Dear Roberto, thanks for your report. On 10/07/2013 19:43, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
I have included some of the rationale in my previous messages, but just to summarize, it is about preferential partnership with Europe for Internet projects, long term plans to join the European Union, being already considered part of Europe in other cases related to music and sport, the proximity to Europe more than to the Pacific rim, and, last but not least, that for IP addresses and ccTLDs often these countries are members of the European regional organizations (RIPE and CENTR).
There is an ongoing activity to rethink the ICANN regions. These considerations should be brought forward in that context (actually, I believe that this is the case already, but I would like to bring this item to the attention of the whole ALAC community).
Yes, this is indeed a subject addressed by the ICANN Geographic Regions Working Group and the ALAC has made its comments known wrt this during the drafting/public comment phase of that process. http://www.atlarge.icann.org/correspondence/correspondence-19dec11-en.htm The ICANN Geo Regions WG has published its final report: https://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-22jun13-en.htm Next steps, as I understand it from this announcement, is that the ALAC will be asked to comment on this final report and will have 90 days to respond starting from the end of the ICANN meeting in Durban. Staff will create a WIKI page for this matter and I will ask for a volunteer from the At-Large community to hold the pen. Kind regards, Olivier