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Questions prepared by Tijani Ben Jemaa, Vice-Chair of AFRALO:
As a Board Director selected by At-Large,
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“Reporting back” is probably not the correct term for the interactions between the Director and ALAC. Certainly there will be regular interactions. I think that it is a given that schedules permitting, the Director would participate in some ALAC meetings both at ICANN meetings and teleconferences. Only experience will allow a reasonable prediction of the exact frequency. I am presuming that the Director will be on the standard ALAC and At-Large lists, and will therefore be able to monitor and intervene as appropriate. That has certainly been the case with some GNSO Directors in my experience. It would be foolish for the At-Large Director OR the ALAC to not ensure that there is a regular exchange of issues, and I do not consider either myself or the current ALAC foolish! There is a consideration that if a Director is too involved in the At-Large activities he or she could not participate in Board discussions and votes directly related to the AC.
I alluded to “helping to implement At-Large projects and activities” above. I do not think that it is the work of the Director to create such proposals, but it may be his or her job to act as an advisor on them. Since actually being Being an author of a proposal going to the Board could would certainly be viewed as a reason that the Director would have to recuse themselves from the Board discussion and vote, this is certainly not the way to go. Participation in At-Large activities is an option that will depend on the specific details.
The following questions were prepared by Hong Xue, Chair of APRALO, on behalf of APRALO.
1. You must have read ATRT Proposed Recommendations, which are now available for public comments. What are your comments on following two recommendations:
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It remains to be seen exactly what the impact will be. Certainly without a person sitting there and reminding the Board of At-Large issues, we should demand that we get far better feedback on the advice that we do give. My experience being the ALAC Liaison to the GNSO is that for the majority of discussions and debates, I have not been acting under explicit orders but have participated based on my understanding of At-large beliefs coupled with my own. I suspect that this has been the case with Board Liaisons as well. If that is correct, then that responsibility is simply transferred to the new voting Director with no harm. The problems may occur when there ARE differences between the At-Large Director and an At-Large position, or at times when some other message must be relayed from the ALAC to the Board. Additionally, if a Director is TOO involved with the ALAC/At-Large, there may be a potential conflict when the Board discusses or votes on issues directly related to them. I suspect that there will not be a very large number of these times. If that is correct, the impact of losing the Liaison may not be that large. Only time will tell.
Question to Alan Greenberg from Sivasubramanian M, from APRALO, but question posed as an individual
As more and more at Large leadership positions are filled by people from the business constituency, It is becoming very important for ALAC and at Large to preserve at Large as a user's constituency to TRULY balance the business stakeholder group. Any leadership position within ALAC and at Large should be occupied by persons with ample concern for the end user.
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At-Large leaders, presumably influenced by their constituencies, will make their decision based on my track record of working for At-Large and users. A review of my Statement of Interest, my Candidate Statement and the answers to these questions hopefully will suffice. But I am always willing to answer additional questions.
The following 8 questions were prepared by Avri Doria on behalf of EURALO:
1. To what extent do you think that the ALAC should be equivalent in its influence within ICANN to the GAC. Should the by-laws be changed to give the ALAC the same right of advice as the GAC has?
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I have been one of the active members of the SO/AC New gTLD Applicant Support Working Group which has met twice-weekly for the last several months. I support the recommendations of that report and will not repeat them here. The WG's Milestone Report can be found at http://icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/jas-milestone-report-11nov10-en.pdf.
The following 3 questions were prepared by Wolf Ludwig, Chair of EURALO, on behalf of EURALO:
1. Please present a precise definition of the "public interest".
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I strongly believe that one of the reasons that we needed At-Large to have voting privileges is to ensure that during the discussion and vote, there is always SOMEONE on the Board who is considering the impact on the user instead of just that on the various other stakeholders or the corporation itself. That is not to say that all other directors ignore these issues, but it is important to make sure that they are always represented.
Questions to specific candidates prepared by Adam Peake, EURALO ALAC member, on behalf of EURALO:
To be fair: Alan, are you involved with any potential/planned gTLD applications?
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The ATRT's proposed recommendations include:unmigrated-wiki-markup
*"ICANN should establish \ [by INSERT DATE\] formal mechanisms for identifying the collective skill-set required by the ICANN Board including including such skills as public policy, finance, strategic planning, corporate governance, negotiation, and dispute resolution. Emphasis should be placed upon ensuring the Board has the skills and experience to effectively provide oversight of ICANN operations consistent with the global public interest and deliver best practice in corporate governance."*
1. What skill sets do you feel currently missing from the board and how will your skills fill those gaps?
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For the record, I think that this is an excellent question and I am not sure why it was directed solely at me.
Question from Carlos, ALAC representative from LACRALO:
We heard skills and capacities of his own voices. But, and the direct question is: Why not the other two candidates? What are the weaknesses of the other two candidates?
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I do not feel that it is appropriate to approach this competition in such a manner. Those who have to vote, and their advisors, will have to judge the candidates and decide for themselves.
NARALO Questions for all Candidates:
1. How do you define "end-user," "consumer," "registrant," and where do those terms intersect?
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The scope of ICANN is defined in its Articles of Incorporation (http://icann.org/en/general/articles.htm). Specifically:
In furtherance of the foregoing purposes, and in recognition of the fact that the Internet is an international network of networks, owned by no single nation, individual or organization, the Corporation shall \ […\] pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet by \ (i) coordinating the assignment of Internet technical parameters as needed to maintain universal connectivity on the Internet; (ii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet Protocol ("IP") address space; (iii) performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the Internet domain name system ("DNS"), including the development of policies for determining the circumstances under which new top-level domains are added to the DNS root system; (iv) overseeing operation of the authoritative Internet DNS root server system; and (v) engaging in any other related lawful activity in furtherance of items \ (i) through (iv). Wiki Markup
That being said, there is the potential for a lot of discretion on just what “performing and overseeing” entails. Interpretations range from that of minimalists who say that if a function is not absolutely mandatory, then ICANN should not do it, to those that believe that virtually everything related to the Internet uses IP and DNS and is thus in ICANN’s purview.
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As answered to the EURALO question from Adam Peake, I have no such connections and I am not connected with any new gTLD initiative in a paid or unpaid capacity.
Questions from Danny Younger
1. Question for the Candidates: The Root Scaling Study Team wrote: "Beyond the very near term, we can’t know in advance exactly how many TLDs can be added to the root, or how fast they can be added, because as soon as you start to add entries to the root each of the root system components adapts and changes in ways that cannot be predicted or effectively coordinated. That’s why it’s so important to build an “early warning system” that can (a) detect signs that one or more of the root system actors is reaching its limit for absorbing changes without major replanning, and (b) take effective mitigating action when those signs are detected."
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