International Relations News Meeting of the "Informal Internet Group" to Prepare the 35th Meeting of the ICCAN Meeting of the "Informal Internet Group" to Prepare the 35th Meeting of the ICCAN
- 10/06/2009A meeting of the “Informal Internet Group” was held in Brussels on 10 June 2009, Under the initiative of the European Commission, it normally meets before the beginning of the ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers meeting week, which will next convene in Sydney, Australia on 21-26 June 2009 (see 35th Meeting of the ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
At these meetings, the members of the European Union that are delegates on the GAC – Governmental Advisory Committee of the ICANN discuss the agenda and try to find points they have in common, thus enabling a good level of understanding for the EU during the GAC meeting week. Accordingly, the provisory GAC agenda for Sydney was discussed from a Europe vs. the World perspective, especially: the new gTLD (Generic Top Level Domain Names) including brand name holders; concerns; the GAC position on IDN ccTLDs (International Domain Names country code Top Level Domains), reform of the ICANN vs possible institutional reform and, lastly, some time was spent discussing how to improve the GAC’s performance and its influence in the scope of the ICANN.
The Commission Communication on Internet governance was also discussed at Portugal’s request. It was adopted by the College of Commissioners on 18 June, although it focussed more on managing the international Internet domain names management system.
Portugal was represented at this meeting by The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), which provides Portugal’s delegation to the GAC, through its President Luís Magalhães, (permanent delegate) and Ana Cristina Neves (substitute delegate).