I wrote an paper on this subject. ICANN refused to publish it on their website even though I was the on ICANN's board of directors at the time and even though ICANN routinely published similar materials by other directors and officers - See "Why Louis XIV Would Have Loved The Internet " at http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_7.htm And I did have the dubious experience of demonstrating, via a lawsuit (which I won), that ICANN has often not had even the most basic of clues about how an accountable, public-benefit body ought to behave. The papers for that lawsuit are up on the web at http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/DNS_control/ICANN_IANA_IAHC/Auerbach_v_ICANN/ Have you read my final report to ICANN when I left the board? It's posted at http://www.cavebear.com/icann-board/icann-evaluation-public-version.pdf In that report I addressed several of these issues. (This document too, was refused publication by ICANN on ICANN's website even though similar documents were published onto the website by other board members and officers.) I addressed the question of ICANN's structure and legal foundations several times in testimony before the United States Senate and in other fora. Again, despite repeated requests, and despite the fact that I was on the board during much of that time, ICANN refused to hear or include any of my materials in its "official" collections. There is a partial list of these writings on my website. So am I skeptical of ICANN's willingness to listen? Experience has demonstrated, time and time again, that ICANN has a degree of institutional hubris that would be worthy of an ancient Greek myth. As for the meetings - ICANN has such a ramified, rambling circus that it is impossible, even for us on the inside to follow what is going on. So the answer to your question is "no, I did not know about the meetings". In fairness I must admit, however, that because of my medical condition over the last 18 months I've been less than fully engaged in ICANN, or much else for that matter. (Fortunately, for me, my condition has recently vastly improved.) Besides, ICANN's home is here in California - Why is ICANN afraid to hold meetings in the place where it chose to have its legal existance? Even elected members of California's state government have noticed this disonnance and are asking whether ICANN really qualifies as a body that ought to rights under California law as a "public benefit" corporation. ICANN has long had a difficulty separating legal reality from legal wishing. ICANN may wish to be conceived of as a Red Cross look-alike. But as long as ICANN acts more like the vindicator of industrial authority and profits over the needs of the community of internet users, you really can't expect much public support for ICANN being blessed with a rare and almost unique legal structure that would make it even less accountable than it is today. The idea that ICANN is going to get special legislation out of Congress that stamps it as an up-and-coming red-cross is not a very astute reading of the support for ICANN outside of its core group of selected "stakeholder" interests. Even the IETF and IAB, once supporters of ICANN, now hold their noses and often openly laugh at it or moan when its name is mentioned. ICANN holds forth the glamor, the intentionally created image, that it protects the DNS from wobbling off of its techical axis. Most users of the net think of ICANN as a kind of internet fire marshall and fireman that will assure reliable, accurate, efficient transformation of DNS query packets into DNS response packets. Yet ICANN does no such thing. By allowing, and even supporting that faux image ICANN is misrepresenting what it actually does, which is to protect the profits and assets of the registry and intellectual property protection industries. That is not the way to build the legitimacy from which comes recognition that an entity is worthy of being annointed as a body of international repute that ought to occupy a position nearly on par with nations. You have made vast improvements in ICANN's ability to speak. But there is scant evidence to demonstrate that ICANN has learned to listen.