ICANN CEO and President Göran Marby addressed members of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) during ICANN 70. He pointed out that there was a fifty-fifty chance of face-to-face meetings resuming this year, according to Domain Incite. It had been already announced that the second conference of the year, initially scheduled for June in The Hague (Netherlands), would now only be held online; therefore, Marby was apparently referring to the third conference. So far, it is unclear whether the event will take place in Seattle, as planned.
Marby said the uncertainty is due to the pace of the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out worldwide. He stressed that ICANN should focus on countries which are lagging behind rather than those which have already scored substantial results in this respect, including the United Kingdom and the United States. He added that it was important to involve the internet community representatives from all over the world, and that many countries are barely even starting their vaccination programs. However, Marby rejected the idea of introducing ICANN vaccine passports, as suggested by some members of the internet community who believe that this measure could help resume the corporation’s in-person events sooner.
“It’s not for ICANN to set them up, it’s going to be the governments and the hotels and the airlines to set them up.,” Marby noted when asked about vaccine passports.
