20 March 2001 (Melbourne Australia) - The At Large Membership Study Committee (ALSC) has announced that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved funding and ratified the ALSC's membership at the quarterly board meeting in Melbourne. The ALSC was created by ICANN earlier this year to conduct a comprehensive study of how to involve individual Internet users worldwide in ICANN's policy development, deliberations, and actions for technical coordination of the Internet.

The Board unanimously approved the six individuals proposed by ALSC Chair, Carl Bildt: Pierre Dandjinou, Esther Dyson, Olivier Iteanu, Ching-Yi Liu, Thomas Niles, and Oscar Robles. On January 26, 2001, the Board approved Carl Bildt as ALSC Chair, Chuck Costello and Pindar Wong as Vice Chairs, and the appointment of Denise Michel as the ALSC's Executive Director. Biographies of these individuals can be found at www.atlargestudy.org/members.shtml.

In submitting these individuals for Board ratification, Bildt noted that their backgrounds and experiences are consistent with the Board's desire that Committee Members should reflect the breadth of relevant interests in the Internet community. He noted that the ALSC Members were selected, in part, to achieve geographic and personal diversity suitable for the study, while at the same time permitting the Committee to work efficiently and within the time constraints proposed by the Board. "The ALSC has asked for input on its membership, as well as its work," said Bildt, "and we are committed to creating an effective Committee with the diversity and skills necessary to present the Board with a consensus recommendation on At Large membership in November."

The Board unanimously approved fiscal year 2001 funding for the ALSC's efforts, which are expected to total $444,520 over 11 months. As directed by the Board, the ALSC plans to encourage the participation of organizations and individuals worldwide, including the development of independent studies and analyses from across the global Internet's diverse communities and individuals. Email will be the Committee's primary channel for outreach and input, augmented by the ALSC's website --www.atlargestudy.org -- and public face-to-face meetings. The Committee will conduct an aggressive outreach, discussion, research, and consensus building campaign that will culminate with the issuance of a draft report for public comment in September, and the submission of a final report to the Board in November. The ALSC's financial projections reflect this emphasis, with a majority of the funds proposed for outreach-related activities.

ABOUT ICANN

Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment of the following identifiers that must be globally unique for the Internet to function:

• Internet domain names
• IP address numbers
• 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.