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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;mso-pagination:none; mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:21.0pt; font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT">Statement of the NCUC on ICANN's Travel Funding Proposal</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT"> ICANN is currently revisiting its policy on providing support for travel expenses. Currently, ICANN supports the travel of the ICANN Board, ALAC officers, NomCom, and NomCom appointees to supporting organizations, including the GNSO. GNSO Council members appointed by the constituencies have not been supported. The travel expenses of the councilors of these organizations are inherent costs of ICANN's work, and paying these expenses should be a priority use of ICANN's resources. Currently ICANN is subsidized by volunteer councilors who provide not only their personal time and effort, but also the funds to travel to meetings on the other side of the world. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT"> This change is especially important as the GNSO moves to restructure its constituencies and strives to increase participation by individuals. High costs present a bar to participation. Those costs may well seem reasonable or incidental to those parties who have a large direct financial interest in ICANN policy, but they are disproportionately burdensome to individuals and non-commercial parties who seek the promote the public interest within ICANN. Since NCUC is the only constituency not supported by commercial interests and large industries, the under-funding of the GNSO has been the single most significant barrier to NCUC participation in ICANN policy making. ICANN is financially self-sufficient and should bear the costs of its own operation. Otherwise, only those who can routinely pay thousands of dollars to participate in policy discussions will be able to influence ICANN policy-making.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT"> ICANN should fund the reasonable travel expenses of all GNSO councilors, who are all needed to carry out ICANN’s policy work. The current proposal to pay the travel expenses of half of the councilors is both insufficient and potentially divisive and discriminatory. Funding some of the councilors leaves the process open to gamesmanship and favoritism; it also waste’s the Council’s time by giving it another contentious decision to make. Face-to-face council meetings are essential to the work of the GNSO, and the expense of keeping the GNSO running is as much a cost of ICANN's operation as the travel expenses of the Board or SO chairs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:47.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT">The Internet community would not accept a policy in which only half of the board members were funded to participate in board meetings, but ICANN proposes providing support for only half of the GNSO Council to participate in policy meetings. The GNSO is supposed to represent all of the various stake-holders or interest groups who belong at the table in Internet policy negotiations. As the supposedly “bottom-up” part of ICANN, the GNSO should be a fully-funded and fully-supported organization within ICANN. Otherwise, all the talk about “bottom up” policymaking at ICANN is empty rhetoric meant only for press releases, while the same commercial and governmental interests continue to dominate actual policy decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT"> </span><o:p></o:p></div> <!--EndFragment--> <br> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>IP JUSTICE</div><div>Robin Gross, Executive Director</div><div>1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA</div><div>p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451</div><div>w: <a href="http://www.ipjustice.org">http://www.ipjustice.org</a> e: <a href="mailto:robin@ipjustice.org">robin@ipjustice.org</a></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>