The ICANN community’s commitment to its work during these difficult times is impressive. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped us realize that many of the tools we need are already in use, and it has pushed us to be creative with how we approach our work. As I outlined in a...

ICANN org has implemented nearly half of all recommendations in the year since publishing its first-ever internal Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA). The focus has been on improving relevant processes, practices, and policies that may impact human rights concerns...

I’m pleased to report that the Domain Name System Security Facilitation Initiative Technical Study Group (DSFI-TSG) held its first meeting on 16 June 2020. The DSFI-TSG will now begin its work to investigate the potential mechanisms to strengthen collaboration and...

I am pleased to share the final ICANN Middle East Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025 [PDF, 447 KB] and the Action Plan for Fiscal Year 2021 [PDF, 423 KB]. In a previous blog, I referred to the draft regional plan document that was posted for public comments, and we...

We’ve all witnessed the protests taking place around the world calling for equal justice and the end to systemic racism. These are core principles and global issues that ICANN strongly supports and are part of our very ethos. We have zero tolerance for discrimination of...

On the first day of ICANN68, several sessions were subject to instances of disruption, or “Zoombombing.” This occurs when Internet trolls interrupt public Zoom meetings and use Zoom’s features to share offensive audio, images, and video. The individuals responsible for...

The 2020 Nominating Committee (NomCom) is over halfway through its recruiting timeline for open ICANN leadership positions. Ahead of ICANN68, we want to provide you with an update on how the search is progressing. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to meet our...

Over the past few months, ICANN org and the community have been working diligently to ensure that ICANN68, our second virtual ICANN Public Meeting and the first-ever Virtual Policy Forum, is capable of supporting the community’s ongoing policy and development work. The...

Following a number of updates to Zoom in the past weeks, we felt that this would be a good time to review both ICANN org’s and the ICANN community’s usage of the application. You may recall our message last month alerting you to some of the coming changes to Zoom,...

We are proud to announce that Abdalmonem Galila has been selected as the first-ever recipient of the Tarek Kamel Fellowship Recognition. Galila, who lives in Egypt, is among the fellows who were selected to attend ICANN68. The Tarek Kamel Fellowship Recognition is a...

In October 2018, ICANN President and CEO Göran Marby announced the decision to place the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions under my role as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Prior to this, my function - the Office of the CTO (OCTO) - was minimally...

Interpretation is an important feature of ICANN Public Meetings. To enable broader participation and facilitate the community’s work, ICANN org makes many events, meetings, and content accessible in the six United Nations languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French,...

Building capacity or providing training in Internet Governance (IG) is critical to enabling stakeholder groups to participate fully in all IG-related processes. Schools on Internet Governance (SIGs) were created specifically to support this objective. The first SIG...

One of the Board's high-priority topics for 2020 is to continue working on the Enhancing the Effectiveness of ICANN's Multistakeholder Model initiative, building on the work that the community has completed to date. These challenging times, brought on by the COVID-19...

In this day and age, all organizations experience change; whether planned or unplanned, change is inevitable. This requires us to be responsive and adaptable. As stewards of ICANN org, my Executive team and I take this responsibility seriously. Whenever changes occur, it...

On 1 June 2020, our Global Stakeholder Engagement team for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) opened a Public Comment period for the new version of the 2021-2025 LAC Strategy. After celebrating five years of the start of the strategy in 2018, I remember looking back to...

The second Security, Stability, and Resiliency (SSR2) Review Team continues to progress its assessment of how well ICANN is executing its commitment to enhance the operational stability, reliability, resiliency, security, and global interoperability of the Internet's...

Today, the ICANN organization published the schedule for the ICANN68 Virtual Policy Forum to be held from 22-25 June 2020. The ICANN community took the lead in organizing the four-day program. The schedule features plenary sessions exploring Domain Name System (DNS) abuse...

Today, the ICANN organization Registrant Program published the third edition of its ongoing reporting series on Issues and Challenges Impacting Domain Name Registrants [PDF, 263 KB] containing updated data (from the reporting period of September 2019 – February 2020) from...

When I joined ICANN org, many of you told me that it was difficult to find information on our websites. I heard this not only from our community stakeholders, but from ICANN beginners who wanted to participate in our unique multistakeholder model. I knew then that fixing...

With everything going on at the current moment, the Board has not forgotten its longer-term priorities. It's important that we continue to learn from our experiences and invest in efforts to move forward in healthy ways. We are committed to continuous improvement. One of...

Following the conclusion of the work of the Cross-Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability, Working Stream 2 (WS2), the ICANN Board passed a resolution in November 2019 to adopt the consensus recommendations contained in the WS2 Final Report [PDF, 9.2...

In December 2019, the draft Five-Year Operating and Financial Plan and draft Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) Budget were submitted to the ICANN community for Public Comment. Both plans were the subject of broad participation and engagement from the ICANN community, and we want to...

The 2020 Nominating Committee (NomCom) continues its work to find the most qualified candidates for open ICANN leadership positions. While the COVID-19 pandemic has posed unique challenges, it is important that you know our efforts are proceeding. We are working closely...