Attendees at the upcoming virtual ICANN69 meeting (Community Days, 13-15 October | Plenary Week, 19–22 October) have been requested by the ICANN Ombuds Herb Waye to observe the Expected Standards of Behaviour and the Community Anti-Harassment Policy.
ICANN announced last week the Board of Directors approved a two-year extension to President and CEO Göran Marby’s Executive Services Agreement term. The extension will see his contract expire on 23 May 2024.
It was as if the Interstate System of highways had been built using volunteer road crews, working without a map. No one present at the 1969 creation of the network that later became the internet imagined that this niche Pentagon project — built as a research tool for a small group of academic computer scientists — would one day become the backbone of the global economy.
The ICANN 2020 Nominating Committee announced the selections for seven leadership positions Friday last in the following news release:
In 2014, the United States began the process of relinquishing the last vestiges of its stewardship over the internet, starting a transition of full control to an international nonprofit, ICANN. It was a big deal—you may remember Sen. Ted Cruz warning about “the significant, irreparable damage this proposed internet giveaway could wreak not only on our nation but on free speech across the world.” At the time, I thought the ICANN transition was a mistake. Now, I suspect I was wrong.
With ICANN, like many other organisations, forced to move their meetings into the virtual space, there has been a lot of learning about what works, and doesn’t. About what people want. And don’t. So for ICANN69 there was a demand from the community for YouTube streaming, to which ICANN has acquiesced for a limited number of sessions. There have also been protections added to prevent malicious disruptions that have occurred in previous virtual meetings.
Monday, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Naming Function Review Team (IFRT) has announced that it is in the final stages of completing its Initial Report. The IFRT will be holding a webinar for the community regarding one of their proposed recommendations that would require an amendment to the IANA Naming Functions Contract between ICANN and its affiliate Public Technical Identifiers (PTI). This amendment may be of particular interest to country code top-level domain (ccTLD) and generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry operators.
Two dozen Turing Award laureates including Father of the Internet, and former ICANN Chair from 2000 to 2007, Vint Cerf have endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for President of the United States and Senator Kamala Harris for Vice President. As the letter notes, it’s the first time Turing Award Laureates have endorsed a candidate.
ICANN announced Thursday Naela Sarras has been appointed Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement, North America. She is based in Los Angeles and reports to Sally Costerton, Senior Vice President of Global Stakeholder Engagement.
ICANN announced on 31 August the Pandemic Internet Access Program Pilot for ICANN69, following the ICANN Board’s resolution in support of the pilot program. To facilitate participation during the remote Public Meeting, the pilot program offers community members who have limited Internet capacity financial assistance to increase their Internet bandwidth during ICANN69.