Reminder of Request for Comments on ICANN Accountability and Transparency Management Operating Principles

14 December 2006

ICANN Seeks Public Comments on Proposed Terms of Reference for
Independent Review of the Nominating Committee

12 December 2006

CFIT's Complaint Dismissed For A Second Time

11 December 2006

ICANN in the News

Listed below are media mentions involving ICANN over the course of the last week:

The Great Internet Brand Rip-Off (BusinessWeek)

15 December 2006

Soviet Websites Marked for Liquidation (Kommersant)

12 December 2006

ICANN to Revamp Domain Name System (PC Advisor)

11 December 2006

ICANN Featured Individual: Steven Goldstein, Board Member

Steven N. Goldstein retired from the National Science Foundation in 2003. He had joined NSF in 1989 as a Program Director in the Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) Directorate's networking division. Prior to his joining NSF, he was a MITRE Corporation contractor to NASA, helping to establish the NASA Science Network, NASA's entry into TCP/IP research networking. 

At NSF, Dr. Goldstein quickly gravitated to the international arena and launched the International Connections Management (ICM) project, awarded to Sprint, in 1991. Over the next six years, ICM implemented the connection of academic networks from about 25 countries to the NSFnet and to its advanced networking successor, the vBNS. ICM made the first academic connection with Russia in 1994, and two with China in 1995. The last country to be connected was Mongolia, in early 1996. Dr. Goldstein also managed a series of awards to the Network Startup Resource Center, NSRC, (http://www.nsrc.org), which assisted grassroots organizations in many under-networked countries to establish Internet connectivity. NSRC has been a major player in training network operators in sub-Saharan Africa and in supporting SSA networks in the formation of the African Network Operators Group (AFNOG).

By the mid-1990's, Dr. Goldstein had shifted his focus to even more advanced international networking under the High Performance International Internet Services project (HPIIS). Under HPIIS, a high-performance link with Russia was implemented, first as MirNet, and in a later more advanced version, as NaukaNet. He served as the U.S. representative to the G7 Global Information Society initiative entitled "Global Interoperability of Broadband Networks" (GIBN). To further the GIBN goals, he made an award to implement the international networking meet-point, STAR TAP (http://www.startap.net) and, as the technology progressed, its transition to the optical-networking meet-point, StarLight (http://www.startap.net/starlight/).

Dr. Goldstein helped to guide the high-impact HPIIS follow-on to NaukaNet, the Global Ring for Advanced Application Development (GLORIAD, http://www.gloriad.org/). GLORIAD has constructed a dedicated lightwave round-the-world link, initially connecting the U.S., Russia and China. Recently, Canada, Netherlands and Korea as well as the Nordic backbone association, NORDUnet, joined the enterprise. 

In his final tour at NSF's Engineering Directorate, Dr. Goldstein developed the strategy for the Information Technology subsystems for the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, NEES (http://www.nees.org).

Steven Goldstein was selected by the 2006 Nominating Committee to serve as a Board Member. His current term will run from the end of the 2006 Annual Meeting through the conclusion of the 2009 Annual Meeting.

Major Upcoming Events

26 – 30 March 2007: ICANN Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal

ICANN Bylaws Our bylaws are very important to us. They capture our mission of security, stability and accessibility, and compel the organization to be open and transparent. Learn more at www.ICANN.org.

Strategic Plan July 2007– June 2010 [PDF, 72K] Operating Plan (Draft) Fiscal Year 2006 – 07 Proposed Budget [PDF, 180K] Fiscal Year 2006 – 2007

26 – 30 March 2007 — ICANN Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal