Frederic, thank you for the detailed answer. Perhaps one day we'll see Regional Gatherings organized and staffed by ICANN Staff that will also serve the needs of the Business Constituency, the Intellectual Property Constituency, the ISPs and the Non-Commercial Constituency. This ICANN fondness for dealing principally with contracting entities to the exclusion of other key stakeholders needs to change. all the best, Danny --- Frederic Teboul <frederic.teboul@icann.org> wrote:
Hello Danny and thanks for your Email,
The simple answer is both yes and no. The North American Registry/Registrar Gathering is indeed an ICANN sponsored session in the sense that it is an information-sharing opportunity organized and staffed by ICANN staff. The registry/registrar gatherings are closed sessions similar to the closed sessions at the 3 annual international ICANN meetings. The audience is geographically and role defined and the sessions targeted to the interests of those groups and to achieve the organizational requirements of ICANN regarding communicating with and achieving compliance from entities in a contractual relationship with ICANN (in this case, North American based registrars and gTLD registries.) Topics tend to focus on data escrow, contractual compliance issues, etc. No actions are taken or positions adopted as might occur in a public ICANN meeting session, but rather these gatherings focus mostly on information sharing. Similar gatherings are held approximately once a year in Asia and Europe as well and, because they are held in the region where the registrars are located, attendance often includes persons who do not otherwise attend ICANN meetings held in other parts of the world.
By contrast, the Dubai meeting was an open regional outreach meeting targeting entities in the Arabic speaking Middle East to increase knowledge of and participation in the ICANN processes. The meeting explained the ICANN multi-stakeholder model and then particularly targeted the topics of greatest interest for that region: current experience with IDNs in the IDN fast track policy, the wiki tests, language and script tables, etc with some information on the roles of gTLD registries and registrars, technical operations, etc. As with the Registry/registrar gathering, no actions were taken or positions adopted in Dubai as might occur in a public ICANN meeting session, but rather the gathering focused on information sharing to broaden participation.
So both meetings were organized by ICANN staff but New Orleans is not akin to Dubai in that the audience, scale, purpose and type of meeting are very different.
Many thanks and best regards,
Frederic
Frederic E. Teboul, Ph.D., MBA Manager for At-Large Regional Affairs Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Mobile: +33 6 3487 0575 Email: frederic.teboul@icann.org AIM/iSight: frederic.teboul@mac.com Jabber: fredericteboul@gmail.com Skype: frederic.teboul
On 09/04/08 13:43, "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hello Frederic,
I have noted on the .asia website a reference to the 2008 North American Regional Registry/Registrar Gathering in New Orleans (04.30-05.02) -- Could you advise as to whether this is an ICANN-sponsored event akin to the Dubai Regional Meeting?
best regards, Danny
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