[Advisors] Get Canada connected coalition

[Marita Moll]

Hi Evan and thanks for your response. I actually do not think ICANN will 
come out of this with the same meeting scenario -- 3 public 
international gatherings somewhere in the world every year. I am pushing 
for more work to be done at the regional/local level. Use some of the 
approx. 2 1/2M US$ saved with each virtual meeting to bring ICANN's 
multistakeholder model to end users where they live. More people can 
participate that way -- but first they have to know about it.

CIRA (and ISOC Canada) is running the Canadian Internet Governance Forum 
each year (this year virtual in the fall) -- which does bring these 
internet governance discussions closer to home. But that is a discussion 
platform. ICANN actually has a decision-making role -- as you say, the 
PIR controversy was a good example of how the the future can evolve in 
the favour of public interest but it still takes a huge effort.

Marita

On 6/29/2020 4:09 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 at 20:57, Marita Moll <mmoll at ca.inter.net 
> <mailto:mmoll at ca.inter.net>> wrote:
>
>     Hello advisors. Hope you are all well and managing your way
>     through this co-vid crisis. I have just finished a week of middle
>     of the night meetings at virtual ICANN68 -- Kuala Lumpar time
>     zone. This is the future of international meetings for some time
>     to come, I'm afraid. It is simply too dangerous to have such
>     gatherings until a reliable vaccine is found.
>
>
> As someone who attended ICANN meetings for more than a decade, let me 
> offer a contrarian view -- that having its meetings online is actually 
> the best thing that could happen for the public interest.
>
> A virtual meeting does not require ICANN's At-Large and other 
> public-interest stakeholders to beg for the funding that enables us to 
> participate. It truly does enable (almost) anyone to participate, 
> anyone to listen in from their home. And while not everyone has or can 
> afford high-speed Internet, access to the meetings is now orders of 
> magnitude less expensive than airfare to Malaysia.
>
> Further, this kind of access becomes a great equalizer. You and I have 
> the same access to the ear of ICANN leadership as the industry 
> lobbyists. Expense accounts to pay for after-meeting drinks at the bar 
> to push industry interests (where far too many of ICANN process and 
> administrative decisions are made) don't vanish but are far harder to 
> accomplish.
>
> Consider that ICANN just made perhaps its biggest decision of the 
> decade (from the perspective of public interest) this year when it 
> rejected the application to turn the .ORG registry to a for-profit 
> owned by hedge funds. It didn't need lots of in-person meetings to do 
> the right thing, arguably having those would have enabled the vested 
> interests to put more pressure on ICANN to let it pass.
>
> If the ICANN At-Large Advisory Committee was offered a decent R&D 
> budget, and the ability to actually survey the public rather than just 
> guess at its needs -- with the tradeoff of having to drastically 
> reduce travel and do more virtually -- that's a choice it should take 
> in a heartbeat. But it won't. Too many of its members (with the 
> notable exception of a few including Marita) are amateur politicians 
> who enjoy pretending they're the UNSC three times a year, in a 
> cavernous meeting room with real-time interpretation. Yes there is the 
> reduction of human contact, but that could be offset in a less 
> expensive way if At-Large held its own global conferences OUTSIDE of 
> regular ICANN meetings. That way  it could focus on advancing the 
> public interest rather than just knee-jerk responses to whatever 
> trivial issue ICANN wants to burn volunteer time chasing now.
>
> Just my opinion.
>
> - Evan
>
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