[registrars] Why I have been supporting Henning Grote

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

Hello All:

First, contrary to some registrars that have not spent the proper time
reading the by-laws my support of Henning has NOTHING what so ever with me
seeking a potential ICANN Board seat. Henning/Elliot will be selecting Board
seats 1-8. I would be seeking Board seat 13/14 which will be selected by the
Names Council Representatives. So there is NO HIDDEN agenda despite what
some people would like other to believe.

Second, I make no apologizes for supporting Henning, and asking people to
trust my judgment. Although both candidates have positive qualities, I
believe that Henning is the better candidate for the following reasons:

- Henning nor his company have no affiliation with a registry. If you want a
pure registrar to represent your interests he is the man. TUCOWS is a
shareholder in Afilias (as numerous other registrars), and Elliot himself
during an ICANN Regional meeting stood up and stated that TUCOWS would be
interested in running the .web TLD either by itself or with another party.

- Henning like Elliot has attended almost every ICANN regional/supplemental
meeting and is aware of the issues that confront us. Moreover, as a major
telecommunication provider with a smaller registrar division to services its
clients, Henning is probably more in tune with the day to day issues of a
small to medium size registrar, than the second largest registrar.

- Henning is ideally suited to help is selecting future Board members that
will have to deal with issues such as ENUM, see
http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/14/0659209&mode=thread.
Deutshe Telekom is already beginning to experiment with ENUM in Germany.
With the convergence of voice and data, plus the data privacy concerns that
are inter-related Henning is much more qualified to identify future
qualified Board candidates that Elliot. ENUM also offers potential new
revenue opportunities for registrars.

- The Nominating Committee is going to be composed a diverse group of people
in which I believe Henning will be able to best advocate our positions,
http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#VII.

- Henning is also European. I believe that within the registrar constituency
we have had a particularly strong North American centric representation. I
believe that there needs to be an strong effort to get governments
supporting ICANN's mission, and Henning's European contracts could be
extremely beneficial in this area.

Best regard,

Mike