[ga] Clarification w/r/t Jonathan Cohen's Involvement in Working Group B

["Michael D. Palage" <mpalage@infonetworks.com>]

I am writing this email in response to a posting last week regarding
Jonathan Cohen's involvement in Working Group B. Let me begin by disclosing
that I nominated Jonathan for reelection to the ICANN Board. I believe that
I am qualified to describe Jonathan's involvement in Working Group B, as I
was the original co-chair with Jonathan. After his election to the ICANN
Board, I functioned as sole chair for several months until the Names Counsel
appointed Kathy Kleiman and Philip Sheppard as joint Names Counsel Liaisons.

Working Group B was created last May at the regional ICANN meeting in
Berlin, Germany, along with Working Groups A & C. Jonathan Cohen and Amadeu
Abril were appointed co-chairs of Working Group A. Because of some of the
criticisms surrounding the procedures in Working Group A, it was decided
that the one co-chair would be appointed by the Names Council and the other
would be elected by the groups participants. I was elected as the alternate
chair by default when no one else expressed an interest. This election took
place prior to the ICANN Regional meeting in Santiago, Chile.

At this time, Working Group B was still in the formative stage, with no more
than twenty initial members. After the Santiago meeting, Jonathan announced
his intention to run for a position on the ICANN Board. Following this
announcement, Jonathan undertook a less visible role within the Working
Group B process, although he continued to offer his insight and expertise
leading up to the election.

After his election to the ICANN Board for a period of one year, I continued
to serve as the sole chair of Working Group B until the appointment of Kathy
and Philip by the Names Counsel several months later.

Having made this clarification, I would like to offer my insights on some of
the candidates running for election to the ICANN Board from the DNSO.

The reason that I nominated Jonathan for reelection was because of his
diverse skill set and his record to date. Two of the bigger challenges
facing the ICANN Board in the near future are overseeing the proof of
concept phase for new top-level domains, including any potential issues
involving the intellectual property community, and increasing involvement
among ccTLD registry operators in the ICANN process. I believe that Jonathan
is uniquely qualified to handles these challenges based upon his expertise
as an intellectual property attorney and in his involvement in the Canadian
ccTLD registry.

Although I believe that Jonathan is the most qualified candidate for
election to the Board, there are several other candidates with impressive
credentials that could make a contribution to the Board. For example, Jamie
Love has recently became a very active participant within the ICANN process.
The best word to describe Jamie is passionate. Although I may not always
agree with Jamie's viewpoints, I respect his unwavering dedication to his
beliefs. I personally hope that Jamie considers running for the recently
vacant Names Counsel position within the Non-Commercial Constituency. I
believe that involvement at the Names Counsel level will provide Jamie with
some valuable hands on experience with regard to the ICANN process.

Turning my attention to Ron Weikers, I have know Ron for several years and
use to working with him at a law firm in Philadelphia. Although Ron has a
solid technical and legal background, he is a relative newcomer to the ICANN
process. I have reservations about his ability to get up to speed on the
issues confronting the Board, specifically those involving the ccTLDs.

With regard to the remaining candidates, Peter LeBlanc appears to be a
popular candidate although I have never had the privilege of meeting him. I
have a great deal of respect for several of the people that have endorsed
his candidacy. Peter's strength appears to be in the ccTLD community, which
as mentioned above is highly important at this point in time. In reading
Peter's acceptance/position statement, however, it appears that his primary
focus is advancing the interests of the ccTLD community. I believe that the
strongest candidate should be the one that has his/her finger on the pulse
of every constituency.








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