It’s amazing how quickly time flies! The new decade is finally upon us, and after a well-deserved break, we’re ready to pick up where we left off in 2019. As you have become accustomed, we share with you our plans for the workshop, and we look forward to sharing our findings shortly after. Last year, […]

(Top) ICANN org engaging the Chinese community in discussions on UA and IDNs in Wuzhen. (Bottom, from left) Newly appointed UA Ambassador Zhijiang Liu with ICANN org's Sarmad Hussain and Jian-Chuan Zhang. Universal Acceptance (UA) is a requirement for a truly multilingual Internet, one in which users around the world can navigate in their local […]

We would like to invite interested members of the ICANN community to join the new Africa Strategy Working Group. ICANN's Africa Strategy is the cornerstone of all engagement efforts in the region. Prepared by the regional ICANN community, it serves as a road map for ICANN's Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) Africa team. Participating in groups […]

Over the years, ICANN’s multistakeholder model (MSM) has evolved, addressed important issues, and developed policies for the Internet’s domain name and numbering resources. During the development of ICANN’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025, the ICANN community raised a number of challenges concerning its effectiveness, efficiency, and overall functioning. That community feedback was the basis […]

2019 was full of engagement activities within Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We continued building awareness and promoting ICANN's mission to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. Working together with our stakeholders, we focused on developing the Domain Name System (DNS) and fostering regional participation in ICANN and its policymaking processes. Capacity […]

An important final step for all domain name applications is delegation. ICANN org is signing three Registry Agreements and Specification 13 Amendments from Amazon EU S.à r.l. (Amazon corporation) for top-level domains (TLDs) .AMAZON, .亚马逊, and .アマゾン. These signed agreements represent the next steps toward the delegation of the TLDs to the root zone. To […]

On behalf of the Board, I want to thank you for your hard work and dedication in support of fulfilling ICANN’s mission to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers. 2019 has been a year of change, as are most years. Since the first message was sent over the […]

Over the last several months, the ICANN organization and the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) have been working together to make improvements to the Public Interest Commitments Dispute Resolution Procedure (PICDRP) that will improve transparency without materially changing the procedure. The scope of the changes was deliberate, as the Registry Agreements (RAs) utilizing the PICDRP […]

The proposed acquisition of Public Interest Registry (PIR) by Ethos Capital was announced on 13 November 2019 by the parties and the Internet Society (ISOC). This announcement has raised many questions. In light of this, we want to be transparent about where we are in the process. On 14 November 2019, PIR formally notified ICANN of the […]

During ICANN66 in Montréal, Canada, the Board adopted a resolution to include sustainability investment criteria in ICANN's Investment Policies. These sustainability criteria cover Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors. It helps further reduce risk, lead to comparable performance returns, and is consistent with ICANN's Investment Principles. After a thorough assessment, the Board Finance Committee (BFC) […]

In April 2019 the Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance (OTA) released its 10th Annual Online Trust Audit & Honor Roll. The Audit looks at the security and privacy practices of over 1,000 of the top sites on the Internet from retailers to governments. In this post we will take a deeper dive into the ISP/Hosts […]

Broadband delays: KentuckyWired, an ambitious plan to bring broadband services to underserved, rural parts of the state, is about two years behind schedule, the Courier Journal reports. As a result, the promise of new high-tech jobs has not materialized. About 405,000 residents of Kentucky have no access to wired broadband. Cities take the lead: Meanwhile, […]

2019 was an active year for Pacific involvement in the Internet economy. What we have demonstrated is that originating from small island developing states (SIDS) in the Pacific does not restrict one’s opportunity to become a leader within large international organizations like ICANN, which manages and allocates domain names and IP addresses globally. I was […]

Last month, more than 50 community radio and network providers from all across Asia-Pacific journeyed by road from Bengaluru, India’s tech capital, to IruWay, a rural research lab about 80km away. As the traffic and indiscriminate honking outside the megacity faded, Internet signal also weakened, and at some point, there was no connection at all […]

In April 2019, the Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance released its 10th Annual Online Trust Audit & Honor Roll. The Audit looks at the security and privacy practices of over 1,000 of the top sites on the Internet, from retailers to government sites. In this post we will take a deeper dive into the U.S. […]

Everyone’s invited: Politicians in Mexico and New York City announced plans for universal Internet access in recent days. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced a plan to bring access to the large swaths of the country that don’t have it, including a government investment of more than $500,000, according to AA News. Meanwhile, New York […]

How do we work toward a more secure Internet? In the Cyber Security discussions that take place in the various policy fora around the world, there is often little appreciation that the security of the Internet is a distributed responsibility, where many stakeholders take action. By design, the Internet is a distributed system with no central […]

Security and encryption experts from around the world are calling on the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTy) to reconsider proposed amendments to intermediary liability rules that could weaken security and limit the use of strong encryption on the Internet. Coordinated by the Internet Society, nearly thirty computer security and cryptography experts from around the world signed “Open Letter: […]

In the lead up to last month’s Internet Engineering Task Force meeting in Singapore, IETF 106, the India Internet Engineering Society (IIESoc) held its third annual Connections conference in Kolkata, India. This pre-IETF event aims to increase participation in IETF discussions from the Asia-Pacific region, specifically India. Like the years before it, this edition of […]

In April 2019 the Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance released its 10th annual Online Trust Audit & Honor Roll. The Audit looks at the security and privacy practices of over 1,000 of the top sites on the Internet from retailers to government sites. In this post we will take a deeper dive into the Consumer […]