ICANN Signs Second African Accreditation Agreement

by Robert Lee, for LawAndTax-News.com, London

16 May 2007

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced on Monday that it has signed its first accreditation agreement with a Senegal-based Registrar – Kheweul.com SA from Dakar. This represents just the second such agreement signed with an African domain name registrar.

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (.org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet.

“We have accreditation agreements with more than 890 Registrars across the world – and this is only the second in Africa,” announced Anne-Rachel Inné, ICANN’s Regional Liaison for Africa. She added:

“ICANN is continually working to expand its international participation and representation – and this agreement is an important step forward in that.”

Kheweul.com has been accredited to register domain names from the .biz, .com, .info, .name, .net, .org, and .pro top-level domains.

“We’re proud to be the first ICANN-accredited Registrar in West Africa and the second in Africa,” stated Mouhamet Diop, Chairman and CEO of Kheweul.com.

He concluded:

“Kheweul.Com is going to work closely with all African country-code top-level domain managers and all world-wide registries to provide domain name services to local African communities. We also plan to promote the digitalization of African cultural heritage and help the preserve of African multimedia content.”

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