Archive

The Internet is run by a bunch of geeks sitting in a darkened space, lit only by the glow from LED screens, right? That Hollywood image may be how the general public perceives what it takes to send and receive emails, deliver apps, enable electronic transactions, and store great gobs of data. There ...

The U.S. government has played a central -- perhaps critical -- role in the development of the Internet. Currently the U.S. retains a stewardship position in the worldwide operation of the Internet through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency within the Commerce ...

Texas attorney Jason L. Van Dyke recently filed a lawsuit against nude-photo-sharing site Pink Meth and included the Tor Project among its defendants. Pink Meth is an "involuntary pornography" site, the suit charges, enabling users to post nude photos for the purposes of getting revenge on those pic...

In the war against malware, a new strategy is taking shape. The good guys are preparing to demolish the bad guys' most effective weapons: rogue websites. The Secure Domain Foundation will tackle the identification and prevention of Internet cybercrime through a series of steps designed to interfere ...

Gargantuan Chinese e-commerce outfit Alibaba soon will begin the process of launching an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Early forecasts suggest that the IPO could raise $15 billion. The announcement seemingly ends speculation about whether Alibaba would be listed on the NYSE...

Microsoft cited an "error in our system" for quirky results given to users making searches in Chinese on the company's Bing search engine. Chinese-language searches outside of mainland China were yielding results that mirrored those inside mainland China, where Bing filters in accordance with the wh...

Tuesday ushered in a series of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that for the first time in Web history, include Arabic, Chinese and Russian characters. The new gTLDs -- which are the suffixes to Web addresses, such as ".com" and ".net" -- were approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names...

A group of countries in Latin America seems to have successfully blocked online retail giant Amazon from using ".amazon" as an Internet address suffix. A committee from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees top-level domain names, recommended that .amazon be preclud...

Iran -- long irked by Google's mapping systems -- said that it will launch its own 3D mapping service, one liberated from the geographical inaccuracies and "Zionist" bent of Google Earth. The system will be an "Islamic Google Earth," according to Mohammad Hassan Nami, Iran's minister for information...

After taking it on the chin for its alleged attacks on U.S. media outlets -- and for its army reportedly backing hackers engaged in cyberespionage around the world -- China returned fire. The government claimed its defense and military ministries' websites are being bombarded with 144,000 hacking at...

Last week, the International Telecommunications Union wrapped up a huge conference on Internet regulations and governance. The UN-sponsored event featured a few hardened factions. Debate pitted Russia, China and several Arab states -- all promoting increased regulation of the Internet -- against the...

The United States and Canada faced a setback on Wednesday as a joint proposal from the two nations, which was also backed by some European countries, failed to win approval at an international meeting. The proposal aimed to protect the Internet from international regulation, and its rejection could ...

The European Union announced on Friday that it would oppose attempts to increase regulation of the Internet at a United Nations conference that will take place next week in Dubai. This move comes as some countries have called for tighter rules on Web service providers and phone operators. The Intern...

The committee reviewing applications for new top-level domains has publicized more than 250 objections to dozens of them, along with the reasons behind the responses. The Internet Committee for Assigned Names and Numbers' Government Advisory Committee, which represents about 50 governments worldwide...