IE-Annual-Report-&-Review-2024

ICANN – global coordination role ICANN’s role is to oversee the huge and complex interconnected network of unique identifiers that allow computers on the Internet to find one another. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, was formed in 1998. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, it is a not-for-profit partnership of people from all over the world. ICANN’s primary principles of operation have been described as helping preserve the operational stability of the Internet; to promote competition; to achieve broad representation of the global Internet community; and to develop policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes. ICANN does not control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it does not 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. ICANN has external as well as internal accountabilities. Externally, ICANN is an organisation incorporated under the law of the State of California in the United States, so it can be sued in court. ICANN is also a non-profit public benefit corporation and its directors are legally responsible for upholding their duties under corporate law. Internally, ICANN is accountable to the community through its bylaws, and its representative composition of the ICANN Board from across the globe. Governments can participate in ICANN’s work programme via the Government Advisory Committee (GAC). At the ICANN 52 meeting in Singapore in February 2015, the GAC welcomed Ireland as a new GAC member (along with other late arrivals such as Kazakhstan and Mauritania, bringing the membership to 150 countries). Membership of this influential committee was a major milestone for Ireland Inc in 2015, as it gives Ireland a voice on trans-national Internet policy matters. In October 2016, ICANN was freed from U.S. government oversight and on 6 January 2017, an extremely important change in the governance of the DNS took place, with the completion of the transition of the IANA stewardship to ICANN. IANA is responsible for management of the DNS root zone. Its tasks include “evaluating requests to change the operators of country code domains, as well as day-to-day maintenance of the details of the existing operators … and maintaining their technical and administrative details”. The Root Zone Database represents the delegation details of top-level domains, including gTLDs such as .com, and country-code TLDs such as .uk. As the manager of the DNS root zone, IANA is responsible for coordinating these delegations in accordance with its policies and procedures . ICANN – coming to Dublin in 2025 The ICANN 84 Annual General Meeting has been moved to Dublin and will take place in October 2025. This six-day Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be focused on showcasing ICANN’s work to a broader global audience. The AGM is also where new members of the ICANN Board of Directors take their seats. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) often has dedicated sessions for discussions on topics like new gTLDs, WHOIS/registration data, and DNS abuse. A key aspect of the AGM is the opportunity for the community to provide input and feedback on ICANN’s work. At Cross-Community Interaction sessions, time is dedicated for various Supporting Organizations (SOs), Advisory Committees (ACs), and the ICANN Board to interact and collaborate. It’s exciting to know that the eyes of the global internet stakeholders will be on Dublin, 10 years after a highly successful ICANN event in 2015. The legislative framework in Ireland The legislative framework in Ireland is well developed. The Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2007 essentially transfers the powers previously available to the Minister for Communications under the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 (but never exercised by him) to ComReg, with some limited but important amendments and additions. As an input into the process of developing a potential regulatory framework for .ie, ComReg launched a public consultation process on the .ie namespace and published its formal Response to Consultation, Document 09/01. ComReg’s related press release stated that: ▶ ComReg will, by way of regulation, appoint .IE as the authority authorised to register .ie domain names in accordance with Section 32(4) (a) of the Act of 2007. ▶ .IE will set up and maintain a Policy Advisory Committee representative of all stakeholders with a focus on more transparent policy development. ▶ .IE will continue to adopt the “managed approach” to .ie registrations to ensure continued protection for .ie domain name holders and consumers. In December 2024, the then Department of Environment, Climate and Communications launched a public consultation on a proposed management framework for the .ie ccTLD. The objective of the consultation was to establish terms and conditions for the domain name manager for Ireland’s .ie domain registry. We welcomed this development as a positive step forward towards enhanced internet governance. We look forward to continuing our positive working relationship with the government department(s). Governance IE Domain Registry CLG t/a .IE / Annual Report & Review 2024 15