[council] FYI

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear GNSO Council,

Effective immediately, I hereby resign from the ICANN Board of
Directors. What I would now like to do now is briefly explain the basis
for my decision so that there is no speculation or conjecture.  

Over the past year I have thought about resigning from the ICANN Board.
This is a decision which I had shared privately with a number of people
including some of my fellow directors.  Although I came to the ICANN
Board with a number of ties to the industry based upon my consulting
arrangements with various registration authorities, over the past year
it has become increasingly difficult for me to do the best job that this
organization deserves because of my various professional relationships.
This was something that was further reinforced during the Board's
Conflict Committee Meeting which I participated in last week.

As I look ahead at a number of the challenges that this organization
faces, I feel that I can best contribute by going back to the "bottom"
in the bottom up consensus process. This decision has been made easier
because of some of the change which is currently taking place within the
ICANN Board. Although the community, particularly the GNSO, may question
some of the recent decisions of the Board, I can give you my word that
things are slowly changing in the right direction. Moreover, if I did
not believe in the long term health of this organization, I would not
continue my involvement in it. In the future please look to the IP
Constituency, Registrar, Registry and Business constituencies for my
continued involvement within the GNSO, as well as the ALAC if they
accept my offer to help out.

As this body considers selecting my replacement, I urge it to consider
the very important crossroads at which ICANN stands. In my opinion there
are very few people that have the ability to step in and make the
necessary impact that the ICANN stakeholder community deserves.

Best regards,

Michael