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The ALAC recognizes the continuous improvement in the Operating Plan and Budget establishment with more consultation with the community and a new evaluation model for the community additional request for funding.

The ALAC further recognizes that the level of detail in the budget presentation is now enhanced, and the explanations given allow its deep analysis and discussion. The separation of the stakeholder projects from the new gTLD readiness, the policy support, the community support, and the global engagement activities represents one example of the so-called enhancement.

Regarding the IDN program, the ALAC find it important to make use as much as possible of the community members’ expertise that brings the linguistic source knowledge, which would minimize hiring external experts. The variant studies done by the 6 voluntary community member groups showed how useful the contribution of the community members can be. Besides, it may decrease drastically the program cost. 

The ALAC believes that being part of the new gTLD application process, the TAS, the Digital Archery, and the other system security of the new gTLD shouldn’t be counted in the core operation and project component of the budget, but in the new gTLD budget.

The ALAC welcomes the improvement in the interaction with the constituencies regarding the community additional requests. Nevertheless, the rejection of the projects planned in a non-ICANN event seems to be arbitrary, and yet, it could be considered as an outreach and communication operation since it would showcase the ICANN community work in the Internet ecosystem.

The ALAC notices with great satisfaction that ICANN will participate in the upcoming IGF differently, making use of its community initiatives. The coordination between ICANN management and the concerned constituencies for the preparation of the ICANN participation in such an event seems to the ALAC of great importance. The community workshops during the IGF, as substantive contribution  gives to ICANN a significant visibility that has a great impact on its image.  

Building on the successful experiences of AFRALO and LACRALO capacity building programs held in Dakar and San José respectively, the planned programs for Toronto and Asia Pacific (TBD) in FY 2013 show the receptivity and reactivity of the ICANN management to those fruitful activities lead by the At-Large community. ALAC expresses its satisfaction and its commitment to make the budgeted programs successful and fruitful for the community and for ICANN as well.

On the other hand, the ALAC finds it abnormal that the global revenue of the Ombudsman increases by more than 28% because of an additional administrative cost for renting an office and the associated expenses.

The ALAC reiterates its concern about the huge disparity in the registry fees. They do not follow any rule and show an arbitrary way of charging the 18 existing gTLDs registries: some do not pay the fixed fees, others do not pay the per transaction fees, and the value of the fixed and the per transaction fees changes from a registry to another. We can notice that dot com does not pay the per transaction fees while the dot cat (community TLD) pays the per transaction fees at one of the highest rate ($ 1 per transaction) as well as the fixed fees.

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As for the ICANN offices, the ALAC notices that they are mainly located in North America. ALAC believes that if a Regional Office network is required to effectively serve a global community and the strategic objectives and activities of ICANN, then a plan for such (inclusive of a review of and rationalization for location and operation /staffing of existing offices and requirements such as outreach and the work of Global Partnership  and the ACs and SOs), should be undertaken to ensure an effective, efficient, appropriate, regionally balanced and properly resourced and coasted  global offices network and we assume supported by the ICANN community and stakeholders.

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The ALAC welcomes the continuous improvement in the Operating Plan and Budget establishment with more consultation with the community and a new evaluation model for the community additional request for funding.

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