At-Large Study Committee Releases First Discussion Paper on ICANN; Discussion Paper Leading the Way for Focused Public Input on How to Help ICANN Fulfill its Mission.

Business Editors & High-Tech Industry Writers

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 13, 2001

With the release of its first "Discussion Paper," the At-Large Membership Study Committee (ALSC) indicated the need for better ways of involving the world's individual Internet users in ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

Four months of outreach and deliberation led the independent committee to announce its initial conclusion and call for focused input on improved mechanisms to ensure that an "At-Large membership" (interested individuals, public interest organizations, etc.) has an opportunity to participate fully in ICANN.

ICANN created the ALSC earlier this year to conduct a comprehensive study and make recommendations on how to involve the worldwide individual Internet user community in its work.

"Why people should care about these questions is in part revealed in facts about Internet use today and projections for the future," stated Carl Bildt, ALSC Chair. "The Internet needs to be structured to serve users with diverse needs in every country and in a variety of languages, and it needs to be able to accommodate future growth and technical innovations. So too does ICANN. There were over 400 million Internet users worldwide at the end of last year," he noted, "67% of these users are outside of the U.S. and about 52% of them are non-native English speakers. With projections of over 1 billion Internet users by the end of 2005, and with most of the growth coming from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, it is even more critical that ICANN be structured to represent the interests of the world's Internet users.

"The purpose of the discussion paper is to tell people where the ALSC currently stands and what issues we need input on as we work towards submitting our final recommendations to ICANN's board later this year," stated Bildt.

While commending ICANN for making considerable progress toward achieving its objectives in the last 2 1/2 years, the ALSC's paper noted that "there is concern by some that ICANN still lacks the perceived legitimacy and accountability to a broad public that will enable it to operate effectively and flexibly as the Internet scales up and as ICANN's policies affect an ever broader and less technically oriented Internet community."

Although ICANN's work is technical in nature and primarily involves technical and academic organizations and businesses, its decisions affect people all over the world who are using (or will use) the Internet. ICANN serves many constituencies with diverse interests through a variety of representation mechanisms of which "At-Large" is one.

The ALSC's decision to recommend improved mechanisms for involvement and representation were influenced by findings such as:

-- When established, ICANN committed to creating some mechanism for the
Internet community as a whole to provide input and accountability to ICANN --
and to help to more broadly legitimize its decisions and actions.

-- There is a "public interest" responsibility vested in ICANN, and therefore
some role for individuals (as well as non-commercial interests, etc.) is
appropriate.

-- The existing ICANN policy development and decision-making structure has not
fulfilled expectations of involving and representing these various individuals
and their interests.

The discussion paper, and options for new ICANN structures, will be topics of discussion at an ALSC public meeting in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, Calif.) on Aug. 13. A panel of Silicon Valley leaders moderated by Dan Gillmor, San Jose Mercury News' technology columnist, will lead participants in a discussion of the future of ICANN and how it should represent the global user community.

About the ALSC

The ALSC is an independent committee created by ICANN earlier this year to provide recommendations to ICANN's board on how to structure individual Internet users' participation within ICANN.

The ALSC is conducting an aggressive outreach, discussion, research, and consensus-building campaign that will culminate with the issuance of a draft report for public comment in September, and the submission of a final report to the board in November.

In addition to Carl Bildt, the ALSC includes Charles Costello, Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas Niles, Oscar Robles and Pindar Wong. Biographies of these individuals, and information on the ALSC, can be found at www.atlargestudy.org.

About ICANN

ICANN is a technical coordination body for the Internet. Created in October 1998 by a broad coalition of the Internet's business, technical, academic and user communities, ICANN is assuming responsibility for a set of technical functions previously performed under U.S. government contract by IANA and other groups.

Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment of identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function: Internet domain names, IP address numbers, and protocol parameter and port numbers. In addition, ICANN coordinates the stable operation of the Internet's root server system.

As a nonprofit, private-sector corporation, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy through private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means. ICANN welcomes the participation of any interested Internet user, business or organization.