[NCUC-DISCUSS] Report: Supporting the Domain Name Industry in Underserved Regions

[William Drake]

Hi

For years some of us raised concerns about ICANN’s approach (or lack thereof) to developing country issues with the board, GNSO Council, etc. without getting very far in concrete terms (beyond the JAS working group, and the outreach efforts that crashed & then staff took over).  These days there’s more awareness and interest in thinking about what can be done, but per usual the push is coming from the top down (Fadi & staff) rather than in response to and by fully engaging the community bottom up.  Unsurprisingly, the framing is a bit limiting, but it’s a start, and an opening if concerned community members could get organized to push for an intellectually and programmatically broader discussion.

I guess in Singapore there was a workshop on "Supporting the DNS Industry in Underserved Regions” (both sides of that formulation worthy of contemplation) http://singapore49.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dns-underserved.  Given the schedule implosions that have been routinized with the loss of Fridays, it’s no surprise that this was held at the same time as the workshop on Internet governance, the GNSO Council meeting, etc etc, so probably a lot of us who’d have been interested missed it (I see from the transcript that Maria and Pranesh were there, don’t know if they have any thoughts on this…?).  Anyway, staff have now come out with a little registrar-centric report (sample: "As of 16 April 2014, there were 1,010 ICANN-accredited Registrars. Of those, seven are located in Africa. Fourteen are located in the Middle East.”) and are soliciting public comments.

A number of members have expressed interest over the years in development issues.  It’d be good to have civil society participation in this discussion, whether at the constituency or SG level…anyone interested in organizing something?

Bill



> http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-14may14-en.htm
> 
> ________________________________
> Report: Supporting the Domain Name Industry in Underserved Regions
> 
> 14 May 2014
> 
> 
> 
> Forum Announcement:     Comment Period Opens on Date:   14 May 2014
> Categories/Tags:
> 
> *   Contracted Party Agreements
> *   Reviews/Improvements
> *   Participation
> 
> 
> Purpose (Brief):
> 
> This is a report about supporting the domain name industry in underserved regions, prepared by ICANN staff for public comment. Public comments on this report will be used to determine next steps to support the domain name industry in underserved regions.
> 
> 
> Public Comment Box Link:        http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/dns-underserved-14may14-en.htm

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William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
  University of Zurich, Switzerland
Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency, 
  ICANN, www.ncuc.org
william.drake at uzh.ch (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com (lists),
  www.williamdrake.org
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