"GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY!"

ICANN BOARD APPROVES INDIVIDUAL INTERNET USER PARTICIPATION, CALLS FOR ORGANIZATION OF AT-LARGE MEMEBERSHIP.

March 14, Accra, Ghana -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors approved a resolution during its meeting today that called for the creation of an At-Large mechanism for "meaningful, informed participation by Internet users," as recommended by the At-Large Study Committee (ALSC). Taking a critical step towards structuring participation and representation of individuals from throughout the diverse global Internet user communities ("At-Large constituency") within ICANN, the Board called upon the ICANN community to create an At-Large membership based on "bottom-up, self-organized, local Internet community" groups.

"The ALSC is pleased the Board committed to a strong role for individual Internet users in ICANN and acknowledged the merits of our report," said Carl Bildt, ALSC Chair. "We worked to find a solution that ensures Internet users have a sustained role in the technical coordination of the Internet, and are gratified the Board has now recognized the Internet community's bottom-up organizing activities."

In the resolution, the Board stated that it "wishes to move forward with energy and enthusiasm to build a meaningful structure for informed participation by the full range of Internet users, and seeks avenues to achieve these objectives that are bottom-up, self-organized, and self-sustaining."

ICANN is in the process of considering wholesale restructuring, and the resolution instructs the Board Committee on Restructuring to ensure that their ongoing efforts at crafting a blueprint for ICANN reform include "workable mechanisms and procedures that enable meaningful opportunities for participation by the full range of Internet users," and "an appropriate role for those interests in ICANN's coordinating and management structures."

In its annual meeting in November, 2001, the Board formally accepted the ALSC's final report as a basis for discussion and received in Accra the Committee's "Implementation Report," which provided details on the processes needed to implement the ALSC's final report. The final report proposes a regionally based global framework for all interested individuals' structured participation in ICANN, focuses At-Large membership (an electorate) on an identifiable and vested community, provides a reasonable, initial mechanism for registration and self-funding, and grants At-Large members a proportionate responsibility for selecting ICANN's Board. While the Board, today, made clear that there would be no direct elections to fill At-Large Board seats at this time, it left open the possibility of future At-Large elections.

"We are still moving forward from where we were, although we have not yet reached our goal of regularly elected At-Large directors," said Esther Dyson, an ALSC member and former chairman of ICANN. "Now the At-Large Membership has the challenge - and responsibility - of meeting the Board's call for informed, active participation. which we hope will lead to issue-oriented, transparent elections."

The ALSC's reports are available on the Internet (at www.atlargestudy.org) and the Board's resolution is available at www.icann.org.

ABOUT THE ALSC
The ALSC is an independent Committee created by ICANN earlier this year to provide recommendations to ICANN's Board on how to structure the diverse global Internet community's participation within ICANN. The ALSC is conducting an aggressive outreach, discussion, research, and consensus-building campaign that will culminate with the submission of a final report to the Board in November. In addition to Carl Bildt, the ALSC includes Charles Costello, Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas Niles, Oscar Robles, and Pindar Wong. Biographies of these individuals, and Information on the ALSC, can be found at www.atlargestudy.org.

ABOUT ICANN
ICANN is a technical coordination body for the Internet. Created in October 1998 by a broad coalition of the Internet's business, technical, academic, and user communities, ICANN is assuming responsibility for a set of technical functions previously performed under U.S. government contract by IANA and other groups. Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment of identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function: Internet domain names, IP address numbers, and protocol parameter and port numbers. In addition, ICANN coordinates the stable operation of the Internet's root server system. As a non-profit, private-sector corporation, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy through private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means. ICANN welcomes the participation of any interested Internet user, business, or organization.

CONTACT
Denise Michel
+1 310 823 9358
dmichel@atlargestudy.org