- ICANN, the eco Association, DENIC eG and the City of Hamburg jointly seek new date
- Thank you to the German Host Committee for their support so far
The ICANN69 Annual General Meeting (AGM) will not take place in Hamburg from 17-22 October 2020 as originally planned, 2,500 participants from over 120 countries had been expected. Due to Corona-related travel restrictions and in order to protect the health and safety of the ICANN community, the meeting to coordinate core Internet functions, such as the unique assignment of names and addresses, has been moved online.
“We regret that the first ICANN meeting in Germany in over 20 years cannot take place as planned. However, the decision is absolutely understandable. We are already working with the ICANN managers to find an alternative date for Hamburg and are very confident that we will succeed in doing so,” says Oliver SĂĽme, Chair of eco – Association of the Internet Industry. eco had invited ICANN to the Hanseatic city, as joint host with the City of Hamburg and DENIC eG – the operator of the .de domain extension.
Discussions regarding an alternative date are underway
ICANN thanked the German Host Committee and all regional partners for their support and contribution to the planning processes for the ICANN69 meeting. “At this point in time, however, there are still too many uncertainties in the organization of a face-to-face meeting,” said ICANN Chief Executive Officer Maarten Botterman. ICANN’s Board had also moved the previous two meetings of the year online, originally one in Cancun in March and one in Kuala Lumpur in June had been planned.
“The personal dialog between different groups, as it is facilitated by ICANN, is of great value to find viable solutions for the further development of the Internet, taking into consideration diverse interests. As the national registry of the country code .de, we are particularly committed to the German Internet community. That is why we have engaged in enhancing awareness of and facilitating access to the bodies and institutions that take the decisions in Internet issues of the future by holding an ICANN meeting in our own country, in Germany. This cannot be done in the context of an in-person event this year, but perhaps the online offer will attract all the more people,” said Jörg Schweiger, CEO of DENIC eG.
The central topics of the conference, which will now be held online, are European data protection law, the assignment of new endings and technical further developments of the Internet. ICANN is a non-profit organisation based in California/USA with the task of managing names and addresses on the Internet. The multi-stakeholder concept enables organisations and individuals around the world to participate in policy development and to further develop the technical infrastructure, such as top-level domains.
Further information on the ICANN activities of the eco Association
