Next week, ICANN will convene for the ICANN84 Annual General Meeting in Dublin, Ireland. Please allow me to be the first to welcome you to Dublin, which is hosting its second ICANN Public Meeting!
As we approach the start of ICANN84, I encourage you to visit the meeting website. Here, you can register and find important information about the schedule, travel, hotel, transportation, health, and safety. I also recommend you read the ICANN84 Policy Outlook Report, which the Policy Development Support team develops to help all participants prepare for work sessions. Materials such as presentations and recordings from Prep Week, which was held 13–15 October 2025, are also available.
The ICANN community has taken the lead in organizing the six-day program:
- The Address Supporting Organization (ASO) will not hold sessions during ICANN84 but will continue its work on a new governance document to supersede the nearly 25-year-old Internet Coordination Policy 2 and establish rules for ICANN and the ASO to recognize, monitor, and, if needed, derecognize and replace a Regional Internet Registry (RIR).
- The Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) will hold sessions on topics ranging from Domain Name System (DNS) Abuse and Internet governance to disaster recovery for country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). The ccNSO will also host Tech Day and conduct a capacity building workshop to share governance models, best practices, and resilience strategies for ccTLDs.
- The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) will continue its policy development work on Latin script diacritics in generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and convene a discussion on a planned policy development process on specific aspects of DNS Abuse. The GNSO committee that is reviewing a pilot service to request private domain name registration data will conduct four working sessions to review Public Comment submissions to its findings, which are intended to inform ICANN Board and GNSO Council consideration of next steps for a final policy.
- The At-Large community will hold several sessions on topics of broad interest, including the Applicant Support Program in the New gTLD Program: Next Round and Regional Internet Registry governance.
- The Governmental Advisory Committee will discuss the New gTLD Program: Next Round, DNS Abuse mitigation, and issues relating to domain name registration data.
- The Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) will host the annual meeting of the RSSAC Caucus of DNS experts and track the work of the Root Server System Governance Working Group.
- The Security and Stability Advisory Committee will present its latest publication, host work party sessions and lightning talks, and conduct a joint open microphone session with RSSAC.
Other highlights from the schedule include:
- Presentation of the Dr. Tarek Kamel Award for Capacity Building during the Welcome Ceremony and the annual recognition of ICANN community leaders finishing terms of service.
- The "Geopolitical Forum: WSIS+20 Focus" session with one of the two ambassadors appointed by the United Nations to co-facilitate the twenty-year review of the implementation of the World Summit on the Information Society outcomes.
- Two community-led plenary sessions to explore ways to improve an important accountability mechanism in the ICANN Bylaws regarding periodic reviews of ICANN's structures and operations.
- Joint sessions between the ICANN Board and ICANN community groups to discuss issues of mutual interest.
Thank you for making the considerable commitment of time and effort to attend ICANN84 either in person or remotely. Whether you are a longtime ICANN community member, an occasional contributor, or joining us for the first time, I encourage you to take an active role. And if you see me in the hallways, please say hello.
