03 March 2009 GA Transcription

APRALO-GA-03-03-2009-Transcription.pdf

APRALO Meeting
(Held March 3, 2009)

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very faint - barely audible We will put this at the beginning of paragraphs where we are having a very difficult time hearing.

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List of Participants
Langdon-Orr, Cheryl
Taiuru, Karaitiana
Allinson, Les
Garland, Sophie
Yu, Phoebe
Aizu, Izumi
Agarwal, Nirmol
Muthusamy, Siva
Rashid, Khalil
Liu , Dr. Chung Laung
Vivekandan, Vivek
Raiche, Holly
Latouf, Mahmoud
Xue, Hong (apologies for late arrival)
Dr. Joung-Im Kim (representing Korea At-Large community as a proposed ALS)
Kummer, Markus
Online: Budrhani, Pavan; Chung, Edmon; Staff
Absent: Keith Davidson - InternetNZ
Unable to attend (due to technical issues): Nguyen Thu Hue - Vietnam

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Karaitiana: We have a few housekeeping matters to attend to first. I’ve got a note that we need someone to assist with the remote chat. Do you know what that means?
Cheryl: Well, I mean, when I’m running a meeting, if we’ve got remote chat on, I run it. But if you can’t multitask, then I suggest you assign someone to go into the adobe 00.21 room and...
Karaitiana: Okay, right. I’ll look after that, then. Now, we need to identify three people who want to be videotaped at the end of the session to discuss what we got out of the meeting, what... three main things that happened. So do we have three volunteers who aren’t camera-shy, or do I have to start delegating? audio cuts out 00.49
Cheryl: Vivek will do it.
Karaitiana: All right. Thank you Vivek. Okay, cool then. And perhaps a female to... Australia. Okay, great. Thanks.
Cheryl: So who have you got in this room?
Karaitiana: Vivek, Siva.
Cheryl: Well, then I’ll argue – I want regional diversity, so you can have Vivek and someone else.
Karaitiana: Okay.
Cheryl: Perhaps Hong Kong?
Sophie: Ah yes.
Cheryl: Thank you. See?
Karaitiana: Thank you, Sophie.
Female: There you go.
Cheryl: Well...
Female: Gender endowments.
Cheryl: I’m actually wondering whether or not... Yeah, does anyone else want to desperately put their hand up? Because we could always do more than three. Three is the minimum.
Karaitiana: Sure. Does anyone else want to volunteer? Okay, cool.
Cheryl: Now if you go back and say, “We needed to have absolute gender equity, and therefore.
Karaitiana: There’s still an interpreter handset missing from the opening session. ICANN have just asked that everyone just check their bags in case you may have forgotten you had one.
Cheryl: Because it’s so useful otherwise. laughter
Karaitiana: Now there’s summit briefing documents for all the RALOs outside room Alameda One, meeting room. They’re in binders, so please help yourselves.
Is anyone participating in the GNSO user meeting today?
Male: I may...
Cheryl: User house 02.23
Karaitiana: Lunch today at 1:00 pm, and there’s shuttle vans leaving here at 12:30, 12:45, 12:55.
Cheryl: And I will be going in the 12:30 one, so I’ll be leaving here. I’ll also have to leave here for Chair duties in the other groups by 12:00, so please, my advance apologies for leaving you early.
Male: Where is lunch?
Cheryl: Anywhere you want it to be.
Karaitiana: Yeah, lunch is between 1:00 and 2:00 pm, that’s... everyone’s responsible for their own lunch.
Male: Where does it go, I mean? Where the bus is going?
Karaitiana: Oh, there’s...
Cheryl: To the user house... may I? To the joint... we have a joint user house meeting with the GNSO, so... at the other hotel. The user house meeting, we could not find another spot for it. So anyone from here who wishes to attend the user house meeting in the Sheraton, will need to go by bus. And the first bus leaves at 12:30, and the busses will also bring you back for your afternoon session. But I would encourage people to come up to that meeting, if they possibly can. But I know you’ve got a very busy day.
Karaitiana: And just to remind everybody to, if you haven’t already, to please sign in at the front desk here, and there’s documents for the meeting out there as well.
Okay. 27 It appears as though everybody’s here, except for Hong. So if we could get started on the agenda. There’s a few new faces here, so I’d like to go around the table, and if everybody could introduce themselves, say who they are, who their ALS is, and any other relevant information. And I’d also like to point out that, as secretary, Pavan is not here this week, so he has a delegate here, Sophie, next to me, who will introduce herself as we go around. I think, could we start with you please, Siva?
Siva: Thanks. Shocking. I had a shock in the laptop also.
Male: Static. That’s probably static electricity, and I keep getting it three way 05.09.
Male: I also got it.
Siva: I got it in my laptop. It’s not static, it’s something else.
Cheryl: Do you know how much paperwork is involved, filling out resuscitation 05.22 forms? They’re in triplicate, I’m not going to do it.
Siva: It’s only the static. It’s only this.
Male: Static, static.
Siva: Well, I’m getting shocked every day at ICANN, so... Only because of the clothes that I wear, velvet and... Siva Muthusamy, from ISOC India Chenai 06.02. It’s an ALS that was certified about three months back, and we have about 100 members, and we’ll do a lot of activities as I take home the inputs from this meeting to the local structure. Thank you.
Vivek: Yes, yeah. I’m Vivek Vivekandan, from Hyderabad. I’m a professor of law, and I’ve been involved in Internet governance for quite some time. My first seminar course to the students was 1998, on e-governance, and in that context I’m elected 52. I’m working on this. Thank you.
Holly: I’m Holly Raiche, from the Internet Society of Australia, which is the at-large structure.
Les: I’m Les Allinson from PIC-ISOC, and we represent some... an area about the size of Europe. However, we’ve got about 800 members, 800 members plus.
Mahmoud: My name is Mahmoud Latouf from the Arab Knowledge Management Society. This is my first meeting. The AKMS represents different Arab countries and the Middle East.
Cheryl: Good morning. My name is Cheryl Langdon-Orr. I’m a member of the same at-large organization, ASOC-AU, as Holly Raiche is. I’m one of your, along with Vivek, elected representatives to the ALAC from APRALO, and I have the honour of being the current ALAC chair. And the reason there’s two people here from ISOC-AU is that ISOC-AU would not have been represented here across the whole of the summit because I have chair duties without an alternate. So we actually run three alternates in our ALS. We have our executive director, Holly, myself, and our president. But only one of us votes at any one time, so Holly will be voting on behalf of the association today.
Karaitiana : My name is Karatiana Taiuru. I’m the current Interim Chairperson. My ALS is the New Zealand Maori Internet Society/ Aotearoa Maori Internet Organization. We have about 550 members. Yeah, thank you.
Phoebe: Hi, my name’s Phoebe. I’m here on behalf of Pavan, and wanting to get more of the Asian population online and see what they’re concerned. I’m from ISOC Hong Kong.
Izumi: Nihau, my name is Hong Xue – oops, she’s not there. My name is Izumi Aizu...
Cheryl: Very, very rude. That’s a point of order. I know there’s tensions between some of us in the past, but that really is extraordinarily rude, and I want to object to that, on behalf of Hong.
Izumi: I’m sorry. I have no intention to insult anyone, but I apologize. Must be the shock 09.10. My name is Izumi Aizu, I’m from Tokyo. I’m from Internet Users Network, and I’ve been involved with ICANN since 1997. We worked very hard from AP region to bring the voices of Asia-Pacific, as we hosted first AFWP, I mean the second one in Singapore, and first ICANN meeting in Singapore. I really appreciate this APRALO starting fully fledged. I feel like I am getting too old, although I’m still young, and I... I asked our chair to add some agenda that we would like to really share our own views about the two meetings of ICANN coming to our region this year, in a row, so which gives us a good task, perhaps. But good working environment as well. Thank you.
Sophie: Good morning, everyone. My name is Sophie. I’m from Taiwan. We are one of the at-large structures in Taiwan, and we have around 800 members there. And I think the most difficult work that we have done in Taiwan is that we have... we are not able to translate ICANN documents, or the issues that they are talking about to our end-users. Those issues are very, very difficult for regular Internet Users to understand. But from the meetings that I have attended in the summit, especially for introduction ones, the first one, I have learned something that I can share with our users. Thank you.
Nirmol: Hey, good morning, my name is Nirmol. I represent ISOC-wiki India. Our organization was enrolled in 2004. We have approximately more than 200 users. Our governing body constitutes about 8 members who represent different industries, so that takes care of the recommendation being forwarded by the users to the Board, and then forwarded to the ALAC. Thank you.
Chung: My name is Dr. Chung Laung Liu from ISOC Taiwan. For the last two years, we received research grants from ISOC international, and we are very anxious to look for research partners to expand these two projects beyond what we have done in Taiwan. The first project is on a wiki history of network development in Taiwan, the second project is on IPV6, and as I said, I would be delighted to talk to you here, or receive e-mails from you.
For example, the wiki project on network development history would be something natural for every place, and if we can somehow work on our own and link them together, that would be something quite interesting and useful. Thank you.
Karaitiana: Great, thank you everybody. Has everybody made themselves familiar with their operating principles of APRALO? It’s one of the handouts. If I just give you a minute or two just to quickly look at section 5.2, 6.4.
Chung?: Now that everybody is reading, my I reveal my ignorance by asking some general questions? First of all, is ALAC a recognized advisory committee to ICANN?
Cheryl: I’d be happy to respond to that, yes. In fact, ALAC, the 15 person committee elected by the RALOs and populated by the nominating committee of ICANN is a by-lawed entity, an advisory committee, exactly the same but with different powers – because the GAC has additional powers to the GAC.
Chung?: Okay, so that’s the reason I have my second question. So, if that is the case, is memorandum of understanding, could it be or should it be that APRALO have such an understanding with ALAC, instead of ICANN? What is the legal justification there?
Cheryl: I won’t speak on behalf of Mr. John Jeffries, the legal counsel for ICANN, because it would be impossible for me to do so. But I do know that they went through this very carefully. I’ll take this on notice and ask that you have asked the question. But because the At-Large structures are accredited by ICANN through an ALAC vote, right? So your ALS is accredited by ICANN through its committees. The ALACs vote, and the RALOs are an accumulation of those certified At-Large structures. When we went through it the first time, it was the memorandum between the RALO and ICANN that was appropriate, but if you want me to have a small piece of briefing put together on that for you, I’d be delighted to do so.
Chung?: Oh, thank you. I feel I am less ignorant by now.
Izumi: And to add, that MOU between ICANN and APRALO is part of the ICANN by-laws, which almost mandates both parties agree to form ALAC, so if you read the memorandum of understanding, one of the functions of the RALO is to elect two representatives to ALAC, which is the formal advisory of the ICANN, or that... so we are part of, legally... so, not necessarily directly part of, but we are making the arrangement, in a formal manner. Okay?
Cheryl: And just to follow on from Izumi, other important matters of course, it then comes to how the nominating committee is populated. There’s sort of circles within circles, and it’s very important that all the pieces are in the right lineup. But it just struck me then, how important your question was, that the APRALO, or any RALO’s, memorandum of understanding with ICANN is a by-law matter, because I know in another RALO, not ours, I’m pleased to say, some of the individual members... they have individual members as well as structures. We only have structures in Asia-Pacific, but then we’re just so much better in Asia-Pacific. I’m biased.
Um... one or two of the individual members had wanted to have on their agenda this morning the possibility of seceding from... seceding as a regional organization and becoming a constituency in the GNSO, and the response was from me as Chair is, “Feel free to take your individual voices and make a constituency, but that particular RALO stays as that particular RALO. We just put new people in the chairs, because it’s an actual entity.” But yeah, we need to realize that these things are set like this for those very reasons.
Holly: Just a question, but how is Asia-Pacific defined? Is it defined in the documents? Because I know there’s some discussion going on about the sort of regions. We happen to be, I think, the largest, but where does Asia begin and end, legally?
Cheryl: Well, thank you. It’s not going to bite you – they’ve put cardboard under it. Perfect segue to something that I wanted to raise in Any Other Business, so I’ll raise it now. The ICANN geographical regions have a particular sort of alignment and structure. They are a slight variation on a couple of them that are used in the United Nations process. So for... and I wish I had my slides from yesterday’s geographic workgroup meeting, because I could... and I’ll be happy, actually, I’ll get them as a hard copy and we’ll put them in these meeting notes. Because, in fact, it’s the way the ccNSO is structured, okay? Is that they needed regionalization, so that the country codes could be organized, all right? However, there’s a lot of follow-on from how ICANN regions work, okay? And one of the things that struck the ccNSO was that you had some island states which are in one place, but they belong to Europe, so it was very bizarre. Language is different, and everything else.
For Asia-Pacific, we run from the Antipodes up through to the most western part of the Arab states. We are numerically the largest number of countries. From memory, please correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s either 73 or 78. We have all the centre of Asia, which of course we need a whole lot... So, from an APRALO perspective, we’ve got a huge number of ALSs to get on board, and we are currently, as ICANN, the ALAC is part of a geographic regional review, because we are currently reviewing the regions.
And this is so important that each and every one of you, and I’m going to look particularly to my sub-continental and my Arab friends here, so important that your membership gives me feedback to take back to that group, because I don’t know whether you want to have Central Asia, Oceania, and other parts of Asia sectored out. But if you don’t tell us, then we can’t bring that into the mix. It’s also important when we bring out our first discussion document, that your membership looks at that in a timely manner, and says, “We hate it, we like it, or we want it done this way.” And we bring it back into the process.
And it’s hugely important, Liz, as you well know from the Pacific Islands point of view, the two representatives that we have, which is... If you’ve got 32 countries... how many countries do you actually have within...?
Male: inaudible 20.35
Cheryl: 22, 22 countries. I’ll repeat it for the record – 22 countries in one chapter structure, which is quite amazing. So it’s currently under review. There is argument for or against moving them, and what the working group is considering right now is should we not have different purposes for geographic regions. So we have a, perhaps, for voting purpose regional arrangement, and then sub-sections under that which are more fit for purpose, and where we can work with perhaps language groups or cultural groups or whatever. But there is no international best practice of dividing up the world, because we’ve looked, and we literally can’t find one.
So thank you for the segue. We are all the way from about as far west as you care to go, and I’ll get you the maps. I’ll hopefully get them to you sometime today, I’ll try even for this morning. But all the big blue bits are us.
Karaitiana: We’ve just got a small...?
Phoebe?: Excuse me? I’m sorry, this is the first time I attend this general meeting. I was wondering the reason why we were going to talk about the change of APRALO articles. Why change it, why not stick to the original one?
Karaitiana: Over the past... maybe since the Bali meeting, when APRALO signed their MOU in Bali, we’ve had a number of problems with the participation. We’ve tried various, different avenues to increase participation. We tried changing the format of the meetings. We’ve tried direct messaging people, so this is kind of our last resort, to try and get more participation, and to allow decision making to occur. At... as the absolute last solution that we have to do. We didn’t want to change the quorum, but this is where we’re at now. We spent a number of months not being able to make a decision based on not enough people to form a quorum, and we also need the ability for people to hand in a proxy. For example, if Pavan can’t make a meeting, he can give Sophie a proxy. Yeah, so this is all designed to increase our participation.
Phoebe?: I was wondering if other RALOs are doing similar things to change their articles? Should all of us have the same articles?
Karaitiana: Um, each RALO, as I understand it, acts separately from each other and create their own by-laws. I do know that the issues that we have are common amongst all RALOs. I haven’t had a chance to talk to the other chairs to see if they’re doing the same thing, but I believe that they may be introducing proxies.
So just on that brief background that I gave about participation issues, we’d like to introduce a new section to the by-laws or the articles, to introduce giving a proxy. Does anyone have any discussions about this before we take it to a vote? I’m interested in hearing both for or against, anything that you want to contribute.
First of all, we have to agree to the proxy voting, then we’ll get to the template. So at the moment there is no mention of proxy voting in the articles, so this will be a new section that we add.
Holly: Is there any sort of guidelines on pro- cuts out 25.43 for votes, for issues that really are important and need a vote? Otherwise, do you really need a proxy? I mean, is it worthwhile thinking through those occasions when you actually need a proxy?
Karaitiana: One of the suggestions was that we use a proxy for our monthly meetings. Considering the time zone differences, it’s going to be quite easy to just give someone a proxy, which will help us get a quorum and make decisions a lot quicker. So, on that, I guess we can use proxies for everything, is the general thought.
Izumi: Is there any draft to refer to, or just general idea of adding proxy? There’s nothing prepared as a text?
Karaitiana: At the moment, it’s the general idea to include a proxy. A number of months ago, a template was sent around the APRALO list for consideration, and we were just... hopefully we’re going to have a copy of that soon for the...
Cheryl: It is literally on its way, Matthias is tracking it down. It’s a matter of me standing... sorry. It was a matter of me standing in the middle of the room, going, “Now, we sent that about October 10th, so if you look in the mile archives,” so they’re following my verbals, and we should have it shortly.
Karaitiana: Excellent.
Izumi: So that covers all the proposed changes, not only proxy, I understand, right? So then it might be wiser to wait until it comes in, or should we discuss without? Because for me it’s rather easier to see the text and then discuss.
Cheryl: That said, this really should be a ratification of the poll. All these documents were linked to the poll that went out in October, which is where I’m telling them to look for them, and I believe, Izumi, you voted on them at that point in time. So really, this exercise is a formal ratification into our paperwork of something that has already been voted on.
Izumi: I understand myself was, but there are certain people who were not there, or first time here, so it must be not too easy to understand what’s going on, you know? So to help, please.
Karaitiana: Well, perhaps we’ll just move on from that item until that template gets here, and hopefully that template will refresh people’s memories on how they voted.
Cheryl: I can tell you how they voted – they voted in the affirmative, 100 percent.
Karaitiana: Okay, so I guess the next big issue that we have is changing our quorum from seven... it should actually say seven to five, I think, or one-third. Um... again, the same reason as with... we had a number of problems trying to reach quorum at our meetings, and there’ve been a number of months that we’ve had no way to make any decisions. So again, this has been discussed during a lot of our meetings during the year. Does anyone have anything they’d like to raise on this issue before we take it to a vote?
Siva: Yeah, I hope we have the quorum to vote on the quorum issue. laughter
Karaitiana: Yes, we certainly do, Siva.
Sorry?
Holly: Well, I think the question, and it’s mine as well, is if you have a total number of members, what percentage does the change...? In other words, if we’re going from seven, which is the number I read, to five, what kind of percentage drop is that? So, what does five out of how many numbers?
Siva?: Oh, what are our total numbers, first?
Cheryl: Total numbers? You tell them to him.
Karaitiana: Okay. Total numbers. We’ve got what, fifteen, sixteen ALS?
Male: Fifteen.
Karaitiana: Sixteen, that’s correct. In terms of being active ALS, the number is more like maybe 11 or 10 or 9, to be fair.
Siva: At present?
Cheryl: At present.
Siva?: So, out of 16, we are really talking one-third.
Cheryl: Well, please, if I may, the particular by-law that we’re referring to is at 6.4 under meetings, point four of your operating principles. And 6.4 reads as follows: “A quorum at any annual general meeting or meeting,” and it’s the “or meeting” that we had a problem with, “Should be one-third of the members, or seven members, whichever shall be greater.” The proposal is to remain it at one-third of the members or five members, whichever shall be greater.
Izumi: So it’s from seven, we are making it five?
Cheryl: And that really... we’ve never had a problem with an AGM, it’s the monthly tele-confs we often get six, you know, and it’s...
Izumi: I see.
Holly: I have a question. When it says, “Or greater,” that’s not going to help. So you’re still stuck with a third, you’re still stuck with eight. Or you may... you’re still stuck with more, so I think you should look at both.
Cheryl: off mic 31.26 Make a proposal.
Karaitiana: Yeah, my thought was that we could remove the one-third, and just... yeah.
Holly: I would do that, because right now, you’re stuck with a larger number, so the change has made no difference.
Siva?: No, but I think that we should retain the one-third. That is the principle, normally.
Cheryl: Well, then we need another fraction.
Siva?: Numbers then become a bit arbitrary, when we say that... one-third, we are trying to manage that one-third is only numbers.
Cheryl: Well, perhaps we need to look at another fraction as opposed to one-third that equals five?
Siva?: Maybe... you are telling 16, so it should be what you call it, strictly speaking, so a fraction can be six.
Izumi: Yeah, I have a similar question – so, when we increase numbers, how do we really do? And by five, then it says greater than... automatically, five doesn’t make sense to me, so why? What’s the solution?
Siva?: You are telling increase in number, of the total numbers. Then if it be one-third, then it comes to the next inaudible 32.35 in the meeting, that’s all. It’ll go this one year.
Izumi: So it means just one-third will help solve the situation, or not?
Siva?: Well, maybe we can change it to one-fourth, under the circumstances?
Male: No, no, no, one-third is...
Vivek?: We can keep it one-third and five, and rather than saying whichever is greater, we can say whichever is lesser. That’s usually the quorum requirement. You don’t put the higher value as the quorum, you always put the lower value as the quorum.
Holly: That makes sense, because in fact the problem with 16 and one-third is you have a fraction of a person voting. Whereas if you’ve got 5, it’s probably closest to one-third, with 16. So 5 makes sense, because it represents as close as you can get, in real people.
Vivek?: No, this principle of the greater is always used, because you’re talking one-third as a reasonable number. Otherwise, that is the whole issue.
So then you could put also and say whichever is lesser.
Les: I just want to draw the meeting’s attention to another ALS, the Arab Regional ISBs and DSBs association, which currently is under... being... their status is under step three, ALAC conducting due diligence. Now, it may be possible that we then have 17 members within two or three months, so those people that are playing with numbers...
Cheryl: Just stick to a percentage decision.
Les: Yes.
Cheryl: A percentage.
Les : Yeah, Nirmol was saying.
Nirmol: Yeah, answering to what Vivek just said, quorum is basically the requirement of the minimum number of people to be present, so if you make it the higher of, it usually becomes difficult and since it is an ever-increasing... it is a dynamic process of new ALSs joining the organization, it probably might become difficult tomorrow to judge whether the quorum is there or not. So if we have five, we always know that we are meeting the quorum.
Vivek: See, the idea of quorum, what it is, that is the whole principle – it’s not just numbers, what we... The idea of the quorum is that there has been some reasonable discussion. Tomorrow people don`t say that, you know, “I didn’t attend, but this is passable.” So the question of... we need to justify for people not attending, also, that there is a minimum quorum, and so the principle of one-third, you know, is something. That’s what I said, if you make it at six, even if you add two ALS in the next one year or two years, still it’ll be one third. The basic idea of one-third is that there is a basic reasonableness among the members deciding. Tomorrow, people don’t say that these five people, and they finished it off. You get my point. So this one-third business, roughly, is... that’s my opinion.
Male: I agree with...
Karaitiana: I’m sorry, Holly was next. Then Les, Nirmol. I mean Izumi, sorry.
Holly: I’d actually support that concept. Leave it at one-third in the present situation of 16 members. That means the number has to be 6, because 5 is under a third. But it means that as we gain new members, we don’t have to keep changing the number. What we can do is live with a third, and then we just count how many members we have, divide by three, and see if we’ve got the right number of bodies.
Izumi: My question is, doesn’t proxy add the quorum thing?
Cheryl: Yeah.
Izumi: And then sticking with one third, without having five or six discussions may still be feasible, perhaps, once we add proxy. Proxy is not necessarily only voting, but all the meeting business be counted, right? Proxy be counted as fulfilling the quorum.
Holly: A proxy just means that many people are present, and normally, in a proxy form, if there are matters to be voted upon, they are spelled out in advance and with a standard proxy form, you then reply directly as to how you would vote on the particular matters. But, for attendance matters, if someone has put in a proxy, then they are considered as present.
Karaitiana: And Nirmol?
Nirmol: Yeah, answering to what Vivek said, I think there’s some confusion with respect to the quorum and with respect to the passing of a resolution. People choose not to be present at a meeting, so they are responsible for whatever happens and everything if by voluntary act. And it should not be said that if, say, x number of people are not there, an important resolution cannot be put off because a meeting cannot be carried for absence of quorum. So quorum is basically for the meeting to be held, and not for the resolution to be passed. So hence, it should be as little as possible, I guess.
Vivek: I would like to react. See, the point is, when you mean quorum, what do you mean by that? There has to be some principle behind that. We cannot... and still people are not meeting, we are passing. See, I am telling you, you will be later accused. That is the whole issue. See, the point is, when we accept a quorum, we are really talking one-third as a reasonable quorum. So if people cannot come in, then there’s a proxy, all that. But if there is a resolution or meeting, even something is discussed, people may have the same objection to that. The minimum quorum for a meeting is very important even for a meeting, not necessarily that an important resolution is discussed.
Nirmol: So, but, it’s a primary condition of conducting a meeting. If the quorum is not present, the meeting cannot be conducted.
Vivek: Would you accept that two people sit and they attended the conference, still the meeting inaudible 38.20?
Nirmol: So it is, it is, under that, you are well aware in the Indian Act, even that the members are either a lack of shareholders, two shareholders constitute a valid quorum. It’s...
Vivek: What I believe here, we are having a different principle of at-large participation.
Female: Yeah, I...
Karaitiana: Siva, thanks.
Siva: I think we have to take realities into consideration. The background is that we are a voluntary organization, and it is not unusual to find a chapter with 800 members to have 50 people active on the mailing list, and 10 people actually attending the meeting. Or it’s not unusual to find an ALS structure with 100 members with only 10 people volunteering to attend the meetings. So how do we handle that situation? So if we have a high quorum, if we have a quorum by the standard of regular, full-time structures, then it’s going to be impractical to have meetings. So it’s better that we either keep five or one-third, whichever is lower.
Nirmol?: I agree with that, but I guess, Siva, one ALS represents one member. Even if there are 10 members attending the meeting, it would be only counted as one.
Siva: I just gave it as an example of the situation, so when that situation translates here, if we have a regional meeting, we have 15 ALSs. And by the same proportion, typically, we have 3 people or 4 people or 5 people having the time and the inclination to attend the meeting, and so if we have a high quorum, then it’s going to be impossible for us to have meetings, as many meetings, And then, if you don’t have meetings, the issues don’t get discussed, and then again, we get criticized for not discussing issues and not voting upon it, and so that’s an endless cycle. And so we keep a low quorum.
Karaitiana: Holly.
Holly: I still think a third is not unreasonable, because, reflecting what’s been said earlier, if you’re talking about can you actually establish that there has been reasonable participation by all chapters in the decision. If you have a third, it means actually people are participating, they’ve taken the time to participate. Now, at the moment, with the number of members we have, it will... the practical effect will be we will move the number from 7 down to 6. If we have more chapters joining, then in fact it will mean the actual number moves, but the percentage doesn’t. But if we have a low quorum, it will mean a number of matters can be decided by a very few organizations, and I’m not sure that’s the right message to send.
Siva: Yeah, that’s what I’m stressing on, what do you call it? This reality stuff is very difficult, you know? This becomes... then there’ll be a certain level of arbitrary decision making. When we say one-third, we are... we know that we are practically 15, 16 now, and another 1 or 2 comes in, so 18. One-third really means... or if you have a low quorum, you are encouraging non-participation. Rather, ensure participation. That any member has to participate minimum. Otherwise, there is no purpose to be recognized and to be part of this. So ensure compliance, but keep it one-third, which is quite reasonable, that’s a kind of normal practice. By putting in numbers, we run into this danger. You say 5, then I suggest 3, then somebody can suggest 2 – what are the rationale in that? There’s no rationale, and even a person, a single person, can say that I attended, nobody attended, so we are passing. So the whole thing what we are doing is... the whole ICANN exercise is a new type of governance where we are trying to see the maximum participation. So one-third, I felt, I think, is... as I said, the number 5 is a fraction, so you can keep it 6, even if you add 2 more ALS joining in a year or two, and then you can have... always have a review of the whole thing you want to do. But one-third makes... simply dropping the number, one-third makes sense, in my opinion, because out of our enthusiasm to get things done, tomorrow it’s a double SD. It will also start when you are sitting in the chair. So that... we inaudible 42.40 to the foresight late.
Karaitiana: Thank you. Now Holly, then Izumi.
Holly: It’s already on. I would add an additional point as to why one-third is not inappropriate. If... particularly if we pass the possibility of proxies, that is, people can by proxy be present, it eases the difficulty of getting the numbers. It means somebody has at least taken the trouble to say, “This person can vote on my behalf,” or, the way proxies also vote, “I put in something saying that the chair can vote on my behalf, but I have particular opinions on x issue or x issues, I want my vote to be cast this way.” And it means there has been some kind of active consideration by a particular chapter to say, “Yes, I’ve taken the trouble to be... to register I want to be there, and to register the sort of issues I want discussed and voted on, and the way I want to do it.
Izumi: I’m flexible, so I can be either only one-third or have numbers combined. The reason is, that I trust people who operate the meetings. When some kind of issue is very important to all members, I wouldn’t see that they would go with just minimum quorum, and the very minimal threshold of decision. Rather, and some of the decisions are taken electronically, not the teleconference. Sometimes, of very sort of not too important things, but you need to really decide something to meet with the other rest of the ICANN activities. Then you can sort of give priority to the efficiency, rather than sort of the maximum amount of democracy. And as I haven’t really been attending these monthly conferences, because it is taking place at two o’clock in the afternoon, which is, for us... it’s very difficult to me to be 44.53 at that moment. If it’s evening, it’s much easier.
But, however, so I’m... I feel like I have the duty to observe, if things are important for all of us, I will raise my hands or voice, and please put it to the electronic voting, or things like that. So, unlike some of you, I am not a lawyer, so I don’t care too much about the minute interpretations of laws. Rather, we would like to have a common goal to achieve our business, and to come for the best arrangement possible. Thank you.
Karaitiana: I’d just like to bring to everyone’s attention that Edmund has also made a comment on the quorum discussion as well.
Holly: Oh, wait a minute. I said it was!
Male: It was, yeah. It was... it is not inappropriate, right?
Karaitiana: Correct. And so... Vivek and Holly.
Vivek: Yes, as I said that it’s a question of trust, what Izumi is talking, that all of us, or that, lawyers or non-lawyers, we all trust. But I do believe there are problems, that believe in a inaudible 46.06.
Holly: I think the first thing that I want to do is correct what’s up there, and that is that I think one-third is appropriate, and that should be recorded. The next thing is, when we introduce proxies, what that does is mean we have to be very careful about the agendas. So if people cannot attend in person but nevertheless want to be heard, they will know that there are issues that are coming up that are of importance, and they will be able to vote on those matters through the chair, and through indicating how they want their vote to be registered.
Karaitiana: Yup, Nirmol.
Nirmol: I agree with Izumi on this, that whether quorum or no quorum, all important matters should be voted through electronic means, which we are practicing already. That scheme should not be changed. What I understand about teleconference is more of a discussion there are than resolutions being adopted, because we discuss and we resolve to have a voting in the teleconferences, and the voting is actually electronic. So if that has been taken care of all important matters, which is a concern of Vivek, will not go pass by just because, you know, a lower quorum was present, a lower number of people. But it will be a difficulty because we are... we are in different time zones, it could be a difficulty for many people to actually join in. And, you know, we have a different holidays and we have different working times, so it is not always possible for you to join. And the same difficulty lies with the proxy, because it would be from the same jurisdiction. So I agree with Izumi on this.
Vivek: Shall I comment one thing?
Karaitiana: Sure, Vivek, and then Hong. And then after Hong I think we’ll wrap up and go to a vote.
Vivek: Yeah, the point what I said is that as this teleconference is not only our time, sometimes we also add this Google 47.54 thing that different time zones and then it was 10:30, 9:00, 11:00, these are the sort of difficulties, as you said, that a teleconference is a good thing when people are the time and to do things.
The second point is electronic, also. I sent my protest today that I have been listed as not participating in the WHOIS voting, which I sent a protest back to my peers stating that I never received the mail for that. So there also has to be able to really look into... once we move to electronic, also we have to look into the factor that at least a couple of reminders are there. Because if the first one gets into some level of spam or something, it will adversely affect my participation in inaudible 48.33, that you are not participant. This has happened twice to me, and it was a surprise when the results came that there was a voting going on, like that. So we need to also technically insure that you have some technical guidance to me, how to see that it doesn’t become a spam, but at the same time, at least a couple of reminders are important within the period of voting, so that people cannot say that they don’t have time.
As far as teleconference is concerned, that we limit to a lot of things of the background discussions, and people can volunteer to be part of that, because of sometime of the time zone issues and/or personal issues.
Karaitiana: Sorry. Hong, then Cheryl, then we’ll close the discussion.
Hong: Hi, hello, colleagues. I apologize for being late. I’m sorry Karaitiana and other colleagues. I had a very high fever last night. Still not feeling very well. As one of the persons who attended all these conference calls, I must say I suggest we don’t be too strict on the legal issues, even though I’m a lawyer. I don’t believe we should apply either common law or civil law as agency law, strictly here. What we want to do is to move things ahead. So I suggest we defer to Cheryl and maybe move to vote. Thanks.
Cheryl: In fact, it was very much a matter of moving to vote, but you do all have the proxy form in front of you, and whilst we are talking at the moment specifically about the quorum, it’s appropriate, I think, for you to, before you vote on the quorum, read the proxy form and see that we will in fact have greater ease if we are doing some form of resolution, even in a telephonic meeting, to have a proper form of proxy and therefore ensure appropriate numbers.
Can I just wholeheartedly endorse, that’s perhaps the perfect word I should use, not something... I can’t even say it again, what Vivek was saying, and that is that regular teleconferences should indeed be... not limited to, but should be where the groundwork is done, and of course we can always use the big pulse voting tool. We have online voting tools, which means for resolutions per se, we can take them into that forum as well.
Karaitiana: Right, and if everyone can just quickly have a look at the proxy form, which will sway your vote, I guess. And also... if you can also consider the fact that I’m pretty sure all of us are on Skype, and perhaps also... there’s nothing stopping anyone from starting up a text group message maybe a week before the meeting, and we could certainly cover a lot of issues prior to the meeting as well, so...
Cheryl: off mic This inaudible 51.29 can stay out. There’s nothing stopping inaudible APRALO.
Karaitiana: Cool. Alright, and the online meeting at Acrobat is another option as well. Okay, well, could... if we go to the vote, then. So the original question was to change the quorum from 7 to 5, keeping the one-third. All of those in favour of the change, please raise your hand.
Holly: Oh, hang on.
Karaitiana: Did we miss something?
Holly: Well, I thought you were removing specific numbers and sticking to percentages.
Karaitiana: Oh, I...
Holly: It’s changing, actually. As a matter of form, I think we’re probably going to have to take two votes. One is what was proposed, and that’s actually changing the number. And the second matter would be simply a vote saying “delete reference to all numbers,” as a matter of form, because simply we’ve put down that.
Cheryl: Because I’m planning on voting against changing from 8 to 5, because I want to vote for one-third.
Holly: And so you’d vote no and yes.
Cheryl: I just want to be clear that that’s where the discussion is heading, because I’m actually voting no on that, because I wanted the third.
Izumi: So the chair...
Cheryl: So change the resolution.
Karaitiana: So, sorry, we’ve got two votes here, one to change the number from 7 to 5, is that correct?
Holly: Yeah.
Karaitiana: And then another to change the percentage.
Holly: No, no, to simply remove any reference to numbers.
Karaitiana: Remove, sure, okay.
Izumi: And stay with one-third?
Cheryl: Yes.
Izumi: Please be clear.
Cheryl: Yes, that’s what I wanted to say, you need to be clear.
Nirmol?: Sorry, adding to the vote one, we will also, if we are changing the number from 8 to 5, we will be making it lesser of rather than greater of, which is the current language.
Karaitiana: Okay, so we go...
Holly: Could we not just recall the first... Why don’t, if we want to make this simple, I will move to amend the resolution in front of the meeting, and what... the motion will be simply that a quorum be set at one-third, full stop. Now, we can vote to accept that or not, and then we can vote on it.
Cheryl: That’s the way to go. That’s the way to go.
Holly: All right. The motion in front of the meeting now is to amend the original motion such that we remove all reference to numbers, such that a quorum is set at one-third of the members.
Male: inaudible – off mic 54.18
Holly: Well, that’s automatic. Don’t have to say that.
Karaitiana: Okay, so the section would read “A quorum at any AGM or meeting shall be one-third of the members,” full stop. Yes Izumi?
Izumi: Have we agreed about a proxy formally already?
Karaitiana: No.
Izumi: Because that affects the inaudible 54.39 relation, although I assume we are all in favour of the proxy. And then I’m fine with one-third.
Karaitiana: Yeah, sure. That’s why I asked for people to consider the proxy form when they vote, so you obviously know if you are voting for it or against it. And that will influence your decision for this.
Holly: If it assists you, we can do the proxy form first, and that will influence your vote.
Karaitiana: Right, I get it. So, first of all, can we have a raise of hands for those in favour of the proxy voting, please.
Okay, so everybody’s said yes.
Holly: Could I add, along these lines, this is a very good model, because it makes very clear that what you’re doing by providing a proxy is, number one, you are counted as being present, and number two, you do have the opportunity to indicate your position on matters that are listed. I just think this is a really good form.
Cheryl: Inaudible – off mic 55.43
Holly: I would support proxy voting based on this form.
Karaitiana: Yeah, that’s the second vote we have to take. The form that everybody should have, does anyone have any questions about it.
Yes, talk to Cheryl if you don’t like it.
Cheryl: Talk to Cheryl and Hong if you don’t like it.
Karaitiana: And Hong, yes. So I assume everyone has a copy. off mic chatter 56.22
Nirmol?: Can you explain about... I think the signature doesn’t... it’s an electronic form, right? The whole thing is an electronic form.
Male: off mic 56.47
Cheryl: That’s right. That’s what it has to be, until we get digital signatures, in which case...
Nirmol: Yeah, anyway, unless it is a digital signature, it doesn’t make any sense.
Karaitiana: Well, yeah. I have a digital signature, I just assume...
Cheryl: I have a digital signature.
Karaitiana: If people don’t, probably just a scan of a signature or something should be...
Holly: I was going to say, if you don’t have a digital signature, what you do is you just sign it, make it into a PDF form, and send it. Well, scan it and send it.
Karaitiana: I know in New Zealand, for our electronic forms, by... typing your name in the signature field constitutes a signature, so...
Cheryl: Depends on your local.
Karaitiana: Yeah.
Holly: I was going to say, we’ve got an electronic transactions act in Australia which would actually make this very simple, but that doesn’t apply to the rest of the places.
Karaitiana: Right. So we’ll take a vote on the form then. So all of those in favour, please raise your hands.
And against? And abstaining?
Siva: Against?
Cheryl: Siva against?
Siva: No, no, I’m for.
Karaitiana: Sure.
Cheryl: You were almost recorded as against, then.
Karaitiana: Okay, so everybody voted yes, and Sophie is abstaining from the vote.
Holly: Yay, we’ve got a proxy, woo-hoo!
Vivek?: I think the third one almost you allow a full quorum now, with the proxy in operation, in one sense. Normally you give people...
Karaitiana: And if I can just remind people that there’s comments from our external ALSs on the screen. Now, do they have teleconference facility?
Cheryl: We should have... Actually, Adigo? No?
Karaitiana: So they can hear us and talk?
Cheryl: That’s why we’re using the microphones.
Karaitiana: Great. Great. Um...
Cheryl: But half of those... inaudible 58.48.
Karaitiana: All righty. Okay.
Cheryl: off mic
Karaitiana: So if there’s anyone listening on the phone, just feel free to comment.
Our next agenda item would be to change the quorum statement, so we’re going to vote on the following statement, “A quorum at any annual general meeting or meeting shall be one-third of the members,” full stop, which is...
Male: Quorum?
Karaitiana: ...6.4 of your articles. Can I have a raise of hands of those people who are in favour of leaving it at one-third?
Male: Which includes proxy, automatically.
Cheryl: off mic
Karaitiana: Which, yeah. Great. Great, thank you. And those against?
One-third, correct.
Cheryl: You’re against?
Male: Inaudible
Karaitiana: And those who abstain, who don’t have any opinion?
Okay, passed. So we now have a new quorum at one-third of the members.
Siva?: 21
Cheryl: Use the microphone.
Siva?: Are we taking the votes of the people who are online, who are not present in person?
Cheryl: Just as a point of order... sorry. Someone has to turn off.
Male: Many.
Cheryl: Now I can turn on. Just a very clear point of order – the participants who are there are either in the room or have their alternate in the room. So whilst we could, and this is a very good example, we could have voting, because this tool allows you to vote online, we can actually have an online vote on here with the Adobe. We could actually be having people vote in that way. It is not necessary for this particular grouping, because Edmund has his alternate here. But that said, this is why I am very keen to encourage the RALOs to use this tool over and over and over again, because you can set up... that’s just two things you can set up, there’s half a dozen things you can set up. You can do polling, you can have yes, no, abstain. You can even have all of you even in the room, still using that to record your votes.
Karaitiana: The next item on the agenda is changing the articles or the by-laws from two vice-chair positions... sorry, from one vice-chair position to two. Now, the reason behind this, I’m sure you’re all aware, when Raj resigned... he did the right thing, he gave enough notice, we had a vice-chair, we... yeah, who became the chair. We opened the nomination up for a vice-chair, and the new chairman essentially I guess wasn’t affiliated with the ALS anymore, and nobody could contact him for months on end. So in the end the vice-chair...
Cheryl: Became the chair.
Karaitiana: Became the chair, exactly. So we’ve been operating with no vice-chair for a number of months. laughter So I guess, the thinking behind this is that we need to consider electing two vice-chairs. But we have a guest visitor who’s joined us, so if we defer this to after the morning tea break.
So if I could pass over to Hong to introduce our visitor.
Hong: Dear colleagues, we are so honoured to introduce the secretariat of Internet Governance Forum of the United Nations, Markus, to join us. Markus is very respected in the Internet community, and he successfully organized three Internet governance forums in different countries and different regions. The last Internet governance forum was held in India, in our region, and our organization actually sent delegates to that forum, so we very much welcome Markus. Oh yes. Would you like to...
Markus: Okay, yes. Good morning, and thank you, Hong, for your kind introduction, it’s a pleasure for me to be with you. I know some of your individual members for many years, looking across the table. Izumi is of course a very active member of the Internet community, and also in the context of the Internet Governance Forum. You are dealing here with issues related to ICANN. The Internet Governance Forum deals with broader aspects of issues related to the Internet. It is a baby of the World Summit on Information society, and some of you have participated in these discussions. You will remember that they were quite contentious at times, and one of the ways forward was seen by heads of state and heads of government to ask the Secretary General of the United Nations to convene a forum, a multi-stakeholder forum, which is of course a very important aspect to discuss public policy aspects related to the Internet. Basically, to keep the discussion going, Internet governance interface between the two summits had acquired a definition, and it was clear that the definition went beyond naming and addressing, that is, beyond ICANN issues.
The first three forums we held, in Athens, Rio, then in Hyderabad, showed that there is a demand for this kind of platform. There is a demand for discussions among stakeholders where all stakeholders participate as equals, and this was in many ways what you could call the revolutionary aspects of the summit decisions, that governments actually gave up the prerogative of being among themselves, and they invited other stakeholders to participate as equals, in a 56 that was a, shall we say, a movement that went stronger and stronger, and governments recognized that they cannot do the job alone. Actually, as regards the Internet, it’s other actors that have been running the Internet. However, governments want to be part of these discussions, and you have that also in ICANN, and governments, of course, have a legitimate interest to be involved in discussions on public policy issues.
Some of the issues that came to the fore were really related to the use of the Internet, worries of ordinary users. The protection of children is one of these issues that came up very, very strongly, in Rio first and then also in Hyderabad. Multilingualism and the Internet is another one of these issues that is of everyday concern to users who have not English as a mother language and who use other scripts than ASCII, and of course this is very relevant in your region. You have many, many languages, and also many different scripts, huh? I remember India, in particular, where you have I think it’s 11 different scripts...
Cheryl: We’ve got three of them here. How many scripts have you got?
Markus: Is it eleven scripts, or...?
Male: Twenty-two.
Markus: Twenty-two scripts, yes. So... and how many official languages?
Male: Fifteen.
Markus: Fifteen official languages, yes. I mean, it’s staggering to...
Male: 34
Markus: So the diversity is staggering. So the multi-stakeholder advisory group which was set up to prepare the program, officially to advise the secretary general, at the very first meeting found broad themes that have been with us – access, diversity, openness and security, and then also critical Internet resources. And all in all this proved a very traditional mix, as it combines more technological aspects, such as access and security, but also with more societal aspects, in particular diversity and openness. And we have found, instead of dealing with them separately, that it is actually best to group them and deal with them together, as they are very strongly linked. Openness and security, or security, you can no discuss it without also discussing openness, and the same goes for access without taking into account diversity, be that diversity of languages or diversity of abilities. That would not make sense. Technical access is one thing, but then to have the ability to make use of it is another issue.
So the Internet Governance Forum is unlike ICANN, it’s not a management organization, it’s not a decision making organization or any inter-governmental organization. It is a platform for dialogue. And this concept has proved very useful as participants go into these discussions not to negotiate, not to influence a decision that is taken at the meeting itself, but they go there to talk and to listen to one another, and to meet people they would not normally meet. We meet outside... well, we have this discussion also in ICANN, when we have the various support organizations meeting. And increasingly, I think, there is a notion that it is useful to talk outside of these silos and talk together, and this is what I would say the main value added of the AGF, that it brings various interest groups together. That we don’t, when we talk security, we don’t just have the technical experts, but we also have advocacy groups such as Amnesty International, privacy advocacy groups point to these issues that are obviously very strongly related. You cannot discuss the security of the Internet without listening to this kind of advocacy group.
We are very bottom-up, very open and inclusive, we have a very light registration. We do have to respect certain UN rules, so we have to vet the applicants, but basically we accept any organization or any individual who has, what we say, proven expertise and experience, and we interpret this very loosely. We draw, maybe, a line, shall we say with students, post-graduates, no problem if they’re involved in these issues, but undergraduates maybe no, unless a professor makes a special recommendation – this student is particularly gifted, is working on something, an issue that is really closely related to your meeting.
And while we define an agenda and a program ahead of the meeting, we also very much listen on the input. Right now, we are in the process of defining the program for Sharm El Sheikh, we had a meeting last week, open consultations in Geneva, and a meeting, and we found a broad agreement on the structure of the program. We... I don’t know whether I have time to run you through the program as it is, but we have posted the summary record of the March meeting on our website. You might have seen it already – www.intgovforum.org. And we build very much on what we had in Hyderabad.
However, we also take note of some of the comments made in Hyderabad itself, and since. Participants felt maybe different issues need to be dealt with differently, and this will be the main innovation in this year’s program. We have found there are some more contentious issues, where clearly there is no convergence of use, no convergence of opinions. For these issues, the best way to deal with them is in the form of an open dialogue, an open microphone session, where everybody can voice his or her opinion - a real town hall meeting. We don’t expect any conclusion of this kind of session, and this is basically mainly related to what we name critical Internet resources, naming and addressing all the critical Internet resources in the business context, again go a little bit beyond names and numbers.
Then there are some issues where we have found a common understanding in some areas, but where we need maybe some more discussions in other areas, and the issues related to access... to security and openness belong in this category. It’s a... privacy, security, for instance, is an issue where we never will be able to provide a definitive answer. This will be, I think, an on-going moving target. Different countries will have different opinions, and, to be frank, it is also very difficult to find the exact balance, but this is not just in the online world, this also applies to the offline world.
Another area is access, where we have found in Hyderabad there is a broad convergence of use on the principles and priorities. There is rather... this is rather an area where we need to look for solutions for best practices. In some areas, for instance, the use of satellite or mobile Internet access, more... a deepening of our understanding is needed, but in other areas, such as the importance of setting up ISPs, there everybody agrees. There it may be married in learning from each other what is the best way of doing it, sharing best practices on how to go about.
And then there are areas where we find there may be a good chance of finding a convergence of use among participants, where there is very... for instance, accessibility for people with disabilities, everybody agrees on the importance of the issue. There is, there are standards are there, they are ready to be applied. It is more a question of raising awareness of presenting the standards and making people aware, and the similar protection and empowerment of children and the Internet. With these issues, we will deal differently. We’re talking about having round tables of groups that are dealing with it, who would then report into the main session, and this would be something people could take home, solutions, best practices they could apply when they’re back home in their own area of competence.
In Sharm El Sheikh, we will also have to address the issue called for in the Tunis agenda, on whether or not participants would like the mandate to be renewed. The decision will be taken by member states, but the Tunis agenda calls on the Secretary General to hold open consultations on this issue, to examine the desirability of the continuation of the forum. Based on these consultations, the Secretary General will make recommendations to member states, and then the various bodies of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, ECOSOC and lastly the General Assembly will then take a decision the following year, whether or not to continue the mandate.
Last but not least what we put on the agenda is cooperation with your organization. There I am absolutely open, you are absolutely welcome, as is any other organization. One very concrete way forward to make inputs is to make proposals for workshops. This time, we do it slightly different than before we chose... the very first year, we asked for issues to be put on the table. This was very helpful, it allowed us to frame a little bit the agenda. And then, the second and third year, we called for workshop proposals.
This year, we take a hybrid approach, a little bit in between. We ask for short description of themes somebody would like to organize a workshop with, or also, if you don’t want to organize the workshop yourself, workshops you would like to see organized by others at the meeting. We do this because what we found is when people invest some time and energy to come forward with a detailed program – they have approached people, have found co-organizers – then they tend to be very reluctant to merge their workshop proposals with others. They have invested too much in their own. So this time we say don’t invest too much time in it, just put down a loose idea, and then we can see are there similar themes? Maybe we could organize on some of them a round table where we feel there may be an outcome very likely.
I think multi-lingualism is another of these issues, where there’s no need to discuss the principles, but there is need to discuss the practical solutions. So there your ideas are welcome. We set the 15th of April as a deadline. We will make the questions we will ask available on the website this week, and still work on an online form which will then be made available.
Male: When?
Markus: 15th of April.
Male: 30
Markus: Sorry?
Male: Is that when the proposal submission opens, or is it the deadline?
Markus: Finish.
Male: Okay, now is it already on? Is it already...?
Markus: It’s not... I mean, we mention it in the summary report that is on our website. Today or tomorrow we will make a call for proposals on our website, where we will also show you the questions we will ask to fill in – basically, have you organized a workshop before... starting what is the theme, what is the title, what is the theme you suggest, would you like to organize the workshop, would you like someone else to organize the workshop? If you would like to organize the workshop, who would be your partners? Have you organized a workshop before? That sort of thing, but we’re not asking for a big thesis on this, just a rough sketch, a draft outline of what you would like to see as a draft workshop, or as a roundtable. And then we would approach the different proponents and see, would you be willing maybe to merge or to work together with somebody else who proposed a similar theme? And the deadline 15th of April, because it’s a month before we have the next open consultations, and the next meeting.
And in our experience, a lot of excellent suggestions come very much in this bottom-up way. As I said, protection of children came in that way, by advocacy groups who are dealing with it. We don’t know yet what will come in this time. Another issue that came in that way was the relationship between Internet governance and sustainable development, came in very forcefully. So this will be a very practical, very concrete way into the programming of the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. Of course, any contribution is welcome at the more abstract level, what you think should be on the program. We will also ask for opinions as regards the continuation of the forum, and we will also publish... post some questions to help guide the discussions. But whatever we... they are never straight-jackets. Obviously, we always accept free contributions, and we post every contribution as long as it respects certain standards of decency. Have to remember... well, also, we don’t want naming and shaming, be that of countries or of companies. If somebody says... we had a discussion with somebody who mentioned individual companies, and we had to explain at length – if you say something about proprietary software, that is fine. If you do mention a company beginning with “M”, then we cannot accept it. These are sort of ground rules, but I mean most institutions accept... respect similar rules.
Well, this would be my introduction. Of course, I am willing to answer questions you may have.
Hong: Well, thank you so much, sir. This is a real outreach, Markus is really here with us. We can have direct discussion with him, and you can’t imagine how busy he is. You’re worse than IGF.
Of course, we are very honoured to have you here. Now we are knowing you very well, but you don’t know us. So probably it is good to allow our Chair, Karaitiana, to introduce our organization, our members, a bit.
Karaitiana: Oh hi, Markus, it’s nice for us to meet in person. This is APRALO. I guess... maybe if we just quickly go around the table, if everyone can just introduce yourself. I know we’ve got quite a few active IGF participants here. So perhaps we can start with Siva?
Siva: I’m Siva Muthusamy, from ISOC India 42, and I’ve been a participant at IGF with a lot of interest and eagerness, at the Internet Governance Forum caucus and other forums, and as both... as an individual... more in my capacity as an individual. I attended the IGF at Hyderabad, and I look forward to taking a more and more active part at IGF.
Vivek: I’m Vivek Vivekandan, I’m a professor of law at Hyderabad National Academy of legal studies. I attended your IGF, and incidentally I floated my first seminar course to the final year law students in 1998, called E-Governance, Emerging Issues in the Future of the Internet. I think we are track from ’98 forward. Thank you.
Holly: I’m Holly Raiche, the Executive Director of the Internet Society of Australia, but I do wear some other hats, one of them being a visiting fellow at the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, so very interesting issues for me as well.
Les: Hi, I’m Les Allinson, I’m the honorary chair of PIC-ISOC. PIC-ISOC is an ALS under APRALO, and I represent some 800 plus members, through some 22 countries throughout the Pacific, in an area which is certainly larger than Europe. laughter
Mahmoud: My name is Mahmoud Latouf, from the Arab Knowledge Management society. I haven’t attended any Internet Governance Forum yet, but one of my colleagues from Arab KMS attended several ones.
Hong: I’m Hong Xue, I’m representing At-Large China, and Chinese domain name users’ lives. I attended the 31 two IGF, and organized three workshops that I chaired. I am particularly interested in internationalized domain names, and multi-lingualism. Of course, this is the chair.
Cheryl: Hello, Markus. We’ve never met before, have we? My name is Cheryl Langdon-Orr, obviously I’m part of APRALO, I’m, again with Holly Raiche, a representative of ISOC-AU, but specifically as APRALO’s representative to the ALAC, I’m also the Chair of the At-Large Advisory Committee for ICANN, and I actually represented at an ICANN ALAC level at the IGF we had recently. But, of course, we were all very keen and instrumental in making sure we had plenty of workshops from APRALO while it was in the Asia-Pacific region.
And just while I have the microphone, we need to note the permanent apology of Thu-Hue from Vietnam, who is very interested in IGF-type work in Vietnam, and thanks to the core incompetence of visa and travel arrangements from ICANN was unable to join us, and is unfortunately... and I’m happy to have that in the permanent record, as you know. And is unfortunately not with us online today, because I thought she was going to. And, in reverse, Professor Liu has unfortunately got an appointment now, but he is normally occupying that seat from 56.
Karaitiana: Karaitiana Taiuru. We’ve had a few discussions online. Great, thanks.
Phoebe: Hi, I’m Phoebe, from ISOC Hong Kong.
Joung-Im Kim: Hi, I’m Joung-Im Kim from University of Hawaii School of Communications, but I’m here as a member of a team from the National Internet Development Agency of Korea, and this is my very first time in ICANN and APRALO, and I’m very much interested in IGF as well, so I would like to chat with you if I can afterwards, thank you.
Cheryl: And she’s half way through her ALS application form.
Izumi: Almost done, right?
Izumi Aizu. Um... just for the record, I think I’ve attended all the IGF meetings, and 02 before that. Organized two workshops – sorry, Hong, you are more. And tried to organize... well, organized two on IPB6, which became the main session this year. But also I tried to organize the Internet and climate change, which was taken over by 22 happily, and I’m always looking forward for these kind of emerging issues, or new ones that are more exciting. And I think we are on the verge of making this five years to a little bit longer, and I see very positive attitudes from governments, as you said. Not only they gave up sort of their priority within the multi-stakeholder, but many government people, I find, become much more seeing the value, positive value, of the multi-stakeholder thing, and I think within ICANN it is At-Large, or the civil society people, who really dedicated and contributed, gave this kind of change spaces, I believe.
And Markus, you played a very important role to facilitate that, so that is sort of my appreciation. So I hope that positive outlook will come more. That’s about it... but I wrote it, the funding is a big problem for us to participate. And so far, there hasn’t been real measures of full scale to have, especially people’s participation from the developing countries. That, I think, we need to work out – especially knowledge, and thank you.
Sophie: Hello, my name is Sophie. I’m from Taiwan. And I’m representing At-Large structure in Taiwan, and I hope there will be a chance for us to participate in Internet governance far in the future. Thank you.
Nirmol: Hi, my name is Nirmol. I represent ISOC India. I find Internet governance is a contradiction in terms. I have written a paper on freedom of speech and Internet governance where... there have been a lot of papers been written where it has been proposed that let the Internet be left to itself, let the governance be out of it. So I will be keenly interested to see what the forum does, and would like to participate.
Karaitiana: Right, thanks everyone for the introductions. I guess, does anyone have any questions they’d like to present to Markus. And I’d also just like to point out that we’re in our morning tea break at the moment, so if we could keep it quick. Yeah, Izumi first.
Izumi: Um, I was approached by 45 people, that they’re hoping to have an IGF related forum in the next ICANN meeting in Seoul. And it will be a good opportunity for us to be engaged as a part of the ICANN, as well as a civil society. So I’d like to work with Kim, but also Markus, if you could facilitate or put it in the mind.
Karaitiana: Thanks Izumi.
Cheryl: So Markus needs to respond.
Karaitiana: Sorry.
Markus: I can also take a couple of questions.
Cheryl: Oh, okay.
Karaitiana: Okay, sure. Okay, Siva – sorry.
Siva: One point that comes up again and again made by participants, especially from the less developed countries and the developing countries, is the fund for participation is not there, and is it possible that UN takes an initiative to set up a central pool of funds from corporate sponsors and other sponsors who donate to that fund without any strings attached, without... an unconditional support to that fund, from which the funds are dispersed to participants by the 49 and by a central body. So that participants, when they get funding, are not dependent or not obliged to the sponsor for views, and... is it possible?
Cheryl: Did you want to...
Vivek?: Siva, VCIGF, not as parallel as you explained to ICANN, ICANN is more a technical body plus participation, and IGF, if I understand, is a dialogue platform, with people at-large as well as through governments. So I just want your view that, how do you find the common participation as part of the IGF dialogue?
Markus: Many thanks, yes, first of all many thanks for your introduction, it showed the vast area you are covering, actually, of course. It’s a truism, but nevertheless, it is impressive. And we have very strong interest also from, especially the Pacific Islands, for understandable reasons as the Internet for them is obviously a life line.
I’m not sure where to start – maybe the funding is an important issue. This is very much... it’s basically any problem, it’s a problem that happens with any new activity given to the UN. Member states are never willing to give extra money to the UN, the position, especially of big contributors, is the UN should set priorities among the activities they’re engaged in, that is, reallocate resources to new activities. But the UN has a very poor record in reallocating resources, and this reflects also the will of the member states, because there’s always a member state who feels that this or that activity needs to be continued.
So all that we are doing is finance through voluntary contribution, and the aim would also be to have enough funding also to fund participants. Our funding situation has a little bit improved. Nevertheless, we are operating on a shoestring, and we have used the funds we have to operate... to finance the attendance of 23 members of developing countries. Ideally, we would like to have more, and as it was suggested, to have a central pool where we could also finance additional members from... participants from developing countries.
Luckily, the government of Canada has made some funds available. It’s 250,000, I think, Canadian dollars, but they go through the ITU, but they’re earmarked for financing participants to the IGF. There were, I think, 20 or so financed through these funds, through the ITU, through the Canadian funds. There, the priority is to give funding to participants who play a role in the meetings, speakers and panels, workshops and so on. Not just tourism. And then, in addition, there are other institutions, such as ISOC, they have their Ambassador Program that was quite extensive. I think they also financed about 20 people or so. I think ICANN, they also financed the Organisation de la Francophonie, they finance French speaking members, so there are additional sources for financing without strings attached, I think. But I am fully aware that we don’t have sufficient funds, and this is something we will also have to discuss, and good ideas are welcome, but present climate is also not very good for generating resources.
It’s just... in Sharm El Sheikh, we expect less participants because of the economic downturn. Maybe companies that sent two or three people will send one instead of two or three, and the same goes also for governments. It’s just, when economic times are bad, you have to downsize a little bit, and show, to the voters and the electorate, that you are saving money. It’s as simple as that.
The other question, well the question that Internet Governance is a contradiction in terms is of course a philosophical question we could discuss for hours, but the definition of Internet Governance in 56 clearly is not the top-down concept of governance. It is a concept of all the actors working together in an abstract sense, and to describe the system that makes the Internet work. To put it in more simple terms, that is basically how we look at Internet governance. But I remember when we first had these discussions, people equated governance with governments, but this is no longer the case. I think, as you also talk about corporate governance, it’s just the way things are being run.
Last but not least I think, in very concrete terms for your organization, the ICANN meeting in Seoul could be indeed a very attractive venue to have a regional IGF type meeting. National and regional meetings get more and more significant, I think. Well, you saw us yesterday sitting with the Kenyans, they organized the East African meeting. They again prepare a... last year it was a very last minute-ish, very little time. Nevertheless, they managed to bring together four countries in the East Africa region, who held their national meetings first, and then they culminated in the regional meeting in Nairobi. And the Seoul ICANN meeting could be a similar meeting for the Asia-Pacific region, and of course I’d be more than happy to cooperate. I think what I found, or what is striking, is... Well, the Kenyans had a very nice heading, Acting Locally and Thinking Globally, and when you look at it, go to the various regions, the concerns and the priorities are always different. I remember I was... a week before going to Nairobi I was in Strasbourg to European dialogue on Internet Governance. There the discussion was more on a rights-based approach, on the democracy, human rights, openness. In Kenya, it was much more on access, on creating ISPs. I can imagine one of the issues, if that goes ahead, would be mulit-lingualism in the Asia-Pacific region would certainly be a high priority, presumably. Well, access presumably, as well for some of the areas, but I’m sure there would be a distinctive Asian flavour, and I would very much welcome this initiative. I’m happy to see how we can move along to make this happen.
Karaitiana: Thank you very much for that, Markus. We’ve got Hong and Cheryl who want to ask questions and make statements. If I could just ask if you could try and keep it brief, please.
Hong: Thanks Chair, and thank you very much for Markus’ wonderful briefing, and for answers to our questions. And Asia-Pacific region, as you see, has great diversity, not only on language, on scripts, but on cultures. And you may notice that at IGF, Asian people were relatively quiet comparing with European and North America participants. We do have our very unique culture – we are more polite.
Cheryl: Usually, usually.
Hong: Right. I would just... so it is very important for you to reach us, have an outreach, get connected. Now we know you, so we can be more open, be more effectively participative to IGF. This is really important, so you did a great job. We’re so appreciative. I personally was very impressed by the inclusiveness of IGF, compared with a meeting I attended organized by ITU, WIPO and other UN agencies. IGF presented a real multi-stakeholder forum for the different stakeholders to participate, not only from the government. We can see so many civil society participants, so many people from developing countries, including the least developed country 19. So this is tremendous to all of us, especially to Asia. This is primarily a region for developing countries, so I want to congratulate you on the great achievement.
On the other part, we do have little comments on the logistic issues. Based on our experience of participating and organizing workshops at IGF, we do agree that almost all of the process is very inclusive, encouraging, efficient for people to participate. At the previous IGF in Hyderabad, APRALO organized a workshop on multi-lingualism and internationalization for almost a year, from drafting the initial document, preparing the proposal and submit the proposal goes through a very long process, and we had monthly conference call on this issue for many times.
In June 2008 we got a confirmation from the Secretariat of IGF that our proposal was not only kindly accepted, but could possibly be accepted and included in one of the main sessions. We were so enthusiastic, so happy to know that this is the very first time that APRALO, as a new organization and a new structure, a new system, was so acknowledged and recognized at the international level. So we invested tremendous time and energy, drafted many documents, made a lot of proposals, and participate as efficiently as possible, those in Asia as well as Geneva. We... of course we agreed for the help of IGF staffs for the facilitation of different workshop proposals to be merged at final stage.
Until the actual days of the workshop, everything was going on very well. All the multi-stakeholders were able to talk to each other very happily, worked efficiently on the 41 development, and well, unfortunately, there were some misunderstandings. It is not our culture to go looking back – we want to look forward. What I’m suggesting is that in the future of the merging of workshop proposals, no stakeholder or proposer should be logistically submerged, especially at the final stage. Especially if we are recognized as one of the stakeholders of that main session workshop, of course we should be able to participate in the whole process, especially the last day at the last hour before that main session. So I do believe it won’t happen in the future IGF.
Okay, the last issue I want to say that I do agree with Markus that we do have a lot of things that we can think about to discuss at IGF. APRALO is an organization within the ombud of ICANN, however, there’s a couple of things we should seriously think about. Whether we should raise this issue to talk at the level of IGF. Especially there are some theories... I’m a professor of law, so I’m sorry, I go to some theoretical study, there are some theories that domain name system are actually some global public goods. It is kind of resources that belong to the whole human being. Of course ICANN, as an entrusted body, is governing and managing this system. It doesn’t mean it is solely at ICANN’s disposal to make any allocation or disposal. So we do think that IGF could incorporate these into the agenda of the next IGF, as we talk about access. Access is not only access to the Internet, it means how to access the Internet through the different hardware and software and Internet system, including the domain name system. So we see a great opportunity for us to enhance understanding and increase cooperation. Thanks.
Cheryl: Thank you for that, Hong, and I know much of that Markus and you and I did discuss of course at the IGF as well, and we are definitely... we’re not asking for a response in any way, because we know this is behind, and we are looking forward. And in the manner of looking forward, I was... because I won’t be with you at the end of your session when you get to the any other business, and we’ve already had the matter arise that, you know, to do something regionally, with APRALO involving ourselves in an ICANN meeting, and obviously this comes to what Izumi was talking about, where we have Sydney and Seoul this year, it’s all in our region. If I may, while you’re here, what we will propose is that if we can set up a mini-IGF regionally to be in sync with Seoul, we will do so. But it is up to each of us to go back to our ccTLD areas and our regional areas and our countries, to see if you are going to be doing something in a country or joint country, that that preceded that deadline of getting together in Seoul.
So as an AUDA director, as a director of the dot AU, when we’re talking in our Boardroom about doing something for Australia, I need to make sure that it’s done in advance of Seoul, so that the Australian view can come forward to the regional view, and then that can of course be brought to the one in Cairo wherever possible. And I just think, you know, if we all take that on board as part of our way forward, that might be a good way to do that.
I’d also, for those of you who haven’t read the announcements in the list note, as you see up there, the 2008 IGF meeting, the reports are there, and I would encourage you to read what was done on behalf of both APRALO and, of course, by myself and Vivek and Siva and a few others for ICANN per se, because we had 52 at the ICANN level, and we had involvement at the regional level.
Karaitiana: Do you have anything else you’d like to contribute?
Markus: Just if you let me finish by thanking you all, and just a brief word. Of course, I fully agree, let’s look forward and let bygones be bygones, it’s... this was an unfortunate incident. I was not aware of when it happened. I did apologize for it, and I will make sure it will not happen again.
Karaitiana: Yes, thank you for your time Markus, and I certainly agree, let bygones be bygones, and oversights happen to everyone, and I’m sure we’re all responsible for some sort of oversight. So, on behalf of APRALO, I’d like to thank you very much for attending and using your time, and I’d also like to invite you to our morning tea, if you’d like a cup of coffee or something...
Cheryl: I think you deserve it, after that. Is it a 15 or 10 minute break?
Karaitiana: I think a 10 minute break would be good thanks. So at about 10 past 11, if we can be back, please.
End of side A
Start of side B
Cheryl: Ladies and gentlemen of the drafting team, believe it or not, we’re actually going to have to run the current elections on the rules we have now anyway, before you finish the drafting of that, because I can only be here for another five minutes. So if we’re going to run elections, you either need to get it going real fast, or it’ll be the old rules.
Vivek: Now, it’s two vice-chairs, which you’ve got to have. The idea is to have one vice-chair experienced, another one takes over, there’s no sudden abrupt one chair and two vices retiring. In such case, he current now, we have only one vice-chair. The next one will... now, we’ll have only one, we don’t have anyone now, we have only one. The next one will take next years’, so that... the rotation comes every two years.
Cheryl: No, you elect two now, one for a one-year term, one for a two-year term.
Holly: Yes. And...
Vivek: Is that always? Is that always – one vice-chair two years, one vice-chair one year?
Cheryl: No, because from then on, it’s two-year terms, because you’re staggering. So when Izumi and I were the representatives to the ALAC, when APRALO was formed, he was elected as representative for one year, I was elected for two years. And that gives us the cycling, then.
Siva: And does the person who is elected for the one year term have the option to appear for a second term, offer for the second term.
Cheryl: You can always run for a second term. If you’re crazy enough, you can run for a third, fourth or fifth – but at that time, I would be bringing in psychological analysis.
Vivek: Okay, two vice-chairs selected for a period of...
Holly: I think we start...
Female: No, no, no, we’ll have to change that.
Holly: I think we... wait a minute. If we’ve got to have elections in five minutes, let’s do it now.
Cheryl: We’ve got the candidates. The candidates are ready.
Holly: Let’s just do the elections, and we can finalize this later.
Cheryl: That’s actually what I proposed.
Holly: Excellent, excellent, okay.
It takes a while to undo the legal form. banging sound I had now turned the mic on, because I didn’t have the mic on before, you’d be relieved to hear.
Cheryl: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are jumping in the agenda to item number nine, I believe, which is the election of a chair, two vice-chairs, and a secretary. We have had nominations open for some time, and we have the following people and one from the floor, which have offered themselves for the following roles.
Our current incumbent Chair, Karaitiana, has offered himself somewhat foolishly, from my perspective, somewhat thankfully, to run for a second term. Is there any objections or discussion on his... he has been nominated, he has accepted the nomination, I have no other nominations for this role. In the absence of anyone saying, “I want to be Chair more than I want him to be Chair,” that appears that I now can say congratulations, you have done that job beautifully, thank you sir. applause Would you care for me to run the rest of the elections, or to hand over to you?
Karaitiana: Um, I can take over, after, if you want me to.
Cheryl: Excellent.
Karaitiana: Great.
Cheryl: Thank you.
Karaitiana: Thank you, everybody, for your vote of confidence, as I wasn’t too sure what was going to be happening. laughs Good, so that leaves us with two vice-chair positions, and we’ve had two nominations that have both been seconded. One is Les from Pacific Highlands, and the other is Mohamed from...
Mohammed: inaudible 3.58
Karaitiana: Okay. Sorry, which country?
Mohammed: Jordan.
Karaitiana: Sorry, Mohamed from Jordan.
Cheryl: And he’s nominated... ISOC AU did that, but it’s Holly who’s done it, not me.
Karaitiana: Right, okay. Thanks Holly. So just keeping in mind that we’re being... since we’re quite a geographically diverse region, the current seats are currently quite geographically representative, is there anyone else who would like to run for vice-chair that we can...? Okay, great. So on that, can... I guess, we have a vice-chair position for two years. Right, so we need to decide who wants to... I guess, if we could ask the two candidates if you have a preference for...? One year.
Les: Well, I would actually call it inaudible 5.02, because I’ve got somebody inaudible. I mean, is that the logic behind it?
Cheryl: Makes good logic to me.
Les: Not that I’m pushing to... I inaudible – tons of off mic talking 05.18 It would seem that the person with some experience would do the shorter term.
Karaitiana: Okay, so Les, you go for... you’re happy for one?
Cheryl: For one?
Les: Yes.
Karaitiana: And Mohamed, you’re happy for two?
Mohamed: Yes.
Karaitiana: Is there anybody that would like.... Oh, could I have a show of hands of those people who are in favour of Les being voted for one year as Vice-Chair of APRALO, please?
Cheryl: Call for objections.
Karaitiana: Yeah, could the lawyers please pay attention? We’re just in... I don’t get to say that to lawyers very often.
Male: There’s no logic.
Karaitiana: Right, Les has just offered himself for a one-year term for Vice-Chair, we’re just seeking.
Siva: Yeah, Cheryl said that the two candidates should be geographically apart, and they are seated next to each other, so I object. laughter
Karaitiana: Inaudible 06.15 Good. Can we have a show of hands, those who are in favour of Les being Vice-Chair for one year, please.
Holly: Oh, you’re voting for him, put your hand up.
Karaitiana: So there is...
Cheryl: You vote for yourself. Oh yeah, you can vote for yourself.
Male: No, I’m voting for him.
Karaitiana: Yes, so it’s unanimous for yes. And for Mohamed for two years as Vice-Chair person...?
Cheryl: Just a point of order for the record. Please note that when Hong puts her hand up, she is voting for two organizations.
Karaitiana: Okay, again, that’s unanimous, so congratulations to Mohamed and Les for your Vice-Chair positions. It’s going to be a pleasure to work with both of you. Great. Thank you.
Cheryl: I do apologize, I do apologize, the point on your agenda which was just prior to this one was something called your representatives review. I would like to move that it is highly inappropriate to review Vivek at this point, since this is his first meeting with you, and you’ve already reviewed me once. I’m more than happy to be sat in the middle of the floor and reviewed by all of you again, but my role as Chair is now taking me away. I would prefer that not to be done in my absence, but if you have time in your agenda to discuss and make points, which I will be more than happy... points of criticism, points of how I could be doing my job better, points that you would like me to do... Previously, APRALO has done this in the round, and with the victim present, because I’m almost unable to insult. Please feel free to have that discussion in my absence, but I will reserve the right to discuss it with you and perhaps online. The other thing perhaps you would like to do is if I set up a space within our wiki for comments on... comments on and requests to your representatives for performance and positions. You may wish to take it that way. So I’m happy for you to review us. I’d prefer it you review me, and I think we should have a wiki space where we can have continuous improvement, because you may not like me in blue. I need to know. Okay?
Karaitiana: Great, now we have one more election to consider, and that’s for the APRALO secretary. Now, Pavan’s been the secretary for quite a while now, and he’s also put his name forward and been seconded. Is there anyone else who wants to put their name forward for secretary?
Izumi: Who has Pavan recommended?
Karaitiana: Pavan is... Who has recommended Pavan, or...?
Izumi: Didn’t you mention that he put somebody’s name to...?
Karaitiana: No, no, Pavan has agreed to carry on as secretary, and he’s been nominated as well. So, again, if I could just ask for the lawyers’ attention please? Excuse me, if we could have your attention please? We’re doing the election for secretary. As I said before, Pavan has been nominated, he’s the current secretary, and he’s happy to carry on. We’re just seeking anyone else who wants to be considered for secretary?
Holly: Excuse me. I don’t see the post of secretary. We’ve got a secretariat, but not a secretary in this document.
Karaitiana: Okay, well, we’ve always had a secretary, so perhaps the legal team could fix that up for us as well.
Holly: Well, spelling, for a start. A secretariat is a body that undertakes secretarial positions. A secretary is an actual position. A secretariat is just... somebody types away. It’s an office, not a person. Do we have a secretary as opposed to a secretariat?
Karaitiana: That’s right, we have a secretary and the other RALOs call their secretary... is it a rapportoire or...
Holly: Oh, rapporteur. French word, it’s all right. We can ignore that.
Karaitiana: Great, yes. And so we’ve always had a secretary since we signed the legal documents in Bali. Yes.
Holly: Would you like, should we use the word...? Hong, what do you think? Lawyers have to consult.
Hong: From the history of... from our documents, there is always the term secretarian has been used, and Pavan has always been called as secretarian, not secretary.
Holly: How do you elect a secretariat? It’s not a... a secretariat is not a person.
Hong: Well...
Holly: We can appoint somebody to undertake the secretariat functions.
Hong: Holly, you’re right, there is some history here. When... in Bali... inaudible voice in background 11.27. Well, I’m very sorry, I haven’t finished my statement. In Bali, when APRALO was formed, the secretarian was actually an organization, not a person. It was ISOC Hong Kong, and Pavan is a staff of ISOC Hong Kong, and he took the job of assisting us. So secretarian is actually an organization, not an actual person.
So the issue here is still a legal issue, whether we want to put in the term ISOC Hong Kong as a secretarian, or the specific individual who is working in that organization as secretarian, right?
Holly: Actually, Hong, I’m absolutely neutral as to what we do. I just think that if we’re going to have a person undertake secretariat functions, then we could elect somebody to take the secretariat functions. I don’t care how we word it, but I’d like not to call the person a secretariat. That’s all.
Izumi: Then let’s put the ISOC Hong Kong as a candidate for the secretariat.
Holly: Well, that’s fine. If we say ISOC Hong Kong will perform secretariat functions, that’s fine, you know. I have no qualms about that.
Male: Inaudible – off mic 13.00
Holly: Yeah, and that’s fine, that’s fine.
Hong: Yes, I just talked with the Chair, that I guess it would be more sustainable and stable if we put an At-Large structure instead of an individual in that At-Large structure as a secretarian. That At-Large structure can always send other staff that is available to assist in this.
Holly: That makes perfect sense. Let’s just put in ISOC Hong Kong will perform the secretariat functions. That’s fine.
Phoebe?: Excuse me? I don’t think, from my past experiences, I don’t think we select the secretary. The secretary should be appointed by the Chairman. Thank you.
Holly: And I think you’re right – 5.3 reads, “A secretariat for the APRALO may be appointed.”
Male: So there’s no election.
Holly: So basically, KT, up to you to say, “An organization shall serve the secretariat functions.”
Siva?: But rather, you can appoint after taking somebody’s interest, that’s all.
Holly: Yeah.
Karaitiana: Okay, to be fair to ISOC Hong Kong, I will suggest that we move onto the presentation for thirty minutes, and then immediately after the presentation, we appoint a person or an organization in about thirty minutes’ time. That will give me enough time to consult with the relevant parties, and for anyone here who wants to consider putting their ALS up for consideration as well.
So if I hand it over to our ICANN staff member, who is going to do a brief presentation for us.
Khalil: Good afternoon, welcome to ICANN Mexico City. My name is Khalil Rashid, and most people don’t get that on a first time, so I’ll say it again, Khalil Rashid, or, if you speak Arabic, Khalil Rashid. And I’m actually a member of ICANN’s Contractual Compliance staff. In fact, I’m the Compliance Audit Manager. And so today, for a few moments, I’d actually like to talk with you, actually not at you, I understand you’ve probably been in meetings most of this week, and you’d probably rather talk with someone than at them. But what I hope is, we can have a dialogue that can serve as a foundational point for how the contractual compliance department can serve as a resource for your organizations and APRALO.
I have actually a PowerPoint with some slides, for reference, but I’m not sure which system I should set that up on. Should I do my computer, or...?
Karaitiana: This computer here. 08
Holly: And if not, just talk to us. Hong, we’ve got the final wording if you want to have a look, at some point.
Karaitiana: Or perhaps I could just interrupt while we’re just waiting, regarding the appointment of the secretary. ISOC... sorry, lawyers, could I just have your attention again please?
Holly: We can’t help it.
Karaitiana: Vivek? Excuse me, lawyers. ISOC Hong Kong have agreed that they’ll be the organizational secretary, if appointed. So I guess the legal opinion is that the Chair appoints the secretary?
Holly: Yes.
Karaitiana: Okay, great. For the record then... I guess we don’t have a secretary. For the record then, I’ll appoint ISOC Hong Kong as the secretary. Thank you.
Holly: Secretariat.
Karaitiana: Secretariat. 39
Khalil: So I’m ready when you are, or whenever you feel that it’s appropriate.
Karaitiana: Okay. inaudible 18.55
Khalil: I can go, and then whenever Rob comes, we can stop and we can pick back up if there’s time. I actually have to run in not too long, so why don’t we start now?
Karaitiana: Okay. Okay, we’re going to start the presentation now from...?
Khalil: Khalil.
Karaitiana: ...Khalil. And if we get... give him our attention please.
Khalil: Yeah, I actually know how it is – I’m actually an attorney as well, so. When you have something to get out, you kind of have to get it done. But as I said before, I’m from the contractual compliance team. We like to refer to ourselves as a team, and today I’d like to just sort of dialogue with you about our role, what we do, and how we can serve as a resource. Just as a show of hands, how many of you have actually had interaction with the compliance team at ICANN, in any way, shape or form? Are any of you aware of the compliance team’s function, or...?
Okay, fair enough. I mean, that’s helpful so that I have an idea where to start. Anyhow, the compliance team is composed of four members, currently. We have a senior director, David Giza, who has about 25 years of legal and compliance experience. Stacy Burnett, another director, who has about 20 years of experience. Myself, who has an actual legal/business Internet background. I started out with America Online about 15 years ago. I was still in high school at the time. Then I went on to college and law school and always kind of stayed wrapped in the telecommunications/Internet type-thing, so, you know, sort of a natural fit when I came to ICANN about a year and a half ago.
But the contractual compliance department’s actual function is to preserve and protect the interoperable integrity of the Internet through making sure that parties that have contracts with the organizations actually comply with those terms. Many of the terms are actually there to actually protect registrants, and that interoperable integrity. So we manage that 950 plus registrar accreditation agreements with the various registrars throughout the world, the 16 top-level domain agreements, and pretty much investigate any other non-compliance issues or conflicts of interest when it comes to registrars, registries, etc. Many of this is in a slide, but unfortunately, we have this prompt instead. But I’m happy to forward you the presentation, or a description of the department afterwards.
So what I’d kind of like to just talk to you are some of the recent developments in the compliance department, and I will sort of... if you want more details on anything, please just stop me at any time. If you need more or have questions, please also stop me as well. But just as sort of a start, how many of you are... I looked at a presentation that was delivered, I believe, by this organization in 2008, which stated that some of your current issues include both WHOIS matters and registry/registrar relations. Can anyone explain what those WHOIS matters that you’re referring to are?
Karaitiana: Sure. There was more in relation to the ICANN consultations at the time. We were seeking public information and views, as opposed to having an actual issue with those consultations.
Khalil: Okay, fair enough, fair enough. So one thing that the compliance department does is actually enforces or attempts to enforce WHOIS compliance to the extent that we can. We have designed a WHOIS data problem report system, which allows registrants anywhere in the world at any time to forward domain names that have inaccurate WHOIS information to ICANN for processing and forwarding to registrars for correction. That system then follows up with the particular complainant 45 days later, and if the matter has not been corrected, ICANN may or may not take further action. And as of December 2008, ICANN follows up on every single report filed of a Whois inaccuracy.
One of our other major projects is a Whois accuracy study, under which what we’re attempting to assess is how much Whois data and registrar databases are actually accurate. And this will... this is a representative study of about 135 million domain names. We have employed a prestigious research institution, the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago to actually assist us in designing and carrying out the study. So, just for reference, Whois is a hot topic in ICANN right now, and it’s one of our, you know, main compliance goals and functions.
We’ve also sort of enhanced our general compliance and outreach efforts. So, every so often, the registrar/registry regional gatherings, we actually send compliance staff members to conduct workshops now. So we conduct workshops on everything from Whois to domain name dispute issues with the UDRP. I recently conducted a workshop at the regional gathering in Korea. My director conducted one in Rome, and we also did another one, I think, in Paris. So that’s also... the registry/registrar regional gatherings are also a great place to get more information about compliance and sort of hot topics.
So it’s probably not news to you all, but Asia is one of our fastest growing regions for both Internet usage and registrar population. So of particular interest right now is compliance with growth in Asia. I think we’re currently at 128 registrars, and that’s the second highest amongst any region, you know, other than North America, which has the rest. So part of the idea today is to bring you in and to draw you in to the compliance issues you think might arise, or which registrants and end users might experience, that you think ICANN’s compliance department should have an eye toward. Any questions thus far? Sure?
Hong: REA compliance is a very important issue for user community, and from the previous cases that were brought to ICANN, we can see that users were very actually in very much a disadvantaged position. If we remember the case of registry Fly, we know that users cannot really enforce the contractual obligation against the abused registry or registrars. And I know that I can emphasize that it is not law enforcement bodies several times, in several different circumstances. But what ICANN can enforce is the contractual obligation on the registry and registrars, and, on the other hand, we do restate our proposal that additional provision on third party’s interests be included into the REA agreement, so that the user can independently and freely at lease resort to the contractual obligation to protect their interest. Now they can only complain to ICANN and wish ICANN to enforce the contract. I want to listen to you – are there any updates?
Khalil: Well, I thank you for your comment. I am not aware of your proposal, number one, but also the compliance function is generally not involved in policy-making. As you know, the RAA and... there is a current RAA amendment under process right now, and so I would direct that more to my colleague who just arrived, or the GNSO policy staff. But with respect to enforcing the RAA, the contractual compliance department’s function is to enforce the RAA, specifically, that is one of the things that we do, and have recently enhanced and increased our ability to do that.
Holly: Just a point, first of all, I think we’re delighted that you’re here. I’ve been sitting in on working group 5, which is about insecurity, generally. And one of the issues that’s quite prominent is that very often the scammer or the crook hides behind false information, or they’ve registered... usually they’ve used a fraudulent credit card and given fraudulent details. So I’m assuming you’re talking about not only country code and generic top-level domains, trying to look at the processes to make sure that the details that are actually provided by the registrant are in some way verifiable. Is that something that is on the ICANN radar?
Khalil: Currently, that is not an effort underway. Under the registrar accreditation agreement, the registrar has a duty to collect the Whois information from the registrant. The registrar currently does not have a duty to validate that information.
Holly: Ah.
Khalil: And so often times, the registrar obligation is implicated when the Whois data problem report system is involved, and that’s the system which I described earlier, where anyone in the world can pretty much file a Whois inaccuracy claim. So once that process takes effect, then the registrar actually has an obligation to investigate Whois data, and correct it if necessary. But prior to then, as the RAA currently stands, there is no obligation.
Holly: But that’s going to be important, because once the results of the research are known, it’s going to become clear that in some cases there’s a very strong process of verifying the information, and in other cases the information isn’t verified. And there may be coming out of that some policy suggestions?
Khalil: I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of conclusions. You know, once we actually complete the study... at this phase, we’re just trying to complete the study with integrity. So once that’s done, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of discussion around that.
Holly: Thank you.
Khalil: Were there any more questions or comments?
Hong: Just follow what is said. My brain is quite slow, almost shut down. Well, just now you said that you were not aware of our proposal on the third party interest clause. I guess that is because you are working in a different department. Actually, our proposal from ALAC has been submitted to the Board, and delivered to the staff two years ago. So I do suggest the policy development on RAA and compliance enforcement. The two departments can work more closely, have better coordination, so when you discover any problem in the process of compliance enforcement, you can quickly reflect to the policy development department. So the policy could be quickly revised or updated.
For instance, Holly gave the example. I have another example, this on fast flux. Fast flux is the problem – I know the policy is now being developed, and in the process of your compliance enforcement, I guess you’ve heard a lot of complaints on this issue. The people are learning very quick to avoid being enforced, and how could this demand be reflected in policy, and later enforced effectively in your practice. I guess this is a good point to think on.
Khalil: Oh yeah, and I appreciate that point, thank you. What I’d like to do... my colleague is here, and I don’t want to keep him waiting, is I would like to direct you to the compliance page, which is www.icann.org/compliance, where we recently published our semi-annual contractual compliance report. So you can find full details about the program and also make comments at that particular website.
But thank you for having me, and please, I’ll leave my information with the chair, and if you need to contact or reach out, please do. I look forward to it.
Karaitiana: Right, thank you for your time. applause Right, we also have another guest speaker from ICANN, discussing the GNSO, or he’s here to answer any questions about the GNSO structure. Rob...
Rob: Hogar.
Karaitiana: Rob Hogar from ICANN.
Rob: Good afternoon. This is my first visit with APRALO. Thank you very much for having me come, I appreciate it. I was coming over for the NARALO, to give them a briefing and an update with progress with respect to the GNSO restructuring and improvements. There was a lot of interest there because of their discussions about new constituency groups, the relationship between individual Internet users and the GNSO. So I’m happy to give you a general briefing or just answer questions – I guess it all depends upon the level of understanding and focus that you guys have on that area of policy development and activity at ICANN.
Karaitiana: So are there any questions from the floor for Rob?
Holly: I’m still going to follow up. I think we’ll see... particularly, I’m glad that you mentioned the fast flux issue, and the attention that the various registrars give to the correctness of the information. I understand that clearly in the country code situation – each country code has its own policies, I know. I’d like to say Australia has pretty good policies, so I will. In the GNSO, that’s not... is that an issue that has been raised in terms of registrar responsibility for correct data, because that will be an important tool in stopping things like fast flux.
Rob: Yeah, the short answer, I believe, is yes. I think what you’re seeing as a community and a group is much more ALAC influence in GNSO affairs in both a broad sense and a specific sense. You have situations where a number of on-going policy discussions and processes have been initiated by members of the ALAC, and I think that’s a very positive development. And I’m only with ICANN for about a year. I understand it wasn’t, in the past, as ideal a situation. But now I think it has improved significantly, and you all are realizing a certain momentum that I hope is maintained, in terms of having input into the policy development process, particularly on some of these technical issues.
I just saw an internal draft being circulated today to confirm the process for various Chairs of the different advisory committees and supporting organizations to have communications with the Board, to make sure that communiqués are acknowledged and recorded, so that all of the items of interest that are raised through the processes that you have are understood, are acknowledged and are treated in terms of the appropriate processes.
With respect to the item that I have the most detailed knowledge of, and Holly, we’ve talked a little bit about it, with respect to the GNSO improvements process, there is a significant drive on the part of the community and the Board to have more user involvement in the GNSO. Not in an advisory capacity, where you can sort of throw things over the transom or jab the Board and say, “We want some things done,” but to actually have a seat at the table to have user involvement on a regular basis, plugged in and a part of the infrastructure of the GNSO. So I encourage any efforts, any thoughts that you have with respect to that.
Holly is becoming involved with some of the discussions about consumer interests and representation of individual users within the GNSO, and so I encourage all of you to... you can’t spend all of your time focusing on how the tables are arranged and who gets chairs, but I think it’s important to keep a general sense of what’s going on there. Particularly now, there are some leverage points where I think you have some unique opportunities, not only as a regional organization, but as ALAC as a whole.
Hong: I have a quick question. For the people who have been attending ICANN meetings for many times, we know the changed GNSO structure will significantly increase the user’s participation in the SO, that’s really good news. But for a newcomer, maybe they don’t really know the user house, a new notion that’s going to be implemented. Perhaps it would be quite valuable for us to know, after the restructure of the GNSO, what will be the seat distribution on the council. Especially now, I’m now the Nomination Committee, we have serious concerns. We totally changed everything, and will that have any impact on Nom-Com selection?
Rob: There are significant repercussions across the organization with respect to those changes that are taking place. If one of your... I’m not sure how your screens are set up or who’s connected. I can quickly... oh, fantastic. If this has some web access, I can quickly show you a chart that is the subject of some considerable discussion right now, quite frankly, within the GNSO.
Now, I’m sure there is a favourites for the GNSO... not the GNSO, but for the ICANN web page. Maybe somebody can point that out to me.
Female: Inaudible 37.42
Rob: Oh, this is their’s? Okay. In that case I’ll... pardon me for one second. I don’t really want ICANN Espanol, but... Well, all I really need is a chart for you, so... Um... Publicly embarrassing to show you how I maneuver on the Web. Where are we going? Oh, here we go. Well, the organization... click on that! Certainly, I just... and I just wanted to be responsive to that one question, to give you a quick show.
In general, if you have any interest in issues of GNSO improvements, they are set out in the GNSO improvements information page. The drop down menus give you details on the organization, the committees and teams that are involved in the process. What I want to show you real quickly is the structure that’s been agreed to by the Board, and I think that’ll address your question.
The key element is to look at the bottom of the screen, and that shows that under the new GNSO structure, the Board has inserted a new structure called stakeholder groups, that did not exist before. Underneath... those stakeholder groups will be comprised of the current constituencies and new constituencies that may be formed over time. And so as a result, from your perspective, the box in primary interest right now is the non-commercial stakeholder group box. Presently, the only non-commercial constituency that exists in ICANN is the Non-Commercial Users constituency. The Board took special time and attention in its discussions and recommendations to single out the NSUC, to say that they didn’t really approve of how it was being operated and where it was going.
The Board went to the radical change of approving the consensus of the small working group that Alan Greenberg participated in within the GNSO structure that doubled the number of votes on the GNSO council for users from three to six. The trade-off for that was that the NCSG would be much more representative of user interest broadly, non-commercial users specifically, in the new GNSO.
This week, the NCSG submitted a proposed charter for how it would operate to the Board. Over the next 30 days, there will be a public comment forum that invites comments on that proposal. And the Board presently is anticipating they will have discussions and perhaps a decision at the 23rd of April Board meeting on that petition.
There is a second Non-Commercial Stakeholder group petition that has also been filed with the Board, from a woman named Cheryl Preston who is currently a member of the NCUC. The distinction between the two approaches is that the present NCUC is proposing to dissolve itself and reformat itself as the new stakeholder group in a manner that doesn’t treat constituencies in the way they are treated now, as sort of independent entities. The alternative charter... it’s not necessarily fair to call it that, but the other charter takes a different tack, looks much more at preserving the foundational element of constituencies.
So the Board will be evaluating this. Just for perspective, the other stakeholder group charters are also of great interest. The Commercial Stakeholder Group, a meeting that I just came from, is very concerned that what they had anticipated in the compromise they agreed to is not taking place in the non-commercial space right now. They anticipated more involvement by ALAC, they anticipated more activity that they have not seen yet. They are aware of the notice of intent to form of the new constituency of consumer groups, but I think they would like to see even more recruitment activity and involvement by users, not only in ALAC but on a global basis.
Karaitiana: Great, thank you. Are there any quick questions? We’re cutting into our lunch break, so... or we will be, so I think it’s best...
Holly: Lawyers are like that. I guess this is an issue ISOC AU raised in its review, general review of ALAC structure, and that is I look at the structures, and I always have assumed that ALAC simply has a mandate because it is so representative globally of going across the whole of ICANN activities. And then I see this kind of little group that is sitting there, in GNSO, kind of in a little corner, and I’m saying, “Why isn’t ALAC part of that anyway?” I mean, why... and why does that... I can’t understand why ALAC would come up and say, “We’re a constituency because we are,” and... Do you see what I mean? I’m trying to work through where a new constituency is, because basically, ISOC AU and then the other organizations I represent are big constituencies, would want to be part of that little corner, because it’s an important corner. But at the same time, to me, ALAC should be in that corner as a matter of course, because it is ALAC, if you see what I mean?
Rob: Yeah, I think it’s an issue mainly of formulation and structure. The way the commercial stakeholders anticipate, or the way they’re interpreting current discussions right now is that ALAC views an advisory committee or participation in GNSO as an ‘or’, and that perhaps is a mis-interpretation on their part. They view it as an ‘and’, in other words, a very strong and vibrant advisory committee in ALAC, but ‘and’ participation in the GNSO, where not only do you have the opportunity to raise issues, but you can debate them, you can vote on them, you can decide on the development of issues reports that may not require the same effort that you go through currently within ALAC, and so that is clearly a goal of the Board, that is clearly an area of interest from other stakeholders in ICANN, and I think it’s just a matter of, quite frankly, additional dialogue and additional sharing of this information, and discussions about how it can be achieved.
Hong: Thank you.
Karaitiana: Great, well thank you very much for your time, Rob, and yeah, I’m sure everyone’s a little bit more enlightened. Do you have any cards that I could e-mail out to APRALO, your details, if they have further questions?
Rob: I’d be delighted to do so.
Karaitiana: Great.
Rob: I’m not sure how to... excuse me, go on. Sorry.
Karaitiana: Great. So, moving along, we’ve got a number of agenda items left, and maybe 20 minutes left, so I was just going to prioritize what we have left. Perhaps outreach initiatives is probably the first thing I’d like to talk about. In terms of outreach initiatives, Pavan and myself have taken a new pathway for initiatives by creating... by using social media, such as Facebook. We’ve got a number of people from the Asia Pacific region who have joined up our Facebook group, called APRALO. From there, the plan is to introduce APRALO to them, and to offer them a chance to have their voices heard by telling us what they think about ICANN policy, so we can add it to our policy submissions, and send it to ALAC, to the Board.
We’re also interested in looking at blogs, Twitter, and any other social media which is highly used in the Asia Pacific region. And just a short little plug here – Edmund, Phoebe and myself are doing a short presentation, I think it’s this afternoon, on Web 2.
Male: Is it this afternoon?
Karaitiana: Yes, this afternoon, on Web 2, and how to use Web 2 for outreach. So perhaps if anyone can come along to that as well, we might have a further discussion.
Holly: For those of us to have to be elsewhere, can you do another one maybe over a beer or something?
Karaitiana: If you’re shouting, then certainly.
Holly: Given that it’s ICANN money, ICANN will shout us both.
Karaitiana: Most definitely. I’m available to talk to anyone outside of the meeting times. So that’s one new initiative. Another initiative I’d like everyone to consider is user networks. We all have large networks, and we all obviously know other potential ALSs. Perhaps if we can all make a commitment to try to talk to our networks, to encourage them to join. We can provide the stats – when you look at how large the Asia-Pacific region is, and then consider we only have 16 ALSs, it’s not too good. And then, when you weigh up whereabouts all our ALSs are, there’s a huge regional imbalance. So yeah, I’d like to challenge everybody to encourage people to sign up. Myself, I’m available for any discussions, the ICANN staff are available. We can certainly set up phone conferences so people don’t have to pay for phone calls... so yeah. Siva, then Izumi.
Siva: Yeah, there is a good potential to increase the number of ALSs in India. Maybe immediately. There are three ISOC chapters, and only one is an ALS. I’ll write to the other two chapters, and also will take such initiatives in India to increase the number of ALSs.
Karaitiana: That’s great. Yeah, I’d also like people to think, you know, to remember that although they may be overrepresented in the areas right now, once we do our outreach campaign, you may not be outnumbered. So it doesn’t really matter if you’ve got too many ALSs in your region, because the whole point of APRALO is for a joint view from your region.
Siva: I’m just saying that we should increase the number of ALSs, so I’m saying that we’ll have more ALSs in India, more ALSs in other countries, so we can increase the number of ALSs in APRALO from about 16 to 30 or 35 very easily.
Karaitiana: Oh yes, most definitely. I was agreeing with what you said, and just trying to point out to people not to be shy, whether you think you have too many ALSs in your region, because... Yeah, you shouldn’t be shy about it.
Izumi: A couple of things. One is, I agree totally with the very few numbers, considering the population and the diversity of our region. And what are the sort of the factors which hinder the participation? It should be a good question. One is of language, we are often speak... I’d like to ask my Chinese speaking colleagues, does it make more sense or interest to have more publications be written and distributed in Chinese languages? Because Latin America and the French, they... almost by default, now, they are having the translation and interpretation and stuff like that.
Hong: Well, I do appreciate such a suggestion. I have never enjoyed the translation service in all my years with ICANN. I know this is very torturing for me, but we do have to think about the balance of the language policy. Chinese is a big language, of course. Hindi is another. And we have German-speaking, we have other groups. Of course, in our region... even in our region, it’s almost... important to rank a few languages, and exclude the others. So now, it seems, that the fairest way is to apply English, even though it is not a language at all in most parts of the Asia-Pacific region. Like, yes, I defer to the Chair to...
Karaitiana: My opinion is... English is my second... well, yeah, I learned two languages at the same time as a child, so I find it frustrating in my own country having to read an English document if, yeah, from the government. So, in my opinion, it must be worse for... yeah, for the rest of our... the region to have to read English documents, and, at that, have to read translations which don’t often make sense, I’m guessing, so you...
Izumi: The point is that, of course, we have the Korean language, the Japanese language, we don’t really dare for ICANN to spend any money on that, or we haven’t done that. But strategically speaking, the Chinese-speaking population is not only in mainland China – they are scattered around almost the whole globe, and it might be more efficient, perhaps, to spend a little more resources on at least the document translation, although some of the English-literate people like Hong may not need them. But to reach out the vast majority of the rest, especially with the introduction of the new domain names, gTLDs and the ccIDN, there are many more users At-Large who will be involved. And so I think it’s worth for us to propose to ICANN to consider that direction, within the operating plan of the coming up ones, otherwise we will lose the opportunity for another year or so. And also having the fact that we will have two meetings in one season in Korea, so it might be worth to put more attention to our region at this point in time.
That’s my sort of suggestion, to be humble. But also, because this language diversity is a vast challenge for us, for Asia-Pacific, unlike Latin Americano, where they have three languages, by the way. And Europeans have many, but English is working well, and also they have Spanish and the French. So I think it is worth for them to raise, otherwise we will have been put at a disadvantage – why do you have so many population but so few ALSs?
Karaitiana: So...
Male: Inaudible 53.07
Karaitiana: So you’re suggesting we should talk to ICANN for more funding for translations in the main languages, which I agree.
Izumi: I wouldn’t say the sort of interpretation or simultaneous translation in the meetings, at this point. If we add two more languages, three, it costs too much money, and frankly speaking, those who come to the meeting and they enjoy that is relatively a little portion. And I must say, some of the very fluent English speaking people using French and Spanish translations, because they don’t want ICANN to waste money. So there’s some pros and cons about that, so I’d like to be humble for that.
Sophie?: I think it’s important for ICANN to... You know, it’s one of the ideas about ICANN is to really reach out to the really grass-roots people, and a lot of those people are not literate in English in terms of, you know, speaking and listening. That kind of proficiency is lacking. And so with current system, there’s self-selection for participation. People who would be coming only those who can, you know, function in English. So I think it defeats the whole purpose of trying to reach out to those people. So, you may empathize that aspect of it, because it’s contrary to what we are trying to do in ICANN. Yeah.
Holly: I’m just going to support that, because it seems absolutely insane to me that we’ve got three languages, all of them essentially Western European in their origin, and we’ve got this vast population in the world that... whose first language is something so completely different. So even if we just started with Chinese, if we started with Hindi, if we do Arabic, I mean even something that says, by the way, there’s something besides Western European language.
Karaitiana: I’ve got some stats here. There’s 6911 languages in the world, in our region... 3579 of them are in the AP region. In terms of stats, Mandarin has 873 million speakers, and Hindi 450 million. And English it’s 341 million. So yeah, we certainly have a...
Siva?: One small correction, it is that a statistically linked language as Hindi, it’s not 450 million Hindi. That is an assumption speaking. But anyway, I’ll put the statistics which you don’t have. Out of the 7 billion population in this planet... out of the 7 billion, around 3 billion, roughly, are from China and India. Two countries. We are really talking about, roughly, 43 percent. So somewhere, as you said, some step has to be looked in that direction, whatever may be the challenges. But are we going to look in this direction, the most important part. The second part, I think, will inaudible 56.21 find out the methods.
Sophie?: Related to that, I think it may sound a little bit unrelated, but I’ve been thinking about it last two days, listening to... as you know, I’m really a newbie. And the whole concept of the Internet users, Internet users, okay. That, again, by definition, is contrary to what we’re trying to do, to reach new people, and whatever the structure we are trying to improve and build, we’ll have to... And then, also, I’m hearing the word proactive. We want to be proactive, right? If we want to be proactive, the structures and the system that we are trying to improve and build, should look into the idea about current non-users. There are a vast amount of people who are not users, currently. So by our language saying, “The users, the users,” we are excluding them. So “potential users,” or “currently non-users who may become users sometime in the future.” I think that whole notion is... I wanted to say that yesterday in this big plenary, but I was cut off. Because I even had the mic, but the Chair said we had to finish. I really, I feel so strongly about this, because in other areas, other than the Internet, for the last five decades there is research evidences that talks about how important this non-users are. To pay attention to them, and how important it is, even in recent research about Internet, even in US. We are focusing on that whole notion, that whole group of the drop-outs, Internet drop-outs, so when we use the language of the user, I think we are leaving a lot out. So I want us to be mindful of that when we are doing all this.
Vivek?: Or, to just put it another way, your next one billion users are going to come predominantly from non-English speaking countries.
Sophie?: Exactly, exactly. And that...
Vivek?: English speaking is nearing a saturation point.
Sophie?: That’s my point. So if we want to include those people into our whole notion of the users, in a big way, those are the people who are not speaking English. And maybe one of the reasons why they are not currently using is because Internet is so much English language system. So they are not using it.
Karaitiana: Yeah, you raise some good points, and I... I think, yeah, that’s certainly something we could look at... Yeah, perhaps when you’re certified, we could set up a working group, but... and Izumi...
Izumi: On the contrary to what I said, perhaps, I have some caution that we don’t... I don’t want to demand too much to reach out to all the users with all the languages by ICANN. That costs too much money. And frankly, also, we may have more diversions than sort of the global thing, that to a certain extent, we have, and I have accepted, English as a working language. Perhaps more efficient than having too many translations and when, after that, you come back and... So, with that, so I’d like to see ICANN have more, of course, spending resources on the sort of a comprehensive elementally or sort of every person’s language on a sort of strategical areas. Could be used later, could be introduction at ICANN meetings, or a selective way of making translation, not necessarily everything.
And in each country, like, my country as well, there’s English speaking some, and the vast majority Japanese speaking only, but so these are my tasks, or these English people’s speaking tasks sometimes, to bridge, not necessarily only, solely relying on ICANN. But, by the same token, I think we had better push this agenda a little bit more.
Holly: I think so.
Karaitiana: Great.
Vivek?: Izumi, I think one of my earlier Presidents in the country said, “A small ambition is a crime.” laughter So let us be very ambitious, I think something will follow. So that’s what I said, in principle, we have to look at this whole fundamental direction. Then the inequity, as you said, about the money, everything... the money, rather I said that your money’s got to come from. If you’re going to approach, as she points out, to the Internet drop-outs, or rather I say that the world is divided – it’s not only haves and have nots, knows and know nots. And this know nots business is part of the Internet thing – if it is going to come, we need to really look at it.
Karaitiana: Thanks. And last comment from Sophie, please.
Sophie: Okay. I agree with Izumi’s comment. We don’t need to translate all the documents into different languages. Anyway, even if we look at the new gTLD guidebook, if it’s in Chinese, people will understand their own professional contacts. So I would... as I mentioned in the beginning, we have difficulties conveying ICANN’s documents, or their ideas, to our audience, to our users, is because the concepts they deliver are sort of... there’s a distance between ICANN and end-user, and we have spent a lot of time trying to translate the concept into more general, or more lifestyle terms to our Internet users. And I think we need more help from ICANN to help us connect what they are going to propose. I mean, the new ideas, such as new gTLDs or new ideas, we need a connection to end-user. Thank you.
Karaitiana: Would anyone be interested in forming a small working group to write a formal letter to the president of ICANN, with proof that we need to have multi-lingual website or outreach material? Would... is that something worthwhile, or...?
Siva: Yes. 54. I thought you wanted a volunteer to write a letter.
Karaitiana: Probably... I think perhaps a small group of people to get the facts, and then, yeah, definitely someone to write the letter. I mean, yeah, from what I’ve heard, we’re such a diverse region, and we’re only catering towards a minority of the region by using English language.
Siva: I’ll be part of the group and work with Izumi, and we can come up with the letter.
Karaitiana: Okay, great. And may I suggest that we send the letter in English, Japanese, Chinese, Indian as well, just to prove a point?
Izumi: Because I have to leave on Thursday morning, I really encourage you... of course, one is, to write a letter is a good thing, and a perfect channel to APRALO to ALAC, or make it stand alone as an APRALO thing. And go to the public forum and make a presentation by the newbies, like you guys, instead of asking Cheryl or the Chair as our representative. Because it gives a much better impact to the rest of the community, with the new faces sometimes, unlike myself, will be heard better from the other constituencies. And you’ve got to really persuade the other constituencies to get it done, as well as the Board members.
Unfortunately, some of us have to leave earlier, not attending the public forum, but for those who are fortunate enough to stay, do it, and then you’ll get much more return.
On a bit different subject, if I may, quickly, if you look at the distribution of ALSs in the region, there is a big vacuum. There is mostly the Eastern and Southeast Asian areas – Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia around. I tried a few years ago, but without success – why don’t we do again? And we need some strategic thinking for those areas, unless you have any good ties. Then we need to ask somebody else as well, ICANN staff, or other... ISOC, you know, bodies. Also the East Asian countries are not really well-represented, as a whole. So we need this kind of strategic thinking, as well.
Karaitiana: So perhaps if we... perhaps don’t make this announcement at this meeting, perhaps we aim for the Sydney meeting, and make sure that we’re very well documented and have all the proof, and saturate all the levels of ICANN that will listen, that have influence. And perhaps we can also... maybe just try and get support from those countries that we don’t have on board, and find out, if we offered a multi-lingual service, would they join us. And if they would, then I think we’ve got quite a strong case. So can I leave that up to Izumi and Siva to get started? Or...
Izumi: You take the lead – I’ll follow.
Siva: Okay.
Karaitiana: Okay, good. Yes, Sophie, great, excellent, cool.
Siva: There are three of us, and so...
Karaitiana: Now did we get a legal opinion?
Holly: 58
Karaitiana: Yes, oh great. Could we... so we just need to vote on the draft? Okay, could we... could you read the draft out for us, please.
Vivek?: 23 ...shall be selected initially one for a period of one year, and another for a period of two years. Thereupon, each 30 – whole following section is off mic... you know, forget about the “E”, that’s a mistake... for a period of two years.
The next one that’s new, 5.3, selection process of a inaudible to ALAC. Chairpersons of a inaudible and vice chair inaudible shall be concluded by June 30th, so that inaudible filling up the position. We removed the word AGM because it comes in October.
Siva: I think there is a problem – the two Vice-Chair persons shall be selected initially for a period of one year, another for a period of two years. This is a phenomenon for only this year, so it’s done.
Holly: Yeah, that’s why it says, “Thereupon.”
Siva: Thereupon...
Holly: Yeah, for me. It means “after that.”
Siva: Okay.
Holly: And then... this happens once.
Vivek: Initially, thereupon.
Izumi: To make it more easy then, you can say in 2009, or something like that.
Holly: No, no, no. No years.
Izumi: Well, that has been used by other areas of by-laws, if you look. ICANN by-laws as well, 2003 and stuff like that. But I don’t argue too much against lawyers, thank you very much.
Vivek: Or you can explicitly state the first year – for one year, one time.
Holly: But initially means the beginning. I don’t care, it’s just initially means at the start.
Izumi: The problem is, if you put it in an historical archive, you may have difficulty in finding out why, what’s the initial... It’s so obvious to us doesn’t mean it’s so obvious to others.
Karaitiana: But legally we’re okay...
Male: 08
Karaitiana: I guess legally we’re sound and correct, according to our legal group?
Holly: It’s now down to the lawyers.
Karaitiana: Well, I guess um let’s just vote on it.
Siva: So you want that initially? Which year are we meeting? Financial year 2009 or 2010?
Izumi: For the year commencing in 2009, or something like that. Or for the 2009 year term, one for blah, blah, blah.
Nirmol: Point 6.2 of the MOU actually uses the word fiscal year, so we can use the same here – fiscal year 2009.
Holly: Fiscal year 2009 is actually fiscal year 2008/9.
Female: Right.
Siva: 2008/2009.
Vivek: Well, can we do 2009/2010.
Holly: Fiscal year... a fiscal year equals two years.
Male: So you get...
Siva: Just to have a consistency in the document.
Female: So why don’t we say fiscal year 2009-2010.
Karaitiana: Sorry, it’s...
Female: To be clear.
Holly: Okay, instead of initially...
Karaitiana: Well, I guess, before we do anything, we’re asking for amendments because certain people don’t understand certain things, up there, or because it’s factually wrong? I... what I...
Vivek: Just to bring more clarity in the doc.
Karaitiana: Sure, right.
Holly: So we all understand, but we’re all 24.
Karaitiana: Okay, so I guess what I’m saying is what’s up here now is legally correct, and what we asked to have in. So there’s just a... is it ambiguous... do you think it’s ambiguous from a lawyer’s point, or...?
Phoebe: Not... not ambiguous, but this kind of document... I mean, this kind of document, I mean, we all have been sitting here moaning over, talking about it, and so we know, even if we leave it the way it is, we know the reason behind this, and we know what it means. But this document is not just for us, it’s for whoever will be looking at it. And in the future, we may not be here, but so... I think it’s better to make it clear, to be specific about that point?
Holly: Are you suggesting then we replace the word “initially” with, In Fiscal Year 2009/10.
Phoebe: 2009/10. Yeah.
Karaitiana: All right, fine.
Phoebe: Yeah, I’m 23 That’s fine, yeah.
Karaitiana: Right, okay then. We’re ten minutes...
Holly: You’ll get the bill later.
Karaitiana: So I guess, based on that small word change, can we do a vote, or does everybody want to see it up on the screen first.
Vivek: You want to see it again?
Holly: It’s on the screen.
Vivek: 42 Two vice-chairs would serve as a 43 for the fiscal year 2009. One for a period of one year, one for a period of two years.
Karaitiana: Great. Okay, now, I trust, is everyone happy with the amendments? Great, can we have a show of hands for those in favour, please?
Holly: And Hong was happy as well.
Karaitiana: Yes, yeah. Great. Okay, right then, unanimous... we agree to...
Siva?: Okay, this is for Hong. laughter
Holly: We’ve got two for Hong.
Karaitiana: Hong’s voted too many times. Okay, right. We’ve now unanimously agreed to the amendments. Great. Um, I guess to summarize up, we haven’t gone through the whole agenda, but I guess the remaining items can be discussed during the month, and at the next APRALO meeting. Just... we’ve had a number of ALSs talk about using Skype, you know, testing out Skype as opposed to using the telephone service. Some countries, including myself, can’t ring an 08... can’t ring a free phone number, so, and I come from a so-called developed country.
Holly: We know what that means.
Karaitiana: Yeah, well. laughter I just... just would like to quickly discuss, is anyone interested in doing a trial of using Skype for one month, and telephone for another month, just to... so we can accurately find out what’s the best technology.
Vivek: The first question is that we... we don’t have a dial-out. We get... Siva, do you get the dial-in, the numbers what you give, free numbers?
Siva: Yeah, but that creates a problem. We don’t get the dial-out from India, I can’t dial the number to the conference, and so...
Vivek: So what is left for... the best for us at this junction for us is only Skype. Because we do have a reasonably good broadband connection.
Siva: And with Skype, even the functionality is limited, so we don’t have the credits, so we’ll just have to rely on calling with a microphone.
Karaitiana: Okay.
Holly: I think...
Karaitiana: Oh, sorry, Izumi goes first. You’re next.
Izumi: You may not like this idea, but in certain countries, I don’t know if India is true or not, you have very cheap IP phones, using... buying yourself five dollars and hour or something like that. Can you use that and then get reimbursed if you really want to, or is it just a crazy idea?
Vivek: Going in for some such kind of using an IP phone, we don’t have that in India, incidentally. Rather, if we can get Skype credits centrally, or have some kind of an arrangement with Skype to enable voice calls for APRALO meetings, and ALAC meetings.
Nirmol?: Oh Skype, you don’t need a credit. If you are using Skype to Skype, where is the money?
Vivek: Oh, okay.
Karaitiana: Sorry, could we just.
Sophie?: Yeah, that is just what I was going to say. If everybody who are talking on Skype are members, then there’s no...
Izumi: The quality is not usually as good as, for these conference meetings. We really suffered from some of the bad quality, like Skype, sometimes.
Karaitiana: That happens when a Skype call rings the telephone service, right, which yeah... don’t. And from the people I spoke... the ALSs that have come to me, that have asked that we either do one or the other, but have asked for a trial to figure out whether it’s best. Some people felt that they were being told that they couldn’t use Skype for no good reason, and so, in my opinion, a trial will produce the facts, and no one can argue with the facts. So...
I guess, is there anyone who’s opposed to trialing out Skype for the next phone conference.
Vivek: Your dialing facility comes, I think, at least I don’t know which parts dialing is available, in India, it’s not available for us. So you’ll have to call us and then, you know, get in... and that’s always...
Karaitiana: The problem is, we’ve always...
Female: 48
Karaitiana: Yeah, with Skype, yeah, obviously we could all call each other. For people in India, myself, I had to rely on staff to ring me. The last phone conference we had, I didn’t get a phone call, which was... yeah, oversight. At least, if we can agree on Skype, then it would remove those issues. Yeah, Izumi.
Izumi: In any case, if ICANN pays for the costs by calling us up and then, you know... By the same token, of course it takes a little bit more complication, but we pay first and get reimbursed is another way, as an option. I think it’s better than making the excuse, “Oh, they didn’t call me, so that I didn’t participate.” Of course, it depends on the financial situation and how easy the transaction of money, etc., etc.
Vivek: Yeah, that’ll be complicated. I have to do a bill, with a long bill, and then, you know, from that, I have to identify...
Izumi: But, if you can make a sort of ball-park sort of, you know, request, not necessarily sending the receipt of all. Just one dollar, ten dollars, something like that. If ICANN is happy, then it should be worked out.
Karaitiana: I guess... I’m not mentioning anyone’s ALS, but I have... at least one ALS had concerns about spending minor amounts of money because of their country, etc. So I don’t think it’s fair for us to ask for ALS to do that. I mean, it might be okay for developed countries, etc., but we’ve got to be considerate that some countries can’t afford the ten dollars for a phone call, and then wait three months for ICANN or two months for ICANN. Les?
Les: I think it becomes a bit more complicated than that, even. You need Skype out. Correct? We can agree on that? Now, to get Skype out, you need a credit card, and that’s where the problem lies. Because in many under-developed countries or developing countries, it is not... it’s impossible to get a credit card.
Female: Good point.
Les: So I’m wondering if there might be a way that perhaps we could explore APRALO, ICANN through APRALO, crediting an individual who would be an appointee... their phone. I know it’s very hard, because I’ve tried to credit my colleagues and things, using my own credit card. You can only buy your own, which makes it rather difficult. So just a thought.
Karaitiana: Um, I guess the issue is, using Skype to ring a phone doesn’t work on the phone conference. It’s very hollow and very hard to hear. At least with Skype, we can call each other for free, just by user names.
Sophie?: Yeah, what if... So, I have a Skype account, and it seems like most of you do. But what if we create an APRALO/Skype account for, you know?
Male: 48
Sophie?: Yeah, so it comes with a membership, and then there won’t be any problem, because it can be the credit card, or the transaction can be done...
Karaitiana: Sorry, if I can interrupt. To use a credit card for Skype implies ringing a phone, which has already been ruled out as not being feasible. So there’s no issue of the credit card there, so...
Sophie?: Sorry, I just thought that it wasn’t supplied, yeah.
Karaitiana: Okay, so we’ll trial out the next APRALO meeting using Skype, and there’s also a free download where you can record the meeting yourself. So if anyone’s interested in recording that meeting, I can send out that free download.
So, just to wrap up and conclusion, does anybody else have anything else they want to add? And just make you aware that we’re about 15 minutes into the one hour lunch break. Les?
Les: Well, there was an issue, which is really very much out of business, and I’m very disappointed with the quality and the accuracy and the integrity of ALSs on the website, the ALS listings. And I would be very happy to clean it up myself, but I understand we do not have our own rights or privileges to work on that website, or that area of the website.
Karaitiana: I understand ALAC have directed the staff to make a priority to update the site. I myself also have the same issues. I have access to... but I can never find any information.
I’d like to propose that, after the website’s been redone, if we still have problems, perhaps we can consider our own website, decide out own structure, and how... where everything’s placed, if we can’t seek suitable... yeah, if you can’t get the problems fixed from ICANN staff. But I can assure you, it is on the agenda for... to be fixed.
Great, well, that sounds like that’s that. And so the agenda items we missed today, the ALS application procedures, evaluating officers and representatives, and the outcomes of the APRALO survey, we’ll do those at the next APRALO meeting on Skype. So I’d like to thank everybody for their time, and it’s been productive, and it’s been really good to see everybody all together. So yeah, thank you guys.
Um, sorry. Those people who agreed to do the videotaping, they’re here now, so...
End of Audio 2