan Kurbalija: "1. GDPR: Data in the centre of digital politics ....

"The GDPR is likely to have a global impact in two main ways. First, the EU is extending its jurisdiction globally by requesting that the data of European citizens be managed according to European regulation, wherever data processing takes place. Secondly, other countries may follow suit. With a high Internet penetration of 500 million citizens with strong purchasing power, the EU is the most lucrative Internet market in the world. The EU has the digital ‘hard power’ to negotiate with Internet companies on an equal footing." (emphasis added)

The Looming Battle over the GDPR and the Purpose of Whois in ICANN | InternetGovernance.org: ".... The Hamilton report has not identified a viable way forward, neither long term nor short term. The real solution to this problem is to identify a purpose of Whois that is consistent with ICANN’s limited mission ... the analysis in the Hamilton report actually points away from a complicated layered model to continued public access to a far more limited set of data. This is the easier, and most legally correct path to follow. That is where ICANN should go."--Professor Milton Mueller

Europe's GDPR Meets WHOIS Privacy: Which Way Forward? | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org: ".... There are other cases in which it makes sense to allow members of the public to contact the owner of a domain, without having to obtain a court order. But this could be achieved very simply if ICANN were simply to provide something like a CAPTCHA-protected contact form, which would deliver email to the appropriate contact point with no need to reveal the registrant’s actual email address [or even name]. There's no reason why this couldn't be required in conjunction with ICANN's Model 3, to address the legitimate concerns of those who need to contact domain owners for operational or business reasons, and who for whatever reason can't obtain contact details in any other way."

Editor's Note: Read EFF's submitted comment here (pdf), with which I concur.

c. New gTLD .AFRICA Litigation UPDATE: (emphasis added)

Editor's note: Mike Silber was selected for the ICANN Board by the Country Code Names Supporting Organisation in 2009 and elected to a second term in 2012 and a third and final term in 2015, which will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2018. According to his ICANN bio, he was responsible for the redelegation of the .ZA ccTLD and served a Director and Treasurer of the Authority from its formation in 2004 to 2015. ZA Central Registry is also the registry operator for new gTLD .AFRICA.

d.  2018 Nominating Committee (NomCom) vs ICANN org Dysfunction (pdf)(embed below, highlighting added):

e. New gTLD Program Auctions | ICANN.org 23 January 2018 – Updated Auction Schedule:

f. ICANN Public Comment Periods closing in February 2018 at 23:59 UTC on the dates indicated below (subject to change):

• Proposed Incremental Changes to the ICANN Meetings Strategy: 1 Feb 2018

• Operating Standards for ICANN's Specific Reviews: 2 Feb 2018

• Maximal Starting Repertoire version 3 (MSR-3) for Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR): 26 Feb 2018

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Q4 2017 Earnings season (domain name industry companies) on DomainMondo.com: 

• Verisign | NASDAQ: VRSN  Feb 8, 4:30pm ET (.COM registry operator)

• GoDaddy | NYSE: GDDY Feb 22, 2018 5:00pm ET (world's largest domain name registrar)

b.  Trademarks: "Infamous troll" Michael Gleissner involved in 5% of all live contested trademark cases in UK | Lexology.com

c. Trump Antitrust Policy after One Year (video) | The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org: "The Trump Administration has brought leadership changes at the two federal antitrust agencies, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission."   See also: Trump nominates 4 to FTC: Joseph Simons, antitrust attorney from the Paul Weiss law firm, as new FTC chairman; as well as Noah Phillips, chief counsel for Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Delta Air Lines executive Christine Wilson for a third GOP slot. Trump also nominated consumer advocate Rohit Chopra for a Democrat slot, which will leave one (Democrat) vacancy on the completely revamped Commission.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

Russiaphobia:

• Top Dems call on Twitter, Facebook to investigate Russian bot campaign | TheHill.com: "A source familiar with Twitter's analytics, though, said "the hashtags appear to be organically trending," and not the result of a Russian-led influence campaign."

Privacy and Surveillance:

• How a single line of computer code put thousands of innocent Turks in jail | CBC.ca

• Your Phone Is a Prison | VICE.com: "Han conceives of the digital world as a prison (a “digital panopticon”) in which you are an isolated inmate, sitting there staring at your phone, but can be monitored by a whole host of prison guards, such as Google, Facebook, and Acxiom.com." 
• How Will Macau’s New Cybersecurity Legislation Impact Freedom of Speech? | GlobalVoices.org: "It also mandates that ISPs retain their users’ online activity logs for at least one year."

• NSA "Sincerely Regrets" Deleting All Bush-Era Surveillance Data It Was Ordered To Preserve | ZeroHedge.com: "There is a growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy ..." #DeepState

• EFF Asks Ninth Circuit Appeals Court To Strengthen Privacy Protections Of Smart Phones At The Border | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: "Warrantless Border Searches of Phones, Laptops, Are Unconstitutional"
• Trump signs bill renewing NSA's internet surveillance program | Reuters.com

Censorship:

• Canadian app in the fight for internet freedom in Iran | CBC.ca: "approximately 15 million Iranians were using the Canadian app Psiphon."

• How to hide your IP address with a VPN | TechRadar.com

• U.S. Sanctions Abet Iranian Internet Censorship | ForeignPolicy.com: U.S."should liberalize rules that impede access to cutting-edge tools against repression."

• The Rapid Rise of Censorship in Southeast Asia | TheDiplomat.com: "From Myanmar to Indonesia, governments are clamping down on the internet and social media."

• Digital freedoms: 25 users face trial over online posts | observer.ug

Net Neutrality: It's up to Congress to save the internet | LATimes.com

5) Four Most Read Posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review | China Disrupts Global Companies’ Web Access (video)

2. Tech Review | Cryptocurrency & Government Regulation (video) 

3. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018, Davos, Jan 23-26 (video)

4. China's Mobile Wallet-Free Lifestyle via WeChat Pay & Alipay (video) 

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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