ICANN: Largest change to domain name system in history

ICANN, the governing body for Internet addresses, today discussed global Internet address expansion at its 34th international public meeting in Mexico City, detailing "the possibility of one of the most dramatic expansions to the global Internet addressing system since it was created."

Departing ICANN President and CEO Paul Twomey joined Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush at the conference, addressing the latest developments in TLDs (top-level domains), including gTLDs (generic top-level domains) and ccTLDs (country code top-level domains).

Among the news was the following:

• A massive expansion of generic top-level domain names; and
• IDN (internationalized domain names), which will facilitate the use of languages other than English in internet addresses, including languages that do not use the Roman character set, such as Arabic or those that use Cyrillic characters, such as the Slavic languages.

Paul Levins, ICANN's vice president of corporate affairs, kicked off the press conference by noting that more than 1,200 people attended the Mexico City meeting, and "By far the largest group attending this meeting were Mexican nationals. That's the first time we've ever had that happen," as opposed to Americans or Europeans, thus displaying an "enormous interest."

Levins introduced four overarching issues ICANN faces:

• Concern with the rights of trademark holders;
• That the increase in names could increase the amount of malicious abuse;
• Concerns about security and stability - can it be done?; and
• Demand -- where is the demand for this?

At which point Thrush took over, noting that there is enormous entrepreneurial interest in specialized generic top-level domains: .eco, .green, .beach, .wine, .shoes, etc.

On the agenda was the switch from IPv4 to IPv6, in which the former currently is limited to 4.2 billion addresses and the latter will have 340 trillion available.

The major point of this expansion is to welcome the developing world online, the executives said. The main question is simply, "Is there enough space for the developing world?" Thrush said. "Every region gets one, and the developing countries are being looked after," he said.

This is "potentially the largest change to the domain name system...in history," he said. The allowance of character sets apart from roman characters, "that's a really big deal," he said.

"We're not only changing the number -- the size -- but also the style," Thrush said.

Of course, there are issues to face with this expansion, including potential intellectual property conflicts for brands and corporations (one example: "Say it's .bearstearns -- what do you do when Bear Stearns goes bankrupt? We're working on these issues currently."). But the main objective is to address the three billion people that will be connected to the Internet in the next three years, a 100% increase from the amount of people connected today, he said.

"This is going to give enormous potential to developing countries to get in and not be cut out," he said. "There's a kind of digital divide that's going to be bridged by this."

It will also address future technologies, such as IP addresses for every component in a machine. For example, a "smart" soda machine that reports back to the supplier when more beverages are needed, or "smart monitoring" of electricity consumption that you can track via the Internet, Thrush said.

UPDATE: 5:25 p.m.: More from ICANN's press release that just landed in my inbox:

The Mexico City meeting was also saw the release of a study that pointed to the public benefit of new gTLDs.

The study, commissioned by ICANN, was conducted by University of Chicago Economics Professor Dennis Carlton. “The likely effect of ICANN’s proposal is to increase output, lower price and increase innovation,” said Carlton. “I conclude that ICANN’s proposed framework for introducing new TLDs is likely to improve consumer welfare by facilitating entry and creating new competition.”

In other notable decisions, the Board discussed the substance of changes to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) which include:

• New enforcement tools – new Registrar Audit and a group liability provision amongst other things. • Registrant protections – shining a light on the risks of proxy registration. • Consistent minimum standards of service for all registrars. • A modernizing of the agreement to get up-to-date with the domain name market.

These changes were unanimously agreed upon by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). The Board asked that the changes be published for public comment for no less than thirty days with a commitment to act on approval of the amendments at the earliest opportunity.

“This maintains a policy of timely, accurate and unrestricted public access to Whois data but also adds new enforcement tools which fits well with ICANN’s increased emphasis on compliance” said Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN.

Attendees of the Mexico City conference also discussed the impacts of Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), which will allow internet uses to enter internet addresses in languages other than English.

Further, implementation of the upgrade of the Internet’s protocol to IPv6, which will vastly expand the number of available Internet addresses was also a topic of discussion. Estimates are that under the current protocol (IPv4) the number of available internet addresses will be exhausted in 3 to 4 years.

Finally, ICANN Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush thanked the Internet Mexican Association (AMIPCI) for helping to coordinate and host the Mexico City Conference.

Further, implementation of the upgrade of the Internet’s protocol to IPv6, which will vastly expand the number of available Internet addresses was also a topic of discussion. Estimates are that under the current protocol (IPv4) the number of available internet addresses will be exhausted in 3 to 4 years.