MARINA DEL REY, CA - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) hosted on 26-27 August 2010 its Asia/Pacific Regional Registry/Registrar Event in Tokyo, Japan. ICANN shared news of this event with the community in its July 14, 2010 blog post.

According to the Corporation, ICANN's primary goals in convening regional events are two-fold. First, they are a means, an educational opportunity, to discuss topics important to the effective operation of a gTLD registry or ICANN-accredited registrar. And second, to broaden participation in the ICANN multi-stakeholder governance model for registry and registrar staff who may not generally attend ICANN’s public meetings. For example, 11 of the 28 post-event survey respondents (39%) indicated that Tokyo was their first regional event. Additionally, 6 of the 28 respondents (21%) indicated they had been to one or fewer ICANN public meetings.

While the agenda for ICANN general meetings includes policy issue debates and decision-making by various ICANN groups, these regional events have a different focus.  They are not intended as a replacement for attendance at the ICANN meetings, but are designed to assure that the parties to contracts with ICANN better understand their roles and responsibilities while encouraging them to participate more fully in the process.

ICANN staff provided updates and answered questions on topics including, gTLD Registry Transition Processes, new gTLDs, Security, GSNO Policy Development, Registrar Contact Change Process, New Registrar Accreditation Agreement Implementation, Contractual Compliance, Registrar Training Program, De-accredited Registrar Transition Program, and DNSSEC.

Additionally, Chuck Gomes, Chair of the GSNO Council, led a session about the GNSO, and Adrian Kinderis, GNSO Councilor from the Registrar Stakeholder Group, and David Maher, Chair of the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group, shared information about participation in their respective stakeholder groups. Lastly, the following gTLD registries opted to provide an update on their TLDs’ activities to attendees: DotAsia (.ASIA), Afilias (.INFO), Public Interest Registry (.ORG), Neustar (.BIZ) and mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd. (.MOBI).

In the interest of transparency, the following information is available from the event. The master presentation file is available in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

• Master Presentation
o English:  http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/apac-regional-event-26-27aug10-en.pdf
o Chinese: http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/apac-regional-event-26-27aug10-zh.pdf
o Japanese: http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/apac-regional-event-26-27aug10-ja.pdf
o Korean: http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/apac-regional-event-26-27aug10-ko.pdf
• Registrar Stakeholder Group: http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/presentation-kinderis-rrsg-27aug10-en.pdf

• Updated DNSSEC Presentation:  http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/presentation-dnssec-update-27aug10-en.pdf

• Registry Presentations
o DotAsia (.ASIA): http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/dotasia-update-26aug10-en.pdf
o Afilias (.INFO): http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/presentation-afilias-26aug10-en.pdf
o Public Interest Registry (.ORG): http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/presentation-dot-org-27aug10-en.pdf
o Neustar (.BIZ): http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/presentation-dot-biz-neustar-27aug10-en.pdf
o mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd. (.MOBI): http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/apregional-2010/presentation-dot-mobi-27aug10-en.pdf