40% reduction: NiRA explains wisdom behind price slash on .NG - ITREALMS

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The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has adduced some reasons why it reduced the price of .NG domain by over 40 per cent, reports ITREALMS.

NiRA is responsible for maintaining the database of registered names in the .ng country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) namespace in the public interest of Nigeria and the global internet community.

‘Why NIRA slashed .NG prices’ - ITREALMS

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The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) has explained why it have to crash prices on the dot NG domain names, reports ITREALMS.

President of NIRA, Mr. Muhammed Rudman made this disclosure to ITREALMS in Lagos, declaring that eventually its to improve the visibility of Nigerian businesses online.

CIS petitions board over sexual harassment @ ICANN55

ITRealms:

Indian-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has petitioned the world Internet Protocol (IP) coordinating body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over suspected sexual harassment of its staff at the ICANN 55 public meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, reports ITRealms.

The petition directed at ICANN board of directors by CIS Executive Director, Mr. Sunil Abraham, entitled “Statement on Sexual Harassment at ICANN55” condemned in strong terms the belittlement of ICANN public meeting.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) located in Banglore, India, he said, strongly condemns the acts of sexual harassment that took place against one of CIS representatives, Ms. Padmini Baruah, during ICANN 55 in Marrakech.

“It is completely unacceptable that an event the scale of an meeting does not have in place a formal redressal system, a neutral point of contact or even a policy for complainants who have been put through the ordeal of sexual harassment,” he said.

ICANN, Abraham noted, cannot claim to be inclusive or diverse if it does not formally recognise a specific procedure or recourse under such instances, especially for sexually harassed participant.

He pointed out that Ms. Baruah, a law student, is by no means the first young woman to be subject to such treatment at an ICANN event, but she is the first to raise a formal complaint which deserves element of commendation.

CIS also lamented that following the incident, she was given no immediate remedy or formal recourse, and that has left her with no option but to make the incident publicly known in the interim.

Stressing that the ombudsman’s office has been in touch with her, but this administrative process is simply inadequate for rights-violations.

CIS further said that Ms. Baruah has received support from various community, staff, and board members.

However, CIS believes that this situation could be better dealt with through some positive measures and urged ICANN to carry out some steps in order to make its meetings a truly safe and inclusive space.

Some of these steps, CIS canvassed to include instituting a formal redressal system and policy with regard to sexual harassment within ICANN, which must be displayed on the ICANN website, at the venue of meetings and made available in delegate kits.

The Centre equally requested ICANN to institute an ‘Anti Sexual Harassment Committee’ that is neutral and approachable, insisting that mere having an ombudsman who is a white male, no matter well intentioned, is inadequate and completely unhelpful to the complainant.

“The present situation is one where the ombudsman has no effective power and only advises the board,” Abraham said.

In addition, ICANN the Centre urged to conduct periodic gender and sexual harassment training of the ICANN board to help them better understand these issues, as well as conduct periodic gender and sexual harassment training for the ombudsman even if he or she will not be the exclusive point of contact for complainants as the ombudsman forms an important part of community and participant engagement.

Lastly, CIS advised ICANN to conduct periodic gender sensitisation for the ICANN community.

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Breaking News: ICANN At-Large launches new website

ITRealms;

The At-Large Community in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has launched a new interactive website, ITRealms reports.

Director, ICANN Policy team in support of the At-Large Community, Heidi Ullrich, confirmed this, saying they were very pleased to announce the launch of the brand new website of the ICANN At-Large Community.

She also said that over the past year, the At-Large Community and ICANN Staff have provided dedicated efforts to create a more engaging website, with the goal to make the site an effective engagement tool and a one-stop shop for finding At-Large related issues.

These, she said, include ALAC policy advice, news, meetings and events, activities of the ALAC, Regional At-Large Organisations (RALOs) and At-Large Structures (ALSes), and ways to get involved in the At-Large community.

Further, she said, that this community-driven effort has resulted in a big step forward for At-Large with this official release of the new website.

On the post launch, Ullrich noted they expect the website to continue to evolve with new content that could be easily created and updated. Stressing other features that are anticipated to evolve include ALS Applications – New submission process for organizations that apply to become ALSes; Translations – Translations for additional static labels and content, public comment information from icann.org, and curated content submitted by the At-Large Community.

In addition, she said that accessibility for her team means continued progress towards Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Level AA certification, relabeling of images with alternative text, and KIFs , as well as content templates to see to  additional formats for content authoring via the generic content template.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)
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Fadi brought tremendous progress to ICANN workplace – Pierre Dandjinou

ITRealms:

The outgoing president and chief executive officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Mr. Fadi Chehade, brought tremendous progress to ICANN’s work place in the last three years, reports ITRealms.
 

This was the position of the Vice President at ICANN for Africa, Mr. Pierre Dandjinou in an exclusive interview with ITRealms, at the weekend.

Reviewing Fadi’s era in ICANN and associated expansion strategy, he said, there have always been concerns on how to improve the lots of the Africa continent participation in ICANN and overall Internet ecosystem.

Dandjinou pointed out that since the implementation of the Africa Strategy commenced in ICANN, the continent has set the bar on a few levels, including being the first region to develop a bottom-up Strategic Plan under ICANN.

This, Dandjinou said, has been emulated by several other regions of the world, declaring, “We have also pioneered a few ideas such as the Domain Name System (DNS( forum.”

He believes Fadi’s support and commitment to ICANN globalization and specifically to Africa, paved the way to the realization of some of the milestones achieved till date.

“Today there is improved ICANN visibility in Africa, which wasn’t there three years ago,” he asserted, emphasizing that moving forward, the continent must build on this foundation for better engagement and participation in ICANN community. 

He, therefore, urged Africans within the ICANN ecosystem to work together so as to build partnerships, precisely while implementing the Africa Strategy for the financial year 2016 through 2010.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)  +Luna Madi  +Dandjinou Pierre  +ICANNnews 
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Pix: Pierre Dandjinou, VP ICANN Africa

ICANN names Goran to replace Fadi as CEO

ITRealms:

A Swedish business executive, Mr. Göran Marby is the new chief executive officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), reports ITRealms.

Mr Marby will take over from the current President and CEO Fadi Chehadé whose term finishes on March 15, 2016. Marby will join ICANN in May 2016. 

According to the chairman, ICANN Board of Directors, Dr. Stephen Crocker, "I'm delighted to announce Göran as the new head of ICANN," stressing that his leadership experience as a technology CEO and start-up founder as well as his current experience as Director-General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority will be invaluable as ICANN moves towards the next chapter in its history.

“We conducted an extensive, global search and Göran impressed us all throughout with his shared values, operational experience and understanding of the Internet ecosystem. I'm looking forward to working with him and what I know will be his substantial contribution to ICANN and to helping ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet," he said.

Marby is a Swedish citizen, currently living in Stockholm. He and his family will be relocating to Los Angeles, California, the headquarters of ICANN's three global hubs.

Reacting, the new ICANN’s CEO, Mr. Marby said, he was excited to be joining ICANN at the start of a new era for the organization and the community, acknowledging he has a lot of learning to do, but expressed eagerness to work with ICANN multistakeholders community to continue all the good work that ICANN has been doing and am very committed to implementing the community's decisions – both with respect to the IANA Stewardship Transition, but also in the myriad important areas of ICANN policy development as it fulfills its mission.

Meanwhile during this time, ITRealms reports that the President of ICANN's Global Domains, Division, Akram Atallah, will serve as acting CEO.

"I am very grateful to Akram for agreeing to step into this role and providing the continuity and leadership ICANN needs at such an important time," said Dr Crocker.

ITRealms further gathered that Göran Marby has over 20 years of experience in the Internet and technology sectors. Prior to joining PTS he co-founded AppGate Network Security AB a security software company where he served as CEO between 2002 and 2009 with a focus on international customers and operations.

He has held several other leadership roles in the Internet and technology sectors including as CEO of Cygate a network services company, Country Manager for Cisco in Sweden and as CEO of Unisource Business Networks in Sweden.

Marby holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Gothenburg School Economics.

 
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Breaking News: Zika Virus forces ICANN56 to relocate

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Following the outbreak of Zika virus in the Latin American region, the leadership of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has cancelled its 56^th public meeting slated for that region until further notice, reports ITRealms.

According to officials of ICANN, the public meeting earlier scheduled in Panama for June 2016, will be moved to another location due to the severity of the Zika Virus outbreak in the Latin America region. 

ITRealms investigations revealed that ICANN is currently undergoing some research to identify an alternate location where the Zika Virus is not a concern. 

“We look forward to returning to Panama for a future ICANN Meeting,” officials told ITRealms.

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