Co-authored by Samantha Demetriou, Senior Director - Policy at Verisign and Ashley Heineman, Director of Government and Industry Affairs at GoDaddy.

As Chairs of ICANN’s Registries and Registrar Stakeholder Groups, we are proud to announce that we have initiated a new practice for the Contracted Parties Summits: the publication of our Contracted Parties Summit Statement.

As you may (or may not) know, Contracted Parties get together periodically to interact and work together on issues that we care about, and which impact our businesses as registries and registrars. These Summits aren’t like regular ICANN meetings, nor are they specifically intended to focus on policy, but they can and usually do cover some policy topics.

The COVID-19 period put the Contracted Parties Summit on a bit of a hiatus and getting back into the “Summit routine” took a minute. Post-COVID(ish), we first met again in Los Angeles back in November 2022 and most recently again this May in Paris. We’re happy to report that the Summit attracted over 400 participants, most of which attended in person.

As we get back into our Contracted Parties Summit mind-set, we decided in Paris to try something new. Specifically, we are issuing a “Summit Statement’’ to highlight for the broader community some of the important issues we discussed and what we commit to doing about them moving forward. We find this to be particularly important now, as governments are convening for upcoming intergovernmental initiatives that will look at and discuss the multistakeholder approach to Internet Governance. We also believe that the Statement will be useful for stakeholders throughout the community who may be interested in the priorities the Contracted Parties hold.

Included here is our inaugural and hopefully not our last Contracted Parties Summit Statement.

Enjoy!