Regardless of what the auction fee might have been, my point was more that we are now sitting on a quarter of a billion dollars, and I distinctly remember in Helsinki the GAC floating the possibility of this money being used to fund their independent secretariat. That's certainly a very understandable objective, from their perspective. I'm curious as to what the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Drafting Team is up to, and how their work differs from that of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds Drafting Team (is it superseding the former?). When I looked at the membership for the former, I see there are 18 community members and 16 staff on the working group. That seems a little disproportionate to me.
Given how much money is at stake, that these proceeds are set to increase further (with the auctions for .hotel, .inc, .mail., .llc etc), and how transformative these funds could be if suitably allocated, I think we should be highly involved in this process so that its allocation is more community-driven. I'm happy to put my hand up and to volunteer here. I have no doubt that there's a piece of the puzzle that I'm missing (is WG membership restricted?), as I will be the first to admit I am new to this community, so if I am mistaken and these funds are in safe hands... let me know. But if we are stretched and not as involved in monitoring the progress of these working groups as we may like to be, please let me know how I can help. Thanks!
- Ayden
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