ICANN Web Site

Andalucia.com is members of a number of organizations. One such is the ‘Business Constituency' a prominent stakeholder groups of ICANN. The latter is the organization that oversees the domain name system of the internet.
Now Andalucia.com's Director, Chris Chaplow has been chosen to work on the prestigious ICANN website. He will represent the Business Constituency on the GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organisation) "Communications & Coordination Work Team". The Business Constituency is a prominent stakeholder in ICANN groups. The GNSO Work Team will develop proposals for increased communication effectiveness and efficiency within the organisation. A major element of this will be improving the website.
"It is an honour to be working on the business specification for a new website for such a prestigious organization", say Chris. "One learns a lot from working in team comprised of ten members spread all over the world. Modern tools such as workspace and wikis play an important part." In addition to working via Internet, the group will meet in Sydney, Australia in June. Chris affirms that he is looking forward to meeting his colleagues face to face.

 

 

ICANN gTLD Update.

By Chris Chaplow

As we reported in our August 2008 Newsletter ICANN plan to open up the root of the Internet's DNS Domain Name System to thousands of new top level domains in 2010. The second edition of the ‘Draft Application Handbook" has now been published.

Before the handbook was published, the public was allowed a comment period. Judging from the majority of public comments, grave doubts about the wisdom of this enlargement persist. This includes the views of the US Government which has asked ICANN to carry out a full economic analysis.
The Handbook reserves geographic names for countries and offers Trademark protection for brands is the other prominent overarching issue raised in the comment process. Businesses all over the world are unhappy about the costs of defensive registrations to protect their brands from cyber squatters. ICANN argues that neither Governments nor trademark holders have the right to deny others a slice of new domain space.

Who ultimately controls the Internet?

In the background to all this, and largely unreported in the media, is the expiration in September 2009 of the "Joint Project Agreement" (JPA) between ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. It is this agreement that separates ICANN from being a fully (non for profit) private sector organistion. The department is publicly seeking comments.
And concerning the future control of the Internet, back in Europe, Viviane Redding, the Information Society and Media Commissioner for the EC posted a video blog in which she proposed that ICANN be overseen by a "G-12 for Internet Governance" with 12 geographically balanced governments.