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ICANN's 29th International Meeting Opens Monday in San Juan
Issues like new top-level domains, internationalized domain names to be discussed
25 June 2007
"If you are interested in the domain names that can be used on the Internet, if you want to make sure there are enough numbers to allow the Internet to expand, if you care about how the Internet evolves and want to have a say, ICANN meetings are the place for you," said Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN. "The San Juan meeting gives us an opportunity to talk face to face within the global Internet community, listen to ideas and input, and make sure policies promote the Internet's security and stability. Even if you can't be here in person, you can be part of the meeting with our remote participation website, meeting blogs, and webcasts."
Attendees and on-line participants can be part of more than 30 sessions and workshops, and will help ICANN continue improving the global coordination of the Internet's unique identifiers.
"ICANN's task is unique and these meetings help us make sure we're on the correct path and continue to move forward," Dr Twomey added.
The San Juan meeting is the second of the three public ICANN meetings in 2007. These meetings are crucial to because ICANN's polices are created through a bottom-up, transparent process involving Internet Community.
Some issues and events at the meeting include:
- Progress on a creating a policy to introduce new generic top-level domains (the part of web addresses after the dot -- like .com or .info)
- Update on the testing process of introducing Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) to the Internet.
- A tutorial on IPv6 -- a major expansion of the Internet Protocol address space so that the number unique addresses available globally is increased dramatically (from about 4.3 billion available with the current IPv4 to about 340 trillion trillion trillion).
- Further discussions of ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Agreements (RAA) and the Accreditation process, arising out of the RegisterFly collapse.
- The completion of the creation of the global Regional At Large Organization (RALO) structure with the signing of the fifth and final RALO agreement -- this one with the North American region. RALOs are the main forum and coordination point for public input to ICANN on a regional basis.
- The first General Assembly of the Latin American and Caribbean RALO, which was formed at the ICANN meeting in Lisbon, Portugal in March.
"We are all looking forward to a successful meeting in San Juan and thank the local hosts, the .PR top-level domain of Puerto Rico, and the event sponsors, for their efforts," Dr Twomey said.
The complete schedule for ICANN's San Juan meeting, as well as links to webcast sessions and our public participation website, can be found at: http://sanjuan2007.icann.org/
About ICANN:
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.
Media Contacts:
Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN (USA)
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan@icann.org
International: Andrew Robertson
Edelman (London)
Ph: +44 7921 588 770
E: andrew.robertson@edelman.com