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The data communications protocol supporting the internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) is almost 40 years old, and its 32-bit address space is too small for the internet. A “next-generation” internet protocol version 6 (IPv6), has a much larger, 128-bit address space. However, IPv6 is not backward compatible with the existing internet. For 20 years, the internet technical community has attempted to migrate the entire internet to the new standard. This study aims to address important but overlooked questions about the internet’s technical evolution: will the world converge on IPv6? Will IPv6 die out? or will we live in a mixed world for the foreseeable future?

The research offers an economically-grounded study of IPv6’s progress and prospects. Many promoters of IPv6 sincerely believe that the new standard must succeed if the internet is to grow, and assume that the transition is inevitable because of the presumed depletion of the IPv4 address resources. However, by examining the associated network effects, developing the economic parameters for transition, and modeling the underlying economic forces, which impact network operator decisions, the study paints a more complex, nuanced picture.

The report concludes that legacy IPv4 will coexist with IPv6 indefinitely. IPv6 is unlikely to become an orphan. For some network operators that need to grow, particularly mobile networks where the software and hardware ecosystem is mostly converted, IPv6 deployment can make economic sense. However, the lack of backward compatibility with non-deployers eliminates many network effects that would create pressure to convert to IPv6. A variety of conversion technologies, and more efficient use of IPv4 addresses using network address translation, will support a “mixed world” of the two standards for the foreseeable future.

The authors’ conceptualization and observations provide a clearer understanding of the economic factors affecting the transition to IPv6.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between cybersecurity governance and internet governance and to explore the effects of the current tendency for cybersecurity-related discourse to dominate and change the way we approach the established problems of internet governance.

The paper demonstrates the centrality of internet connectivity to any definition of cyberspace and to cybersecurity, which clarifies the way internet governance and cybersecurity governance are interdependent. Drawing on classic notions of a security dilemma, the paper also argues for distinguishing between national cybersecurity and societal cybersecurity.

Major structural features of the governance problem in cybersecurity and internet governance are analogous. Joint production of internet services and cybersecurity makes them heavily interdependent. This means that cybersecurity governance and internet governance models need to be compatible, and the approach we take to one will influence how we approach the other.

The interdependence of cybersecurity governance and internet governance has not been carefully examined before, and the relationship is not well understood. These two strands of thinking about cyberspace governance have not been properly connected. This paper bridges the gap and makes policymakers more aware of the potential tensions between a cybersecurity perspective and an internet governance perspective.

This paper aims to analyze the direction and balance of transnational information flows and look at how nonpriced digital information exchanges related to international trade in goods and services.

The authors obtained quantitative data about Web-related data flows between countries and regions using Telegeography data on “Server Location as a Percentage of Top Websites.” They then explore how those flows are correlated to trade in goods.

Web traffic is highly transnational. More than half of the top 100 websites in 9 of the world’s 13 sub-regions are hosted in the USA. More than 15 per cent of the top 100 websites in 9 of the 13 subregions are hosted in Western Europe. East Asia has the largest negative balance in the relationship between incoming and outgoing Web requests. The authors found a very strong negative correlation (−0.878) between Web traffic balances and the balance of trade in goods across all subregions. A similarly strong positive correlation was found with services trade; however, the incompleteness of the data does not allow for strong conclusions yet.

Further research is needed to correlate Web traffic flows with capital flows. The authors also do not have a well-developed theory to explain the strong negative correlation between information flows and goods trade.

The data and analysis have useful implications for digital economy policy. It indicates that digital protectionism of the sort practice by China may succeed in increasing domestic producers’ share of Web requests, but does not make them globally competitive. The strong negative correlation between the balance of unpriced Web information and the balance of trade in goods indicates interdependence rather than domination, challenging narratives that information flow imbalances are caused by market power of the big platforms.

The paper demonstrates the degree to which unpriced digital exchanges are transnational and how various countries are more or less globally competitive in the supply of information that the rest of the world finds attractive.

No other published papers have used the data on website traffic data, and previous research has not explored empirically the correlation between information flows and goods trade.

This article aims to quantify the emerging transfer market for internet protocol (IPv4) numbers and provides an initial assessment of factors and policies impacting those transactions.

The research draws on Regional Internet Registry records and conducts basic analysis of stocks, flows and proportions to assess the nature of this emerging market for IP number blocks and explore some of its implications for internet governance.

There is a thriving and growing market for IPv4 number blocks. The market is improving the efficiency of IPv4 address allocation by moving numbers from unused or under-utilized holders to organizations that need them more. Buyers willingly pay for number blocks they could get for free in order to benefit from more liberal needs assessments and stronger property rights.

Information about prices is not available and some transfers may take place through leasing arrangements, which are not covered by this paper. Future research should continue to investigate the transfer market, including activity skirting or occurring outside the current RIR policy environment.

RIRs should liberalize needs assessments and remove other sources of friction to the transfer market.

No known prior assessment of the transfer market has been conducted. The research has value for policymakers and industry decision makers.

Delineates the Clinton administration’s handing over licensing control of the Internet domain names and IP addresses from federal government to a non‐profit making organization that represents the industry (ICANN). Wonders whether the US President may have overreached his administration’s area of authority.

Analyses the evolution of China’s telephone and cable systems, in terms of the public interest, discussing current bureaucratic conflicts and policy debates over convergence, and construction of an independent broadband cable network. Looks in depth at China’s problems and the different problems for its citizens with regard to poverty levels and access to the Web.

Discusses ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is a new private corporation for managing Internet domain names and IP addresses, which was created in the USA and produces a historical and conceptual assessment of the policy involved.

This article compares the use of deep packet inspection (DPI) technology to the use of cookies for online behavioral advertising (OBA), in the form of two competing paradigms. It seeks to explain why DPI was eliminated as a viable option due to political and regulatory reactions whereas cookies technology was not, even though it raises some of the same privacy issues.

The paradigms draw from two-sided market theory to conceptualize OBA. Empirical case studies, NebuAd's DPI platform and Facebook's Beacon program, substantiate the paradigms with insights into the controversies on behavioral tracking between 2006 and 2009 in the USA. The case studies are based on document analyses and interviews.

Comparing the two cases from a technological, economic, and institutional perspective, the article argues that both paradigms were equally privacy intrusive. Thus, it rejects the generally held view that privacy issues can explain the outcome of the battle. Politics and regulatory legacy tilted the playing field towards the cookies paradigm, impeding a competing technology.

Shifting the narrative away from privacy to competing tracking paradigms and their specific actors sheds light on the political and the regulatory rationales that were not considered in previous research on OBA. Particularly, setting forth institutional aspects on OBA – and DPI in general – the case studies provide much needed empirical analysis to reassess tracking technologies and policy outcomes.