Greetings. As I mentioned earlier today in another venue, and as further explained here, it now appears likely that key ICANN decisions regarding their continuing TLD Expansion Lunacy will be essentially bumped to their San Francisco gala meeting in mid-March.

I realize it's tough to keep track of ICANN meetings these days. Brussels at the end of February. Back to San Francisco two weeks later. If ICANN ever (heaven forbid!) started using Skype or Google Talk or even dedicated videoconferencing instead of so much globetrotting, the airline industry would probably suffer a collective nervous breakdown!

What you might have missed though is that ICANN won't be satisfied with just digging into the crucial topics on the agenda, but apparently has hired -- get this -- former President Bill Clinton to keynote in SF! Yes, this well-known expert on Internet technology and related Internet policy issues will ... no wait, that's someone else. Anyway, Bill Clinton! Our Internet problems are solved!

Now, admittedly, some questions have been raised about this arrangement.

For example, there are concerns about disrupting the serious work of the meeting with Clinton's "superstar" appearance. And what of the cost? Rumor was that he was being paid half a megabucks. "Nonsense!" says ICANN, "Clinton's fees are a matter of public record."

In fact, there's an article -- Clinton's Golden Voice -- from The Washington Post in 2007, detailing the former President's speaking fees between 2001 and 2005. $125K was common, sometimes going as high as even 300K or 350K in several instances. Perhaps there's been some inflation in the six years beyond the dates and fees shown on this chart?

But whether it's 100K or 300K or even more, ICANN assures us that the amount will be covered by "targeted sponsorships," not out of the ICANN budget. Phew. Man, that's a relief. It's good to know that ICANN sponsors aren't going to do something really nutty like donate that money to charity or something similarly silly in these hard economic times. After all, former Presidents need money too. And buying favor with ICANN is a much better investment, of course -- as Mr. Spock might say, "Highly logical."

But I do hope that someone at the meeting will take the opportunity to ask Bill Clinton for his opinions on ICANN's gTLD flooding plans, use of the DNS for censorship and government control, and ICANN's "policy" procedures vs. the Department of Commerce and GAC. If there's any spare time, Mr. Clinton's opinions on IPv4 address depletion and IPv6 deployment would certainly set the Internet user community at ease.

If there's one thing that we can say about ICANN as of late with some degree of certainty, it's that the organization is definitely consistent -- just like Mr. Magoo out for a Sunday drive!

"Road Hog!"

--Lauren--