5-4 Recent trends of ICANN

(JPNIC Secretariat)

ICANN Cairo Meeting

A series of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) meetings were convened from March 7 to 10, 2000, in Cairo, Egypt. Attendance was relatively small, which may be have been due to the venue. Overall, there were many attendees from North America.

There were more lawyers, civic group members, and business-related people than network engineers among the attendees. This shows that the Internet has been developped involveing not only engineers, but also people from a wide range of fields including business and law.

JPNIC secretariat staff, as well as JPNIC members of Planning/International Working Group, Domain Name Working Group, and Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy Task Force attended the meetings and joined the discussion.

Please refer to the following web site for the meeting schedule and other information: http://www.icann.org/cairo2000/cairo-details.htm

We would like to highlight some of the resolutions from the March 10 ICANN Board meeting. A full report on board resolutions can be found at: http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-10mar00.htm

A Japanese translation of the resolutions can be accessed from the International Cooperation page of the Web site at:http://www.nic.ad.jp/jp/intl/index.html

New gTLDs

The movement toward establishing new gTLDs drew attention at the Cairo meeting. The establishment of new gTLDs, and protection of world-famous trade marks at the time of gTLD registration, have been discussed for 8 months at a Working Group of DNSO, a sub-organization of ICANN. The Working Group reported that new gTLD should be established, with numbers limited at first, and further increase the number during a pilot phase. However, it did not state what types of gTLDs should be newly established, or specifically how many to establish.

The ICANN Board requested that the DNSO Names Council submit recommendations regarding new gTLDs by April 20, 2000, with considerations for protection of world-famous trademarks. In addition, it was decided that the ICANN Secretariat will prepare drafts for policies and execution documents so that they can be voted on at the ICANN Yokohama meeting in July, 2000. Thus, we believe that the entire picture of new gTLDs will start to take form in late April.

ccTLD Administration and Entrustment Policy

Recommendations regarding ccTLD administration and the role of ccTLD administrators were made to the ICANN Board of Trustees by current ccTLD administrators, ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee, and others. Suggestions from proponents such as "ccTLD administration should abide by the each country's national laws" or "Administrators should be able to do their job irrespective of national borders" were made by the spokesperson.

Following this discussion, the ICANN Board of Trustees ordered the Secretariat to prepare documents, including contracts between ICANN and ccTLD administrators, and a policy statement concerning ccTLD administration. As a ccTLD registry, JPNIC is paying close attention to this issue and would like to express its opinions through the participating ccTLD Constituency.

At Large Member System

Applications for ICANN At Large membership have been accepted since the end of February, 2000. This membership is open to everyone. Accordingly, JPNIC has started providing relevant information in Japanese at the International Cooperation page of its web site.

Several resolutions were made regarding the At Large membership system at the Cairo meeting. First, a nomination committee will be set up to for appointing ICANN Trustee candidates from At Large members. An election will then be held, by direct poll of At Large members in all regions (Asia-Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe and Africa), to select five Trustees for two-year terms. This selection will be made by November 1, 2000. Accordingly, the terms of the four trustees currently serving should be extended to November, 2001. (9 of the 19 Trustees are always from the At Large membership).

Discussions on the specifics of the At Large Membership system, such as its concept, structure and procedures, will start shortly. The results of the discussions are scheduled to be presented at the ICANN Board meeting in the second quarter of 2001.

Memorandum of Understanding with IETF

ICANN Board has decided to exchange a Memorandum of Understanding with IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and IAB (Internet Architecture Board). The content of the Memorandum is that technical functions of IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) should be transferred to ICANN.

Please refer to the following URL for the full document of the Memorandum.

http://www.icann.org/general/ietf-icann-mou-01mar00.htm

Future ICANN Meeting Schedules

The Board of Trustees has scheduled future meetings as follows:

July 15-16,	2000	Yokohama
September 27-28,	2000	Europe (tentative)
November 13-16,	2000	California (Annual Meeting)
March	2001	South Asia / Pacific (Australia and other areas)
June	2001	Latin America
September	2001	Europe
November	2001	North America (Annual Meeting)

JPNIC's Approach

Based on the outcome of the Cairo meeting, JPNIC brought back at least 3 pieces of homework. Firstly, JPNIC should pay close attention to gTLD trends and ccTLD management policies, and actively express opinions. Secondly, JPNIC should improve its information services and advertisement of ICANN activities in order to recruit At Large members in Japan. Finally, JPNIC should make positive contributions as the local organizer for the ICANN Yokohama meeting scheduled in July.

Accordingly, we will continue to provide a wide range of information at meetings of the monthly Internet Governance Study Group which started in February, on such topics as gTLD trends, the At Large Membership system, and IP address related trends. We are hoping to hear participants' opinions and to discuss with them in order to determine opinions that should be presented to ICANN.

In addition, we will put more ICANN-related information on the "icann-d@nic.ad.jp" public mailing list and the International Cooperation pages of the JPNIC Web site. If you have opinions pertaining to the issue of JPNIC's international cooperation, please send them to icann-sec@nic.ad.jp.

The JPNIC Planning/International Working Group and the International Affairs Section at the Secretariat always appreciate your comments.