CRA Participates in the Governmental Advisory Committee Meeting of the ICANN

The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) participated in the 64th session of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN64), which was held from 9-14 March 2019 in Kobe, Japan to discuss a variety of issues related to Internet governance.

During the meeting, experts from around the world met and discussed a range of important issues affecting the Internet community including potential geographical top-level domains, data protection regulations and public safety. In line with ICANN’s goal, aimed at ensuring the growth of Internet and its reach globally, GAC committee shared and exchanged relevant information with the committee members to ensure that they have the appropriate knowledge and information to address any future issues.

"CRA ensures to attend and participate in international meetings like the ICANN64, as it ensures to be up to date with the latest developments in the field of Internet security and top-level Internet domain, and to adopt the best practices in this field. That contributes to the growth of the Internet and ensures that consumers in Qatar have the best services in the field of information and communications technology,” said Eng. Abdulla Jassmi, Technical Affairs Department Manager, CRA.

The GAC was established in 1999 and the committee meetings are held three times a year. It is an advisory committee to ICANN, which distributes Internet Protocol address fields, allocates protocol identifiers, and manages the records system of top-level domain like .edu, .gov, and .qa.

GAC provides advice to ICANN on issues that are within ICANN’s scope. The advice is determined on the basis of consensus and conveyed to the ICANN Board, usually in the form of an official statement issued at the end of each GAC meeting. Each statement and the minutes of GAC meetings are made available online. The next GAC meeting will be held in Marrakech, Morocco, from 24-27 June 2019.

CRA is the communications regulator in the State of Qatar. Under its mandate, CRA ensures the efficient management and allocation of national scarce resources, including Qatari Internet domain names, which are the 10 domain names. CRA regulates and manages the registration of five domains through 17 accredited registrars; i.e. .qa, .قطر, .com.qa, .net.qa, and .name.qa.

The other domains are registered directly through CRA; .org.qa, .sch.qa, .edu.qa, .gov.qa, and .mil.qa. Qatar is among the first countries in the world to offer domain names in Arabic (قطر.). The Qatari domain names allow individuals, local entities and businesses to secure a reliable and reachable name on the Internet and to ensure that they reflect their Qatari identity when they provide their services to their local and international customers.