ICANN Meeting 2023 in Hamburg

• Hamburg wins bid to host ICANN78 Annual General Meeting
• DENIC eG, eco Association and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg expect around 2,500 participants from research, tech community, politics, economy and civil society from all over the world
• ICANN coordinates the administration of names and addresses on the Internet

Important decisions on core functions of the Internet will be taken in Hamburg in 2023: eco – Association of the Internet Industry and DENIC eG, together with the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg as host, will organise the 78th meeting of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) from 21 to 26 October 2023. The decision was taken yesterday at the current ICANN meeting in The Hague.

As a non-profit organisation, ICANN coordinates the allocation of domain names and IP addresses worldwide and thus ensures the secure and stable operation of the Domain Name System (DNS) for the Internet.

“For the first time in over 20 years, after Berlin in 1999, we are bringing an ICANN conference to Germany,” says Oliver Süme, Chair of eco – Association of the Internet Industry. “With eco, DENIC and the city of Hamburg, strong partners from the industry and politics have joined forces to make this a reality.”

ICANN coordinates the administration of names and addresses on the Internet

For the Internet to function, domain names and IP addresses must be unique worldwide. The central task of ICANN, founded in 1998, is to ensure this in cooperation with the global Internet community. As a result, Internet users all over the world can, for example, enter denic.de into their browsers and thus reach DENIC’s website.

“Winning the bid for hosting ICANN78 in Hamburg honours the commitment of the German Internet community. The event offers a good opportunity to contribute on an even broader basis German and European views regarding the future development of the Internet, which is so very complex, in both a technical and a social sense,” says DENIC Board Member Andreas Musielak.

DENIC administers the German top-level domain .de, the world’s largest country code namespace on the Internet with currently more than 17 million registered domains.

Hamburg welcomes the international Internet community

In addition to country code domains, there are also so-called generic domain endings, including those with a geographical reference, which have been available for several years. The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg actively supported the registration of the top-level domain .hamburg, so that, for example, the website of the Hamburg Police can be reached at www.polizei.hamburg.

ICANN meetings are held three times a year, each time in a different city around the world. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there were only virtual meetings. The 78th ICANN meeting will be held in Hamburg from 21 to 26 October 2023. The organisers expect around 2,500 participants from research, the tech community, politics, the economy and civil society to attend this meeting: “I am really happy that Hamburg can welcome the international Internet community to the new Congress Centrum Hamburg. The meeting is a boon for the city as a location for innovation and Smart City.” says Michael Westhagemann, Senator for Economics and Innovation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Hamburg was already planned as the venue for the ICANN Annual General Meeting in 2020. However, the conference was then hosted virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.