ICANN: 10 Years Old Today
A decade of multi-stakeholder decision-making and coordination
30 September 2008
ICANN is ten years old today.
On 30 September 1998, ICANN's articles of incorporation were
officially filed, recognizing "a nonprofit public benefit
corporation...not organized for the private gain of any person."
One month later, the first organizational meeting of the Board of
Directors was held in New York at the Holiday Inn JFK and named
Michael Roberts as the Interim President and CEO, and Esther Dyson as
Chairman.
Since then there have been two more chairman, two new CEOs, dozens of
Board members, Committee members and Advisory Group members, 153
official meetings of the Board, 32 international public meetings, and,
of course, thousands of individuals that have all contributed to
making ICANN a leading, global, multi-stakeholder organization that
runs the domain name system through a process of coordination not
control.
Current chairman Peter Dengate Thrush reflected today: "Ten years ago,
there were 100 million people that used the Internet. Its inventors
originally thought the network would only ever have to cater for one
million users. But in the creation of ICANN, the Internet community
and the US Government recognized they needed to privatize the domain
name system to increase competition and international participation.
"Thanks to that decision, and with nearly one-and-a-half billion
people online, the network goes from strength to strength. And we
hope, with the plans we have laid on the table, that the next ten
years of extraordinary growth also occurs seamlessly for ordinary
Internet user."
So, what has ICANN done in the past decade?
* Back in 1998, there was a single registrar, charging $50 a year
for domain names; now there are over 900 ICANN-accredited registrars 1
and a domain costs from just $6 2
* Helped the domain name system grow from roughly three million
domains a decade ago to over 160 million today 3
* Expanded the Internet's generic top-level domains from three
(dotcom, dotnet and dotorg) to 16, including .info, .biz, .cat, .asia,
.mobi and .name 4
* Seen over 35,000 domains go through the Uniform Dispute
Resolution Process 5, a faster, cheaper and more efficient alternative
to the law courts for ownership disputes
* Developed policies with the full involvement of governments,
business, the technical community and individual Net users that make
the Internet's addressing system able to adapt to the radical new uses
that the network is put to every year
President and CEO of ICANN, Paul Twomey, said: "ICANN now represents a
truly international organization. We have offices in Los Angeles,
Brussels and Washington, as well as presences in a number of other
countries. Board and Committee members come from every corner of the
planet and the ICANN community is as diverse as the Internet itself. I
look forward to seeing ICANN's success continue for the next 10 years
and beyond."
About ICANN:
To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address
into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique
so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these
unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we
wouldn't have one global Internet. ICANN is responsible for the global
coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like
domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the
addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers
reach each other over the Internet.
ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit
corporation from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet
secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops
policy on the Internet's unique identifiers.
ICANN doesn't control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and
it doesn't deal with access to the Internet. But through its
coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have an
important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.
Media Contacts:
Jason Keenan
Media Advisor, ICANN
P: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan(a)icann.org
