I’m still recovering from the recent ICANN meeting in New Delhi. As well as a hand injury from a fall at the airport (which started off the week well), I managed to catch a nasty cough while I was there that I’m still suffering from and I therefore did’nt really get out of the hotel (for those still under the false impression that international meetings are a complete jolly). I do know we were in India though, as there were some great curries on offer!

There was a very full ICANN agenda, but here is a brief summary of some of the key discussions we were involved in:

Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs)

The introduction of IDNs (domain names in non-Latin scripts) will be one of the biggest changes to the Internet since its inception, so it is not surprising that policy making about IDNs could take a long time. The discussions in Delhi were another step forward on that journey and IDNs were on the agenda for a number of constituency meetings.

The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and country code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO) representatives met to discuss the issues regarding IDN two letter country code Top Level Domains and this discussion will continue at the next meeting. As part of its communiqué to ICANN, the GAC advised that the public policy principles it previously developed for ccTLDs are relevant also to IDN ccTLDs.

The discussion about a ‘fast-track’ process for introducing IDN ccTLDs in the near-term was also discussed in several meetings. As some will know, I’m not convinced how fast a ‘fast track’ will be able to act, particularly as the key policy decisions will need to be made via the formal (lengthier) policy development process. However, next steps were agreed and the working group will submit its final report to the ICANN board in June 2008.

New generic top level domains (gTLDs)

The process for introducing new generic top level domains (gTLDs) was discussed and there is some pressure from potential applicants who naturally want to know when they can submit bids and how much they will need to pay. There is also some pressure from potential accredited registries who want to become accredited so that they can partner with applicants, but don’t yet know the criteria they will need to meet as these are being developed. Work has been progressing on an implementation plan based on the policy development work done by the Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) and ICANN apparently hopes to start accepting bids for new gTLDs by the end of 2008 at the earliest. I expect that date may need to slip, as there is much work to be done by ICANN and the various consultants before everything will be ready.

Joint Project Agreement
In the open session on the JPA review, the ICANN Chairman helpfully ‘clarified’ that the ICANN submission to the review was not seeking an immediate end to the JPA, but dialogue about what will happen when it ends in 18 months time. Many present seemed to agree that we should use the time to discuss what accountabilty and oversight will be needed for an independent ICANN. I suspect there will not be so much agreement about what form this should take. As I pointed out, this is actually quite a tight timescale for an international multi-stakeholder discussion and dialogue will need to develop rapidly if an acceptable solution is to be found.