Re: [ga] Increased foreign attendance

["Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Eric,

  "ICANN's unique role is global in nature so it's important that we not only invite the world to participate in our organization - we also need to find ways to get involvement from developing nations and regions that might not otherwise be able to participate," said Theresa Swinehart, ICANN's Vice President, Global and Strategic Partnerships.

This nonsense is a complete waste of registrants' money. To us, it is strictly a public relations stunt aimed at improving ICANN's image. We would not be the least bit surprised to find ICANN using this sham to support a ploy to become an international organization. Rather than getting people who have an active interest in ICANN to participate (i.e. the people on this mailing list), ICANN funds a bunch of stooges from developing countries that they can lead around by the nose.

Although video and audio quality of the YouTube video is overall very poor, it is possible to make out what some people were saying. The woman named Ginger who started speaking at 02:21 says she is a tutor for the bilingual Spanish/English group at the DiploFoundation. From their About Us page http://www.diplomacy.edu/ig/About/default.asp , "DiploFoundation is a non-profit organisation which works to assist all countries, particularly those with limited human and financial resources, to participate meaningfully in international affairs, through education and training programs, research, and the development of information and communications technologies for diplomatic activities." Ginger said that she is hoping to fill in some holes in her technical issues as she tends more to the education of social issues and human rights. These are the type of people that ICANN selects for fellowship participants. Perhaps the real reason she was invited was to fill a hole in ICANN's volleyball tournament lineup.

Sincerely,
Ted
Prophet Partners Inc.
http://www.ProphetPartners.com
http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hugh Dierker 
  To: ga 
  Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 2:11 PM
  Subject: [ga] Increased foreign attendance


  This is a perfect example of how numbers get skewed. The amazing part is that they are blowing their trumpets over it,
  <http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-26jun07.htm>
  They pay these peoples to attend. To bad I no longer live in a distant exotic land.
  I cannot believe that they did not see this article as a bad idea.

  Eric