M I N U T E S
Adopted by the Committee on 6th March 2007
ALAC Meeting
Tuesday 6th February 2006
Participants: Pierre, Hong, Siavash, Annette, Izumi, Jacqueline, Wendy, John, Vittorio, Carlos, Jose, Alice, Alan, Nick (Staff), Susie (Staff).
Absent: Clement
Minutes by: ICANN At-Large Staff
Meeting called to order at: TBC
A G E N D A
Standing Agenda Items
1. Adoption of the Agenda
2. Apologies from Members (if any)
3. Adoption of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting
4. Review of Action Items of the Previous Meeting
5. Time management in conference calls
Liaison Reports
1. ICANN Board - V Bertola
2. GNSO - A Greenberg
3. WHOIS - W Seltzer
4. IDNs - H Xue
5. ccNSO - S Shahshahani
Membership Matters
1. Review of ALS Applications due for action this month - ICANN Staff
2. Review of Overdue Action on ALS Applications - ICANN Staff
3. Announcement of Voting Results - Chair
4. Regional Activities this month
5. Filling up Clement and Annette's interim seats
6. Election of the Vice Chair of the Committee
Other Matters
1. Activities of the Chair - A Muehlberg
• issues report
• implementation of minimum participation requirements
• ombudsman report
• new manager participation/Kieren
• NomCom ALAC job description
• new ALAC representative Europe
• studies
1. Report of the Staff - ICANN Staff
2. Budget
3. Preparation for Lisbon meeting
4. Internal rules of procedure - V Bertola
5. Review of current lists, closure/consolidation of old lists (ws suggests, can be moved to list, if we know which one!)
6. Status (public or private) of SocialText Wiki for ALAC
7. Hiring Jean as web manager
New Business
1. Ombudsman Investigation
2. .xxx
Any Other Business
MINUTES
Because Annette is unwell Siavash is chairing the meeting:
Adoption of the agenda – As there were several items to get through it was decided that it would be necessary to identify the priority issues and to continue with items not covered on the telcon online.
• ALS applications
• List manager – consolidation of ALAC lists
• Decision on Jean re voting website and wiki
• Ombudsman
• Latest news on budget
• What we want to do on .xxx
• New ALS applications
Apologies – None
Adoption of Minutes of the Previous Meeting – Minutes agreed
Review of Action Items of the Previous Meeting - Due to time constraints it was decided that any outstanding items should be put forward on the list. Nick agreed to send this note around.
Time management in conference calls - There was a discussion regarding the length of telcons with a suggestion by Vittorio that telcons would be scheduled for 60 minutes and go on for no more than 90 minutes, this was widely supported by Committee Members. It was agreed to keep the current meeting to an hour.
Liaison Reports
Agreed that these would be provided online, and to the extent possible on the public ALAC list.
Other Matters
Activities of the Chair – Annette will give a written report
• issues report
• implementation of minimum participation requirements
• ombudsman report
• new manager participation/Kieren
• NomCom ALAC job description
• new ALAC representative Europe
• studies
Report of the Staff - ICANN Staff
This was tabled due to time constraints.
Budget – Annette explained that there is a budget committee but that they need a timeline. They were meant to get sheets at the end of January from Finance. Nick said that he will check and get the timeline and guidelines for what needs to be done sent to the budget committee.
Preparation for Lisbon meeting – there was much discussion around the format the meetings in Lisbon should take with the general consensus being that there should be fewer longer meetings that run alongside GAC or gNSO. The discussion was somewhat hampered as the exact dates of the meeting have not yet been established, Nick has got a query in around dates/co-ordination and the Public Forum and will let the ALAC know as soon as he has the confirmed dates as there is uncertainty as to whether the published dates of 26th – 30th March include a day of tutorial meetings.
Nick explained that there was a strong possibility that Africa and Europe would meet the day before tutorials. Hong expressed concern that the ALAC should not schedule meetings that would conflict with the regional meetings.
Wendy asked if meetings could be scheduled for after the conclusion as she is unable to attend until the Thursday.
Whilst there is some urgency in deciding upon the schedule as some of the ALAC will be unable to attend if they do not book flights soon it was decided that a working group form to compile a schedule within the next 10 days. A call for volunteers was made especially for those members of the ALAC from the Africa and Europe regions. Jacqueline, Vittorio, Alan, Nick and Siavash will form the group though Vittorio wanted it noted that whilst in Lisbon he will be busy with the Board meetings which may make his attendance at all the ALAC meetings problematic.
Internal rules of procedure - Siavash said that Vittorio had sent a long report on rules and procedures to the mailing list but requested that this was gone through in Lisbon. Vittorio agreed to this.
Review of current lists, closure/consolidation of old lists – the ALAC requested a list of who is a member of the various lists. Nick explained that subscription details were viewable online but agreed that he would email the ALAC when the lists change.
Status (public or private) of SocialText Wiki for ALAC - Nick reported that this is currently private. There were no objections to it being made public, and Nick confirmed he would make the arrangements in that respect.
Hiring Jean as web manager – a discussion was had about the procedure to follow in order to hire Jean (or anyone) to work on technical rather than content issues relating to the website and wiki. It was reiterated by staff that if a person was hired to manage the content and paid by ICANN the content posted would require the same level of legal clearance as posting to any ICANN website, and since the entire raison d’etre of the www.icannalac.org site was that it was an independent voice of the ALAC, it was important that the site not advertise itself as independent if in fact all the content had to be vetted by ICANN’s General Counsel’s office. Wendy, Izumi, and others suggested that the funding would be sought so that Jean could post the content which was created by ALAC members, that she would not be creating any content herself. Nick asked in that case what need there was for someone to be paid by ICANN, as any member of ALAC could simply post what they had written directly.
Nick questioned if Jean would be acting in a purely technical capacity. Siavash responded that the content would be controlled by ALAC. Wendy clarified that in the past some ALAC members have emailed content to Jean for her to upload as it simplifies the process for them. Alan reiterated that the ALAC is looking for someone to basically ‘do the typing’ for them, they are requesting the funds to pay for someone to do the work they need to have done.
Nick replied that the ALAC should put in a request for funding and it will then be dealt with. The forms are the ones that were provided in Sao Paulo and it was agreed that Annette would complete the forms and then submit them, any discussion relating to this would continue online.
Ombudsman Report – there was a discussion relating to the Ombudsman Report and the response that should be given.
Siavash wanted to know if it was necessary to respond individually or if it was possible to respond as a group to which Nick responded that ordinarily anything received on an individual basis should be responded to individually and in confidence.
It was suggested by Annette that the group should respond and that as there was a lot of legalese in the report that John, Wendy (as a lawyer), Jacqueline and a fluent French speaker collaborate on a letter on behalf of the committee.
Alan/John wanted to know how the Ombudsman had acquired certain information which could only have come due to forwards of ALAC’s internal working mailing list. Nick responded that the list is not accessible to non-list-members. Nick responded that the Ombusdman asked someone on the list to provide information and that was then provided. Alaln further asked if he was able to see our communications without asking for access. Nick said that this was not possible. Nick stated that any emails forwarded to the Ombudsman were as a result of a request for information, and that neither staff nor committee members could refuse to forward all relevant information requested by an Ombudsman in connection with an investigation per the Bylaws. Wendy confirmed this in her reading of the Bylaws. Wendy asked if there was some kind of process that allowed the Committee to discover all the evidence collected by the Ombudsman; separately Wendy did question if there were the possibility of creating, in effect, a kind of ‘attorney-client privilege’ or ‘work product privilege’ which would be completely inaccessible to the Ombudsman. She opined that perhaps the committee should conduct their sensitive work using private email aliases and then if asked for communications to refuse to provide it based upon one or the other above-refeferenced privileges. Nick suggested that, since he didn’t know the answer to the two questions raised, why doesn’t the committee ask the Ombusdman for an answer in relation to them. Alan then stated he would ask the Ombudsman about these matters since he had brought them up in the first instance.
A question was then asked for a list of the membership of the internal list. Nick stated that any list member could see that information now; it was accessible at all times as part of the mailing list software. Wendy suggested that the staff aliases could resolve to anything that ICANN wished. Nick suggested it was no problem to replace the alias with individual email addresses if the Committee wished. Alan asked if there was notification when the membership changes. Nick said that this was not a function of the list unless they were moderators. After a discussion it was decided that making everyone a moderator was unnecessary, and Nick was asked to simply notify the list when the membership changed, which he committed to doing.
Hong asked if it was possible for the ICANN staff to resist a request for information from the Ombudsman. Nick responded that he believed the answer is ‘No’ but that for certainty it would be best to ask the Ombudsman. Alan confirmed that he thought Nick’s assumption was correct.
Membership Matters
Review of ALS Applications due for action this month - Susie had sent out an update on ALS applications. This will be done on a weekly basis from now on.
Announcement of Voting Results - Susie has sent out the current votes cast to the internal list. Both Izumi and Alan had thought the deadline was the 2nd March as per the initial email sent out. Both wished their original votes of yes to all to stand.
Siavash summed up that as there had only been 3 abstentions for 3 different applications all applications were therefore approved. All ALAC were in agreement.
Alan requested that if revisions are made to emails that it can be highlighted that a revision has been made as he had thought the deadline to cast his vote was March 2nd rather than February 2nd.
Filling up Clement and Annette’s interim seats – There was a discussion about the timelines for filling these seats, as with the imminent creation of RALOs for both continents it was questionable, especially with respect to filling the African vacancy, what purpose there would be for the board to fill a vacancy for a matter of weeks as discussed on the ALAC-Internal list.
Election of the Vice Chair of the Committee – the need for a Vice Chair was discussed and the method to elect/select someone to the seat were discussed. It was agreed that the ALAC is looking for someone to be available when the Chair is not. Pierre suggested waiting until February 16th to resolve the issue but in the meantime everyone should nominate people for the post.
New Business
Ombudsman Investigation -
.xxx -
Any Other Business
Nick requested that the ALAC take a look at the video conferencing solution that we are piloting during the month of February. He pointed out that the ALAC could use it whenever they wanted during the month of February and that the provider, Marratech, would be happy to provide a 10-minute overview using the tool of the tool itself upon request.
Alan requested that the agenda, once prepared, should be kept to during the meetings.
The meeting was adjourned after 1 hour and 13 minutes.
ACTION ITEMS
• Nick to follow up with Finance on the timeline for budgeting the upcoming FY and forward to the Budget Committee
• Annette to complete forms to request budget for website personnel
• Annette to compose a letter to Ombudsman, Wendy, Alan, Jacqueline and John to work with Annette to draft it
• Nick, Annette, Jacqueline, Siavash, Vittorio, Alan to form working party to schedule Lisbon meetings
• Annette to email Chair’s Report
• Liaisons to email their written reports for the month.
• Nick to follow-up by email with Lisbon details as they become available.
• Staff to ensure that the ALAC Working SocialText Wiki is publicly accessible.
• Staff to email open action items from January meeting again.
• Nick to notify members of the ALAC Internal list when the membership changed (standing action item)
• Nominations for Vice-Chair are to be accepted until Friday 16th February on the internal list.
• Draft Rules of Procedure submitted by Vittorio to be reviewed in the ALAC meetings in Lisbon
Draft Agenda
Standing Agenda Items
- Adoption of the Agenda
- Apologies from Members (if any)
- Adoption of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting
- Review of Action Items of the Previous Meeting
- Time management in conference calls - V Bertola (I think we should never go beyond 90 minutes. I also think that agenda items should be allocated time in advance, with the Chair closing discussion and calling consensus on the specific item when its time expires. --vb.)
Liaison Reports
(suggestion: move this to written reports to the list. please avoid cluttering the call. --vb.)
- ICANN Board - V Bertola
- GNSO - A Greenberg
- WHOIS - W Seltzer
- IDNs - H Xue
- ccNSO - S Shahshahani
Membership Matters
- Review of ALS Applications due for action this month - ICANN Staff
- Review of Overdue Action on ALS Applications - ICANN Staff
- Announcement of Voting Results - Chair
- Regional Activities this month
- Filling up Clement and Annette's interim seats
- Election of the Vice Chair of the Committee
Other Matters
- Activities of the Chair - A Muehlberg
- issues report
- implementation of minimum participation requirements
- ombudsman report
- new manager participation/Kieren
- NomCom ALAC job description
- new ALAC representative Europe
- studies
- Report of the Staff - ICANN Staff
- Budget
- Preparation for Lisbon meeting
- Internal rules of procedure - V Bertola
- Review of current lists, closure/consolidation of old lists (ws suggests, can be moved to list, if we know which one!)
- Status (public or private) of SocialText Wiki for ALAC
- Hiring Jean as web manager--any update?
New Business
- Ombudsman Investigation
- .xxx
