This might be of interest to those from countries where minority language rights are at issue. Carlton Samuels LACRALO Secretariat ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: ICANN News Alert <communications@icann.org> Date: Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 7:37 PM Subject: [LAC-Discuss] ICANN News Alert -- Governments and Country-Code Managers' Interest in the Fast Track Process To: lac-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org ICANN News Alert http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-10feb09-en.htm ________________________________ Governments and Country-Code Managers' Interest in the Fast Track Process 10 February 2009 Last year, ICANN sent letters to countries and territories informing them about the Fast Track process — where a limited number of internationalized domain names will be added to the Internet – and asked them to indicate their level of interest. This is an update on that process. A total of 252 letters were sent to national governments, and copied to country code top-level domain managers. So far we have received 74 responses and a small number of respondents requested confidentiality. Out of these (not counting confidential requests), 31 said they were interested in participating in the Fast Track process, representing a total of 15 different languages. The remaining expressed they were not interested in participating at this time or indicated that they would not be eligible to obtain an IDN ccTLD under the process. (It should be noted that it is not a requirement to reply to the letter in order for a country or territory to take participation in the Fast Track process.) Below this announcement is an updated overview of all non-confidential responses to date. The actual strings that the respondents are interested in obtaining have not been duplicated below but they can be seen by clicking the link to the PDFs for the actual replies. Receiving the information about the anticipated number of requests in the Fast Track Process along with the language specifics is very helpful in planning for implementation of the Fast Track Process. ICANN would like to thank those respondents for providing this information. If you have any questions concerning the information contained in this announcement please email ICANN at: idn-cctld-rfi@icann.org Related links Sample letter sent to all governments and ccTLD registries http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-02oct08-en.htm Earlier announcement on responses received http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-01nov08-en.htm For more details about the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/ Responses from National Government: http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-10feb09-en.htm#gov Responses from ccTLD Operators: http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-10feb09-en.htm#cctld ________________________________ Sign up for ICANN's Monthly Magazine http://www.icann.org/magazine/