Rebecca Wanjiku

Registrars that fail to comply with copyright infringement contract terms given by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will lose their accreditation.

Copyright infringement issues have resulted in domain take down and ICANN maintains that it will continue with the take down, as provided by the Registrar Accreditation Agreement.

Research In Motion is banking on reduced prices for BlackBerrys and an increasing demand for affordable smartphones to increase its market share in Africa.

The company has recently seen its market share slip, and recent sales figures show Apple's iphone is outselling BlackBerry devices on its own home turf of Canada.

The Kenyan government is gearing up to put controls on social media as more politicians engage the public in debate online.

Kenya is set to hold general elections later this year and the government, while encouraging use of Web services a way to communicate, is also expected to take action to try avoid political incitement through social media and other online services.

Graphic: Diego AguirreNigeria made a major step toward demonstrating its commitment to addressing cybercrime by hosting the first West Africa Cybercrime Summit, attended by public and private sector organizations.

The conference is hosted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Microsoft.

Internet activists in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia are increasingly using collaborative Internet sites as well as circumvention and anonymity tools to avoid censorship, according to participants at the international "Internet at Liberty" conference sponsored by Google.

Countries including Iran, China, Tunisia, Thailand, and Syria have, for example, blocked access to certain sites that allow sharing of user-generated content.

In the 1990s, Africa's richest countries in terms of resources -- Nigeria and Zaire -- had dictators who were pushed out of power, leading to an international publicity campaign to freeze international bank accounts of their families and friends.

The campaign to freeze accounts associated with former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and former Zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko led to the birth of Internet scammers, posing as family members with millions of dollars to hide from the authorities.

In the wake of controversy about the influence of national governments on ICANN, the organization's Government Advisory Committee has expanded its role, participating in the selection of members of policy review committees.

The U.S. signed in 2009 an Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) that defines ICANN -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- as a global, private sector-led organization dedicated to the coordination of Internet addresses. However, governments do play a role in ICANN direction via the GAC.

ICANN wrapped up its meeting in Nairobi on Friday, but delayed a vote on the creation of the .xxx domain, which was the most anticipated board decision in the meeting.

Members of the ICANN community were looking forward to the decision because many say thatit tArtwork: Chip Taylorests ICANN's transparency and accountability mechanisms. However, the board chose to delay the vote until its June meeting in Brussels.

Microsoft Windows 7 will be translated into 10 African languages to increase usage, fight software piracy, increase use of local languages online and drive computer penetration beyond English and French, the company said.

By 2011, Windows 7 will be available in languages such as Sesotho sa Leboa, Setswana, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Afrikaans, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, kiSwahili and Amharic.

Africans are gathering at different capital cities Saturday to listen and watch a live video stream of U.S. President Barrack Obama's historic speech to Ghana's Parliament.

People are watching his speech at U.S. embassies in the region, while others participate online via Twitter, Facebook, and the White House blog. The visit is historic because it is the first time it will involve social media and because Obama is visiting Ghana rather than Nigeria, the western African powerhouse; and Kenya, his father's birthplace.

Online scams targeting the financial sector are on the rise in Africa as more people access online banking services and mobile banking.

Phishing attacks are mainly occurring in South Africa where online banking is common, while mobile money theft is common in other parts of Africa where Internet penetration is still low. As a result of the increase, South Africa's Absa bank, the largest in Sub Saharan Africa announced Tuesday that its Internet banking customers can download security software to curb cybersecurity attacks. (See "How to Spot an E-Mail Scam.")

Google East Africa is keeping its promise to lead generation of local content by launching detailed maps for Kenyan towns.