At-Large Community Meeting with ICANN Board Members
11th February 2008
Summary Minutes*
NOTE: These minutes are in draft form until adopted by the Committee
ALAC Present: I Aizu, C Aguirre, J Salgueiro, A Greenberg, V Cretu, S Bachollet, C Langdon-Orr (Chair), D Kasole, H Diakite, A Muehlberg, M El Bashir, B Brendler, V Scartezini (Vice-Chair)
Community and Secretariats: W Ludwig, H Xue, J Morris, P Budhrani, D Farrar, E Leibovitch, D Thompson, C Samuels
Board Members: T Narten, D Jennings
The Chair of ALAC called the meeting to order at 10:35
The Chair introduced V Cretu to the meeting to review Sunday’s ALAC and Secretariats "One Day" Workshop. A presentation via PowerPoint was made to provide an overview of the session.
I Aizu noted that the RALOs having been formed was requiring new approaches to working together.
The Chair asked the leaders of each working group to present a brief summary of activities.
I Aizu then provided a review using Powerpoint of the work of the IPv4 – IPv6 Coexsitence Working Group.
The Chair then offered <break in minutes>
A Greenberg provided a brief summary of the Domain Tasting working group’s work and an introduction on the present state of discussions in the GNSO. He noted the funnel requests of NeuStar and Afilias related to AGP adds.
The Chair of ICANN was then invited to address the meeting by Chair of the ALAC.
P Dengate-Thrush noted there was considerable work related to New gTLD introduction. The staff have been asked to provide information on the implementability of the 20 policy provisions of the GNSO and there is a feeling that 15 of the 20 are implementable. It is likely that there will now be a discussion between the Board and the GNSO on the more difficult elements of the new GTLD policy.
IDNs are another major area of work and he is pleased to report that the issues between the ccNSO and the GNSO in certain respects appeared to be in the process of being resolved thanks to discussions at this meeting.
The JPA review was another important area of work and the Board was interested to hear the At-Large’s views on the areas of activity covered by the JPA. He noted the importance of understanding that freedom or being set free was unfortunate language as it did not reflect the actual state of things; ICANN was seeking to improve accountability to the multi-stakeholder model and the Internet community.
P Dengate-Thrush reinforced that all public comments were read and that it was important to be as clear as you felt; diplomacy was not nearly as important as clarity of expression.
P Twomey then addressed the meeting. He noted that it was important to make comments related to the budget and operating plan in all its aspects. He noted that there was a draft translation policy being reviewed and noted that the additional costs associated with meeting interpretation and translation and the community was asked to keep that in mind.
P Dengate-Thrush noted that the ALAC Liaison had approached the Board about the proposal related to the Summer meeting.
The Chair of the Meeting then invited questions and comments from the floor.
C Samuels noted that for ICANN to reach out and be visible to the user community was going to require money to use new formats and mechanisms and that would cost money. He noted that messages prepared specifically by radio was very important to the user community in LAC and Africa. There were a billion Internet users but five billion to go and radio was the right medium to do this. ICANN has a responsibility to make itself known to users.
P Twomey asked if there were good distribution methods for this communications medium.
C Samuels noted that this was being discussed and community radio stations can be collaborated with and the international association of community broadcasters were to be approached. The key was the way the message was presented. There are many channels but the message in the right format is lacking.
A Greenberg strongly supported the initiative and noted his experience with developing countries led him to agree with the importance of radio in this regard. He noted that IGOs – especially UNESCO – and local governments were active in radio .
P Dengate-Thrush asked for more information on how this would work for those members of the public who did not have access to the Internet.
C Samuels noted that the growth of mobile Internet technology was one of the ways in which the unconnected were being connected and it must understood that this was not really a chicken-and-egg situation.
A Greenberg noted that access was increasing in rural developing countries and people were hungry for information. We have an obligation to help people understand what ICANN is and does and its place in the Internet.
P Dengate-Thrush noted that there was a potential element of mission creep in such ideas and in the past partnering with organisations such as ISOC.
H Diakite noted that a person who is informed can better protect his or her interests and it is important. If people are aware of roblems related to spam and the like for example they could be aware in advance of what they will face online.
W Scartezini noted that one of the best way to reach people in developing countries was via ccTLDs. People may not need to know in detail about the GNSO – but they need to know that we exist. The public needs to know not just what their government is doing but also what alternatives to government involvement in Internet policy are available. There is a general misunderstanding in the development world of who is responsible for what related to the Internet.
P Twomey noted that he worked for an organisation at one point in the 1980s that delivered copy for use by developing country news outlets. He noted that the key to delivering information globally was the distribution method.
A question from the floor was made asking what legal and policy challenges were facing ICANN.
P Dengate-Thrush responded that the answer might take several days but referred to his opening comments. He elaborated with a listing of several subjects such as ccTLD relationships, the IDN rollout, RAA renegotiations. He noted that the best way to resolve difficult questions through the advisory councils and supporting organisations.
P Twomey noted that the biggest legal issues was TLDs – whether IDN or non-IDN. Issues with trademarks, and third parties affected by the decisions of others, would be particularly complex.
A Muehlberg noted that outreach, especially eastern Europe, provided challenges. There is Internet access but it can be spotty. ccTLDs are available but can be expensive. IDNs offer a real and new chance for those who could face barriers today to potentially have greater access. She noted the outreach event recently conducted in Germany which brought together young people from various walks of life. She noted her interest in the availability of new gTLDs and hoped that no further delays would happen.
M El Bashir noted the importance of translation to At-Large. It is very important that information was accessible in local languages. If ICANN wants effective feedback from the community this is essential. He asked if there was a commitment of ICANN to the users Summit.
A Greenberg noted that the GNSO was very interested in accessibility of New GTLDs in developing countries. He noted that the staff had said that there was not going to be any special efforts made in this regard for the launch and wished to hear a commitment from ICANN to do that.
P Twomey noted officially that no decision had been made on that area of implementation. The Staff are very concerned about gaming the system though and in the past there had been issues with non-developing country persons unfairly using developing country provisions. He also noted that there were concerns that too many new GTLD applications would provide resourcing difficulties.
P Dengate-Thrush noted that there was real concern in the board about the need to deal with preventing inequality of access but that there was equally an issue of not delaying the answer.
A Greenberg noted that it was important to send good messages on this area even if there is no ability to make specific provisions of one kind or another in this area.
The Chair noted that there was great interest in the subject of the At-Large summit.
It was noted by P Dengate-Thrush that the first the board had seen of the proposal was last night and there was an established process by which such decisions were made but he had a sense that there was an initial sense that the idea was interesting.
V Scartezini noted that discussions with staff had been underway and noted that it was important that consideration be mainstreamed into the budgeting process underway and that the budgeting could be done for the summit in the autumn.
S Bachollet noted that the view expressed by V Scartezini that the summit be held in the autumn was not the view of the ALAC at the present and he was available to discuss this at any time with anyone.
The Chair noted that the actual decision of ALAC and the RALOs taken with one dissent was that the Summit should occur in this calendar year.
P Twomey noted that the process by which budgeting was done was bottom-up and that the suggestions of every community were reviewed by the others. Communities such as the registrars might have a view on the expenditure of funds as envisaged.
S Bachollet noted that it was important to have a political decision before a budgeting discussion.
D Jennings noted that at the present time he did not have a presentation that provided not only the specifics of the proposal but also the views of other constituencies on the proposal.
T Narten noted that it was important that the board not see documents before they were complete or there was a danger that the answer might be different than would be desired – and different from what might have come from introduction at a later stage.
V Scartezini asked for the floor and provided a brief overview of the state of evolution of the proposal with the staff.
Upon interruption from the floor the Chair rose on a point of order and adjourned debate on the subject of the summit to return to the agenda.
V Cretu then reviewed the work of the ALAC Organisational Development working group in several areas.
I Aizu noted the expertise of V Cretu with respect to organisational development in her professional life.
The Chair then requested the IDN Liaison to review that working group’s work.
H Xue noted that the first ALAC working group activity was responding to the requests of the Board for responses to several questions related to IDNs originally posed in San Juan. The working group currently has 8 members from all regions and is actively involved in responding to all activities in the IDN field.
B Brendler was invited to discuss the work of the RAA Working Group. He noted that many of the comments of the community had been relegated in the staff notes on the proposals received in the public comments in the section where no action was to be taken. The Staff were asked in Los Angeles for an explanation of why this was the case, which had been received during the New Delhi meeting and was shortly to be distributed to the ALAC for comment and review. He noted that key registrars and ALAC members were to meet informally during the New Delhi ICANN meeting.
The Chair noted as a summary that the concerns of At-Large were visible in the various working groups active at the present. There are other areas at a macro level which are cross-cutting such as translation and interpretation and outreach.
<break in the minutes due to technical issues>
D Jennings noted that there was a proposal in the GNSO review to include individual users and asked if ALAC was aware of this.
A Greenberg noted that there was no discussion he was aware of related to increasing the community’s voice beyond what was originally proposed.
T Narten noted that there was a lot of discussion of the board’s paper and there were many points of view on the contents of it.
V Scartezini briefly summarised the current options on the table. (difficulty in taking minutes due to technical issues)
A Greenberg noted that he expected there would be comments in due course from the ALAC on the current proposals.
The Chair asked for interventions from the regions on their views in the remaining time related to the JPA.
B Brendler for North America noted that he had published a statement from his ALS, Consumers Union today which says that ICANN is not ready to be independent from the USG due to concerns about consumer and user representation at the board level and that the GAC meeting is behind closed doors, and that there is not sufficient interaction between the GAC and the At-Large perspective. He noted that organisations such as the CDT and EFF had left ICANN and had doubts about the validity of the way in which civil society is a participant in ICANN.
C Samuels noted that he expected to provide a comment to the JPA that ICANN had done much to fulfil the mandate of the JPA but had concerns related to the provision of multiculturalism and sensitivity to the same within ICANN. He noted that he was alarmed by the view expressed earlier in the meeting that those not participating in the Internet did not need to be approached by ICANN. Within the multi-stakeholder regime there are some participants who are more equal to others – ICANN bends over backwards related to the GAC for example. Even-handedness is essential. There have been credible moves to embrace the other communities, we believe that the JPA is a way to enforce further moves in this way.
D Jennings noted that the mission of ICANN is quite narrow related to the technical management of names and numbers and perhaps the way to contribute is to change the mission to incorporate the suggestions.
E Leibovitch noted that some may already say that ICANN has gone beyond the narrow mission by becoming a venue for protecting intellectual property.
W Ludwig noted that even technical issues have social and political dimensions and that is the reason for the proposal made.
A Greenberg…
The Chair adjourned the segment of the meeting at 1230 with thanks to all who participated and in particular the members of the Board.
NomCom Segment
In the absence of the Chair of the NomCom the previous Chair, George Sadowsky, noted that this year the NomCom would be selecting a representative on the ALAC for North America and Europe.
He reviewed the process of recruitment and noted the website at nomcom.icann.org.
B Brendler noted that finding candidates who are able to find candidates willing to take on the substantial responsibility and time commitments involved.
At this point the Chair of the NomCom entered the meeting. He noted that as the people were supreme in many countries, the interests of the Individual in ICANN’s work should be a supreme. It is his hope that NomCom would receive as many superb candidates as possible to be able to make a real choice for the NomCom.
M El Bashir asked how many developing country statements of interests had been received.
<break in the minutes for the response>
V Scartezini asked if there were frameworks used to make selections and were there any suggestions for ways for the ALAC to be more visible.
H Hultz replied one thing would be for emails to be sent which made clear what ALAC does for individual internet users and how could an individual Internet user participate. He said that he was interested in seeing if there was a way to make the ‘job description’ of ALAC members more understandable. He had heard from some enquirers that it was not easy to understand what a successful candidate would actually be doing.
H Xue asked if NomCom has taken any steps to enhance diversity. For example, could a potential candidate who was not a good English speaker be chosen? There was the ability to support such participation. (applause)
H Hultz replied that the costs of translation and interpretation could be enormous and it was his believe that unrestricted translation and interpretation for any language was impossible. He felt that there was a necessity for the time being to require English fluency.
I Aizu asked what if anything would be done differently this year by the NomCom compared to last year.
H Hultz noted that the one major change would be that outside professional assessment would be used alongside the internal assessment to assist in making decisions. Some slight changes in the wording of the SOI had also been made.
I Aizu asked if this was different from the NomCom review.
H Hultz noted that it was different as the board had not yet decided what to do in relation to the NomCom review and until it had done so it would not affect the NomCom’s operations.
A Greenberg noted that he would like to hear more about how the ALAC was to reach out since clearly sending out emails en masse would in fact be spam.
H Hultz noted that the best people to decide how to reach the individual user population would be their representatives.
H Hultz noted that any additional guidance specifically about the open positions would be welcomed
