Fwd: Issue with the Regional ICANN meeting in Sofia

[Robin Gross]

Colleagues,

The below note and attached letter suggest concerns regarding the  
openness of ICANN meetings.  While I can understand the Sofia meeting  
is supposed to involve discussions among regional ccTLD registries  
and registrars, for the sake of transparency, I think others should  
be allowed to see what goes on in those meetings.

Has anyone else heard anything about problems participating in these  
ICANN meetings?

Thanks,
Robin

Begin forwarded message:

>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Iliya Bazlyancov <iliya at bg8.eu>
> Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 9:02 PM
> Subject: Issue with the Regional ICANN meeting in Sofia
> To: paul.twomey at icann.org
> Cc: pdthrush at actrix.gen.nz, pdthrush at chambers.gen.nz
>
>
> Association UNINET
> REF. ID. 10/2008
>
> Dear Dr. Twomey and Mr. Thrush,
>
> We are a Bulgarian association representing part of the local Internet
> user and business community, aimed at the introduction of Bulgarian
> IDN domains.
>
> We would like to inform you that we have been denied participation in
> the upcoming regional ccTLD meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria. (8 – 10
> September) (please see attached letter). The Russian organizers of the
> meeting held in Bulgaria explained to us that the reason is that our
> organization is neither a ccTLD registry nor a registrar.
>
> We would like to express our astonishment with this case, because we
> thought that all ICANN meetings are always open – we have  
> participated
> in former ICANN meetings, like in Los Angeles, without any problems
> and we will participate in Cairo again. We have understood that ICANN
> meetings and ICANN-supported meetings are open to all. We are aware at
> a similar regional meeting in the Middle East co-organized by ICANN
> together with a local ccTLD anyone was allowed to participate.
>
> Additionally, we are aware from the speaker and invitee lists of the
> event, a number of entities that do not qualify as neither a ccTLD
> registry or a registrar (for example Verisign, Affilias, ComTel,
> ENISA, etc.) are able to participate.
>
> We would like to ask you whether is an ICANN policy to organize also
> non-open meetings and deny participation of the local Internet
> community, considering that the meeting is held in Bulgaria. We
> believed that the ICANN meetings are supposed to be for the whole
> Internet community.
>
> If we are unable to get a response in a timely manner, because the
> meeting is next week, we will have little choice but to bring this up
> with the ICANN ombudsman and the wider ICANN community.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Iliya Bazlyankov
> Board chairman
> Association UNINET
>
> iliya at bg8.eu
> https://www.uninet.bg
>
> Phone: +359 2 942 98 00
> Mobile: +359 89 999 16 90
> Fax: +359 2 943 38 02



IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org



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