ICANN, the international domain name registration organisation, has acknowledged the African regional Internet registry as it prepares for its annual meeting to be held in Cape Town.
The California-based organisation, much criticised for its dominant role in doling out Internet addresses, held a week-long conference in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur last week, where a number of issues were debated by the 700 delegates from around the world.
Two South African delegates, Calvin Brown and Alan Levine, both prominent personalities in the African Internet community, attended the conference.
According to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers), the new initiatives adopted at the meeting include:
* The implementation of next-generation IPv6 technology that will enable "trillions" more addresses to support the growth of global Internet use.
* Acknowledgement of AfriNIC, the emerging African regional Internet address registry, and its request for commencement of an ICANN recognition process.
* The creation of an advisory group to engage the global Internet community in the use of internationalised domain names to further the use of new languages.
* The first meeting of its policy coordination body (the ccNSO) for the world`s country-code top-level domain communities.
* Reaching out to other Internet bodies to establish directives on the use of "wildcards" in the domain name system.
There was also recognition of ICANN`s successful completion of milestones under the memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Commerce toward full independent oversight of the ICANN functions under its global structure and with its global community.
ICANN is an internationally organised, public benefit non-profit body responsible for coordinating the ICANN functions, which include Internet Protocol address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic and country code top-level domain name system management, and root server system management functions.
The event also officially recognised that the ICANN meeting to be held on 5 December in Cape Town will be regarded as the organisation`s annual meeting.
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