The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) 25th International meeting officially opens today in Wellington, New Zealand. The meeting, which runs from March 25-31, sees stakeholders from the technical community, business and government and civil society, participate in over 30 meetings and workshops.

Some of the highlights of the week includes consideration of the ICANN Strategic Plan 2006-2009 by the Board, discussions relating to the ongoing reform of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and community discussion of both the policy and technical trial issues in introducing IDN top-level domains. It will also feature a public workshop on Internet governance, with a special focus on local Internet community issues including relations with country code Top Level Domains (TLDs), and local Internet community involvement in the international discussions on Internet governance, the formation and participation in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and implementation of the WSIS outcomes in relation to respective organisations.

The meeting will also feature a public meeting of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) which will consider the challenge of alternative TLD name systems and root services on the stability of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). The SSAC will also examine recent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on the DNS and identify near- and long-term measures to reduce the threat of similar attacks.  
 
Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said, "We anticipate a very productive meeting in Wellington. Particularly important will be discussions relating to the GAC, which we hope will continue to evolve and play an increasingly significant role as the voice of international governments in our public-private partnership."