Title: Marina del Rey meeting announcement
Dear
Tapio,
Please
find below the information sent by Mr. Stuart Lynn to Protocol Council
Members.
Best
regards,
Vladimir
Dear Colleagues:
This is to give you a heads-up that later today we will announce (please
see the appended and attached announcement for details) that the ICANN meeting
in Marina del Rey will proceed as scheduled but with a very different format and
content than usual.
The change in format and content is that the Marina del Rey meeting will
focus exclusively on the global stability and security of the naming and
addressing systems of the Internet. In the light of recent events, this is a
paramount question in the minds of most people across the world Internet
community. ICANN will be judged in large part by how well we respond to this
concern. All other ICANN-related issues -- however important -- take second
place. There has not been time to map out a detailed agenda yet for the meeting,
but the attached announcement suggests the tenor of the approach. More details
will be announced next week.
Responses that I have received to my community enquiry regarding
travel plans indicate that almost everyone plans to come to Marina del Rey
unless international conditions deteriorate to where travel is not practical.
Thus, I am confident we will have a reasonable attendance. Of course, if the
international situation does deteriorate adversely, we will cancel the
meeting.
I do hope that you and your constituencies will join with us to make this
meeting as productive and significant as possible. We will be seeking your
guidance.
Please do not hesitate to write or call if I can answer any
questions.
Stuart
_______________
ICANN Meeting in Marina del Rey
November 13 - 15,
2001
Preliminary Announcement
Many members of the ICANN
community wrote in response to our call for input as to whether the events of
September 11 would affect their plans to travel to Los Angeles in November to
attend the scheduled ICANN meetings. Almost without exception the respondents
emphatically encouraged ICANN to hold its meetings and stated unequivocally that
they planned to attend unless the international situation deteriorated to where
travel was not practical.
Given this response and given the need to
address emerging priorities, we are planning to proceed with an ICANN meeting in
Marina del Rey in November, 2001, subject to any further serious change in the
international situation that would affect travel conditions. However, as
discussed below, the format of the meeting will differ significantly from what
had previously been announced. This is only a preliminary announcement to enable
attendees to firm up their travel plans. Details of the meeting will be
announced as soon as possible.
The events of September 11 have caused institutions
worldwide to rethink their priorities and plans. As an international
institution, ICANN is not immune. Although those events raise logistical and
other concerns for holding meetings, they also underscore the need to address
Internet stability issues, and security as a key component of stability.
ICANN is not responsible for the overall security of the Internet. However,
given ICANN's global responsibilities for the stability of the Internet's naming
and addressing systems and under the new circumstances facing the international
community, it would be irresponsible for ICANN not to conduct an in depth
assessment of the robustness and security of these systems, and to take steps,
if necessary, to strengthen the Internet in these regards. This is of the
highest urgency and the greatest worldwide importance.
The Internet is global in reach, as are the threats
of terrorism. The events of September 11 offered a stark and tragic reminder of
the incalculable importance of a reliable and secure naming and addressing
system to support emergency response, personal and other communications, and
information sharing. Email, instant messaging, and the web , for example, all
played essential roles.
Accordingly - and following consultation with the
Executive Committee of the ICANN Board of Directors - I am announcing that the
November ICANN meetings will focus on stability and security of the Internet's
naming and addressing systems and of their operational implementation globally.
This will be the over-riding imperative for the meeting. As such, this will be a
very different kind of meeting than previous ICANN meetings and will not follow
the usual format.
At this meeting, we will be seeking to promote
discussion throughout the community on how - in the light of events - to
reassess areas of potential threats that could affect services within the scope
of ICANN's responsibilities, how to improve our readiness to meet these threats,
and what additional policies or other actions should be considered and
implemented to facilitate such improvements. Clearly not all these questions
will be answered in one meeting, but we must now devote our energies as members
of the global Internet community towards obtaining answers. Every constituency
will be asked to report on its efforts to ensure the stability of the Internet's
naming and addressing systems and what additional steps it proposes to take to
improve that stability and security among its member organizations. Agenda items
will be assessed for inclusion by what they contribute to the overall focus of
the meeting.
Although a precise schedule has not yet been mapped
out, we plan for these meetings to last three days from November 13 through
November 15, inclusive. We hope that constituencies and supporting organizations
will meet during this time to focus on the topic of the meeting. There will be
further announcements next week, following additional consultations with members
of the community.
There will be a Board meeting at the end of the
meeting to address essential business. The Board agenda will concentrate on
topics where time is of the essence.
I recognize that the focus of the
meetings will delay progress on some of the worthy and important initiatives
that are currently underway. The effects of such delays have to be measured
against the importance of ensuring the stability and security of the Internet
itself. I therefore ask for patience on the part of those who may experience
delays in matters of importance to them so that we can bear down on the issue at
hand.
Please send any comments or questions to meetings@icann.org.
More details will be forthcoming in due course.
--
__________________
Stuart Lynn
President and CEO
ICANN
4676
Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Tel: 310-823-9358
Fax: 310-823-8649
Email: lynn@icann.org
MdR_Meeting_Announcement_3.doc