AT-LARGE GATEWAY
At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)
At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development
Page History
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Joanna Kulesza is currently serving as the ALAC Liaison
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the GAC. She was selected by the ALAC in October 2021 and took on the role on Thursday, 28 October 2021 at the end of the ICANN72 AGM.
Yrjö Länsipuro
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previously served in this role since 2016 when the ALAC unanimously voted to appoint him as the first ALAC Liaison to
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Yrjö was previously a GAC member representing Finland, and a member of the ICANN President's Strategy Committee and has been active in At-Large since 2009.
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the GAC.
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GAC Liaison's Report on the ALAC-GAC Intersessional Leadership call to prepare the agenda for the joint meeting @ICANN72, 20 September 2021
In order to ensure active particpation by representatives of both AC's at the joint ALAC-GAC meeting @ICANN72, preparations were started ealier than usual by the two Liaisons. Shi Young, the GAC Liaison to the ALAC, made a survey among GAC members in order to find out which items would be of interest to them. The results were of great help at the intersessional meeting.
Herewith the minutes of the meeting by Evin Erdoglu (ALAC Staff), noted with thanks:
Notes from GAC and ALAC Leaderships Meeting
Monday, 20 September at 15:00 UTC
Attendees
GAC Brian Beckham, Chris Lewis-Evans, David Satola, Jorge Cancio, Kenneth Merrill, Laureen Kapin, Manal İsmail, Alexandra Excoffier, Shi Young Chang, Velmira Nemiguentcheva-Grau
ALAC Hadia Elminiawi, Justine Chew, Yrjö Lansipuro (Moderator in place of Maureen Hilyard), Joanna Kulesza, Jonathan Zuck, Olivier Crepin-Leblond
Staff Devan Reed, Gülten Tepe, Evin Erdoğdu, Benedetta Rossi, Julia Charvolen, Fabien Betremieux, Rob Hoggarth, Claudia Ruiz
Agenda
- Opening of the meeting
- Introductions by the Chairs of the GAC and the ALAC
- Selection of topics for the joint meeting @ICANN72 from the following:
- Session to exchange views on the plenary session topic, looking out for the public interest in ICANN, between two ACs for the further cooperation together.
- Fraudulent websites and other DNS nuisances which are sometimes outside of DNS abuse categories
- Next steps on SubPro
- Next steps on EPDP on the Temporary Specifcation for gTLD Registration Data Team Phase 2A
- EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protection for IGO’s
- DNS Abuse (Could be integrated with b))
- ATRT3
- Internet Governance
- Conclusions
- Closing of the meeting
Summary
The GAC and ALAC leadership determined there would be 5 agenda items for their meeting during ICANN72:
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The GAC and ALAC will follow up to refine the session titles and agenda further in advance of ICANN72.
Action Items
- ALAC (Yrjö Lansipuro, Jonathan Zuck, Sebastien Bachollet) to share questions for GAC review regarding ATRT3 by Friday, 1 October in advance of ICANN72.
- Jonathan Zuck to share meeting details (date/time/agenda) of At-Large session on Closed Generics during “At-Large Week” for GAC representation. Jorge Cancio confirmed his availability, pending confirmation of meeting timing.
Notes
- Yrjö Lansipuro opened the meeting in Maureen Hilyard’s absence. He noted the purpose of the meeting was to determine the GAC & ALAC meeting agenda for ICANN72 from the list of items on the agenda. Manal İsmail welcomed the meeting participants on behalf of GAC. Jonathan Zuck raised an AOB item for GAC representation in the At-Large session on Closed Generics.
- Hadia Elminiawi noted that the plenary session topic on agenda item topic 3A on the public interest is likely not to take place during ICANN72. Yrjö and Manal agreed to remove the item from discussion for ICANN72. Manal suggested the second community plenary session on hybrid meetings as a potential replacement topic.
- Shi Young Chang introduced agenda item topic 3B on DNS abuse. Manal noted that the ALAC did not prioritize this discussion for ICANN72, that the proposal came from the GAC. Brian Beckham observed the topic has come up frequently both in WIPO and elsewhere. Different discussions about toolkits, frameworks, and which actors should be involved. The conversations are in early phases, but there is a question that often comes up regarding the concept of applying UDRP framework for other areas and having a transparent process with known criteria and decision-making process to address DNS abuse in all forms. He shared that the WIPO report, slides 10, 16, and 17 may be of particular interest: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/amc/en/docs/ipdisputesplatforms.pdf Joanna Kulesza noted that the At-Large has been in conversations with registrars and registries to understand how processes function and convey information to end users. She promoted the EURALO Roundtable on Tuesday, 21 Sept at 18 UTC on European regulatory proposals, and the At-Large session during At-Large week ahead of ICANN72 as a platform for these ongoing conversations. Velmira Nemiguentcheva-Grau noted that the European Commission is working on study on DNS abuse, and that it might be useful for colleagues in ALAC to follow up on the matter. She suggested that ICANN73 may be a better time to discuss this study, given it is currently in the finalization stage. Hadia Elminiawi suggested items 3B & F be combined as an item for the ICANN72 ALAC and GAC meeting.
- Yrjö noted that item 3C on SubPro may not have much room for discussion. He called on Justine Chew to provide comments. Justine noted that it is difficult to ascertain next steps until the webinar on ODP for SubPro takes place. ALAC is monitoring next steps and noted that the ODP does not include community members outside GNSO. Jorge Cancio agreed with Justine.
- Yrjö opened item 3D on EPDP Phase 2A. Hadia noted only 3 recommendations that would be relevant for GAC-ALAC discussion at this stage, that require action in the future: 1) Code of conduct for domain name registration, 2) Encouragement for GNSO to follow legislative developments, 3) SSAD (TBD implementation). Laureen Kapin noted it was unclear what the GNSO and Board will do at this stage and that it would be better timing for discussion when the GAC and ALAC know procedurally what the GNSO and Board will do.
- Jorge observed that both the GAC and ALAC may “take a step back and reflect on their role in public interest processes.” He noted GAC comments during an internal GAC discussion on their minority statement to the EPDP Phase 2A Final Report questioning why it is called a minority statement with most other community groups within ICANN are also providing dissenting minority statements. He noted that the perhaps the GAC and ALAC can reflect on the procedural policy processes and how to do justice to the public interest, and general reflections on how to broaden the discussion to more members of the ALAC and GAC. Hadia noted that the ALAC had also shared similar reflections in their At-Large Consolidated Policy Working Group (CPWG) discussions, on how “minority statements” are not representative. Yrjö noted that this item on the role of the ALAC and GAC in public interest processes may include reflections on EPDP and SubPro.
- Yrjö opened item 3E on EPDP on IGOs. Alexandra Excoffier noted that the ICANN Public Comment on the Initial Report from the EPDP on IGOs is now subject to a 40-day Public Comment period, and suggested it be a topic for ICANN73. She urged both the GAC and ALAC to comment. Yrjö noted that one aspect of joint interest for the ALAC and GAC would be a mechanism to solve this problem, because it may cause confusion for end users. Manal noted the GAC and ALAC would benefit from aligning their views on the topic.
- Yrjö opened item 3G on ATRT3. He noted the proposal came from Sebastien Bachollet, who was not on the call. Manal noted it had been a proposal for ALAC and GAC agenda for several meetings. She suggested the ALAC provide questions that could trigger a GAC discussion on the topic. Jonathan noted that one question would be objectives for the pilot project on the holistic review. Joanna noted another question would be the prioritization of recommendations, particularly how to best implement them without burdening the community and how to encourage cross-community work. Yrjö confirmed that the ALAC would share questions with the GAC on ATRT3 in advance of ICANN72.
- Yrjö opened item 3H on Internet Governance. Olivier Crepin-Leblond suggested the topic probably needs more preparation than the two communities have for ICANN72, and noted that IGF is happening soon after ICANN72. Jorge noted that the plenary discussion during ICANN71 on the topic was very interesting, looking into the workings of both ICANN and beyond ICANN. He noted the ICANN Board has asked all SOACs for their input on how ICANN and the Board could engage even better with governments, including geopolitical tensions. He suggested it would be worthwhile for ALAC and GAC to exchange views on this. Yrjö agreed, noting that the ALAC meeting with the ICANN Board will take place before ICANN72, but it would be useful for the ALAC and GAC to exchange views on the topic, also before the GAC answers the Board. Manal agreed. Joanna noted that it may be worthwhile to monitor regional IG developments that directly impact ICANN policies, and to suggest a format for this approach.
- Yrjö summarized that 5 items would be on the ALAC and GAC ICANN72 agenda: 1) DNS abuse, 2) Reflection on public interest (ex. EPDP and SubPro), 3) Common ground on EPDP on IGOs, 4) ATRT3 topics, and 5) Internet Governance at the ICANN Board question. The GAC and ALAC will follow up to refine the session titles and agenda further in advance of ICANN72, including ATRT3 questions. Jorge confirmed his availability to participate in the At-Large session on Closed Generics pending session time and date information.
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GAC Liaison's Report on the ALAC-GAC Meeting at Virtual ICANN71
As at every ICANN public meeting since 2016, a joint meeting of the ALAC/At-Large and the GAC took place at the virtual ICANN71 on Thursday, June 17, 2021.
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Jonathan Zuck noted the joint ALAC-GAC educational initiatives for countering DNS Abuse. He also expressed satisfaction about the signs for more cooperation on this issues with contracted parties, as evidenced at an earlier session organized by them.
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GAC Liaison's Report on ALAC-GAC Meeting at Virtual ICANN70
21 April, 2021
A joint meeting of the ALAC/At-Large and the GAC was held at the virtual ICANN70 on Tuesday, March 23, 2021. On the agenda were the two perennial items – EPDP and SubPro – and ATRT 3, a new subject for ALAC-GAC discussion.
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GAC Liaison’s Report on Intersessional Meetings, December 2020 - January 2021
January 26, 2012
As decided by the joint ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN69 (21 October, 2020), coordination and cooperation efforts on EPDP and SubPro issues between the two advisory committees were continued and concretized at their subsequent intersessional meetings in the “Leadership + topic leads” format. A meeting focused on Phase 2A of the EPDP was held 15 December, 2020, and another devoted to the situation after the Public Comments period on the Final Report of the EDPD 20 January, 2021.
Important decisions were taken by both committees to ensure the continuity of their cooperation: the GAC filled the vacancy after Ana Neves (Portugal), who left the GAC in December 2019, and appointed Shi Young Chang (Korea) as the GAC Liaison to the ALAC. On the ALAC side, Joanna Kulesza, Vice-Chair of the ALAC, was appointed as a “Shadow Liaison” to the GAC to work with me until the 2021 AGM, when she will take over the post.
- Meeting on the Phase 2A of the EPDP, 15 December 2020
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GAC Liaison's Report on ALAC-GAC Meeting at Virtual ICANN69
A joint session of the GAC and ALAC/At-Large took place at the Virtual ICANN69 on October 21, 2020, with EPDP, SubPro and DNS Abuse on the agenda for comparing notes and planning further cooperation.
EPDP
Alan Greenberg noted that EPDP is now at an interesting point, as GNSO has adopted all recommendations from EPDP Phase 2, including some not supported by a consensus. It is now up to the Board to decide what to do, but it is the responsibility of the GAC and the ALAC, as the two main advisory committees, to think carefully what kind of advice they give to the board. When the EPDP WG reconvenes for Phase 2 A, the two groups have to put forward proposals on different treatment of legal and natural persons and on anonymized e-mail addresses.
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Taking note of the suggestion, Yrjö Länsipuro took organizing the call as an AI.
SubPro
As promised at the ALAC-GAC intersessional meeting (21 October 2020 ), Justine Chew presented a comparative analysis of comments on following topics from different stakeholders in the SubPro PC process:
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Manal held out the possibility of an intersessional call between SubPro topic leads, if they think it would be needed, to agree on how to align our next steps together might be.
Combating DNS Abuse
Lastly, an AOB item at the suggestion of the ALAC side was raised on the possible cooperation on grassroots capacity building on combating DNS Abuse. As Jonathan Zuck, ALAC Vice-Chair explained, ALAC is committed to a two-pronged approach to combating DNS Abuse, by pursuing improvements to relevant policies of ICANN, and by launching a campaign to educate individual internet users about how to protect themselves from harms like phishing scams and others based on DNS Abuse. Looking for cooperation with GAC on the matter, At-Large brings to the table a fairly deep network of its regional/local structures that enables us to reach out in a significant way. What At-Large looks for from governments are educational resources of the type of videos produced by FTC/US that Laureen Kapin of the PSWG had pointed out. ALAC is now in a resource identification phase, finding out what kind of resources in what languages are available.
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Maureen Hilyard, the ALAC Chair, noted the important place of capacity building in the At-Large plans next year and thanked the GAC in advance for its help for this effort.
Conclusion
At the conclusion of the meeting, Manal reminded her GAC colleagues that since Ana Neves, the representative of Portugal, left the GAC, there has not been a GAC Liaison to the ALAC, as a counterpart to the ALAC Liaison to the GAC, and she was now seeking volunteers for that task.
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[4] https://gac.icann.org/statement/public/GAC%20Subpro%20Final%20Report%20Collective%20Comment%20-%20FINAL.pdf
GAC Liaison’s Report 28 July, 2020
Dialogue between At-Large and the GAC continued in the spring and summer of 2020 in spite of COVIC-19 restraints and actually developed new, issue-focused forms of cooperation on key topics of interest to both. On 20 May, 2020, an important GAC Leadership delegation participated in a CPWG singleissue call on registry commitments and the role of GAC advice and GAC early warnings, where the topic leads from both AC’s presented the current stage of their deliberations on the topic.
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The threat of COVID-19 is not over, and nobody knows when full-scale physical meetings of ICANN can be resumed. So far, it has been possible to develop cooperation on issues of interest to both At-Large and the GAC by remote means. If constraints continue, it will be more and more important to keep up a meaningful, results-oriented dialogue on key topics of interest to both AC’s, lest the dialogue turns into a formality. GAC itself will be challenged by the absence of face-to-face meetings, which until now have been necessary for adopting GAC Consensus advice. On the other hand, the pandemic has provided an important lesson to both At-Large and the GAC. Unashamedly quoting myself from the COVID-19/end users session of ICANN68: At our meetings with the GAC, we used to point out that citizens and internet end users are same people. With pandemic lessons learned, we can now say that during an emergency, people can continue to play their full role as citizens because they are internet end users, and good at that. In an emergency like this, resiliency of the fabric of the entire society depends on the Internet. I think – I hope – that the lesson has not been lost on governments or on any other stakeholders. This is a good starting point for cooperation, also on local/national level, something that has been suggested at our joint meetings.
Yrjö Länsipuro
GAC Liaison’s Report on ICANN 67 Virtual Community Forum
Like other ICANN constituencies, the GAC managed to adapt smoothly to the virtual format of ICANN67, gathering a number of online participants (61 Members, 6 Observers) comparable to face-to-face meetings in recent years, conducting its core business and drafting a communiqué, however without any formal Consensus Advice, which would have required a face-to-face meeting. The focus of the meeting was clearly on the issue of Subsequent rounds of new gTLD’s, which was dealt with both at GAC meetings proper and at its sessions with the Board, the SubPro PDP WG and the ALAC/At Large. In addition, GAC capacity building sessions were devoted to this topic in their entirety. This emphasis is understandable in view of the rapid turnout of national representatives to the GAC. There are not so many left from the days of the lively discussions 2008-2012, when the GAC played an important role in shaping the modalities of the 2012 round, as it itself was transformed by the process into an operative component of the new gTLD-generating
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Yrjö Länsipuro
ALAC Liaison to the GAC
ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN66, Montreal, 5 November, 2019
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Continuing a practice that started at ICANN56 (Helsinki, June 2016), the ALAC/At-Large and the GAC had a joint meeting at ICANN66 in Montreal 5 November, 2019.
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There is interest in the GAC to learn about the capacity building, practices and working methods of At-Large. Joanna replied to the question by GAC Vice-Chair Luisa Paez by pointing to ICANN Learn, to online resources developed by At-Large and to the At Large Policy Platform that is under development. She also welcomed the Information Transparency Initiative that will make information about ICANN better organized and more accessible.
EPDP
Hadia El-Miniawi, one of the two ALAC representatives in the EPDP, presented an overview of points of common interest between the ALAC and the GAC with regard to the expedited process for gTLD registration data: first and foremost, complying with GDPR and other relevant data protection laws; having a standardized system for access/disclosure automation; accuracy of registration data; and distinction between natural and legal persons. On the last point, a study is going to be launched, something that arose from EPDP meeting in Montreal.
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(Reference is also made to the joint GAC – ALAC statement on Phase I of the EPDP at ICANN64, Kobe, 13 March 2019, and subsequent discussions on a follow-up to it concerning Phase II)
SubPro
Justine Chew, the ALAC Liaison for SubPro, listed SubPro issues that are important to At-Large and that ALAC has commented on in the process, such as global public interest, safeguards including verified TLD’s and registration restrictions for highly regulated sectors, CCT review recommendations, closed generics, new appeals mechanism, applicant support, community priority evaluation and possible enabling of change requests. She confirmed that ALAC is open to working with the GAC in a way that GAC is comfortable with to see if there is common ground on some of these topics or topics that the GAC wants to put forward.
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Under AOB, Ricardo Holmquist (ALAC-LAC) suggested preparing a joint GAC-ALAC statement encouraging At Large elements and relevant governmental entities to talk to each other at country level. This would facilitate capacity building, help developing policies related to ICANN and building a better internet in our countries, he said.
Next steps
Moving on to next steps, Ana Neves, the GAC Liaison to ALAC, noted the difficulties of getting the policy dialogue going between bodies that represent governments, on one hand, and consumers and users, on the other. Nevertheless, she insisted on a more active and energized partnership to get the most out of it.
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2) Joanna Kulesza and Yrjö Länsipuro participated at the session of the GAC Human Rights and International Law working group (6 November) which discussed the new draft template for human rights impact assessments.
Joint ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN65, Marrakech
June 26, 2019
There was a joint ALAC-GAC meeting at ICANN65 on Wednesday, June 26. Due to scheduling constraints, only 30 minutes had been reserved for it, so the agenda was limited to three topics only.
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At the conclusion of the meeting, the ALAC Chair Maureen Hilyard welcomed the willingness of the GAC for a policy dialogue, noting that we have a lot of commonalities and that ALAC is very willing to participate in discussions with GAC, on terms they find appropriate, and that GAC members are always welcome to the capacity building sessions organized by ALAC. The GAC Chair Manal Ismail agreed that multiple working groups would not be needed and that the GAC focus group will invite ALAC colleagues to join.
[1] https://atlarge.icann.org/advice_statements/13255
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