ICANN 78 report – October 2023
The focus for ICANN78 was ICANN’s Annual General Meeting. auDA was represented at the forum by CEO Rosemary Sinclair AM, Chief Operating Officer Dr Bruce Tonkin, Chief Communications Officer Sophie Mitchell, Internet Governance and Policy Director Jordan Carter and Specialist Policy Adviser Annaliese Williams. The auDA team joined almost 1,700 other onsite participants, and a further 660 virtual participants, hailing from 175 countries and territories.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of ICANN and while there was much reflection on, and celebration of, the achievements of the past quarter century, there was a strong sense that the ICANN community is also looking to the future and the challenges the community collectively faces.
Several sessions focused on the upcoming 20-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) in 2025, including a meeting between the country code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Council and the ICANN Board. You can read our blog on why WSIS+20 matters to find out more.
During the Welcome Ceremony, ICANN Board Chair Tripti Sinha emphasised the role ICANN and its partners play in ensuring a secure, stable and unified global internet and reflected on the success of the multi-stakeholder approach in governing infrastructure that spans the globe.
With WSIS+20 looming, and ICANN considering its next strategic plan, Tripti invited the community to work with ICANN on shaping its next strategic plan.
Support for the multi-stakeholder approach was echoed at the Welcome and Opening Ceremony by Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport, Dr Volker Wissing. He noted responsibility for the internet does not end at nation state borders and that global cooperation between all stakeholders is a mainstay of the multi-stakeholder internet governance system. He stated the Global Digital Compact (GDC), which is expected to be negotiated at the United Nation’s 2024 Summit of the Future, offers an opportunity to “mainstream” important principles at a global level.
These ideas align with auDA’s Internet Governance Roadmap, published in August 2023. During ICANN78, auDA had an opportunity to discuss the Roadmap with international stakeholders and presented it to ccNSO members during a ccTLD News session.
In addition to stakeholder meetings conducted throughout the week, the auDA team also played an active leadership role at the forum.
- Rosemary participated in the ccNSO’s Strategic and Operational Planning Standing Committee and met with the CEOs of other ccTLDs. Rosemary will be leading the Committee’s work in the multi-stakeholder aspects of scrutiny of ICANN’s 2024 plan and budget.
- Bruce participated in meetings of the DNS Abuse Standing Committee (DASC), which is a forum for ccTLD managers to share information and best practice about DNS abuse. During ICANN78, the DASC provided information on various tools and measurements for DNS abuse.
- Sophie is a member of the ICANN Nominating Committee and participated in Committee meetings, and began work to select seven key ICANN leadership positions in 2024.
- Jordan continues as Vice Chair of the ccNSO Council, which determines the direction of the ccNSO and administers its work program. He is leading work for the ccNSO to identify gaps in the policy framework that determines how ICANN works with ccTLDs.
- Annaliese chaired meetings of the Internet Governance Liaison Committee and moderated sessions where experts shared their views on what WSIS+20 means for ccTLD managers, and where the ccTLD managers for Germany (.de) and Japan (.jp) explained how they are addressing this work.
In addition to being ICANN’s 25th anniversary, 2023 is also the 20th anniversary of the ccNSO. auDA was pleased to sponsor a special anniversary event, the ccNSO World Café, to explore how the ccNSO could best engage with the rest of the ICANN community over the next 5-10 years.
auDA also enjoyed an opportunity to meet with our colleagues from the Pacific Islands, continue conversations that started at the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF), hosted by auDA in August 2023, and consider how we can better work together across the region to support an open, free, secure and global internet.
ICANN78 readout webinar
On 16 November, auDA was pleased to host a readout webinar to provide the Australian internet community a chance to hear perspectives about the ICANN78 meeting. The panel comprised:
- Annaliese Williams – reporting on the ccNSO proceedings
- Ian Sheldon – The Australian Government’s representative on ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), sharing a report from the GAC meetings
- Cheryl Langdon-Orr – reporting from the At-Large community;
- Julie Hammer – reporting from the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC)
The webinar included discussion on:
- The breadth of DNS abuse discussion across almost all parts of the ICANN system, and the ongoing vote among registrars to adopt changes to the base Registrar Authorisation Agreement to mandate steps to address DNS abuse.
- Broad community engagement on the upcoming WSIS+20 review and precursor international discussions on the GDC. This included at sessions between the GNSO and ccNSO Councils, the ccNSO and the ICANN Board, in a geo-political update session, and in a technical community coordination session organised by ICANN Board Chair Tripti Sinha and Board Member Christian Kaufmann.
- The intensive work underway to prepare for the next round of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), slated to launch in April 2026. The importance of high-quality applicant support to drive increased diversity (including of geographic location of new gTLDs, and the increasing use of non-Latin scripts through Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) gTLDs), and how to deal with applications for new gTLDs that involve the closed list of generic terms.
At the end of the webinar, panellists also took a few minutes to share reflections on the recent 2023 Internet Governance Forum (IGF), held in Kyoto, Japan on 8-12 October.
At the IGF, there was extensive discussion on AI which dominated the agenda, and much discussion on the WSIS+20 review and the Global Digital Compact too. The only criticism offered was a very busy program with some repetition in sessions.
Panellists also noted the launch by the IGF’s Leadership Panel of a paper called “The Internet We Want”, proposing some goals to guide the future evolution of internet governance.
You can find the webinar recording on the auDA website. We encourage you to review the recording and see what highlights matter to you.
To learn more about ICANN78, the schedule and recordings of all public sessions can be found at https://icann78.sched.com/.
