The 61st international meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is taking place this week, from March 10-15, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Several members of Winterfeldt IP Group are attending ICANN 61.
ICANN 61, the first of three global meetings that will take place in 2018, is framed as a community forum meeting, the traditional meeting format ICANN used for many years before switching to a rotating schedule of three different meeting styles. The San Juan meeting will feature a robust schedule of sessions for the GNSO Council (the body that develops global domain name policy) and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), the body of over 175 country and territory representatives that advises the ICANN Board. The meeting will also offer sessions covering a number of specific policy development initiatives, updates on and working sessions for cross- community work streams, stakeholder and constituency organizational and outreach activities (including the traditional Constituency Day on Tuesday, March 13), and opportunities for a wide variety of community-wide discussions on key topics of broad interest.
Although opening ceremonies for San Juan will take place on Monday, March 12, ICANN is holding a number of sessions during the preceding weekend. Some of these are closed sessions limited to members of specific constituencies and stakeholder groups, used to organize policy positions and information to be presented at open meetings later in the week. In addition, some groups that will be meeting throughout the week, such as the GAC and certain working groups, held their first sessions. It appears that particular topics, including WHOIS/GDPR (European data protection regulation) issues, rights protection mechanisms, and new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) will feature prominently across many sessions in ICANN 61.
Please reach out to us at internet@winterfeldt.law if you are interested in receiving a summary and analysis of key takeaways from select sessions presented on Saturday, March 10 in San Juan.
