Alan Greenberg wrote:
ICANN is listed under the heading "With the participation of" but not as an organizer or sponsor. This seems to go along with the note that Danny attached. I would presume (but have never looked into) that ICANN people speak at lots of closed meetings.
Now whether ICANN should put resources into such events is a management decision based on perceived benefits (or risks of not having ICANN speakers and thus ceding the floor to perhaps less informed people) and clearly a subject that we can agree or disagree on.
I would simply echo Danny's point about the willingness of ICANN to participate in contracted-party events while further constricting ICANN's involvement in At-Large and outreach activity to levels below those of a few years ago. There are also risks of not having ICANN speakers (or ICANN community members) at events dealing with consumer use of the Internet, but those risks have apparently been deemed acceptable. - Evan