ITU CALLS ON GOVERNMENTS AND DOMAIN NAME OPERATORS

29th November, 2002

In what some have seen as an attempt to organise governments and country code top level domain operators independently of ICANN, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has announced a 'Workshop on Member States' Experiences with ccTLDs' to take place in Geneva on 3-4 March 2003. Although the Agenda is somewhat vague at the moment, one item, 'ccTLD experiences and expectations' makes an intriguing title. 

The Workshop website goes on to say that "contributions describing legal systems, the role of governments, relations between governments and ccTLD operators, and relations with other relevant private sector entities are particularly welcome". Could 'other relevant private sector entities' mean ICANN?

The Workshop follows on from the ITU's resolution 102 concluded at their Plenipotentiary Conference (Marrakesh 2002) which makes it clear that the UN agency is seeking a leading role in domain name and address policy development. In furtherance of this agenda, the ITU has recently commented on the ICANN reform process in a paper - 'ITU and ICANN Reform', and a remark on their 'clarifications' web page which supplements and explains the paper provides a further clue:-

"It has been stated that ITU's membership does not include many of the key players in the Internet. The full list of ITU Sector Members is available at http://www.itu.int/members/index.html. It can be seen that this includes most of the large equipment manufacturers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). 

"It is, however, correct that small ISPs and the ccTLD operators are not currently ITU members. If ITU were to cooperate more closely with ICANN, these organizations could consider becoming ITU-T Sector Members or Associate Members 2, if that were considered appropriate."

Details at: http://www.demys.net/news/02_nov_29_itu.htm