Registration for the ICANN75 Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is open and the dedicated meeting website is live.
The meeting will be held as a hybrid event from 17 to 22 September 2022 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. All participants must be pre-registered by 14 September to attend the meeting in person. The meeting schedule will be published on the ICANN website on 29 August.
With COVID-19 cases around the world still at high levels, ICANN noted in their announcement they are still committed to the health and safety of all community members and staff who wish to come together in person at ICANN75.
ICANN will be closely monitoring relevant national and international public health guidance from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Malaysian government. ICANN is also in close cooperation with local authorities and entities such as the meeting venue, the Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau, local government officials and partner hotels that support the event.
For people wishing to attend in person ICANN will be setting and enforcing the same high standards implemented for ICANN74, including, but not limited to:
- All attendees are required to show proof of being fully vaccinated and up to date against COVID-19, which, in most cases, includes booster shot(s)
- Daily temperature checks and verbal health screenings
- Physical Distancing measures
- Contact tracing measures
- Mask wearing while indoors, as required by Malaysian law
- Enhanced venue cleaning and contact safety measures
- Enhanced food service handling and safety for catered services
- Attendee acknowledgement to agree to health and safety measures.
There is also a Malaysian government requirement for all travellers from abroad to download, register and use the MySejahtera app to enable contact tracing to contain COVID-19. The app is mandatory for entry and will be verified by airlines prior to arrival in Malaysia. ICANN recommends downloading the app and completing the required documentation at least one week in advance of your trip.
Another requirement is agreeing to a waiver for all in-person attendees. However Domain Incite reports the waiver is not heavy-handed as it was for the recent ICANN74 in The Hague. According to Domain Incite the waiver for ICANN74 stated:
I knowingly and freely assume all risks related to illness and infectious diseases, including but not limited to COVID-19, even if arising from the negligence or fault of ICANN.
This has been amended for ICANN75 to read:
I knowingly and freely assume all risks related to illness and infectious diseases, including but not limited to COVID-19.
The ICANN74 waiver caused some consternation from one regular and long-term participant of ICANN meetings who found it all rather farcical as I reported in April.
“I’ve absolutely no issue with ICANN, or any other event organiser, wanting to protect themselves from frivolous claims,” Blacknight’s CEO and founder Michele Neylon told me at the time. “However the waiver that ICANN is forcing people to agree to goes way beyond that and demands that attendees give up not only their own rights, but those of their heirs. From my perspective it’s massive overreach and is legal bullying by a corporation.”
Neylon wrote to ICANN in late March [pdf] with legal advice he had obtained which said he shouldn’t sign the waiver. Neylon and Eberhard Lisse, ccTLD Manager for .NA, member of the ccNSO and medical practitioner. Together they wrote a “Request for Reconsideration” of the waiver [pdf], suggesting it should be rewritten in its entirety. The Request for Reconsideration was dismissed by ICANN.