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"Lucky ICANN" theme echoed by several people
Tuesday, December 16. 2008
I'm chuffed to see that my "is ICANN the luckiest organisation around?" post has been picked up by several people. When I wrote it, I didn't know if I was the only one to feel that ICANN's current reliance on the good will of a lot of volunteers might not be sustainable in the long run. It seems I wasn't the only one. As an example, check out Patrick Vande Walle's account of similar problems he has identified as an ALAC representative. There's another example of a comment here.
ICANN may review new TLD fees
Wednesday, December 10. 2008
New gTLDs being discussed during an open public session at the Cairo ICANN meeting, last November. Photo SVG.
Last Monday ICANN held a new gTLD Q&A session hosted by the GNSO Council. The subject of ICANN's proposed fee structure for initial evaluation and annual registry fees was once again at the centre of much of the discussions, during which it transpired that said fees may well be revised in the forthcoming second draft applicant guidebook (DAG), due out in February 2009.
A recording of the two hour telephone session is publicly available on the GNSO Council's calendar page (see "mp3" link for December 8 entry).
At one point during the session, I put a very direct question to Kurt Pritz, one of the people in charge of the new gTLD programme at ICANN. "Is there a good chance that the fee structure will change?" Kurt answered that yes, that was a possibility.
That doesn't mean that it's now written in stone that the proposed $185,000 evaluation fees or the $75,000/5% (whichever the greater) annual fees will change, but it does look more likely now.
It also shows that ICANN is doing exactly what it said it would do. It's taking a long hard look at all the comments being made on the first DAG, and there have been many on the question of fees, and it's acting upon them.
ICANN, the luckiest organisation around?
Saturday, December 6. 2008
ICANN at work. At a Registrar Constituency meeting (during the November Cairo meeting), Board members, Councillors and community representatives interact and contribute to ICANN's policy development. All are volunteers, putting substantial amounts of time and effort into the ICANN process. Photo SVG.
When I got to Cairo last month for the ICANN meeting, I had just been elected to the GNSO Council. Walking into the venue hotel, I bumped into one of my friends on the ICANN staff. I suppose I was expecting some kind of congratulations. I got a weary "you really are deranged!" instead.
It's a reaction that I didn't understand at the time. I looked at being on the Council as an exciting opportunity to be at the heart of the policy development process going on in my industry, and I still do. Policies like the new gTLD program stem from the GNSO and ICANN's other Supporting Organisations (SO). So Council members get to be involved in defining tomorrow's Internet. That's something that I found really thrilling.
But since taking my position on the Council after the close of the Cairo meeting, I've also discovered the other side of the coin. Council members must brave a constant deluge of papers, reports, ICANN updates and telephone meetings (3, sometimes 4 2-hour meetings a week). They must keep themselves up to speed with everything that's happening in the ICANN world, including of course topics that don't fall directly under the banner of their own Supporting Organisation. They must report to their individual constituencies, the Registrar Constituency in my case, to make sure the people they are elected to represent know exactly what's going on at SO level.
Continue reading "ICANN, the luckiest organisation around?"
