[EURO-Discuss] ICANN.org Announcement: Asia-Pacific Internet Users Big Part of ICANNs New Delhi Meeting

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Asia-Pacific Internet Users Big Part of ICANN's New Delhi Meeting
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-14feb08.htm

Ceremony recognizes Regional At-Large Organization, first Asia-Pacific  
At-Large General Assembly

14 February 2008

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Individual Internet users from Asia, Australia, and  
the Pacific Islands have direct input into the Internet Corporation  
for Assigned Names and Numbers, a fact recognized today with the  
ceremonial signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and  
the Internet user groups who participate in the Asia-Pacific Regional  
At-Large Organization (APRALO).

The APRALO conducted its first General Assembly as a part of ICANN's  
31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi. They discussed issues  
that will affect Internet users throughout the region and the world.  
The Internet user groups who are a part of APRALO are incredibly  
diverse, and include users from India, Japan, China, Australia, New  
Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates.

"Today's ceremony recognizes the ICANN community's success in creating  
a formal, global structure to help ensure ideas and feedback from  
individual Internet users around the world is heard in our policy  
processes," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO. "ICANN's  
work to introduce a process for applying for new top level domains –  
the part after the dot – especially those using the more than 100,000  
characters from the languages of the world which do not use the Latin  
character set – will benefit from formal inputs through the Regional  
At-large Organizations worldwide. The Asia-Pacific RALO is a key  
contributor to this process."

There are now more than 100 user groups taking part in ICANN's five  
Regional At-large Organizations, or RALOs, from the Asia-Pacific,  
Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Africa.  
APRALO was created on 30 March 2007 and has been informing the  
region's individual Internet users about ICANN activities and  
providing advice to ICANN on their behalf for nearly a year.

The RALOs have direct input to ICANN, especially through the  
international At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), which represents  
Internet users in ICANN and whose members are chosen largely by the  
RALOs.

"ICANN's ongoing coordination of the domain name system, and its  
policy work, has a large impact on the Internet and the more than one  
billion people around the world who use it – and the billions more who  
should be able to use it," said Cheryl Langdon-Orr, ALAC Chair. "By  
bringing together Internet users from across the globe, the RALOs are  
at the heart of ensuring that users have a say on what's happening at  
ICANN."

More information on the participation of individual Internet users in  
ICANN is available at http://alac.icann.org/

-- 
Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
Director, At-Large
ICANN
Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88
USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460
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email: nick.ashton-hart at icann.org
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