ICANN meet here to iron out global Internet issues

KUALA LUMPUR: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will meet here on July 19-23 to discuss global issues facing the Internet.

Among them would be the deployment of "internationalised domain names" and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), as well as the need for more top-level domains.

This is the first time that the international meeting of Internet experts and professionals, held every four months, is being hosted in Malaysia, said Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) chairman Datuk V. Danapalan.

ICAAN (www.icaan.org) is an international non-profit corporation responsible for the Internet Protocol address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic and country code top-level names management and root server system management functions originally performed under US Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and other entities.

MCMC has been an active participant in ICANN and has been involved especially in initiatives related to the developmental nature of the Internet.

One issue that will be raised at the ICANN meeting this month is that of internationalised domain names or IDNs (www.icann.org/topics/idn.html).

This involves standardising the representation of non-Latin alphabets like Arabic, Chinese and others in Unicode, said ICANN Government Advisory Council chairman Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi.

This would enable such alphabets to be used in web addresses or URLs (Universal Resource Locators) -- for example http://star-techcentral.com/ -- without ambiguity or confusion.

“This will help overcome the problem of the digital divide where the Latin alphabet and the English language are the major script and language used on the Internet," said Sharil.

"This automatically excludes many people from places like China for instance, who can’t read Latin script, from benefiting from Internet use,” he added.

Many of today’s computers, software, operating systems, programming and scripting languages use Unicode (www.unicode.org) to represent characters and numbers in different languages.

Sensitive issues

Other issues to be discussed at ICANN includes the protection of intellectual property rights of people and organisations in different languages and scripts on the Internet -- for example, protecting names like “Coca-Cola” in Latin, Arabic, Chinese and other languages and scripts.

“IDN forums and discussions also handle culturally- and religiously-sensitive issues,” said Sharil.

“For instance, most Japanese would not react if someone created a pornographic website with a name like 'Hirohito.com' in Latin script, but they would be very offended if the website’s name was in Japanese script," he claimed.

"These forums seek to define proper practices and protocols related to behaviour on the Internet, which allow avenues for aggrieved parties to take legal action,” he added.

Other activities include technical training in DNS (domain name server) server management and operation, which will be held July 16-18 for IT professionals in charge of these servers worldwide.

The Government Advisory Committee (www.gac.icann.org) regional forum and plenary meetings will be held on July 17-19, focusing on IDN, IPv6 and top-level domains.

On July 19-20, the Generic Names Supporting Organisation (www.gnso.icann.org) will hold constituency and council meetings to discuss policies related to generic top-level domain names like .com, .org, .net, .biz, .info, .aero, .coop, .museum, .pro, .name and so on.

At the same time, the Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (www.ccnso.icann.org) will look into developing and recommending policies pertaining to country-code top-level domains like .my, .sg and others.

July 20 will also see a workshop on the United Nation’s World Summit on Information Systems (WSIS), where governments will address a wide range of international legal, regulatory, economic and policy issues related to the Internet.

A public forum will be held on July 22, and a “closed” ICANN board meeting will be held on July 23 -- anyone can attend the latter as an observer.

The Joint ICANN/ International Telecommunication Union workshop on country code top-level domain names (www.icann.org/cctlds) will be held on July 24.

Most events will be held at the Shangri-La Hotel here, while others will be held at the Equatorial Hotel nearby.

Up to 500 participants are expected to attend, including eminent scientists and contributors to Internet development like TCP/IP cofounder Vinton Cerf, and other luminaries.

Attendance is open and free, but participants must register. For more information call the MCMC at (603) 4047-7000 or e-mail icann@cmc.gov.my.