Minutes of Tele-Conference
September 8, 2008
NARALO Teleconference
Attending: Darlene Thompson, Evan Leibovitch, Frederic Teboul, Alan Greenburg, Nick Ashton-Hart, Beau Brendler, Gareth Shearman, Dharma Daily, Tricia Drakes, Seth Reiss, Karl Auerbach, Danny Younger, Robert Guerra
1. Roll Call
2. Review of the Summary Minutes 11 August 2008
3. Review of the Action Items 11 August 2008
4. Item 1: ALAC Review
Dharma: Her understanding that ALAC acts as a type of guardianship position for internet users and ICANN. One cannot effectively be an advocate of the internet users as well as doing policy work with ICANN as it can lead to a conflict of interests. The two are sometimes at odds with each other. This also brings up the question of who an individual internet user is.
Alan: Recommendation 12 – the question is ill-advised as any organization can join both or either NCUC and/or ALAC. Who is a user: almost anybody who puts their hands on a keyboard and interfaces with the internet would be a user.
Beau: He feels that most of what he and others told them did not get reflected in the overall document. ALAC needs a stronger voice in advocating for the internet community. It needs to be greater than a simple advisory role.
Gareth: He would like to support both Beau and Alan’s statements. ALAC needs a much stronger voice.
Seth: ALAC’s role is to fill in the gaps that the other constituencies don’t fill, in particularly, the people that do not appreciate the complexities of the internet.
Danny: There is no continuing purpose for the ALAC and it should be buried immediately and replaced.
Robert: ALAC basis its premise on how internet users were structured when ICANN was founded (like through user groups). This has changed a lot in the last ten years. At-Large may be stuck in a premise that no longer exists and that is why there may be a bit of a disconnect. Internet users don’t know what they don’t know. If seed money had been made available at the beginning to get people to know about ICANN and the issues and to do more outreach, it may have been much better. As it is, ALAC is based on an old model.
Dharma: Funding also has to made available on a more than one fiscal year cycle for volunteer projects such as this for better planning and preparation.
Evan: What is a user – there are contracted parties, information providers and then consumers (but are removed from the top level of contracted parties). Most of the GNSO is people at the middle level. At any given time, the people a the top of the food chain can run into phishing issues and then makes them a user again. As Alan said, there are plenty of instances that people can belong to NCUC or ALAC. Evan also agrees with Beau. Also, ALAC is seen as a bit of a charity case to ICANN – ALAC has no say over the budget that is allocated to it (like the travel allocation debate). There is a total lack of transparency.
5. Item 2: Call for nominations period open for NARALO ALAC position (confirmed in email)
See e-mail from Darlene. Beau’s term is up as it’s a staggered term and Beau is standing for re-nomination.
6. Item 3: Redemption Grace Period, based on Danny's Email entitled "restoring the safety net", dated 08/27
ALAC will be discussing this tomorrow. This is about the Redemption Grace Period wherein once a domain has expired, the registrar will then buy it themselves and abuse the system. Its like warehousing. Beau will bring this forward tomorrow. ALAC should be able to take this on or do it through the RAA. Nick will also be putting on two briefings on this subject to bring us all up to speed on this.
7. Item 4: Comprehensive Review of ICANN Accreditation Processes
There are a lot of registrars that have hidden addresses. Nick’s briefings could cover this sort of thing.
Out of time!!! – The following items could not be covered as we were out of time. We will tentatively set up another call for Sept. 22, 2008 to continue with this agenda.
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8. Item 5: ALAC statement on the RAA
9. Item 6: Danny's letter to Paul Twomey
10. Item 7: Registrants 'Bill of Rights and Responsibilities' - Call for Volunteers
11. Item 8: Discussion on the new Community Travel Procedure for volunteers
