UNESCO AND ICANN SIGN PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

UNCLAS UNESCO PARIS 001680

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EINT UNESCO
SUBJECT: UNESCO AND ICANN SIGN PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

REFTEL: PARIS 1639


1. On December 10, UNESCO and the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN),based in the U.S., signed an agreement to
create internationalized domain names in non-Latin scripts. This is
the first private partnership agreement signed by new
Director-General Irina Bokova. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom was present
for the signing, also attended by DCM Engelken and PAO. Under the
partnership, UNESCO will provide linguistic expertise to countries
who wish to apply to have their top-level country domain names
appear in their own scripts. For example, a country like Egypt will
be able to convert what currently might read as 'www.mfa.eg' in to a
fully Arabicized URL.


2. So far, twelve countries have applied to take advantage of this
new possibility, with content going live in mid-2010. UNESCO's CI
and Culture sectors will work together with their networks of
experts to ensure the accuracy of these top-level domain names.
This partnership, which has been in the works for almost two years,
also directly aligns with UNESCO's core missions of access to
information, freedom of expression, and linguistic diversity. Also
of note is that this is ICANN's first signed agreement with an
international organization.


3. For almost ten years, the National Telecommunications and
Information Association (NTIA) has had an exclusive agreement with
ICANN for regulating internet domain names and addresses. On
September 30, NTIA agreed to widen this agreement to include members
of ICANN's governmental advisory committee, to the satisfaction of
other member states and stakeholders and bolstering ICANN's
commitment to "one world, one internet, everyone connected."


4. Comment: While this agreement is the first signed partnership
agreement with a private corporation during Bokova's tenure so far,
it's important to note that UNESCO also entered in to a content
agreement with Google last week (reftel). We are pleased that
UNESCO is actively trying to build a stronger private-public network
and we will continue to try to identify appropriate U.S. partners.

KILLION