ICANN72 concluded yesterday. Some 1,412 experts representing 156 countries attended, with 39 interpreters providing translations into the official UN languages and Portuguese.
ICANN72 focused on the corporation’s relations with international and regional organizations as well as governments. National registries can serve as the connecting link here, and they have been playing this role for a long time. At the joint meeting of the ICANN Board and the ccNSO Council, ICANN President Goran Marby highlighted recent discussions on the best ways to establish a dialogue between national egistries and ICANN. The ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) also plays an important role in this process.
While the community at the conference was once again left without exact dates for when the second phase of the new gTLD program would be launched, there was some positive news.
Work is underway to amend the ICANN Charter to allow the ccNSO to accept national IDN domain registries. Since 2009, 62 have been delegated.
Ninety-one sessions were held during the four days of ICANN72, and we will talk about the ones that experts from Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ domains attended.
The meeting of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on DNS abuse was among the most interesting sessions on the first day of ICANN72. GAC experts noted that the contracts with domain zone administrators stipulated that it was necessary to counter the spread of malware and infringement of copyright and trademark rights, but ICANN has no mechanism to enforce these rules on end users - domain name registrants.
In addition, the traditional Tech Day was held on October 25, which included three sessions for the ICANN technical community. The main focus was on ways and methods to gather information on malicious domains, the use of DNS to identify Internet of Things devices, and the presentation of ICANN’s new tool to rank domain zone popularity, DNS Magnitude.
On October 26, a meeting with candidates for the ccNSO Council was held where the candidates were able to interact with ccNSO members and the ccTLD public, and to answer participants’ questions. The session was moderated by Deputy Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Irina Danelia.
It is noteworthy that the Asian-Pacific Region nominated two candidates to the Council. Both candidates clearly outlined their positions on a number of important issues related to ccNSO activities, so it is not yet known whom the regional community will choose for the next term.
On October 27, a joint meeting of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and the ICANN Board with about 400 participants was held.
During the meeting, the participants spoke about their views on closer cooperation with governments all over the world as well as ways to ensure constant monitoring of possible amendments to national laws that can impact ICANN’s work.
In addition, experts discussed nine questions prepared in advance for the ICANN Board, such as ICANN's increased involvement in the internet governance ecosystem and the possible investment of the organization's time and resources in the Internet Governance Forum and maintaining constructive relationships with related organizations such as WIPO, ITU, and others.
On the same day, three DNSSEC and Security Workshop sessions were held where experts discussed the specifics of using DNSSEC in various regions and presented their technological innovations. One of the original developers of the internet, Steve Crocker, spoke about two gaps in DNSSEC specifications as well as what has been achieved and problems still to be addressed.
On October 28, the session on DNS Abuse and the role of the ccNSO was held. The goal was to find out what exactly the community, mainly country code registries, expect from ccNSO (Country Code Name Support Organization) regarding DNS Abuse. Based on recommendations by ccTLDs and the wider community at the session, the ccNSO Council will plan ccNSO’s involvement in discussions pertaining to DNS Abuse and related activities. This plan will be presented for community discussion at the next ICANN73 meeting or at an intersessional webinar.
At the same time with the session on ccNSO involvement in DNS abuse issues, the session “DNS Women: Universal Acceptance – Where Are We Today” was held. It focused on the development of cooperation to effectively promote universal acceptance.
Maria Kolesnikova and Mark Datasgeld talked about UASG’s current activities, updates on the implementation of the universal acceptance of all domains and emails available on the internet, and ways to join the global UA initiative.
Also speaking at the session were representatives of the ICANN Board and its CEO Goran Marby, who supported the community’s joint efforts to promote universal acceptance as a strategic area of ICANN activity.
At ICANN72, Nigel Roberts’ (from ccNSO) term on the ICANN Board ended. He was replaced by Katrina Sataki. Another ccNSO representative, Patricio Poblete, remains on the ICANN Board.
In the final session of ICANN72, ICANN Board members responded to questions and comments from the community. Then, ICANN’s 23rd annual general meeting was held in an open meeting format with the ICANN Board.
The next conference, ICANN73, will take place on March 5-10, 2022, and there is a chance that it will be held in the hybrid format. See you then!
