The 60th ICANN meeting started in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The delegation of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ is participating in many ICANN60 meetings and discussions, where the topic of further development and implementation of internationalized domain names (IDN) has a special place. This is not accidental: the United Arab Emirates together with Russia in 2010 pioneered the development of the domain space with non-Latin alphabets.
Among other hot topics of ICANN60 is the situation with the domain .AMAZON, which sparked a lively discussion on the protection of geographical names in top-level domains. The recent meeting of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) with representatives of Amazon did not help to relieve tension, so the question will now be discussed at the level of the entire ICANN community.
Another issue to be discussed over these days is ICANN's jurisdiction, which literally split the community. According to representatives of many countries, the work of the corporation under the jurisdiction of a country which imposes sanctions (it is not about international sanctions taken at the UN level, but about unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, often for political reasons), is at least controversial. At the GAC meeting, Brazil made a proposal to urgently form a plan for the "partial autonomization" of ICANN, and this proposal was supported by representatives of Russia, China, Iran, Portugal and France. It noted the similarity of the positions of these countries on the issue of equitable representation in ICANN of all states along with groups not connected with governments.
“California jurisdiction cannot be considered a good option in everyday practice, especially in view of the practice of US government sanctions. It is necessary to eliminate these distortions, although the situation is complex and does not have a quick solution. Representatives of Russia in GAC presented several guidelines that will facilitate fruitful discussion of this issue. To meet public interests ‒ and this is one of the most important functions of ICANN ‒ we need a constructive discussion,” Andrei Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center, said at the GAC meeting.
The GDPR ‒ General Data Protection Regulation ‒ adopted by the European Parliament in May 2016, will also be discussed at the ICANN meeting. This new European directive on the protection of personal data significantly increases expenditures for all companies wishing to enter the European market, and in fact blocks the reform of the WHOIS service requirements on which ICANN has been actively working for several years.
In addition, ICANN60 will be a landmark event for the internet community and the organization itself. ICANN Chair of the Board Stephen Crocker is leaving his post, and ICANN60 will be his final conference. Dr. Crocker has worked in the internet sphere almost from the moment it appeared on the planet. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he was a member of the team that developed the protocols for the Advanced Research Defense Projects Network (ARPANET) and created the foundation for the modern internet. ICANN60 includes several events to express gratitude to Dr. Crocker for working for the benefit of the internet community and to welcome the new chairman of the ICANN Board.
