International Relations News 36th Meeting of ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 36th Meeting of ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
- 02/11/2009
The 36th meeting of the ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 24-30 October 2009 and was attended by more than 1020 participants from over 110 countries. As usual, the 35th meeting of the GAC - ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee was held concurrently. The GAC comprises representatives from governments of countries and public authorities from regional economies and intergovernmental organisations, and covers public policy matters related to the ICANN's activities. The CAC currently has 88 members who jointly encompass more than 90% of Internet users geographically, and 12 observers (see GAC composition). 58 members, 3 observers and one guest country, Russia, took part in the meeting.
The most significant progress made at the ICANN meeting in Seoul was the approval of the fast track procedure for introducing a limited number of International Domain Names (IDNs), potentially before the year is out, with applications opening on 16 November. Discussions were held on the 3rd version of the Application Manual for new generic names for top level domains (gTLDs), brand and name protection, security issues such as phishing and malware, distribution of illegal content, security and stability issues related to the introduction of the DNSSEC system, IPv6 and new gTLDs and the strategic plan for 2010, where for main areas were highlighted for attention: maintaining DNS stability and security, promoting competition, trust and consumer choices, excellence in the IANA;s functions and in other operational centres, maintaining the ICANN’s role in the long term in the Internet eco-system, replacing the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) that the ICANN had with the US Department of Commerce (DoC) with the Affirmation of Commitments (AoC), under which the ICANN becomes accountable to the global Internet community and a series of evaluations are established to ensure a high level of public and global accountability.
The main items on the agenda at the 35th GAC meeting were: international domain names (IDNs) adoption process in country top domain codes, adoption process of generic top level domains (gTLDs), Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) signed by the ICANN and the US Department of Commerce (DoC), information from the SSAC – Security and Stability Advisory Committee and the RSSAC – Root Server System Advisory Committee chiefly on the transition to DNSSEC and root server signatures, and the Root Zone scaling study and problems related to the use of wildcards, information on implementation of the law on abusive DNS use and proposals for provisions to be taken presented by the authorities in charge of implementing the Law, and the 2010 work programme with the following priorities: achieving the AoC, DNS security, stability and resilience, revision of the GAC’s role by the Joint ICANN Board – GAC Working Party, follow-–p of IDN introduction and contributions to the process, introduction of new gTLDs, IPv4 address depletion and progress in IPv6 address use (see GAC Communiqué in Seoul).
Portugal is represented on the GAC by the President of The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC).
Portugal was one of the first countries to become a GAC member. It has taken part in this committee since its 2nd meeting, which was held on 25th May 1999, slightly over two months after the 1st GAC meeting. Portugal was represented from 1999 to 2008 by the President of the FCCN – Foundation for National Scientific Computation, who asked to be replaced at the end of 2008.
Since it was set up in 1998, ICANN has made the way it operates more open and transparent, based on the participation of multi-stakeholders and a large number of public and private organisations, and non-governmental organisations of different types and from different continents and countries, taking on a global character, becoming one of the clearest examples of the new organisational concepts that are deeply rooted in the paradigm of the online society that the Internet itself has brought us, together with its social values of freedom, openness and inclusion.
The different stakeholders that participate in the ICANN include: civil society and Internet users, governments and governmental agencies, enterprises and entrepreneurial associations, the technical Internet community, Internet service providers, registrars, registries and registrants.
The ICANN is one of the most advanced global organisations in terms of involving stakeholders at the global level and one of the organisations that has most tangibly introduced a new model of open online global governance (see geographical map of Board members, map of meetings held, root servers map).
The 28th ICANN Meeting took place in Lisbon in March 2007 with an opening session chaired by the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago (see intervention by Minister José Mariano Gago).