ICANN 54 Dublin Public Forum Comments

ICANN 54 Dublin Public Forum comments on the use of auction funds and meeting materials

Good afternoon. Christa Taylor from dot TBA in Canada. I just have a couple of comments for consideration for the board and community. I understand the use of auction funds is open for comments. And I would ask that they be used to strategically and financially benefit the new gTLD ecosphere. Registration revenues have not yet reached the tipping point, and implications could be severe if they’re utilized in some other manner. We still need to build and work on the bridge to the outside world to minimize the risk, which brings me to my second point. We have been here for a week. And yet, if we go down to the street to the coffee store where we all visit and you ask the person working behind the till if they know what’s going on down the road in the conference that’s going on and, generally, they have no idea. And, even if you take out the ICANN shirt and you put it up and you say, “Does this give you any idea,” and some of them actually think that we’re in the aluminum tin can business of processing food. So one of the things that I think we could do is simply let’s reflect our shirts in some really great fantastic manner and the enthusiasm that we have here and all these amazing technology that we represent. Thank you. [ Applause ]

WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Thank you for the quick points. And Cherine will take the first part of your question.

CHERINE CHALABY: Yes. Regarding the — what to do with the auction money, I think this is — we are committed that this is going to be a community decision. And the Board is not going to direct where this money is going to be. So you got to give your input. I think the GNSO is going to, you know, undertake the work there and make a recommendation on this issue. And they use the community input as a whole in that. So that’s an important thing. Thank you very much.

WOLFGANG KLEINWACHTER: Rinalia and Erika wanted to make a statement.

ERIKA MANN: Not really a statement. But I liked your second comment very much. But let me, you know, say maybe that the picture is a little bit more diverse. I don’t know with whom I had this experience in Los Angeles. They — the guy who was actually working at the desk in the hotel, when he heard about ICANN, he said, “Oh, my God. You are the best. You’re the stars.” So he meant the community, everybody, not the Board. He didn’t even know about the Board. He said, “You are the future.” So I think you’re right. We have to pay attention to this. But the picture is probably more diverse than we imagine. Thank you so much for your comment.

ICANN 54 Dublin Public Forum video at the 2 hour 48 minute mark

ICANN 54 Dublin Public Forum transcript

Prior post on the use of auction funds can be found here