The official opening of the 40th ICAN Conference took place on 14 March 2011. The Confrence is held at Silicon Valley, which in many ways preteremined the specificity of the event, with one of the founding fathers of the Internet, Vint Serf, contributing to the opening session and Pres. Bill Clinton scheduled to deliver a special address on 16 March.
While opening the Conference, Peter Dengate Thrush, emphasized the importance of the ongoing processes in the Internet. He note a tremendous role of the launch of IDNs and once again highlighted on the success story of the IDN TLD .РФ.
Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s President and CEO, articulated the importance of the ICANN’s multistakeholder governance model. “Everyone who has interests in the Internet, have the voting right in shaping the Internet governance policy”,- stressed he. Rod Bekstrom also noted that, “If you wish to have your voice heard of, you have to speak out”,- and called for the audience to become more pro-active in discussing both technological and policy and administrative issues associated with the Internet’s functioning. The ICANN’s President also enunciated the fact that the multistakeholder model secures equal rights of all the participants in Internet governance processes, with no exceptions whatsoever, even the US Administration. This critical statement is a perfect proof of the ICANN’s strive for transformation into a genuinely international organizations that consider interests of all Internet users -from governments to multinationals to civil society reprezentatives and end-users.
While addressing the issue of new gTLDs, which is going to be in the focus of the Conference, Mr. Bekstrom referenced to a 5-year long record of development of new rules for them, with the DAG5 being recently unveiled for review and comments. He expressed the hope that the working group was keen to factor into interests of all the parties concerned and the Conference should substantially contribute to advancement towards adoption of new gTLDs.
The Conference will last through 18 March. The CC team, including Andrei Kolesnikov, the CC CEO and member of GNSO Council, Irina Danelia, his first deputy, and Marina Nikerova, deputy director of TSI, are taking part in it. The CC’s Press Office is going to cover the event in every possible detail, so check out our updates.
