Friday, Sep 7, 2007    Text size: 

ICANN is calling this meeting particularly important for the future of the organization. Topics to be discussed and meetings planned include WhoIs, new gTLDs, GNSO Working Groups meetings, a GAC meeting, a ccNSO Council meeting, ALAC meetings and a Public Board meeting, which caps the conference.

Chief among those topics will be to hash out differences over proposed privacy changes to the WhoIs database. ICANN formed a working group of 60 members five months ago, but the debate has gone on for years.

“Despite flirting with the kind of compromises and reforms that might actually reconcile privacy rights with identification needs, in the final weeks of the process, trust and agreement among the parties broke down completely,” said Milton Mueller, a partner in the Internet Governance Project.

“Internationalized domain names will make the Internet more intuitive for billions of non-English speakers around the world,” an ICANN representative said. “Likewise, new generic top-level domains may change the whole way we approach the Internet in the future.”

Additionally Vint Cerf, co-founder of the Internet, is stepping down as ICANN chairman after eight years at its helm. Plans for Cerf’s successor will be announced at the Public Board meeting.