These regional meetings are a chance for ICANN staff and representatives from gTLD registries and ICANN-accredited registrars to meet informally to discuss topics important to our industry and business relationships. They happen regularly in different locations (regions) around the world. Previous meetings, for example, took place in Shanghai, Prague, New Orleans, and Rome.

Although the meeting is tailored to regional ICANN-accredited registrars and gTLD registries, other registrars and registries located around the globe that may have a regional or business interest also attend.

At this regional meeting staff is planning to introduce a new feature dedicated to newcomers to the ICANN process on the morning of the first day.

The agenda is not final yet, however some of the anticipated agenda items are:

• Registrar/Registry Onboarding with new gTLDs
• RAA Amendments
• Developments in Contractual Compliance
• Policy updates
• ICANN restructuring update
• Internet Security Developments

The joint registrar and registry regional meeting model was introduced in 2006 as an educational opportunity for ICANN and its contracted parties to share information about registry and registrar operations within the domain name industry. The model has evolved over time based on feedback received and changes in the domain registration environment. The meetings largely focused on the policies and procedures registration service providers are obligated to implement and enforce as a result of either their contract with ICANN or with one another.

These regional meetings are distinguished from the regular international ICANN meetings in that they are not structured, for example, to influence policy development. If you are interested in the policy development and a broader interaction with ICANN stakeholders, please join the upcoming ICANN Meetings in person or through remote participation. The next international ICANN Meeting is scheduled for Beijing in April 2013.

All presentation materials will be published on the ICANN website after the meeting.

The space to attend this meeting is limited and interested registrars and registries are asked to pre-register. Other parties who may be interested in becoming an ICANN-accredited registrar or gTLD registry and wish to attend as observers should contact regionalevents@icann.org for further details.

We look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam!

While it’s true that we have invited and he has accepted, we’re still working on a contract, and without it a formal announcement cannot be made.

We are also aware that ICANN meetings are highly structured, work-intensive events, and we want to be sure that an appearance by President Clinton enhances the meeting’s outcomes rather than distracts from them.

We’ve seen some wildly inflated figures of what President Clinton would be paid to speak. His speaking fees are a matter of public record, and you can rest assured that the half-million and million-dollar figures some have reported are way out of line. The fees, by the way, will be covered by a targeted sponsorship donated specifically for this purpose. In other words, ICANN’s budget is not financing this speaking engagement.

We hope to quickly and successfully conclude the process to allow President Clinton to take part in the meeting. His impressive track record of emphasizing the common humanity of all world citizens blends perfectly with ICANN’s mission of enabling the entire globe to unite online. Stay tuned for further developments – but don’t believe everything you read.

Picturesque Bled - location for the ccTLD meeting

I’ve been around the domain name industry for a while and have attended a few ICANN meetings, but this was only my second regional ccTLD-focussed conference. I’ve also had some exposure to Eastern Europe but my exposure to Central Asia and the Caucasus is almost zero, limited to watching a picture of a plane following a red line across a map of the area on overnight flights between Australia and Europe.

I therefore wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, though my background research suggested that it was likely to be an interesting affair. The attendees list indicated a healthy turnout of ccTLD Managers, representing everyone from EU member states to Central Asian Republics. As my role at AusRegistry International is to build relationships with ccTLD managers around the world, this looked promising.

The conference itself was organised (very well, it should be said) by the Coordination Center for TLD RU (ccTLD.RU – Russia’s ccTLD manager), with local assistance from ARNES (the Slovenian ccTLD manager) and the Slovenian chapter of the Internet Society.

Each of the countries represented at the conference (with the exception of guest speakers, such as myself) share similar histories and so cultural perspectives and I was curious to see to what extent this, and Russia’s historically dominant position in the region, impacts on how ccTLD managers see their role in the Internet.

Many of the attendees spoke better Russian than English so a significant proportion of the conference was conducted in Russian. This was my first experience listening to a translation, which took a little getting used to, but the translator was really very good. Trying to watch a presentation in Cyrillic though was a reminder of just how spoilt I normally am as a native English speaker in today’s world, and of how critically important IDNs are to this (and other) regions.

It was fascinating to hear some very different perspectives than I’ve been used to in the past. As I come from an English-speaking country that is politically closely aligned with the United States and well represented within the ICANN community, it’s easy to forget that there are groups of people who are much less comfortable operating within the ICANN process, especially when it comes to the role the US government plays with respect to the agreements and contracts it has with ICANN.

A number of ICANN staff attended the meeting and did their best to allay some of the concerns expressed, particularly the idea that the US government has ‘a big red button’ that can be used to turn off the Internet at will. While this at first seemed ludicrous, even paranoid to me, it was a view earnestly held by a number of my colleagues and it was instructive to hear their views and arguments.

For example, some of the countries in this region do not send representatives to the GAC, because (as I understand it) they feel that this would be interpreted as recognition of the US government as the controlling body of the Internet. Others feel it is better to work from inside the tent, rather than outside – and there was also much encouragement to join and participate in the ccNSO. I hope I was also able to provide them with some of my, Australian, perspective.

This conference therefore plays an important regional role as an event that allows ccTLD managers (and others in the industry) to share their experiences and to support each other, without becoming entangled in the political issues that make ICANN a problematic space for some of them.

From a personal perspective, it was great to have the opportunity to meet with ccTLD managers from a range of countries, and to hear about the various challenges that they face in an increasingly competitive market and an increasingly challenging security environment.

I also enjoyed the chance, as part of the Marketing panel, to present some of the experiences that we have gained during our time as Registry Operator for the dot-au ccTLD and from our work with other ccTLDs, especially our clients in the Middle East.

I should also mention the local hosts’ hospitality: we were treated to two excellent dinners – the second one being a particularly special affair held in Bled Castle with spectacular views over the lake and the mountains beyond.

The only real complaint I have is in relation to the extremely flaky wireless internet connectivity in the conference hall. I have a suspicion though that this may have been a deliberate strategy on the part of the organisers to get people to actually listen to the presentations. A strategy to be considered for future ICANN meetings perhaps…

Jon Lawrence is Business Development Consultant at AusRegistry International

So if you are attending the conference next week but can’t remember which meeting is on at which time or in what room, you can now access the information directly and quickly using your cell or mobile phone.

The full schedule is available at http://icann.mobi.

The mobile version of the Mexico meeting site contains other useful information, including:

• A map of the venue
• A Twitter feed so attendees can interact using text messages
• Security advice
• Taxi numbers
• Hotel information
• Restaurant and bar reviews
• A weather forecast

ICANN would like to thank dotMobi for its help in setting up and hosting the icann.mobi site.

If people are really keen, I can explain why that came about, but perhaps more importantly, we have ensured that there is plenty of time available at the Mexico City meeting next month for “public forum”.

In fact, there is four-and-a-half hours dedicated forum time: 90 minutes on the Monday solely covering the Applicant Guidebook; 30 minutes at the end of the Joint ACSO meeting; and two-and-a-half hours open-mic time on the Thursday.

Click here to visit our new online Question Box for Mexico City

Just to be clear: this is more open-mic time than at any ICANN meeting since Vancouver in 2005, and that meeting was marked out as being where both the dotcom contract and the .xxx application were discussed. We are also starting to separate out the delivery of reports (AC/SO chairs, staff and Board Committees) from “public forum” time, meaning open microphone time. That means that open microphone time is not dependent on anything else and stands alone as dedicated time.

Aside from the time issue, the other big concern the community has had is the ability to ask questions. Not everyone likes queuing up behind the public microphone and having to wait their turn to address an entire room of people.

Equally, the public forum has always been the most contentious meeting in terms of remote participation. In my role as general manager of public participation, I introduced and have followed chatrooms for the public forum in every meeting since Lisbon (March 2007), reading out questions and comments directly into the microphone.

This approach works, but not that well: chatrooms do not lend themselves very well to asking questions. So, in order to make things much easier for the community, there is now a very simple online question box.

Go to the Question Box

You type in your name, affiliation and email address. You give the broad area that the question is covering. You type in your question and then hit “Ask Your Question” and it is then in the system and we will make sure you receive an answer either in the forum itself, or in a response that we will produce in the weeks following the meeting (the hope of course is that everything will be answered on the day).

I hope that this online question box is self-explanatory, but it case you have any questions or queries, that is why this blog post exists – to enable you to raise them where others can see them, and to allow for responses to those queries to be easily found.

So, in summary – please use this question-box system. It is only as good as the use made of it. And I hope it will make for more enjoyable, informative and interesting public forum sessions in Mexico City.

You can visit the Question Box by clicking here.

Las reuniones públicas de ICANN convocan a personas de todo el mundo y atraen un amplio abanico de participantes interesados en problemas sobre el trato y la política de Internet. La prensa internacional cubre la información de estas reuniones y ofrece una oportunidad ideal a los participantes, patrocinadores y anfitriones para colaborar en la solución de problemas clave de Internet.

Las organizaciones interesadas en ser la sede de la reunión de Latinoamérica en 2010 deben revisar completamente la Solicitud de propuestas antes de presentar una Expresión de interés. Las especificaciones que se indican en la Solicitud de propuestas detallan los elementos que se prevén como necesarios para una reunión de ICANN y las responsabilidades mínimas de la organización anfitriona.

El formulario de Expresión de interés se encuentra en la página 17 de la Solicitud de propuesta (RFP).

Todos los interesados deben enviar un Formulario de Expresión de interés por correo electrónico a meeting@icann.org para su consideración. Las consultas relativas a la convocatoria de expresiones se deben dirigir al Personal de reuniones de ICANN.

El plazo máximo de presentación es el 27 de febrero de 2009.

De acuerdo con el compromiso contraído por ICANN de mejorar continuamente la gestión de las reuniones y como respuesta a las solicitudes de realizar una planificación anticipada, ICANN ha publicado una convocatoria de Expresiones de interés para ser la sede de la reunión que se va a celebrar en Latinoamérica, del 20 al 25 de junio de 2010. El objetivo es ofrecer asesoramiento rutinario sobre las ubicaciones de las reuniones con 12 meses de antelación a la fecha programada.

Las reuniones de ICANN son esenciales para la creación de un consenso global, el desarrollo de políticas y la promoción de esfuerzos de ICANN. Alentamos a su institución u organización a presentar un Formulario de Expresión de interés.