Peter Dengate Thrush named InternetNZ Fellow
Media Release - 5 August 2008 – InternetNZ (the Internet Society of New Zealand Inc) has bestowed its highest honour
upon longstanding member Peter Dengate Thrush who was made an InternetNZ Fellow at the Society’s Annual General Meeting
last week.
InternetNZ Fellowships recognise members of the Internet industry who have made an outstanding contribution to the
development of the Internet in New Zealand or to the Society.
InternetNZ Vice President Frank March says Dengate Thrush was recognised because of his long and distinguished record of
contribution to Internet policy issues both nationally and internationally.
“He has a long history of engagement in the governance of the core functions of the Internet and we are thrilled to
honour him as a Fellow.”
Dengate Thrush provided advice to the Council of InternetNZ from 1995 on management of .nz and represented InternetNZ in
the landmark Oggi court case which validated the first-come-first-served domain name policy.
He was President of InternetNZ from 1999 to 2001 and his international contributions date from involvement with
consultations by the US Government from 1997 which led to the formation of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers).
Dengate Thrush was Chair of APTLD (the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association) from 2004 until 2006 when he was
elected by the ccNSO constituency to the ICANN Board.
He succeeded Vint Cerf as Chair of the ICANN Board in December 2007 and was recently appointed to chair the
Telecommunications Carriers Forum industry working group for Internet protocol interconnection.
ENDS