Former President Clinton set to keynote next ICANN meeting.
[Update: ICANN confirms that Clinton has accepted an offer to speak at the meeting but the contract is still being finalized. It also says that his speaking fee will be covered by a targeted sponsorship.] You might still call it a rumor, but Antony Van Couvering of Minds + Machines says he has confirmed with “A personal source close to Bill Clinton” that President Clinton will keynote March’s ICANN meeting in San Francisco.
(Side note: I’m kind of surprised this comes from a source close to Clinton as opposed to a source close to ICANN. I guess Van Couvering has friends in high places.)
Clinton may be somewhat controversial assuming he commands his usual high price tag. But with VeriSign tossing $500,000 into the ring you could argue that VeriSign is footing the bill instead of domain name registrants…but then again VeriSign gets its money from domain registrants…oh, I could drag this on and on.
The Clinton Administration created ICANN back in 1998.
With Clinton on the docket and the event taking place in the heart of the tech world, you can expect a lot of media attention for this event.
TeenDomainer says
A big name like Clinton is going to bring tons of media to ICANN like you said but I really don’t know if his speech will be all that great.
Rob Sequin says
I’m no fan of Bill Clinton but maybe ICANN is buying influence in Washington by hiring Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker.
Think of it more like a bribe to Bill Clinton so he would work in ICANN’s interest in Washington should the need arise.
That makes more sense to me. Certainly people could care less about what Bill Clinton has to say at an ICANN meeting.
Then again, I’m not sure Bill Clinton would do anything positive for domainers although I will give him credit for not screwing with the Internet or allowing taxes on ecommerce while he was in office.
einstein says
Just pay him his $150K (?) fee and he will talk to your local school board meeting. That’s how important this speech is 🙂
PP says
Clinton is looking for his “Speech Collection” check?
MS says
Bill Clinton = Press = New gTLD’s approval?
Ray says
@Andrew
AVC = M&M = DotEco = Al Gore = Bill Clinton
Andrew Allemann says
@ Ray – ah yes, forgot about that.
MS says
Where does Gorbachev fit in? With his nice Louis Vuitton bag: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/26/fashion/26row600.1.jpg
.Eco: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6009539/Al-Gore-and-Mikhail-Gorbachev-battle-over-green-domain-name.html
theo says
And yet we forgot why we got ICANN.
The other choice was the UN.
Guess Bill didn’t do to bad…ICANN slow, compromise.
UN.. nothing gets done.
Steve M says
… so can Monica be far behind?