Re: [registrars] Questions for Chair Candidates

[Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <brunner@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob,

1.  How much time can you dedicate to being the Chair of the constituency ?

	Desultory email reading time ouside of meeting dates, much more
	time the weeks befoe and after a meeting, and the concalls and
	the prep time those take with the Registries. There is the ExCom
	time itself that I guess is a few hours a week of internal work
	too.

2.  How many ICANN meetings have you travelled to in the past ?

	Stockholm, Montevideo, Marina del Rey (all 2001, and I was on the
	other side of the table, for registries, against registrars), and
	Rome (2004).

	I think of the WDC RC meeting as being a quasi-ICANN meeting,
	so I count that one too, though you may not.

3.  Are you able to travel to all of the future ICANN meetings ?

	I am unwilling to commit to unconditionally attending all future
	ICANN meetings. As you will recall, I wrote the following last May
	in the context of the budget:

> Subject: Re: [registrars] RE: Appeal to ICANN Finance committee to modify 
>  ICANN Budget proposal
   ...
> 
> I'm not going to KL, but, if none of us go, then we've said something to
> ICANN they can't ignore (cause we could boycott CT too), and we're also
> doing our little part to reduce ICANN's fine dining and exotic travel
> budget. It is five grand saved, or paid towards keeping my ICANN chit
> current.
>
> Does anyone have a business issue that is at issue in KL that has greater
> current and recurring value than getting the BOD to make fees predictable
> and the model rational, or at least predictable?

	I do business with a registry located in Reston, another Registry
	located in Toronto, and a third registry I'm willing to bet will
	be located between Reston and Toronto. The current regulator is
	in Los Angeles, and its authorizing agency is in Washington.

	There is no buisness or regulatory case for expensive ICANN travel
	for registrars as a group that can't be met at a lower cost by
	other means.

	Bear with me while I step back. I helped set up the bid by Accra
	to win the March 2002 meeting. ICANN will not return to Accra or
	West sub-Saharan Africa in the forseeable future. The same could
	be said for Montevideo or Santiago or Cape Town, places on the
	needy side of the Digital Divide. The traveling circus offers no
	enduring benefit to the hosts, they don't end up with better net
	infrastructure, or improvements to their national registries, or
	a registrar-in-a-can training to service what ISPs exist when we
	leave and return to the First World.

	This is a wicked stupid way to spend money, thought the tourism
	and fine wining and dining is rather fun.

	If we are to leave North America and Europe on ICANN pilgrimages,
	we could do some good by going to the same places twice and thrice.
	In addition, if (big if) ICANN were less like a diplomatic showboat
	and more like a working institution, our "other" office(s) would be
	in Mexico City or Accra or someplace where our being there grows
	the domain industry and has a lower lifetime cost, and if MdR ever
	"goes dark" for whatever reason, provides business continuity at
	a vastly lower cost.

	So, thats the positive, constructive view of why ICANN should travel
	less, or travel to the same places for many years. I want better ROI
	for the "basic spectator attendence" ticket to ICANN's annual cycle
	of migration.

	Now I'm going to try and tackle a harder problem, one that is less
	based on hope and optimism. I don't share Elliot Noss' cheery
	view of ICANN.

	I think that as a body, registrars should withold travel to ICANN
	meetings until we have resolved the budget issue, and obtained a
	sea-change improvement in our relationship to the BoD.

	I think that as a body, registrars should initiate discussions
	with the WSIW, and in particular, explore the issues that any
	change in the "accreditation" authority would entail.

	I think that as a body, registrars should conduct more business
	independently, as we did at the WDC meeting.

	I've written long enough.  What I personally feel is not something
	we've discussed or balloted as a group.

Thanks for the question Rob.

Eric