ICANN: Supporting the Global Internet

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ICANN Supporting the Global Internet

• Peter Dengate Thrush
• Chairman

5th Summit of the Americas Private Sector
Forum Trinidad Tobago, 16th April 2009
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Agenda

• Introduction- themes of the Summit
• What is ICANN?
• Role
• Structure
• How does it work
• Accomplishments and ongoing work
• Challenges opportunities
• Responding to the themes
• Q A

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ICANNs role

• Appropriate for Chair of ICANN to be addressing
  meeting on private sector initiatives
• Most of the Internet infrastructure ( including
  personal laptops, and major transmission
  systems), is in fact in private hands.
• Internet Governance at ICANN is private sector
  led
• Its multi-stakeholder - the technical
  community, governments and civil society also all
  play crucial roles.

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ICANNs role- themes from Opening Ceremony

• Angela Lee Loy- the power of competition, the
  Rule of Law, stable democracy, respect for
  contracts
• Ernesto Gutierrez- crucial role in recovery for
  entrepreneurs the need to keep borders open
• Jose Miguel Insulza- private sector is the
  engine of growth, and need for a new climate of
  trust between business,governments and civil
  society
• Patick Manning- a time of crisis is a time of
  opportunity, and the key is the promotion of
  wealth generation, by the private sector

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ICANNs role

• ICTs are going to continue to be a key industry
  in driving the recovery,
• Think Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype eBay,
  Blackberry
• Think mobile telephony,wifi, cafenets,the demise
  of faxing, world wide multiparty gaming,
  Facebook
• They all rely on a single global interoperable
  stable Internet - ensuring that is ICANNs role

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ICANNs role

• Internationally organized, non-profit
  organization, multi-Stakeholder
• Responsibility for IP address space allocation,
  protocol identifier assignment, gTLDs and ccTLDs
  name system ( DNS) management and root server
  coordination
• Is dedicated to preserving the operational
  stability of the single global Internet
• IS NOT responsible for rules for financial
  transactions, content control, spam, data
  protection

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ICANNs structure
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)
President and CEO
ICANN Staff
Nominating Committee
15 voting delegates 6 non-voting delegates
ASO
GNSO
CCNSO
Regional Internet Registries ARIN RIPE NCC
LACNIC APNIC AfriNIC
gTLD Registries and Registrars Intellectual
Property ISPs Businesses Universities
Consumers
ccTLD registries (.ae, br, ca, eg, .it, .nz, etc.)
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Accomplishments and ongoing work

• Multistakeholder model emerged from the WSIS
  process, endorsed as best model of governance
• Established market competition for gTLDs
  (registration costs drop by 80, over US1B
  annually saved by consumers and businesses)
• Implemented a UDRP (5000 disputes regarding
  trademark rights resolved)
• New gTLDs (.aero,.biz, .coop,.info,
  .museum,.name,.pro,.mobi,.tel) others are being
  explored (ongoing process)
• Workshops on relevant issues (gTLDs, IDNs,
  IPv6,etc)

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Challenges and opportunities

• Transition to IPv6 (stability security)
• New gTLDs (..beach, .wine,.movie,.Paris
  competition,openness, change, innovation)
• IDNs (mostly in scripts other than Latin)
• Conficker worm, and other security threats
• Economic/financial crisis impact on
  (registries/registrars)

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ICANN and the Internet responding

• Hans Rosling warned about preconceived ideas- we
  need this new model, not old
• Angela Lee Loy - DNS management is by contracts,
  strengthening Rule of Law
• Jose Miguel Insulza- Icann represents that new
  climate of trust between business,governments and
  civil society- ICANN is trusted as global
  coordinator
• Patrick Manning - the Internet represents the ICT
  platform on which the crisis may be turned to
  opportunity.

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ICANN welcomes participation

• Address Supporting Organization (ASO)
• At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and At Large
  Structures
• Country Code Domain Names Supporting Organization
  (ccNSO)
• Generic Names Supporting Organization (gNSO) -
  business, IP, Academia..
• Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)

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Q A

• Thank you very much
• Peter Dengate Thrush
• Chairman of the Board