2009 Election Call for Board Liaison - Level of Commitment and Information on Nominee
Level of Commitment of Board Liaison
1. Acceptance of the Nomination to the position.
Nominee accepted her nomination on 16 August 2009.
2. Biography
Wendy Seltzer is a Fellow with the University of Colorado's Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship in Boulder, researching intellectual property, innovation, and free expression online. As a Fellow with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Wendy founded and leads the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, helping Internet users to understand their rights in response to cease-and-desist threats. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Tor Project, promoting privacy and anonymity research, education, and technology. She seeks to improve technology policy in support of user-driven innovation and free expression.
She has taught Intellectual Property, Internet Law, Antitrust, Copyright, and Information Privacy at American University Washington College of Law, Northeastern Law School, and Brooklyn Law School and was a Visiting Fellow with the Oxford Internet Institute, teaching a joint course with the Said Business School, Media Strategies for a Networked World. Previously, she was a staff attorney with online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in intellectual property and First Amendment issues, and a litigator with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel.
Wendy speaks and writes on copyright, trademark, patent, open source, and the public interest online. She has an A.B. from Harvard College and J.D. from Harvard Law School, and occasionally takes a break from legal code to program (Perl and MythTV).
3. Statement of Interest
Since there is a tremendous learning curve to ICANN Board activities, even after long-time participation in other ICANN functions, I think that my two years of service as At-Large Liaison to the Board are a considerable asset to the At-Large.
See also my previous statements, http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann.org/2007q2/001098.html
We know that ICANN is a legal construct based on a series of contracts, and that it responds most consistently to legal arguments. As a lawyer, I think I am well-positioned to help the Board review arguments made to it, and to present positions in that mode on behalf of the Internet-using public. But I'm not just a lawyer, I'm also a free expression activist, professor, and techie who brings all of those to my understanding of the ICANN problem.
The status quo has got to go. ICANN has built layers upon layers of bureaucracy, ballooning to a $50 million budget and spawning endless pages of procedure around what should be, for the most part, simple issues. We need to insist that it pare back to the minimal technical coordination for which it was chartered. Otherwise, Internet management becomes a pawn in the hands of every special interest who can send a few representatives to file a complaint, and "consensus" becomes a synonym for stagnation. Those advocating against mission creep need our support.
I will not pretend I agree with much of the ALAC structure – I don't, I think the pyramid has been constructed precisely to minimize the voice of the at-large public. I think that disagreement makes me a stronger representative of the public interest we're all working towards. I will continue to advocate for actual voting representation of the at-large public, including during the upcoming ALAC review and pending GNSO review.
If selected as Board Liaison, I commit to openly communicating in both directions, from the ALAC, RALOs, and diverse Internet-user community to the Board, and from the Board to those organizations and individuals.
I look forward to joining you in further discussions and to answering any questions you may have. I hope I can earn your support.
4. Conflict of Interest statement
Disclosing any conflicts as provided at * http://www.icann.org/en/committees/coi/coi-policy-04mar99.htm*. Where the referenced uses the term 'Director' this shall be understood as meaning Liaison; it is further understood that Section 4 in that document is not applicable, as a liaison does not have a vote. |
I commit to compliance with the Conflicts of Interest policy.
Questions from Community Members
Q.1 Question: Apart from assuming the heavy workload on the Board, would the liaison commit to keep in close contact with the at-large community, such as attending ALAC meetings as far as possible and participating the policy discussions online and offline? (Question submitted by Hong Xue, APRALO)
Q.2. Question: I'd like to know what the candidates think of the role of ALAC's Executive Committee, and particularly how they'd see their relationship as liaison with the ExCom, ALAC and At Large. (Question submitted by Adam Peake, EURALO)
Q.3 I want to know if somebody have contradictory interests or interests again individual user in his/her real life. Or if somebody had had some different interests in the past with end user interests and in what way this affect their future behaviour like ALAC liaision into board. (Question submitted by Carlos Aguirre, LACRALO)
Q4 Much is said, but little has been done, about making At-Large more pro-active and less reactive regarding ICANN policy. If elected, what would you do to help enable this important transition? (Question submitted by Evan Leibovitch, NARALO)
Q5 Given what you have experienced since becoming involved with At-Large, what matters would you personally want to see brought to the Board? (Question submitted by Evan Leibovitch, NARALO)
Q6 What is the Main Role of the Succesful Candidate? (Question submitted by LACRALO)
Q7 Case situation: several members of the Board tell you that ALAC is a ''waste of time'' and that ''nothing useful has ever come out of ALAC''. How do you respond? (Question submitted by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Q8 Which of those statements better fits your beliefs:- engineers are nerds- traders are thieves- lawyers are snakes- public society NGOs are left wing- politicians can never be trusted. (Question submitted by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Q9 What is your opinion of the need for new gTLDs, and the way ICANN has handled their implementation? (Question submitted by Evan Leibovitch, NARALO)
Q10 The RALO structure at ICANN – ALAC was created in 2007. Several RALOs designed working programmes for their region which were submitted, discussed and approved by their General Assemblies (GA) since then. This WP included outreach activities in the respective region to increase contacts, ALSes and impact of the RALO. With the WP a working budget was drafted in line with the activities suggested. It was clear that each activity has to be further described and substantiated afterwards and submitted to ICANN Staff for approval. It was clear that there would be proper reporting on the events, accountability and transparency provided about what was done, why and how and on the results. This approach could encourage mobilisation, participation and dynamics in the RALO considerably as well as increasing outreach and improving performance. Two good examples for EURALO are events like EuroDIG and the ICANN Studienkreis meetings. So far, we are far from having this RALO planning and working autonomy happen.
Question: Will the Board Liaison Candidate help and support RALOs at ICANN to make these plans and improvements happen? (Question Submitted by Wolf Ludwig, EURALO)
Q.11 Will the Board Liaison Candidate help and support RALOs to make regular GAs in a F2F format once a year in their region possible and becoming a reliable planning option? (Question Submitted by Wolf Ludwig, EURALO)
Q.12 Will the Board Liaison Candidate help and support ALAC and RALOs to make a 2nd At-Large Summit in 2011 (according to the best practise in Mexico-City) happening? (Question Submitted by Wolf Ludwig, EURALO)
Q.13 What, do you feel, is your biggest weakness with regards to the position you are applying for? (Question submitted by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Q.14 Please describe what you feel is your biggest achievement so far with regards to Internet Governance & ICANN. (Question submitted by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Q.15 Case situation: During a meeting, three members of the Board explain to the others that the IRT recommendations should be agreed on with no further delay because there is real pressure on ICANN to create new gTLDs. You interrupt them and tell them, quite rightly, that the process should not be pushed through at any cost. They reply: "TLDs are our bread and butter. Why should we listen to ALAC on this?" How would you respond to this question?(Question submitted by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Q.16 What are, starting from the biggest one, ICANN's three biggest challenges today?(Question submitted by Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Q.17 Each of you have had variable experience and commitment to the outcomes of the recent ALAC Review Process (and indeed to the structure and function of their ALSes<=> RALOs <=> ALAC structure, as it is both an expectation and need that the person serving in final term of ALAC Liaison to the ICANN Board before the role is replaced by a voting Board Member appointed by At-Large, in otherwords a Champion of this structure as it is recommended to be maintained (at this time) as well as to be an Ambassador for "ALAC as the representative body for At Large is the primary organisational home for the voice and concerns of the individual Internet user in ICANN processes,..." (p 6, Recomendation 10. ALAC Review Final) ; Can each of you please outline your commitment to the current structure(s) we are working with and any specific vision as to how this can be enhanced by support from the ICANN Board? (Question for all Candidates from APRALO rep to ALAC CLO)
