Announcement | ICANN Extends Global Outreach During Rome Meeting

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) held its first meeting of 2004 in Rome where a record number of delegates took part in over 27 fora to discuss the issues regarding the technical coordination of the Domain Name System (DNS).

The Public Forum was opened by Italy's Minister for Innovation and Technology, Lucio Stanca, who noted, "one of the most important reasons for the Internet's success is that no single entity controls it. We see ICANN as an asset. It should play a major role in the future." ICANN's bottom up, consensus driven process ensures the continuity of this mission. ICANN is grateful to the Italian government for its powerful endorsement.

ICANN's global framework expanded with the formation of the Country Code Name Supporting Organisation (ccNSO), a new, global, policy development arm of ICANN. The event marked the culmination of six years of interaction among Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) managers. The ccNSO will provide ccTLD managers a forum to address global policy issues that affect ccTLDs, with the side benefit of sharing regional Internet issues and policies while attending to the needs of their local communities and jurisdictions.

ICANN Vice Chairman Alejandro Pisanty described the significance of the occasion. "The ccNSO has been an extreme show of consistency of purpose, leadership, and intelligence. Having worked intensely in its early stages, I am most grateful for the efforts of the Launching Group and hope many in the ccTLD community will also recognise them and promptly join the organisation. This is a key moment in ICANN history."

Additionally, the ICANN Board appointed Jean-Jacques Damlamian, a senior French businessman, as chair of ICANN's Nominating Committee. The Nominating Committee is composed of representatives from ICANN's broad community and is responsible for appointing members to the ICANN board and ICANN supporting organizations.

Focusing on registry issues, the Board voted to authorise an effort to determine the process by which a successor registry operator for .net will be determined. The current registry agreement will expire in 2005. ICANN will post a formal process towards the assignment of a successor registry before 30 June 2004. VeriSign, Inc., the manager of the .net registry, would currently be eligible to re-bid.

In another action, the ICANN Board approved the results of negotiations with VeriSign regarding the deployment of VeriSign's proposed Wait Listing Service (WLS).

For further press information please email baker@icann.org.