ICANN60 – Abu Dhabi

The ICANN60 meeting will take place on 28 October – 3 November 2017, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The meeting will give ICANN supporting organisations and advisory committees the opportunity to have face-to-face discussions on various issues pertaining to ICANN’s activity. It will also represent the organisation’s 19th general annual meeting. A detailed schedule will be made available on the ICANN meetings website.

ICANN meetings in brief

• ICANN meetings are held three times each year in different regions of the globe to enable attendees from around the world to participate in person. One meeting each year is also the organisation’s annual general meeting, during which new Board members take their seats. 
• ICANN meetings are free and officially run five days (Monday to Friday). There are also a few pre-meeting workshops and working sessions when the volunteer members of our supporting organizations and advisory committees initiate their work. 
• ICANN meetings offer the best opportunity for face-to-face discussions and airing of opinions among knowledgeable people dedicated to the continued stable and secure operation of the Internet. 
• ICANN meetings offer a variety of sessions such as workshops, open forums, and working meetings on the development and implementation of Internet policies. 
• Remote participation is possible while the meetings are going on. ICANN offers several tools such as streaming live audio and video, chatrooms, and online question boxes. 
• Detailed logistics and information about each meeting venue, registration, and remote participation can be found at the dedicated website created for each meeting. 
• ICANN’s Fellowship programme supports attendance at ICANN meetings by selected individuals from stakeholder groups around the world.

Where and when do ICANN meetings take place? 

ICANN meetings are held three times a year in different regions, with the Board typically choosing the actual location at least a year out from the meeting. The list of regions and countries of past and upcoming ICANN meetings is available at https://meetings.icann.org/calendar.

What happens between meetings? 

In the period between meetings, the supporting organisations (SOs) and advisory committees (ACs) work closely with ICANN staff to make progress on the work agreed to during the most recent meeting. The results are then posted for public comment on the ICANN website to allow anyone in the Internet community to become acquainted with the latest developments and offer opinions on them. ICANN’s advisory committees also prepare reports to inform you about these issues and their potential impact on the Internet. A summary and analysis of all the comments is prepared and relevant documents are revised accordingly in time for your further review at the next meeting.

What topics are discussed? 

A broad range of Internet-related topics are discussed at each meeting. The agenda is ever changing and as dynamic as the Internet itself, but typically they cover contractual issues with the retail and wholesale arms of the Domain Name System, ways to respond to illegal or abusive use of the Internet’s naming systems, internal restructuring, and new initiatives for increasing competition on the Internet.

What is an ICANN meeting and what happens? 

ICANN meetings provide the opportunity for an internationally diverse group of individuals and organisations to come together and discuss and develop policies for the Internet‘s naming systems. The organisation’s staff of around 100 runs the meetings and coordinates with its volunteer SOs and ACs. The SOs and ACs are represented by governments, managers of Domain Name System elements (registries, registrars, ISPs), technical, business and intellectual property communities, academia, Internet users, and so on. ICANN’s Board, which is international in nature, ultimately weighs and makes the final decisions about Internet policies and processes.

One committee, the Governmental Advisory Committee or GAC, is made up of representatives from governments and governmental entities. Currently numbering over 130 members, they come together at each meeting to provide a unique regulatory, legal, linguistic, and cultural perspective on the issues being discussed during the meeting.

ICANN’s international meetings have been a staple of ICANN’s multi-stakeholder bottom-up consensus-building model since its formation in 1998. At the annual general meeting, one of each year’s three meetings, participants have the opportunity to meet newly seated members of the Board of Directors and thank outgoing Board members for their service.

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