The NetBeacon Institute
The NetBeacon Institute is focused on helping the Internet community identify and report DNS Abuse, establish best practices, fund DNS research, and share data. The Institute provides free tools and services as part of its mission.
Focused on Reducing DNS Abuse
The Internet is a powerful agent for positive change. At the same time, there are those that use the Internet to achieve their own negative ends. The NetBeacon Institute exists to act against online abuse, keeping the negative side of the public Internet in check to allow the positive side to flourish.
The NetBeacon Institute is tasked with driving outcomes-based initiatives that will create recommended practices, foster collaboration, and develop industry-shared solutions to combat the five areas of DNS Abuse: malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and related spam.
NetBeacon Leadership
The Institute is driven by industry experts with a passion for creating a better Internet.
Graeme Bunton
Graeme has over a decade of DNS policy experience. Prior to heading the NetBeacon Institute, he was the Head of Policy for Tucows and served as Chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group for four years. Graeme was one of the driving forces behind the 'Framework to Address Abuse', a new set of guidelines and principles for addressing online harms, which was adopted by more than 50 registries and registrars. He helped found the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, served on the Board of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition for 6 years, and is currently on the board of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.
Rowena Schoo
Director, Programs and Policy Rowena is the Director of Programs and Policy for the Institute. She previously worked for Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, Nominet UK, and the UK government at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Rowena has over a decade of experience in and around policy, and holds two degrees - Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and Bachelor of Arts (International Relations and Political Science) from the Australian National University (ANU).
About the Institute
Trusted Advisors
Advisory Council
The Institute maintains a diverse Advisory Council with expert representation from interested stakeholders related to DNS Abuse, such as gTLD registries, ccTLD registries, registrars, security researchers, and academics on issues related to DNS Abuse. Current Advisory Council members include:
Alissa Starzak
Vice President, Global head of Public Policy
Cloudflare
Ashley Heineman
Director, Global Policy
GoDaddy
Bertrand de la Chapelle
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network
Bruce Tonkin
Chief Operating Officer
.au Domain Administration Ltd. (auDA)
Bruna Martins Dos Santos
Global Campaigns Manager at Digital Action, Member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group to the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) , German Chancellor Fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Chris Disspain
Senior Adviser on Internet Policy and Governance
Identity Digital
Crystal Ondo
Head of Domains
Google
Drew Bagley
VP & Counsel, Privacy and Cyber Policy
Crowdstrike
John Crain
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
ICANN
Keith Drazek
VP of Policy & Government Relations
VeriSign
Nick Wenban-Smith
General Counsel
Nominet UK
Owen Smigelski
Head of ICANN Compliance and Relations
NameCheap
Reg Levy
Associate General Counsel –Domains
Tucows, Inc.
Rod Rassmusen
Cybersecurity industry leader,
start-up advisor and investor
Tobias Knecht
Founder and CEO
Abusix, Inc.
Maciej Korczynski
(Partner)
Associate Professor and Principal at KOR Labs
Univ. of Grenoble
Mike Silber
(Observer)
Group Executive Regulatory Affairs at MTN
Education and Collaboration
The Institute in Action
DNS Symposium
The Institute at the 2023 ICANN DNS Symposium
Presenting to ccTLDs
Rowena Schoo presented NetBeacon MAP abuse data to geoTLDs at ICANN78
Great teams
The Institute team works tirelessly to combat DNS Abuse with the support of industry partners.
Valued Partners
Public Interest Registry (PIR) is a non-profit organization created by the Internet Society (ISOC), originally to manage the .ORG domain.
Public Internet Registry serves the public interest online. Its globally diverse team is committed to providing a stable online platform to enable people to do good things.
The Institute partnered with the cybersecurity and investigative professionals at CleanDNS to develop the NetBeacon Reporter platform.
The Institute partners with KOR Labs for the delivery of NetBeacon MAP. KOR Labs is led by Dr Maciej Korczynski, a professor at Grenoble Alpes University in France.
Latest News
Read about the latest news and research concerning DNS Abuse.
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