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ICANN's First Eastern European DNS Forum Gets Off to a Good Start
On 1-2 December 2016, ICANN's Global Stakeholder Engagement team in Central Asia and Eastern Europe kicked off the first Eastern European Domain Name System (DNS) Forum in Kiev, Ukraine. The event was held in conjunction with UADOM, the annual conference on DNS issues held by .ua registry operator Hostmaster Ltd. With ICANN's support, UADOM evolved this year into a regional event, covering current regional and global Internet issues. It attracted a diverse group of stakeholders from Ukraine and neighboring Eastern European countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Russia and Serbia. There were 230 participants attending in person and another 400 remote participants through the livestream connections available on both days.
The forum was praised by speakers and participants. We were pleased to see the ICANN community come together and contribute to the first regional event of this kind. We look forward to developing this into an annual event.
Senior members of the ICANN organization presented at the forum:
- George Sadowski, ICANN Board member, delivered a keynote speech on the history and perspectives of DNS infrastructure and related issues.
- David Olive, ICANN's Senior VP of Policy Development Support and General Manager of the ICANN regional hub in Istanbul, gave an opening speech.
- Dave Piscitello, ICANN's VP of Security and ICT Coordinator, gave a range of talks on "Securing the Internet's Identifier Systems."
Videos, presentations, photos and the event agenda can be found here.
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Register Now for the Next Quarterly Stakeholder Call
In the second call in our new format, we'll continue to focus on how ICANN has implemented community policy, with a Board update and news from a specific region. This quarter's call features Africa and the Middle East. ICANN's Istanbul hub office will host the call at the end of the first day of the Turkey DNS Forum.
Everyone is welcome. Register here.
15 February 2017 at 15:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Live interpretation is offered in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. The call will be recorded and posted in all languages on the Quarterly Reports page. Read the full announcement.
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Register Now for ICANN58 in Copenhagen
Registration is open for ICANN58. This first ICANN Public Meeting of 2017 will take place from 11-16 March 2017 in Copenhagen, Denmark. If you attend, you can network with your peers in the community, engage in face-to-face discussions, ask questions and help develop and implement Internet policies. Register now for ICANN58.
Before you book your travel, check the ICANN58 home page to find out if you need to obtain a visa to travel to Denmark. Our page has links to the relevant pages on Denmark's official website, which gives detailed information about visa requirements, the application process and deadlines. If you determine that you do need a visa, you can request the Danish host letter through the ICANN58 page. Please check as soon as possible so you don't miss any deadlines.
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Jamie Hedlund Takes on Senior Contractual Compliance and Consumer Safeguards Role at ICANN
On 4 January 2017, ICANN announced that Jamie Hedlund, Vice President of Strategic Programs for ICANN's Global Domains Division, will take on Allen Grogan's role as Senior Vice President (SVP), Contractual Compliance and Consumer Safeguards, following Grogan's previously announced departure.
"Contractual compliance, consumer safeguards and public responsibility are areas of central importance to ICANN," said CEO Göran Marby. "Jamie has years of ICANN and legal experience, which he will be using to build upon the great work already done by Allen and the rest of the global Contractual Compliance team."
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Dr. Tayfun Acarer was recently appointed as the Chairman of the Turkish Internet Improvement Board.
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David Olive Meets with the Chairman of Turkey's Internet Improvement Board
In early December, ICANN's David Olive, Senior VP of Policy Development Support and General Manager of the ICANN regional hub in Istanbul, met with Dr. Tayfun Acerer, the new Chairman of the Internet Improvement Board.
They engaged in a constructive dialogue on efforts in Turkey to improve and enable a secure Internet and how the Internet Improvement Board is similar to ICANN in terms of its multistakeholder model. The board consists of seven members, each representing different stakeholders, from academia to government, private sector to NGOs. The board is advising the government on Internet-related issues.
At the meeting, David Olive said, "When I first arrived in Istanbul to establish the ICANN hub office, Dr. Acarer, at the time a member of the Internet Improvement Board in Turkey, invited to me to meet with the Board members and talk about ICANN's planned activities for Turkey and the EMEA region. With the recent appointment of Dr. Acarer as the Chairman, we are able to strengthen our cooperation and communications with this multistakeholder board and our Turkish Internet stakeholder community."
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Ukrainian
Watch the interview on Ukrainian television with Michael Yakushev, ICANN's VP of Stakeholder Engagement in Eastern Europe and Central Asia:
Russian
Read these two articles published in digital.report after the First Eastern European DNS Forum in Kiev, Ukraine:
Spanish
Read about the major changes in the Internet DNS by Andrea Beccalli, ICANN's Senior Stakeholder Engagement Manager for Europe:
English
Read the article on the IGF by Nigel Hickson, ICANN's VP, Intergovernmental Engagement:
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ICANN's Fahd Bataneyh briefs participants about ICANN's role in Internet governance.
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The Second Pakistan School on Internet Governance Is a Success
The second Pakistan School on Internet Governance (pkSIG 2016) took place in the beautiful city of Lahore from 26-29 November 2016. What made this four-day event unique was the fact that the organizers worked on designing and promoting the event in a bottom-up multistakeholder fashion.
The school trained more than 30 participants from Pakistan. There were also 5 participants from Afghanistan, which will host a similar school soon. The school attracted faculty members who were mostly experts from the local community as well as faculty members from APNIC (the Regional Internet Registry of the Asia Pacific), the Internet Society and ICANN.
The agenda covered different areas of Internet governance. In a role-play that spanned three sessions, participants identified problems in the Internet ecosystem and suggested ways to tackle them.
ICANN's Fahd Batayneh, Stakeholder Engagement Manager for the Middle East, briefed participants on the Internet Assigned Names Authority (IANA) functions and a gave a post-IANA transition status. He also shared the findings of the Boston Consulting Group report on e-friction entitled "Greasing the Wheels of the Internet Economy" - with a focus on Pakistan. He also joined in the role-play sessions.
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The Middle East Strategy: Approaching the Finish Line
On 9 December, the Middle East Strategy Working Group published its final strategy report. The report was a result of the hard work of 50 strategy working group members and observers over the course of almost 6 months. The contributions from the wider ICANN community via the public comments window and the ICANN57 public session were of great influence in its drafting.
The working group has now started developing the implementation plan for the first year. The ICANN team has been advised to implement its findings by 30 June 2017. In line with our bottom-up multistakeholder model of developing strategy, a webinar was held on 21 December to update the community on the progress and to seek feedback on the implementation plan.
If you have any comments or suggestions, email us at meac.swg@icann.org.
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ICANN Holds the Second Youth Education Initiative Workshop in Tunisia
As a part of ICANN's academic engagement in Tunisia, the second bimonthly workshop took place on 14 December at Manouba University in Tunis. This workshop's theme was "How the Internet Naming System Works." The hosts were the Computing Center Al Khwarizmi (Centre de Calcul El-Khawarizmi) and the Tunisian Internet Agency (Attounissiya Internet). The workshop attracted around 30 participants.
The agenda for the workshop included an introduction to ICANN and fundamentals of the DNS and DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). Many questions were raised about ICANN's business model, how the DNS works and the new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).
The next workshop will be in February 2017. Attendance is open to all and is free of charge. If you are interested in attending the next workshop or in getting involved in our academic engagement, email us at meac.swg@icann.org.
Learn more about the collaboration underlying this initiative.
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ICANN organization and community members meet at AFRINIC-25.
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ICANN Plays a Key Role at AFRINIC-25
AFRINIC-25, the yearly conference of the Regional Internet Registry for the African region, was held in Mauritius from 25-30 November 2016. ICANN has a maintained a close partnership with AFRINIC for many years and was a silver sponsor of the event. Members of ICANN's Africa team attended the event - Pierre Dandjinou, VP of Global Stakeholder Engagement in Africa; Yaovi Atohoun, Stakeholder Engagement and Operations Manager for Africa; and Bob Ochieng, Stakeholder Engagement Manager for East Africa.
Mrs. Rooba Moorghen, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation of Mauritius, opened the event and emphasized the need for Africa to adopt Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), especially with the advent of the Internet of Things.
The Africa strategy session covered the many capacity-building initiatives from FY17 and the Africa DNS Market Study. Other sessions covered different topics related to ICANN:
- "Are We There Yet? IPv6 as Related to GDP per Capita," Alain Durand, Principal Technologist, ICANN
- "Rolling the Root Zone DNSSEC Key Signing Key," Subramanian Moonesamy, AFRINIC
- "IANA Report," Selina Harrington, IANA Senior Specialist, ICANN
Watch videos of plenary sessions and interviews from AFRINIC-25.
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ICANN's Bob Ochieng (at right) speaks on a panel at the RDF-AFR event.
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ICANN Plays a Role at Two ITU Events in Rwanda
In December, two events of the ITU, the U.N. agency for information and communications technologies (ICTs), were held back-to-back in Kigali, Rwanda. The Regional Development Forum for Africa (RDF-AFR) took place on 5 December 2016, followed by the Regional Preparatory Meeting for the 17th World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-17) for Africa (RPM-AFR) held 6-8 December.
The RDF-AFR served as a platform for reviewing the implementation of the five Africa regional initiatives approved by WTDC-14. These initiatives are related to ICT infrastructure, policy and regulatory frameworks, capacity building and increased confidence and security.
ICANN joined the "New ICT Opportunities and Challenges for the Region" panel. Bob Ochieng, Stakeholder Engagement Manager for East Africa, highlighted the core role of the DNS in the Internet and ICANN's role in coordinating the Internet's identifier systems, and how this has enabled the Internet grow exponentially. We also used the opportunity to meet various government delegations and update them on multiple issues at ICANN.
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ICANN Travels to Namibia for Conference on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime
From 28 November to 2 December, ICANN's Pierre Dandjinou, VP of Global Stakeholder Engagement in Africa, participated in the Commonwealth Regional Conference on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime for African Parliamentarians in Namibia. The conference provided critical information on cybersecurity and cybercrime to parliamentarians and equipped them with tools and methodologies for implementing laws related to national cybersecurity strategies. More than 40 parliamentarians and some international organizations participated in the event.
The meeting was a mix of information-sharing and hands-on practice. Parliamentarians were walked through different ways to generate national laws to combat cybercrime, equip law enforcement agencies and oversee governmental delivery on the subject. Participants identified priorities in their jurisdictions and designed action plans for developing national frameworks for cybersecurity. International organizations such as ICANN offered support.
The presentation on ICANN's role in securing the identifier system of the Internet was received with much interest and many questions. The event concluded with a consensus that the fight against cybercrime should be a collaborative effort at both national and international levels.
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ICANN Organizes Two Capacity-Building Workshops in Cotonou, Benin
The Internet Governance Workshop for Youth Community (YouthCom) took place in Cotonou, Benin, on 6-7 December. The event's 30 participants learned about the Internet and the ICANN ecosystem.
On 8-9 December, ICANN held a second workshop in Cotonou, this time with the support of the DNS Entrepreneurship Center of Egypt (DNS-EC). The main topic of this workshop was "marketing" - tools that promote the growth of registrar businesses in Benin and throughout Africa. The local host for the workshop was IGF BENIN, which is also an ICANN At-Large Structure.
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GNSO and ccNSO Approve Final Framework for Future Cross-Community Working Groups
In October 2016, the Council of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) approved the Final Framework of Operating Principles for Future Cross-Community Working Groups (CCWGs), followed by the Council of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) approval in November 2016. This Final Framework was developed by the Cross Community Working Group to Develop a Framework of Principles for Future CCWGs (CWG Principles), which was jointly chartered by the GNSO and the ccNSO. The adoption by the GNSO and ccNSO Councils marks the official completion of work on the CWG Principles. A CCWG is a mechanism that allows two or more of any of ICANN Supporting Organizations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) to work together to address issues that are of common interest and do not fall within the sole remit of one SO or AC. The Final Framework intends to provide a general outline for the establishment, operations and closure of CCWGs, and will highlight certain principles that are considered fundamental to the effective functioning of a CCWG. Read the Final Framework here.
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CCWG on New gTLD Auction Proceeds Calls for Volunteers
To date, over 230 million USD has been accrued through ICANN's authorized auction services to resolve string contention in the New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program. A Cross-Community Working Group has been formed and will be tasked with developing one or more proposals on a mechanism to allocate these auction proceeds. Once the proposal is developed, its Chartering Organizations and the ICANN Board will consider the proposals. The CCWG is open to anyone interested. If you would like to volunteer for this effort, you can become an individual participant or a mailing list observer, or can respond to public consultations when these are held. In addition, each Chartering Organization will appoint up to five members to keep its respective group up to date on progress and deliberations. The CCWG is expected to convene for its first meeting the week of 23 January 2017. Learn how to join here.
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Customer Standing Committee Begins Monthly Reporting on PTI
Byron Holland, Chair of the Customer Standing Committee (CSC), provided the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) community with the first monthly reports (October 2016 and November 2016) on how Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) is performing the IANA naming function. The CSC concluded that overall PTI performance was satisfactory - that PTI met its service level agreements. The CSC is aware of minor issues, but noted no trends. The CSC is in an ongoing discussion with PTI on how to remediate these issues. No persistent problems were identified, so no further action is needed. More background on the CSC and other useful information, including the full PTI reports, can be found here.
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GNSO Council Approves Review Implementation Plan
On 15 December 2016, the GNSO Council approved the plan developed by the GNSO Review Working Group to implement the 34 recommendations in the GNSO Review Final Report. The Implementation Plan suggests a three-phased prioritization approach and specifies for each recommendation its dependencies, owner, resource requirements, budget effects and implementation steps. The ICANN Board will now consider adopting the proposed implementation plan. Following approval by the ICANN Board, the GNSO Review Working Group will execute and oversee the implementation, provide the GNSO Council with regular status updates, and identify any questions or concerns. Learn more about the Implementation Plan.
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Two Candidates Proceed to Next Stage in Selection of At-Large Board Director
On 16 December 2016, the Board Candidate Evaluation Committee (BCEC) concluded its evaluation of the six applicants who submitted their expressions of interest for the ICANN Board Director position selected by the At-Large Community. The BCEC named Alan Greenberg and Leon Felipe Sanchez Ambia to proceed to the next stage, which is managed by the Board Member Selection Process Committee. The selection process will conclude by Friday, 21 April 2017, with the announcement of the successful candidate on that date. Learn more about the process.
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ICANN Academy Begins a Pilot Program for Enhancing Chairing Skills
The ICANN Academy Working Group started a new course this month - the Chairing Skills Program. This course aims to help ICANN community leaders improve their effectiveness when chairing a working or community group. The program has two sessions: skills for chairing teleconferences, which began in January 2017, and skills for chairing in-person meetings, which will take place around the time of ICANN58. A professional coach from Incite Learning and multiple ICANN community coaches will facilitate this program. Besides providing a general framework and guidelines on developing chairing skills, coaches will observe their trainees during teleconferences and in-person meetings and provide targeted feedback. Learn more.
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GNSO Council Submits Review of the GAC ICANN57 Communiqué
On 15 December 2016, the GNSO Council adopted the GNSO Review of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) ICANN57 Communiqué. Subsequently, the GNSO Council submited the Review to the ICANN Board. The Review provides feedback on gTLD-related issues in the GAC Communiqué. The issues include future gTLDs policies and procedures, mitigation of domain name abuse, and two-letter country/territory codes at the second-level. The Review specifies whether those issues are within the remit of the GNSO, whether they are subject to existing or ongoing GNSO policy development work, and how the GNSO will deal with them. This Review aims to promote coordination and information-sharing among the GAC, GNSO and ICANN Board on gTLD-related policy activities. Read the Review here.
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GAC Looks to 2017
On 15 December 2016, the GAC and the ICANN Board had a conference call relating to the GAC ICANN57 Communiqué. The call was organized by the ICANN Board-GAC Implementation Working Group. The purpose of the call was to make sure that the interpretation of the GAC Advice in the ICANN57 Communiqué is coherent and that both parties have a common understanding of what the GAC intended and can expect in terms of answers from the ICANN Board. Furthermore, following positive initial comments from GAC members at ICANN57, the GAC is considering participating as a chartering organization in the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds. Looking ahead to ICANN58, a survey has been launched within the GAC to help prioritize which matters must be addressed at ICANN58, and which topics can be handled through intersessional calls or email exchanges.
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New Report Presents Accuracy of WHOIS Data in gTLDs
In December 2016, ICANN published the latest WHOIS Accuracy Reporting System (ARS) report. WHOIS data is information about registered domains. The data is publicly available and includes the name, address, email and phone number of the registrant or registrar. Because WHOIS data connects individuals or organizations with domain names, registrants are required to provide accurate and reliable contact details. The WHOIS ARS project tests syntax and operability accuracy of WHOIS records in generic top-level domains (gTLDs). A report of findings is published quarterly. Read the key findings or listen to a recording of the webinar about the latest report.
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Two-Character Second-Level ASCII Domain Names Authorized for Release
On 13 December 2016, ICANN authorized the release of all letter/letter two-character ASCII labels at the second-level for registry operators that implement "Measures for Letter/Letter Two-Character ASCII Labels to Avoid Confusion with Corresponding Country Codes." The measures - adopted by the ICANN Board during ICANN57 - provide a standardized framework to help Internet users avoid confusion between country codes and corresponding letter/letter two-character domain names. This change is the result of more than two years of work by members of the Internet community and the ICANN organization. Read the measures.
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Help Make Universal Acceptance a Priority!
Universal Acceptance addresses technical issues that prevent Internet users from successfully completing online transactions. Problems can arise when applications reject or don't treat all parts of domain names correctly, which can occur when domain names are longer than three characters or are in different languages and scripts. Worldwide adoption of Universal Acceptance will enable a truly multilingual Internet, which will help bring the next billion users online.
If you've found an application or system that's not Universal Acceptance-ready, report the issue. Our Global Support Center will track and work to resolve all reported issues. Interested in learning more about Universal Acceptance? Visit uasg.tech.
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Updated gTLD Marketplace Health Index Published
On 21 December 2016, ICANN published an update to the gTLD Marketplace Health Index (Beta), which presents statistics and trends related to generic top-level domains (gTLDs). The index was first published in July 2016. ICANN plans to publish these statistics twice a year to track progress against its goal of supporting the evolution of the domain name marketplace to be robust, stable and trusted. A community advisory panel is working with ICANN to refine the index in preparation for publishing version 1.0. Read the gTLD Marketplace Health Index (Beta).
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Ten New gTLDs Were Delegated in December 2016
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HOSPITAL
PHONE
MOBILE
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DATA
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Join us at these upcoming EMEA events:
- 23-26 January 2017 - Capacity-building workshop for African GAC members, Nairobi, Kenya
- 25-27 January 2017 - CPDP 2017: Computers, Privacy & Data Protection, Brussels, Belgium
- 15-16 February 2017 - Turkey DNS Forum, Istanbul, Turkey
- 11-16 March 2017 - ICANN58, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 29-31 March 2017 - RightsCon Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
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