ALAC ExCom 27.07.2010 Transcript

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, let’s get going anyway, he’ll be here with us shortly. Okay, the Excom meeting now, Alan needs an hour to prepare properly for his chairing of the (petna) meeting, so what I’m going to propose is let’s assume we’re starting at half past the hour. The (shegna) meeting is in two hours and something minutes –

Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, for the record, I need a day to prepare properly, but I’m willing to take an hour.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Another hour on what you’ve already done. (Inaudible 0:00:44) ready to roll, he’s ready to run his next meeting. So let’s see how much we can get through in just an hour, and we’ll stop short of the hour when we come to a natural closing point of a particular item. So rather than half start something I’d rather stop at a point and give us a little more time, but that will mean that we need to reconvene. What opportunity exists in the not too distant future for us to reconvene?

Now, for example Vanda, your item and (inaudible 0:01:28) has something, I think we need to share that to you as our Board liaison, will be dealt with in this hour time. So I’m less concerned about your ability to reconvene, but we really do need the reconvening opportunity for everyone else. Alan, you indicated you didn’t think the (petna) would last the full allocated time. Is that the case?

Alan Greenberg: I’m hoping not. You saw the draft of what I was going to present. It’s going to be volatile from the point of view of some people but I don’t think it’s going to take a long time to go over, and I’m just representing basically fact, so if they don’t like facts sorted then they have a problem. The only other item is extension of the comment period and one of the things I can do before we can have that discussion is actually read the comments, which I haven’t done yet.

Female: There are four, At-Large Director comments?

Alan Greenberg: No, no for (petna).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: He was talking about a think for (Petna). Okay, is it possible then for us to reconvene, depending on the reaction when we put out the (petna) has just finished and we need a ten minute bio break message to the Excom chat, is that possible or impossible in everyone’s life today? If it is impossible, we just need to look for another time.

Carlton Samuels: It’s impossible for me.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Impossible for you, Carlton? Okay, let’s see. We have a lot of policy stuff we need to look at. We need to find some time that does work. It’ll be an hour now, Vanda, and then we need to find another time as soon as possible. Carlton, what is your as soon as possible?

Carlton Samuels: It wouldn’t be before Friday morning, Cheryl. At the same time, unfortunately. Tomorrow I’m out and Thursday.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, one of those moments I guess we should probably wish we had video, or maybe considering the hour of the day, not have video, because the look on my face would be telling you (inaudible 0:03:42).

Alan Greenberg: So Carlton, you’re saying later today is not possible at all?

Carlton Samuels: No, later today is not possible, Alan. I actually am digging into a work schedule right this minute.

Alan Greenberg: I was just looking for clarity, not having you defend it.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think then we’re just going to have to – I think Friday is too far. Does anyone disagree? We’re just going to have to work with you online I think.

Carlton Samuels: Yes, between now and Friday. I know I’m not going to be easily reached.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. No problem. Sebastian, what works for you?

Sebastian Bachollet: Today I would like to be at the (zircum igs) call – from 8 to 9, but after that I can do when you want and –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m sorry, was that the ISOC call?

Sebastian Bachollet: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I thought that had already happened earlier.

Sebastian Bachollet: There are two, one last week earlier and one this week late for me.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Um, okay.

Alan Greenberg: He’s saying 1800 UTC which is just after the scheduled end of Petna.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. Okay.

Sebastian Bachollet: But I can do that later if you want. I guess 21, 22, 23 I can do my night. No problem.

Vanda Scartezini: I can’t at that time.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You can’t? Okay. That’s probably not so vital. Dev, what are your opportunities at all?

Dev: Okay, at any time for today.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, all right. Let’s see how we go for finding a time on the Skype chat when we finish up with Petna, and we might be able to do a little bit more online as well. So I’ll just double check on that ISOC time so we can make sure we avoid that, perhaps I’ll just find that email while we move through the next item. The next item is followup from our last item. We’ve got three! Good Lord. Haven’t we done most of these action items? I’ve would’ve thought we’ve done all these.

Alan Greenburg: Then they are easy to check off.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I just don’t understand why they are still here. Okay. Let’s quickly look at the (inaudible 0:06:48). I don’t think there’s anything – on, Vanda to work with Seth on rephrasing section G in the At-Large improvements plan to incorporate languages of the At-Large improvements with regards to the aoc. I thought that had been presented in Brussels to us.

Heidi Ulrich: I’m sorry, that was a followup from the 19th of July, and that was incorporated into the summary that was presented SIC.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, that’s right. I don’t think there’s anything from the 19th of July, unless I’m crazy, which still is pending other than a past couple of webinar or single purpose calls. Let’s look at the 22nd of July. We’ve got PAD work. Carlton did you get a chance to look at why that PAD wasn’t working?

Carlton Samuels: Yes, Cheryl. There was a problem with the algorithm that was written by PTCS that because of changes in the spreadsheet, the Google spreadsheet, it stopped working, but we’ve fixed that. There is still one item to be fixed though. They automated emails to be generated, they are still trying to figure out why some of them are coming out but they are not coming out at the right time.

They should come out on the date that it is sent to the pad, and that’s not happening now. They are trying to figure it out. I spoke to Dev, yesterday, and he promised me that they would finish looking at it yesterday evening, but I have not managed to get him since morning, so I am still out in the dark on email, but the pad itself, that part of it is fixed.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good. So we’re getting there, but a little bit of work continues, all right.

Carlton Samuels: A little work continues, yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think we got just about everything on today’s agenda, and most of what we had as urgent in terms of needing decisions from the ALAC was done, so that’s pedna and the pdp work team, etc., etc. We need a removal of other things. The RAA one, you discussed earlier Carlton, and that’s going to be forthcoming in the not too distant future.

Carlton Samuels: Yes, as I said, I have actually drafted a statement, but since I wasn’t lead on this, I sent to Evan to have a look and ensure that we cover everything, but actually what I did was simply go back and look at the traffic from the work group and drafted a statement that I think reflects the sense of what was discussed there.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t have dates on that, I perhaps could make an observation that the work group that Evan chairs that should have convened that hour before our ALAC meeting, was cancelled, literally at the last second. Like half a dozen of us were already at the call, because of some urgent matter that had come up for Evan to attend to, and this caused the other co chair was involved in IGS matters, so there may be a bit of a delay in his responses today, but I’m sure he will get back to you fairly soon.

Carlton Samuels: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Can anyone see anything that we haven’t picked up? The terrorism issue, while we have Vanda on this call I’m very keen to discuss that a little bit more. So we’ll pick that up in our meeting now.

Carlton Samuels: Can I just say something on that, Chair?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, just as soon as we check if there’s anything else in our previous to do list, which I don’t think there is. The rest of them we’re picking up in our existing issues. Yes, go ahead, then.

Carlton Samuels: Okay, the issues for the dag were you know, they sift around in control and beneficial ownership and the outcome of that and the MOPO issue. Those are the three main issues on the terrorism issue. The note I sent to Evan says he wanted to get Bo involved in responding to the dag, the issues on the dag, and I also indicated what I thought would be useful text for an ALAC statement.

The – what I pointed out to him is with respect to control and beneficial ownership, there is no consensus but we are working in the working group and I thought we should emphasize that the At-Large has been involved strongly in the working group and we continue to seek consensus with other parties. The MOPO I told him that I think we should simply endorse our previous message and recognize that we are actually starting a cross functional or cross community working group to delve in that more, because we now find there are other groups who are uncomfortable with MOPO as ALAC originally was.

The terrorism issue – the thing is there are some thinking that probably if we put it in with the statement we might lose the sense of importance with it. I don’t know, that’s why I think I want to know what Vanda has to say about it, seeing that she strongly might help us to decide how we approach this as a statement.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, I’ve just given the microphone to Alan, so Alan you go ahead and then we’ll go to Vanda.

Alan Greenberg: Just to make one very quick comment. Carlton said that we should – on the MOPO- that we should endorse our previous statement, and I would say that is fine if the previous statement was very short and concise. This is one of those items that we are considering true advice to the Board for their consideration at their meeting, and if it’s several pages long and full of, to be blunt, unnecessary verbage, no one is going to read it. So reissuing that statement is fine if it’s really short, otherwise it needs to be abbreviated and whatever we’re trying to say, presented in a terse way.

Carlton Samuels: Agreed, Alan. I couldn’t agree with you more.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Vanda, particularly I have a little bit to talk about MOPO in a little while, but I’d very much like to hear, because you were instrumental in raising this, obviously we all heard that in Brussels, but your take on how we can best approach this terrorism issue.

Vanda Scartezini: It’s just because I am concerned about the entrance of ICANN into issues that are not our home, not our mission. So that is – this needs to have not only from ALAC, but I believe from most of the groups around the community, some kind of reaction in the specific reaction to make the Board aware about what is going on. Because it was something that nobody really knew that will be posted in this edition, because it was not there in the third edition.

So it’s something – once (inaudible 0:16:19) has sent the message to almost everybody, all the heads of the groups, I don’t know if he has sent to ALAC, but I guess he got to most of the chairs, so I believe all the groups should make some comments and react against, because it is not our mission. That is my huge point on that. So, all those things are not for now, because we have a lot of things to define in our agenda that will take more than three hours, so we are discussing how many hours we are going to have on our agenda.

So these issues related to the GNSO will be treated directly in the retreat, so we have some time to make these comments about the new gTLDs and the dag, because there are a lot of issues related to this agenda for August 5. So it’s – I need to remember that we need to do something about the XXX and so we have got some consumer protection issues, we have also questions related to share (inaudible 0:18:11), and of course the At-Large improvement implementation is in our agenda too.

So there are a lot of issues in our agenda, but mostly not for debate, mostly just to get knowledge and it’s almost agreed in our exchange emails. If the issues relate to IDN then the change of SSAC and this I sent to you the certification of global policy proposal for the (inaudible 0:19:03) system number, it’s all a brief issues, it’s just that we need to really approve of that and go forward. The new one, we’re going to have only fifteen minutes for update on new gTLDs programs, and mostly to organize our agenda for the next week, and so using opportunity to get all the issues that are inside the agenda updated.

The ICANN and IGO relationship, the (dotjob) that is request of save the location program of that, and the consolidation of all the work of GNSO instructor, and I guess most of that and then certainly we’re going to have a discussion about what is going on in the reorganization within the ICANN as we have in the – during the meeting in Brussels, so we’re going to have the CEO report and discuss about that and get information we asked for, and all those issues that are not really well accepted by the Board.

So it’s mostly the IDN, so back to the dag, I guess we need to have a very clear statement of the statement we consider important just to get the attention of the people that will draft the all information that we get, and certainly I can raise some points, but it’s very important to have it very clear and short so people can read. I can send email for the friends around and they can read them so it’s easy during the debate to use the words that we wrote in that. Okay?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good. If we look at the matter of how one does, one does not attempt to classify one as being involved in terrorism and how one defines that. That’s not a big leap from public order.

Vanda Scartezini: That’s quite another point, that is different division inside the Board and we also need a very clear position from ALAC to be defended as well as more similar to the GAC. But I’m not sure.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, I had a meeting today with Chuck Nomes and his (inaudible 0:22:48) from this particular topic was both GAC and ALAC and working on some of the things that we’ve had from Evan on the existing GNSO list, where they’ve started to discuss out of a motion put forward to the council in Brussels to look into the matters of morality and public order. It’s a little bit of unfortunate circumstance because as some of you know very well, since Nairobi and indeed before, GAC and ALAC have been working on the morality and public order issue. But GNSO seem to be unaware of all that.

Now Chuck did set up a list, and he did call it a SOAC with the intention of it being a joint activity list, and then promptly forgot to talk to either of the ACs about it. So the intention was for it to be an open and inclusive place to discuss these issues, but he and the rest of the GNSO seem to be quite unaware of the progress and the mutual work that had already been going on, and most importantly of the amount of work that the Government Advisory Committee has already done and is about to complete on this matter.

So the current state of play is as follows: we won’t be ignoring or ditching the traffic that has gone on in the current GNSO discussion list, it is archivable and it is useful, and I feel from my perspective that the people who have put in time and energy for a debate, to have that just ignored would not be very fruitful or sensible anyway.

Within the next seven to ten days, a piece of GAC advice will be coming out and it will be formally calling for a cross community working group to begin on this particular process of coming up with implementation issues and hopefully answers to the some of the challenges some of us see in terms of implementation on recommendation six, to do with morality and public order, and I suggest that the matter of the pre check and the opinion of what is or isn’t terrorism could probably be bundled into that as well.

So we will have an active working group, we’ve looked particularly at having things with at least some form of output in a timely fashion that it can be used by the Board in their retreat when they are looking at the dag issues, and I think that’s all healthy and all good, but what we now need to do is make sure that the ALAC and the regions and the rank and file ALS members are actively engaged in this when it is announced.

To this end, both Heather and I have joined the existing GNSO email list, the discussion list as of today, and what we would like to do is encourage as many others to join that list as we can, because we probably won’t reinvent the list, but what we will do is specifically charter a working group, and to that end, seeing as ADIGO was used to host today’s call between the GAC, the GNSO Chair, and myself, I’d be pushing that the sort of the meeting stay firmly in the ALAC world, and the list can sit over in GNSO land, and we’ll make sure it is all well shared.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, it is most important issue because maybe we can share a little bit about the ideas that come out before the meeting in August 5 to make sure someone raise the point we already have something to push.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, there’s been significant work done within the GAC, it’s just that the GAC hasn’t released it as advice yet. Heidi is just asking whether the Wiki pages would be GNSO as well, and yes, I think the Wiki pages will be GNSO because they will be the chartering organization, because they are the SO where this firmly sits, so it makes perfect sense. But I think we’ll probably come to the party as some of the telco supporters, but we definitely need to have this well populated and as inclusive of our members, so forewarned is forearmed and it will be happening in the next week, I would say. That does mean that we can start to look at this terrorism issue because it is a huge concern as you might imagine to some of the Asia/Pacific in particular.

Vanda Scartezini: That is quite amazing. I really don’t see how we can even imagine that we can deal with that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, it’s not far away from how we’re supposed to deal with judgment on what is moral or not.

Vanda Scartezini: Yeah. That is what I am saying, because this is completely crazy to try to set up any kind of common sense on that in this technical group community around the world. It’s crazy.

Alan Greenberg: I think it’s not dissimilar from the morality and public order. I don’t know how many of you read (Red Fosset)’s comment read on where the original concept came from four or five years ago, basically there was general consensus at that point that ICANN could not afford not to have a mechanism with which to reject something which everyone believed should be rejected. I suspect, but I don’t have a clue, that this terrorism thing came out of the same kind of logic. That is Al-Quida requested a top level domain, on what grounds does one have to refuse it.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, but it’s a much more internal issue to talk about someone that is more informal and preparing that than to ask the questions around the world, if this guy is involved or not.

Alan Greenberg: I’m not defending the words they have, I’m just trying to give some insight into how it may have come about, but that’s only my guess.

Vanda Scartezini: Yeah. I read that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And one of the registrar’s reviews of the dag 4 when it came out indicated that it was perfectly acceptable. Well, it might be in some parts of the world, but we do have – we will have debate and we need to have a proper one on it. Vanda, I think this is one of those times when I think you really, even though you are Board liaison for us, you really should keep a very close eye on the activity of this working group, and I’d be encouraging all of us, including you Vanda, to get Glen to add you to the list so we can be properly prepared.

Vanda Scartezini: Heidi can put us on the list?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m sure we can all get a do a bulk thing to Glen to do that. Go ahead, Alan.

Alan Greenberg: I suspect this whole thing is rather mute, although I’m not sure it’s one of those answers you can give in public. If Al-Quida for instance did request a top level domain, I’m quite sure the US Government would tell ICANN you cannot have any financial dealings with this group, and therefore it would be barred on that kind of level.

Vanda Scartezini: I don’t believe they need it, I believe they already have –

Alan Greenberg: That’s what I’m saying. Ignoring our rules, I don’t think at that blatant a level that anything could happen with it. It may result in lawsuits afterwards, but so be it.

Vanda Scartezini: But people are going to find a way if they are in the wrong ideas, to use this –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.

Alan Greenberg: The point I was making is its equivalent to ICANN saying if you don’t like the domain, block it. Every country has the jurisdiction. It’s a fact that we don’t talk about in public.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We’re not trying to solve the problem through debate here. What we are trying to do is make sure that when we report out of the Excom now, the community and the RALO leadership know that this change of play is going to happen, that there will be the cross community group happening, and that we need people to be engaged. And that we’re looking at the pre-September timeline, which is still quite aggressive. But we shall see what we shall see, anything else then, from you Vanda? I know you won’t be joining us again for the followup call, probably.

Vanda Scartezini: Well, I guess there’s nothing else more important. We’re going to have registry XXX, and nothing more than that, and what we are discussing and how we are going to deal with a lot of issues because we believe that the Board should reduce the amount of work, but they saying increase and increase and increase all the time, even if we are not paying attention what is going inside ICANN because we are connected with the staff.

So but even that comparing with the time when I was on the Board it’s supposed to have less work nowadays, but it’s going bad because a lot of things come into and need approval and all the deals and all the change, so everything goes to the Board so probably we need to think about how to reduce the amount of work and then give more power for groups, something like that. I don’t know.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that certainly is an issue, and one that we’ve heard from ATRT team point of view at a number of levels, including out of the service, the work is expanding hugely for everybody. We probably do need to try to rebuild the plane while it’s in the air, after all. Okay. So we’ve kind of done item number four and a couple of outstanding items from our meeting already. But of course one of those did come in under the pad, so can we now look quickly at the pad, Carlton, while we have you?

One thing, just before you start with the pad, it was my opinion that having the statements on the agenda as discussion and approval points worked well. Is it your will that we experiment with this model at least once or twice in the future to see if it has longevity, or if it was just an accident at today’s meeting?

Carlton Samuels: No, I don’t think it’s an accident, Cheryl. I think that’s a model we should adopt, but with some very high impact statements that we want to make. I think what is missing here now, as you can see, is we have the working group that are supposed to be the originators of the statement, and maybe because the working group are broadly based it would help us if we got the statements earlier rather than later in the process, so I quite agree that we should consider that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think we’ll just have to play a bit of catch up at this point in time, however. How do you want to proceed then, Carlton, on the items that were listed in today’s agenda? And that included the work from the address organization as well, the one that Vanda added in. Should we divide those up into some we know we have statements that are coming in on them, such as the dag, and inclusive of the morality and public order issue, but some are fresh start. How do you want to proceed?

Carlton Samuels: Let’s just start with the one that are supposed to come in and then we’ll talk about the others that are fresh and we need to go. We already spoke about the RAA improvement, that text is there, but I’m just waiting for Evan to look over it, similarly, with the dag 4 and the terrorism. I will tell you now that based on Vanda’s intervention with regard to the terrorism issue, I think for now it might be useful as Vanda is suggesting that the ALAC simply state that we have a concern that taking this up might create a situation where ICANN is going outside of its own remit.

I think that might be the more politic to make. That’s what I’m getting from Vanda’s advice, and I would tend to agree and follow that line. The question of the ccNSO working paper on delegation/redelegation, I actually only had a response from Rudy about half an hour ago, and it essentially says it is a closed group; it’s something that he is following.

And he will need to reflect on it on the 7th when he comes back from vacation, as to what could reasonably be said. I told him that we could always take that the ALAC is as part of our outreach we could always craft a statement that shows support of this, because we know the ccNSO issues might impact our ALSs in the various countries.

So if we produce something and push it to the edges for endorsement, that might be a way to go, but he did not respond to that suggestion, I am thinking that is probably the minimum we could do with this ccNSO redelegation issue. Simply recognize that our ALSs might have an interest in it and let’s put something to the edge to see what comes back.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, just to the record then, we did discuss this in the APRALO meeting today, and what we were able to do was encourage the individual ALSs represented at the meeting to look to this as one of those points where they, as at the edge of structure, could and should be putting in their own comments. Okay.

Carlton Samuels: I think we could follow that model. I think it might be useful for us to just suggest and follow that model. The issue of the program budget, the draft gTLD program budget, the only concern if you look at the comments was whether or not the budget reflected the anticipated cost for examining the proposals, and the compliance issues that would arise from those proposals, whether there was an adequate budget for that. That has been the most raised issue around it.

For those who have been following in that work group, there really is nothing more that Evan thought would be appropriate to comment on, except to raise the flag on the budget, whether the budget was adequate to meet the volume of work that would have been generated, especially in the area of compliance.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, if I can just intervene there Carlton. As you mentioned, the compliance would obviously that is something – the vertical integration aspect of that is something being focused on as well, (inaudible 0:42:32) of new gTLDs has (inaudible 0:42:35) to compliance every which way but loose, hasn’t it? Just by way of feedback, it would appear that the comments from various parts of the community but including the ALAC report at the end of the Brussels meeting may possibly have been misconstrued as a criticism of the leader of the compliance team.

And Vanda, if from your position with the Board, if that could be questioned as to why David Geezer’s sudden leaving was necessary, we’ve heard nothing but supportive comments from the community about how well he worked with us, how open and inclusive he was in his processes and programs, and indeed how much improvement we’ve seen since he had his hand on the tiller.

While there is no evidence to support this, there is now an ever growing state of hypothesis out there both on the industry side and I believe at least in some of our minds on the registrants side, that perhaps some of our calls for higher levels of compliance, more budget to be given to compliance, and more effort, energy, and focus by ICANN from the Board down on compliance, may have been misinterpreted as a criticism and a need for him to roll rather than what it was meant to be, which was we like what we see, we want more of it, thank you.

Carlton Samuels: Can I say something on that because we had a side conversation on this, and actually there was a question as to whether or not we should particularly say in this statement on the program budget, our distress to see the change in the leadership of the compliance area in ICANN when we have seen particularly – and that is Evan’s term – so much more improvement and effectiveness in dealing with some of the long outstanding compliance issues. So yes, there was this specific thing. I was the one that cautioned probably we don’t want to bring that into this right now, but it is for the team to decide whether or not we should make a particular statement on the program budget there.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s very likely, and I’m going to pass the microphone to Heidi in just a moment, but it’s very likely that there were perfectly good personal reasons, and if that is the case, fine. Tell us. Not the details, but the generalities of the necessity. If, as some of us fear, some of our words have been misinterpreted, then that is a matter, not that we can fix it, (inaudible 0:45:57), but I think we should have the awareness raising exercise that before one, even if you happen to be at whatever level, makes an assumption on what we the community are meaning, they could check with us. Now, Heidi, you’ve got some specific words you want to say, and then we’ll go to Alan.

Heidi Ulrich: Thank you, Cheryl, just two comments. I have been watching the comments coming from the NORALO list, which I thought were well placed as the suddenness of David Geezer’s departure, as well as the, as Alan mentioned, no official statement yet. I have been following up with, going to increasingly senior levels on when, not it, but when an announcement is going to be made. The last time I made a personal plea was I think last Wednesday, and again we’ve heard nothing.

So I’ll follow-up again, I think this is really very needed to clarify why, the reasons why of his leaving, and even Pam Little is going to be the interim, now the Senior Director for that. The second issue is that I’ve had a talk with Pam on whether she would be willing and when she would like to come on to a community call on compliance, and she said she would be happy to do so any time in August, and she might even be able to discuss the reasons behind that departure. It is not at her level where the delay is coming from, just to let you know.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, that’s important to know, thank you Heidi. Go ahead Alan.

Alan Greenberg: Just a couple of comments. We are talking about someone’s career here, and we don’t know the details, and I think we need to be very careful in what we do in any public forum on this.

Carlton Samuels: That’s precisely why I thought we should pull back –

Alan Greenberg: I wasn’t disagreeing with you, I was just pointing out that it is someone’s career that we’re playing with at some level, so we need to be careful.

Carlton Samuels: Absolutely.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I just think he should be given more than the benefit of the doubt. I’m hearing things in the absence of information, fantasies filling where fact should be, and if, in the case of some of the fantasies, there have been maybe a little bit of basic truth to the fear. You know, the words have some of our comments been misconstrued. Then I think that, as a separate exercise needs to be looked at, but it’s something that I think –

Alan Greenberg: Again, indeed but not in a public forum, preferably. I’ll just point out that we still have other departures that many months ago that have not been formally announced yet. The positions have been posted, but the departure never was announced.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, well.

Alan Greenberg: I think this concept of transparency, well; the meaning has been lost on some people.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. And perhaps ALAC should be making a statement to the ATRT to the effect of this. This does all go towards transparency as far as most of us are concerned.

Alan Greenberg: I have an irreverent comment.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Please go ahead, I’d like a bit of irreverence at this hour of the morning.

Alan Greenberg: Well, we’re talking about transparency and accountability, which is shortened to T&A. T&A has another meaning in most of the world. I trust everyone is aware of it.

Carlton Samuels: T&A, I know it’s a wrestling thing –

Alan Greenberg: To be blunt, it means tits and ass.

Carlton Samuels: I knew that Alan, but I wasn’t saying.

Alan Greenberg: I’m not finished yet. And the essence of that is all appearance and that’s all that counts. So we may have the right acronym after all.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Maybe that’s why we’re very careful to call it the accountability and transparency Review Team – The ATRT.

Alan Greenberg: I understand, but T&A has been used a number of times, and it’s all about appearance. That’s all it’s about, it appearance.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I’d be happy to hear that as a complaint to come forward to the ATRT. All right, enough of this frivolity. Carlton, it sounds to me like we’ve got two piles, the pile that needs to be done between now and the next meeting needs to get split in two. Those that we need to have worked out on and statements prepared and –

Carlton Samuels: Excuse me.

Alan Greenberg: You need to look at Heidi’s last comment.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, thank you for that Heidi.

Alan Greenberg: Thank you Heidi.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I must say that any number of reordering of letters could give us a quite apt description of what we’re complaining about. Oh dear. Carlton –

Carlton Samuels: Can I say just one thing before you continue?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was going to say have you composed yourself enough to continue.

Carlton Samuels: One small one that we need to look at is remember, Sebastian, the economic analysis one? We are going to take that one as a text from Olivier, and that is important for us to get, but he is telling us he will get it back this week.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be the first cab off the ring in the pile of here is statement, what is your view on endorsing it? And then there’s the statements need to be developed, what you view on endorsing it was.

Carlton Samuels: Right.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right. Who is going to own all of this and when it is going to happen by?

Carlton Samuels: I am still working the three statements, the one on RAA improvements, the one on the gTLD program, and the one on the dag and terrorism with Evan and Bo. Two of them I’m expecting today, or at latest tomorrow morning to be out on the line with you. So those are done. With regard to ccNSO statement, Rudy did say that he’s coming back from vacation on the 7th of August and he will give me something more, but we have time for that. Those are the immediate one.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we could already be looking at an endorsement opportunity for the review of the economic analysis that Olivier did.

Carlton Samuels: Correct, right.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, so at least that notches sort of action item on report to the community and processing of things between now and the second week of August, then.

Carlton Samuels: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, obviously more will undoubtedly come out of the woodwork between now and then. To some extent we’ve drifted into development of the four planning systems our At-Large policy development advice. I think the experiment we ran today was a useful one. I would like to because today’s meeting is so packed, I would like to suggest that we slip in another executive committee meeting earlier than (inaudible 0:53:59) possible, so perhaps, Carlton is you are available after Friday of this week, we might look at opportunities in our diaries on the sort of your Monday/Tuesday is of next week.

Perhaps go as far as Wednesday of next week, when two things can happen. We can put to bed some of these additional statements that should be coming in by then, and I do think a (inaudible 0:54:26) would be useful, Heidi. Thank you for that. And obviously Giselle would be able to avoid the times that so many of us are committed with other work groups now as well. And the other thing, in terms of scheduling and what I’m going to suggest is, for this next meeting, that Chuck brings along his vice chairs and whoever else he wants to bring along, and I bring along the executive and Heather bring along whoever, but it would be the night of August, if that is two weeks from now.

Chuck and Heather and Cheryl agreed today that we should have a followup call, so basically a second call based on what we did today, on what would be their 9th of August, so same time, same place, probably the Adigo line. Well, a lot should have happened between now and then, including the GAC advice should have come out, so if we can meet before the 9th of August, even if it’s close up to those days, we could prepare and perhaps get a few more people involved in that call if needs be. Okay, so that will be doable, excellent, anything else on the forward planning system?

Vanda Scartezini: I guess not.

Heidi Ulrich: Cheryl?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go ahead.

Heidi Ulrich: Just quickly, and perhaps we can do this on our own. We had mentioned during the 19th Excom the idea of forward scheduling community calls where one week would be a briefing, that would be perhaps Monday or Tuesday and then the following week would be a policy drafting call followup. Did you want to go ahead with that? Cheryl, perhaps we could go ahead and schedule the order.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I think that’s probably well worthwhile.

Alan Greenberg: Yes, I agree.

Carlton Samuels: It would be at least a further attempt to get a wider community involved in the drafting especially.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, we have to do that for vertical integration. What else do you have to do with it?

Heidi Ulrich: I think one would be travel.

Carlton Samuels: Travel.

Heidi Ulrich: Oh, and also planning for the fiscal year 12. Those are just –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Those can probably wait a little –

Carlton Samuels: Yeah, wait a little bit but this one about the cross community call for the GA. The General Assembly, like the one that we put on to the travel too, so that might be an expanded one, or it might be another one we could take.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think it’s part of the travel story.

Heidi Ulrich: Well, basically we’re considering two community calls per month, and then the two staggered weeks two policy developments follow up calls.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think that’s the way to go.

Heidi Ulrich: These are for August then.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I mean, if there’s a placeholder there, we can always say one isn’t going to happen, but it would be much better to have the placeholder.

Heidi Ulrich: Okay, so if I could suggest that Cheryl, Giselle and I work on the best times for those standing meetings.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, excellent, good.

Heidi Ulrich: Okay.

Carlton Samuels: That’s a very useful suggestion, Heidi. Thanks.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Anything else on that particular topic, for planning not just the policy advice, although I must say the community briefing calls are part of the policy development process. But if not, then go ahead Sebastian. Sorry.

Sebastian Bachollet: Just a question about the timing of (inaudible 0:59:00) of the nominating committee, because (inaudible 0:59:05)the RALO will be back the beginning of August, I think we are still discussion around all the contacts we need to push - to add one point there is a legal staff phone and answer and we need to know what number is for the nominating committee (inaudible) to be elected to- for example to ALAC, when and I will read the agenda AGM of the year and the reading (inaudible) we are still waiting for a (inaudible) answer that will change, or could change or may change the way we would name our different people.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.

Sebastian Bachollet: The question is on the 6th of August we can’t move, would you imagine to move the date and the time of (inaudible 1:11:40).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastian, there was a bit of packet loss there. Can I ask someone to summarize that for me, just in case I’ve missed bits?

Carlton Samuels: The packet loss also pronounced on my side, Cheryl, so I cannot help there.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.

Sebastian Bachollet: May I try again?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Carlton Samuels: You’re coming in better now.

Sebastian Bachollet: Okay, Cheryl, is this better? The question we are asking legal staff to tell us if somebody from the nomcom could be elected to, for example, an ALAC position. when it would be, it is at the end of the AGM of the year he or she is member of, it’s one year after, and from that will depend, I guess some of the name put by EURALO in the least of the different countries we have to find out. The trouble is that (inaudible 1:01:59) up to the first day of August, and we don’t have yet the answer. And those will be trouble to be ready on the 6th for the nomcom, possible appointee.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastian, I’m not aware, and I’m not suggesting that legal would be – yes, ask legal. But I’m not aware of any rule in any of the what you do before you get into ALAC. I’m aware of rules of once you’re in ALAC what you can do, but many of the regions wouldn’t even have their own logistical issues. They could appoint a serving member, a secretariat or anything from the RALO to be the member of the ALAC, if that’s what they want, but you can’t be in two roles at the same time. Yeah, but I’m not sure that we’ve got limitations on so for example, you can’t become a member of the nominating committee in the year after you’re the chair of the ALAC, by rule, but I am not aware of any rule that says that member can’t come in and become an ALAC member.

Alan Greenberg: Is there such a rule?

Carlton Samuels: No, there is no such rule that I know of.

Alan Greenberg: Is there any such rule? I thought the only rule was you cannot serve in a position if you’re on the nomcom at the same time. You cannot apply for a position.

Sebastian Bachollet: No, the question is when you are member of the nomcom, you can’t be elected.

Vanda Scartezini: Apply for a nomcom position.

Alan Greenberg: You can’t apply for a position to that same nomcom. You can’t resign, and then apply for it, but -

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But is that person was, for example, an ALS representative in EURALO, and they happened to be currently serving in the nomcom, well then the nomcom they serve in stops at the same time as their potential ALAC service would start, I don’t think there’s an issue.

Sebastian Bachollet: It was my reading too, but it seems it’s not the reading of the legal of the amendment and the person who asked the question is still waiting for the answer.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Heidi, can you take a shot point and speak and tell them that Cheryl has asked you to poke whoever it is in legal to get back to not only EURALO but the rest of us on this. We cannot shift this timelines around, for the lack of properly informed legal advice.

Heidi Ulrich: Yeah, I’ll do that.

Sebastian Bachollet: You want me to make a short summary of the situation, too?

Heidi Ulrich: Yes, please. That would be useful Sebastian.

Alan Greenberg: And Sebastian, it would be useful if you could point to what are the words in the by-laws that are being – having several interpretations.

Sebastian Bachollet: I will do that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Anything else on that Sebastian? We are at the hour point here in a few moments, and I want to make sure we have got as far as we can do. I mean, I have had questions from RALOs in the past about whether a currently serving RALO officer can come straight into the ALAC and the answer is yes, and in fact there’s nothing actually stopping them serving – you know, continuing to serve because –

Carlton Samuels: As an officer in RALO.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Many of the ALAC members are part of the executive team of their regions; it just depends on how the region is setup. So you know, certainly it would be nice to get some more uniformity in the future so we don’t have to worry about RALO a versus RALO c being different. There are very certainly the rule in the rules of procedures that says chair of the ALAC cannot become a nomcom member in the year immediately after they serve as chair of the ALAC. But that’s the only one I’m aware of in that crossover.

Alan Greenberg: Unless that’s an ALAC rule, I’m not aware –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Trust me; it’s there, because I plan to try to get into the Nomcom after I finish with the ALAC, so I’ve looked.

Sebastian Bachollet: It’s article 7, section 8 of the by-laws.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep.

Carlton Samuels: Thank you Sebastian. I didn’t know this.

Alan Greenberg: Article 7 section 8 is about who the nomcom can select.

Sebastian Bachollet: But it says for selection by the nominating committee, so is the answer to my part, the way I see it. What we are discussing about the – it isn’t time yet.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What I was quoting is in our own rules of procedure. Okay. So now, we have some outstanding items from today’s ALAC agenda that still need to be dealt with. Some of them we have touched upon today at this meeting. How do you want to proceed? We’ve got the issue of 2000 UTC I think Sebastian said it was, and ISOC meeting running, so he won’t be available immediately after the petna course finishes either. How and when do you wish to reconvene?

Alan Greenberg: I’m open except for perhaps a two hour window around when my dinner time will be because we are having guests.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. How about we take that reconvening opportunity to act around our Skype chat, and we also have a fairly prompt sharing of the notes from today’s meeting, both the ALAC meeting and this executive meeting, so we can craft the feedback out to the working list so that we can let people know how we’re dealing with the rest of the agenda, and we can also put some of those dates out for the meeting as well.

And we’ll also set the doodle up as we discussed for our next formal excom meeting, not the reconvened one, at a point a little bit earlier in this month so we can try and do a bit more of forward planning systems for the policy advice and indeed the briefing calls.

Alan Greenberg: And you’re free to continue without me at this point if you think that will not harm the quality.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t think we need to, because I think we’re pretty much up to where we need to be.

Alan Greenberg: Then Cheryl, I’ll see you in an hour, and the rest of you, thanks for a bunch of great meetings.

Carlton Samuels: Thanks Alan and I have to run myself.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I understand, and thanks for taking the time Alan and Carlton. Thanks Vanda, thanks Sebastian.

-End of recorded material-