ICANN officially announced its plans for the next meeting which was meant to be held in Seattle in October.
It’s going to be virtual. Again.
I suspect that this will not sit well with some of the North American participants who would have been able to attend an “in person” event. However the situation globally is a lot less certain and most definitely not uniform. At time of writing the US is closed to Europeans, though US President Joe Biden has said that they will be reviewing the situation soon.
You can read the official announcement from ICANN here.
The ICANN Board has stated that they expect the 1st meeting of 2022 to be “hybrid”. That meeting is set to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico next year. They’ve also asked the organisation to look at holding small regional “in person” and “hybrid” events before the end of this calendar year. I assume that they’ll be adjusting their policy for their own staff to take account of this position.
With an official Seattle meeting no longer on the cards it’ll be interesting to see how people react. I suspect some people will gather in the Seattle area anyway, though that would be without any official ICANN support.
