13 January 2009 Transcription

ALAC Meeting
(Held January 13, 2009)

Legend
Name: First name of member of group
Name?: If we think we might know who's speaking but aren't 100% sure.
O Operator.
XX joined If the phone system has announced that a particular person has just joined, it will be shown in square brackets at the left margin.
XX left If the phone system has announced that a particular person has just left, it will be shown in square brackets at the left margin.
Interpreter: If interpreter actually translates French or German for a participant we will note it as "Interpreter". It will normally be evident from the dialogue who the interpreter is translating for. If not, we will include a note in square brackets with respect to who they are translating for.
cuts out: Audio cuts out for less than 2 seconds. We may have missed something. We do not put this if it's just natural silence where no-one is speaking. We only put this if we can hear that there was briefly a technical problem with the phone line and/or the recording which resulted in temporary loss of sound.

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List of Participants
Important Note: Please note that this should not be considered to be an "official" list of the attendees. This is just a list of the participants that we were able to identify during the transcription. There may have been others present that didn't speak and some people may have participated that were not on the official list of attendees published on the internet.

Greenberg, Alan
Brendler, Beau
Langdon-Orr, Cheryl
Diakite, Hawa
Seye Sylla, Fatimata
Langenegger, Matthias
Ullrich, Heidi
Gruber-White, Gisela
Peake, Adam
Scartezini, Vanda
Vande Walle, Patrick
Bachollet, Sébastien
Seltzer, Wendy
Aguirre, Carlos
Salgueiro, Jose
Gasster, Liz

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Operator: Adigo Operator.
Operator joined
O: Hello. Good morning.
Cheryl joined
Male: Yeah.
O: Good morning, Cheryl.
Cheryl: How are you?
O: I’m doing well, thank you. How are you?
Cheryl: I’m fine. I’m expecting Matthias to join me a little bit early, but you can get on with all your dial-outs.
O: Okay, thank you darling.
Matthias joined
Cheryl: Hi there. Who was that who just joined?
Matthias: Hi, this is Matthias. Hi, Cheryl.
Cheryl: Hi Matthias. How are you?
Matthias: I’m good, thank you.
Cheryl: I have a small problem.
Matthias: You do?
Cheryl: My Internet connection has just failed on me.
Matthias: Oh, um...
Cheryl: Which is a little bit annoying, seeing as the router and server is up in the office, and I’m in the house, because it’s 11:30 at night. Bugger.
Cheryl: I just dropped off Skype, and I went to reload the page and it’s not reloading. Very annoying.
Matthias: Well, I’ll just make an intervention. If I see that there’s an important comment on the Skype chat, I’ll just say it.
Cheryl: Yeah, I’m... just say what the issue is... I mean, it tells me that I am connected. That probably means I should go and restart the bloody router. Oh, annoying, annoying, annoying. Very annoying. It tells me it’s been connected for four and a half days, but you know...
All I was going to do is see if everything was ready in the agenda, and now, of course, I’ve lost the agenda that I’ve had open all damn day.
Matthias: Yeah. Do you want me to read the agenda for you?
Cheryl: Look, if we can’t get back up, then yes, we will do all sorts of interesting and extraordinary things, but at the moment, it’s only you and me as far as I can tell, other than Tonya, so...
Matthias: I want to introduce Gisela. She’s sitting right next to me. Say hi to Gisela.
Cheryl: Hello, Gisela. How are you?
Gisela: Hi Cheryl, how are you doing? You should be...
Cheryl: I’m fine. I’m looking forward to meeting you.
Gisela: Same here.
Cheryl: Now, I really, really want to know more about... when I looked up your name, I seemed to pick you up in Edinborough, is that correct?
Gisela: Edinborough, correct.
Cheryl: So you’re just over there being immersed in ICANN matters at the moment.
Gisela: Absolutely, but can’t complain with the beautiful sunshine.
Cheryl: Ah, that’s great. And what meetings have you done so far?
Gisela: This is... what did we do yesterday?
Matthias: That’s the first meeting.
Gisela: The first meeting, yes.
Cheryl: You didn’t join the NARALO one?
Gisela: No.
Matthias: No. That was Heidi.
Cheryl: Ah, okay, so I just thought she might have dropped into that one.
Matthias: That was yesterday. You know, we went to it 58.
Cheryl: It might be your yesterday, dear, but it’s my this morning.
Matthias: Okay, so your morning.
Cheryl: Yeah, this is still what I’ve been doing all day. Yes I am aware of that. All right, my router obviously needs to be restarted, which is very problematic. Just hold the fort for a few moments, and I’ll see what I can do. If Sebastian or Vanda arrive and I’m not back, get them to start the agenda, you know, the usual prattle, and I’ll be back before anything exciting happens.
Matthias: All right. for the next 1.5 minutes, there is nothing other than some very faint discussion by Matthias and Gisela
50
Matthias: Hi, Vanda, this is Matthias.
Vanda: Hi Matthias, how are you?
Patrick joined
Vanda: Sorry yesterday, I just clicked your name and another name in this site.
Matthias: Oh, you called me. Yeah.
Vanda: Yeah, sorry.
Patrick: Yes, hello everyone. Patrick Vande Walle is there.
Matthias: Hi Patrick.
Patrick: Happy New Year to you all.
Spanish translator joined
Vanda: To you too.
Adam joined
Matthias: Hi Adam.
Vanda: Hi Adam, Vanda here.
Patrick: Hello Adam.
Adam: Hello.
Adam left
Matthias: Very short.
French translator joined
Adam joined
Cheryl: Okay, I’m back.
Vanda: Cheryl?
Cheryl: Hello, Vanda. How are you?
Vanda: Fine, and you?
Cheryl: Um... I’ll be happier if I can get my Internet back up.
Vanda: Oh.
Cheryl: Otherwise, it’s going to make doing the agenda very exciting. However...
Vanda: Yeah.
Cheryl: Keep the fingers crossed.
Adam: Hello, it’s Adam. While we’re waiting for everybody, a question that perhaps someone can help with now, is any thoughts or any idea when we will begin arranging travel for Mexico? Perhaps this is something we should discuss later anyway, but if somebody knows the answer, I’d really like to know, so I can start.
Cheryl: As far as I know, based on my conversations or my many conversations with 56.
Heidi joined
Cheryl: The final database, which includes you and which is attached to tonight’s agenda as it is today has gone across to the travel company, so there’s no excuse for them not to be contacting everybody from tomorrow on.
Adam: Okay. I just wondered, as we were kind of known to be going, why we couldn’t have started beforehand, but that’s a bit late to complain about that.
Cheryl: Adam, if I knew the answer to the mysteries of why we do this as late every time we do, when we do, I’d be a very happy woman, because then I would understand the mysteries of many parts of life.
Alan joined
Cheryl: Hi Alan.
Matthias: Yeah, you know why it is.
Alan: Hello.
Cheryl: Yeah, I find it enormously frustrating, a ridiculous waste of money, and it makes it almost impossible for us 50. So yeah, couldn’t agree with you more.
Adam: Yeah. And let’s try not to let it happen again.
Cheryl: Well, we’ve been trying not to let it happen again since I’ve been in ALAC.
Carlos Aguirre joined
Cheryl: If you ask Alan, it’s probably been for the two years prior to that.
Alan: What are we trying to... what happened?
Cheryl: Adam was just asking, “Are we going to be contacted about travel yet?” My answer was, “The database was sent across to the company today, so hopefully from tomorrow on.” Then he asked, quite reasonably, why it couldn’t be done earlier.
Alan: I heard a day or two ago that it was going to be done that day, so...
Wendy Seltzer joined
Cheryl: 28
Alan: And we know the deadline for knowing who’s travelling, perhaps not applicable to the ALAC itself, is the end of this week, and the deadline for getting all the details is about a week and a half from now.
Adam: I mean, we also don’t know what days we’re meant to be arriving...
Alan: No, I know, there’s no...
Adam: And if that changed...
Alan: You’re not going to get me to defend what they’re doing.
Adam: ...in Cairo as well, so I mean it’s sort of... It is awkward, because I have to ask... we all have to ask, I imagine, time off, don’t we? This isn’t... so it’s a bit frustrating.
Cheryl: Oh, it’s more than frustrating.
Alan: I’m getting more and more upset that all ICANN processes seem to be set to minimize the time required for ICANN staff, and maximize the time required for unpaid volunteers. Time and effort.
Cheryl: However, we can only get better. Vanda, I’m afraid I do not have my Internet connection back up, so I am going to ask you to start the meeting while I battle with the joys of no agenda in front of me. As soon as we’re quorate, and at the moment I don’t know who’s joined. joined announcement, name unclear
Sorry, who was that? Sorry, I didn’t hear that.
Alan: I didn’t hear that either.
Cheryl: Matthias, can you tell us how many are online, and can we work out how many are ALAC members? I’ve heard Wendy join us, Adam join us, Vanda’s on the line...
O: Hi, we have Fatimata as well.
Cheryl: ...and Alan is on the line.
O: Hello?
Cheryl/Alan: Yes.
O: Oh, I’m sorry. We have Fatimata as well on the line, and she’ll only be able to stay for 30 minutes.
Cheryl: All right, that’s fine, thank you. Fatimata, Alan, Adam, Vanda... have we got any other members, other than Vanda...
Patrick: Yes, one. Patrick is there too.
Cheryl: Ah, thank you Patrick.
Patrick: Hello, Happy New Year to you.
Cheryl: Thank you.
Carlos: Carlos Aguirre is here.
Cheryl: Sorry, who was that.
Carlos: Carlos Aguirre is here.
Cheryl: Okay, it’s Carlos. We need one more, and then you can start the meeting, okay?
Tonya, do we have any other dial outs that are expected?
O: I have been able to reach no one. Jose Salgueiro asked that I call him back in 30 minutes. Everyone else is ringing no answer or they’re going to voicemail.
Cheryl: Okay, if you could re-contact Jose and say if he joins us, we will be quorate, if he can’t, we won’t be, because one of our members has to leave in 30 minutes.
O: Yeah, he was in the street, and he...
Cheryl: Oh, yeah, and that makes it very difficult.
O: So I’m still trying.
Cheryl: Okay, thank you dear.
O: Okay, you’re welcome.
Cheryl: Is Sebastian not on this call?
If someone has their Internet connected to Skype at the moment, could someone ping Sebastian, please? And anyone else who should be here.
Alan: Sebastian is listed as being online.
Matthias: Oh, he sent me that he’s at the railway station.
Cheryl: To be honest, I’m beyond caring whether people are in the toilet. I would just like them to join the meetings within a bull’s roar of when they’re due to start.
Matthias: He said he’ll join us in two minutes.
Cheryl: Okay. 05 As soon as Sebastian joins, I’ll get you to start, while I’m busy trying to get routers to renew IP addresses and things.
And someone has a fair amount of background noise.
Alan: If you hear various rude body sounds, like sneezing and coughing, that’s me.
Cheryl: I don’t think that’s the background noise.
Alan: No, no, not at the moment. They may occur without notice, though. laughter
Well, his computer is there, we know, but we don’t know where he is.
Cheryl: Okay. Alan, if you could open up the Ex-Com chat, I’d loaded up the draft, or the text of the draft report of ALAC Ex-Com activities. I did get Matthias to load that up onto the site, but it’s going to be subject to review, and I know there’s a lot of things that you’ll have done that haven’t been listed there, so...
Alan: I haven’t done all that much, but...
voices in Spanish
Sebastian joined
Cheryl: Hello, who’s just joined us?
Sebastian: It’s Sebastian. I will not stay on line, I will just... because I am in a cafe and I will chat on Skype better. There is too much noise here.
Cheryl: Okay, just feel free to mute yourself. The main thing is, we now are quorate. I don’t have an Internet connection – I’ll continue to try and repair that, and I’m going to get Vanda to start the meeting now. Thank you, Vanda.
Alan: Is Vanda still here?
Cheryl: She might be on mute. Vanda, are you there? Alan, have you got the agenda in front of you?
Alan: I could. Hold on.
Cheryl: The first thing is attendance, apologies, etc. We’ll just get Matthias to list any apologies that have been noted, and ask him to keep a running tally of people as they arrive. And we note Fatimata has to leave in 20-odd minutes, and so any of the items for decision I would strongly encourage us to deal with sooner rather than later.
Alan: Okay, let’s try to find out who’s here at this point. Matthias, who do you have firm apologies for?
Matthias: No firm apologies for ALAC members. The only apologies 25.
Alan: All right, as far as you know, who do we have at this point?
Matthias: Well, I only see the phone numbers, so it’s probably easier to do a roll call.
Male: Inaudible
Alan: Other conferencing systems give the names of the people. I don’t see why we can’t, but okay. Can you do a roll call please, then? loud background speech Someone is talking in the background. Please mute. speech in Spanish
Matthias, are you here?
Matthias: Yeah.
Alan: Can you do a roll call?
Matthias: Sure. Okay, I see a couple of names. I’ll read the ones I have. I have Cheryl, I have Vanda, I have Patrick, I have Adam Greenberg, I have Fatimata, and I have Carlos Aguirre.
Cheryl: And Sebastian.
Adam: And Adam.
Cheryl: Yes. In fact, I thought he said Adam but added Greenberg to the end of it, so I ticked you both off.
Matthias: So do we have Robert?
Cheryl: No, at the moment, we... I haven’t heard Robert, I haven’t heard Beau. Jose will be joining us in about another 20 minutes or so. I’ve heard, as far as I knew, the dial outs were to go to 28 and Vivek, but Adigo has had no success in getting through to either of them. So we’ll list those as unable to be connected at this stage.
Matthias: And Hawa is joining in 20 to 25 minutes, apparently.
Cheryl: Oh, Hawa is as well.
Matthias: She’s stuck in traffic.
Cheryl: Okay, thank you for that.
Alan: Who are we missing from Europe?
Matthias: No one.
Cheryl: You’re all right from Europe. You’ve got Patrick, you’ve got Sebastian, and you’ve got Adam.
Alan: Okay, sorry. I missed writing down Sebastian.
Male: So, we’re also missing Mohammed.
Cheryl: From Africa? Yes, sorry. And he’s usually a dial out as well.
Alan: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. We have quorum right now, assuming Sebastian is really here and can listen to us. I’m not sure that’s the case.
Cheryl: He said he would be on Skype.
Heidi?: He is here. He’s on Skype.
Cheryl: Thank you. So, if you can just make sure that things are typed into Skype as well. Again, something I usually do, but I’m unable to right now.
Adam: Well, he seems to be listening and responding. It’s just that at the moment he doesn’t seem to want to talk because he’s at a cafe.
Cheryl: Mute is fine. Okay.
Alan: So what do we actually have to do here, then?
Cheryl: We have an enormous amount on the agenda, last time I had it in front of me.
Alan: I know.
Cheryl: And because we are losing Fatimata early, even though she may be replaced by other people to keep it quorate, I think we should move to the business end, the decision and discussion items, jumping over the reports until we deal with most of those. The only exception to that, if Alan and Sebastian and Vanda agree, would be the final deliberations on the WHOIS study, because we’ve organized for Liz Gallagher to join us to answer any questions we may have in the last ten minutes of our call.
Alan: Gasster.
Cheryl: Gasster. Thank you.
Alan: Um, okay, regarding the reports, I would ask people to read the GNSO liaison report. There are some things there which you need to know. I’m not going to...
Cheryl: We’ll probably have time to come back to those, Alan, it’s just 52.
Alan: I’m just saying, for those who are leaving in twenty minutes, please take the time to read it.
Cheryl: Sure.
Alan: Items for decision-making: proposal to move the ALAC monthly meeting to the second Tuesday of the month, at 12:30 UTC on the fourth Tuesday. Do we have any discussion on that?
Adam: I was going to ask if it clashes with the AP-RALO meeting, and also...
Cheryl: No it does not.
Adam: Does it... and what’s the reason for it, because some of the other meetings 30.
Cheryl: Because AP-RALO is disadvantaged by always holding its meetings a full month after the ALAC meetings.
Adam: Gotcha.
Cheryl: And now we’re asking for the opportunities for RALOs and ALSs through the RALOs to have input already reporting being recorded into our ALAC meetings as well. It seems that the RALO meetings should be completed before the ALAC meeting occurs.
Adam: That sounds reasonable. One reason I asked is because there was a complaint in the European RALO that when the ALAC meeting was held on the same day as the EURALO meeting, it was too much volunteer time for people 12.
Cheryl: AP-RALO doesn’t have a problem with that.
Adam: Excellent.
Cheryl: Now, there is an opportunity, if we’re moving it to the fourth Tuesday of the month, to now shift times, which may suit some of our European members a little more. So you will note there is a set of times, which include all the times that have been selected during the RALO discussions of best times for their meetings, as well as the existing ones that we have.
Alan: So you’re suggesting...
Cheryl: Now if you follow that link, and if you can all select your available times. The only one I’ve said that I’m not happy about is a 3 a.m. start every month, for me. That will help us change, if we need to, the time as well.
Alan: All right. So you’re saying you want to move it to that particular day, but the 12:30 time is not locked in.
Cheryl: Exactly. There’s a choice of times, which seem to be a cross-section from all of the already agreed-to RALO meetings, as well as our existing one, just to see if there is an opportunity for a better time for people.
Alan: There’s certainly a better time for me.
Male: 38.
Cheryl: So an action item on us all is for the ALAC members and the liaisons who need to attend our meeting to fill out that Doodle request, which is attached to the agenda.
Alan: And what is the deadline for filling it out?
Cheryl: I would like to see it in the next seven days, if possible.
Alan: Can staff note that, to put a reminder out for people who haven’t done it?
So, the intent is to do a decision to move to that day, and then in the next week, firm up the time?
Cheryl: Exactly, thank you, Alan.
Alan: Okay.
Cheryl: And I’m happy to move that.
Alan: Second.
Wendy: I’ll just note that there are conflicts with... or inopportune timing coincidences with some Board meetings, but those tend to be either at the end of the month or the beginning of the next month, and so at some times this meeting would be before, and sometimes it would be after. It would never be enough before to put items on the Board agenda from this 54 session.
Cheryl: Okay, um Wendy, what day of the week... is there a fixed day of the week that the Board meets?
Wendy: I am trying to determine that from the meeting... from the schedule, and it is not apparent.
Cheryl: Okay, if you do have some projected dates, perhaps you could share those with 21, who is working with us on the fine tuning of all of the RALO inputs and ALS inputs, because that’s probably the most important place for things to come up well in advance, if we’re going to be occasionally out of sync. Other than that, I would have thought there would have been a great deal of predictability about what the ALAC wishes to raise at a Board meeting.
Wendy: I’ve pasted the link into the Skype.
Cheryl: Okay, Alan. Next.
Alan: All right, can we do... can we have a vote? I’m sorry, I don’t remember the detailed procedures for this.
Cheryl: Usually call for those voting against, call for any abstentions, and make sure we have a quorate vote.
Adam: I want to just say something, actually. I do object to the moving of the time, because had I known that the time might move later, I might not even have volunteered for this position. I think it’s important to join the call, and I cannot join it in the middle of the night, or early in the morning, so I wanted to note that. I’ve always expected, and had the anticipation, that this time had always been the time for ALAC meetings.
Cheryl: And personally...
Alan: In fact, it’s an hour earlier now than it has been until recently.
Adam: And that’s fine. And that’s fine.
Cheryl: I’m happy to have it stay within that same time zone, but it was actually to meet Patrick’s complaints last month that we brought in the other time opportunities.
Adam: That’s fine. I’m just saying that you’re going get a result from me that may be different from what you wanted.
Cheryl: Fine for me to stay where it is.
Alan: And pending the ability to find an appropriate time, the intent is to move it to the fourth Tuesday of the month.
Cheryl: Correct.
Alan: And do we have any votes against?
Adam: I vote against if we’re moving the time. That’s my problem.
Alan: No, but 12:30 is one of the times listed on the Doodle.
Adam: Well, okay.
Interpreter: And from Fatimata’s point of view, I can tell you guys that, you know, it’s really in the middle of the day from me, it’s my office hours. I definitely could not be able to attend it during the middle of the day. So it would definitely be important to find a time that’s convenient for everybody.
Patrick: Yeah, this is what... this is Patrick speaking... this is why I suggested at one time it might be easier to move the meeting on Saturday or Sunday, rather than right in the middle of the business day.
Alan: Experience tells me that you will always get some days, some people will not do that.
Interpreter: Very good, very good, from Fatimata.
Cheryl: Not only that, because of 18.
Wendy: Because we all work.
Cheryl: ...spend a lot of time doing Saturday meetings for At-Large and ALAC anyway. I think, you know, we’ve had the day well-established for a very long time. We are giving some opportunity for day change to meet the end of the month, though, so the RALOs can be more effectively involved. And if we don’t change the time, so be it, and if we do, we can discuss it further.
Interpreter: And, from Fatimata, and I do believe that in that case, if we did have it on the Saturday and Sunday, it would be even easier to achieve quorum that way.
Cheryl: Perhaps we can take a Doodle, then hold off on this vote. Set up a Doodle that includes the same time choices, a Saturday and a Sunday option, either the Saturday or Sunday at the beginning of the fourth week. I think it would need to be at the beginning of the fourth week of the month though. The disadvantage of that... no, it would have to be the last weekend of the month, because AP-RALO meets on the fourth Tuesday of the month, so it would have to move to the final weekend, if that was going to be an alternative.
And seeing as just as many people are probably going to object to putting their volunteer weekend time in as object to meeting after hours or before business hours or perhaps in the middle of their business day, I think we’re going to have an interesting discussion on that. But if it’s the mood of the meeting to look at a Saturday or Sunday option, we can put that into an online vote as well, and discuss it intersessionally between now and our February meeting.
Male: Good idea.
Interpreter: And from Fatimata, you know, we have to decide whether we want to work, we want to take a rest, or what we want to do, but we can’t replace our work hours doing volunteer hours, you know? I mean, I would be willing to give up some of my free time, you know, for ICANN in that way. But I definitely cannot take my work hours, you know, for that, to do volunteer time.
Cheryl: I appreciate Fatimata’s comments. They are the basis for me proposing that we look at a Saturday or a Sunday option, we look at the same sort of times that are available for the RALOs as well. And I would suggest that we also are very aware that some people believe that their weekend time is very important for family activities, and we should also point out, as Adam pointed out, that we all knew what the date... day of the week, and the particular time of the ALAC meetings was when we joined, because certainly it hasn’t changed for the last three to four years. We’re just proposing a change to the end of the month. So let’s look at the end of the month, the day of the month, but it will have to be the last Saturday or Sunday if it’s not the last Tuesday, and the times as well.
Move on to the next item, that’s carried over. And that will need to be done in the next fourteen days there, Alan.
Alan: May I suggest we add to the requirements for ALAC members that in addition to attending the ICANN meetings, the expectation is that they will be able to do... to attend teleconferences and things like that at various times, including during the work day. I know I attend many, many ICANN teleconferences. All of them are weekdays.
Cheryl: Yep, every one of them are, and it does mean that many people who are saying they can only work after hours or on the weekend are cutting themselves out of being able to be actively involved as a representative of 21.
Alan: My point exactly, so I think we need to identify that on the requirements.
Cheryl: So look, the Ex-Com will work with staff to put together a more extensive poll, if it’s the mood of the current ALAC to look at other day opportunities. We’ll do that before the end of the next 48 hours, and we’ll run that poll for either 7 – 10 or 10 – 14 days.
Adam: If we accept that, which I do, and I think it’s a good suggestion, should we move onto something before we lose Fatimata?
Cheryl: This is my reason for being quite so curt while I’m walking around my darkened living room, without the Internet, yes.
Adam: The one thing we might have slipped by is whether we want to, and whether we have anything on the agenda for the current status of ALS applications. I think the NARALO wanted Knujon to be considered, but unfortunately...
Cheryl: We haven’t slipped it by, Adam, we’ve moved to the decisions.
Adam: Isn’t this a...
Cheryl: I think there’s only one other, and then I’m assuming Alan will go back to that, and then we’ll call for a vote.
Adam: Oh, okay. Sorry. I thought this was a decision item, so... onward.
Cheryl: We normally deal with it under the status of ALS applications, and we usually do an online vote.
Alan: I’m happy to deal with it... I believe in this particular... Sorry, I’m not used to looking at the agenda from the point of view of what to do next, so I didn’t realize we missed that. I would think that is a decision, and we do not want to miss this meeting without approving the ALSs.
Cheryl: Absolutely.
Alan: Then can someone point to me which item it is back to, so I can go back to it.
Cheryl: Well it’s... I believe from memory, item three or item four, which says, Current Status of ALS applications.
Adam?: It’s actually number five.
Cheryl: Five, then. Well, goes to show I do have an imperfect memory at this time of night.
Alan: Okay, I see, we use...
Cheryl: The Google docs is obviously showing all of them, but Matthias, I asked you earlier if you could just prepare a brief few words on those that are complete, and what stage the others are at, and then we’ll call for a vote on Knujon. I gather Knujon is the only one ready for a vote at this stage. Is that correct, Matthias?
Matthias: That’s correct, yeah.
Cheryl: Okay, what’s the status of any others?
Matthias: We currently have seven applications that we are processing, but only Knujon is ready for adoption, because we’re still waiting on either the due diligence, which is the case for Internauta Venezuela, Cetic AJB, and AUI Peru, or we’re waiting for regional advice, which is the case for the Mediterranean Federation of Internet Associations, Boll Jang Bokk Jef, and CAPDA.
Cheryl: Okay, thanks for that. Um...
Alan: If Knujon is ready, is there a reason we haven’t already initiated an online vote.
Cheryl: Yes, because the people who’ve been able to set up the big polls voting haven’t been around.
Alan: Okay, so then I assume it will start almost immediately.
Cheryl: We can have... we don’t have to have an online vote. We can in fact just hold a vote now, and get it done.
Alan: Okay, fine. Then I call... is there any discussion on this, or can we start a vote immediately?
Cheryl: Vote.
Alan: Not hearing any discussion, I call for a vote. Is there anyone voting against Knujon? The regional advice was to allow them to become an ALS. Is there anyone abstaining?
Cheryl: Sounds like you’ve got a vote.
Alan: Then I deem all the other people to have said yes, and Knujon is now an ALS.
Cheryl: And Matthias, in the notes, if you can just list all of those of us who are currently online as voting for that.
Alan: I have Alan, Cheryl, Vanda, Carlos, Patrick, Adam, Sebastian, Fatimata.
All right, back to the decision making. There is a proposal, what is it? That members of the GNSO community... This was a Board motion, asking the GNSO to work with the ALAC At-Large to come up with a proposal for allowing users to work on the GNSO...
Sebastian: Alan, it is Sebastian, I am sorry. Just to tell you two things. The first is that Hawa is online, and I don’t know why nobody tells you. And the second point is just, normally we vote the decision taken by the RALO. Then I think that the AFRALO made a decision about three ALSs in their region, and I don’t know why we can’t vote on that. But maybe I am wrong, and I need to mute myself. Sorry.
Alan: According to staff comments, Knujon was the only one that was at our vote stage.
Matthias: Um, Alan, if I may? This is Matthias.
Alan: Yes?
Matthias: I mean, we have seen comments on all the African applicants, but what we usually expect is an e-mail from the regional secretariat, which summarizes the views held. Because some of them were still being discussed, and the view was not... I mean, to me it was not clear that everybody in the region supported certain applications.
Alan: So there was no formal notification from the AFRALO?
Matthias: I don’t have a formal notification yet.
Alan: Then it is appropriate that we not vote. However, we do have timelines to respect, and if they are not prompt in getting their input in, then we need to send a reminder to them.
Cheryl: Matthias will also write that notion up in the proper wording, which is what we vote for is to accept or reject the regional advice, and in this case, all of us as listed, including Hawa, have voted to accept the regional advice.
Alan: For Knujon.
Cheryl: Correct.
Alan: Yes. All right. This is ALAC, we’re cooperative with GNSO. Have you.... Cheryl, at the last GNSO meeting, 06 said she would be contacting you to initiate some activities. To date there have been none.
Cheryl: No, not at all. Um...
Alan: She has still not contacted you.
Cheryl: No, quite the contrary. Avery and I have discussed this since Thursday last week. In fact, I think she started to discuss it while your meeting was still on. It might have been Wednesday, whatever.
Alan: Okay.
Cheryl: And she and a number of others, including Chuck and a few others, I copied you on that conversation I think, Alan.
Alan: Okay, it’s possible. I have not been...
Cheryl: Have come up with this proposal. So it’s what they’ll be taking to the GNSO, and it’s what I said we’ll take to the ALAC tonight to consider.
Alan: I’m sorry. I don’t see a pointer in this meeting for a proposal. Is there...
Cheryl: It says in the agenda, “The chairs of the ALAC and the GNSO propose that a group, a working group of 14 members, 5 to 7 of each...”
Alan: Okay, sorry. I thought you meant that there was a document that you had come up with.
Cheryl: Nope. Nope. There’s been e-mail discussions and Skype discussion.
Alan: All right. How are we identifying the 5 to 7 each from the ALAC? Are you looking at ALAC, or are you looking at the wider At-Large?
Cheryl: I would propose that the 5 come from... one from each region, and I’m happy to take the AP-RALO role here, but that we also need one IDN and one person who can act as a liaison with the NARALO working group. And obviously, your GNSO role, it would be nice if you could duplicate there.
Alan: All right.
Adam: Well, I’ve already stuck my name in. I’ve been involved with the non-commercial 58.
Alan: All right. Can we first have a decision that this is how we are going ahead? The time line is very tight. Avery had said she was thinking about asking for an extension, but clearly the Board wanted to make a decision at this meeting.
Cheryl: Well, what Avery and I had agreed overtalking is that we would have initial work done...
Alan: Hold on. Two people talking.
Cheryl: ...for an extension.
Alan: Cheryl, could you say that again?
Cheryl: Avery and I have discussed and agreed that we should be able to have initial work also listed in the agenda done by the 24th, and ask for the extension.
Alan: Okay. Can we have a decision on... is there any more discussion before deciding whether we go ahead with this plan?
Wendy: What is the plan?
Alan: The plan is, as the second paragraph of the bullet, in the online agenda on the Wiki, to have a group of 14... approximately 14 people, 5 to 7 from each GNSO and ALAC, to work on a proposal.
Not hearing any comments, I call for a vote on this.
Cheryl: Okay.
Alan: Are there any opposed?
Abstentions?
Is there anyone believe we do no... we no longer have quorum? Can we assume we still have Alan, Cheryl, Vanda, Carlos, Patrick, Adam, Sebastian, Fatimata and Hawa?
Interpreter: And Hawa and Fatimata do agree.
Cheryl: Thank you.
Alan: All right, then we have 9 out if 9 votes for. We’ll go ahead. The next point is to identify who the people are. As GNSO liaison, I’m happy to work with it. We’ve heard a volunteer from Cheryl, we’ve heard a volunteer from Adam.
Cheryl: Someone from Latin America?
Alan: Could we have volunteers from at least each other region?
Cheryl: Yup, and I would very much like someone who is actively involved in the NARALO working group on this. So perhaps Beau could be asked.
Alan: I would think the... you’re talking about the NARALO working group on trying to find new, non-commercial constituencies.
Cheryl: Correct. We should liaise with that group.
Alan: I would think Danny is the most active person on that.
Carlos: Excuse me, this is Carlos. Can I ask a question?
Alan: Certainly. Yes.
Carlos: How these persons from ALAC are going to be selected?
Cheryl: We’re doing it now.
Alan: We’re asking for volunteers right now. If we have more volunteers than we need, we’ll worry about that.
Cheryl: But we do ask for one from Latin America and the Caribbean. But it will be intense, probably several teleconferences per week, and at the minimum one a week for 30 days. It will be a high level, high activity working group.
Alan: Well, in theory, we have a week and a half before the 24th, so it’s going to be more than one a week for the next week or so.
Cheryl: That’s correct. And some of them will be in working hours, somewhere in the world.
Alan: Some of them will be in sleeping hours. We are... we have North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific. We’re missing Latin America and Africa. Do we have any volunteers right now, or do we work intensely over e-mail to try to find someone.
Cheryl: That’s what we might have to do.
Carlos: I think it will be best indeed to ask for volunteers by e-mail, because here you will be able to reach the people who are not on this teleconference.
Alan: Indeed.
Cheryl: That’s most important, although I do note we have two of the three African representatives here tonight, and two of the Latin American and Caribbean representatives here tonight, so...
Alan: I will send out an e-mail immediately after this meeting, soliciting input.
Cheryl: Thank you, Alan.
Alan: Soliciting members.
Adam: I would just note, for the record, that Sebastian is also volunteering, if needed. So there would be two potentially interested from Europe.
Cheryl: Okay. Thank you.
Alan: And I ask...
Interpreter: Okay, and so, at this moment. First of all, Hawa and Fatimata, we do want to say that we will consult each other, and we will be consulting through e-mail to see who can we find from Africa, first of all. And second of all, from Fatimata’s part, I do have to go, I do have another meeting, so...
Cheryl: That’s great. And if Africa comes back in the next couple of days with someone, and it really does need to be the next couple of days, that would be fantastic.
Alan: Okay. Do we know who it is from the GNSO yet?
Cheryl: They’re discussing it. When I get connectivity back... I really thought you would have been copied on the same e-mails as I’ve got... 16.
Alan: I may have, Cheryl. I’ve not been on line very much in the last few days, so I haven’t diligently read every piece of e-mail.
Cheryl: Okay. No problem. The answer is, they’re busy talking about it.
Alan: Okay, then we’ll table this one. We... having made the decision to proceed, the selection of the people will proceed online.
Heidi left
Alan: And... who was that, Heidi?
Cheryl: I doubt it.
Alan: I’m not sure.
Interpreter: And one last question from Fatimata. Do you guys have an idea on when the first meeting for that potential working group would be, because it would be good to know.
Alan: I would think...
Cheryl: Before the end of the week.
Alan: I would think within a day or two.
Cheryl: Yeah, before the end of the week, for sure. If not, from early next week.
Alan: We have the...
Interpreter: I mean, I’ll be able to participate, but, you know, it all depends on the time, obviously. So as soon as this is posted, then, you know, we’ll let you know.
Alan: We’ll likely have a Doodle put up, an online decision for what time is convenient with all members.
Heidi joined
Cheryl: Alan, can you just share with us what are the normal times for GNSO meetings, because seeing as fifty percent of the constituency of this group will be coming from the GNSO, I suspect that they will have a strong voting weight on the date and time.
Alan: Well, GNSO also has a relatively wide range of people. We have no one from Africa at the moment, but we do have someone from Australia. We have many from Europe, from South America, and North America. So the meetings range all over the place. They tend to be in daylight hours in North America.
Cheryl: Okay, just gives us an approx...
Alan: But not always, though.
Cheryl: Okay, I’ll work with Avery in the next 24 hours, while the final potential volunteers are coming in, and we’ll see whether we can get a Doodle up at the same time.
Alan: Okay, we have the next item for the decision making, in the ALAC statement on the new gTLD application guidebook. I know Beau has done a lot of work on that. I know there are still some things that are pending coming in from other people. Beau is not on this call at this point, is that correct?
Cheryl: That’s correct as far as I know.
Alan: Okay. The NARALO yesterday discussed it, and Beau was in that meeting. There was a fair amount of discussion on whether the ALAC should recommend to stop the whole process and get... you know, make sure ICANN’s house is in order, so to speak. That it has the ability to manage a large number of gTLDs. Comments in line with the NTIA/US Dept. of Commerce letter, but certainly not unique to them. There was also a feeling... and there was a large feeling that that might well be what the ALAC should do.
The other aspect is that, that recommendation notwithstanding, there are specific things in the implementation procedures that are deemed to be wrong at this point, and need to be fixed, regardless of when the process goes ahead. And since there’s no guarantee the advice to stop at this point will be heeded, that we should be putting in a comment on those. We are not unique – there are about 1000 pages of comments already made, so I think we need to identify the things that we believe are really critical, and make those comments quickly.
At this point, the GNSO has not made any explicit comments. There is a meeting of the GNSO on Thursday this week, 1600 UTC, where observers are allowed, but you have to give notice ahead of time you’re coming, to make sure there’ll be enough lines, to discuss just what the GNSO identifies as issues that it wants to put on the table. Specifically, the GNSO is looking at items where staff changed the recommendation that the GNSO, as approved by the Board, had made.
So there are a number of issues, such as use of short IDN names, use of... reservation of geographic names, where the implementation is very different from the recommendation. So that, I think, is going to be the focus of that discussion, and I recommend anyone who has interest in either of those two, in specific, should participate.
Cheryl: Alan, if I may, I’ve attended on behalf of the ALAC each of the other GNSO meetings on this topic of new gTLDs, and Sebastian has also joined me on at least two of those calls. I will be attending the 16:00 meeting...
Alan: Did you... have you told someone that?
Cheryl: So if people would like to forward specific issues, as I’ve called for in the past, to be raised in those discussions, because the ALAC has in fact continually been part of the discussions, right back to, of course, the September and October in what was it, 2006 or 2007, the original stuff. It’s not as if we haven’t had ongoing comments, we’ve got quite a number of hours of comments, and there’s been a number of responses by staff to the questions and criticisms raised by us and many others in these halls, where the next iteration of the new gTLD application guidebook is supposed to be meeting the queries, if not making us all happy, they were certainly going to attempt to be addressed. The main thing is, that this is going to be a main focus of discussion in Mexico.
Alan: Understood, but the question is, if anyone else wants to listen in on the GNSO discussion that is coming up, and do we want... are we going to put in any formal statement at this point, and what should that formal statement be?
Cheryl: Well, if we would be there...
Alan: As I said, the NARALO is of two minds, that number one, we should consider saying, “Put on the brakes,” and fix a bunch of... fix some structural problems in ICANN, and number two, that notwithstanding, there are some things in the proposal that must be addressed. And clearly... they include things like pricing, which we feel is going to disadvantage many parts of the world.
Cheryl: If I can put on my AP-RALO hat, since early last week, actually I think it’s been almost the last ten days, AP-RALO has been very busy having its discussions on exactly the same topic, and AP-RALO has a view, which is in agreement with the second part of what you described North America as putting forward, but in absolute opposition to stopping the process. I guess there’ll be no surprises from that, because of our vested interest in... particularly IDNs. But we certainly want to suggest that we don’t stop the process, but that we do address a number of serious concerns, many of them have been echoed in the thousands of pages you referred to.
Adam: Can I um... can I ask a quick question there? One of the things that I found problematic with this idea of stopping the process is it seems to fly in the face of absolutely the ALAC’s continued support of the expansion of the gTLD space. And I’ve been looking for old documents about this, and lost them on the Wiki, as usual, and couldn’t find them. But am I right in saying that the ALAC has been uniformly supportive of the expansion of the gTLD space, and particularly of the importance of IDNs. Therefore any call for a delay, which, as I’m reading it, would be extremely long term, because we’re talking about issues such as getting agreement on WHOIS and so on, would absolutely destroy all the work that’s been done and agreed on previously by the ALAC. So I find it... well, if I’m right in what I assume about the ALAC’s past positions on new gTLDs, I find the idea of a delay pretty abhorrent, really.
Cheryl: Alan, 07 pretty much covered why AP-RALO won’t be changing its mind.
Alan: I’m sorry, say that again. You cut out, I didn’t hear half of it.
Cheryl: That’s very much why... what you said, Adam, is very much why AP-RALO won’t be changing its mind.
Alan: Oh, won’t be. Okay, sorry. I thought you said why AP-RALO is changing its mind.
Cheryl: No, we support...
Alan: So, I believe we need a document to approve, or not, or to modify. And at this point, Beau has done something. It is not on the agenda and presented as a document ready to go. I find it hard to understand how we are going to make a statement at this point.
Cheryl: Well, I don’t find it too much of a difficulty, because we’ve done it on a number of occasions before, not the least of which was in the matter of our response to the first ALAC review by the consultants, and, of course, before that to the JPA mid-point statements that we make. What we agree to are the number of concerns we have on a number of unified points, many of which have been highlighted in the discussion document that was prepared by staff for us to use, which Beau has expanded on in the work he’s recently done. We can establish, I think, at the beginning of an advice to the Board, that these are the concerns that universally across the ALSs and our discussions, we all are concerned about. Price we all are concerned about, you know, item 3.1.5 under the particular contract, or whatever, but then give the opportunity, as we did in those other examples, for RALO-specific statements and recommendations to go in. So we list NARALO’s view, AP-RALO’s view, EURALO’s view, AFRALO’s views, and LAC-RALO’s views.
Wendy: And of course the views of any individuals who may disagree with the RALOs or have 18.
Cheryl: Well, I assume that all of the individuals, Wendy, have been busy putting in their comments during the public comment period. What we’re discussing is an ALAC advice to the Board.
Alan: Shall we, in his absence, assume that Beau is going to continue refining this, and have something ready to send to the five RALOs in the next few days?
Cheryl: I think that’s a bold assumption. I think what he’s already sent to the list should be used by each of the RALOs. Certainly, it’s from that list work and what we felt were quite abhorrent responses to halt the process that got AP-RALO up and running in the last ten days on this matter, and had our Chair working pretty much all over the weekend, ringing everybody to discuss what is a small but agreed-upon way forward. And if each of the other RALOs can establish a few short points, be they paragraphs or pages, to include, we can work on that particularly in early next week, and then have it as an advice to the Board to be looked at by ALAC. I think we need to work with Beau on that, though. Each of the RALOs should have...
Alan: Okay. So the intent is to refine, if necessary, that document in the next few days, send it out to the RALOs for their explicit comments on it. Assuming there is general agreement with it, their comments will be appended to it. Assuming... if there is in fact widespread disagreement with any particular points, we’ll adjust the paper and then work from that.
Cheryl: Yeah. Really the body of the paper should be, here is what we all agree on, here is where we seem to differ, and here are our individual RALO statements, and indeed, any of the individual ALS statements that have already gone into the public process. Because ISOC-AU put theirs straight into the public comment process, and our concerns were morality, public order, a few things on ITD6, some things on the...
Alan: Okay, you will contact Beau, or I will?
Cheryl: Hmm?
Alan: Who will contact Beau?
Cheryl: Can we take that as an Ex-Com activity, but if you can talk to Beau, that would be very useful.
Alan: I will do that.
Cheryl: Thank you.
Alan: All right, the next point on decision making, which we’re... What are the most useful issues to discuss at the joint SOAC meeting in Mexico? Each ICANN constituency can propose three to five essential topics, see results of the current second At-Large summit survey regarding the interest of the ALSs.
Cheryl: Um, if you like, Alan, we can have a brief moment to look at that 25.
Alan: I just tried to, and it downloads and goes into an invisible state on my machine.
Cheryl: Oh, that’s kind of disappointing.
Alan: I think it was put into a download directory. It didn’t open up.
Cheryl: Oh, okay.
Alan: I don’t know why it does that sometimes.
Cheryl: Oh well. I won’t tell you what the screen resolution looks like, but I am actually back online, so I’m actually going to be able to open it up as well. This is very exciting.
Alan: I need to apply for funds to buy you a real computer. You seem... and a real Internet connection. You seem to have too many problems.
Cheryl: Actually, the interesting thing was, the whole router set-up in the house, which is where I am at this time of night, or now morning, was working fine with all the green lights, but it was the DSL router up in the office. All its lights were blinking, but it needed to be rebooted, and it needed to be rebooted several times.
Okay, at the moment, the current number of people voted is just under 65 percent. The group size is 87, the number of voters so far is 56, and the most popular choices are... clearly, the most popular choice for working group topics is At-Large engagement in ICANN, including goals, organization, ALS, RALO, and ALAC reviews, 53 planning, individual Internet user participation, etc. Followed by the future structure governance and structure of ICANN and improving institutional confidence...
Sebastian: Um, Cheryl?
Cheryl: Yes.
Sebastian: Cheryl, I see these are ranked by smallest sum of votes, so actually the most popular topics are at the bottom, I think.
Cheryl: Okay, that’s interesting, because...
Alan: I don’t understand how the number of votes seems to be inversely proportional to the percentage.
Cheryl: Interesting. You’re right...
Alan: The formatting of this document is not...
Cheryl: We had these conversations before, and Matthias explained it, or somebody explained it to us. Matthias, could you explain it to me again?
Matthias: Well, looking at this document, I’m not sure what the percentage means, to be honest with you. It doesn’t seem to make sense, the percentage 41.
Alan: The percentage is... the percentage is the last five digits... five, four numbers, because the votes and percentages are running together on my document.
Matthias: Same here.
Alan: So does that mean 19 votes and 33 percent on the first item?
Matthias: Well, no, because you have to choose by preference, so there couldn’t only be 19 votes. Everybody has to...
Sebastian: Yes, it could be... it could be... Sorry, and it’s why... it’s Sebastian, I’m sorry, it’s why this is wrong. I tried to explain Matthias that, but it was something added in the middle of the survey, and then the people who answer at the beginning didn’t have this choice, and they couldn’t vote. And if you consider that those people didn’t vote, then it’s the most popular thing.
Beau Brendler joined
Sebastian: If I came the last one and I put an item, this item will be... we have less votes and it will be the first one. The... we have to do something to put in the right place this one. This one is in the wrong place, but it’s the first one we have to look at, and it will be inside the five first ones anyway, I guess, from what I computed last week is the result. But we have to check that.
Liz Gasster joined
Cheryl: Okay, obviously we’re going to have to have this all sorted out before the summit meeting, because that’s where the actual working group topics are going to be chosen, which is on Thursday or Friday this week, depending on where you are in the world. But of those, the possibility of two or three or three topics going forward to be suggested from this list by the ALAC as topics of particular interest for the joint Support, Organization and Advisory Committee meeting, we can still look at at least those topics, if not the ranking. If we do choose one that also happens to be one of the five working group topics, I don’t think that matters. But we certainly shouldn’t choose all of them based on them being summit working group topics, because we’re looking for subjects to put forward for day one of the ICANN meeting on the Monday, for the joint SO and AC event.
So, which of those should we be looking at? Do you want us to put that list of topics and that option for any other up onto a poll for the ALAC to decide on, or do you want to deal with it here?
Alan: Well, I certainly would think the... the summit working group will decide what the summit is talking about, is that correct? Or is the summit working group is going to decide what the AC-SO is working on?
Cheryl: No, we need to decide what we want to propose to the AC-SO.
Alan: We being the ALAC?
Cheryl: Correct.
Alan: And we’re... okay. So we’re using the same input to a different end?
Cheryl: Correct.
Alan: Okay. I would really like to know how the various people rated these as part of the process of deciding, and I’m totally confused at this point. I see item number 12 has 46 votes and 78 percent, but it’s ranked near the end of the list, and I don’t understand.
Cheryl: That then needs to be clarified. It’s not going to be clarified here, because all I’ve got is the same as what you’ve got, which is confusing numbers sitting in front of us. The results will need to be clarified for the summit meeting on Thursday. Once they’re clarified, we can also make it fresh for us, and we can look at our choices online. But it needs to be done before the end of next week.
Alan: So whose responsibility is it to redo this document? Is that staff, or...
Cheryl: Oh, I’m going to have to talk to staff on that, because mysteries of the polling system and the big 14 is way beyond my capabilities.
Adam: And Sebastian just suggested the same thing on the Skype chat.
Cheryl: Okay, all right. Well, we’ll make sure... that’ll be something for staff and Ex-Com to work at, and make sure we have it prepared for both the summit meeting and then to pass on to the ALAC, and we can choose for the AC-SO from this list, or if there’s another hot topic that someone wants to put forward, we can consider that as well. And we’ll do it online as a Doodle, and I know that Vanda agrees.
Okay.
Alan: All right.
Cheryl: How are we doing for time?
Alan: We’re one hour... one hour into the meeting. We finished the discussion of decisions at this meeting, although I don’t think we’ve finished any of the items completely. We’re at the Items for Discussion. The first one is draft ALAC comment on the PSE. Now, I was told there was a new version of the PSE document coming out. Does anyone know the status of that?
Cheryl: Vanda, do you have any information on the new PSE document coming out?
Alan: Is Vanda actually here? I haven’t heard her yet.
Cheryl: She’s been on Skype, so...
Adam: While we’re just... It’s Adam. If I might just interrupt or interject for a second, one of the action items from the last meeting, or a number of action items from the last meeting, well, the first one was that staff would extract a recording of the PSE and distribute it to the regions for further discussion. I don’t know if that’s happened. I don’t remember seeing it on the EURALO list, so there’s no response. And then we would have an online vote of ALAC members on this issue, whatever this issue is, in detail, you know, sort of spelled out. So whatever was going to happen on the PSE doesn’t seem to have happened in the way that I thought we were expecting it to. Anyway, perhaps you could clarify.
Alan: I don’t know how we’re going to have a statement unless we have a group identified to write that statement.
Adam: Well, wouldn’t that have come from whatever was going to happen in these action lines? That’s what I was sort of thinking, is that something was meant to happen that perhaps didn’t happen, so as a result, nothing has happened. If that makes sense, I’m sorry. What I mean is, if the action line items had been progressed, then that group may have formed, and we may have reached the point where we were thinking about writing a document, for example.
Alan: Were the action items identified with specific people? Sorry, I...
Cheryl: That goes back to the review of action items at the earlier part of the agenda. If you would like, because we’ve gone through a few matters, and we’re now moving to discussion rather than decision, we could move back up to that point in the agenda, and have a return to the earlier formality. Do I have your agreement on that? And then it will be clear what Adam is saying and Alan is trying to work out.
Alan: I have no problem at all with that.
Adam: Yup.
Cheryl: Okay. Well, we might just go back to adoption of the 9th of December summary minutes. Do I have someone who wishes to move that the summary minutes of the 9th of December are a true and accurate record of the meeting, noting that only somebody who was there at the time can make that...
Adam: I will make such a move... motion.
Cheryl: And will somebody care to second it?
Alan: I will second it.
Cheryl: Okay, Sebastian I think beat you on the second.
Alan: Fine.
Cheryl: And does anybody wish to vote against that? Anybody who wishes to abstain? Done.
Now, if we all have a look at the review of the 9th of December 2008 action items...
Alan: The minutes should show that the Chair has resumed the chair. laughter
Cheryl: You can tell when I get back online. It’s scary, isn’t it? Sorry about that, but it’s much more productive when I can actually see what we’re supposed to be doing, rather than remember what was written on the page.
The action item that Adam was discussing was this first one, “The staff will extract the recording of the PSE discussion of the 9th of December, and distribute to the regions for further discussions. Staff will put up an online vote for ALAC members on this issue, and staff will organize a single-purpose call on new gTLDs, which is a second issue, with enough time for community feedback to be prepared and sent in.” And you volunteered to work on a comment. So it’s the first two items that Adam was referring to.
And can we have first of all a word from staff on any of those action items?
Matthias: Yeah, Cheryl, hi, this is Matthias. I um... I was just looking for the PSE discussion recording, and I couldn’t find it, so I assume it has not been sent out. Yeah. Sorry about that. Then the second item, staff will put on an online vote. I think this is for the... for the... either the ALAC review, the response to the ALAC review, which has been done, but it doesn’t... from what I recall, it doesn’t have anything to do with the PSE.
Cheryl: I would have been surprised if it was a vote on the PSE, because it’s not a time-critical thing right now. Can I suggest that we are a lot more careful with the wording of our action items in the future?
Alan: Of course.
Cheryl: So they’re not unclear.
Alan: Okay, so at this point, we don’t know where the recording is, so we haven’t extracted anything from it, and therefore haven’t distributed it.
Matthias: Well... Alan, this is me. Of course we have the recording of the meeting, we just don’t have the extracted part from the PSE discussion. We always have the recording from...
Alan: Oh, I thought the recording wasn’t posted.
Cheryl: Yeah, so the first action item is still pending, and is going to be carried over for action between now and our next meeting. Is that correct?
Matthias: That is correct.
Cheryl: The second item was referring to votes that have occurred, so that is done. Is that correct?
Matthias: That’s correct.
Cheryl: And the final, single-purpose call on new gTLD? I’m sure we had a new gTLD call.
Alan: I don’t remember an ALAC one.
Adam: There was a call.
Matthias: Yeah, there was one in December. I think it was on... wait a minute.
Alan: There was an 06 one in December.
Adam: There was a call, but wasn’t it... and this is what confused me on that particular call, I thought that was a specific call for the purpose of what I think this agenda item is saying, which is to prepare community feedback, and it seemed... No, I’m getting confused again, I’m sorry. I thought it was a... you know, it was not part of the regular process that you, who had been volunteering to work on new gTLD proposals, had already set up. You know, there’s an on-going process of those calls, and there was a working group. I thought this was a new kind of educational... for those of us who hadn’t been as involved, to try to get up to speed so that we could get to the point of view of voting. So I’m just not sure what kind of call happened, or what kind of call this action item is referring to.
Matthias: Alan, this is Matthias. This action item, I think, refers to the call we had on either December 18th or 19th, the one that was prepared by Beau, and he joined the call late.
Adam: Yes, but it wasn’t a single-purpose call, was it?
Matthias: Yes, it was.
Adam: Oh, was it? Oh, I’m sorry.
Cheryl: It most certainly was. And it was Sebastian, Danny, myself, you, Beau and Alan, were you there then?
Matthias: Alan was.
Alan: Yeah.
Adam: Um, I am misunderstanding how ‘single-purpose’ is being used, in that case. It’s okay.
Cheryl: We weren’t overwhelmed with community, unfortunately.
Alan: I do have a note of the conference, of the teleconference, and I assume I was there, but to be honest, I have no memory of it.
Adam: You were there, Alan.
Alan: I said I was there, but I don’t have any memory whatsoever. I’m drawing a complete blank what we discussed and what we decided, if we decided anything. Can anyone else who was there remind me what we talked about?
Matthias: Well, we decided to set up a Wiki page where community members could send in their comments, which we did, I think, the following day. And that is actually the page that is linked to the agenda page today.
Beau: Yeah, so this... this is Beau, but the page is set up...
Alan: Ah.
Cheryl: Oh, hi Beau.
Beau: ...as Matthias said. Alan this, to refresh your memory, this is in essence what came up yesterday in the NARALO call...
Alan: Yeah, I know that, but I just don’t remember the teleconference, sorry.
Beau: Yeah, we decided to put together a reference page that describes the issues at hand, and it has a bunch of links to other sources with material and information. I prepared two documents on new gTLDs, and then about a week or so ago I sent around a note saying the deadline for the ALAC comments on new gTLDs is upon us, here’s some language for a vote, and there was a bunch of discussion.
So single-purpose to me means I thought we were going... we needed to like do a vote on this.
Alan: Okay, we were in that item in the agenda a little while ago, before you arrived.
Beau: Oh, sorry, well.
Alan: That’s okay. Cheryl, do you want to go over with him what we decided that would be the next steps?
Beau: I don’t want to hold up the call. You can just e-mail me if you want.
Cheryl: Well, Alan, seeing as you said that you’d be contacting Beau, I think that’s probably fair for you to do it now.
Alan: You don’t remember either. laughter Um...
Cheryl: I was fussing with routers, remember.
Alan: Beau, we... coughs. Sorry. We said we’d spend the next day or two refining anything that we know has to change there from input we’ve got so far, send it out to the RALOs for their comments to be incorporated into it, either dissenting or additional comments, and send it out as an ALAC statement with those comments appended.
Beau: Great.
Cheryl: And we also should note that we also had the discussion document translated into French and Spanish, and I’d like to make note here of 22 that Vanda and Sebastian did on doing that for us. I thank you both very much.
Beau: Yeah, thanks.
Alan: From my... as I said yesterday, I still haven’t looked at your document yet. I’ve been a little bit behind at this point. My responsibility... my item, the item that I was supposed to be doing was a short comment on the inappropriateness of the fees that they were assessing. I don’t know to what extent you’ve already incorporated that.
Beau: I haven’t really done... I haven’t really looked at fees.
Alan: Okay, so I will certainly add that in the next day. I’ll be glad to add that in the next day, and then we’ll send it out to the RALOs, give them a week or so to create any comments, if necessary. Is that the time frame we envisioned, Cheryl?
Cheryl: Yes, it is. We also noted that some of us would be... Sorry, we’ve got another channel coming in. Can we... Adigo, can you please mute those extraneous channels, please?
Alan: Is Adigo on the line?
Cheryl: Should be. We also discussed that GNSO is having a meeting on this matter on... at 1600 UTC on Thursday, and that anyone of us should be more than welcome to attend, but we need to let them know so there’s enough lines open. I said I’ll be attending that call on behalf of the ALAC, as I have on other calls as well, but welcome either other people to join me, or I’m happy to proxy for other people’s comments, questions or opinions, and I will do what I’ve done previously, which is do a running Skype chat network of who’s saying what during the meeting as well.
Alan: Yeah, the MP3s are normally posted within a few hours of GNSO meetings.
Cheryl: Yeah, no, I do it live to air, so, for example, Darlene has often found that quite useful.
Alan: Yeah, so this is officially a GNSO meeting for GNSO council members, or alternates, plus observers.
Cheryl: Yes, I understand that.
Alan: To what extent the floor will be open for other people, I think, will depend on how busy the meeting is.
Cheryl: And the outcome of the information and discussion from that meeting will then also be able to be considered by the RALOs. Can I suggest...
Alan: Well, the thrust of that meeting, I believe, although there’s no guarantee that’s where it ends up, is going to be in identifying places where the implementation differs from the original GNSO proposal. Not necessarily things that individuals disagree with.
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Adam: Do we have a moment of lull, where I can mention something?
Cheryl: Um, yes, if you’d like to make an intervention, now is a good time.
Adam: It was really about the adoption of agenda and that sort of position on our discussion, and I wanted to try and note two things. One is that the agenda tends to change a lot in the, sort of, 48 hours, even 6 hours, before we actually have the meeting. And could we please have a note of... some kind of way of noting what is new, and when it was added, and so on. The comments that people add do come in with a date stamp on, but when things are actually added to the agenda, you’ve got no idea if it’s been, unless by comparison and memory, you don’t know what’s been added when, from the last time you saw it and printed it. And I find it, for one, difficult to follow our agenda and how it develops. You know, you can’t just keep printing things off and going off and trying to read stuff. So that’s one thing.
The other is that the ALS application on Google docs is, for me, becoming pretty hard to use. I can’t easily find what the information is that I’m supposed to be thinking about and reading. So could we please rethink how that is laid out and presented, because it is impossible to use, and this is important stuff, given that it’s stuff that the ombudsman has had a go at the ALAC about in the past. So I think 56.
Cheryl: Well, in fact, what we’re doing with Google docs is a response to some of the ombudsman’s concerns, and in fact we implemented those while he was doing his report in the first place. 08
Adam: Oh, I’m sure it’s... I mean, I know it’s... I understand...
Cheryl: One of the things you need to recognize, of course, Adam, is that Google docs is only, was only meant to be an interim tool, and that our ALS management and member management system was supposed to take over from that, so we would have better and more effective web-based tracking some time ago. I gather we’re getting closer to that, but perhaps Matthias will have some more information.
Adam: But, you know, the first point is really, can we please have some way of tracking when things are added to the agenda, so that...
Cheryl: Well, revisions is the way I do it. Just click on the revisions, and you go back to any number of the previous one.
Adam: Date stamps would work really quite well, just as they do for comments. But I’m just trying to say, there’s only 00 time during the day...
Cheryl: Well, again, Adam, that’s something, Adam, that I will ask staff to raise when they have their meeting with the web people, which I believe is early next week or sometime next week.
Adam: Thank you, thank you.
Cheryl: And the reason I asked Matthias to have a synopsis ready for the status of ALS applications tonight was in particular and specific response to your difficulty with the Google docs.
Adam: You know, I can manage to work my way through this stuff. I do have a computer and all that stuff.
Cheryl: Oh, I know that.
Adam: You know what I mean? It’s just... we’re trying to... we should be trying to do this as effectively as possible, and that’s what I’m trying to say. But thank you very much.
Cheryl: Oh, no problem.
Beau: This is Beau. Can I make a very fast interjection here?
Cheryl: Please.
Beau: Different topic. This is a direct request from the NARALO to call the ALAC’s attention to the situation of Online Nick. It’s an ICANN-accredited registrar, but was found guilty by a court of inaudible cyber squatting. This is something that Danny really wants brought up, and we all agreed with him on yesterday’s call. If you’re on the agenda page for today’s meeting, and you scroll down to the bottom, Danny’s basically actually written out what he wants brought up and what he wants done. It’s the third comment down, made on December 29th. So I wish to bring that before the ALAC, so that perhaps we may consider advising ICANN to revoke the accreditation of Online Nick.
Wendy: I will note that that’s a default judgement, and not a judgement with all the parties before the court.
Cheryl: It was in response to that and all the other points made on Go Daddy and, to some extent, some of the other comments that were coming in that the additions, which, I’m just... again, remember I haven’t had the agenda up in front of me for some time. Late additions today to the agenda were added to bring those points in for items for discussion. And I’m now at a loss to see where that was put. Could be...
Beau: Well, if you... Yeah. I mean, if you scroll... if you can see Items for Discussion on the agenda page, and you scroll down, I don’t know, about two screens...
Alan: Yeah, those aren’t items for discussion. Those are comments made.
Cheryl: I know where the comments are, but what I’m saying is I spent several hours discussing with staff how they can be incorporated into something for us to discuss at tonight’s agenda... 50.
Heidi: Yeah, Cheryl, this is Heidi. For some reason, it was...
Cheryl: Oh, hi Heidi. Hello, dear. Where the hell is it?
Heidi: Hi. It was there, I believe under Any Other Business. But I... I mean, apologize... It’s not there right now. I don’t know what happened during my preparation of that. But it was there. And as Beau... exactly what Beau stated, was the issue, with Online Nick and Go Daddy.
Cheryl: Yep. I was going to say, you and I spent an awful lot of time working and working on it today, so...
Heidi: We did. Yeah, I’m sorry. I just have noted that it’s not there now.
Cheryl: Okay, well, that’s extremely annoying.
Alan: There must have been two updates going on at the same time. Usually, one of them will get a notice saying it didn’t work.
Adam: One of the things I was going to suggest, both for the ALAC meeting with the supporting organizations in Mexico, and also for our meeting with the Board, is to discuss this range of registrar issues that Danny and others keep bringing up, and very importantly keep bringing up, that... how are we going to find a mechanism to address them? Whether it’s Online Nick or Go Daddy, or whether somebody’s hiding their real address... you know, there’s a whole gamut of these registrar related issues that need to be discussed. And we can’t get it through consensus policy, it doesn’t seem, but there has to be some way of addressing this. It’s extremely important – it’s important for consumers and users. So I’m not... you know, I’m just reacting to what I am reading from people who are expert on this, but it seems to me that this is something that we should be discussing with the other supporting organizations as a major concern for consumers, and also...
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...with the proper support, to 32 finding ways to act on it.
Alan: Well, I think if we’re going to do that, we need something more of a standing committee or group to do it. There’s just no way that we can take input from an individual, do due diligence on it to make sure that it indeed represents something that we want to say, and then go and make a statement to a Board or some other way. I think we need some process in place that can do it, if we’re going to be doing it on a semi-regular basis.
Vanda: Cheryl, may I make a comment?
Adam: You’re a little bit ahead of me...
Cheryl: Yes, Vanda, and then Adam may reply.
Vanda: Okay, well, as Alan said, we cannot do that without a real process. What we can put on the table is... during our meeting with the Board, is to have a fast track with a consult with John Jeffrey or his staff, to address the issue. Just address the issue, and leave them to make the due diligence and all the process that they have inside. The only thing that we could do it that, because we cannot put our statement as an ALAC without a real and formal due diligence. We cannot accuse someone against something without a formal process. That’s for sure. We can have a fast track for addressing to the council or its staff to deal with that. That’s the only alternative we have, I believe, to take into consideration the claims from the community.
Cheryl: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: Yeah, I just wanted to say, I wasn’t really thinking of a statement. I was thinking more of things... items that we wish to discuss. I’m not saying that ALAC has to just reach a decision on whether Online Nick is good, bad, or ugly, and it’s really these items that we should be discussing in sort of terms of principles, and if the examples are there, then we can mention them. But I’m not particularly saying that we have to come up with a statement, resolution, vote on it and take it formally. I thought, you know, the purpose of meeting with the supporting organizations is to discuss issues that concern us, as opposed to bringing them statements, and the same for the Board, really.
Cheryl: Well, what the Board wants out of their meeting with us is, might I suggest, yet to be clearly determined. Particularly since 35 absolute difference between what we thought they were expecting in Cairo and what we gave them, so that we need to still work on. But yeah, I think asking how we can address these issues... one way we could do it, of course, comes in under the broader area of the review of the ALAC working group, because we do have a working group, which is Registry/Registrar relations. And that would seem a natural home for this type of discussion to be going on.
Beau: This is Beau. Could I make a comment?
Cheryl: Please.
Beau: I guess I’m a little disappointed to hear that our response to this is incredibly process-oriented. I mean, it seems to me that if somebody in the user community, and of course Danny is a very vocal member of the user community, but that said, you know, comes to the ALAC with an issue... I mean, what are we here for if it’s not to look into issues of concern to users, and then act on them somehow. I mean, as the ALAC, can we not simply say to the Board, you know, what are you doing? What is the issue with Online Nick? Why hasn’t this been dealt with? Or even go so far as to say, if we do the proper due diligence, that their accreditation should be revoked. I mean, that should be our job. That’s what we get elected, those of us who get elected, are supposed to do.
Alan: It’s not clear to me, however, that this is a communication that should be at first level directed to the Board.
Beau: Or whomever.
Alan: Well, but that’s the process part of it. The real question is who should we... I mean, if we give it to the Board, it will get... at best get on a Board agenda three months from now. And I don’t think... now maybe we should be informing the Board, but the question is, what should we be doing with these? We don’t have the resources to handle them one by one at ALAC meetings. 38.
Beau: Who oversees and enforces?
Well, if we don’t have the resources to do that, I’m not sure what we’re doing. I mean, I’ll volunteer to do due diligence on Online Nick if somebody wants. You know, I’ll look into it, and... But, I mean, if there’s some sort of judgement somewhere that’s been in a court, that’s been published, I mean, that’s an action. That’s due diligence that’s done by a judiciary panel that exists in space and time. That can be used to demonstrate that this organization is running afoul of the registrar accreditation agreement. Right?
Cheryl: And under the words of compliance with registration...
Wendy: Actually, that’s specifically not true. This was a default judgement, in which nobody has investigated the truth of the complaint.
Beau: So Danny’s contention is just flat wrong?
Wendy: Someone made an allegation that they were cyber-squatting, and they didn’t show up to contest it, but that doesn’t mean that a judge has ruled that the evidence supports that finding.
Cheryl: And that’s where Heidi and I spent quite some time today, wording something that was non-specific in terms of the particular operator, but looking at compliance with the agreement, and with the issues of... well, what we’ve been talking about before.
Beau: Okay.
Cheryl: Because they’re the areas that we should be raising points on, so the registry/registrar relations issues come in here, and I think we certainly should be looking at it at that level. But we can’t just knee-jerk with every single comment. What we do need to do is have a place for everything to be properly... and I don’t mean processed... driven... but properly looked at and discussed.
And it’s also something that could certainly be coming from the RALOs. For example, one of the questions that we could be asking Wendy to bring to the Board is this matter – what is the truth of this or otherwise?
Alan: Well, let’s look at this particular type of thing. Certainly, if for instance there had been a judgment, but it is being appealed...
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...I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect that ICANN would not be in a position to take... ICANN would not be in a position to take formal action. So the question is, what is the conduit that we use to put these things forward when someone raises them? I think the discussion we first need to have was services staff. Of can we have a liaison with services staff, that we send notification, and then they keep us up to date about what’s going on with this particular complaint.
Cheryl: Perfect.
Alan: I don’t know if that’s the right answer, but that’s an example of something we can use as a conduit, and then we keep an eye on it, and, you know, if indeed we are continually dumping things in and nothing ever comes out, or we never get any status, then we can complain to the Board that we seem to have a problem there. I mean, that’s the kind of thing that I think we want to do. We’re not going to do... have a cadre of lawyers that decide at what point does ICANN have a formal case for dismissal, for removing rights, or not. I just don’t think that’s our job.
Cheryl: No, I agree.
Alan: And clearly there are a lot of issues where compliance is not what we expect it is.
Beau: Well then, may I suggest that Cheryl and Alan have that discussion with the NARALO?
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Because that’s certainly not the perspective of the NARALO of what our jobs are. And if that’s your perspective of what our jobs are, then they need to... you know, there needs to be consensus on that, and they need to understand that.
Cheryl: Well...
Alan: I’ll reserve comment in this public meeting on the process... I think we need to know how to handle these kinds... 09.
Cheryl: I think we have a first opportunity to follow up on what you suggested, Beau, and that is when all of us as ALSs and as RALOs and as the ALAC representatives and Nom-Com who make up the ALAC are together in our summit. What an ideal opportunity to make sure that we’re all on the same page, with the same understanding of what we’re here for.
Beau: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Cheryl: That’s where I’d be doing it. Okay.
Alan: The problem is we have a tendency sometimes for one person to say something, and everyone else in the room to say, “Yes, I agree.”
Cheryl: Lots of “me too” without thinking.
Alan: And that does not generate, from my point of view, a defendable consensus.
Vanda: Yeah.
Alan: When someone starts looking at the details.
Cheryl: All right.
Alan: In this particular case, if the ALAC, and this is a real ALAC decision, feels that one of our responsibilities is to bring compliance issues to ICANN’s attention, then that is a fine decision, and we need a streamlined process for doing this. Writing a letter to the Board on each one...
Cheryl: Is not the way.
Alan: The Board is not supposed to get involved in operational issues until things reach a much higher level than that, and I don’t think...
Cheryl: Can you... can we propose, because it fits with what’s missing that Heidi and I spent so much time on today, that we look at this matter between now and the next meeting. We discuss it online, and I’m sure Heidi will find what’s missing off the Wiki, and we can get it back on another Wiki page. It may as well live underneath the current registry/registrar relations, because I think it sort of generically fits in there at this stage, and we can use that as a discussion point and start looking at options and how we can do exactly that, and it makes a perfect fit for further discussion during our Mexico meeting.
Alan: I would suggest that sometime before our next meeting that we arrange a teleconference call with services staff and any other invited... or interested parties, including Danny, to discuss what kind of process would make some sense.
Cheryl: Okay, I’m happy to move that to an action item. And we can possibly do that towards the end of the month, if that suits.
Alan: It’s fine with me. Towards the end of this month?
Vanda: Yeah.
Cheryl: Yes, the end of this month. Okay, I now have an unreadably small text on my screen, so I’m going to have to ask you, Alan or Vanda, to pick up on the next action... or, sorry, the next item on the agenda ,which I believe, seeing as we’ve jumped to the bottom... I’m told Liz has now joined us, so it would be possible for us to look at the discussion and then how we’re going to decide in the next couple of days what we want to say about WHOIS studies. Alan, could I ask you to work with Liz on that, and first of all introduce her, while I try and get my screen resolution so it’s readable.
Alan: I’ll introduce Liz Gasster, who is the lead policy staff person with the GNSO, to tell us about the current status of the WHOIS and what the ALAC is being asked to do, at a rather late time.
Liz: Okay, hello everyone, and thank you for the opportunity. Basically, the GNSO, just to give you a bit of background, back in late 2007, the GNSO decided that comprehensive studies of WHOIS would be needed to best inform the policy debate, and in February of 2008 solicited proposals for studies from the public, and those studies... and also from the GAC. There were forty-some studies... proposals submitted, about 15 from the Government Advisory Committee and about 24, 25 roughly from the community. And since then the Council has done some work categorizing those studies, where there are overlaps between proposals, or logical groupings where studies might be grouped together, and divided them up into sort of logical subject areas.
And the stage they’re at right now is soliciting viewpoints from the constituencies and advisory committees. A similar request has been made to the GAC, to look at the study suggestions that have been made, and both to assess the importance that you think, or level of priority that you would view each of the study proposals as having, and also try to assess the feasibility is of doing such a study as conceived of. Some of the studies seem like they would be more feasible to do, to get the data points and to do the kind of analysis that’s called for.
And so what we’re asking the ALAC for is to take a look at the studies that have been proposed, in the categories that they’ve been divided into, and try as best you can to give us priority levels and assessment of feasibility. Now, the documents that I’ve distributed to help you do this candidly are not so user-friendly, and so I apologize for that. I’m going to take a couple of minutes here to explain what we’ve given you. And it does honestly require going back and forth between two documents. We’ve played around with trying to simplify the appearance of this, and honestly, I don’t find it that convenient.
But basically, I’ve sent two documents. One is the report that was generated on the 26th of August, 2008 - a link to that report, and also an extraction of that report that lists the 40-some hypotheses for studies that have been proposed. And then separately, I’ve sent you an Excel spreadsheet, that on the far left lists the study areas and study numbers that correspond to the hypotheses that are listed on the 26th of August report. And you will see in the most recent spreadsheet that I’ve sent you, the actual ratings, priority ratings that the constituencies have, for the most part – I think we’re missing the Intellectual Property constituency, but in the latest spreadsheet I’ve sent you, we do have priority ratings from the other constituencies, so you can actually see what they think the priority levels are, and what they think the feasibility levels are of the studies that are being proposed.
And then one more administrative comment, about the logistics of this, and then I’ll talk about the content a little bit. You’ll notice that under the study numbers on the spreadsheet, which is the second comment after the study area, some of the studies have been grouped into letters, where studies from the original 26th of August report were found to overlap. You’ll see, for example, the second column... the second row has study letter A, and if you look down below the chart you’ll see a little key on the chart itself, that says, “Study area A corresponds to studies 1, 4, 21 and GAC data set 2.” That just gives you the key back to the 26th of August report, which studies have been combined into that study group A. So using both the list of the hypotheses and the spreadsheet that tells you what the other... the constituencies have rated the studies, hopefully you’ll be able to provide some input on what you think the priority level is, and what you think the feasibility level is.
I realize that it’s an exceptionally short date, or request, and the council has actually been wrestling with this for a bit, since Cairo, and urging constituencies to get their priority list in sooner rather than later, but it’s just dragged on a little later than people expected. If, for some reason, and I understand this, you may not be able to get this done by Wednesday, which was the original request, if you could let us know when you think you would be able to get this it by, I could take that back to the council, and just let them know, because I really understand that the deadline here is very difficult.
There will also be other opportunities later. This is just an initial cut that the council wants to make about priority and feasibility. I think there’ll be some time to weigh in following this, but again, if you think, for example, that another week would help you tremendously, or something like that, I’d be glad to take that back to the council and just explain your situation.
I wanted to just explain briefly why you see zeroes, and I think I sent this in an explanatory letter, but just to make sure everyone’s following, why the NCUC and Registrar constituencies have put zeroes in all the columns for priority and feasibility, whereas you’ll see that the Registry constituency, and the Nom-Coms, and the ISPs, and the Business constituency, and ultimately the IPC2, will have actually provided number ratings for each of the studies that have been proposed.
The reason for that reflects the underlying belief on the part of the NCUC and the Registrars that no studies should be done. They’re very concerned that positions are quite dug in on WHOIS overall, and that the underlying assumption here, which is that getting more data would help inform the debate, is not really a valid assumption, because they are concerned that no matter what future data we might get, that even those insights won’t really change people’s minds about what they think the policy outcomes or policy changes or not might be.
If you want to... I think I also included a link to that original report from May, where that conclusion was drawn. I don’t want to... you shouldn’t rely on my paraphrasing, you should read their actual explanation if there’s any doubt in your minds, but I think I’m doing a fairly accurate job of paraphrasing their concern.
There is a... so, one request is to ask the ALAC to weigh both the priority and the feasibility of each of these studies or study combinations, as reflected in this spreadsheet and on the hypothesis report. I want to briefly describe a second request that’s being made, that’s related to this same issue of doing studies. Which is that when the council started to look at the specific studies that were proposed and these hypotheses that are listed in this 26th August report, it became clear to them that there were terms being used that may not have understood... well-understood or commonly understood definitions. Where they thought it would be very important to have community discussion about the definitions that are meant by these terms, so that if studies are selected to be done, the people who actually conduct the studies would know what is meant by the terms, what the community meant when they proposed the studies to be done, what was meant by the terms.
So there are eight terms so far, and you may find other terms that you’re also concerned about, that are in those study hypotheses, that the council thought ought to be discussed within the community, to make sure there was a common definition. So in a separate document I sent, there is a list of eight terms, and some proposed definitions for those terms, and we’re calling those definitions working definitions, in which you’re being invited to comment on those definitions. They were prepared based on research that staff did on previous discussions that have been held, and we looked at law review articles, and we did as much research as we could. We also invited early on, and you probably saw this notice, a request from all the constituencies and advisory committees for input in actually developing those working definitions initially. Your comments and suggestions about clarifying or perfecting those working definitions is also very much appreciated, and that’s the second task related to this that we’re requesting. And, once again, you know, I think there’s a... they would love to have the feedback by the 16th, but if for some reason that’s just not realistic, let us know what would be realistic, or feel free to submit any further suggestions that you have at any time later, in the future. At least for several weeks, I think, this will be... continue to be discussed. So there will continue to be opportunity, especially on the definitions, to offer revisions to the definitions at a later time.
Why don’t I stop there, in the interest of time, and just take questions or answer any questions about... 58.
Alan: Okay, thank you, Liz. This was discussed briefly at the NARALO yesterday. A number of the more vocal people had the opinion that the NCUC and Registrar’s answers were the correct ones – that is, zeroes for everything, new studies aren’t worth the effort. It’s not clear that’s the unanimous feeling, but that certainly is one of the dominant feelings that comes out of raising the issue. I don’t know what would happen with the other RALOs, or if, in fact, we have the opportunity to ask them in the very short term, but I’d like to hear other comments from people in the meeting. Is anyone else still on the meeting?
Adam: Yeah, it’s Adam. I actually have a question I’m very hesitant to ask, because it’s about understanding, or lack of understanding. And I don’t really understand the nature of the sort of study that we’re trying to identify. And I was... I’m just looking at the PDF file, which is the 11 page document, and the Excel file. And in, for example, study area 1, there is an item number 15, which is, I imagine, those using WHOIS data to facilitate illegal or undesirable activities such as spam, depend on 21 access to WHOIS to obtain WHOIS data. And that would then, I imagine, if you go to the Excel sheet, be study area 1, number 15. It then says, formal, and the Business constituency has given it a 3, which I imagine is a middle-rank priority.
But what I don’t understand is, is this suggesting that it is, according to the business constituency, a middle rank priority to begin a study that examines whether or not that statement is true.
Wendy?: Yes, yes.
Liz: That’s exactly right, Adam.
Adam: Oh, okay. And so, in that case, that would be the same sort of approach for each one of these individual items, whether it’s 21 and GAC data set 2, we would be trying to identify a study of some kind, related to that particular item?
Liz: Correct. And we’re not asking you, of course, to design the study or anything like that. Just tell us how important you think determining the answer to that would be, and how useful in informing the WHOIS policy debate would that be.
Alan: Liz, could you refer the... would you review the definition of the feasibility column, because that’s not clear.
Liz: Sure. Yeah, it’s more in the explanatory instructions in the e-mail, which...
Alan: No, I understand. But for people looking at the spreadsheet right now...
Liz: No, I’d be happy to. Basically, you have three choices for rating feasibility. One would be putting a one in the column, which would mean yes, you think it’s feasible. A zero would mean you’re not sure or don’t know how feasible it would be, and a negative one would be you do not think it’s feasible. So three choices there.
Alan: From looking at it, it’s not obvious that there’s an option of negative.
Liz: Quite right. No one saw that.
Alan: Because there aren’t any of those, so I wanted to make that clear.
Cheryl: Beau, I know you have particular views on WHOIS studies. Would you like to make any points for the meeting so far?
Beau: Well, I guess I’m a little bit – this is kind of really a minor issue. I’m not so sure that the overall perception of the idea of studying WHOIS was correctly characterized by Alan. I don’t know that there’s a majority in the NARALO that thinks there should be no further study.
Alan: I said there were some vocal people.
Beau: Yeah, so that was one thing, but it’s minor. The other thing is, is I think, really, just for some guidance for people, Danny Younger and I participated in this whole process very, very early, and then kind of dropped out, because it got kind of complicated, as you see from those spreadsheets. But, in essence, if people in the ALAC are looking in the time saver, a lot of the studies that were proposed by the GAC were proposed with what I think I would call consumer concerns in mind. So, if you’re pressed for time, I might suggest reading a lot of... I might suggest reading some of the studies, or looking... paying special attention to what the GAC is saying, because, you know, if we find ourselves pressed for time, and just sort of say, “Considering that these studies are probably going to go ahead, whether, you know, we say they shouldn’t or not, we support the ideas that are in the GAC studies,” or something like that. That would be my suggestion.
Alan: Well, that was one of the points I raised yesterday, that cynicism notwithstanding, the GAC has made a very strong statement to the Board, and we are not likely to see no studies.
Beau: So it’s almost like...
Alan: The question is, do we want to influence which studies get done?
Cheryl: And then 04.
Beau: I just think that...
Cheryl: ...what is our time course, and how are we going to do this ranking?
Beau: And I would just think that, as the ALAC, which is supposed to represent user concerns and user interests, there are a lot of user concerns and interests related to WHOIS.
Cheryl: Oh yes.
Beau: And if we come out and just say, “We don’t think any further studies should be done,” when there are studies that are going to go ahead anyway, I don’t think that really makes us look very good to the user community. So that’s my opinion.
Alan: I support that strongly.
Cheryl: And I can assure you that from what we’re doing in terms of our Cyber Savvy work here in Asia-Pacific, so much of it comes back to the use of WHOIS, it’s something we’d like to have a look at, at least from our RALO’s point of view. So how are we going to progress this? The 16th is very short. Can we do it by then? If so, how? If not, how and by when?
Alan: I’ll ask Liz, but I suspect that if we said we cannot have it ready by the 16th, we will have it ready by the 30th of the month, the GNSO would factor that in in some way.
Liz: I agree, Alan. I mean, they’re anxious to move forward because, you know, this has been a long-standing project, as you all know, but the input is extremely important, and they’re urging your input as well as the GAC’s, actively.
Alan: And I note the input from the other group in the GNSO that purports to represent individuals has said, “Don’t do any studies at all.”
Cheryl: Yeah, okay. So, our first question then is, are we going to rank these, as requested. I would like to propose that we say yes. Does anybody wish to disagree with this proposal, that we do this ranking? Does anyone wish to abstain?
Adam: I’m concerned that it won’t be understood what we’re doing, and that people will...
Cheryl: I agree that there are issues, Adam, but we need to work out are we doing anything, and then we work out how to make it understandable.
Adam: Yeah, and the yes me thing is going to come again, and it’s a problem.
Liz: Cheryl, it’s Liz. Let me just offer, if there’s multiple calls to explain this, I’d be happy to participate in them. It does take a couple of examples to...
Cheryl: Thanks Liz. I think what we might then do is, first of all, it sounds to me like the answer is yes. Alan has proposed to perhaps suggest that we can do it by the end of the month. Adam has quite reasonably said, “But we all need to be brought up to speed on this.” And I think if we can ask our staff to work with you and set up a Doodle or two, to have a single-topic call on this just prior to our deadline, or just prior to when we need to stop and do our ranking, our online polling for the ranking, we would ask you to do that. But we might also ask if you would like to join in any of the RALO meetings, if they’d like you to come to any of the RALO meetings that are still going to be running this month. Perhaps they might have some questions to ask, particularly I think we have LAC-RALO to run sometime...
Heidi?: On the 15th. Yes, on the 15th.
Cheryl: Yeah. So Heidi, can I ask you to work with Liz on that, and we will... 52.
Alan: Cheryl, it’s Alan.
Cheryl: ...our committee as it’s currently tended to be from the ALAC point of view, Beau and Alan leading this. Perhaps Beau, Alan... can work predominantly with staff here and have a little bit of a briefing call, and we could use the Adobe connect room, so that we could actually look at the single page all at once, and you can highlight what the ranking is, and do the little pointy thing that says you could have put a minus in here. We could also use the voting capability on the Adobe Connect room, which means that those of us on the call could actually make our preferences known at the time.
Alan: I would suggest something like that as our main move. The studies are arcane enough and difficult enough to read, and do require flipping back and forth that, to be honest, if we ask people to do it individually, it’s not going to happen, on a wide enough sense.
Cheryl: Okay.
Alan: Liz understands these more than perhaps any other person, and is in a better position to walk us through. I would suggest we schedule a meeting towards the end of the month, you know, a week before, which is a week from now, or something like that, to... for whoever on the ALAC or other RALO people that are nominated to represent ALAC people, get walked through it, vote instantaneously, and then Beau and I, or some group like that, will finalize it and present it.
Cheryl: Sounds like a sale to me. Anybody object to that way forward?
Vanda: No, it’s a good idea.
Alan: I don’t see it happening if we don’t do it live.
Cheryl: I couldn’t agree more. I think the concept of a single purpose briefing call, and working on a shared desktop model, is possibly the only way forward with this. Okay, Liz, are you happy to work under those...
Liz: Delighted, delighted. Sure. And I guess I should let the council know, right, that you think you’ll have something by the end of the month? Would that be fair?
Alan: That would be fair.
Cheryl: Indeed.
Liz: Unless you want to do that, Alan?
Alan: And that it will not be all zeroes.
Liz: It will not be all zeroes.
Alan: If they want all zeroes, we could produce that immediately. laugher
Cheryl: Fair enough. Okay, I have an unreadable agenda, so have we missed anything now for tonight’s agenda.
Vanda: No.
Alan: Yes, I added a point, at the very last moment, with my apologies, Adam, which I’d like 30 seconds or 1 minute to talk about, as soon as I get back to my desk.
Cheryl: Okay.
Alan: I was coughing so much I needed to make something hot.
Adam: I wanted to touch on something that I mentioned on the comment form as well, which was related to the ALAC NCUC... sorry, ALAC-GNSO discussion about forming of the non-commercial stakeholders group. Which is, that we should also be thinking about commercial stakeholders, because the ALAC does not exclusively represent non-commercial users, as I understand it. And we should be involved equally in discussions for the creation of the stakeholders... the commercial stakeholders group. And I wondered if anybody agrees, disagrees...
Alan: You know I’ve agreed strongly.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Adam: And if we could take that... Cheryl, if there is agreement, then could you take that to Avery, and say that we think individuals have to be considered in the commercial stakeholders group, and how are they being considered, and is it adequate.
Alan: Well, I’m assuming that when the stakeholder groups put together their charters, there will be a public comment period on them, and if nothing else, we can comment at that period. The... because, in this case, despite the commercial users use of the word “users,” it’s not clear that that word... that “users” is the right word.
I think the gist of what Adam is saying is the words in the commercial stakeholders group charter... that members have to be incorporated. And the model that we’re looking at, if you look at all the people who are selling things on EBay, or making businesses based on the Web, many of them are not incorporated, and corporation doesn’t make sense in a lot of these cases. And we’re taking a large part of Web commerce, and saying, “You don’t belong in the GNSO.” And... I don’t know, I’m not sure I’m characterizing Adam’s concern completely, but that certainly is one of the ones I share very largely.
Adam: Part of my concern, yeah.
Alan: Okay.
Vanda: Alan.
Cheryl: Okay, Alan, do you have your points now? Well, what he’s trying to is to draw breath.
Alan: If I can speak... if I can speak for thirty seconds without coughing. There is another activity going on in the GNSO on registration abuse policies.
Cheryl: Hmm.
Alan: There was an issues report. There is currently a drafting team which is coming up with a recommendation for what the GNSO should do. It is supposed to report back in about four weeks, so there is still an opportunity if anyone would like to get involved in the drafting team, assuming they’re willing to listen to the MP3s and get up to speed, to get involved in that now.
Regardless of whether that happens, there is likely to be a PDP or some sort of further activity chartered, whether it’s a PDP or some other activity is not clear at this point. And that will require user input, or community input. The issues report has been translated from English into Spanish, Russian, French and Arabic, largely at the demand of people like us. It would be nice if the RALOs can make sure that these... that issues report is disseminated and discussed within the RALOs, and that when some further activity is initiated, as it likely will be, that we get real participation from people in the field. This is talking about abuse of domain registrations, which hurt real users, whether it’s 42 or phishing. It’s time, I think, that we started doing our homework ahead of time. We probably should have in October, when this came out. But I don’t think there’s any evidence that happened.
Given that we’re getting close to initiating some real follow-on activity, assuming that the GNSO council decides to do that, it would be nice if we have before then had discussions, and are geared up to respond and work on whatever activity gets started. So if the RALOs could take notice, everything I’ve just said is said in a shorter form on the item pointed to on our current agenda. I’m just highlighting it and saying we haven’t done anything until now on this item. It would be nice if we started.
Cheryl: Thanks Alan, and I esteem Heidi will be taking particular note on that, because she is working closely with the RALOs. Can I just ask, though what is the time... the point in time that the next phase might be coming out of the GNSO? Is it going to be before or after Mexico?
Alan: Before.
Cheryl: Okay.
Alan: Well, it’ll start before. The drafting team was supposed to have reported around now, and... for action at the GNSO meeting in a few weeks, or next week, I guess. No, I’m sorry, whenever – two weeks. An extension... they have extended that time, and said that they will report by no later than February 12th, for action at a GNSO meeting middle February, or a week after that. So I’m expecting a decision to be taken at that meeting, either to launch a PDP and start drafting the charter of a working group, or to decide to take some other action, as the next step. Is Liz still on the call?
Liz: Yes, I am.
Alan: Is that a reasonable characterization of what may happen?
Liz: Uh...
Alan: You’re allowed to say no.
Liz: No, I think so.
Cheryl: What I was getting at, Alan, is I’m wondering what leverage we might be able to make in this process, of having everyone together at the summit, and using it as a real live example of input into a PDP process, where we can generate the work in that format and then have them follow on.
Alan: If a decision is made at the end of February, at a meeting in February, I would think that the charter would be written in Mexico City, and work starting very soon after. I’m... 24.
Cheryl: Inaudible
Alan: I’m perhaps being optimistic, but that’s the time frame I would envision.
Adam: And... sorry, it’s Adam. Isn’t this also an issue that was almost exactly as written on the questionnaire form that went to the ALSs for, you know, what you’re interested in, what you want to discuss. So it would be something that...
Alan: It may be.
Adam: So it would be something that... it’s pretty familiar, anyway.
Cheryl: Yeah, it does fit in, and, in fact, cyber-safety, cyber savvy, cyber security, those are the sorts of topics that we’re finding are getting flagged fairly high for interest, so I think it’s a perfect opportunity, and a good nexus in terms of topics. What I might do, Alan, is just ask that if Heidi is going to work with the RALOs in preparation for the summit, and with the ALSs, the summit working group might need to be aware of all of this. Can we have a copy of the pointers, or at least a bit of a briefing that we can look at at the meeting on Thursday?
Alan: At the meeting on Thursday? Which meeting on Thursday?
Cheryl: Not your meeting, the summit working group meeting.
Alan: Sure, the pointers are in... are where I pointed to, and from there you can go to a lot of other places.
Cheryl: Yeah, when I look at that... 54.
Alan: I mean, I warn you that the GNSO could decide to not launch a PDP, and not do anything.
Cheryl: Sure.
Alan: I just don’t think that’s likely to happen. I think some activity is going to come out of this.
Liz: This is Liz. Let me just offer a couple of other things. There is a charter working group on registration abuse. I think they’re going to have the draft charter done by mid-February, in time for the council’s meeting that’s just before the Mexico meeting. I think it’s... forgive me, the 19th. So I think they’re hoping to have the charter done by the 12th.
Alan: By the 12th is the target.
Liz: Yeah, is the target. So it would be nice to have an ALAC rep in the little charter drafting session... uh, group. We only had one meeting so far, and it’s looking like what they’re going to propose is a couple of preparatory steps before PDP, although, again, we’ve just had one meeting, so I don’t want to pre-suppose the outcome. That’s what we discussed, where one of the things we would propose is doing a workshop in Mexico. And we’re trying to allow some time, sufficient time, to do a workshop on the topic in Mexico. So there would be certainly the opportunity to participate there, in addition. And then the PDP probably wouldn’t get launched, at least the way the group is thinking right now, until after that.
One other thing I want to mention about Mexico - we are also planning a workshop on e-crime. There was an e-crime workshop that we did kind of at the last minute in Cairo, that was at the request of several groups, and it was very well-attended and very well-received, and clearly was just kind of whetting people’s appetites for a longer discussion. So I think separately, or maybe in conjunction, to be determined, we’ll also be doing a workshop that might be even a couple hour workshop, with a couple of parts to it, on e-crime.
Alan: This one with more care about what it’s scheduled against, I hope.
Cheryl: Ah, now Liz... yeah, Liz, this is important for you to have shared with us, because that, believe it or not, cyber-crime was one of the short-listed topics for the ALAC workshop, because of the summit pressure to go in that direction. So we need to make sure A, we don’t trip over each other, and B, if we do something, it’s complementary, or in cooperation.
Liz: Great, great. Well, I’m glad I...
Cheryl: So I might again ask if... 25 probably Heidi is the best inaudible usually in the same time zone, let alone the same room, if you two could coordinate fairly closely, and...
Liz: Yes, we can do that.
Cheryl: And we make sure we work together rather than in opposition on those things.
Liz: Great.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Alan: Liz, is there any clarity at this point on the difference between abuse of the registration process and abuse of using the domain name?
Liz: It was a big topic in the fall.
Alan: I know that, that’s...
Liz: And one of the recommendations I think will come out of this charter is drafting a... compare and contrast, you know, definitions. So that was yet a second reason why the group was leaning toward this series of prefatory steps before launching a PDP, was to get a greater handle on drawing those distinctions, which is not easy.
Alan: Well, I’m not volunteering myself, but if anyone else would like to participate in the drafting team, according to Liz there is still the opportunity to do so, and it sounds like... if you’ve only had one meeting, getting up to speed will not take a lot of effort.
Liz: That’s right, it’s just one call, hour-long call. And the calls are Fridays at... sorry, I have to translate to UTC. I think it’s 1500 UTC on Friday.
Alan: Noon-hourish. 10:00 Eastern time. I’m saying that for both benefits, since she’s a good person to do this.
Cheryl: Perhaps someone from Latin America might be more appropriate in the time zone?
Alan: Beau, are you still on the call?
Vanda: Yes.
Beau: Yes, I am still on the call.
Alan: Is this something that you’d like to take on? It’s right up your alley.
Beau: Yeah, I mean, I kind of have my fingers in several pies, here, but yeah, okay, I can do it.
Liz: So I’ll add you to the list, and get you the information.
Beau: Okay.
Alan: Thank you, Beau.
Cheryl: And it fits underneath the resuscitation, review and restructuring of function, and who’s in them, of the working groups which we have under ALAC, and of course the registry/registrar relations, you know, this is going to sort of fit in there fairly nicely as well.
Um, that’s the only thing we haven’t dealt with, and I’m going to propose that we take that discussion on notice, and that that is something to be focussing on either in online discussions, or as a main piece of agenda work when we have our face to face meeting in Mexico. Is anybody wanting to work on that now, or can we do that between now and Mexico, and at the formal ALAC meeting in Mexico?
I’ll take that absolute silence as agreement with everything I just said. Okay. I don’t believe there’s any other business, so it’s a matter of speak now or forever hold your peace, until we meet next. Is there anything anyone else wishes to raise?
Alan: Can someone remind me what I said I would coordinate? I wrote down Adam, Alan, Cheryl, Sebastian if necessary, but I don’t remember what topic it was in.
Adam: GNSO new 10.
Alan: Ah, okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I’m sorry, when I scrawl notes I don’t always put a title on it.
Cheryl: You’re obviously not well, but thank you very much for...
Sebastian: Sorry, it’s Sebastian once again, and Carlos will agree to participate to this working group too.
Alan: Okay, I didn’t hear that.
Sebastian: Then we are just waiting for the African region to come back with a name, and you have all the regions participating in this work.
Alan: Okay, thank you very much. Excuse me, um...
Cheryl: Okay, I’ll then... you talk to me...
Alan: End it.
Cheryl: ...and then I’ll make sure that we network with Avery and we get some dates and things done.
Adam: Have we just ended this call? That’s okay. I did have a question. Doesn’t matter.
Alan: Well, we’re only 45 minutes late. Let’s keep on going.
Cheryl: Oh no, no. Go on, go on Adam.
Adam: Well, no, was any response... there was the letter you wrote to the Board, Cheryl, I believe, about... complaining about the public forum and the handling of various things. Did we ever get any feedback on any of this stuff?
Cheryl: Um... only from Kieran McCarthy.
Adam: Okay. Oh well, all right. Anyway, that was all. Forty-four minutes, 21.
Cheryl: And one of the things we will want to do is discuss it with the new public participation working group.
Alan: Okay, I do have one question that doesn’t need to be on the agenda, but I would like to ask it before everyone hangs up.
Cheryl: All right, go ahead.
Alan: Do you know... Cheryl, do you know when the travel things come out, are we going to be allowed to go to the Friday morning Board meeting, if it is scheduled on Friday morning?
Cheryl: Heidi, can you tell us what the current plans for flying people out of Mexico is? Is it the 5th?
Heidi: Yeah, the current plans are for people to arrive on Friday the 27th, and depart on Thursday afternoon, the 5th.
Cheryl: Heidi, can you please ask why on earth do they believe that we should not have out people part of the last day of the ICANN meeting?
Alan: Heidi, are you talking about the summit or ALAC people?
Heidi: Sorry, the summit. I don’t know about ALAC.
Cheryl: Hmm.
Alan: Can you try and get some immediate feedback? Up until now, the words always say we must leave on Friday.
Vanda left
Which means, in general, unless we happen to have a very late flight, means that we cannot attend the Board meeting.
Cheryl: Heidi, it’s absolutely ridiculous to have people work towards things and then be sent home before they hear what the resolution of their work is.
Heidi: Okay, I will discuss with Nick.
Cheryl: We need to talk on this, and we certainly need to look at a difference between all of the summit attendees and the ALAC, if nothing else. Okay, but late flights out on Friday work. Sending people home on Thursday, when the meeting is going Friday, well, that...
Alan: Or early Friday morning.
Heidi: Just to confirm, that’s ALAC only, yeah?
Alan: We are talking about ALAC and preferably the RALO, the senior RALO people. We are not talking about the summit attendees.
Sebastian: You are not talking about that, but I would do that, because I think we can’t... we can’t... people coming to an ICANN meeting for a summit, if we don’t show them from the beginning to the end, we will lose something. It will be for some of them the first time they are coming to one ICANN meeting, and I think important that they see all the process, from the beginning to the end. And I would like, really, that we struggle to have all the people coming from the summit, from ALAC and the other people, to stay up to Friday. Because, the other point, I heard Friday will not be just a Board meeting. It’s important. It’s the tenth anniversary of ICANN, and so on and so forth, and I really would like to have those people stay.
Alan: Okay, I... is the agenda for the ICANN meeting posted yet?
Cheryl: Not as yet.
Alan: Okay, the good news is...
Cheryl: We will work more on this one, and I’m sure that Heidi will be talking to me later in her day, and later in my morning, because this is a thorny issue. It’s raised again and again. We’re not suggesting they need to be put up in the hotel on Friday night, but they really should be being flown out after meeting times.
Alan: Well, but that may involve flying... staying in a hotel, either transit or Mexico City, Friday night.
Cheryl: It may, but like, at the moment, we don’t even look at it.
Alan: No, I understand. That’s the reason I raised the point.
Cheryl: And I’m supporting you in that.
Alan: Okay. The maybe good news is, for the GNSO and the ccNSO, they have been told that, “The per diem will be reduced by the appropriate amount, if the hotel is providing free Internet service – in room Internet. The implication is that if the hotel is not providing free room, there will be sufficient money in the per diem for those groups to pay for in room Internet. That is... it’s considered essential. That is a marked difference from the position that has been taken with the ALAC before. So, assuming the same rule is used for us, and it better be, that’s good news.
Cheryl: Okay, can I call the meeting to the end now?
Alan: You can.
Cheryl: Thank you very much. Thank you, Alan, for battling on with breathing Alan coughs. Just to prove he has them, there he goes again. Thanks very much, Liz, we really appreciate you coming along, and I’m pretty sure that not just on the matter of WHOIS studies, but on the matter of how we might work together with the GNSO in Mexico. We’re getting into some new partnership opportunities, which is very exciting.
Liz: Yeah, yes, my pleasure. Thanks.
Cheryl: And thank you all for extending your time, and I do apologize for my lack of the Internet. It’s difficult to run an online meeting without one. Bye to all. I’ll talk to many of you later in your today, and to some of you in the next day or two. Bye for now.
Alan: Take care, all.
All: Bye.
Liz Gaster left
Cheryl: Did you want... did you want me to stay on, Alan?
Alan left
Beau Brendler left
Heidi left
Matthias left
Cheryl: Did you want me to stay on, Alan?
Adam left
Cheryl: Did you want me to stay on, Alan?
Cheryl left
Adigo operator left
Jose Salgueiro left
French interpreter left
Spanish interpreter left
End of audio