Minutes prepared by Staff in the first instance.
Participants: R Guerra, W Kleinwaechter, I Aizu, R Westlake (Westlake consulting), A Muehlberg, V Scartezini, S Shashashani, E Leibovitch, C Samuels, C Aguirre, S Bachollet, J Ovidio Salgueiro, T Drakes, A Greenberg, D Thompson, J Morris, H Xue, H Diakite, F Seye Sylla, T Narten, W Seltzer, L Donnershacke
Staff: T Dam, O Nordling, B Boswinkel, M Langenegger, F Teboul, N Ashton-Hart, P Jones
Presentation of the findings of the results from Independent Reviewer
R Westlake from Westlake consulting gave a presentation on the ALAC review.
The Presentation was followed by a discussion.
R Westlake noted that the ALAC should have a voice but not a vote in ICANN’s policy process. With regards to regional representation he added that the representation did not reflect the regional distribution of individual Internet users. It should therefore be changed.
W Kleinwaechter said that the review lacked context and vision and went on to specify what he meant by that.
Context: according to the report the ALAC evolution starts in 2003. However, the ALAC as it was set up in 2003 was a compromise and an experiment in a sense. The original plan was to have 9 boarding members from the user constituency. The Westlake report therefore does not take the full history of the user constituency into account.
Vision: There is no vision on the role of civil society in the ICANN structure. The report only comments on the existing structure.
I Aizu noted that the report should give the full picture. He did not agree with the point made in the report that the ability to forge consensus is not affected by the fact that one of the constituencies does not have voting power. I Aizu pointed out that voting power did make a difference in this context.
R Westlake responded by noting that the ICANN Board is consensus-driven and therefore different to a city-hall-style decision-making process depended entirely on votes. The vast majority of the decisions made within ICANN are consensus-driven. The question of voting rights does not make such a difference. Secondly, Westlake was advised to be independent and should not just reflect the view of the participants.
A Muehlberg said that she agreed with everything that had been said so far. The report did not address the issue of the inherent difficulties and contradictions of the ALAC. The report is superficial. For example, the budget question has only been touched superficially. She added that there were many more examples.
V Scartezini noted that representation was a big issue and that the regions were hardly reflective. As an example she noted that Arabs were not Asians.
With regards to the basic premise of the report, S Shashashani wondered what would have constituted a circumstance that would not have justified the persistence of the ALAC.
E Leibovitch pointed out that many views have not been included in the report. With regards to the suggestion made in the report to increase the number of NomCom appointees, he wondered why the reviewers were in favour of an increased role for non-accountable representation.
C Aguirre noted that the report did not present an alternative. In his view, the report started with the wrong premise (“should the ALAC be dissolved?”). Secondly, the issue of regional has not been addressed. He noted that the ALAC is the conscience of ICANN. If users are not represented, there is no ICANN.
S Bachollet said that having this discussion was essential. ICANN 2.0 was a difficult and long discussion but the participants had a global vision. Now it seems that ICANN simply reviews all the Supporting Organizations without looking at the bigger picture. He feared that at the end of the Joint Partnership Agreement in September 2009 there would be no vision for the future.
J Olvidio Salguero noted that the function of the ALAC was put in question if the members were treated like third-class citizens. He said that there were many problems in previous meetings and that it was unacceptable to put up with all these problems.
C Samuels said that the basic problem was that ICANN was an American corporation, although it tried to become global. In his view, ICANN did not want ordinary people to become involved and it therefore looked for people that matter. He added that ICANN only tolerated individual users but did not really want to integrate them.
R Westlake said that At-Large had significant influence on the NomCom and that they did not underestimate the ALAC. Quite to the contrary, he concluded, they estimated that it should have more influence within ICANN’s policy process.
R Westlake further noted that with regards to the point made earlier by different people that the report did not include all views held within At-Large, Westlake consulting was asked to provide evidence-based input. He said that a lot of the concern raised by the members reflected individual opinions and that there was a need to have more evidence-based inputs and not only opinions.
R Guerra asked who was the ALAC representative in the Board Governance Committee?
T Drakes answered that there was no ALAC representative on the BGC, but that V Bertola was on the BGC.
R Westlake said that here should be more representatives from Asia and an Arab region. He further noted that the ICANN Board was a bottom-up-driven body and that it had a community governance role based on consensus. The ALAC’s role is more constructive if it tries to influence the consensus process of the Board. Therefore, the ALAC should have more liaisons.
J Ovidio Salguiro asked the reviewers what suggestion they had to find good candidates for the NomCom from some of the less active regions.
R Westlake responded that if At-Large got more intimately involved in some of these regions, the candidates would follow.
H Diakte noted that non-English speakers are only consumers as all the documents are written in English. With regards to the Board Liaison, she thought that it was a valuable institution but somewhat inefficient if there are no voting rights attributed to the position. She expressed her hopes that the documents would be translated before the next discussion.
T Drakes noted that the BGC had the intention to provide translated copies and that they wanted at least the Summaries to be ready for Paris. Unfortunately, they were not.
With regards to voting rights at the Board level, A Greenberg noted that there seem to be efficient as none of the current Board members wanted to give up their voting rights. He added that the argument that voting rights were not important was construed.
D Thompson said that she was concerned about the process of choosing a reviewer. The RFP timeline was extended without notification to original bidders. She asked if the bidders were assessed and wondered why some bidders were not even invited for an interview.
T Drakes responded by saying that the BGC ALAC WG was not appointed until after the reviewers were appointed. She added that she would ensure that D Thompson’s would get a response to her queries.
T Narten noted that he did not recall precisely how the Board chose the reviewer.
The Staff noted that it was the BGC WG that chose the reviewer and the Chair of that Board Working Group was Roberto Gaetano. He added that he would be happy to respond to questions about that process. D Michel has been alerted to the question raised about the email sent to her by the unsuccessful candidate.
<break in minutes for technical reasons>
W Seltzer noted that voting was very important. The report should consider the importance of voting for legitimacy more closely. It is the baseline of democratic engagement. The structure of At-Large is complex and this should be compared to a more flat organisation involving individual users directly as has been the case in the past.
W Kleinwaechter said that often details are being discussed at length and question of substance are being ignored. The argument of the limited technical scope of ICANN contrasts with the vast interest from the individual users to participate in ICANN.
C Wilkinson noted that ICANN ran the risk of becoming a trade organization. Integrating the users is a key to the legitimacy of ICANN.
K Auerbach said that ICANN was a political body and as such the participants should not wait for action to be taken for them.
H Xue noted that there were linguistic but also cultural differences that should be addressed. Some of the comments about Asia in the past were offensive.
R Guerra noted that the argument that At-Large did not represent users has been made before and that it was wrong. The report did not address the representation challenge. As more issue come to the plate, representation is crucial and the question of compensation should be discussed.
E Leibovitch said that on the issue of self-help, there was often little enthusiasm when individuals make such attempts. He agreed with regards to K Auerbach’s remarks regarding ICANN becoming a trade organisation. He added that At-Large was facing a lot of mistrust.
R Westlake responded that the reason they did not address the question of Board votes is because they were asked to assess the ALAC but not the Board. They were instructed to provide a final report for this meeting. He wanted to call to attention, however, that they initially called for the report to be presented after Paris as they wanted to have further discussions with the participants during this meeting.
T Drakes mentioned that this was only the beginning of a review process.
The Chair called for a 40-minute break
Presentation on IDNS (Tina Damm)
When the meeting was resumed in the afternoon, T Damm gave a presentation on IDNs.
Presentation on the status of ccTLDs
B Bosman gave a presentation on the status of ccTLDs. (link will be put shortly)
H Xue asked if the process was limited to non-latin IDNs. She further wanted to know if the principle of no-action-before-all-parties-agree applied to all or only one region.
B Boswinkel answered that the difficulty was finding the definition of “non-latin” as the definition was constantly changing.
I Aizu pointed out that the majority of ccTLD members were not participating in ICANN’s policy process.
B Boswinkel said that there are ccTLD managers who did not acknowledge the existence of ICANN. He added that this was unexplainable and made it difficult, especially for the Asian region, which is most affected.
Presentation on ICANN;s new gTLD program
O Nordling gave a presentation on ICANN's new gTLD program.
C Aguirre asked about the rationale to only allow legal persons to apply for the new gTLD program.
O Nordling answered that this condition was not final but that it was the assumption outlined the process. One of the reasons was that there are many legal systems in the world and there is a need to find common ground.
C Langdon-Orr wanted to know who, according to the proposal, could make objections and on what grounds.
O Nordling responded that everybody could make objections. It depends on Standing. For example every consumers could claim that he is confused. However only a few can claim IP infringements.
R Guerra asked what are the lessons were from the experiences with .travel and .xxx? He asked if there would be a preamble in the ICANN agreement where it states that ICANN adheres to Human Right covenants?
O Nordling noted that there was a reference to the declaration of Human Rights in the GNSO which forms the basis of work. He added that they wanted to be on the safest ground possible considering the delicacy of the issue they were dealing with.
O Nordling said that there would be objection process like a fee for the dispute resolution, which should fend off some objections.
N Ashton-Hart noted that further research was needed and being done on the application process.
E Leibovitch wondered what will happen to applications which might be contentious such as .zionist
O Nordling answered that there were many things that are internationally contested but also accepted.
H Xue asked what the relationship and sequencing was between evaluation and objection. Secondly, she wondered what the relationship was with regards to IDN ccTLDs.
(Break in minutes for technical reasons)
A Muehlberg noted that the trade union she worked for was worried about the process of the adoption of new gTLDs. Her trade union, for example, was not able to apply for a certain TLD. She said that everybody should be able to register
O Nordling noted that the GNSO made a distinction between open and community-based applications. Restricted and not restricted was not a category. There are no restrictions on the applications. He added that the sponsorship clause has been replaced by the community-based approach.
V Scartezini noted that the fact that there was a fee for dispute resolution had the same effect as a restriction as it fends off some of the applicants.
C Samuels stated that he was fundamentally opposed to the idea that there would be an institution that defined what morality was.
J Morris added that the way you use Morality and Public order is not what other people might think.
C Aguirre noted that he realized that the new gTLD program was not as ready as he thought it was. He said that technologically, ICANN was ready but the legal framework was not yet in place. He asked what the role of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be. Article 27 deals with the diffusion of culture and intellectual property. Who decides if an author of a given intellectual property can make it public or not? A new gTLD could be an artistic creation. Who could censor this? With regards to Intellectual Property rights who will be the supreme power deciding about freedom of speech rights, the diffusion of cultural goods and artistic expression? He noted that all of these questions could be addresses by defining the legal nature of the domain space. He concluded by saying if people agreed that the domain space was only a sign to differentiate different places in the web and was neither a sentence nor a brand, nor anything else with a meaning other than to define its place in the Internet, than the problem might be solved.
O Nordling noted that it might have been a stupid idea to call it morality and public order.
E Leibovitch noted that the fact that ICANN wanted to outsource dispute resolution to external bodies did not take the responsibility off from ICANN.
There was a short break until 1645.
Presentation on the registry failover plan
P Jones gave a presentation on the registry failover plan.
There were a couple of questions from the community and P Jones said that he would follow up on them by email.
The meeting was then adjourned.
