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"It's a New Season at ICANN": 󲹻é to Focus on Public Interest, Internationalization, and Operational Efficiency

Posted on 18 October 2012

Canada, the public interest, internationalization and operational efficiency were the overarching themes at theon Monday.

,,afor stakeholder engagement along with his strategy and goals for what he called the “new season” of ICANN. Officials,andwere also on hand to welcome delegates both to the conference and Toronto.

What is ICANN?

Very simply, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers () is part of an “ecosystem” of organizations that collectively work to provide governance to the Internet.

Like theitself, this ecosystem is decentralized and international. No one person or organization governs the Internet. Instead, governance is performed by anetwork of interconnected groups which draw from civil society, the private sector, governments, academic and research communities, and national and international organizations. Other major organizations that are part of this ecosystem include,,,, the five,,,, and.

Together, these organizations aim to work cooperativelywithin their respective roles to create shared policies and standards that maintain the Internet’s global interoperability for .

Within this ecosystem, ICANN is responsible for coordinating the Internet's systems of unique identifiers and “ensuring the systems’ ”. In this role, it contributes to global Internet Policies which are the shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution of the Internet. It also influences global Internet Standards which enable the interoperability of systems on the Internet by defining,,, and.

Like many internet governance organizations, ICANN takes a community- and consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder approach to itsand seeks to maintain a broad representation of the global online community.

What is ICANN 45?

ICANN45 is the third of three ICANN meetings held in 2012. ICANN has generally held threeeach year since 1999.Attendance is open to the public and free to all registrants. Theof these meetings is to provide an opportunity for “an internationally diverse group of individuals and organizations to come together and discuss and develop policies for the Internet’s naming systems”. Remote participation is also available and also free to the public.

Re-Cap of The ICANN 45Welcome Ceremony

, chairman of the,was the first to welcomeattendees to Toronto. In his opening remarks he praised Canada’s contribution tothe evolution ofglobal. He cited Canadian innovations such as (the world’s first domestic satellite), (the Internet search engine), and the (the world's first public broadcaster to go online) as examples of Canadian contribution to global communication. Crocker also paid homage to University of Toronto’s Dr. who coined the phrases “” and “” in the 1960s. Two concepts, Crocker said, that continue to shape the way the online community about the Internet.

Crocker also provided an update on the activity of the board of directors, listing the renewal of the dot com registry in Prague and the passage of the budget as some recent milestones that were passed.

,president and CEO,was the second to welcome attendees to Toronto. He briefly introduced ICANN President & CEO and highlighted the importance of the items on the agenda this week.

, president of the Canadian Treasury Board, was the last to welcome the members of ICANN to Toronto. Speaking on behalf of the Canadian government, he gave a passionate endorsement of ICANN's multi-stakeholder model. He also outlined some of the steps the Canadian government has done to embrace online innovation in the public sector such as the government’s, a project that aims to make large amounts of government data available online, allowing citizens and researchers to analyze and combine data for various purposes.

Re-Cap of The President’s Opening Session: A Bold New Vision

, current President & CEO of ICANN, thentook the stageto run a one-hour working session on the objectives and goals for his three year term. With the sudden , many in the online community have been to get a sense of the man who will be taking the helm of one of the web’s largest policy and standards organizations.

In his opening remarks, 󲹻é drew attention to, the Pakastani schoolgirl who wasearlier this week presumably for her promoting education for girls in Pakistan.

“I ask us all to keep her in our thoughts. I, for sure, will offer my week, my successes, my failures, everything that happens this week, for her to be better and to get well. But let’s not forget that this is why we do this. At the end of the day this is why we do this.”

󲹻é then got down to business, unveiling 4 objectives of the ICANN executive team, drawing attention to ICANN’s. He then outlined 16 specific goals the executive team has set to help achieve those objectives. The objectives and goals are as follows:

  1. To continue to affirm the purpose of ICANN
    1. Deliver core Internet functions
    2. Act as steward ofpublic interest
    3. Engage in the Internet Governance ecosystem
    4. Deepen partnerships with Internet-organizations
  2. To Continue to improve operations of ICANN
    1. Institutionalize management disciplines
    2. Embrace mature organization support functions
    3. Optimize R&R services
    4. Plan for scale, security, and continuity
  3. To Continue to Internationalize ICANN
    1. Engage all stakeholders globally
    2. Communicate clearly & locally
    3. Integrate global/regional responsibility
    4. Evolve government relationships
  4. To Continue To Model Evolution
    1. Optimize policy develop process
    2. Increase/ improve participation
    3. Evolve supporting organization/advisory committee structures
    4. Promote ethics & transparency
This clearly articulated vision comes just in time for an organization that has been for its unbalanced democratic structure that heavily favors commercial entities and for a track record of unveiling plans that lacked details. While believe that󲹻é may have bitten off more than he can chew, are hopeful that thisnew vision will ensure that ICANN will properly manage one of the largest single to the DNS in its history.

Release of MyICANN.org

󲹻é then unveiled , a new online tool designed to provide better access to the ICANN community and its operation systems. will be deployed in phases. The first phase will comprise mainly of the informational portal offering personal delivery of topical and timely information. Later phases will include the new community collaboration tools for working groups and operations systems, such as trouble tickets or compliance scorecards. The next beta will be released next year at ICANN 46 in Beijing.

Canadian Significance

In this seminal work, , Dr. McLuhan wrote that “each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its own intrinsic effects which are its unique message” (Understanding Media, NY, 1964, p8). Certainly ICANN, minder of the Internet's unique identifiers,is no stranger to this concept. As has already been pointed out by on this blog, the introduction gTLDs as a medium is as as the content of the websites that will be using them.

So as the leaves turn red in Toronto, the online community will be to see what this new season at ICANN will bring.

Beatrice Sze is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.