- DENIC, the eco Association, and the City of Hamburg as joint hosts
- ICANN coordinates the administration of names and addresses in the Internet
- City of Hamburg welcomes international Internet community
Important decisions on the core functions of the Internet could be taken in Germany in 2020: Along with the City of Hamburg, eco – Association of the Internet Industry and DENIC eG will act as joint hosts of the 69th ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) meeting from 17 to 23 October 2020. The decision in favor of Hamburg was taken on 26 June 2018 at the ICANN 62 Policy Forum in Panama. ICANN is a non-profit organization which is responsible for the global coordination of names and parameters for the functioning and further development of the Internet.
“After Berlin in 1999, this is the first time in 20 years that we have brought an ICANN conference to Germany,” says Oliver Süme, Chair of the Board of eco – Association of the Internet Industry. “With eco, DENIC, and the City of Hamburg, strong partners from industry and politics have come together to make this goal a reality.”
ICANN coordinates the administration of names and addresses in the Internet
For the Internet to work, domain names and IP addresses world-wide need to be unambiguous. The central task of ICANN, founded in 1998, is to ensure this in collaboration with the global Internet community. As a result, Internet users anywhere in the world can, for example, type www.denic.de into the browser and reliably reach the DENIC webpage.
“An open, free, and secure Internet is a strategic priority for DENIC. The engagement of the German Internet Community has been honored with the decision to bring the ICANN meeting to Hamburg. This offers a good opportunity to bring the German and European perspectives to the table at an even broader level,” says DENIC Board Member Dr. Jörg Schweiger. DENIC administers the German top-level domain .de, which currently – with 16.3m registered domains – is the second-largest country-related name-space in the Internet.
City of Hamburg welcomes international Internet community
Alongside the country-related ones, there are also generic domain endings, including – on offer for several years now – ones with a geographical relevance. The City of Hamburg actively supported the registration of the new top-level domain .hamburg, so that, for example, the website of the Hamburg police can be reached at www.polizei.hamburg.
The ICANN meetings take place three times a year, each in different cities around the world. The ICANN Annual General Meeting will run from 17 to 22 October 2020 in Hamburg. The organizers expect around 2,500 to 3,500 participants to this meeting from research institutions, the tech community, politics, industry, and the civil society: “Hamburg is smart and innovative, and is therefore a fitting location for such an important meeting of the international Internet community,” says Senator for the Economy Frank Horch.
The partners submitted their application to ICANN in November 2016 under the coordination of the Hamburg Convention Bureau.
About eco:
eco, with 1,000 member companies, is the largest Internet industry association in Europe. Since 1995 eco has been instrumental in shaping the Internet, fostering new technologies, forming framework conditions, and representing the interests of members in politics and international committees. eco’s key topics are the reliability and strengthening of digital infrastructure, IT security, and trust, ethics, and self-regulation. That is why eco advocates for a free, technologically-neutral, and high-performance Internet.
About DENIC:
DENIC administers the German name-space in the Internet, with the top level domain .de. With close to 16.3 million domains, it counts as one of the top 3 Internet registries world-wide. The private-sector, non-profit cooperative also advocates for a free, open, and secure Internet.
