24 June 2008 BO Transcription

ALAC Meeting
(Held June 24, 2008)

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Name: 52 - 0.31.06 We will identify a foreign language in square brackets with a time code for the beginning and end, so that you can quickly identify those passages. At the top of the transcript, we will advise you of the name(s) of the foreign languages you'll need to search for.
Translator: If translator actually translates French or Spanish for a participant we will note it as "Translator". It will normally be evident from the dialogue who the translator is translating for. If not, we will include a note in square brackets with respect to who they are translating for.
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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.

Alan Greenberg
Annette Muehlberg
Beau Brendler
Carlos Dionisio Aguirre
Cheryl Langdon-Orr (Chair)
Dennis Jennings
Evan (male, last name not known)
Fatimata Seye Sylla
Hawa Diakite
Hong Xue
Izumi Aizu
Jean-Jacques Subrenat
Nick Ashton-Hart
Peter Dengate Thrush
Robert Guerra
Sébastien Bachollet
Thomas Narten
Tricia Drakes
Vanda Scartezini
Vittorio Bertola
Wolf Ludwig

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Cheryl: …chair of the At-Large Advisory Committee. I note it's just one minute past our starting time and I like to get the trains to run on time. Unfortunately, I note some of our board guests are not with us at this time. That’s not going to actually stop me starting the meeting however. The vacant spaces on either side are… to my left and right, will be occupied by a variety of staff and board members as they appear and disappear.
But we will take a moment or two to do some housekeeping. And that housekeeping is to remind you all that this meeting is simultaneously translated. Because it is simultaneously interpreted, my apologies to those doing the interpretation, into French, English and Spanish, if you are not fluent in all of these languages, you really ought to collect some ear buds. They look like this. If you wish to hear English, you should be on Channel 2. If you wish to hear French, you should be on Channel 1. If you wish to hear Spanish, you should be on Channel 3. And I will give you a moment or two to gather and get your ear buds, and I’ll ask, please Frederick, if you could ensure there’s translation devices along the front table for my board members when they arrive. Thank you.
And it is in fact, perfect timing, what an entrance gentlemen chuckles. Please, welcome, and if you’d care to join me to the right-hand side here, or right and left, I don’t mind being flanked by the Board.
Whilst we have completed our housekeeping, I would like to take one moment to draw your attention to a change in the normal course of events. And board members, this is something that will affect you. In previous meetings, we have spent time going around the room, saying, “Hello, my name is Cheryl and I am”. We’re not doing that now, even though some of us are new. What we have in front of us, in various colours, which is rather sad and sometimes unreasonable, are in fact, our names. When we first speak to a matter, we will introduce ourselves in short form because we are doing simultaneous interpretation, I would advise anybody, every time they take the microphone, to say your name. This allows those who are hearing only the interpreter’s voice to know who is speaking. If you miss out on saying your name, I will try and catch it and say “Thank you, Izumi, for that statement”, or “Thank you, Sébastien, for that statement”, but that’s retrospective information. So if you can remember to say your name at the beginning.
But what I would like to do, however, is ask our visiting Board members, who’s valuable time we are taking this morning, if they would, however, care to introduce themselves because really, all the spotlight’s on you, right now. So perhaps Dennis, if you would like to start.
Dennis: My name is Dennis Jennings. I’m Irish, which is a handicap I’ve suffered for most of my life, particularly coming to Paris, having voted “No” to the Lisbon Treaty recently, I keep watching my back. Yes, that’s our excuse, the French showed us how to do this. However, I’m an ICANN board member, I’m a new ICANN board member. This is my second formal board meeting. I joined after the AGM in Los Angeles. I do have some background in ICANN in that in 1999 and the year 2000, I was Chairman of CENTR, the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries, where I was quite vocal about the relationship between ccTLDs and ICANN. But that’s a long time ago. I don’t represent any constituency, I’m now an investor, my life is about investment in party stage 04.56 companies, about management and funding and not so much about technology. I’m appointed by the NonCom so I have no representation or role in any sense, and of course, as a board member, I formally have no representation or role anywhere. So that’s me, Dennis Jennings, board member.
Jean-Jacques: Thank you, Madame Chair. My name is Jean-Jacques Subrenat. I’m a board member since November last year. I too, was nominated through the NonCom procedure and like Dennis, I consider this to be an important feature. I don’t come from any given constituency and that’s true, of course, for any board member, that we have an obligation of looking at the public trust and public interest as well as all the other aspects. My background, I was a French ambassador and right now, my occupations are very much centred on ICANN. And also, I am a tutor at the École Nationale d’Administration in Strasbourg and I am the Chair of the Advisory Board of Institut Pierre Werner in Luxembourg, where I happen to live right now, although I am French. So, I may not be completely up to speed with what you will be discussing today, but I’ll do my best. Thank you.
Thomas: I’m Thomas Narten and I am the IETF Liaison to the Board, so as a Liaison, I don’t have a voting role, just an advising role. But my background, generally speaking, is the technology, active in the IETF for 15 years or so, but the main areas that probably are of interest here, I’m heavily involved in IPv6 development, I’ve been involved in VNS 07.11 work as well, and I’ve also been involved in the registry side, so I’ve actually been active in the registries. So I have a pretty broad background there, and I don’t really represent any particular constituency per say, I mostly just provide advice on technology-related matters.
Cheryl: Thank you. While the technology catches up with us and we try and get dialling participants to be able to participate, thank you, Jason, it would be lovely if that would happen. We’re going to take a small change to our agenda without any discussion, I’m using the Chair’s discretion. The Board Governance Review Committee sitting behind me, they would like to be introduced, Patrick asked me this morning if it was possible for them to take a moment or two. And I have a chair next to me, gentlemen, so it would be very good if the first of you would care to come up. Basically, to describe what Patrick said, “to prove you don’t have two heads”, I think that was how it was put to me chuckles.
Colin: Good morning, my name is Colin Carter. And we’re pleased to be here. We’ve been retained to carry out the review of the Board. Let me just say a little bit about myself. I’m a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group. I’ve spent my career working with them. And as I’ve got older and grey hair and less hair, I’ve found myself more likely to be working with Boards, and possibly for the last 15 years, I’ve spent most of my consulting life working with Boards of Directors, perhaps done nearly 100 board reviews in a variety of profit and not-for-profit organizations. We’re very much looking forward to this project that will take place over the next couple of months, encourage you to stop us if you see us around the corridors here, if you have views and there will an online opportunity for people to make contributions. Thank you very much for letting us take a moment in your meeting this morning. And I’ll just introduce one of my colleagues, Felix Barber, who’s based here in Europe.
Felix: Thank you Colin. Felix Barber, I’m also a Senior Advisor with the Boston Consulting Group, based in Zurich, Switzerland. I’ve also spent much of my career with BCG, working in France, and Germany, and Spain, and many other European countries, and have also been focusing on organization and governance and ownership issues. I’m very much looking forward to talking to any of you who will be interested to talk to us about what we’re up to. Thank you.
Cheryl: I thought we had three, but only two wish to speak today. I can assure you gentlemen, there will be many of the people around this table stopping you in the corridors chuckles. It’s very good that you’ve identified yourselves because I’m quite sure the number of the personal approaches from the RALOs and the ALAC members will be coming your way.
This takes us now to the standard part of the agenda, which I’d love to be able to read but it’s far too small, so I shall wing it. I think it’s supposed to be the short review of recent ALAC work, including our Working Group activities. And those of you who are Leads around this table on a particular Working Group, I would here see Beau, I would here see Hong. I would here see Wolff is at the table, yes? Evan, you may wish to step forward when we discuss the Summit, as well. I would think at least those three need to have a short-form discussion. By “short form” ladies and gentlemen, I’m giving you three minutes each. If you would like to put up your hand and decide who wants to start, do you want to go for IDNs, do you want to go for…Hong is going, yes, okay chuckles. The IDN Working Group, three minutes, short review, thank you Hong.
Hong: Thanks, Chair. Three minutes, I’ll try to be precise chuckles. The IDN Working Group has been doing two issues very visibly these days. One is on the fast-track, IDN ccTLD process. Cheryl and I are the two members of ccNSO IDNC Working Group. We participate in all of the activity of the committee in GNSO. For users, we are particularly interested in two issues. One is user’s participation in the policymaking and evaluation for the new TLD application. Another one is about the pressing demand for users for the new IDN ccTLD. For the second point, I want to go to the second point first, elaborate a bit. IDN and ccTLD fast-track was designed to fulfill the pressing demands of the user community. It must be very fast and especially, there is important criteria for the fast-track approach, that is the readiness of the local community. And we know that, IDN ccTLD is comparatively easy to be implemented than IDN GTLD. IDN GTLD is much more complicated, and involves a lot of the difficult issues that deserve a long time to be reviewed. But ccTLD is relatively simple because it’s limited in one territory. There’s one observation, I’m not speaking on behalf of Cheryl or the committee, I’m speaking as a user, as an IDN user. That is I heard something from the user community that people are concerned that even though the IDN ccTLD fast-track documents could be submitted in this week, hopefully on Thursday to the Board, the Board will take quite long time to review it, and one consideration for the timing of the review, is to make it, sort of, harmonious with the new GTLD process. I know for the business constituency, there have some interesting considerations about to maintain their market competitive edge. GTLD Registering may not be very happy about the going first 13.58 approach of ccTLDs but that is not a concern of the user community. Which is what to have the IDN in place as soon as possible. So I don’t believe it should be deferred for this market consideration, it should be a purely a policy will 14.15 and think about it, ICANN has always been a multi-stakeholder process. This is about IDN ccTLD fast-track. With respect to IDN GTLD, I used to be a member of GNSO IDN Working Group. And for the new GTLD process, ALAC… I used up the three minutes. I’m so sorry cuts out 3 seconds.
Cheryl: Hong, you are allowed to conclude, but I am warning you that I will give you a time signal at three minutes. Go ahead. I will allow her to conclude, yes.
Hong: Yes, I do conclude that we hope the Board will emphasize we ensure the opportunity for users to participate in all the policymaking and evaluation of IDN top-level domains.
Cheryl Thank you Hong, I do hope that every other speaker will notice when I start giving a “T” signal from the front, I might do it just about 15 seconds out of the three minutes, so you can mentally prepare to wind up your presentation. I now need to give my most humblest apologies to my fellow Asia-Pacific representative on the Council, I neglected to mention a very important matter of IPv4 to IPv6 which, considering I’m a card-carrying member of the IPv6 forum in my country, is somewhat criminal. So I have moved you ahead and you are now the next speaker. Izumi, if you care to give three minutes, thank you.
Izumi: Thanks Cheryl, and it will have the Board as a doll 15.54. I’m Izumi Aizu, the member of ALAC from Asia-Pacific. For those, I’m sort of leading the Working Group on IPV for V6 transition, or co-existence. As you may know, we have successful organized a workshop, and yesterday morning, we tried to prepare from Delhi to Paris for that. And we are happy to report that first of all, the workshop was very well attended, I heard many complaints that there was little space and many chairs were brought after we started the meeting. And I also heard some complaints about the shortage of time, especially exchanging ideas and information at the end. That means we have excellent speakers from all different parts of the game, starting from the technical, addressing the community represented by NRO, or ARIN, was there.
We had the pleasure to have a technical overview from the Chief Technology Officer of the Internet Society, Leslie Daigle, who was also involved, I believe, in the IETF works. And we had good policy work done by OECD recently and Eddie de Karinne Procet 17.12 was there. I did some portion of sharing the Japanese government action plan and practices portion. We had three members from the ISPs, very pleased to see the fast-track on British Tel commun-comcast 17.30 comcast, both reported how they’re dealing with the challenges and also one member from the government of inaudible 17.39 also shared his fears with us, French and European unions recent action, or communication. I felt although the original focus was end users, as at large, should remain there, but largely in theory, end users do not have to worry about, or care about. In reality, everybody has to work together on their own role and also to coordinate each other.
Some discussion focus was how to deal with the areas where Internet development is not as far as the most developed, because it involves significant amount of human resources, financial and other resources, so concerns over age 18.25, some friends from developing countries, like some African people. But I think, to end or conclude, the message carried forward, is as I already said, that we, mutually, we compromised the need, to collaborate, from all sectors of the Internet ecosystem, and I think I can, and at last, as important role, to be a totalist 18.52 to work together with some other Bodies as well. That’s sort of my observation, thank you Chair.
Cheryl: And thank you, Izumi, you’ve obviously done speaker training because we are just kicking on to the five to eight minute mark. My greatest appreciation, you knew your three minutes perfectly. Beau, new gTLDs, you also have three minutes, thank you.
Beau: Good morning. My name is Beau Brendler. We have done some work in the last couple of days in regards to new gTLDs addressing the statement, or the language within, on recommendation 6, noting that language speaking to an evaluation criteria termed as morality and public order is with reference to Annex A 13B of the ICANN bylaws, not in the best interest of the ICANN community or ICANN. Previously, many months ago, the ALAC made statements of concern in regards to safety, security and stability issues that we believe are being addressed in the implementation phase. So, in addition to this current work that we are doing now, we have also been contributing to the new gTLD process in the areas of safety, security and stability as new gTLDs are introduced.
I’m also the co-chair of the RAA Working Group. I’ll give you a very brief notation on that. We distributed new amendments of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement to the ALAC shortly after their June 16th release and we have requested that the documents be translated into French and Spanish because we came to the realization that, in fact, we didn’t have the Registrar Accreditation Agreement available to folks in another language besides English, so that’s a good step. And we hope to discuss them prior to the public comment period ending in August. In addition, we are meeting with the registrar constituency on Thursday morning, which is the second meeting we’ve had with them. The first one, I think, for quite some time, between the two groups happened in Delhi and we’re looking forward to this one coming up on Thursday, in which we will perhaps discuss issues related to the new RAA amendments and the registrars have also expressed interest in hearing about the planning for our At-Large Summit. Thanks.
Cheryl: Thank you Beau. Moving on to the Summit, and feeling incredibly generous, mainly because I’m part of the Working Group, I’m going to actually give both the lead on content and the lead on the logistics three minutes each. Who would like to go first, Evan or Wolf? Evan, Wolf? Stop being so polite. One of you put your light on and start talking. Okay, Wolf, thank you.
Wolf: Okay, I take the ball. My name is Wolf Ludwig. I’m part of EURALO and I joined as a Working Group at the beginning of this year. As you may remember, the Board decision in principal, in daily 22.12 to have a summit in the coming fiscal year. And the Summit Working Group was encouraged to continue it’s work, it’s preparations, and we’ve had several phone conferences and at one of these, we decided to sub-divide the Working Group into two parts. One part considering logistics and organizational methods, this will be elaborated by Evan, and I’m in charge, I’m the coordinator for the Content Working Group. And, as the Summit is supposed to be a bottom-up approach, we didn’t want to prescribe a set agenda. Instead, we decided to draft a survey and to ask our ALSes what are their major concerns, what are their priorities, what are the issues and topics they want to be discussed, what could be the most appropriate form at the Summit, which may be more useful for the participants. And this questionnaire was now re-edited, translated, etc. Now, it’s finalized in three language versions, it was spread out to the communities and we are now encouraging all our ALSes to fill it in and to receive as many responses as possible to draft a program for the Summit on the solid basis of the responses and the reactions from our organizations. We have timetable now, and we will be very busy over the next couple of weeks to make the agenda setting and now, I give over to Evan. Thank you very much.
Cheryl: Before you give over to Evan, because I don’t want the Board members to have apperplecture? (pronounced as “apperplecture” but it would seem from context that “apperception” would make more sense) 24.24 of course, we do understand that was not the exact statement that matches your Board resolution. What you resolved was to investigate, or allow us to investigate with staff, the funding models on the possibilities of having a Summit this fiscal year. We do have the correct chuckles… in our minds, so please relax. And now, Evan.
Evan: Okay, I’ll be careful chuckles. Just as a little bit of history, is it Sébastien and others have been involved in the idea of a Summit for quite some time, but in the San Juan meeting a year ago, there became a very, very deep grass-roots movement to have a Summit to identify policies, to find out exactly what it is the grass-roots wants to show to ICANN in terms of policy development, in terms of getting used to, shall we say, the ICANN culture, which to newcomers, can be somewhat daunting. And so, we’ve developed the Summit and the intention is to have two days in advance of the ICANN meeting in Cairo. As well as to have the participants involved in the Cairo meeting as well. As you will see in the budget submissions, there are a number of scenarios because we do not anticipate all our ALSes will participate. This is partly out of an issue of fiscal prudence, but it’s also because we expect that the ALSes are going to come to the Summit prepared. This is not an introductory meeting. We expect them to be educated to the basics on issues, we expect them to be replying to the surveys and communications that we’ve been sending out to them, those that are not participating will not be invited to the Summit. And so this is meant to be a highly interactive event for those ALSes that have demonstrated an interest in participating and in being actively involved.
Cheryl: Thank you Evan. And just on that point, it is definitely you meet your criteria, and then you may be invited. This is not a “come as an unknown entity” to ICANN. The commitment, of course, for the two days before, I’d like the Board to be very clear on this, simply means that the General Assembly for the RALO in that region, that time and space, and indeed some of the resources, shifts to a full Summit of the General Assembly of all the RALOs. And the one-day activity that the ALAC normally conducts on the Sunday does not happen, and that space, time and some of the resources shift to Day 2 of the General Assembly. And the meeting time we normally have for our ALAC meetings, sadly, I would suggest also, that valuable time with the Board, does not happen. And ALAC and RALO meeting times in the normal event stream in an ICANN week, is allowing for us to have our plenary and preparation for reporting sessions. So these are not additional days. These are days that are actually currently committed to some extent. I think that’s a very important message. Now I hope you indulge me with having made that very clear.
The next part that I’d like to review, sorry, I was jumping the gun, I was looking at my time. I would actually, thank you Annette, for prompting me, I would like to see if the Board has any questions for any or all of our representations from the Working Groups. And obviously, you do, so, that’s all right.
Dennis: Dennis Jennings. I think, but I’m not certain, that in relation to the Summit, the Board is expecting a proposal sooner rather than later. So it has to make a judgement, now, I’m not familiar with what we do have, and if we have something, and that’s a heads up, I’m just not familiar with it, so that’s fine.
Cheryl: Go ahead, Nick.
Nick: The Summit’s proposal has been sent to the Board Finance committee for them to review and provide a recommendation to the full Board, along with the other elements of the budget.
Cheryl: We provided it on the date given, which was, correct me if I’m wrong, the 23rd or the 25th of last month? May? Yeah, May… June. That is possibly not as important as the fact that Mr. Jeffries had it a month ago. And it’s gone on to the next place in policy.
Thomas?: To be clear, how long has the Board’s Finance Committee had it?
Nick: I don’t know precisely what date the Board Finance Committee got it but sent it in to Denise and company on the 11th.
Thomas?: May 11th?
Nick: June, June 11th.
Thomas: Okay, so it’s a matter of days, not…
Nick: It’s not that long.
Thomas?: Yeah.
Cheryl: But that was actually when we were asked to provide it. In fact, Nick’s sending it on, it was actually prior to the deadline for us to send it on to be included in the Board papers. Any other questions, gentlemen? Go ahead.
Male: French 30:06 – 30:41 French male speaker is cut out and the voices of the English and Spanish interpreters are heard, however, the voices are overtalking and it is not possible to entirely transcribe in English what is being said. Included below are some parts of what is heard by the English interpreter.
Translator: I would like to ask my question in French…I know what was said by the various members at this meeting. I have a question for Mr. Izumi Aizu. I understood the description but I wonder whether he had any particular recommendation for the Council, for the Board that is.
Cheryl: Izumi.
Izumi: Thank you. We haven’t really concluded either as a Working Group or the outcome of the workshop, to a specific recommendation at this stage to the Board. However, the sentiment, if I may, is that it is very important for all the ICANN community to work together including the other 31.09 allocation areas, as well as more of the operation areas which may not be necessarily under the direct purview of the narrow mission of ICANN but it’s heavily related to. That was more of my personal summary. I think Thomas was there yesterday and he can perhaps help me if it’s okay.
Thomas: Well, I have nothing more to add at this point. I think the Working Group needs to decide what its next steps are.
Cheryl: Any further questions? Any comments or questions from the table? Any comments or questions from the wide audience of observers and regional At-Large members? Yes, go ahead Robert, and then Wolf.
Robert: I have a comment to make about something else later, but I think in regards to the Summit, I’m a little bit surprised kind of at the question because this has been… dialogue with the Board a bit, but one of our Summit leads, Wolf or Evan, can tell you more encapsulated. But we see this as a very strategic event given the broad user community that ALAC is supposed to represent. For us to be strategic, it’s really a strategic meeting, to really empower us to be more involved in ICANN and really engage the user community. So we really see this as part of our mandate and just wanting to work with the Board and the community to make us be able to connect with our user base better, but also as going forward. So it’s a very quick summary but my other colleagues can probably say it more eloquently.
Cheryl: Wolf?
Wolf: I was just pinpointing to Robert’s sentiment.
Cheryl: Fine, he actually stopped me, and so I… I still have you on the list. That bring us, as we’re talking about policy development, to a very short, very short, review of what we’ve been doing in our one-day workshop. This year, on our Sunday one-day meeting, which of course, as of our last meeting, has included the regional At-Large members as well, so this is a one-day workshop, beyond the ALAC, but also to include the regional, At-Large, secretariats. In fact, I think we had quite a number of ALSes, ALS representatives from Europe, here as well. The focus was on policy development, not as we have previously done, process work or team development, going in reverse order. And we were honoured to have a number of very specific briefings. I might actually toss to Nick so he can list them and give them to us, but what that allowed us to do in the later afternoon was break into small working groups and focus on a single topic of choice, based on the briefing. And then come out with a working group action plan that will now carry forward for the inter-sessional work on each activity. And if you might, do you wish to speak to the matter, Fatimata, I think you had a very important point to make. And now, I’ll toss to you and then to Nick thank you.
Fatimata: French 34:47 French female speaker is cut out and the voices of the English and Spanish interpreters are heard, however, the voices are overtalking and it is not possible to entirely transcribe in English what is being said. Included below are some parts of what is heard by the English interpreter.
Translator: Thank you Chair for what you just said…overview of what we’ve already discussed. The specific results that we obtained in a short space of time regarding policy development inspired us to work together, perhaps in groups or altogether, on a single subject in order to come to an agreement and a common decision to put to the Board. So therefore I strongly support that proposal. It will help us be more concrete and get more telling results in the future as ALAC. Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you, Nick, if you… at the moment, the list of all the exciting things we did.
Nick: Yes, there were briefings on IDNs, both ccTLD and gTLD, including the state of the art of the work of the IDNC Working Group by Bart and Tina. Followed by a new gTLDs overview of the policy and the current state of implementation planning, which was done by Olaf. And after that, Patrick Jones gave an update on the gTLD Registry Fail-over project.
Cheryl: Sorry, thanks Nick. I think it also bears mentioning, albeit not as something we have done, but something we are doing, and that we are going to be discussing at greater length in our meeting later this afternoon and that is, we’ve been having briefings, which some of you may have indeed attended, with other constituencies, so for example, we had the SSAC do a very well attended fast-flux briefing, using the Adobe Meeting tool, so there was shared, collaborative, whiteboard space and the ability to chat online. Most importantly, from the ALAC perspective, however, is the use of the ADIGO 37.10 telephone bridge tool which allows us to run these meetings with simultaneous, real-time interpretation into French and Spanish channels. And that, I think, is a very important part of this outreach and education exercise. I think it’s worthy of the Board noting… I think the recent success of the last two that we’ve had, one on new gTLDs and one on fast-flux and we trust that we will be continuing those. We’ve also produced for discussion this afternoon policy advice development flow-chart and process outline based on the last few mechanisms that we have used. So we are actually finding the nodes and identifying them in a graphic form with both information that needs to go out to our people, and how and when it needs to come in. And that will stop a number of the “We didn’t know about that” reactions to things that are often foreclosing 38.07.
Oh, thank you. We’re just having an example of the Adobe Connect tool there. If we’re going back now, unless there’s any questions from anyone else on the first matter of the agenda, I will declare that closed and we will move to, again, something I cannot read, which says, I believe, briefing from the Board on the current situations of IDN ccTLDs. And Hong, as I’m chairing, I think it’s appropriate that you take the lead on any questions and issues you’d like to raise with the Board on the fast-track. You now have an extended, massive, amount of maybe five, maybe 6 minutes chuckles for an interchange between the Board and us on IDN fast-track ccTLDs. Thank you Hong.
Hong: Thanks Cheryl, I really do not need five minutes but I hope that the Board members could briefly brief us about the discussion, about the possible timeline for reviewing this fast-track proposal that’s going to be submitted by CCSO 39.28 this Thursday. We’ve noted that for the new gTLD process, the document was submitted to the Board, and the Board was obviously reviewing it very carefully and the staff had been working very diligently to draft the implementation solution. And it has not been approved. So we want to know, does this fast-track process, is also going to take that long time, this is fast-track. Do we have a fast-track approval process chuckles? Thanks.
Cheryl: Thomas.
Thomas: Yeah, so let me give an attempt to represent 40.11 my view here. And I’m not going to speak definitively on behalf of the Board, because we don’t really have a position. In some sense, this may be frustrating to people outside the Board, but the Board doesn’t really do anything until it gets a formal proposal that is percolated up. So a lot of times we know things are coming and we sort of anticipate it, we have discussions that are informal that may actually go from one extreme to the other as different issues are discussed. But until we actually have the firm, concrete proposal in front of you, you really can’t say what the Board’s going to do, because there may be a showstopper in there that wasn’t anticipated or something. And especially, since in this case, things are still in flux. And it’s kind of… it’s always a challenge to have something be… sort of, come to the Board on Thursday, and then have the now, Thursday Board meeting approve that, because when are the Board members supposed to actually review the material?
Anyway, a couple of things. The Board clearly understands that the point of the fast-track is to be, quote, unquote, fast. If we take as long as the new gTLD process and so forth, we’ve missed the boat, and everybody understands that. Earlier, you sort of made the comment that you don’t want the technical concerns that are implicit with the fast-track to be sending us to back… I’m being confusing… having it all be relegated back to having to do the same thing that’s been going on for the new gTLD process, and have them both be done at the same time. One thing I want to make clear is the technical issues for fast-track and non fast-track are exactly the same. When I say, technical issues, I’m thinking about pure, operational things. What goes in the DNS, how do we make it work. The tricky parts are all policy. And I think that even though the work is percolating to the Board, I think there are still some fairly big issues outstanding that have not been addressed, and I don’t want to say it in a bad way, so much as there are issues floating around on which there is not closure yet. And one example is, there is a view that the ccIDN TLDs should be treated exactly the same way as the current ASCI 42.28 ccTLDs in terms of relationships with ICANN and whether it needs to be some sort of agreement on how to run and operate those registries. And there have been discussions about whether that is appropriate and the Board hasn’t decided that yet. So that’s an issue that still needs to be worked through and it’s not going to happen, you know, literally, overnight. I just wanted to raise… that’s it.
Cheryl: Counter? It seemed you would have a follow-on chuckles.
Hong: Yes, thank you. That’s very helpful. But yesterday from the public forum, we noticed that one sort of day has been a highlight for new gTLD process and it would be set in Quarter of 2009. And I heard from the ccNSO 43.19 community that it seems that the fast-track will also be sort of consistent with that timeline. Second quarter of…okay.
Thomas: Let me respond to that. I believe, I may be wrong, that the second Quarter date probably refers to when there is a call for proposals. And that process starts. That’s not the same thing as actually going forward. There’s going to still be a lot of work done with proposals come in and sorting through them and so forth. So, the timetables wouldn’t necessarily be in sync there. You are looking like that’s not right.
Hong: If my memory is correct, the second Quarter of 2008 should be the time for ICANN to receive applications for new gTLDs.
Thomas: Right, but my point is also the process for vetting applications for new gTLDs is certainly going to be longer than, we would presume it would be longer than what would be needed for fast-track. So even if they’re sort of submitted at roughly the same time, and I’m not saying that’s what will happen, the timeline for resolving them and getting something actually into the route is likely to be different, with one being much shorter than the other.
Hong: This is a very valuable observation, another issue that is really about the IDN ccTLD arrangement with ICANN. I guess you heard a lot from the ccNSO 44.47 and ccTLD community, most people would like to go through the re-delegation process, so sort of have a formal triangle arrangement with ICANN and many ccTLD territories, that seems either very time-consuming or a very complicated process. That will really make the fast-track very slow. So I really want to listen from a Board member, what is your initial thinking of this? Would they really want to go through that formal process triangle arrangement iona 45.26 process or will you think about alternative solutions, such as exchange of letter, a very simple commitment from both parties.
Cheryl: Dennis would like…mic, thank you.
Dennis: Dennis Jennings again. Now, again, I’m not speaking for the Board and I may not have got this correct, but my understanding is that the local Internet community, including the government, will make a specific proposal as to who the ccTLD manager, I beg your pardon, the ccIDN or the IDN ccTLD manager, will be. Then it is a question of whether that proposed manager meets the technical and other requirements of ICANN. But the process, as I understand it, is going to be proposed, is that the local Internet community, and especially, including the government, will make a proposal, including the name and the ccTLD manager.
We don’t have that firmly confirmed to us, so I’m assuming that is what will emerge in the documents that we get. What the documents will not cover is the relationship between ICANN and the new IDN ccTLD manager. There is an assumption that an IDN ccTLD is identical to… an assumption in the cc community, that it’s identical to an existing ccTLD. That’s not a view that’s shared by all the Board members. The existing ISO 3166 ccTLDs pre-existed ICANN. Now, ICANN is creating these new ccIDNs, and the question then, is what is the appropriate relationship, the relationship framework, the compliance framework, and the financial framework relating to these new ccIDNs and the Board has not received information on that, nor has it considered it.
Cheryl: Sorry, I’m wanting to call for further questions or discussions on this matter now because as you will have all observed, we have both the Chairman of the Board and the President of ICANN here and I would very much like to take the very short amount of time we have with these gentlemen to discuss the matter which is a floater on the agenda, just to warn you gentlemen. Yes, it is almost impossible to read, I agree. It does say the matter of…oh dear, of GNSO improvements will be discussed when the Chairman of the Board and the President are present. So just in case you haven’t heard enough chuckles, this is what you’re in for. But first of all, I will offer the microphone to both of you. I assume you would like to go first, Peter? Or…Paul?
Peter: Thank you very much for having us, and you’re obviously having a great debate with other directors but I’m not sure that Paul and I can really add much to the excellent service you’re being provided with. I’m also not quite sure how you want to approach this Madame Chair, it just covers you now, from the cross-constituency meeting, where one chunk of the GNSO reform parties were present for two hours, and we discussed it quite extensively. I can give a personal view or I can answer questions. What would be most useful to your meeting?
Cheryl: I actually suspect, having heard your personal view, that sharing your personal view might avert some questions.
Peter: All right. I have some concerns with the work that’s been done to date. I’m not sure that a sufficient, and a lot of work has been done, let’s begin by acknowledging, first of all, the LAC report, and then the work that’s done in reforming that, and taking that into account by our own Working Group, and there’s been a considerable amount of consultation done. That said, I think what that has revealed, is there are a couple of issues that could require further analysis. I’m not quite sure that the problems that are sought to be repaired are sufficiently well understood. And we had a list of issues given to us today, as a sort of example, of the kind of things, would have been fixed, if the system had been different. And I think for some of the Board, and some of the others, that was the first time that kind of analysis had been done. So, I think the problem may need further analysis and then some of the solutions may need further analysis. And that’s a much shorter version…
Male: I’ll just ask a question, I think. I will ask this question from a different perspective from which the Chairman raised, he’s obviously doing it on a personal basis, so let’s have series of personal questions. The first model, the earliest model of GNSO was essentially some sort of balance between self-defining constituencies but roughly who were supply side and demand side, they were self-defining. And there was always an emphasis upon self-definition and people being able to create more constituencies. And put roughly, the swing vote was the NonCom appointed phenomena. That, for some reason, it seems people’s reviews and what have you, not to have achieved the outcome people hoped for and I’m interested to know why they feel that. And then I’m also interested in… one thing that hasn’t been discussed in the proposals that have been put to us, nor in, frankly, the Working Group report sort of refers to it but thinks it’s a Nominating Committee review issue, and I can tell you the Nominating Committee review is going to say, “You tell us how many you want, we’ll just tell you about the process for selection”, but you tell us how many you want, we’re not going to tell you that answer. I’m sort of interested to know whether that’s part of the formula that needs to be considered here in terms of the numbers and the criteria and the type of standard that should be applied. What is the standard you asked the Nominating Committee members to apply? We heard this morning that some have just naturally have applied their own sort of personal experience. I think there was, Phil Chiven 52.27 made this observation this morning in the other constituency, but I think there is something in what he said. I think at the Board level, there is a very strong sense of public interest, public trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation by all Board members. So I think, while personal experience has been one thing, all the Nominating Committee Board members bring that sort of view to what they do. So I’m sort of interested to know why is this part of the formula not being talked about. Everybody’s sort of talking about my vote vs. X’s vote, but they’re not talking about what was supposed to be the circuit breaker, nobody’s talking about it, and I don’t know why.
Cheryl: Alan, I know you wish to speak to this matter.
Alan: I guess I happen to be one of the people who feel strongest about this. I’ve been sitting on the GNSO for the last couple of years, or last two years, as the Liaison from the ALAC and my perception is that although the NonCom people may have been put there to be the swing vote, to balance the other two sides, as it were, I think NonCom people bring something to the table that is different from people who all have a vested interest in domains, whether they’re selling them or buying them. And I strongly feel that the NonCom position should be maintained and maintained as voting members, regardless of whether they’re the swing vote or not. I think they bring something different to the table and I think that it’s an important aspect. That’s a personal view, I know it’s held by some people here.
Male: You say they’re different, different from what, I suppose? And let me do a follow-up question. Is there a standard that we ought to apply to them? Should we say to them, “In making your judgements, the following standard…” you know, “You should be making a judgement in the public interest” or “You should be clearly making your decision in your perceptions of the public trust”, I’m just playing with my words here.
Alan: You’re talking about a NonCom person making a decision regarding policy issues being discussed?
Male: Yes.
Cheryl: I’m sorry, I must… I’m going to fail very quickly, in many ways, I’ve just received a notice of the death of a very dear friend and close colleague, I’m now going to have to pass to Vanda to chair, but I would just go and make the phone calls to the people who need to be called, excuse me.
no dialogue 14 secs
Alan: I’m not sure the answer is very different whether they’re making it in what they believe is the best way or for the public good, because… if they don’t have a vested interest and a constituency who is part of the business model, then I think the two pretty well coincide most times. So I’m not sure there’s a huge difference, but regardless, they are doing it not driven by someone in the background saying, oh, this is what I think you should vote, who has a vested interest in it. It’s an opportunity for different things. It’s also an opportunity, or has been for the last couple of years, to fill gaps in the knowledge or the range of people who are on the GNSO. And certainly the guidelines of the GNSO has provided to the Nominating Committee has tried very much to identify what kinds of people they’re looking for. And it’s the essentially people who can lend new views, and needed views, into the discussions.
Male: I think the question still remains though, if this was differently structured, if the three Nominating Committee members were appointed for the purposes of executing voting and for a particular purpose, that would be the very simplest re-structuring that would need to be done. And so I’m trying to get some sense from you as to whether that is a likely source of progress with us, if the NomCom appointments haven’t functioned in the way that they were supposed to function, which is as the deal-breaker, or the deal-broker, and that was fixed, that would be a very simple solution to the problem. So I guess I’m trying to work out with you, from your experience of seeing them in action and the issues that they face, whether that’s worth pursuing, or do you think that… no longer, you know, is an idea that won’t ever work.
Alan: As I said, to what extent the NomCom people were put on the GNSO to act the deal-breakers, the balancing vote, there are NomCom people pretty much on all the other organiza-…the other, you know, the ALAC, and the Board, and the ccNSO, and I’m not sure they were there as the balancing numbers to make sure there was no sway. So I think the concept of NomCom members is applicable to the GNSO even if it’s not a vote balancing issue. I think that’s all I’m saying. I was rather surprised when the issue came up of taking away the votes, if you start looking into the reason of some people may have a vested interest because the NomCom people don’t always agree with them. But that’s separate…
Thomas: Maybe to clarify or add a little bit to this. Is it really the case that NomCom appointees tend to bring a broader perspective as opposed to having a sort of an interest already, from having, you know, living and breathing a particular area. And that they may not directly be a swing vote in the traditional voting model but their effect is that they broaden the discussion and are more inclined to, sort of, not necessarily to stick to predictable positions, party lines, so to speak.
Alan?: I think that’s an accurate description cuts out 6 secs.
Male: I don’t want to delve too much into this except to say there are a diversity of views of this, some of which extend even to the ALAC review and the role of the NomCom. There is some debate going on those very issues.
Vanda: We’re going to have some discussion about ALAC review. The next item is to talk about the new gTLD, yes?
Alan: Could we stick on the GNSO for just a moment? I think from the ALAC’s point of view, the number one issue is to give the end user viewpoint a seat at the table during policymaking, not just an ability to comment afterwards, as it is for the ALAC. Of the varied structures that have been proposed, pretty much any of them could work to address that ALAC need, that At-Large need. It could be as simple as taking the current Board of Governor’s Committee proposal, and simply changing the non-commercial word from non-commercial registrants to non-commercial users, and it would open up the table for us. And I think that’s at the crux of the At-Large requirement, that is to give the people representing users, people who look at the impact on decisions from a user point-of-view, not from an industry point-of-view, an opportunity to sit at the table.
Male: I don’t understand the principle underlying the proposal that you’ve supported. I certainly don’t understand where the numbers, the one third, one third, one third, come from. And I don’t understand why if there are business users and non-commercial users already there, what additional rationale there is for bringing At-Large users. Can you explain what’s… answer those?
Alan: The business users and the non-commercial users under today’s definitions, are not users as such, but registrants. We’re not looking at the end million, or hundreds of thousands registrants but the 1.3 billion users and the impact of decisions on them. The current definition for the GNSO and the BGC proposal, there is no opportunity for that. The business community proposal with the three, three, three, four, four, four, we’re open to making that change and we supported that. The impact on us of the four times four, or three times four, or three times six, is not as large as simply providing an opportunity for the end user representatives to sit at the table.
Male: Thank you.
Vanda: 13, okay?
Wolf: Thank you. Just to clear one point. As a non-voting vice-chair of the Nomination Committee who was two years a voting member of the Nomination Committee. To be very clear, it’s exactly as Thomas has said. The NonCom never selected a candidate to represent an individual interest, it was to bring the broader perspective to the council, to have additional skills in the Council and not to follow a very special interest of one special group. I think this the guideline for the NonCom, at least in the three years that I have served on the Committee. Thank you.
Vanda: Okay, thank you, Wolfgang. Thomas, please.
Thomas: So, Alan, just a quick question, you said that the primary requirement in some sense is to be sure that you had a seat at the table during policymaking. And the question I really have is, do the current proposals do that adequately in your mind?
Alan: The BGC proposal does not, because it very clearly says that the non-commercial stakeholder group is for non-commercial registrants. As I say, if it changed that, that one word change to non-commercial users, it would certainly satisfy that aspect, because it means there could at an At-Large constituency within that stakeholder group. The proposal that originated with the business constituencies has made that change and therefore is far more acceptable to us than the other one. With an appropriate change, the other one could be reasonably acceptable to us also.
Vanda: So I believe that we could go ahead and talk about the ALAC review. Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Let’s start with the gTLD, we have a very long section and some men explain the process. And we had some points that we really not agree, who are you going to talk about that? Okay, Beau?
Beau: Yeah, thanks, as we discussed earlier in this meeting, the At-Large had some concerns about the Recommendation 6, specifically pertaining to language that talked about evaluation criteria using the words “morality and public order”. And with reference to the appropriate bylaws, we believe that’s not in the best interest of the ICANN community or ICANN. So there has been a lot of discussion in the group among the last couple of days, we realized that this is very far down the road in this process, but we wanted to find the most useful way to make a statement of concern about the notion of ICANN getting into morality and public order as an evaluation criteria for new gTLDs.
Male: Thanks for that. Perhaps I could talk to the issue in several ways. First of all, what the Board has asked and what’s presenting here is the GNSO process produced the policy recommendations. The policy’s not yet been confirmed by the Board. The Board asked management to go away and see whether they thought it was implementable, in other words, take these policies, go away and see whether you can implement them. If you think they are implementable, come back and tell us. And what will be before the Board for this iteration this week is to whether they will then approve the policy, not the implementation. So we’ve started discussion this week with the community and implementation steps. The implementation process has just come out for consultation and for discussion. I don’t see that being concluded for at least another two months. What the implementation steps will result in is a draft request for proposals and accompanying contract, and that’s the instrument to put the implementation process into effect, will be those documents. And they will also be out for consultation and decision-making. So just to be clear, at least what we’re facing this week, we’re just talking about the policy part.
The second part, just to come to your particular point, is that the policy does not put morality or public order, a phrase that comes from international treaties, particularly things that are also related to 14. It does not put it as a criteria. Let me be quite clear about this. It is a grounds for objection, it is not a grounds for selection. So, what does that mean? If somebody puts up a term and nobody objects, then the term goes through. So it’s not like ICANN puts it there and do a first test on any application saying, does this pass the test of morality and public order. And we’re still working through the issues of who has standing, if they wanted to make an objection.
The third related issue, I think, at least in terms of the implementation discussions we’ve had, and we’re sharing with the Board, we are in discussions with, and unfortunately I’m not free at this moment to share the details because they’ve asked us specifically not to, but we are in discussions in very well-known, well-established, international arbitration entities. Who are actually, also potentially giving us advice about how such process could work, and are also giving us very interesting advice 31 implementation levels about, for instance on this particular term, where it occurs international treaty language and experience about that. So we have not yet come back to the Board with a final set of implementation, sort of, experience, on that. The narrow question, is it implementable? I think we’ll probably come back to the Board and say, Yes, Board, we think it is implementable. We’re not saying here is an implementation to approve, we’re just saying broadly we think it 01 you could implement this. A very core part of our feedback is if anyone is to make a judgement about such a phrase or term, it must not be ICANN. We are not an organization to make sure a judgement. If the policy is to have that as a grounds for objection, for third parties to object to a string, we will be saying quite strongly we would recommend experienced, other entities that have that, potentially, that skill set and experience, but it will not be us. And any objection would be dealt with by them. So that’s a sort of nuanced answer to your proposal but because… first of all, the policy does not say it’s a selection criteria, secondly, it says, we’re saying, if it is done, the decision would not be done by ICANN, it would done by an experienced, independent party, and thirdly, the issue of course, is do you agree with the policies at all. I mean, you may not as a thing in the policy at all. But I can say from a management perspective, that’s not for us to decide. We were asked to go and see whether you could implement a policy proposal that was put forward.
Vanda: Thank you, Paul 28. Do you want…
Robert: Good morning. My name is Robert Guerra. I’ll just kind of comment again and maybe echo what Beau is saying, in just saying this has been an issue of really passionate discussion by ALAC and a lot of users are very concerned about the phrase. I could say a lot more but it is very problematic for us. Particularly for the reason because particular words of morality and public order have been used in the past to suppress freedom of expression. And so one of the issues that came up the other day when this was discussed is just mentioning it in a void is problematic. If our framework is mentioned in terms of what are some underlying principles or statements that, you know, universal declaration of human rights as a principle that we adhere to, and then see the morality and public order as then seeing it under that, it’s fine, but seeing it in a vacuum allows it to be used by undemocratic governments to stifle free expression and that is problematic.
Number two, for ICANN to mention this, and implies that it now has some status as an international organization and is implying that it has the ability to be… things that it’s clearly not in it’s mandate. And so, there will be a statement coming out on ALAC probably by the end of this meeting that will clarify and mention our specific concerns. This Internet users are very concerned about this phrase and you know, please be aware of that. Thank you.
Vanda: Okay, thank you. We have just…
Paul: Vanda, sorry, can I just make it very clear I think there should not be any misapprehension that that concern is been heard and understand to be broad-level. And I think even inside GNSO councils and others. So I don’t want you to have any feeling that people do not understand, and Beau makes the statement you wish to make but I just want to be quite clear, I think we all understand and have heard and appreciate that sentiment. Okay, so I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding about that.
Alan: And if I could just add, Paul, that I can assure you that there are passionate defenders of free speech on the Board, and that this topic has occupied a great deal of our time as well.
Vanda: We need to use the time of Peter to talk a little bit about the ALAC Review, so who’s going to want to speak about the ALAC Review? Izu?
Izumi: Well, we haven’t really come to a single position yet given the little time. There are different sentiments and reactions as far as I have observed. But in general, my personal view is that while that report is a little bit troublesome, seemingly concluding some areas like maintain the liaison, not giving voting power, I don’t mean that I personally disagree with that per say, but the rationale or the amount of work behind that, seemingly is very weak to us. It would be better if there were comparative analysis of different ways and gives pros and cons, more, sort of, factual manner, because I’m sure many of those who were interviewed, you know, with others, have said different things. And largely, some of those who proposed that, say, giving voting power, felt that their voices weren’t heard at all, which may not be the case. Like similarly, there’s very little mention about the history while some people, if not all, have their own, or our own, baggage from the history. I don’t want to re-visit the whole process with history, per say, but at least there are certain good lessons learned from the history so that we do not have to repeat some of the problems, but also take the good lessons forward. And I feel that this is not well articulated in the report, or the language is, I said that to the consultants already and 14 they’re taking some of our inputs but that’s my personal observation. Being the member of ALAC from interim status, I was also the membership advisory committee on the first round, or the global election thing, so on and so forth. Thank you.
Vanda: Someone else went to…
Male: I think it’s fair to say, and I’ll strengthen what Izumi said, is the range of opinions at this point, given that we’ve only had a week to look at it, range from stomp it into the ground and make it disappear quickly to yeah, it’s pretty good but there’s a couple of things I disagree with. So I don’t think we’re in a position to give an ALAC opinion at this point. I found it very pleasing that they didn’t come in with what is almost a standard consultant’s reply to a structural question of you need to re-organize it all immediately. And this is how to do it. I was also very pleased that they acknowledged the fact that this is quite the different group than the interim ALAC and the fact that the review was done at this point based on a clock that started for the original ALAC was perhaps not the best decision. I think acknowledging the fact that this is a new group that’s just started to work is a very important plus in that report. And we need to work through exactly what we want to come out as our opinion if there is one, or the multiple opinions that we have on it as it stands.
Alan: I have to go, so I just want to say thank you for having me, Paul, as I understand, you’ve got other directors to help. The obvious comment is that nobody who gets reviewed seems to like us, so just bear that in mind, please don’t stop the work of the… into the ground, I know you wouldn’t, hopefully you will encourage your colleagues not to do that. We really do have to work out a process of having a formal response to the Working Group and the reason we’ve popped them out of time and then move forward. I’d be very concerned if we got into another GNSO reform because we seeing the same kind of pattern. We really do have to get better at this in terms of organization. And really, this has got to happen every three years. So it may be that this report isn’t the best and it may be that some of these reforms will be undone at the next term but there will be another time, so, you know, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We may not, you may not get it perfectly right and I can see the Chairman of the Working Group is here and I’m not suggesting that she and the work isn’t perfect. But you know, there has to be some sense of progress about this and moving on. Thanks.
Vanda: Let’s thank you, too, Peter, thank you. And that I need to give the work to 09 was in the queue. Please?
Tricia: Mine’s very short and really to re-iterate what we said at yesterday’s meeting which was the meeting for Westlake to present the report. But in terms of process, their report isn’t yet finalized. As you know, it’s been agreed there’s an extra two weeks to give the comments to the draft report. And I haven’t seen lots yet bulging there, so please put those comments in. And that’s really the beginning of the next process for the Working Group to start its work. And as you know, there is a session about 2:00 tomorrow, for comments in the broader sense to start plus there are two office hour sessions that have been set up. And picking up on Peter, on the Chairman’s point, we also yesterday, set the marker in terms of, as well as introducing the rest of the Working Group, to our timetable, which is for the Cairo meeting to have a “State of the Nation” report, which means that it’s not the final report, that it’s where the thinking is. And it would be the final report if nothing else were added but really, we absolutely want the final report to be done in time for the… I said, the Spring Meeting but then I was talking Australia, it’s not Spring in March. So, for the March meeting, and for that really hopefully, to have had a broad-ranging input. I think there’s lots of lessons being learned in terms of the GNSO review work, so hopefully things get faster. And also, the staff support that we’ve received to date with Denise and her team, and now Patrick Sherry is going to be helping as well, has been excellent, so really, what we want is from you to say everything and input it into us, because unless we have it, we can’t reflect it in there.
If I can for the history point, put a marker to say, we’ve heard that, in fact, Carl 39 who’s one of the Working Group members, feels certainly very strongly that in the report, a record of what the history meant should be there, as a minimum. So that point certainly will be picked up. But we really, really, really want your input through the comments and to let us deliver on time. And I’m sure Paul also wants that, because there are many hooks, whether it’s on NomCom or other things that are outstanding that affect other reports, and that’s why other things we’ve heard 16 do that. Thank you.
Vanda: Thank you, Tricia, Annette, your time, finally.
Annette: All right, thanks. I don’t want to get into the details of our opinions on the report, you will get that in a written way, that’s for sure, and you already heard something, you’ve already picked up the history issue. But I was really puzzled yesterday by the statement of Richard saying that the structure talking about participation of users on a regional level, that the idea or vision or just the analysis of possible voting rights for users, directly or indirectly to the Board, was not in the scope of the review. And that really puzzled me because we are actually talking about the structure, how do we make it work, and what do users expect and how can they make an impact. And all these layers of indirectness are a real problem to us. So if the analysis of that is not in the scope of the review then I don’t know what the review is about. And then we were told, and this might be interesting for the folks of the Board review, we were told that that is actually a Board review issue and good luck.
Vanda: Is Sylvia…
Male: French 01:22:52 - French male speaker is cut out and the voices of the English and Spanish interpreters are heard, however, the voices are overtalking and it is not possible to entirely transcribe in English what is being said. Included below are some parts of what is heard by the English interpreter.
Translator: Thank you. I have two points. I’ll just give you a chance to put your headsets on if you need them…two plus two comments. First of all, I found the Westlake Report interesting for two reasons. First of all, it was quite rich in content but also it’s the method that they applied. I found it that Westlake’s method leads a number of possibilities open for accountable positions for responses and so on. To an extent I even find certain position taken in the Westlake Report provocative but the role of this publication is to approach the community to come up with counter-proposals, to feed the debate. The second point I wanted to make concerns the method that you should apply or that would be useful for you to apply. I’m speaking as a member of the Working Group, chaired by Tricia Drakes, the more you want to be effective, the more you want to see us handed our own report within a reasonable deadline, the more I think you need to ensure that your analysis of each point or select point be followed by taking a specific position. In short, it’s not enough to analyze and say this doesn’t suit us, we don’t like that, and so on. As far as possible, I would encourage you to formulate positions that…proposals….thank you.
Vanda: Thank you, Thomas, and then, Wolf.
Thomas: Just to speak to the specific point about voting rights and scope, the Working Group has actually had a bit of a conversation about that, and I think it’s fair to say that the question of, for example, of whether there should be voting representation on the Board, skirts the edge of whether it’s in the scope of the review. And I think to go back you have to look at what the Review is actually doing. It’s tasked by the by-laws, and the by-laws specifically say you have to review the structure of the ALAC. And this, I think, fits in the grey area that’s sort of, you can make arguments that it does impact the ALAC structure, and you can also make the argument that it’s not really, doesn’t impact how the ALAC works. And so, I think if you want to raise the point about voting rights and things like that, it would be very helpful to tie it back to the terms of reference to show why it applies or why it impacts the ALAC as an organization. And in terms of… I think there is some recognition, sort of saying this is going to be handled by the Board Review, is not really covering the bases, because it’s not clear the Board Review will cover this question either. And it may end up falling through the cracks and that in some sense is the difficulty with a number of independent reviews, that pieces the organization, and then having things fall through the crack, and in my view, this is an issue that may be falling in those cracks.
Vanda: Wolfgang?
Wolfgang: I recognize the need to go into the details of the functioning of the ALAC and the day-to-day operations and so far the mandate of this Review was clear, but very limited. What I have in mind is… the time is more than ripe to have a more strategic approach to the role of At-Large and ICANN. In particular, when we look beyond the 49. And I would put this into a 53 and I can only encourage the Committee under Tricia’s leadership, to have this 00 view and to look into other bodies which are now in the club, including the ITF, including the OACD, which is now planning to have a civil society advisory council for the Internet economy, it means really to come up with an innovative idea how to improve the interaction among the various constituencies in ICANN, the various stakeholders, and to re-define the role of At-Large in the ICANN structure. According to the amendment to the Joint Project Agreement, ICANN has the task to become a model of a multi-stakeholder organization. This is a good slogan but it’s not yet clear what does it mean, in particular if it comes to the interaction and concrete procedures. And this was not part of the terms of reference for the review. But I think it should be the subject also, of the Committee, to look into this 54 context because this is a strategic issue and will help that ICANN remains the frontrunner in moving forward with a multi-stakeholder 03 on a global scale and will ICANN also protect against probably new efforts by governments to step in and to say they represent the users and they represent the people and they want the control of ICANN. There is a risk that this debate comes back after 2009 and ICANN has to be prepared and I think the proper role of the At-Large been to ICANN structure which goes beyond the recommendations of the Review is of extreme importance, and we have a good opportunity now with this new Committee. And by the way, Tricia, it was not only called 40 part of the elections 42 became also the free elected representative of Africa. And Vittorio was the Chair of the Interim At-Large Committee, so you have all the history in the Board, make use of this history. Thank you.
Tricia: Just I would have actually made that point, it was just Carl came through there, but 03 is also active and I’m sure will be speaking at tomorrow’s section, so my point was really, we have the balance there and clearly, in terms of the Westlake Report, that was an independent report, and we didn’t give input into what they said but just reviewed what they delivered and supported staff in doing that. We guess we have a very broad group there and we also want you to provoke us and give input on that. But thank you for making that clear.
Vanda: Okay, now we have Robert, and Evan, Vittorio, Alan, and Annette.
Robert: This is Robert. I just want to make maybe two quick comments. The comments made earlier, I think, is useful for ALAC to know in terms of the steps, going forward and how we can best comment on the period. We were given the report in short notice, and so being able to respond, I think, is a gut reaction that came out first. But hearing that this is being seen in a broader context and it’s specific input and the reaction is requested is much useful, and so any type of guidance in terms of the timelines, so we can comment appropriately, has not necessarily been so instructed to us. And so we’re happy those comments are coming in. On a specific issue on the report, one that I see which is perhaps a bit lacking, which I’ve commented many times about now, which I would like to make clear to our guests, is the issue that if ALAC is envisioned as a structure that is supposed to represent Internet users and increasingly there are more Internet users and we’ll have to probably scale up, comments on how we plan for strategy and the issue of scaling ALAC, so instead of perhaps representing ALSes, we would be representing thousands of ALSes, as that’s probably a better way, structurally, we can not handle that now. And those challenges that ALAC faces going forward, if it were to grow, perhaps aren’t addressed as they should, in the report. And that is a strategic item that’s missing. That would be something that I was expecting to see in the report and I would hope that there could be some discussion on that, as the Board considers not only the review of ALAC as a structure, but if it’s envisioned to grow to really represent the Internet users of the world, then what will be the resources and challenges going forward. Thank you.
Vanda: Thank you Robert. Evan?
Evan: Yeah, I guess I would have hoped that the way that this was done would have been handled a little better because I think what happened was, for instance, in our region, a lot of the ALS reaction that we had, was this 07, it was of the stomp category. And I think it had to do more with the way that this was done. I would have much rather had had something where this week could have been used as a way to consult, as a way to codify things, and perhaps not to have done the draft until the end of this week to allow some consultation to happen. I think the order in which things happened, the process in which things happened, almost encouraged a kind of hasty, visceral reaction, that really hasn’t been extremely positive. And in response to one of the earlier comments, you absolutely have, at least from my neck of the woods, our word that we will be turning this into positive, alternative contributions. It’s one thing to say we have a visceral reaction to this, but without being able to offer some positive commentary of what we would rather have, it just comes across as complaints. So believe me, you have our word that there will be some very constructive work coming out at the end of this.
Vanda: Okay, thank you. Thomas, please?
Thomas: Just quick follow-up. This really goes without saying that maybe we should clarify, in terms of the Working Group, what we want. What I would expect to see in terms next steps and input, is, what is wrong in the Report. What recommendations did they get wrong, and why are they wrong. And probably more important, what did they not say that they should have said. And then, I can also see, in some sense, the timing is certainly sub-optimal in the sense of having the materials available a week before, without time for translation and so forth. But that’s forced by the schedule that we were into. The next steps really are to… they are going to issue a final report, so this is a draft, I would expect the final report to be close to what it is now with maybe some corrections or some changes, and then we have to assess what the final report is, and what do we do next. And the next part is then, how do we take it forward and what are the actual real recommendations we want the Board to make.
Vanda: Thank you, Thomas. Vittorio, please? We don’t have so much time, we have…
Vittorio: Thank you, no, I intend to be brief, speaking personally as someone who’s been on the ALAC, on the Board, on the Working Group, everywhere chuckles. Well, I think that there clearly is an issue, because the way I can do the Review is doing a separate review of each body, leaves certain things out of the scope because they really pertain to different bodies at the same time. And I think you have to understand that the Review had a very limited scope. The Board of Governor’s Committee Review Working Group might have a somewhat broader scope, still, I think that for us in the Working Group, we still have to understand from the Board how long we can extend, and maybe take into account broader issues. But in the end, we tried to work it out with maybe our current Board members, but in the end, I think, I agree with Wolfgang, the real problem that people seem to be unhappy about and is not being addressed, is that how is ICANN accountable to the general public in the future. The At-Large was also meant to be an instrument for this. And I think this is maybe a bigger problem, bigger than the ALAC Review, but somewhere it needs to be addressed. Maybe in the 38 discussions, which, unfortunately I think, are going through this precedent strategy committee, which in a certain sense is necessary because you are dealing with delicate, diplomatic issues. But on the other hand, you really need to make that a broader discussion and involve also the public and the 46 community. So maybe the Board will have to think of something specific to deal with that question and maybe the ALAC will have a role in that process as well.
The other point I would like to make is about comments. The only comment I’ve seen now, formally, is the one from the American RALO and I think it was a bit of a reaction, maybe. So I hope you have realized that this is just the beginning of the process it’s not like everything has already been decided. And so, there will be time to…actually, even contradict the report and to present alternative options. I think it would be good for the ALAC to address not just the issue of banging on the table because we want the voting right on the Board, but some of the observations of Westlake that are more in regard to the internal structure of the 30 ALAC. For example, they say that they tried to check the websites of the ALSes and half of them, maybe, were not functional. So does the ALAC have an opinion on that? How can you ensure that all the ALSes are actually functioning and involved? On those kinds of points, I think it would be very good to get comments from the ALAC. Thank you.
Vanda: Next one is Alan, please?
Alan: There have been a number of comments in the last few minutes about the scope of the Review and the terms of reference. I think it’s important to note that there was a very specific conflict within them. The scope of the review said this is a review of ALAC, not At-Large. But then, some of the specific questions that Westlake was asked to answer related to At-Large, and very much to At-Large and not the ALAC. So, they started with a conflict of what was in scope by the very definition of their assignment. The structure that were using At-Large has four levels of hierarchy. I know of very few operational things that work well with four levels of hierarchy. And my gut feeling at this point, is that some time, once we’ve had more than just a few months of experience in using it, is that we’re going to have to look at the whole thing. Not only ALAC, but At-Large. We certainly don’t want to change it’s day which is now three months after we officially got the last part of it together, but I think it’s going to bear some strong reflection, whether it’s an external reflection or internal, and probably within the next year or so. I think this is something which is in transition regardless of by-law mandated reviews. A structure was put together several years ago that now, four years later, we’re trying to make work. And it’s obvious that we’re finding things that are less than… or sub-optimal, I like your expression chuckles. And that’s only going to be partly reflected in our comments in this review. I think it’s going to be an on-going process to make, to try and distil the thoughts and needs of 1.3 billion users into something that can be used by ICANN effectively in a timeframe which is very short.
Vanda: Yeah, that’s a very good comment. You think about international, ways and paths for ICANN, we need to have a very good focus on the users. Annette?
Annette: Thank you Vanda. That is interesting, Alan just talked about the four levels. So that should be probably ALS, RALO, ALAC, ICANN, right? What four levels were we talking about?
Alan: I was talking about users, ALSes, RALOs, ALAC. What’s above is a different issue.
Annette: Okay, five. Users, ALSes, RALO, ALAC, and then the ICANN as a whole. We could also talk about how do we start our work, we could also talk about Dominic, Nick, Denise, Paul, and then Peter, and all the others in here. We also have layers of staff which is also not making life easier. Certainly I’m talking about non-virtual persons, real person’s life, luckily, vivid and alive. These layers of indirectness are also not very helpful. And I’m talking about the scope again. I think it would have been really helpful to talk about the At-Large work in the whole context. That means also staff, that means also budget, that means do you have some authority to do what you want to do. We were talking about why isn’t there a little book, “Internet for Dummies”, or “DNS for Dummies” and all that. We actually wanted to do that two years ago and then we were stopped because of budget things and confirmation and it’s all very complicated. We could get into details, we don’t have the time for it, but if you want to know more about it, go and ask us. There are so complicated things and life could be… I think, the At-Large work, it is a difficult issue and I don’t want to do the review. It is a difficult task because we are actually responsible for all these different issues and not just one constituency, actually, all the topics of other constituencies too. But if you want to make a review, then the context of this work, the history is important, the staff is important, the structure is important, and this is just a little hint for the scope, that would be helpful.
Vanda: Trish?
Tricia: Again just picking up on that and a couple of the others. One, in terms of the scope of the Report, that was defined. Just to reinforce what Thomas said, this actually happened, and I’m sure Vanda will confirm with the GNSA Review, and I’m not talking about the structural part but all the body of recommendations, where as well as the recommendations as to what should happen, in fact, the staff then looked at what it should cost, and those in Allocation put in the budget to support that. I think also, in looking at both the findings and then what it means, because that’s important in our task, exactly Annette, you were saying, in terms of reaching the users, and I know 35 got a lot to say, as do I, but this is probably a bit unfair, but if he’s still sitting there, we have Jeremy 44 who’s from our UK 46 and if I were him, this is probably his first ICANN meeting as such, that’s 54, it’s really important, this probably sounds a lot of jargon and other things there, but we’re looking at how we reach the British small business, the British user, and those things really are reinforcing and building on the things that everybody has been saying. So hopefully we can pick some of those points out in making recommendations to the Board of Governors Committee and the Board. And we have a very broad group, both of Board members, with Thomas and Jean-Jacques, and also Harold, who is sitting behind, and former Board members, on that group. But I think there’s accountability and there’s other points that we hope we want to do there. So again, reflecting your comments as well. And thank you for recognizing the task is probably a challenging one, because we agree chuckles.
Vanda: You, what is your name?
Male: One question to the comments. I would like to give a comment, I’m 02, a former German 03. But it is very difficult for us and also for the French and Spanish speaking people to give you comments to a 100 pages paper, in between two weeks, if you don’t have translation. And therefore, we need more time or we need, as soon as possible, a translation, at least in Spanish, French and German. It should be normal to have this translation. I thought, I said at least…37 perhaps also.
Annette: Yeah, well, no, no, he was just talking for the EU and at least look at the…no, no, look at current ALSes. I mean, if we’re talking about translation, we all know that it costs a lot of money but at least, for those who are there, and then we can start out-reach and going more to East and then we certainly would need Russian, that’s for sure.
Male: I can tell you that the French and Spanish additions of the summary of the Report will be available at the end of the day, tomorrow.
Male: That is it not enough, we need the whole report, we can’t work with the Summary. I have the English Summary. I have the English whole report, it’s not enough, we need as soon as possible. And I would like to have the answer just now, that two weeks period, starts after publishing the English, Spanish, French and German translation at the ICANN website. Not one second earlier.
Male: I’ll leave it to the Review team to set the dates of public consultation because I don’t actually decide that. The full report, it won’t be available on Wednesday because it’s so long. So we went with getting the summaries done first so that you would have something sooner, because it’s so big, it will take much longer. You will get it, it will be translated.
Annette: Vanda’s absolutely right, the commenting time, that’s the issue. If you close the comments after publishing the translation…
Thomas: I think it’s a great idea to close the comment period before the translations are done chuckles. We’re not going to do that. And I think we fully understand that having a comment period that closes before people can reasonably review and make comments is silly. So I believe the comment period has already been extended because right off the board, we know it’s too short. And it may well be that it’s still too short. If it is, put in a request, let’s talk about it and we’ll deal with that. I don’t think anybody wants to railroad through anything here, it would serve no-one’s purpose and it would… you know, would serve no-one’s purpose.
Tricia: And I think also, to reinforce I hope to date, you’ve heard that we do listen. So having asked for two weeks, which is what the request was, with the help of having current Board members, on the review group, that was agreed. And as Thomas said, this is… we really do want to report in a timely way, but taking into account what’s needed.
Thomas: Right, just to, can I just close. The difficulty with translation is there are real logistical problems, as you well know. So, for example, we could have taken the position we’re not going to publish the English version of the document until the translations are available, but that would have effectively taken this entire topic off the table for discussion this week, which presumably, would not have been a wise thing to do. So to use to word again, sub-optimal, but we’re kind of stuck with what we have.
Vanda: Vittorio wants…
Vittoria: I don’t want to open a can of worms but I’m just cautioned by my colleagues as well, that translation is a great help but not the solution. There are certain countries, areas where’s the no way to get translation from ICANN. Japanese is one, Finn or many other small nation states. For us, we see French and Spanish for many folks outside France and Spain. They use the language, so that’s quite rational. But be aware that we also need to work within the working environment of ICANN, there’s no choice for us than using English, at some point, which gives tremendous burden to us. And so we like to share that burden altogether, not just alienating one side versus the other.
Male: That was the Japanese kind way of saying why German and not Japanese or Italian? I was surprised about hearing German, it’s fine to get it in German, but then, I would like to discuss it with my ALS members in my own language as well.
Male: It affects the structure of ALAC.
Vanda: Okay, it’s Carlos cuts out 6 secs.
Carlos: Spanish 01:49:23 Spanish male speaker is cut out and the voice of the English interpreter is heard, however, it may not be possible to entirely transcribe in English what is being said in Spanish. Included below are some parts of what is heard by the English interpreter.
Translator: It’s my turn, I’m going to speak Spanish. In the report, it’s been said and it’s been said here in the meeting too, that ALAC has problems that have to do with translation, multi-linguism. There are many regions, many end users of the Internet that don’t speak English, and of course, they can’t read it either. Now what… we’re not… just said, is something that I entirely agree with. You can not have a reply to something in a very long document, given the many subjects that we have to deal with, because it’s a big volume of subjects that we’re dealing with, and they all are contained in very long documents, and they are all in English, and I even think that for native English speakers themselves, it’s difficult enough to read through the documents and then voice an opinion, when they are so extensive and there are so many of them. So as a Spanish speaker, let me say that not only is this a subject that should be dealt with in a complete document in my own language, but in fact all the documents should be translated. Because you are asking the users to participate, if the users don’t know what it’s all about, if they can’t read English, or they don’t have time, because in my country, and I think that this is the case for all of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, the people have lots of things to do, to eek out an existence, so they don’t always have time to devote to that. Therefore, I think that the document should be translated in order to make participation easier. And in order to make all the necessary improvements, I think that there are people in these different continents and regions that have excellent things to say. But they can’t do that, because they can’t read the documents, because they don’t have the time or because the work’s not made any easier for them, or because they are not being listened to, or because no one wants to listen to them. Thank you.
Vanda: Is Hawa.
Hawa: French 34:47 French female speaker is cut out and the voices of the English and Spanish interpreters are heard, however, the voices are overtalking and it is not possible to entirely transcribe in English what is being said. Included below are some parts of what is heard by the English interpreter.
Translator: Thank you Vanda. This issue of translation and languages is something that comes up in the regions, I think, and I would like to add a comment as well. Translating the documents is one thing, but have experts translate them. It’s my experience that we have documents translated into French that are difficult to read and difficult to understand. So please, have experts translate the documents so that the translations actually reflect the true meaning of the original documents, so that we can make the appropriate comments on the original text.
Vanda: Time for us… the precise translation, and that. That’s what Izu said. We need to, at least, have some time and understand that to be together, we need a common language in some way. That’s not English, English is not my language, but anyway, we need to make some effort to be here. So, we are in the end of our time. We have GAC and we would like to have some feedback from the Board, so…
Cheryl: Can I ask Annette, I see Annette, I see Evan, and I see Sébastien who promises me it’s going to be the shortest thing he’s ever said. I really, Annette, need to you to be unbelievably concise, same for you Evan, because the Board must have a chance to respond.
Annette: The shortest ever because I want to not only hear a response to this but I actually think that the meeting, ALAC and the Board should also be an exchange. And actually, I would love to have inputs from your side, what you think is crucial, important, what was on the agenda, you have sometimes, I guess, some very often, more insights on crucial issues and what you think is important. Just give us also some inputs. Thank you.
Evan: My only comment on this is from my point of view, it seems, in some ways, like the translation issue is a symptom, more than it is a cause. It’s a symptom, even two weeks for a 112-page document in English, is a problem. So there has to be some considerations, that especially given the bottom-up nature of ALAC, the way that we have to deal with bringing this information down to the grassroots, that there has to be some consideration that maybe this is a little bit of a different situation than some of the other constituencies that can get to their members faster. I’m just asking for some consideration of that.
Vanda: Sébastien?
Sébastien: Just to say about experts. You are experts around the table, but you consi-… ICANN staff or ICANN votes, consider us as 26 and we don’t have to be paid. But you pay somebody outside of the community to do this work and they will do the work with no… the knowledge that we have. Maybe you can reconsider and have some people around this table taking care of that. Not just because they are ALAC members, but because they are experts, and somebody could flow in that direction, not outside of everybody here.
Cheryl: And the final word from who on the Board, who would like to respond cuts out 6 secs.
Hong: And I’ll be very, very brief. What I mean is that translation is always good, but when you use English as a first language to draft a document and express an idea, and think about, you have the global audience, you should try to use some neutral terms. There is universally accessible and understandable, such as “At-Large”. This is a term that is never able to be translated into Chinese, and now I’m helping Nick to edit a Chinese translation for fast flux briefing, and they use the fast flux in the Chinese documents, it is so shocking to Chinese readers, it’s outrageous to us. What is fast flux in the Chinese characters? It’s just total…
Male: I’m not sure that the term “fast flux” means a whole lot to English speakers to be honest with you chuckles.
Male: Well, could I suggest in Chinese 13 or something like that, but coming back to a more fundamental question raised by Annette. As a Board member, as a member of Tricia’s working group, and considering the purview or the mandate which was given to the Working Group, I would have… my suggestion would be concentrated at this stage mostly on method. I said this before. I think it’s very useful that you consider that after our Working Group work, this will go to the Board. So there are several stages, as Annette pointed out. And in order to avoid loss of important data or views, I think it’s that you address global issues first. It’s almost as if I were asking you to put a one or two page Executive Report at the head, or on top, of all the other considerations you will be sending to us. And in this way, we will be able to address your priorities first. Rather than trying to imagine what your priorities were, because we are stuck with problems of communication or layers, which were indicated earlier, or language. All of which are perfectly legitimate considerations, and therefore, real difficulties. But I would encourage you to have a very executive approach to this, to make for the most efficient input into what will be our collective work.
Cheryl: Thank you and thank you very much for the enormous amount of time that the Board members have spent with us today, it is really valued. I must say, I know there’s not a lot of interchange coming back but what does happen, of course, is you take the views on and share them with the Board. Obviously, as individuals, you can hardly speak on behalf of the Board in a forum such as this, and we do appreciate that.
Vanda, my undying gratitude for coming back to the fore, as I know you can, as would Sébastien, as my more than 22 Chairs, and I do thank everyone else for indulging me for a moment. Which, of course, perhaps we could all think about, what we’re doing here is not actually life and death. And from that point of view, we might move on to the Picasso Room and our meeting with the 38. Thank you all.
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