August 2024 - Middle-East - lists.icann.org

Domain Days Dubai | 5-6 November 2024
by Munir Badr Sept. 30, 2024

Sept. 30, 2024

Dear Middle East ICANN Members, I am writing to you in my capacity as the Founder & Curator of the Domain Days Dubai conference, a unique community-based initiative in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region. Launched back in the fall of 2023, it has already become the biggest platform that brought together local stakeholders: largest industry players, service providers, technical experts, and at-large community members, - to discuss the critical agenda items for the region. As we are now gearing up for the 2nd edition of the Domain Days Dubai, I am pleased to let you know that it has already been scheduled for 5-6 November 2024 and will be held at the prestigious, 5 star Marriott Resort in Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE. This is the week before the ICANN81 meeting that takes place in Istanbul, Turkey - making Dubai an ideal transit spot before heading to Istanbul. [image: image.png] The feedback from prospective delegates has already demonstrated a genuinely keen interest in participation in Domain Days Dubai, which is why we believe that your contribution to the event will be very much appreciated, not least because it should further help your organization to tap into the enormous potential of the rapidly expanding region and leverage its role as a gateway to the wider domain name and hosting communities and learn and exchange knowledge with experts from the international community. About: Domain Days Dubai is the domain industry event in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region for Domain Registrars, Registries, Monetization, Investors & Traffic, Web3 Domains, Hosting & Cloud Providers, SaaS, Policy/Trade Mark and general industry Enthusiasts. Highlights: 35+ Local & Global Speakers 200+ Attendees from all over the world 50+ companies represented. 2 days of business & fun. Last year’s event highlights video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od58Bx2AS3M Event registration, venue hotel discounts, tickets and speaker list/agenda is on the website at www.domaindays.com. Also attached to this email is our 2023 post event report with key data about our past event and the formal invitation letter. ICANN Middle East Members are eligible for a *55% off discount* on our event passes, use code *ICANN* to avail the discount (valid until 31st of August only). Should you need further information on Domain Days Dubai, please refer to the event website at: DomainDays.com and do not hesitate to contact me at munir(a)domaindays.com Regards Munir Badr Domain Days Dubai & AEserver -- <https://www.aeserver.com/> *MUNIR BADR* Book A Call: Click here <https://calendly.com/aeserver> Sales Hotline: 800 123 123 <https://www.facebook.com/AEserver/> <https://twitter.com/aeserver> <https://www.instagram.com/aeserver/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeserver/> <https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-ae/news-and-trends/the-recap-the-e-business…>

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Event: Domain Days Dubai | 5-6 November 2024
by Munir Badr Aug. 28, 2024

Aug. 28, 2024

*Dear Middle East ICANN Members,* I hope this message finds you well. As the Founder and Curator of the Domain Days Dubai <https://www.domaindays.com/> conference, I am excited to personally invite you to participate in what has quickly become the premier domain industry event in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Since its launch in the fall of 2023, Domain Days Dubai has established itself as the largest and most impactful gathering of industry leaders, service providers, technical experts, and community members in our region. It’s a unique platform where crucial issues affecting the MEA region are discussed, solutions are crafted, and partnerships are forged. We are now gearing up for the 2nd edition of Domain Days Dubai, scheduled for November 5-6, 2024, at the prestigious 5-star Marriott Resort in Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. This timing offers a perfect opportunity for those attending the ICANN81 meeting in Istanbul the following week to make Dubai a strategic and convenient stopover. Feedback from prospective delegates has already shown a strong interest in this year’s event, and your presence would significantly enhance the value of the discussions. This is more than just an event; it’s an opportunity for your organization to connect with key stakeholders, explore the immense potential of this rapidly growing region, and position yourself at the forefront of the domain name and hosting communities. It’s also a chance to exchange knowledge with global experts and enhance your organization's influence in the MEA market. *About Domain Days Dubai:* Domain Days Dubai is the leading industry event in the MEA region, attracting Domain Registrars, Registries, Monetization Experts, Investors, Web3 Innovators, Hosting and Cloud Providers, SaaS companies, and Policy/Trademark Enthusiasts. *Highlights:* - 35+ Local & Global Speakers - 200+ Attendees from around the world - 50+ Companies represented - 2 days of business insights and networking opportunities Watch the highlights from last year’s event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od58Bx2AS3M For more details, including registration, hotel discounts, ticket information, and the speaker lineup, visit our website at [ www.domaindays.com] I’ve also attached our 2023 post-event report and a formal invitation letter for your reference. *Special Offer for ICANN Middle East Members:* *As a valued member of the ICANN Middle East community, you are eligible for an exclusive 55% discount on event passes. Use the code ICANN at checkout to avail of this offer (valid until September 31st only).* If you have any questions or need further information, please feel free to contact me directly at munir(a)domaindays.com. We look forward to welcoming you to Domain Days Dubai 2024 and to exploring how we can collaborate to drive the industry forward in this vibrant region. Best regards, Munir Badr Domain Days Dubai & AEserver -- <https://www.aeserver.com/> *MUNIR BADR* Book A Call: Click here <https://calendly.com/aeserver> Sales Hotline: 800 123 123 <https://www.facebook.com/AEserver/> <https://twitter.com/aeserver> <https://www.instagram.com/aeserver/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeserver/> <https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-ae/news-and-trends/the-recap-the-e-business…>

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UA Day 2025 - Call for Proposals
by Fahd Batayneh Aug. 26, 2024

Aug. 26, 2024

https://uasg.tech/2024/08/global-internet-community-encouraged-to-submit-ev… Event proposals are now being accepted for the third annual Universal Acceptance (UA) Day, to be held on or around 28 March 2025 (between 1 March and 30 May 2025). UA Day, held annually, is an opportunity to rally local, national, regional, and global communities and organizations to spread UA awareness and to promote UA adoption with key stakeholders. UA is a technical best practice that ensures all valid domain names and email addresses, regardless of script, language or character length, can be equally used by all Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems. Co-organized by the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), UA Day 2025 will consist of various virtual and in-person events held by the UASG, ICANN, global partners, and regional and local organizations between 1 March and 30 May 2025. UA Day 2025 builds on the success of UA Day 2024 and the inaugural UA Day in 2023. Together, the 2023 and 2024 events attracted approximately 15,000 participants worldwide across dozens of countries. These milestone events have helped mobilize technical and language communities, companies, governments and Domain Name System (DNS) industry stakeholders to champion UA on a global scale. Those interested in organizing a UA Day event must complete the UA Day Event Proposal Form by 11 October 2024. ICANN will provide limited support for proposed UA Day events based on this group’s recommendations. The following types of events are eligible for support: UA Awareness: Provide a high-level overview of UA and Email Address Internationalization (EAI), the benefits of being UA-ready, basic technical concepts related to UA and next steps for becoming UA-ready. UA Technical Training: Provide in-depth training on becoming EAI-ready for email system administrators and on becoming UA-ready for software developers. UA Academic Curricula: Work with academic faculty members and experts to integrate Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) and UA-related topics into existing technical curricula and design a roadmap. UA Adoption: Conduct a UA adoption exercise and share challenges and solutions to becoming UA-ready, and document your experience. Please note that advance preparatory work and review are required in order to qualify for a UA Adoption event. UA Regional Strategy: Discuss appropriate mechanisms for promoting UA adoption at the local, regional, and national levels. Proposals will be considered from all relevant organizations, including international, regional and local organizations, technology organizations and companies, open-source communities, standards bodies, email service providers, academia, industry groups, and language communities. UA is considered a foundational requirement for the continued expansion of the Internet. Since 2009, the landscape for domain names has changed markedly – in overall number of top-level domain names (TLDs) available, TLD character length and scripts available. However, the checks used by many software applications to validate domain names and email addresses often use rules that do not fully support Universal Acceptance. Achieving UA ensures everybody has the ability to experience the full social and economic power of the Internet using their chosen domain name and email address that best aligns with their interests, business, culture, language, and script. Questions about UA Day 2025 can be directed to UAProgram(a)icann.org. A full UA Day event calendar will be published in due course. In the meantime, interact with the UASG on social media (X, Facebook and LinkedIn) using the hashtag #Internet4All.

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ME SPACE session topics - ICANN81
by Amin Hacha Aug. 17, 2024

Aug. 17, 2024

Hello everyone, We trust this message finds you in good spirits. As we gear up for the ME Space session at ICANN81 in Istanbul, we've taken the time to gather community proposals and feedback on topics of interest for our region. In our preparation, we will take in hand the three following topics: 1. The New gTLD Program, with a focus on the Applicant Support aspect. 2. Registrant Rights and Responsibilities (RRR). 3. Strengthening Cybersecurity Resilience in Middle Eastern Countries: Challenges and Collaborative Solutions. We'll be sharing a draft Google document for each topic. If you'd like to contribute to any of these topics, please share your email address so we can add you to the document. Each working group will have a two-week window (until the end of August 2024) to finalize the topic name for inclusion in our proposed agenda for the session. Topics may be subject to updates or changes as needed by the working group members. We expect drafts to be finalized at the end of September ( one month and a half from now). We are truly grateful for your support and look forward to working together on these impactful initiatives. Best regards, Amin and Layal

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ICANN Publishes New DNSSEC Trust Anchor to Prepare for 2026
by Fahd Batayneh Aug. 17, 2024

Aug. 17, 2024

https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/icann-publishes-new-dnssec-t… The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority functions it facilitates, recently published an update to the trust anchors for Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). DNSSEC trust anchors serve as the ultimate points of trust for the DNSSEC system. DNSSEC secures the DNS by validating authentic domain name data that has not been altered by third parties. Updates to the trust anchors require careful coordination among Internet infrastructure operators to ensure a seamless transition and maintain the security and stability of the DNS. The recent update adds a new cryptographic key that is planned to be used to sign the DNS root zone starting in 2026. Software vendors and system package maintainers are encouraged to begin their processes for distributing this new trust anchor. ICANN plans to prepublish the new cryptographic key in the DNS starting on 11 January 2025, with a standby period of nearly two years before a rollover in October 2026. This provides ample opportunity to propagate the new trust anchor and provides the capability to roll over to it sooner should a rollover have to occur on an accelerated timeline. Operational announcements regarding the rollover are published on the root-dnssec-announce mailing list. Discussion is encouraged on the separate ksk-rollover mailing list. More information on the rollover is published at https://www.iana.org/dnssec/files.

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UA Day 2024 Report Highlights Strong Interest in Universal Acceptance Adoption
by Fahd Batayneh Aug. 15, 2024

Aug. 15, 2024

https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/ua-day-2024-report-highlights-strong… The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) have published the Universal Acceptance (UA) Day 2024 Report, which provides a comprehensive overview of participation numbers, types of sessions held, and promotional efforts for the second annual UA Day. UA Day 2024 attracted participation from thousands of members in the global Internet community and garnered nearly 50 percent more session proposals than the inaugural 2023 event. Universal Acceptance ensures that all domain names and email addresses, regardless of language or script, work in Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems. UA is key to enabling a more digitally inclusive and multilingual Internet. UA Day was established in 2023 as an opportunity to engage and mobilize technical and language communities, companies, governments, and Domain Name System (DNS) industry stakeholders to better understand the benefits of UA. Following the success of UA Day 2023, the second annual UA Day was organized in 2024, consisting of multiple types of events focused on creating UA awareness, capacity, and strategy. UA Day events were held between March and May 2024 to allow flexibility for local organizers, with most events taking place on or around 28 March. The call for proposals continued to include the event types from UA Day 2023, including UA awareness, technical training, and strategy sessions. In addition to those three categories, two new event types were introduced this year, including UA academic curricula sessions, focused on integrating Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) and UA-related topics into existing technical curricula. Event organizers also held UA adoption sessions, in which participants conducted a UA adoption exercise and shared challenges and solutions around becoming UA-ready. The two new event types comprised nearly a third of the 52 events held this year, with three UA academic curricula sessions and 12 UA adoption sessions. UA adoption events, in particular, are very important because they not only build technical capacity, but also demonstrate real-world adoption, encouraging others to be UA-ready. UA Day 2024 Participation Highlights: Total participants: 6,544 Proposals received: 133 Events held: 52 Countries/territories represented: 47 Languages represented: 23 (Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Bangla, Bemba, Burmese, Chinese, English, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Korean, Lao, Macedonian, Nyanja, Portuguese, Serbian, Sesotho, Sinhala, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, and Thai) UA Day events were held by regional and local organizations, the UASG, global partners, and ICANN. This year's keystone UA Day event was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 28 March in partnership with the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry Foundation (RNIDS). Thanks to all who organized, participated, and helped make this year's event a success. For more information about UA Day 2024, read the full recap report. For a gallery of photos from UA Day events worldwide, visit ICANN's Flickr page. To learn more about UA, visit icann.org/ua and uasg.tech, and follow the hashtag #Internet4All on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.

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Advancing a Multilingual Internet: ICANN Publishes 2024 IDN Report
by Fahd Batayneh Aug. 8, 2024

Aug. 8, 2024

https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/advancing-a-multilingual-int… Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) published the IDN Report June 2024. The report provides an overview of the status of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) at the top and second levels of the Domain Name System (DNS), as well as the IDN-related work done by the ICANN organization (ICANN org) and ICANN community from January 2023 to June 2024. The full report is available here. IDNs enable people, businesses, and governments around the world to use domain names in local languages and scripts, and are key to enabling a more digitally inclusive, multilingual Internet. In pursuit of the current ICANN Strategic Plan's goal to encourage IDNs and Universal Acceptance (UA), ICANN org has been working with the community to make the DNS accessible in local languages for a linguistically diverse global population, while maintaining the stability and security of the DNS. ICANN org publishes the IDN Report annually to help track the status of IDNs and highlight ongoing IDN work. The June 2024 edition of the report continues to cover four main areas: delegation and registration statistics, IDN policy being developed by the ICANN community, IDN-related projects at ICANN org, and IDN implementation and operations at ICANN org. The highlights of this reporting period include the latest statistics for IDN top-level domain name delegations and second-level domain name registrations, as well as progress on policy development work by Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) and the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO). The report also includes information about ICANN org's multiple projects to support these policies and work related to assist with IDN implementation efforts. For more information on IDNs and ICANN org's IDN Program, visit the IDN homepage.

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Join ICANN’s Discussion on the Resolution of Contention Sets in the Next Round
by Fahd Batayneh Aug. 4, 2024

Aug. 4, 2024

https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/join-icanns-discussion-on-th… The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) organization will hold a community-wide discussion on the resolution of contention sets in the New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Program: Next Round. A contention set is a group of gTLD applications that contain identical strings of characters. For example, if two different applicants apply for .TLDSTRING, they would be identified as a contention set. Virtual meetings will be held on 13 and 14 August 2024 at 13:00–15:00 UTC via Zoom. Two additional meetings, which may be held if more time is needed, are scheduled for 21 and 22 August 2024 at 13:00–15:00 UTC. The dialogue on the topic comes at the direction of the ICANN Board of Directors, which accepted Advice item 2a(ii) of the Governmental Advisory Committee's (GAC) ICANN80 Kigali Communiqué. The goal of the discussion will be to consider which mechanisms should be established for the resolution of contention sets in the next round of applications for new gTLDs. The mechanism must be consistent with existing policy, operationally viable, agreeable to the community, and not have an impact on the current timeline for implementation. To ensure that the concerns expressed in the ICANN80 Kigali Communiqué and related GAC and At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) advice are addressed, the discussion will focus on two issues related to the resolution of contention sets: Alternatives to private auctions for the voluntary private resolution of contention sets by applicants. Alternatives to the ICANN auction of last resort as the mechanism to resolve contention sets in the absence of any private resolution. The Board plans to review the outcome of the community-wide discussion during its workshop 6–8 September 2024. It will then provide the ICANN organization (org) with any necessary direction on the implementation of the resolution of contention sets. This community discussion is open to everyone in the community. To participate, please submit this form or email nextround_policyimplementation(a)icann.org. All participants must agree to abide by the ICANN Expected Standards of Behavior, and sign into Zoom using their full name. Participants should familiarize themselves with the relevant Final Report on the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process recommendations, the relevant GAC and ALAC advice, as well as the report "Addressing Monetary Means of Private Resolution" by NERA, among other resources. ICANN org will also prepare a briefing, which summarizes the issues and provides some potential approaches, to facilitate discussion. The briefing document will be published on the workspace no later than Friday, 9 August 2024.

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