Comments from Antony Van Couvering

[Antony Van Couvering <avc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you for the thoughtful work.  I remember dealing with these questions at 
some length as ICANN was formed.  Although my comments are brief, I hope they 
will be helpful to the working group.

1. The White and Green papers are no longer the governing documents of ICANN, 
nor is NTIA its overseer.  I encourage the Working Group to adopt definitions 
and policies that work for ICANN today, not what worked for the NTIA eleven 
years ago.

2. While the GAC and other governmental organizations may require that colonies 
(e.g., territories of Europe in the Caribbean) are recognized on the basis of 
their "parent" countries, ICANN is under no obligation to contort itself to 
recognize vestiges of occupation.  Nations and territories in the Caribbean 
(for instance) are actually in the Caribbean, not in Europe, and their cultures 
and their people for the most part identify themselves as Caribbean.  To 
preserve meaningful geographic diversity, I urge the Working Group to recommend 
using definitions that recognize the actual physical location of a country of 
territory rather than its political affiliations.  This would be most helpful 
for regions where colonialism still flourishes, notably in Oceania and the 
Caribbean. 

Antony Van Couvering
CEO, Minds + Machines