On June 16, the ICANN74 has concluded its work. For the first time since 2020, it was held in a hybrid format: in The Hague (Netherlands) and in virtual space. Experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ have taken part in the conference in both formats.
Only 878 people attended ICANN 74 in person. It’s the minimum in the history of ICANN meetings. Another 893 people participated online. For comparison, at the last pre-pandemic conference in Montreal, which also used a hybrid format, there were more than twice as many participants - then the total number of participants was 3646.
The topic of the first day of the conference on June 13 was security and a set of DNSSEC extensions. The workshop participants, representing domain registries of Canada, Australia, Sweden, Japan, as well as Internet companies and public organizations, shared their experience in implementing various solutions to improve DNSSEC.
Also on June 13, there was a traditional TechDay, where participants discussed the technical aspects of the work of registries, shared news and the results of research, and also presented their projects and initiatives.
Read more about the first day of the conference in our publication on the website.
A panel discussion on how ICANN's priorities are set took place on June 14. Panelists noted that as early as 5 years ago, the community had noticed the expansion of the "ICANN universe" and that those who volunteered to work on the organization's policy papers were under increasing pressure. A lot has changed since then, and today ICANN has both a planning department and a prioritization system that the global pandemic has proven to be relevant.
In 2022, ICANN changed the way it develops its plans and first collected advice from the community and then developed a set of priorities based on that. In addition, ICANN revises priorities as they are being implemented.
However, despite efforts made to date, an online poll during the session showed that only 24% of the audience was well aware of ICANN's priorities, while 59% were somewhat aware, and the remaining 17% seemed to be at all not aware.
The ensuing discussion revealed diverging views on ICANN's prioritization process. One panelist even suggested that ICANN's favorite response to a process challenge is usually to create another process that complicates the big picture, and that the task of prioritizing different areas should be delegated to the appropriate Supporting Organizations and Advisory Services. advice, which means the gNSO should deal with gTlD issues, the ccNSO with ccTLD issues, etc.
However, the meeting was very unanimous that ICANN is a unique multistakeholder organization and promotes a bottom-up strategic and political model in which the community plays a large role.
ICANN President and CEO Göran Marby concluded the plenary session: "The ICANN model needs to be predictable, transparent, and you need to know who makes the decisions."
Also on June 14, there was a ccNSO policy meeting where the working groups reported on the results of their activities. Participants touched upon the delegation of IDN ccTLDs, focusing on the confusing similarity of IDNs and the classification of IDNs into those that can be delegated and others that cannot be delegated.
On June 15, a meeting of the TLD-OPS committee, an association of ccTLD operators, has taken place. Committee Chairman Jacques Latour said that TLD-OPS currently unites 200 ccTLDs, including internationalized ones. The purpose of the committee's work is the timely exchange of technical information about detected incidents that are related to the operational stability and security of national top-level domains, their prevention and assistance in eliminating their consequences.
TLD-OPS Security Subcommittee Chair Bret Carr spoke about the goals of the subcommittee. In particular, these include searching for information on security vulnerabilities to which national domain infrastructures may be exposed, analyzing information on information security incidents that have occurred and developing solutions to avoid such incidents.
On the same day, there was a ccNSO meeting dedicated to the management of this structure. The session consisted of two parts: an update of the rules and guidelines, and a statement of interest and conflicts of interest for the ccNSO.
The ccNSO is now perhaps the most significant changes in its history as IDN ccTLDs have become full members of the ccNSO community. This, in turn, has resulted in a number of important changes to the ccNSO's activities regarding voting principles, declining decision quorum, nominating candidates for the ccNSO Council and the ICANN Board.
The second part of the session introduced the concepts of Declaration of Interest (SoI) and Conflict of Interest (CoI).
During the session, the community took part in two online polls, and the overwhelming majority supported the work that had begun, which means that ccTLD managers are in favor of the pursuit of transparency and responsible behavior of their elected representatives.
On the last day of the conference on June 16, there was a meeting of the members of the Strategic and Operational Standing Committee (SOPC) of the ccNSO. Committee Vice Chair Irina Danelia co-moderated a session during which the SOPC consulted with the Internet community on areas of focus for the committee's forthcoming discussion of ICANN's operational and strategic plans. Read more about this session in the news of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ.
The final meeting of the GAC held a discussion on the forthcoming elections for the leadership positions of the committee of government advisers. To expand geographical representation, the number of vice-chairmen has been increased from 3 to 5. Every 2 years, one of the GAC members organizes a High Level Governmental Meeting with the invitation of representatives of national communications administrations. During the pandemic years, such a meeting was not held, so the time has come for one of the countries to take the initiative and start preparing for such a meeting (both at the ICANN site and at the site of other major international industry forums).
The conference concluded with the second plenary session of the ICANN Government Engagement Group on geopolitical developments. The meeting briefed the ICANN community on Internet-related public policy issues, including legislative and regulatory initiatives that may affect ICANN's technical mission, policies and processes. In this regard, ICANN actively monitors the activities of national governments and intergovernmental organizations to ensure that the organization has the necessary information and resources to prepare for and address geopolitical issues that may affect ICANN's mission.
The next ICANN meeting will also take place in a hybrid format in September in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
