The government will set up a new body to oversee matters concerning the management of internet addresses and other related resources.

The body will take the form of a 20-member forum, whose members will include academics, officials from government-run organizations and representatives from the industry including those from the three internet service providers KT, SK Broadband and LG Dacom.

According to the Korea Communications Commission, the forum will be established under the new committee for internet promotion that will be launched tomorrow.



The establishment of the forum is said to address the shortcomings of the existing system for managing internet addresses and other related resources.

Until now the Korea Internet and Security Agency has been in charge of such issues, but the government-led efforts have been inefficient due to the lack of industry participation and a clash of interests within the industry.

The forum is to hold monthly meetings to discuss and draw up measures to improve policies concerning the issues including the introduction of internationalized domain names or IDNs that was approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers` board of directors at the meeting held in Seoul last month.

ICANN is a nonprofit internet regulator based in the United States and IDNs are internet domain names composed of scripts not based on the Roman alphabet, such as Hanguel.

(cheesuk@heraldm.com)



By Choi He-suk