The meeting started at 1335
The chairs of the ALAC and the NCUC
P Sheppard noted that there was some discussion on the transitional arrangements for the June timeline. He further noted that a charter for the different stakeholder groups was expected by the Mexico summit.
C Langdon-Orr noted that the ALAC would not be involved as such in the GNSO but the At-Large did wish to do so. She stressed the outreach At Large capability for bringing user voices into a non commercial user house and also the fact that some At-Large structures might wish to become involved into new constituencies. She then stressed the distinction between ALAC (15 people) and At Large (currently 110 registered bodies), explaining the role and nature of each RALO. Each RALO, she said had to appoint 2 ALAC members on whatever memorandum which ICANN had agreed to with them and the Nominating Committee appointed a third of each region. She mentioned that ALAC wished, in the long term, to arrive at one At-Large structure per country as a minimum and that, with respect to NCGS, she feared that the command of English needed to follow the GNSO in its work may be a barrier to some At Large organizations memberships. About the re-structuring of the GNSO, she expressed ALAC liaison’s concern regarding the intra-house issues and the transition period. but ALAC, she made clear, would not want to be part of the re-structuring process itself. Some of its ALSes could be interested in joining a stakeholder group and she viewed ALAC as a facilitator in that process.
A Greenberg clarified that individual Internet users may choose to join the NCUC or At-Large.
P Sheppard informed that he had attended a cross-constitutional meeting and that it was believed they could get at a transitional arrangement to have their councellors ready for June with view to another arrangement for the long term, a more integrated way of working as a constituency.
A Greenberg made the distinction between the ‘upper case’ and the ‘ lower –case’ At Large. The ‘lower case’ At-Large, he said, referred to the end-users that were affiliated or not to an At Large structure, the ‘upper case’ At Large meant the whole organizational structure (Alses, ALAC, RALOs), the composite. ALAC effort focused on lower-case At Large representation within the GNSO structure so that issues relating to them could be commented not just after the facts. Generally speaking, the At Large meetings, for their parts, referred to all end-users, affiliated or not.
A participant asked about the relationship between the two non-commercial users groups and the complexity of the affiliation process. He stressed the lack of coaching for filling out the forms.
C Langdon-Orr specified that ALAC had a liaison to the NCUC and had met the NCUC at each ICANN meeting recently.
M Mueller noted that many organisations could , actually, be part of both the ALAC and the NCSG.
P Sheppard asked three questions :
1) Would NCUC itself be expanding- happening
2) Whether there would be additional constituencies forming within the NCSG
3) whether ALAC was a facilitator of such a constituencies
M Mueller (BC) noted that the NCUC had expanded its membership considerably recently since the creation of a provisional individual membership category, allowing, for instance, academics to join with a minimum of formalities. The end idea was that the NCUC would dissolve after the transitions and that there would be 5 to 6 constituencies afterwards. Each would have a representation in the policy process. To summarize it, they had created a process in which any sort of grouping principle could be recognized as a constituency when they had some representation in the policy development process and ALAC had helped them forming a new approach to constituencies.
Steve Metalitz from the Intellectual Property constituency asked if outreach was being done.
Milton Mueller said that the Board had expressed interest in outreach but that the Board had to consider the money it would cost.
A Greenberg commented that the WG was trying its best to get the NonCommercial Stakeholder group into self-forming. At the same time, the ALAC Review has made a statement to the effect that there was concern about the NCUC accepting individual users. The board had then passed the issue to a number of ICANN bodies and to ALAC for feedback.
Ron Andrew asked Milton to expand on the minimum number of criteria for the people forming a constituency and to explain about the low minimum threshold number for
forming a constituency. He feared that if anybody could form into a constituency, there would be chaos as any of them could take over the meetings and paralyze them.
M Mueller noted that Ron might be stuck in the old idea of constituencies in which each constituency got three council seats at the council and stipulated that nothing
was tied to the new constituencies except the right to submit proposals through the stakeholder group. Therefore, the fact that their number might dramatically increase couldn’t impact the Council votes. He also added that they could go out of existence over a short time span, for instance, phishing was a provisional concern, an anti-phishing constituency should require a simpler threshold. Constituencies were only there to represent specific interests and form policy advice by participating into working groups etc. There would still be a stable number of council members. The working groups had to deal with the constituencies.
A Greenberg noted that the voting for the councillors was at the NCSG level. He said that no agreement had been reached yet on the stakeholder group definite composition and the constituencies form and that the final decision lied with the Board.
Christina Rosette asked if there would be rules that would prohibit or guide participation in multiple cross-constituencies. She asked if an ALS forming into a constituency could also remain an ALS and about possible cross-panneling.
C Langdon-Orr argued that, in the emerging and developing economies, trying to separate commercial interests, government inputs and the voices of end-users proved unsuccessful. She said that if there wasn’t ALAC, some ALSes would be confused because they should sit in both the commercial and not commercial Houses.
S Carlton argued that , in his country, he wore several hats and did not see a problem with serving different interests and changing roles.
M Mueller replied that being able to have multiple interests was not at issue but here they were dealing with a political representation structure. The whole point of having different stakeholder groups is the assumption that these two entities have fundamental differences of perspectives that need to be somehow balanced and represented. This notion of conflicting interests, he added, was a construct made by the need for a political representation process in which we are trying to balance interests.
It was noted that if there was a proliferation of small constituencies, then the representative basis of the constituencies would be put into question.
R Guerra said that many of the points raised in this meeting were ongoing matters and that only a small number of individuals within the ALAC actually were actively involved in the User House structure.
A discussion occurred with respect to the NonCom representatives from the different stakeholder groups in the GNSO and about who should vote for them. It was also asked whether they would get voting rights within the Council
C Preston, NCUC member, noted that once the charters would be formed there would be new elections.
T Drakes replied that an agreement still needed to be reached regarding the transitional structure and the attendance agreed that another meeting of the User House was needed at Mexico.
P Sheppard then ended this meeting.
