ICANN65, the so-called Policy Forum, which runs for four days, has come to a close in Morocco. This is the shortest of the three ICANN annual meetings, and its participants focus primarily on discussing the development of various rules and policies. The delegation of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ also took part in the meeting.
One of the central topics of the event was launching a second round of the New gTLD. The second stage of filing applications is to start soon, and disputes over possible changes in the rules for submitting applications are growing in various committees and support organizations. Thus, one of the central topics was the possibility of registering two-letter domains as new gTLDs. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) opposes this initiative suggesting that two-letter domains should remain the prerogative of countries. Policy Forum participants actively discussed this issue and tried to reach consensus.
The event format allows for holding meetings and talks between national registries from different countries. Thus, a bilateral meeting between the delegations from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and the Chinese national registry CNNIC was held during the conference. Cooperation of the two registries began many years ago, and in 2014, during the World Internet Conference in China, the Coordination Center and CNNIC signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The memorandum provided for exchanging experience on various issues and mutual consultations on developing domain zones, marketing, IDN and information security. During the meeting at ICANN65, the Coordination Center and CNNIC discussed further cooperation between the two registries and agreed to prepare and sign an updated Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations, which will take into account the experience of previous cooperation and the requirements of current internet development. Currently, the memorandum is being developed and will be signed by the end of 2019.
“The Policy Forum format provides fewer official ceremonies and special and general meetings, but provides more time and opportunity for discussing business issues within the national registry community, meetings with colleagues and conducting bilateral talks. Such meetings are usually very productive, as they outline ways to further cooperate and to develop the internet as a whole,” Coordination Center Deputy Director Andrei Romanov said.
