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 Biography
Simon Higgs is a polymath. Artist, Author, Designer, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Journalist, Musician, Producer, Researcher & Internet Crash Test Dummy. It's sometimes easier to describe Simon's skill set as simply "creating things that did not exist before" as that is the core theme that runs through his career.
Inspired by an Isaac Asimov novella entitled Sucker Bait, Simon works from the principle that all knowledge is interconnected and combines his formal training in art, design, music & telecommunications with experience in marketing and management to traverse multiple disciplines.
As an explorer of audio & video over TCP/IP networks (before the web came along), he helped pioneer multi-site television performances - where artists perform together from different locations - in a trial sponsored by Viacom at the Electronic Cafe. His experiments distributing Quicktime movies online also led to articles on Electronic Press Kits.
As a pioneer in domain names and DNS, he was the first applicant for a new top level domain. In a pilot DNS infrastructure deployment (authorized by Jon Postel during Draft Postel), he become a root server operator for the Open Root Server Confederation (ORSC), an organization formed to bid on the Department of Commerce's contract for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) - a role that now goes under the name of ICANN.
Prior to that, as a journalist, he broke the first story of music being downloaded on the Internet - seven whole years before Napster came along. Many years later, immediately after Apple's iTunes Music Store came online, he wrote the definitive book on how to become a vendor to Apple and sell music in the store. As a musician, producer and record label/artist relations consultant he has worked alongside top name talent.
Under the brand name of CouponNet (part of the original Coupons.com) he beat out the Ringo/Firefly Network team from MIT's Media Lab to win CommerceNet's 1996 Very Innovative Practice Award for Best Online Community - one of the pioneering awards for building online communities and social media. This included creating the first downloadable consumer coupons and rebates on the web, and pioneering mobile coupon redemption.
He often gets called to solve problems, or provide unique solutions. When the Department of Defense needed a working demonstration of the CHCS II medical records system, he built one for them. He also designed 67 web sites and helped create a 10,000 mile TCP/IP network for the Defense Logistics Agency's Contract Management Command, leading to the creation of the Defense Contract Management Agency. When the New York Times, News Corp. and Coupons.com were sued for patent infringement, as the original founder of Coupons.com, he came to the rescue with the prior art.
 As a result he is able to speak multiple corporate languages, and he is equally at home whether it be working with name talent, the board room, the recording studio, the R&D workshop, the data center, or the garage start-up with a large unwieldy hammer.
Some of the things Simon has pioneered include:
- the first working clock on the web
- the first downloadable consumer coupon on the web
- one of the earliest recorded instances of rotating banner ads on the web
- first applicant for a top level domain name
- pioneer of online audio & music distribution
- first working demo of a DOD medical records system
- pioneered live multi-site performances for broadcast
In addition, some of Simon Higgs' music is available on 
Simon Higgs has been quoted in:
Simon Higgs has been cited in the following publications:
| Title |
Author |
Publisher |
| Handbook of Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications |
Borko Furht |
CRC Press / IEEE Press |
| Handbook of Internet Computing |
Borko Furht |
CRC Press |
| The Digital Rights Movement: The Role of Technology in Subverting Digital Copyright |
Hector Postigo |
MIT Press |
| Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace |
Milton L. Mueller |
MIT Press |
| Web Publisher's Design Guide For Windows |
Mary Jo Fahey
and Jeffrey Brown |
Coriolis Group |
| Web Publisher's Design Guide For Mac |
Mary Jo Fahey |
Coriolis Group |
| Realspace Sovereigns in Cyberspace: Problems with the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act |
Catherine T. Struve
and R. Polk Wagner |
Berkeley Technology Law Journal
(Volume 17, Issue 3) |
| Orderly Expansion of the International Top-Level Domains: Concurrent Trademark Users Need a Way Out of the Internet Trademark Quagmire |
David B. Nash |
John Marshall Law School, Journal of Computer & Information Law
(Spring 1997, Vol. 15 No. 3) |
| The Name Is Not Always The Same (pdf) |
Neal J. Friedman and Kevin Siebert |
Seattle University Law Review
(Volume 20, page 657) |
| ICANN Update: Thanks to Continued Support from Faceless Bureaucrats at Commerce ICANN Expands its Payroll and Continues its Efforts to Police DNS and Extend Governmental and Corporate Intellectual Property Control over the Internet |
Gordon Cook |
The Cook Report (September 2001, Volume X, No. 6, Page 33) |
| ICANN and Antitrust |
A. Michael Froomkin and Mark A. Lemley |
University of Illinois Law Review, (Vol. 1, 2003, page 63), also
UC Berkeley Public Law Research Paper No. 73 |
| SOVEREIGN DOMAINS: A Declaration of Independence of ccTLDs from Foreign Control |
Kim G. von Arx and Gregory R. Hagen |
Richmond Journal of Law & Technology (Fall 2002, Volume IX, Issue 1) |
| DNS Top Level Domain Name Classification and Structure |
Joseph J. Kim |
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) - draft-kim-tld-class-00.txt |
| Led Zeppelin |
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Wikimedia Foundation |
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| Simon Higgs has been cited in the following responses to the US Government National Telecommunications and Information Administration: |
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| NTIA: Request for Comment on Registration and Administration of Internet Domain Names (Docket No. 970613137-7137-01) |
Aki Namioka, President Glenn B. Manishin, Harry Hochheiser, Michael D. Specht, Andy Oram, and Christine A. Mailloux |
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and Blumenfeld & Cohen - Technology Law Group |
| NTIA: Request for Comment on Registration and Administration of Internet Domain Names (Docket No. 970613137-7137-01) |
Ron Kawchuk |
Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) |
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| Simon Higgs has been cited in the following dissertations & theses: |
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| Title |
Author |
Publisher |
| Launching The DNS War: Dot-Com Privatization And The Rise Of Global Internet Governance (pdf) |
Craig Simon |
University of Miami |
| To each country, its own law and domain: The legal structures of ccTLD's in comparative perspective |
Arturo Azuara Flores |
Tulane University |
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