Prominent ICT-lawyer Mike Silber has been nominated as SA's first board member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the US non-profit company that effectively governs Internet address systems.
The nomination was supported by the country codes of .au (Australia) and .uk (UK). Silber is scheduled to serve a three-year term from June 2009. The ICANN nominations committee considered his nomination as the only valid one for the appointment and so it is uncontested.
Silber has been involved in South African Internet regulation for more than 10 years and is a board member of the .za Domain Name Authority. He was a founding member of the South African Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-ZA). His legal practice is with law firm Michalsons Attorneys and he is also involved in electronics consultancy Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions.
His appointment comes in a year that could be a watershed for ICANN as it begins to implement the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) name policy that is aimed at simplifying the complex mapping of domain names. This could see the introduction of suffixes such as “.tech” for technology companies, without being limited by existing gTLD suffixes such as .com, .net and others, or using the country suffixes such as “.za” for SA or “.au” for Australia.
Important work ahead
It will also be the year in which serious work is earmarked for moving away from the current domination of Latin-based text for domain names, to those of other language scripts such as Chinese and Arabic in an effort to internationalise the domain name system.
“The whole aim of ICANN is to promote the expansion of the Internet. While address names may not seem important for countries that are struggling to build infrastructure or feed their populations, it is still very important,” Silber says.
He notes that ICANN has faced a lot of pressure, especially from the international community, after the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) held two years ago. It has to ensure it remains relevant and is not surpassed by other initiatives, he adds.
ICANN is an anomaly within international organisations, as it is a California-registered company that operates under a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Commerce. Suggestions at the WSIS were that it, or its functions, should be transferred to the United Nations or to the International Telecommunications Union. However, the US government blocked this.
Alan Levin, a spokesperson for ISOC-ZA and a member of the ICANN nominations committee, says Silber's appointment is in the spirit of the Internet that rewards merit rather than commercial or political success.
“Mike will be contributing 40 working hours a month without remuneration to ICANN. This is the spirit of volunteerism that we need. Because the board members are not paid, it means a better chance of them getting things right as it minimises any conflict of interest,” Levin says.
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