 Paul Toomey, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. You were CEO of ICANN from 2003 to 2009, but your interactions with ICANN began well before that. When you were CEO of Australia's National Office for the Information Economy, which is more or less Australia's governmental entity responsible for developing internet policy. So Paul, let's start back then. What characterized for me, if you would, ICANN's relationship with the United States government? Well, this whole period is sort of pre-ICANN. Noe, we were having a national summit on information economy, which was scheduled in end of January in 1998. And Ira Magasina, the President Clinton Senior Domestic Policy Advisor, had been invited to be a keynote speaker. So not long before he came out, one of my people came up to me and said, you know, these Americans have put out this green paper thing on the domain name system. And I'm like, oh, yeah, tell me more. And we sort of read it and thought, well, maybe we should make a response to it because it was very American-centric, this document, which they'd put out with the National Science Foundation contracts coming to a conclusion. So we did a preparation and we got a response ready. And I think eventually we were the only country that formally responded to the green paper, the Japanese and the Canadians and the Brits and the European Commission responded informally. What do you mean when you say it was American-centric? The green paper was very American-centric. It was about, it was sort of a completely American process with American participation. By the time the white paper came out in response to a lot of that input, they, the mandate for what was NUCO, what was to be this entity, which became ICANN, included international bottom-up participatory system. So that got incorporated. But the funny thing about IRA coming out was that IRA arrived for this as sort of our keynote speaker. It was a big, big, big national thing in Parliament House, and all you wanted to talk about was the green paper. So I took him in to see the minister. And IRA starts getting into the details of the domain name system and how it all works. And I'm like, yeah, it's very important that we need to move along now because it's like, minister's not briefed, heaven's sakes. The last thing I needed was a minister to say something in response without having got a proper briefing. So that was quite funny. It was sort of a week where he was really intense on this topic. But I think it made a difference because it ended up later on that the Australian government put a lot of resources into ICANN and myself included, but there's a response to that engagement. So this is pre-ICANN, but our input was a lot about the internationalization process and that could incorporate into the white paper and the structure. Was he, in effect, trying to sell the green paper? He was trying to sell the importance of it. I think IRA had done a lot of work with Hillary on the health care thing prior, and that hadn't necessarily gone as well. And I think this is not the only project that he was working on, but this really became a center for a lot of his attention. He put an enormous amount of personal work and a lot of travel, a lot of respect for what he did because he flew around the world economy class in the back of U.S. aircraft and the guy's tall, his long legs and flying overnight to meetings. He really personally, in a way that somebody pretty soon in the White House didn't have to do, he personally got quite engaged in this process. Let me ask you this. Was there a sense because the U.S. people that you talk about, with whom you speak and about the early days of ICANN, they always pretty much echo this idea that from the get-go, we thought it should be international? Was that the view? No, the initial green paper was very domestic. Very U.S.-oriented. I mean, they may have thought it sounded international, but it wasn't. But the White Paper, I mean, they did a process of listening. And the White Paper was very international. And in the process, the community followed, where there was six meetings in six cities in four continents, three or 4,000 people attended them, which was the whole fleshing out of what would New Co. be. That was interesting. I think one of the other areas in the process, which was fascinating, was I remember having a conversation with Joe Sims, who was then working as the attorney for John Postel. And we had a meeting in Singapore, and Joe comes up to me and says, what do you think governments ought to have a role in this? And I'm like, oh, this is the time when the good governments, at least we're all in the do-no-harmed phase. So I said, well, they probably want to give some sort of committee as a brother, but for heaven's sake, don't only make it advisory, don't give them any decision-making powers. Well, you know, well and behold, some weeks later, there's this thing in the structure called a governmental advisory committee. And I thought, oops. And you were the first-gap chair, correct? Well, then I got, apparently, the White House also put a request and asked me to be the chair, which I had to take all the way up to the prime minister's office and down, get approval for. Paul, in those early days, was the feeling of many of the international members of the ICANN community, was there a feeling that the US was too much involved in ICANN? Was there ever that sense? So I'm sort of at the formation period. No, I'd say, first of all, there was a sense of these were the heady days of the Clinton administration. This was the heady days of globalization, strong contrast with the present period. And the heady days of the US, you know, the sense of US leadership post the Cold War. So I think a lot of people were quite taken with the fact that the United States was doing this. You know, and I think all of us took quietly that we couldn't see any other country doing what they were doing. Meaning what? Meaning that another country? He was a function that they'd actually paid for that they had gotten going and that they were now saying, okay, we want to put it out into a community, we want to put it out. The community part I'd got, the international part I thought was enlightened, it was necessary. I think it was a fact, they had to deal with it, you know? But nevertheless, it was someone that was enlightened and people, we were quite impressed that they were doing it. At the time, of course, the people who got engaged, but the only people for whom the internet meant something. And so, you know, the first meeting of the GAC, we had, and I wrote to every communications minister in the world and got responses basically from about 38 or 37, and they were the Europeans, the North Americans, some of the Latin Americans and some of the Asians, Australia, New Zealand, for whom the internet meant something. Everybody else didn't even respond. I mean, it's different now. In some degree, the participation of the GAC is a bit of a barometer for how important it is to become in various countries, so you can see how it grew. The one area where they did make a couple of interesting positions at the beginning that I thought we've paid the consequence for, there was one in particular. I remember getting this phone call from Iyer at about 11 o'clock at night, which was about the board structure. He rang me to tell me what they were for the board. And the beginning of ICANN, it sort of got created. There was this new code, something, yes, we're gonna accept it. But the US administration was essentially saying, well, we're gonna select the board, essentially, with Postel and Sims and other, but mostly with Postel. We're going to help in the section of a CEO, and they were putting their finger marks on it. When it came to the board participation, the Europeans demanded five board members. And this was before we had the present process of elections and what have you. This was the sort of kick-off rate, the result of which is we ended up, I think, with four board members for Asia Pacific for memory. And I was saying to Iyer, I said, this is nuts. I said, the participation now is not strong, but this is over half of the world's population. And you were setting up a structure where only somebody come from the Asia Pacific. And he basically said, well, like, I've got to do so many Americans and we're required really have to domestically, and then we've got the Europeans, and so this is how the structure is. I can still bear the burden of that decision, not in terms of the numbers, but in terms of the actual structure of the regions. Because I was trying to tell him at the time, why don't you do an East Asia and South Asia? Because my head, I was thinking in 10 or 20 years time, you've got a big India, you've got a big China. We need to think about that. But, you know, these things are. So what I'm hearing you say is in those early days, there was a lot of concern about the regional representation on the board, right? And now it's more or less around the various communities. They want. Inside ICANN. A lot of people outside ICANN look at ICANN, and they still think about my region, my participation, whatever. I think, I mean I, at the most recent meeting in Marrakesh, I was one of the voices saying, you want to look at diversity, and the working groups worked on diversity and come up with lots of good stuff. But my real thing was, luckily, sure you've got Chinese on the board, sure you've got some Russians on the board. You know, the rest of the world, not just those countries, but those two countries, particularly the Chinese, they are the largest internet country in the world now. And people outside, I'm stunned now. I go back to then, and I look now, and the people who talk to me about ICANN, and I'm still stunned about who talks to me about ICANN. It's like, why do you know about this? And those people look at it, and these sort of regional things do matter in their view of the world, you know? Interesting. Given your interaction with ICANN, both before you became CEO, while you were CEO, and even afterwards, you're still part of the community, what did you see as the single most problematic time in terms of the USG, the US government's relationship with ICANN? Well, I'll give you a couple. I think the first one, frankly, was a tragedy for all of us, that John Postel died unexpectedly. And I think for the team, Ira, Becky Burr, Karen Rose, that attitude being in the Department of Commerce, the Assistant Secretary at the time, you know, they'd all been working mostly with John, that was a long relationship with John. John had all the prestige with the community. John's departure shifted that structure. And so, you know, Mike came in and Louis Tuton and others, and they did a great job. But I think the relationship with the USG meant that they felt they had to do a bit more hand-holding and daily interaction. And so, there was a sense of they had to put a bit more of their prestige in. Maybe I've got it wrong, but they definitely were more hands-on. So I think for them, that was a bit of a surprise in the reaction they had to make. The most difficult time in my experience, I mean, I was the chair of the GAC for the first four years, and then came the CEO, was the change between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. Why? Why was that problematic? For pretty basic reasons, new administration, this ICANN thing at that stage wasn't as big as it is now, so nobody really paid that much attention to it. And they suddenly realized they had this on their plate and what do we do with it? But the second one was cultural, strong cultural difference. So... What do you mean by that, Paul? Well, I've reminded a series of meetings with Deputy Secretary, Sam Bobman. He was the Deputy Secretary of Commerce. He went on to be Secretary of Energy and Treasury under George W. Bush. And... He'd had a series of conversations with Vinton, with others before I came along, about this community thing and this volunteer thing, and he just rejected it. And then there was screaming fights going on. It was really pretty ugly. And I remember meeting with him and deciding, you know, I'm in UC, I'll just try to do the whole clean thing. So I said, yes, you're absolutely right. Yes, professional. And he said to me, you know, the world's run by institutions, companies and institutions. You need to budget a 200 million. The time our budget was like four or something. You need to budget a 200 million people. You need a 200 million. You need 300 people. You need, you know... And actually, I look at the contemporary icon and go, well, maybe Bobman... Well, where did he think that money would come from? Oh, that was our problem, the classic thing. So I said, yes, we need all these things. I need to recruit. And what had happened was, go back one step, one of the things that happened with, especially with John going, was putting in place a thing called a Memorand of Understanding. So the initial need for the ICANN discussion was the end of the National Science Foundation contracts around their ANA functions and the need to renew those. And they'd been in place for quite a long time. And then there was this need for, they decided to put a Memorand of Understanding in place. And that was supposed to only last two years. Well, that had become, like, almost like a board telling everybody what to do. And when I came in, Bobman was thinking of stashing it to run for three months. And we're threatening all sorts of, you know, this is not gonna work, things. So one of the things that's to me is you've, you've got a strategic plan, haven't you? And I said, of course we've got a strategic plan. Be a prosecutor? And he said, oh, good, I'll look forward to seeing that on Monday. So that night, I go back, I was in Washington. I went to Vince Place. I spent the weekend in Vince writing a strategic plan. And sort of getting something roughly put up. So Monday he was, he was, oh yes, we'll just be able to look on the right track and all this stuff. And he was undoubtedly gaming me. But I think Vince and I were pretty nervous about it. I of course later got in enormous trouble with the community for the temerity of producing a strategic plan without going through the community process. But there's the culture clash. And it took, I don't think the Bush administration really ever got over that. John Newey towards the end, I think, did as Assistant Secretary. But the community, they never quite got over that. The third one I would say was during the WISIS process when they brought up their four principle steps. And probably we should talk more about the WISIS thing, but it was, that was a surprise because they came out saying, we're never going to give up their own contract. We're going to keep the MOU. And quite a lot of the community felt that this was reneging on the 97, 98 promise. I heard that a lot of people have referred to this as the wake-up call. I don't know what it means, the wake-up call. Wake-up call to ICANN, do you mean? Yes. For the community. I don't know that I agree with that. Maybe I was too inside. I didn't see it as a wake-up call. It was a little different to the messages that Gallagher had been sending me prior to that, I thought. He wasn't saying, he was sort of saying, we're going to stick with the program. We don't like the program. What we're going to stick with it was sort of basically their line. And then suddenly they came out with this. And I understand where State Department was coming from because that's where they felt they had to defend in WISIS. But it certainly caused a problem in the community. You know, when I asked Vint Cerf, the question I just posed to you, how would you characterize ICANN's relationship with the US government? Vint basically said, I don't think it was a problematic relationship that I don't think was particularly supportive. Do you agree? It had aspects of adversarial about it. I think there, in some respects it was, well, in operationally, sometimes it was quite supportive. I mean, one of the things that happened in the Nauties, in the end of the 90s and the Nauties was there was a lot of country code redelegation requests. What was then called redelegation. And contrary to every country's, many country's accusations about American control of their honor function, et cetera, they never once intervened in the processes we went through. Now there were times discussions across departments. I mean, when the Palestinian authority got delegated, when North Korea got delegated, you know, there wasn't just people in the NTA who were aware of that, but at no stage did they ever not just follow the process. And that's pretty phenomenal. Did they attempt to influence the process? How about the triple X was their role? They're just going to say not on CCTLDs, but they always want to make certain they were done very well. They always want to make certain they were done very carefully. And they helped me, and because we had a number of CCTLDs that were dealing with OFAC sanctions problems, and that's personal criminal liability. So I was very concerned that we went through that stuff carefully. So they were, you know, in that space they were quite helpful. The triple X one was essentially a political problem for them. This was pushed by a number of these, you know, the family association, I can use the name wrong, but, you know, quite substantive constituents that were important to them. Well, because it was a political problem with them, did they try to influence, right, Ken's decision on triple X? What, Gallagher, they knew that they were sort of, my read of it was they were sort of caught trying to say the things that they did. And certainly they could say they were doing something about it, while at the same time, not trying to walk over a line of telling us what to do. And they would have loved us to come to a certain conclusion, but they were defending the process. And so in this sense, while, you know, there was a sort of problematic adversarial aspect of the ongoing relationship, especially under the MOU process, they nevertheless owned the process and they helped us with it. Triple X was difficult, but it was a difficult thing for a number of reasons. I think I can follow this process, including even the review on it pretty well. You watched as the IANA stewardship transition was finalized in October, 2016. In essence, ending the USG's involvement with ICANN, let me pose to you the question that I posed to a couple of others. Could that have happened sooner? It could have if you'd had the political leadership to decide to do it. I mean, the... So by that you mean it was because of the Obama administration that it happened? Well, I think as a David Edelman up in the White House, and then I think, you know, Larry Strickling taking up the lead from that, you know, they personally decided to really make things happen. That was what made the difference. In terms of the MOU process, we basically got that finished at the end of 2009, 2010. And that's worth talking about because it talks about the role of a Congress with ICANN. But I think I don't think in the WISIS process, likely it was going to happen. But once WISIS itself was finished, I think it could have happened sooner. I think we've become captive, both sides became captive around two instruments, the MOU and then the IANA contract. And those things are hard. Once you've got an instrument, they're hard. The easiest thing to say is just keep the can down. Yeah, the road. So it becomes hard to break that. I think the other reality is, I think more importantly, I can't imagine there'd be an ICANN if this thing had happened, if September 11 had happened five years earlier. Interesting. Because the end of the Clinton administration was all the positive globalization. And while there were certainly security things, the Balkans, et cetera, that whole the homeland is insecure thing didn't exist. And if that had existed, I would think we'd be in a different space altogether. Interesting. Paul, let me ask you this. When people think about the historic relationship of ICANN with the U.S. government, they inevitably think of the executive branch, NTIA. What about the legislative branch? What about ICANN's relationship with the U.S. Congress? Well, it was important, but it was very much in a interesting U.S. context, to say something blatantly stupid. I think most non-Americans don't appreciate that one of the aspects of the separation of powers is that business lobbying process goes to the executive. It also runs across to the legislative and they're different. And so they get sort of two bites of the cherry. And many people know the sort of complaint about how much business lobbies, especially in Congress, well, it was no different in the ICANN context. And so what was the dynamic would be registries of registrars or other related businesses on particular issues where they wanted to support the ICANN model, but more often when they weren't happy with various aspects of ICANN's decision-making processes would activate to have some sort of hearing. And most of those things are fairly kabuki theater, certainly compared to where I'd come from with the Australian Senate's estimates process. Oh, a medical theater. Yeah, it's not as tough as that is, but it was interesting. I mean, I had one hearing in the Senate in 2007 and I'm sitting there and the chairman's asking the questions and it was all fine. And then suddenly in walked three senators and it's John McCain, Hillary Clinton and John Warner. And at that stage, they were all presidential hopefuls. And I'm thinking, oh, what have we done wrong? You know, what is it I don't know? And then of course, I figured out which registry or registrar was in each state. Which explained their presence. Which explained their presence, they stayed and they left. There is however, a couple of times where I think the role of the Congressional hearings part got misinterpreted or got seen in different ways. One of the classic ones was in 2009. So in 2009, the MAU process was again coming up. I was pushing very strongly, but enough's enough, right? And there was a lot of pushback from after the WISIS process of people saying we want to see some action, even the Europeans close allies were saying we want to see some action. And but there was certain pushback and one particular large registrar and others were lobbying like mad. So we had something at a hearing in the House Committee and the chairman was Rick Boucher and I had gone to see him previously and Rick was very motivated about doing the right thing for telecoms. I think that's why he'd gone to the politics. He was a pretty impressive guy, is impressive guy. And he and I talked and he understood the issues and he was quite internationally aware. We then had the hearing, it all gets filmed. Lots of people turn up for the hearing from the Congressional, from the members. Most of them get my name wrong. Most of them mispronounce the word I can. They all basically dump on me for two hours and the community sees it and everybody's, you know. You were pretty, I, that hearing was right after I'd been started. You were pretty beaten up in that hearing. Yeah, they really, they went for it. The one person who didn't say a word was the chairman. So a lot of the GAC members and others all thought this was a really bad outcome and there was lots of talk about bad outcomes. But I went after that hearing, went straight up to Rick and he said, that wasn't good. And I said, I said, this is exactly why we've got to get rid of the MOU. If this is what the world's going to see about the U.S. role and he went, come and see me in the office tomorrow. And that was the start of the end of the MOU and the change towards the accountability framework that came out afterwards. Let me ask you this, when I talked to Vince Cerf, he said that a lot of the Congressional response to ICANN was sort of rooted in this kind of we invented it, we own it sort of mentality. Is that an oversimplification? I wouldn't say that there was that much degree of sophistication of understanding about ICANN. I'm more cynical about this. People who wrote checks said, here's what to say. Sorry, I'm as blunt as that. And some were in that arena, but that's an easy line for a lobbyist to write. How did it, here's one thing. There were people in the Congress, as it's always, I think, the case in the Congress and it's true in most parliaments. There were people who were chairs or whatever who really took it seriously. And they were staffers who took it seriously and we engage with those. And they had an interesting interaction back with the department and with the White House. And that was important. I don't want to underestimate that was important. Those people were important. But a lot of the other participation, it was political theater. How did the Congressional hearings, not just during your time when you were CEO, but both before and after, how did those hearings play overseas? I mean, was this seen as, wait a second, here's this supposedly independent organization, ICANN being directly responsive, being hauled before the legislative branch of the US government? How was it viewed? I am still surprised how much people, even sophisticated people in politics see other politics through their own prism. I mean, I see this between, for instance, China and the United States at the time. The two see each other in ways that are not necessarily true for where they are internally. And those Congressional hearings got given a weight and an interpretation in other countries, in the community, and in the community and in the technical community, whatever, sort of fine. I don't expect those people to be politically sophisticated. But even for other countries, many of which of course were domestic portfolios. They weren't the foreign ministries. Most of them were domestic portfolios, communication ministries, et cetera. They paid a lot more attention to those hearings than I think would probably do. Now, you know, many of them were also sophisticated, embassy-specific, et cetera. So I don't want to overstate that. But the hearings certainly had a role to the theater the whole thing. I often wonder... And they completely played to the mantra which says, I can't run by the Americans. Well, how would it have played in the US if, for example, I can't, if you as a CEO had been invited to speak to the French parliament? I was, I did. And so, what was the reaction? Well, it didn't get that much coverage internationally. I mean, did anyone care? No, not so much. So there wasn't this, there wasn't a sort of US, hey, wait a second. There was an element, I have to say, early on, I got a little bit of feedback from people saying, you're an Australian citizen and why do you have to turn up to these Americans? Personally, why do you have to go? You know, you're, and I was like, hmm, you know, put that back in the cupboard, you know, of course we'll go because, but it was an interesting, you know, the power of the Congress to tell people to turn up as an interesting thing to analyze them all the time. Let's deal with, let's deal with that for just one second. So, you're Australian. You're number two, who started the DC office of, I can't, Paul Levins, he's Nossi. Did you guys? Well, earlier on, my number two was a building. Okay, so, Dutchman based in building. But my point is, when you're on the hill, as is common before hearings, you make the rounds and you meet with each of the members of the committee. Were any of them, how did they react, or maybe they didn't, to you being Australian? Did you get questions from, in that regard? Frankly, early on, especially after September 11, it was a bonus, we were a close ally, and so I got lots of, you know, in ways that I don't think was appropriate, I got lots of buttering up from members of Congress because I was an Australian. Later on, it was somewhat irrelevant. And I'm certain, one of the things, and interesting things that happened in 2009, 2010, I know I went and had a lot of conversation with people in the Congress and that Rod Beckstrom went and had similar conversations six months after, later, where I think his reaction to almost exactly the same message was different. And I suspect that's because he was an American. But that happens, you know? Let me ask you this. So the IANA stewardship transition terminates October, 2016. I posed the question that I'm about to pose to you. Did you ever think it was gonna happen between the time that Strickling announced a desire to have the community come up with a transition proposal, which was March, 2014, and when the transition actually occurred October, 2016, in that time, did you ever think this is not gonna happen? And when I posed that question to Vince Surf, he said, yeah, every day I thought that. When I posed that question to Larry Strickling, he goes, no, I always knew it was gonna happen. Where do you follow in that continuum? It was always gonna happen. As soon as he announced that it had to happen. Why do you say that was sort of a failure otherwise? Soon as the administration announced they'll go in the process, they had to do it. Because if they didn't do it, it was a domestic political failure and international embarrassment. So Strickling played the card he'd have to and occasionally rattled the chain and say, get on and do things better. And the community, I think, responded well. But my view of it was as soon as he announced it, it was there. It was there. But what about those, like the crews here? I take that back. That's right. From the executive's perspective, it was gonna happen. The last bit of stuff with the Congress, that was an uncertainty for me. But the Hill could have interfered with this. Well, the contract, my analysis of it was that you weren't actually, the executive wasn't doing something. You had to, what the Hill had to do was to tell the executive to do something, which is pick up a pen. All that was gonna happen in October 2016 was nothing. Right, right. And I think that was one of the sort of... It was just a contract termination. Yeah, well, it was just, no, it wasn't a termination. The contract came to an end and nothing happened, right? That was a great strategic advantage for the executive because if they'd actually had to do something, then I think the price on the Hill might have been different. That very contentious crews hearing where he went at Strickling pretty hard. Your faith that this was a done deal was not shaken even then. I spent a fair amount of time trying to think through whether Senator Cruz and his three or four colleagues that he was representing, not representing, but they were a group, whether there was some pathway forward. The only pathway forward I could see was actually a bill. And the bill, and I think this remains a potential issue. Some sort of omnibus security bill, which then tries to use universal language around internet infrastructure as critical infrastructure, et cetera, and tries to sort of say, we therefore have control. I just didn't see him getting that bill through his colleagues in the Senate that alone had gone through the whole process. But if you say, okay, let's look forward, what is the risk to, no, I don't think this is just American. I think what is the risk to the multistakeholder process for coordination of the internet protocols? It will be if the international system ends up with producing regional or major state or even international major statements around security and people try to do a cover all omnibus approach and try to get the stuff covered in. And there'll be a fight about it, but that's the one potentially risk that continues. I think we will position if I don't see a treaty ever coming through, but yeah. Let me ask you this. Talk to me a little bit about WISIS when you had a interaction with some security people. Yeah, yes. Well, as I said before, one of the things about the most difficult part was still was the transition from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. Not because the Bush administration, so were bad people, it was just this was a different program, they hadn't signed on to it, they inherited it, et cetera. So they weren't that happy with it, but they didn't really have an alternative. And then over a period of time, you actually own the process. And so increasingly people sort of owned and defended it. One of those examples was in the Geneva round of the World Summit for Information Society, where I had started going along and I came a small stage, and there was, I think total staff was 16 or something. The community was quite a big process, but we weren't a very big organization and we were dedicating resources to this thing. And a lot of the diplomats in Geneva weren't very happy with it. And one of the reasons I found it later was that internet governance doesn't only, word governance only translates in English and French. In other languages in the UN system it was being translated as government. So they were hearing it as internet government and they all sort of worked up about it. So suddenly ICANN becomes one of these big discussions. And I fly out, part of this process of lobbying of that system was that I had been in Vietnam talking to the Director General of Telecommunications, and then I flew overnight to Geneva for this meeting, arrive, I'm there like half an hour, go into the back of the meeting room, and then they suddenly decided it has to be closed. And my bag's over there and I get, I leave and I try to come back in to get my bag and this UN guard with a gun basically says, no, you can't go, so I got my computer over there inside, so I'm a bit annoyed. And it just happened to walk into a New York Times journalist and she says, how's this going? And I said, well, this is their idea of an open process and blah, blah, blah, I've lost my temper a bit. Well, she loved it. The next morning in the New York Times, International Hero Tribune front page, this whole story of these diplomats are running the internet and Timmy gets thrown out and it's the front page. Now in Geneva that day, diplomats were walking past me laughing. I mean, it was really quite humiliating. It was just open laughter. Two days later, the president of Switzerland was looking for me and wanted to meet with me privately and because what had happened is that the White House had read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and made a call to the delegation and made an eye on what else they'd done, but the message came back was better make certain he's happy. This isn't cool, we don't like this. We don't like this at all, right? And the president of Switzerland's running around thinking the conference, it was really very amusing to watch. And it was one of those, there was two impacts. First of all, ICANN could never pay for that sort of PR. So we got PR, I couldn't believe. Secondly, and it was still kind of distorted view what is it, why does ICANN? And can you go to one place to have governance on the internet, which we all knew was a fallacy. But I think it was another indication of you own, when you're in power, you own the reality of what you've got. And so they, even though it wasn't necessarily their program, they owned it and then they defended it. And so, you know, as the Bush administration went along, their sense of ownership of the process and what they wanted out of it and the logistic old approach, et cetera, got stronger. Great, Paul. Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thank you very much at all. Very good, Brad.