GOVERNMENTAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
COMMUNIQUE
The Governmental Advisory
Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) met on 11 and 12 November 2001, in Marina del Rey. The attending GAC Members, which included
representatives from national governments, distinct economies as recognised in
international fora and multinational governmental and treaty organisations had
useful discussions relating to the Internet.
Security and
Stability of the Internet
The GAC recognizes that the events of September 11, were not only a serious attack on the values of democracy, but also impacted vital international communication infrastructure. The GAC welcomes ICANN’s initiative of devoting this meeting to Internet security matters. Accordingly, the GAC spent a considerable portion of their meeting discussing these issues and will work with ICANN to develop further strategies to ensure security and stability of the Internet naming and addressing system.
The GAC welcomes the update received
from the ICANN Board of Directors which recognized the importance of the
ICANN’s roles in IPv6 deployment e.g. fair assignment policy of IPv6 address
space, the mapping of names and IPv6 addresses in the DNS zone file and stable
operation of zone file exchange over IPv6-based network.
The GAC strongly encourages ICANN to provide further updates to GAC and the
community on the urgent issues of IPv6 deployment status, including the
migration issues from IPv4 to IPv6. The
GAC strongly supports the efforts of ICANN and related groups in smooth and
safe deployment of IPv6.
At Large
Membership
The GAC welcomed the
presentations it received on the At Large issue and will consider it further at
its next meeting.
The GAC also discussed other
issues including the status of the reservation of country names in .INFO, Final
Report of the Second WIPO Process, Internationalized domain names and the
evaluation of new gTLDs. In addition,
open sessions were conducted with the
ICANN CEO/President and Board Members, and the ccTLD Constituency. The GAC alsoalso
gratefully received a presentation from the US National Academy of Sciences
about their study on Internet searching and DNS technologies.
The GAC notes its thanks to the Government of the United
States of America and the sponsors for hosting this meeting.
The next face-to-face meeting of the GAC will be held in
March 2001 in Accra to coincide with ICANN’s next round of meetings.