ICANN public forum today on ".travel"

ICANN (the governing body of the Internet) has been
stonewalling my attempts to report on Internet domain
names for travel. This has become a major test case of
the rights of journalists in the new world order of
privatized decision-making and justice.

Despite requirements in its bylaws for the maximum
extent feasible of transparency, ICANN has made
decisions and held meetings in secret, refused to
provide access to documents, and so forth. I've
protested, and requested an "independent review" (also
provided for by ICANN bylaws) of whether ICANN has
complied with its own transparency rules.

Even knowing I was 10,000 km away, ICANN went to new
lengths to exclude me from their current meeting in
Wellington, New Zealand. (More on that in a later
article.) But less than an hour before the start of
ICANN's 2-day "public forum", I succeeded in
pressuring them to post an agenda for their
decision-making meeting, and an e-mail address,
" for comments from the public to
ICANN's Board of Directors.

If you support my effort to get ICANN to follow its
own rules and my effort to report on how travellers
have been excluded from the ".travel" and ".aero"
top-level Internet domain names; if you think the
travel industry shouldn't have been given exclusive
control of ".travel"; and if you think ICANN should
have listened to its own consultants who found that
the travel industry doesn't represent the travelling
public, and recommended against the .travel proposal;
this is your chance to let ICANN know that you want
them to give my requests a fair hearing.

Please send an e-mail message today to
", asking ICANN's Board of
Directors to act on my request for independent review.
Even a brief message will help.

The public forum is scheduled to end at 12:30 p.m.
Wellington local time Thursday, which is 4:30 p.m.
Pacific time Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time
Wednesday in the USA. But ICANN has been known to cut
the public forum short, so try to get your comments in
sooner if you can.

More on today's public forum:
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001036.html

More on my request, and why it matters:
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/000964.html

Many thanks for your support,

Edward

----------------
Edward Hasbrouck

http://hasbrouck.org

"The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World"
(3rd edition, 2004)
"The Practical Nomad Guide to the Online Travel Marketplace"
http://www.practicalnomad.com