ICANN hopes to get China more involved in Internet management(2)

Also for the first time, ICANN will unfold a new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program and the emerging TLDs in Chinese and other languages with non-Latin characters.

He said that program has been tested last year and ICANN has received 41 applications for the generic TLD domain names from China, of which 20 are in Chinese characters.

Chehade expects tens of thousands of new domain names with Chinese and other languages to be processed once the program is fully unfolded sometime this year.

He said it takes time to process those gTLD applications, but he has decided to give priority to the Chinese and other languages to show his commitment to let the other languages have a share.

"I am certain that the Chinese applicants will be very ready to move as fast as possible and hopefully they are the first to be out," said the president.

"I've also been announcing that ICANN is going to be shifting a lot of its U.S. centric operations to operations that are distributed around the world, including Asia. So we will be moving part of our core operational functions from Los Angeles to Asia soon, some will be in China, some will be in Singapore and other places," said the president.

"I think it is important that we share its readiness to become closer to the people we are serving, as closer as possible, and Asia has many people we have to serve," Chehade added.

He said he will hire professionals from China to work for the ICANN office in China and also will invite Chinese professionals to come to the U.S. to see how ICANN operates.

Addressing the concerns that the United States may have the power to shut down the Internet if necessary, Chehade said it has never happened before, and in his opinion it will never happen in the future because it is not in the best interest of the people in the world.

"In whose interest it would be if someone intends to do this?" Chehade asked. "It is a very dangerous precedent for anyone to ever think of exercising this."

"It takes away what the Internet is about. I think all of us want to remain open, want to remain fair, to remain multilingual and want to remain it a truthful resource for everybody in the world," said Chehade.

He said ICANN will also make sure the Internet will not be used by the bad people and Internet security is one of his major concerns.

Chehade said ICANN will launch the world's first and most important trademark clearinghouse in March to make preparations for the major change in the way Internet and email addresses are structured and assigned.

ICANN will also check applicants who apply for gTLDs to make sure they are financially healthy and have potential for future development.

Chehade was born in Lebanon and of Egyptian descent. He speaks English, Arabic, French and Italian. He lives in Los Angeles and became a U.S. citizen in 1986.

Chehade moved to the U.S. in 1980 at age 18. Smuggled out of Beirut, he arrived in Los Angeles with 482 U.D. dollars and worked two restaurant jobs there before attending Polytechnic Institute of New York on a scholarship. After graduating with a computer science degree in 1985, he got a master's in engineering management from Stanford University a year later.