One particularly important aspect of ICANN’s launch of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) will be the availability of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) at the top level. That eagerly anticipated enhancement to Internet participation has also raised some issues.
For example, current practice dictates that gTLDs contain at least three characters – two-character Latin TLDs are [...]

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The Mexico City meeting is a landmark for At-Large. For the first time, the whole At-Large community will be meeting together face-to-face in the ‘At-Large Summit’. About 90 representatives of the At-Large membership of organisations (called “At-Large Structures”) are already confirmed. Mexico City meeting attendees will be able to spot them easily, as each will have a ribbon indicating their status as a Summit delegate attached to their ICANN meeting badges.

It is being held 28 February through 5 March, at the Sheraton and also at the nearby Melia Mexio Reforma hotel.

All ICANN staff, board members, and community members are invited and encouraged to attend the sessions, all of which are open to everyone.

On the Monday of the Mexico meeting, there will be a joint meeting of the Advisory Committees and Supporting Organisations. The objective of this “ACSO” session is to share views and perspectives on common issues in a way that will inform the discussions within those groups during the week.
The format is a discussion among selected members of each of the Supporting Organisations and Advisory Committees. Each SO and AC will designate up to four people in order to represent a range of perspectives.

The meeting will be held in two 90-minute sessions, separated by a 30-minute break, and with a 30-minute feedback period at the end. There will be two broad discussion topics of common interest, with specific sub-questions. They are:

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Our Annual Report has been published, covering the organization’s achievements and progress during 2008.

The report includes information on the three major initiatives ICANN undertook last year (and continues with this year): the process for introducing new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet; the introduction for the first time of internationalized domain names (IDNs); and an extensive Improving Institutional Confidence consultation, to enable the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with the United States government in September 2009.

Reports from the chairs of ICANN’s Supporting Organization and Advisory Organizations are included alongside detailed rundowns of each department by the organization’s staff.

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During the Cairo meeting in, ICANN together with Domaine.info produced a number of videos covering the main sessions and topics, with each video fronted by a member of either the staff or a chair of the relevant supporting organization or advisory committee.

You can find all of those videos posted on the Cairo site at http://cai.icann.org/video, and we also post ICANN videos on the main site under the main tab “Videos”.

This video features two of ICANN’s project managers – Tina Dam and IDNs, and Karla Valente and new gTLDs – talking about the sessions they were due to run on the first day of the conference where introductions were given to their two topic areas.

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For the first time at an ICANN meeting, we held a joint Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee chairs public meeting. The idea was to get the different arms of ICANN to cover the topics and areas that most concerned them and to have their different viewpoints on the same topics outlined and discussed.

During the Cairo meeting in general, ICANN together with Domaine.info produced a number of videos covering the main sessions and topics, with each video fronted by a member of either the staff or a chair of the relevant supporting organization or advisory committee.

You can find all of those videos posted on the Cairo site at http://cai.icann.org/video, and on the ICANN main site under the “Video” tab.

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This Briefing Note for the Cairo meeting was first published on the Cairo meeting site on 13 November (see: http://cai.icann.org/en/briefing-note). It was reprinted the following day in the November edition of the ICANN magazine (see: http://www.icann.org/en/magazine/archive/magazine-200811-en.html).

What was it?

ICANN’s 33nd international public meeting was the third held this year to conduct policy development and outreach. It was hosted by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and the Government of Egypt.

The meeting was opened by Dr. Tarek Mohamed Kamel, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology. There were 1,702 attendees from 144 different countries. The participants engaged in a wide range of discussions about the Internet’s domain name system and related issues.

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This is a Response and Summary to the Cairo public forum that took place on 6 November 2008.

A PDF version of this document is available at: http://www.icann.org/en/participate/cairo-public-forum-response.pdf

Note from the Chairman:

One of the most significant features of ICANN meetings is the Public Forum, where members of the ICANN community are able to present their views on issues of concern to them to the ICANN Board, in public session. The fact that we rotate meetings through each of the geographic sectors of the world enhances the opportunity that people from every region to present their views to the ICANN Board, in the presence of Staff and the whole ICANN community.

As a long-time participant from the floor presenting views, in my case from the ccTLD community, I am well aware of the time, effort and expense that goes into the preparation of such statements. As a board member, I have valued hearing those submissions, from individuals, governments and constituencies. I am determined as Chair to continue this tradition, and to maximise the opportunities for information sharing it represents.

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One of the main IDN related topics from the just-finished ICANN meeting in Cairo that I think deserves some additional attention was:

Why Compliance with IDN technical requirements are a necessity on a global scale

Overall compliance with technical standards are important for TLD registry operators in order to keep their TLD stable and secure and in that way function and work well for their consumers and communities. Per ICANN Bylaws, interoperability of the Internet is a core value, which requires that technical standards are complied with. In some instances failure to comply with technical standards will only affects the corresponding TLD in isolation and does not interfere with other TLDs – when moving to the topic of IDN TLDs however this fact changes very quickly.

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