ICANN Concludes 27th International Public Meeting in Sao Paulo

December 11, 2006; 01:11 AM

Sao Paulo, Brazil - Over 720 delegates from 90 countries gathered in Sao Paulo, Brazil for ICANN's 27th International Meeting. These meetings, one of three held each year, are open to anyone interested in participating. They constitute an essential part of ICANN's efforts to consult the global community.

“This has been a very successful meeting that has seen exceptional cooperation from the ICANN community and substantial progress on a number of fronts,” said Vint Cerf, Chairman of ICANN. “A highlight d uring the week was the formation of the Latin America - Caribbean RALO, which has seen twenty-two Internet user groups from across the region come together to form a group that represents Internet users. This is a historic moment that will mean individual Internet users from this region will have greater input into ICANN’s processes.”

“Other noteworthy events this week included the signing of the .ASIA Registry Agreement with the sponsor, DotAsia Organization which we announced in October and the addition of Ecuador, Jamaica and Norway to ICANN’s Country Code Names Support Organization. This brings membership of the ccNSO to 57 countries.”

During the week, further progress was made in the important area of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), culminating in a Board resolution that acknowledged the substantial work that had been undertaken by volunteers from the technical community and the IDN President’s Advisory Committee on this issue. It also acknowledged the preliminary laboratory tests conducted by Autonomica and the development of root zone application test plans as significant steps towards the deployment of IDNs and called for a continuation of efforts from all groups involved. Importantly, the Board also requested the ccNSO and the GAC through a joint collaborative effort, in consultation with the technical community to produce an issues paper relating to the selection of IDN ccTLDs associated with ISO 3166-1 two letter codes.

Other outcomes from the Sao Paulo meeting were:

• The approval of the .BIZ/.INFO and .ORG registry agreements by the Board following a public comment and review period. The Board found that the proposed new agreements, which include a new restriction on the use of “traffic data” and the acceptance of 10 per cent caps on price increases by the registry operators, would be beneficial for ICANN and the Internet community.
  
• The approval of the strategic plan for 2007-2010, following extensive consultation with the Internet community. The strategic plan describes challenges and opportunities that ICANN is likely to face in the next years and outlines five strategic objectives for the ICANN community.
  
• Further progress on ICANN’s efforts to ensure transparency and accountability with the adoption of a schedule for periodic reviews of ICANN’s structure and operations. These reviews are intended to ensure an independent examination of the role and operation of key elements of ICANN. They will be conducted in an objective way by independent evaluators, under guidance from the Board on the review’s terms of reference.

This was ICANN’s official Annual Meeting and it saw the election of key office holders including the Chairman and the Vice Chair.

“I am delighted to say that Vint Cerf was returned as Chairman and Mr. Roberto Gaetano was elected as Deputy Chair. We are extremely fortunate to have these two outstanding members of the community in these crucial leadership roles,” said Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN.

“It’s also timely to recognize that the Board members, like so many in the ICANN community provide their time as volunteers. This takes a huge toll on them and we are extremely grateful for their efforts,” Dr Twomey said.

The Sao Paulo meeting saw the conclusion of terms of service of Board members Dr Hagen Hultzsch, Veni Markovski, Professor Hualin Qian and of Board liaison Daniel Dardailler. In addition, it was noted that non-voting liaison Roberto Gaetano concludes his term of service and assumes the new voting position as a Director of ICANN. The deep appreciation of the Board was expressed to all departing members and liaisons.

The conclusion of the Sao Paulo meeting also sees the commencement of terms for recently announced Board members Steven Goldstein and Rajasekhar Ramaraj.

Full text of the Board resolutions from the Sao Paulo meeting will be available on the ICANN website.

About ICANN

ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit responsible for coordinating Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.

Media Contacts: International, Andrew Robertson, Edelman ( London), Ph: +44 7811 341 945, E: [email protected] Tanzanica King, ICANN (USA), Ph: +1 310 301 5804, E: [email protected]