Category: ICANN Announcements

ICANN is holding the second of two regional outreach meetings planned for FY07-08. The first meeting of these meetings was held in Taipei 19-21 October 2007.

This second regional meeting will be held in Dubai from 1 to 3 April 2008 in Dubai. The meeting is for policy makers, managers of country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and Internet businesses in this region. The agenda for the meeting is designed to address three main themes: a broad introduction to the ICANN multi-stakeholder model; challenges and opportunities in the registry and registrar businesses; and an introduction and discussion of internationalized domain names. ICANN staff is coordinating with regional organizations (including APTLD) regarding participation.

This outreach activity is part of the ICANN Strategic Plan.

More information about the meeting in Dubai is available on our website at: http://public.icann.org/dubai08.

Discussions on Internationalized Domain Names provide direction for progress

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers put the wrap on its 31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi today after five days of discussions about the future of the Internet.

“These meetings are vital to ICANN’s model of bottom-up, consensus driven policy making in action,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN’s Board Chairman.

Ceremony recognizes Regional At-Large Organization, first Asia-Pacific At-Large General Assembly

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Individual Internet users from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands have direct input into the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a fact recognized today with the ceremonial signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and the Internet user groups who participate in the Asia-Pacific Regional At-Large Organization (APRALO).

The APRALO conducted its first General Assembly as a part of ICANN’s 31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi. They discussed issues that will affect Internet users throughout the region and the world. The Internet user groups who are a part of APRALO are incredibly diverse, and include users from India, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates.

In planning for implementation of the new gTLD policy recommendations, and in response to inquiries form the ICANN community, ICANN is conducting a review of the status of applications from the New gTLD round in 2000 that were not selected for negotiations.

During the ICANN meeting in Los Angeles in 2007, ICANN’s General Counsel agreed to review references and information relating the prior gTLD applications. Below is a summary of relevant background material identified.

Executive Summary

The Registrar Data Escrow (RDE) program is an ICANN initiative designed to enhance protection of registrants by requiring ICANN-accredited registrars to escrow critical registration data so that it can be released to ICANN upon termination of the registrar’s accreditation agreement. ICANN has performed tests of the RDE system, including a “process test” and “stress test” designed to ensure effectiveness of the program’s technical specifications and test the data-release procedures used by escrow agents in the event of registrar termination.

Both the “process” and “stress” tests were concluded satisfactorily, leading to some enhancements to data-release procedures, such as redundant authentication of release requests by out-of-channel means (i.e., telephone verification by an ICANN officer or attorney), and clarification of registrar on-boarding documentation.