Notes/ Action Items
ACTION ITEMS/HOMEWORK: - Rafik to combine Recommendation Guidance 3 and 4 for WG consideration.
- Staff to revise the Task 6 Working Document based on the discussion and submit it for final review to the WG.
- WG members to review the final revised version of the Task 6 Working Document.
- Staff to prepare the Task 3-5 Working Document to include rationale and deliberations, along with a slide deck, to guide the discussion at the ICANN77 meeting.
Notes: - Welcome
2. Work Plan & ICANN77 – see attached slides, #4. - Reminder that the WG is on schedule to post the preliminary Recommendations Guidance Report for public comment in July per the work plan and timeline.
- The WG is expected to finalize the Task 6 recommendations during today’s meeting and the Task 3-5 recommendations during the ICANN77 meeting (noting that the Task 3-5 recommendations have already been discussed, so WG members will be considering only the rationale and deliberations).
- Staff will insert the text into the Recommendations Guidance Report format as agreed in the task working documents after ICANN77 for discussion at the meeting on Monday, 26 June at 2000 UTC. (19 June is a holiday for the ICANN US offices and also generally meetings aren’t held the week following an ICANN meeting due to travel.)
- Per the concern that some members of the WG may not be able to attend the ICANN77 meeting remotely due to time-zone issues, staff emphasized that nothing would be finalized at that meeting – further discussion would continue on the list at during the meeting on 26 June. Staff noted also that WG members will be able to review the text in its final form in the Recommendations Guidance Report before it is posted for public comment.
- Mike Silber, Chair, noted that in order to ensure that the Report is posted for public comment as envisioned by the work plan timeline, the WG can take no more than two, and preferably one, meeting to finalize the text of the recommendations, rationalization, and deliberations for all the tasks.
3. Continue Discussion of Task 6 – see Draft Working Document at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m_C4abtrloC21hzbTayllfTwBcgIJ5sB5PGHHzgn9kg/edit?usp=sharing [docs.google.com]and attached slides, starting on slide 6.
ODA: Comment from Maureen: “additional resources such as the portal, showcase events, brochures, banners. etc are all these included in the costings that may or may not be ASP-specific but still ASP-related?” Discussion: - As part of the recommendations – Mike suggested adding a footnote to Recommendation Guidance 1 “that program costs should be dealt with separately.” More specifically: “sufficient funds for applicant support doesn't include the funds required for actually running the program, which should be dealt with separately.
Recommendation Guidance 1: Comment from Maureen: “refresh my memory, but can an ASP applicant use ASP "funds" to purchase post-pro-bono-services? And, apart from a fee reduction (which would come out of the applicant's share), what else could an ASP applicant's possible equal allocation be used for?” Comment from Julie, Staff: Thanks Maureen, as the funding is in the form of a fee reduction, there would be no "funds" that the applicant could use to purchase anything. I think what the WG envisioned is that the equal allocation of funding would only be in the form of an equal fee reduction. The WG did not discuss how the applicant could "use" the fee reduction. Discussion: - The assumption is that the funding would bein the form of fee reduction. So there aren’t any funds being provided to an applicant. Then there's no way to purchase anything, because there's no funds, but also the pro bono services are free. Not sure what language we need to add to clarify.
- What if there are additional services that they want to purchase? How do they get support for that?
- We can make it clearer in the recommendation that the funding is limited to a fee reduction – add in brackets “[by way of fee reduction]”. On pro bono services that is clear – we don’t have to say more.
- There is recommendation 17.2, which isn’t in scope for this WG, which the Board has concerns about: “The Working Group recommends expanding the scope of financial support provided to Applicant Support Program beneficiaries beyond the application fee to also cover costs such as application writing fees and attorney fees related to the application process.” We don’t have to reference that because it’s not within scope and is being dealt with separately.
- Mike made some suggested edits in the document to respond to a question from Gabriella concerning Option 2, to note that that is the “equitable solution”.
Recommendation Guidance 2: Comment from Maureen: “should that not be "allocated" or any other term that does not imply that the applicant will "receive" any funding?” - Good point – suggest change in brackets “[be allocated]” instead of “receive” as in: “In particular, the Working Group agreed that ICANN org could determine the minimum level (or floor) of funding each qualified applicant should receive [be allocated].”
- One WG member asked whether the recommendation provided sufficient guidance with respect to setting a funding “floor”. ICANN Org GDS staff agreed that the recommendation guidance as currently written was helpful guidance because it's establishing that there's a purpose and a goal behind the allocation of support.
Recommendations 3 and 4: Comment from Maureen: “We need to start the process of getting information out to ALL potential gtld applicants very soon, so that we can identify who the ASP applicants might be, and to start on the ASP as the next step! The timing of this whole process is critical. In the interest of fairness and equity, we cannot rush the ASP but at the same time, we can't drag it out for other applicants.” Discussion: - This is very specifically in terms of communicating the results of the evaluation and the likely support that applicants are going to get after they've already so applied. Not people.
- It is important to highlight transparency and clarity on how much is the benefit and how many beneficiaries from the very beginning
- The timeline needs to give potential applicants time to make an application or to make a decision about any other direction they may decide on.
- Wondering if using term “flexible” is appropriate.
- We aren’t going to set a limit but we are going to recommend an equitable process with a minimum threshold. We rejected Option 3 in our previous discussion (and as noted in the rationale), which was prioritization.
- And as a reminder of the process that we're looking at now is that the working group has discussed these recommendations and has agree to the terminology. We're really looking at the rationale and deliberations to make sure that those are clear.
- I think what we're trying to tell stuff is that they must design a program which allows for timely and transparent communication
- and then give them some flexibility. We're not trying to tell them what to do here.
- Note that the more prescriptive we are, the more likely the Board will flag it, the more likely it will go back to Council. It may have to be the subject of a clarification process, or some sort of other supplemental recommendation. In other words, it could really get hung up for months and months. and so to the extent that you guys have an opportunity to say it must be sufficient. It must be timely. Those are the kinds of things that will make it easier to get past Council and past the Board, and then ultimately, those things go to the IRT who decide what's sufficient and timely.
- Some WG members agreed that it was optimal for the recommendation to not be overly prescriptive, and in that regard the word “flexible” is sufficiently clear.
- At least one WG member emphasized that the recommendation was too vague with respect to the term “flexible.”
- Nonetheless, the Working Group also agreed that it would be helpful for Rafik to combine Recommendation Guidance 3 and 4 in some fashion (perhaps as two parts of one recommendation); staff captured this as an action item.
ACTION ITEM: Rafik has agreed to combine Recommendation Guidance 3 and 4 for WG consideration. |