Robert wrote:
CIRA is one of the few (if not only) cctld that allows for all of its domain name holders to be full and active members of the organization.
Two weeks ago at the IT360 tradeshow in Toronto, CIRA had a booth, primarily for the purpose of explaining what it is. Interestingly, they were actively seeking to convert domain owners to voting members, offering a USB pen drive to any domain owner willing to sign up and verify identification. http://www.cira.ca/en/IT360-trade-show/info.html http://www.cira.ca/en/IT360-trade-show/forms.html Of course, they also have a selling job to do. Many Canadian companies still prefer dot-com over dot-ca and traditionally dot-ca registrations have been more expensive.
If there's interest, I would be happy to contact CIRA so that it can speak to at-large to present its mechanisms of governance and policy development process at the upcoming San Juan meeting.
Maybe, however: who would they talk to and would there be any point? The CIRA model speaks to public participation at the highest level, and goes to the heart of how and for whom the organization exists. Would such point of view have any value at all at ICANN, which has a mostly-unaccountable Board with little incentive to change this particular status quo? Knowing what else is possible might just be an invitation for frustration, especially at the ALS/RALO level which is fairly low on ICANN's stakeholder food chain. :-) - Evan