Program Ensures Global Representation at ICANN's Public Meetings

MARINA DEL REY, California: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is now accepting online applications for the 17th round of the Fellowship program. Successful candidates will participate in the ICANN meeting to be held in Toronto, Canada from 14-18 October 2012.

The Fellowship program is open to applicants who are current residents of developing and least developed nations and interested in participating in ICANN and its supporting organizations, constituencies and stakeholder groups. Priority is given to individuals new to the ICANN environment from government and the ccTLD community, as well as those from academic, civil, business and non-profit entities, which are NOT involved in or associated with other ICANN supported travel programs. The program provides the support and opportunity for these participants to gain knowledge on how to have their voices heard in the Internet community and ICANN. More information regarding terms and conditions, as well as eligibility is available online at http://www.icann.org/en/fellowships/ or email at fellowships@icann.org regarding any questions about this process or program.

The Fellowship program arranges the airfare, hotel and a stipend for those individuals selected to participate in this ICANN meeting. Recipients are expected to actively participate in and contribute to ICANN processes, both at the meeting and in the future. As always, registration for ICANN's meetings is free for anyone wanting to attend.

Applications for the meeting in Toronto will be accepted from 23:00 UTC on 23 May 2012 until 23:59 UTC on 8 July 2012. Successful candidates will be posted on the ICANN Fellowship webpage by 17 August 2012.

What Is ICANN?

To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet.

ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique identifiers.

ICANN doesn't control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn't deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO

The TLD Application System, or TAS, has reopened. All registered applicants can now log in, review and submit their applications.

The system will remain open until 23:59 GMT/UTC on 30 May 2012. Consistent with our previous practice and to allow the application window to open as soon as possible, two-hour maintenance windows have been scheduled as follows: 22 May at 16:30 GMT/UTC, 25 May at 23:00 UTC, and 29 May at 22:00 UTC.

Applicants are encouraged to review "Top Things Users Should Know When TAS Reopens," posted on the new gTLD microsite at http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/tas/top-ten. The document provides advice on logging into and completing applications, submitting wire transfers, and contacting customer service with any issues users might encounter.

During the last few weeks, we have fixed the technical glitch that caused us to take the system offline. Also, to address user feedback, we have improved the overall system performance and the HTML preview function.

In our continuing review of the system logs and system traffic, we determined that in two instances, a single file might have been temporarily unavailable to an applicant. Full access to those two files has been restored. ICANN notified the affected users.

We recognize and regret the inconvenience caused by this glitch and the delayed closing of the application window.

Based upon the Board Resolutions resulting from the recent Special Meeting of the Board of Directors held in Amsterdam on 6 May 2012, the adopted 2012-2015 Strategic Plan [PDF, 864 KB] is now posted.

2012-2015 Strategic Plan

• English [PDF, 864 KB]
• العربية - coming soon
• 中文 - coming soon
• Français - coming soon
• Español - coming soon
• Русский - coming soon

During the Special Meeting of the Board of Directors held in Amsterdam the Board approved the July 2012-June 2015 Strategic Plan, and directed the President and CEO to move forward with the Internationalization survey and community-based operational planning process based on the strategic objectives as set forth in the plan. The aspects of the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan that cover the expansion of ICANN's international presence and engagement efforts are deferred pending further direction from the Board.

Rationale for Resolution 2012.05.06.06

To remain accountable to the global Internet community, the Board is taking this action to allow for community input on the further planning for ICANN's international presence and engagement. There has been a community survey on these items, and a paper will be produced that will be the subject of public comment and discussion. In addition, continued work towards these efforts as set forth in the 2011-2014 Strategic Plan is not prudent, therefore those portions of the 2011-2014 Strategic Plan are deferred.

After review of these inputs, and as appropriate to respond to inputs, initiatives to expand ICANN's international presence and engagement may be updated within the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan, and included within the 2012-2013 Operating Plan. In order to allow for the 2012-2013 operational planning cycle to proceed, the Board approves the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan.

While there will likely be a fiscal impact as a result of this work, the fiscal impact of undertaking the survey and review process is minimal. Further, the deferral of current initiatives within the 2011-2012 Operating Plan regarding the further allocation or reallocation of staff and resources that relate to ICANN's international presence and engagement prior to the Prague Meeting will preserve resources from having to be reallocated as necessary after this review is complete.

This action is not expected to have any impact on the security or the stability of the DNS.

This version of the Strategic Plan includes extensive community feedback, including a 45-day Public Comment period (10.3.11 – 11.17.11). Many thanks to the Community for its continued support and input.

ICANN's Strategic Plan is a three-year rolling, annually updated strategic planning process and feeds in to the larger ICANN planning process as the adopted Strategic Plan guides the development of the FY13 Operating Plan and Budget.

A new instance of L-Root has been installed in Odessa, Ukraine, increasing the Domain Name System's (DNS) overall fault tolerance and its resilience against certain types of cyber threats, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

The launch of the server node is a joint operation between ICANN and Ukrainian domain registry Hostmaster. DNS Root Servers form a key part of the Internet infrastructure that contribute to the global security and stability of the DNS.

"Odessa is one of the largest Ukrainian cities, with one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the country," said Dmitry Kohmanyuk, a Hostmaster official. "Moreover, the Internet provider we opted for has quality connections to Western Ukraine, which is precisely why we decided to deploy the node there."

Hostmaster, the Ukrainian administrator of the .UA domain, supplied the equipment necessary for the installation of the new L-Root node.

"In addition to the newest L-Root server in Odessa, two other L-Root nodes, in Kyiv and Kharkiv, were also deployed through collaboration between ICANN and Hostmaster." said Joe Abley, Director of DNS Operations at ICANN."

The Following Public Comment periods are approaching their Comment or Reply Period Close dates, May 17-27 2012. As a member of the ICANN community, your timely feedback is critical to our accountability and transparency efforts. For your convenience, we have included direct links below to comments that will soon close.

During the Reply period for Public Comments, participants should only address previous comments submitted and new posts concerning the topic should not be introduced. When constructing Replies, contributors are asked to cite the original poster's name, comment date, and any particular text that is pertinent.

Please note that comments submitted after the posted Close Date/Time are not guaranteed to be considered in any final summary, analysis, reporting, or decision-making that takes place once that period ends.

For more information please refer to the ICANN Public Comments page at: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment

Title	Comment Period Close Date [UTC Time]	Reply Period Close Date [UTC Time]
Second Annual IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process Review	30 April 2012 [23:59]	21 May 2012 [23:59]
ICANN Draft FY13 Operating Plan and Budget	24 May 2012 [23:59]	15 June 2012 [23:59]
IDN Variant TLD Program - Revised Program Plan	25 May 2012 [23:59]	15 June 2012 [23:59]