Internet users from Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands now have direct input into ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) this has been officially recognised today. The ceremonial signing of a memorandum of understanding between ICANN and the Internet user groups who participate in the Asia –Pacific Regional At Large Organisation ( APRALO). The first general assembly of the APRALO was conducted today as part of ICANN’s 31st international public meeting in New Delhi. Issues discussed will affect Internet users who are part of the region and the world. The internet users are very diverse including users from India, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates

"Today's ceremony recognizes the ICANN community's success in creating a formal, global structure to help ensure ideas and feedback from individual Internet users around the world is heard in our policy processes," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO. "ICANN's work to introduce a process for applying for new top level domains – the part after the dot – especially those using the more than 100,000 characters from the languages of the world which do not use the Latin character set – will benefit from formal inputs through the Regional At-large Organizations worldwide. The Asia-Pacific RALO is a key contributor to this process."

More than 100 user groups are taking part in ICANN’s five regional at large organisations (or RALOs). The regions are Asia, Latin America, Carribean, North America, Europe and Africa. APRALO was formed on March 2007 and has been providing advice and information about ICANN and advice directly to ICANN for nearly a year The RALOs have direct input into ICANN especially through the international At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC). ALAC represents users in ICANN and its members are chosen mainly by the RALOs.

"ICANN's ongoing coordination of the DNS (domain name system), and its policy work, has a large impact on the Internet and the more than one billion people around the world who use it – and the billions more who should be able to use it," said Cheryl Langdon-Orr, ALAC Chair. "By bringing together Internet users from across the globe, the RALOs are at the heart of ensuring that users have a say on what's happening at ICANN."