Thomas Roessler

Email:	tlr [at] w3.org
Website:	[W3C W3C]
Blog:	[Roessler.Posterous.com Roessler.Posterous.com]
LinkedIn:	[roessler Thomas Roessler]
Twitter:	@roessler

Thomas Roessler is a mathematician by formal education, and a geek with an interest in the net's technology and its interaction with society by passion. Thomas started out around ICANN as a frequent poster to certain mailing lists. He ended up as the DNSO General Assembly's last chair, a veteran of the WhoIs wars, one of the first two people to leave the At-Large Advisory Committee (in early 2005), and ALAC's liaison to the GNSO Council during that time. Thomas occasionally blogs about ICANN at No Such Weblog. He is currently a non-voting member of the ICANN Board, where he represents the Technical Liaison Group; he was elected at ICANN 42 in Dakar and stands to serve through the annual meeting of 2012.

In late 2004, Thomas joined the World Wide Web Consortium's staff to focus more on the technical side of the net. He now serves as W3C's Security Activity Lead, and is involved in the European PrimeLife and PrivacyOS projects.

ICANN Board

Mr. Roessler has previously excused himself from discussing and influencing votes on issues related to ICANN's new gTLD program as per a 2011 conflict of interests policy. He excused himself from a vote in December, 2011, but as of February, 2012, he was once again voting on issues related to new gTLDs.

DNSO Transition

Mr. Roessler was the chair of the DNSO when it disbanded, following the membership renunciation of the ccTLD managers that resulted in the creation of the ccNSO and the DNSO's replacement, the GNSO. In his farewell email, Thomas wrote, ""At some point of time between 9:10 and 9:40 a.m. Amsterdam time on Sunday [15 December 2002], the DNSO ceased to be (and will, perhaps not unlike a phoenix from the ashes, become the GNSO).." His entire farewell email can be found here.

Work

• Technology and Society Domain Leader at W3C
• Director at World Wide Web Foundation
• Security Activity Lead at W3C.

Career History

• Technical Liaison Group's Non-Voting Liaison to the Board of Directors at ICANN
• Researcher at University of Bonn.

At-Large Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN related to the interests of individual Internet users (ICANN Bylaws). Not to be confused with the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group.

World Wide Web Consortium

Deprecated. Domain Name Supporting Organization. Predecessor of the Generic Names Supporting Organization, which advised the Board with respect to policy issues relating to the Domain Name System (ICANN Bylaws).

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).