*AL.ALAC/ST.0509/1.Rev2
ORIGINAL: English
DATE: 5th May 2009
STATUS: DRAFT*
Response of the Committee to a Public Consultation
Relating to the FY 2010 Budget and Operating Plan Framework for ICANN
On the occasion of the Public Consultation on the FY2010 Budget and Operating Plan Framework, the At-Large Advisory Committee would like to note that the At-Large community has made several statements over the last several months on various topical subjects, many of which have elements that would require new resources or a change in priority or allocation of existing resources.
Accordingly, the Committee takes this opportunity to provide excerpts, and references to the source texts, of said comments. We wish to note that the brief summarisation of the resource-related components of each text should not be a replacement for reading the whole text to ensure that the full meaning and context are clear to the reader.
Finally, the Committee wishes to fully endorse the statements made directly by RALOs to the public consultation.
Statements of the ALAC
28th April 2009 – ALAC Statement on the Final Draft Report of the ALAC Review Working Group
• Tying activities and their results to the costs associated with them is important.
• Increase in the capacity of community members with respect to key skills is important and training and other mechanisms may be needed to facilitate this.
• Many of the proposals in the report require additional financial resources from ICANN. These should be made available in this FY budget to prevent delays in implementation.
19th April 2009 – ALAC Statement on the New gTLDs Application Process v2
• The categorisation of new gTLD applications into only two categories is insufficient and further study may be needed to find an optimal categorisation regime.
• The one-size fits all pricing model for new applicants is not appropriate, and needs to be changed to accommodate, inter alia, developing and least developed country applications. A phased fee system is recommended.
• Morality and Public Order objections must be removed from the process.
• Non-IDN applicants should not be obliged to implement IDN-related technologies at the registry level.
• New TLDs should be obliged to implement DNSSec once the technology becomes widespread in production use amongst the TLD registries.
16th April 2009 – ALAC Statement on a Travel Policy for Volunteers
• ALAC’s ability to function is significantly threatened if full funding of all its members, plus liaisons, is not continued to all ICANN International Meetings, due to the completely voluntary nature of its membership.
• The tripartite nature of the At-Large community means that the leadership of the five RALOs need funding to attend ICANN International meetings.
• Each of the five Regional At-Large Organisations (“RALOs”) needs an opportunity to meet face-to-face once per year, which cannot be sustained without ICANN funding. These meetings could be at the ICANN International Meetings in each region each year, and/or at other relevant meetings in the respective region during the year, as most useful.
• Travel Support management needs substantial improvements in many respects;
• Some flexibility with respect to upgradeable economy airfares is needed to ensure that volunteers arrive at meetings in the best condition to be effective.
• ALAC’s previous statement about travel support of 5th May 2008 remains relevant.
11th December 2008 - ALAC Communication to the Board on ICANN Meeting Participation and Organisation
• Remote Participation at ICANN meetings needs much greater priority
• Major documents introduced for discussion at ICANN meetings need to be routinely available in translated versions, and must be published much further in advance of meetings to allow volunteers sufficient time to review them.
4th February 2009 - ALAC Communication to the Board on the Draft Fast Track Implementation Plan
• Various protection mechanisms need to be provided in the Implementation Plan for the interests of individual registrants
• ICANN’s public participation initiatives should be integrated into those of the ccTLDs to ensure the broadest possible engagement of the user community.
At-Large Summit Declaration
We draw your attention to the fact that the entire declaration is available at http://www.atlarge.icann.org/files/atlarge/correspondence-05mar09-en.pdf.
• A major awareness and education campaign across the existing At-Large community should be undertaken directly in order to improve awareness of ICANN issues and their relevance to Internet end users.
• Funding of an adequate and timely education campaign for Internet end users related to IDNs should be included in the next budget and involve existing At-Large Structures integrally.
• Regional face-to-face meetings of the community each year are essential. The participation of other ICANN communities at such meetings would be welcomed.
• Advance communications initiatives preceding each International Meeting should be put in place in collaboration with the region’s At-Large community to increase awareness of ICANN meetings and their importance.
• Remote Participation mechanisms at ICANN meetings are inadequate and should be enhanced and run far more professionally than at present.
• ICANN should look seriously at holding regional meetings and not just International meetings.
• ALSes efforts to reach the grassroots communities in their areas should be supported by ICANN.
• More translations are essential – without them ICANN’s legitimacy is in question.
• Mechanisms to assist At-Large in collaborating more with other ICANN communities, and vice-versa, is essential.
• International Meeting venues are being chosen in a way that excludes many participants because of the high price of accommodation. Future meetings should have the criterion of affordability as an essential element.
• Travel processes should start earlier to ease the burden of acquiring visas, especially for developing country participants.
• For the legitimacy and sustainability of ICANN, broader participation in all ICANN communities in all senses must be facilitated.
• Materials should be produced in a way which facilitates easy understanding from different stakeholders’ points of view and of interest.
• Participants engaged in policy development should be obliged to routinely disclose any affiliations that might affect their contributions.
• ICANN’s processes need to respect cultural as well as linguistic diversity. This requires a more globally distributed staff, organs, and activities of the organisation. More activities should be managed from outside of the USA.
• Financial transparency is not sufficient as, for example, it is not possible to properly determine what the overall cost of each ICANN entity actually is.
• The responsibilities of each person in charge of an area of ICANN should be clearly stated and the effectiveness of each should be the subject of periodic public evaluation.
• Documentation of the life cycle of compliance procedures, requirements, and metrics, including enforcement and appeals, is necessary.
• The public should be able to easily review the obligations of contracted parties.
• External audits of the efficacy of compliance activities should be undertaken.
• One ICANN International Meeting per annum should be oriented towards issues related to non-commercial, commercial, and individual users.
• Periodic regional gatherings for the contracted parties should be opened up to include all ICANN stakeholders.
• Conflict of Interest policies should be developed for all ACs, SOs, and other entities.
• ICANN should improve the balance between operator/business interests on the one hand, and the ALAC and the GAC on the other.
• ICANN should instigate a study of how the implementation of DNSSec might harm some network implementations, such as WiFI hotspots.
• ICANN should support industry more in accommodating DNSSec more securely.
• Third-party trust repositories should be used to provide more root security until DNSSec is globally accepted.
• Registries and Registrars should be obliged to implement DNSSec in a way that facilitates registrants’ implementation of the same technology.
• ICANN should encourage stricter domain registration policies to minimise fraudulent registrations.
• ICANN should obligate the use of technical mechanisms to restrict fast-flux hosting attacks as recommended by the APWG at the registry level.
• A clearly defined and accepted process for accelerated suspension of misused domains should be adopted on an urgent basis.
• ICANN should promote greater information-sharing between key stakeholders with respect to criminal or malicious activities.
• ICANN should promote the prompt implementation of the 2005 Hijacking Report http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/hijacking-report-12jul05.pdf).
• Existing detection algorithms to find typosquatted domain names should be implemented across all registries.
• ICANN’s policy development processes should include a formalised assessment of the impact of proposed policies on various stakeholders, in particular the public interest.
