45th ICANN meeting has kicked off in Toronto. The international conference gathers key domain industry experts three times a year to discuss topical questions related to the global network.
At the opening, the Industry Minister of Canada, Tony Clement, has noted the importance of changes in the International Telecommunications Treaty. The treaty underwent no changes since 1982, and is to be reviewed this December in Dubai at the ITU conference.
"Indeed in the coming months, several important decisions will be made on the way the Internet is governed. They will be influenced by a proliferation of proposals to subject the Internet to regulatory authorities and binding international agreements," Clement pointed out.
"I strongly believe that these initiatives cannot succeed because they fail to understand that a regulatory model applied to the Internet world would be worse than a bad fit. It is clear to me that damage to the innovative spirit which has given us today's global Internet would be beyond measure", the Industry Minister says.
Tony Clement had praised the multistakeholder model that ICANN is using. "The bottom line is we need to leave Internet operational matters in the hands of global institutions such as ICANN. We stand for a single Internet where all of the citizens of the world have equal access to information and ideas", Clement says.
Fadi Chehade, ICANN's CEO, has made his first report to the public as the company's new president. Chehade has taken over the position on October 1, 2012. The new CEO plans to restructure ICANN and implement the project system to further improve accountability and transparency. Fadi Chehade has appointed a number of employees to different positions, with some employees receiving promotions and some being new to ICANN. At the moment, ICANN has 50 initiatives and 150 projects going on, the CEO points out.
ICANN will host a number of discussions on new top-level domains as well as on other matters. The Coordination Center and the Technical Center of Internet are also taking an active part in the meeting.
