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Board of Directors (Board) Review

The ICANN Board of Directors oversees the policy development process and ICANN governance. The Board is an internationally diverse body that consists of sixteen voting members. Additionally, there are five non-voting liaisons that provide technical advice to inform Board decision-making.  For more information on the Board, click here.

Board Organizational Review

As part of ICANN’s ongoing commitment to its evolution and improvement, the Board approved a comprehensive plan for independent review of ICANN’s structures, as well as of the Board itself. Although ICANN’s Bylaws do not require review of the ICANN Board, the Board determined that it would be a good practice to conduct a “Review of the Board” in a manner consistent with the independent reviews conducted pursuant to Article IV, Section 4 of the ICANN Bylaws. This review of the Board commenced in 2007 and concluded in 2010.

The graphic below illustrates phases and status of each review - a  indicates that all activities within a given phase have been completed.  The chart that follows the graphic provides further details of key activities and milestones within each phase – you can view these details by clicking on each of the phases in the graphic.  The table also contains links to relevant documents.

Board of Directors
PhaseActivityDescriptionStart DateDocuments
Plan ReviewAppointment of review team membersAppointment of review team members26 Jun 2008
Terms of ReferenceDocument outlining the scope of work adopted by the review team20 Sep 2007
RFP for external consultantIndependent Expert Request for Proposals announcement21 Apr 2008
Conduct ReviewSelection of independent consultantAnnouncement of selection of independent consultant26 Jun 2008
Final Report of Independent ConsultantIndependent Review of the Board of ICANN2 Nov 2008
Public Comment on Independent Consultant’s Final ReportPublic Comment on the Independent Reviewer’s Report on the ICANN Board2 Nov 2008
Draft Report of Board Review Working GroupICANN Board Review Working Group Report for Discussion with the ICANN Community20 Feb 2009
Public Comment on Board Review Working Group Interim ReportPublic Comment on Board Review Working Group Interim Report3 Mar 2009
Board Review Working Group Second Interim ReportICANN Board Review Working Group Second Interim Report for Discussion with the ICANN Community5 Jun 2009
Public Comment on Board Review Working Group Second Interim ReportPublic Comment on Board Review Working Group Second Interim Report5 Jun 2009
Draft Final ReportICANN Board Review Working Group Draft Final Report19 Sep 2009
Public Comment on Board Review Draft Final Working Group ReportPublic Comment on Board Review Draft Final Working Group Report5 Oct 2009
Final ReportFinal report submitted to ICANN Board26 Jan 2010
Board receipt of the Final ReportBoard action and resolution12 Mar 2010
Plan ImplementationBoard receipt of Implementation PlanBoard receipt of Implementation Plan12 Mar 2010
Board requests final implementation plansBoard requests final implementation plans for the final report of the Board Review Working Group25 Jun 2010
Implement ImprovementsDetails of implementation and periodicBoard action and resolution12 Mar 2010

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."