New Zealand lawyer elected new ICANN chair

The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAAN) has unanimously voted to elect New Zealander Peter Dengate Thrush as its new chairman.

A civil litigation lawyer specialising in intellectual property, competition, and Internet law, Dengate Thrush has long been a part of ICANN. Since its inception he has been a member of the Boston Working Group, and in 1998 he provided comment on the early drafts of the ICANN bylaws.

He is currently on the President's Strategy, Board Finance, Board Governance, and Executive committees. However, in the past he has been President of InternetNZ, a leader of the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) e.g. '.us' community in the formation of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO).

Dengate will replace retiring Chair Dr Vint Cerf, who sees the appointment as a clear signal that ICANN has matured.

Speaking after the vote on Friday, Dengate outlined what the organisation has in store for the future, claiming that the biggest challenges will arise from serving the global audience.

"At a technical level there is the challenge of introducing international scripts at the top level for both gTLDS (Generic Top Level Domains, e.g. .com) and ccTLDs, as well as new processes for introducing what may be a large number of generic top level domains," said Dengate Thrush.

Dengate Thrush's appointment makes him the first non-American chairman of the agency, a point which will undoubtedly help it battle criticism of being too US-centric