In his opening speech at the ICANN 39 opening ceremony, the Chair of the ICANN Board Peter Dengade Thrush paid a tribute to the stunning success with launching the national Cyrillic domain .РФ: “Most optimistic projections were that by the end of the year 100,000 domains will be registered in zone .РФ. However, as of today, over 600 000 domains have been registered there, which confirms the real demand for domains in national languages.” Rod Beckstrom, President of the ICANN, said that “reliability, stability and security are among ICANN’s core values because the Internet must keep running under any circumstances. A unified system of identifiers remains our principal mission.”
It is important to note that the success of ccTLD .РФ, most likely, will be widely discussed at the meeting, because introduction of IDN domains is just rolling out. “Hundreds of thousands of registrations in the first hours and the present 600 thousand registrations in ccTLD .РФ demonstrate a real need for national domains by various groups and communities in the whole world, - noted Rod Beckstrom. – That enthusiasm reflects the need and the desire to communicate online entirely in one’s primary language. It goes beyond usefulness and touches a country’s and a people’s sense of national and cultural identity. We are responsible for the whole world, we do not act in the interests of a single country – and all we do must reflect this policy.”
“At this meeting in Cartagena our debates will touch on the launch of domains in national languages and support for the developing countries in launching multilingual Internet,” – enunciated Mr. Beckstrom.
Rod Beckstrom has also noted the importance of the global ecosystem of Internet and the role of multilateral organizations making progress together. “I warmly congratulate my colleague Hamadoun Toure on his reelection as Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union and on his leadership of the ITU Plenipotentiary that recently concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico. His commitment to building stronger bridges between our communities is particularly welcome. The ITU is on the Governmental Advisory Committee and the Nominating Committee, and serves as a technical liaison to the Board of Directors. They have a long history of constructive engagement with ICANN. Just this week a new ITU liaison, Reinhard Scholl, will join the Board.”
The CC’s deputy director, Ms Irina Danelia, briefed on details of the launch of the ccTLD .РФ at a panel addressing issues of the root national domains’ platforms management. Russia’s experience in launching its root zone domain has stirred huge interest and was a hot potato for the representatives of global Internet community.
The CC’s director and the gNSO ICANN Board member, Andrey Kolesnikov, the CC’s Board chairman and the ICANN President’s representative in the ad-hoc group on reviewing Whois service procedures, Mikhail Yakushev, the CC’s and the Internet Technical Center’s employees are taking part in the Conference. The CC is going to cover the ICANN 39th meeting in Columbia on a daily basis. Please stay tuned.
