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IATP- Moldova Country Coordinator Alexandru Jalba Attends ICAN Conference in Accra, Ghana

Alexandru Jalba, Country Coordinator of IATP-Moldova, attended a meeting of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in Accra, Ghana on March 9-14. His participation was made possible by a grant from the Salzburg Seminar's ICANN Travel Support Project, which is dedicated to increasing representation of non-commercial constituents and developing nations in the ICANN decision-making process.

ICANN is an independent, non-commercial organization created by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1998. Its primary function is regulation of the system of names and addresses that make it possible to navigate the Internet. Its quarterly meetings are dedicated to determining the basic architecture of the Internet and creating new top-level domains, such as .biz and .name, to complement existing domains such as .com and .edu. Jalba participated as a member of the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency (NCDNHC).

As the first participant in an ICANN meeting from the non-commercial sector in Moldova, Alexandru made an impact right from the start. He brought up the issue of dispute resolution mechanisms in country domains such as the one for Moldova, .md. Whereas in large domains such as .com there are a number of competing registration services, in many of the small domains the registrar is a monopoly, making it difficult to take business elsewhere in the event of bad service or high prices. Language addressing Jalba's concern was included in the assembly' official resolution.

This meeting is only the beginning of Jalba's participation in ICANN's work. IATP-Moldova will host a Romanian-language mirror of the NCDNHC website, and Alexandru plans to attend the next ICANN meeting in Bucharest, Romania at the end of June. Through Alexandru, the non-commercial Internet in Moldova is now actively participating in important decisions that will affect its future.

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