Historic Singapore Meeting Marks the Beginning a New Phase for ICANN

Singapore… The President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) says the organization's 49th meeting that just concluded in Singapore marked the beginning of a new era for the organization and the future of Internet governance.

"ICANN49 will be remembered as a meeting that, in many ways, ended the early phase of ICANN and brought the organization into a new phase of maturity and responsibility," said Fadi Chehadé. "It is exemplified by the recent decision of the United States Government to hand us the very ominous responsibility to facilitate and convene the world toward determining how ICANN will be providing assurances of accountability across the board."

Chehadé made the comments during a video interview at the conclusion of the Singapore meeting, for which more 1,940 people registered from 150 countries.

"People from all over the world, from all segments of the Internet community are here, interacting not just with ICANN, but also interacting with each other," said Dr. Stephen Crocker, ICANN's Board Chair.

The Singapore meeting was dominated by discussions stemming from the recent announcement by the U.S. Government that it wants to transfer stewardship of some vital Internet technical functions to provide for global accountability. It has reached out to ICANN, which will continue to manage those functions as it has for more than 15 years, to help determine the best process for transferring that stewardship.

"These are important times," said Chehadé. "The U.S. Government has modulated its stewardship over time, it has dialed it down and this was just a natural moment for all this to happen, as the U.S. government has said, due to the community's readiness to actually embrace these responsibilities and establish the appropriate accountability mechanisms to replace the U.S. role."

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To view the video interview with ICANN President Fadi Chehadé and Board Chair Dr. Stephen D. Crocker, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY3DbUVzyHQ&feature=youtu.be

To learn more about the transfer of the Internet technical functions, go here: http://www.icann.org/en/about/agreements/iana/transition

To download high resolution photos from the ICANN meeting go here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=icann49

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Brad White
ICANN Director of Global Media Affairs
Washington, D.C.
Tel. +1 (202) 570 7118
brad.white@icann.org

James Cole
ICANN\Global Media Coordinator
Washington, D.C.
Tel. +1 (202) 570 7139
james.cole@icann.org

Liana Teo
Head of Communications for Asia Pacific
Singapore
Tel. +65 6808 6669
liana.teo@icann.org

Andrew Robertson
Edelman Public Relations
London, U.K.
Tel. +44 (7811) 341 945
andrew.robertson@edelman.com

^{About ICANN: ICANN's mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique identifiers. ICANN doesn't control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn't deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.}