ICANN Board Chair Maarten Botterman has had a meeting with representatives of Asia-Pacific registrars and registries, where the format of ICANN73, first of the three ICANN’s meetings scheduled for next year, was discussed among other things. The conference is due to be held in March 2022, and for now the venue is Puerto Rico.
It is a well-known fact that previously ICANN wanted to hold its 72nd conference (this October) in the hybrid format, both online and with personal presence: it was scheduled to take place in Seattle. However, the representatives of the Asia-Pacific region were against the idea. They noted that due to the numerous coronavirus-related restrictions that are in force all over the world, personal presence will probably only be possible for US citizens, which would put other community representatives to a disadvantage. They were heard: the conference will be online only.
However, the idea of the hybrid format still lives. During the meeting, Maarten Botterman noted that ICANN73 can still be held with an in-person component but “with a meaningful ‘virtual-first’,” according to Domain Incite. The ICANN chair assured the representatives of the Asia-Pacific region that the management shared their concerns about possible violations of the principles of equality and would do everything possible to prevent it. At the same time, Botterman noted that, the relevant experts have a higher level of confidence that the global pandemic situation, in particular vaccination and infection rates, will be much improved by early 2022.
