Hello All,
ICANN has opened at 24 day comment period, which I assume starts on 24
October 2005, and finishes on Friday 18 Nov 2005.
I note from the ICANN bylaws - Article III, Section 6, paragraph 2:
"Where both practically feasible and consistent with the relevant policy
development process, an in-person public forum shall also be held for
discussion of any proposed policies as described in Section 6(1)(b) of
this Article, prior to any final Board action."
(see: http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#III)
Now I realize we can argue whether this is a policy issue or not, but I
think the spirit of the bylaws is that a major decision like this should
allow for an in-person meeting.
I also note that Verisign and ICANN have been discussing this for about
a year.
I think it is reasonable that registrars and other members of the GNSO
community have the opportunity to discuss the proposed agreement in an
"in-person public Forum"., The most practical time to do this would be
the upcoming ICANN meeting from the 30 Nov to 4 Dec 05.
I therefore propose to send the following statement to the ICANN Board.
I would like registrars to sign-up to this statement as individual
registrars (not enough time to run the formal registrars constituency
voting process). The more people that sign-on to this, the more weight
the statement will hold.
Please advise via the mailing list, or via email to me if you would like
to be added as a signatory.
STATEMENT:
"We the undersigned registrars, request that the public comment period
on the proposed agreement with Verisign be extended until Sunday 4 Dec
2005 so as to allow opportunities for in-person public discussions
during the upcoming ICANN meeting in Vancouver. This we believe is
consistent with the spirit of Article III, Section 6, paragraph 2 of the
ICANN bylaws, which states that:
"Where both practically feasible and consistent with the relevant policy
development process, an in-person public forum shall also be held for
discussion of any proposed policies as described in Section 6(1)(b) of
this Article, prior to any final Board action."
Regards,
Bruce Tonkin
Melbourne IT