Issue with the Regional ICANN meeting in Sofia

Wed Sep 10 12:59:00 CEST 2008

On a quick glance, it's not an ICANN event according to either the
conference website or the ccNSO pages. I couldn't access the writer's
Uninet.bg website due to a requirement for a security certificate, so it's
unclear whether the conference organizers ( .ru and isoc-bg, among others)
have made an exception to their open registration policy just for Uninet.bg
or for another reason.

Hopefully the transparency of the event would come from official or
unofficial blogs, if not from a question on notice to the ICANN participant
as to progress during the meeting on Bulgarian IDNs.

While not discounting the writer's position, it's a private event. ISOC-BG
are co-organisers with cctld.ru and cctld.bg, so perhaps an NCUC member with
ISOC contacts can enquire further.

Regards,

Kim

-----------------------
Kimberley James Heitman
www.kheitman.com
-----------------------

  _____

From: Non-Commercial User Constituency
[mailto:NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Robin Gross
Sent: Wednesday, 10 September 2008 5:24 AM
To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Fwd: Issue with the Regional ICANN meeting in Sofia

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

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