<h2 style="clear: left;">New Chairman of ICANN Elected Unanimously</h2>
<p style="clear: left;">Handover represents organization's move from foundation
to steady performance</p>
<p style="margin: 15px 0px 0px;">2 November 2007</p>
<p> <strong> </strong> <strong> LOS ANGELES</strong>: Peter Dengate Thrush,
a New Zealand lawyer, has been elected unanimously as the new Chairman
of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. </p>
<p> "I am delighted that my colleagues have placed their confidence in me
for this challenging and important role," Dengate Thrush said. </p>
<p> Peter practices civil litigation, specializing in intellectual property,
competition, and Internet law. He has been involved in ICANN since its
inception. As a member of the Boston Working Group, he provided comment
in 1998 on the early drafts of the ICANN bylaws, and he co-chaired one
of the pre-formation meetings of the Intellectual Property Constituency
in Wellington, New Zealand. </p>
<p> He has been President of InternetNZ, a leader of the country code Top
Level Domain (ccTLD) community in the formation of the ccNSO, and was selected
as a board member after an international vote of ccTLD managers in the
ccNSO in December 2004. He is currently on the President's Strategy, Board
Finance, Board Governance, and Executive committees. </p>
<p> Retiring Chair Dr Vint Cerf sees Dengate Thrush's appointment as a clear
signal that ICANN has matured. </p>
<p> "ICANN has moved from a foundation state to a steady state. Peter understands
that and the Board's role and is a great choice to keep the organization
strong and focused," Dr Cerf said. </p>
<p> Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO, also welcomed the appointment. </p>
<p> "This is great news. Peter's long involvement in ICANN since before its
incorporation means he knows the history as well as the current players
and issues," Dr Twomey said. "His legal training gives him a strong understanding
of contracts as a key mechanism in ICANN, and his networks within industry,
particularly the ccTLD community helps ICANN with its global responsibilities." </p>
<p> Speaking after the vote, Dengate Thrush gave some perspectives on the
organization and its future. </p>
<p> "ICANN is a unique model supporting a global community. The model works
because it stands for one global Internet that is coordinated not controlled," Dengate
Thrush said. </p>
<p> "After nine years ICANN is well placed to face the challenges of the
future. The fact that it is so well positioned is a tribute to Vint and
of course the staff led by Paul Twomey who have taken us out of foundation
mode to become the right organization to meet future challenges," Dengate
Thrush added. </p>
<p> "I think our biggest challenges are about serving the global audience.
At a technical level there is the challenge of introducing international
scripts at the top level for both gTLDS and ccTLDs, as well as new processes
for introducing what may be a large number of generic top level domains," Dengate
Thrush said. </p>
<p> "At the organizational level we need to expand our global activity and
constantly increase international involvement, as well work on the completion
of the Joint Project Agreement with the United States Government," Dengate
Thrush added. </p>
<p> The Board also unanimously re-elected Roberto Gaetano as Deputy Chair.
Gaetano was selected by the 2006 Nominating Committee to serve as a Board
Member </p>
<p> "I look forward to supporting the Board and the community in this exciting
period for ICANN," Gaetano said. "The Internet is constantly evolving and
that means ICANN's responsibility to ensure one stable foundation is all
the more important." </p>
<p> Gaetano has a degree in Mathematics and an MBA. He has more than 30 years
of experience in telecommunications and information technology, acquired
working for different organizations in different countries and works for
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) . He is fluent in five languages. </p>
<p> He has been an active participant in the Internet and the ICANN policy-making
process since 1997. As a representative of ETSI (European Telecommunication
Standards Institute), he played important roles in the formation of CORE
(Council of Internet Registrars), the policy discussions around the U.S.
Government's White Paper. <br></p>***********************************************************<p></p><font size="4"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vint Cerf Releases 'Looking Towards the Future' Statement</span>
</font>
<p style="margin: 15px 0px 0px; font-weight: bold;">2 November 2007</p>
<p> <strong> </strong> <strong>LOS ANGELES</strong> : Vint Cerf, the retiring
chairman of the board with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, today released "<a href="http://www.icann.org/documents/vint_cerf/lttf.htm">Looking
Towards the Future</a>," his Legacy Letter to the ICANN Community. </p>
<p> In the Introduction to the letter, Dr Cerf writes: </p>
<p> "Today, ICANN is larger, more capable, more international, and better
positioned to fulfill its mandate. It stands for one global interoperable
Internet and the model of stakeholder representation has worked. </p>
<p> "But the Internet and its vast user population have grown during the
same time by a factor of over 20 in all dimensions. The 50 million users
of 1997 have become nearly 1.2 billion users today. The 22 million hosts
on the network have increased to nearly 500 million today. The bandwidth
of the core data circuits in the Internet have grown from 622 million bits
per second to between 10 and 40 billion bits per second. </p>
<p> "This dramatic growth in physical size has been accompanied by an equally
dramatic growth in the number and diversity of applications running on
the Internet. All forms of media now appear on and are carried by Internet
packets. Consumers of information are producing more and more of it themselves
with email, blogs, instant messaging, social and game playing web sites,
video uploads, and podcasts. </p>
<p> "The Internet continues to evolve and while ICANN has achieved more than
most people realize, it must continue to evolve along with it." </p>
<p> The entire statement is online at: <a href="http://www.icann.org/documents/vint_cerf/lttf.htm">http://www.icann.org/documents/vint_cerf/lttf.htm</a></p><br>