ICANN Concludes Successful 32nd Meeting in Paris

PARIS - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) concluded on June 26, 2008 its 32nd International Public Meeting in Paris after four days of discussions that will shape the future of the Internet, a press release by ICANN stated.

The conclusion of the meeting saw the approval of a proposal to expand the world’s Domain Name System and to work on adapting it to accommodate top-level domain names in scripts such as Arabic, Cyrillic or other non-Latin scripts.

"This was an extremely successful meeting that will be remembered as a milestone in the development of the Internet," ICANN's Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said.

"New generic Top-Level Domains and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) will open up the Internet and make it look as diverse as the people who use it," he added.

Other important resolutions passed by the ICANN board included:

• The adoption of two measures to eliminate "Domain Tasting" (the practice of using the add grace period to register domain names in bulk to test their profitability)

• The adoption of ICANN’s Operating Plan and Budget for fiscal year 2008-2009.

• Begin public input on a report on the "fast track" for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) for country codes and have staff work with the community on how to implement IDNs.

• Implementation of measures to improve the Generic Name Supporting Organization (GNSO), and a timeline for agreement on how different groups are represented on it.

• Selection of Mexico City as the site of ICANN’s first meeting in 2009.

Over 1670 participants from 150 countries, including 250 participants from the host country France, took part in the meeting, and helped ICANN make great progress in several key areas.

At the closing session, the ICANN Board and community thanked the meeting’s sponsors and gave particular thanks to French Minister of State Eric Besson who opened ICANN's meeting at the beginning of the week.

"This could only have come about through the collaboration of many communities, organizations and institutions that the multi-stakeholder model makes possible," commenting on progress relating to Internationalized Domain Names, ICANN's President and CEO Paul Twomey stated.

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet.