One of New Zealand’s most well-known people on the international domain name circuit, Keith Davidson, has added another string to his bow by his appointment to a key position within ICANN, being elected unopposed as a Councillor on ICANN’s ccNSO Council (the Country Code Names Supporting Organisation). Davidson’s new role is as one of the three people representing the country code top level domains in the Asia Pacific region. Davidson also boosts the strong New Zealand contingent on ICANN issues that includes ICANN Chair Peter Dengate Thrush.

The Chair of the ccNSO’s working group on delegation, re-delegation and retirement of ccTLD’s (DRDWG) is pleased to announce the publication of the working groups Final Report [PDF, 120 KB].

The CEO of auDA, Chris Disspain, has been nominated as the ccNSO Council nominee to the ICANN Board. With no other candidates his approval was approved and his nomination will be formalised on 19 October at the ccNSO Councul meeting. Disspain has been CEO of auDA (.AU Domain Administration), the policy and regulatory body for .AU, for around ten years and has been an active participant in ccNSO and wider ICANN activities for much of that time

The joint ccNSO and GNSO IDN working group (JIG) is pleased to announce the publication of the working group’s Initial Report [PDF, 192 KB] on the introduction of Single Character IDN TLDs. This Report is intended to be a stocktaking of the policy issues regarding the introduction of Single Character IDN TLDs and some viewpoints on possible policy implementations that could address those issues. The JIG solicits input and comment from the community on these policy issues and viewpoints

Public Comment Deadline: 15 September 2010 In November 2009, ICANN appointed ITEMS International to carry out the external review of its country code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO). Based on a survey and interviews, the independent consultant issued – in June 2010 – its recommendations and conclusions in a final report [PDF, 5.04 MB] which was released for consultation and submitted for public comment . For further information, please refer to the ccNSO review web page

The Chair of the ccNSO’s working group on delegation, re-delegation and retirement of ccTLD’s is pleased to announce the publication of the working groups Issue Analysis report [PDF, 1.16 MB].

The Chair of the ccNSO’s Internationalised Domain Name Country Code Policy Development Process Working Group ( IDN ccPDP WG ) for the selection and delegation of IDN ccTLDs is pleased to announce the publication of the Chairs draft Interim Paper [PDF, 170 KB]. The purpose of this paper is to report to the community on structure and potential directions of the recommendations for the overall policy.