ICANN secured a new 90-minute session on its...

ICANN secured a new 90-minute session on its accountability process (CD Aug 27 p9) at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Tuesday in Istanbul (http://bit.ly/1vCQzsu) (CD Aug 28 p4), said an ICANN news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1rEMimR). ICANN received a letter Aug. 26 from its major constituencies and shareholder groups questioning its accountability process released Aug. 14 (http://bit.ly/1vdRn3j) (CD Aug 28 p14). The ICANN community is “very passionate about every detail” of all ICANN’s processes, and ICANN plans to discuss the accountability process with concerned stakeholders at IGF, said Baher Esmat, ICANN vice president-Middle East stakeholder engagement, in an interview last week. The transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to ICANN and its accompanying accountability process will be discussed in a Friday session at IGF (http://bit.ly/1nh17YM), although Esmat expected both issues to be raised throughout the week, he said. ICANN also plans to express support for the IGF, as the UN continues its review of the World Summit on the Information Society that produced IGF, he said. Candidate submissions for the seven advisers within the Public Experts Group of ICANN’s accountability process are due Sept. 10, said an ICANN new release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1mZr3EP). The Council of Europe will present at the IGF a report (http://bit.ly/1r6MJEN) that found that ICANN’s “current rules for new gTLDs do not fully comply with freedom of expression and privacy standards and contains recommendations on how to address this,” the council said in a news release Friday. The council plans to address a range of human rights issues at IGF, including cybersecurity and privacy rights, it said.