Exclusive interview with ICANN CEO on the future of the Internet

Exclusive interview with ICANN CEO on the future of the Internet

March 16, 2006

ICANN to Launch Trial Testing of IDNs for Top Level
Domains in the Third Quarter of 2006
Full Interview to Appear in Interfax China IT Report Weekly

    SHANGHAI, China, March 16 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- The
English language will lose its monopoly on Internet domain
names before the end of the year.  ICANN (The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) will start the
trial testing of internationalized domain names (IDN) in
the Top Level Domain (TLD) system, in the third quarter of
2006, Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN, told
Interfax in an interview on Tuesday.  Once IDN domain names
are implemented Internet sites will able to have domain
names in foreign languages, and foreign character sets-
such as Chinese.

    "The preparation for the testing is already
underway, and it will be a testing on the top of the
root," said Twomey.  "We are presently moving to
introduce the IDNs of TLD, and are much closer to the end
for the answer." But the exact date for the launch of
the IDN is not yet available. 

    In order to implement the internationalized domain name
system, ICANN has launched two working groups including the
Presidents Advisory Committee with technical experts, and a
policy group to draft explicit policies on the application
and operation of IDNs.  Twomey said that ICANN was
expecting the policy development process to come to a
conclusion in the end of the third quarter or the early
fourth quarter this year. 

    "I understand people's complaints towards ICANN's
slow process on this issue," said Twomey.  "ICANN
should ensure the stability, usability of the Internet, and
therefore, the launch of IDN involves different layers and
protocols, and is not as simple as it sounds."

    The three biggest concerns for ICANN to implement IDNs
in TLD include technical stability, the linguistic issue of
language characters, and the policy of later operation. 
"The launch of IDNs is a big issue for ICANN, and
important to Internet users worldwide, especially those who
do not speak English," said Twomey.

    However, Twomey emphasized that the real thing that
drives Internet and usability should be the local Internet
content instead of the domain name system. 

    Commenting on the recent change that China has made
towards its domain name system, Twomey said the change that
China has made is mainly to build up their second-level
domain name structure as other countries do.  "We do
not see they are transferring their own domain name systems
onto their single root services."

    The full text of the interview, where Twomey talks
about the Chinese Internet market, future development of
the Internet worldwide, ICANN's linguistic policy,
allocation policies, international strategy, censorship and
other matters, will be available exclusively in the Interfax
China IT Report Weekly. 

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