ICANN 43RD international conference kicked off in San Jose, Costa Rica. The event will last through 17 March 2012. The official opening ceremony was held on 12 March. Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa Rica, and Rod Beckstrom, ICANN President and CEO, addressed the attendees of the major event of the industry. The conference is also attended by representatives of the Coordination Center for TLD RU and Technical Center of Internet.
In her address to the conference participants Laura Chinchilla notes that ICANN 43rd international meeting takes place “in a special moment of Internet’s history”. “The core topics that bring us together are political, ethical, and regulatory. The potential for the global network transformation is so huge that as a counterpart, it resulted in a series of attempts to regulate the network among which we have SOPA and PIPA,” elaborates Laura Chinchilla. The President of Costa Rica noted that these projects give rise to concerns and the government of Costa Rica strives to support alternative acts aimed at combating cybercrime without limiting the social transformation potential offered by Internet 2.0.
“Internet should not be conceived as a threat but rather as a hope. Internet is the hope of an integrated world without frontiers, a world of opportunities and equality,” said Laura Chinchilla.
In his opening speech, Rod Beckstrom focused on the key issues of the domain industry and ICANN: in particular, he called for a reform of the ICANN’s Board of Directors. The latter is the ICANN’s principal governing body which makes decisions on the organization’ development and operations. Most Board members hold positions in leading organizations involved in the domain industry, they are often forced to abstain from voting due to conflict of interests. “Reform of the Board selection process is not just desirable. I believe it is imperative. Ideally a fully independent and non-conflicting NomCom should be in place before the next nomination cycle begins,” noted ICANN President.
Rod Beckstrom also gave an update on the new gTLD program. “As of last night, we have 254 registered users in an online application system; each one can submit multiple gTLD applications,” said ICANN President. Rod Beckstrom assured that with any number of applications – even if they account for dozens of thousands– evaluation will be open and smooth.
The Coordination Center will monitor the progress at the 43rd international meeting of ICANN.
