Singapore49 marks new era in ICANN

DigitalSENSE Business News:

The President and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Mr. Fadi Chehadé, has described the just ended 49^th public meeting of ICANN in Singapore as new beginning, reports DigitalSENSE Business News.

The 49th meeting, DigitalSENSE Business News reports quoted Mr. Chehade as saying marked the beginning of a new era for the organization and the future of Internet governance.

"ICANN49 will be remembered as a meeting that, in many ways, ended the early phase of ICANN and brought the organization into a new phase of maturity and responsibility," Chehadé said.

As said by him, this was exemplified by the recent decision of the United States Government to hand us the very ominous responsibility to facilitate and convene the world toward determining how ICANN will be providing assurances of accountability across the board.

ICANN's Board Chairman, Dr. Stephen Crocker, told DigitalSENSE Business News at the Singapore meeting attended by over 1,940 people registered from 150 countries, that people from all over the world, from all segments of the Internet community, were at the meeting, interacted not just with ICANN, but also with each other.

The Singapore meeting was dominated by discussions stemming from the recent announcement by the U.S. Government that it wants to transfer stewardship of some vital Internet technical functions to provide for global accountability.

US government, he said, reached out to ICANN, which will continue to manage those functions as it has for more than 15 years, to help determine the best process for transferring that stewardship.

"These are important times," said Chehadé, stressing that the U.S. Government has modulated its stewardship over time, it has dialed it down and this was just a natural moment for all this to happen, as the U.S. government has said, due to the community's readiness to actually embrace these responsibilities and establish the appropriate accountability mechanisms to replace the U.S. role."

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Pix: ICANN board chairman, Steve Crocker