UNESCO encourages Governments to participate in the next meeting of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), to be held in Paris from 22 to 26 June 2008, in Le Meridien Montparnasse (19, rue du Commandant Mouchotte, 75014 Paris).

The GAC plays a key role in guiding public policy issues discussed within ICANN, particularly with regard to the development of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). IDNs are the Internet domain names that could contain letters with diacritics, such as accent marks, or characters from non-Latin scripts.

Currently the Internet domain names, for example “unesco.org” or “louvre.fr”, can contain only Latin scripts. UNESCO is committed to actively participating in the development of IDNs as part of its broader commitment to promote universal access to information, and cultural and linguistic diversity in cyberspace.

Membership of the GAC is open to all representatives of Governments, public authorities as well as intergovernmental organizations.

Article : http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/19269