ICANN
ICANN Holds First European Open Public
Meeting
BRUSSELS, 25 November 1998 - Responding to the increasingly global
nature of the Internet, the US government recently decided
to transfer responsibility of the Internet's core standards and
technical
administration from the incumbent Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA), which is acting under US Government
contract,
to a new, membership-based multinational body, the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN
announced
today that it has been advised by the U.S.
Government that the Government will shortly enter into a memorandum of
understanding pursuant to which ICANN will become
responsible for matters referenced in ICANN's incorporating documents.
An announcement is expected on Monday.
Representatives of industry, business and the different European
communities
of Internet users met the Initial Board of ICANN today
in Brussels at a gathering hosted by the European Commission to
explore
the ways in which the management of the Internet's
technical foundations will evolve.
ICANN, a private, international non-profit corporation, is hoping to
administer
the policies and technical protocols that let Internet
communications be routed to the correct place anywhere on the
globe. Its
proposed duties include those now performed by IANA,
which include managing the Domain Name System, or DNS.
"The purpose of ICANN is to operate as a world-wide, consensual
non-governmental
body to replace the primarily American
arrangements under which the Internet's standards and protocols have
hitherto
been managed", said Ms Esther Dyson, ICANN's
Interim Chairman.
"I am glad we had this opportunity to discuss issues with European
Internet
users and stakeholders", said Ms Dyson. "We want to be
a truly global organisation. Our immediate aim is to ensure ICANN
reflects
the needs and wishes of the many Internet communities
wherever on this planet they might be. Today's meeting was a necessary
step to ensure ICANN can truly meet this aspiration".
With its new bylaws, ICANN is a fully accountable corporation,
answerable
through a Board that will be elected by a broad
membership acting through four different membership pools representing
the many different Internet communities around the globe.
Accountability and continuity are reflected in ICANN's design: the job
of its Initial Board, including Interim President and CEO,
Michael Roberts, is to set up the permanent structures that will allow
ICANN to set policies responsibly and with the full participation
of all interested parties. Reflecting their architect's jobs, the
Initial
Board including the Interim President will depart once ICANN is
built. In the words of Hans Kraaijenbrink, the Dutch ICANN Initial
Board
Member, "we are setting up structures. [Our constituencies]
will have to suggest policies".
Today's meeting, the second in a series that started in Massachusetts
on
14 November and will continue in Asia in March 1999, had
one overriding aim, according to Ms Dyson. "Our first step is to start
communicating with the different Internet communities. We need
to get three things done - for the Board to get to know the
communities
and vice-versa, to learn about the issues we as a Board will
be facing and to generate concrete proposals about key issues. We hope
to gain people's trust by the way we go about this - openly
and interactively".
The latter is a crucial point. ICANN's membership pools comprise four
different
groups. One represents the Internet's end users,
while the three others, known as Supporting Organisations (SO), are
best
thought of as functional constituencies representing
addressing (the numbers, like 128.9.128.127, which software
translates
into domain names that humans can remember, like
www.icann.org), domain names (the system of names, especially the
top-level
domain suffixes such as .com, .org, or .net), and
protocols (the grammar that lets computers running under many
different
standards talk to each other).
"Our key governance issue is how to be truly responsive and
transparent
to a global community of users numbering in the hundreds
of millions", said Ms Dyson. "The supporting organisations will have
to
create themselves - and convince the Board that they are
truly representative of their communities. Only then can they be
recognised
by the Board as ICANN Supporting Organisations." A
formal call to submit proposals for the creation of SOs will be made
in
mid-December.
The pressures generated on the current DNS system by the explosive
commercial
growth of the Internet are huge. "Domain Names
are the hottest issue we face", said Mr Kraaijenbrink. "It is a
potential
time-bomb because commercial pressures may conflict with
stability".
The solution, Ms Dyson said, was for all user constituencies to come
up
with a DNSO that is responsive to these conflicting interests.
"We have no positions [on domain name issues]", said Mr Triana, an
Initial
Board member from Spain. "It will be up to a DNSO to
suggest policies".
The latest iteration of ICANN's bylaws, submitted to the
U.S. Department
of Commerce on Monday, will ensure that, whatever policies
are suggested, they will satisfy the majority of Internet
stakeholders.
Each SO will nominate three Directors to the ICANN Board.
In Europe, the American nature of the arrangements under which ICANN
predecessor
IANA and Network Solutions, Inc. have hitherto
coordinated most of the global Internet have long been a source of
concern.
On 4 November, for example, Commissioner Martin
Bangemann wrote to U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley announcing
a Commission review of the U.S. Government agreement
with Network Solutions, Inc. on competition grounds. The Commission
has
thus expressed satisfaction at the moves to establish an
international Internet governance system. "The Commission welcomes the
progress that has been made", said Christopher
Wilkinson, an official with the directorate-general in charge of
telecommunications.
"Member states and the private sector had
already expressed widespread support for the new arrangements to
us". Ms
Dyson said that it was part of her Board's job to be "truly
responsive to European positions, along with those of the rest of the
world".
This is reflected in the composition of ICANN's Initial
Board, which includes three Europeans.
Biographies of all ICANN Interim Board Members and the ICANN bylaws
are
available at www.icann.org
For further information, please contact
Esther Dyson, tel 1 (212) 924-8800
edyson@edventure.com
Patrick Worms, tel (+32-2) 545 6609
patrick.worms@ogilvy.be