Notes from 18 May 2017 APAC Space Web Conference

 The APAC Space web conference meeting was attended by 26 participants from the region, including registries, registrars, at-large community, business stakeholders, and ICANN Fellows. The meeting discussed the results of the APAC Space Survey 2017 and directions for future discussion topics. Key action items as a follow-up to the meeting include:

• For community members who have not joined, to join the APAC Space community mailing list by subscribing to: discuss@tld.asia.
• Suggest on the mailing list key discussion topics/issues for “Domain Name Industry: Market and Relevant policies”.
• Explore the formation of “sub-groups” based on key topics of interest. The sub-group will consist of volunteer community members who wish to discuss an issue in depth. Discussion on this will take place on the aforementioned mailing list. 

The meeting recording and presentation slides can be found at the APAC Space Community Wiki webpage here: https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GSEAPAC/pages/114296860/APAC+Space.

Introduction

Jia-Rong Low, VP and Managing Director, ICANN Asia Pacific and Edmon Chung, CEO DotAsia, welcomed the participants.

Results of APAC Space Survey 2017

The APAC Space Survey 2017 sought the views and feedback of APAC community members on their discussion interests for APAC Space. Results from the survey would be used to plan future APAC Space sessions by aligning community interests.

Based on a total of 56 survey responses, APAC community members highlighted their top interests in the following:

• Broad themes related to:
  • Domain Name System (DNS) Industry and Market Developments;
  • Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation; and
  • Enabling Users in an Inclusive and Open Internet Environment

• ICANN Policy Development Processes (PDP) for:
  • New gTLD Subsequent Procedures; and
  • Next-Generation gTLD Registration Directory Services (RDS)

• ICANN-related topics dealing with:
  • Domain Name Industry’s market and relevant policies;
  • Competition, Consumer Trust & Consumer Choice (CCT) Review;
  • Cross-Community Working Group (CCWG) on Internet Governance
  • Accountability & Transparency Review
  • Cross-Community Working Group (CCWG)- Accountability Work Stream 2

• Other topics such as:
  • Capacity building;
  • Universal Acceptance,
  • ICANN’s role in AP* (Asia Pacific Internet Organizations) activities

From the survey, it was also noted that challenges to participation in ICANN policy work faced by respondents included:

• timezone issues;
• discussions taking up too much of personal time;
• lack of knowledge in the subject matter;
• uncertainty on how to participate; and
• respondents – even current participants – also faced steep learning curves when participating in ICANN PDP working groups.

Community Discussion

• APAC engagement strategy; APAC Space goal and budget. To questions regarding the goal and budget of APAC Space, and the APAC engagement strategy, Jia-Rong Low (ICANN) shared that the APAC engagement strategy was shared during the ICANN Quarterly Stakeholder Report Call for FY17 Q1 (recording link: https://participate.icann.org/p6mwvdfrc1i/ and related presentation: https://www.icann.org/quarterlyreports). In short, there were two key components to the APAC engagement strategy: first, to enhance community participation in ICANN; and second, to contribute to a secure, stable, and resilient unique identifier ecosystem. APAC Space (as a regional platform) and ICANN Readout sessions (as a localised platform) were two ways to facilitate community’s participation in ICANN. As these initiatives were meant to be community-led, utilisation of the APAC budget was kept flexible to help facilitate the community as best as possible.
• ICANN Readout. Community members who had participated in local ICANN Readout sessions were encouraged to share their experiences during APAC Space with the APAC community. Pam Little (Alibaba) briefly updated on the ICANN Readout in Beijing post-ICANN58 (Copenhagen). Local ICANN Readouts, which target interests of local communities, are complementary to APAC Space as a regional platform. Currently, ICANN Readout sessions are regularly conducted in China, India, and Japan after every ICANN meeting. Conducting a readout would require volunteers from the local community to partner ICANN Organisation and lead community discussions. In this regard, the question of how could volunteerism in APAC Space be increased was discussed.
• Rotation of future APAC Space sessions. Based on the survey results, the meeting agreed to rotate topics every APAC Space session – DNS industry, PDP, and review. It was agreed that should a topic of interest come up at any time, there should be flexibility for this topic to be inserted over the earlier planned topic.
• APAC Space sub-groups/special interest groups. To increase the depth of discussions at APAC Space given the diversity of APAC community interests, participants suggested forming smaller sub-groups in APAC Space to discuss particular topics in-depth prior to APAC Space. The sub-groups could be lead discussants for their topic and present the issue during APAC Space for the wider APAC community. Having smaller sub-groups could also increase volunteerism and community participation in future APAC Space sessions. These sub-group discussions should not replace the contribution to ICANN policy work but should instead facilitate deeper discussions, and help to inform community of the policy issues. For instance, the meeting agreed to discuss data privacy/protection at the next APAC Space web conference. A community sub-group, consisting of a small number of volunteers, would be formed to have in-depth discussions on this topic. The sub-group would then present their discussions and areas of interest during APAC Space to facilitate the wider APAC community in understanding the issue, as well as note areas of interest particularly for this region. Following the sub-group presentation, Edmon Chung (DotAsia) could then facilitate community discussion on the topic. It was agreed for community members to discuss further regarding the formation of sub-groups. Community members are encouraged to join the APAC Space community mailing list by subscribing to discuss@tld.asia.
• “Data Privacy/Protection” as next APAC Space topic. Community proposed “data privacy/protection” as the topic of discussion for the next APAC Space web conference. Sebastien Ducos (Neustar) from Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) was recommended as a potential speaker. A community member raised that data privacy/protection was a broad topic and was already being discussed by contracted parties (Registries Stakeholder Group and Registrars Stakeholder Group). Hence, discussion at APAC Space could be kept general for the purpose of increasing awareness on the issue, while each organization should seek their own legal advice to ensure compliance with EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and/or other data privacy/protection laws. 

AOB

• Due to schedule conflicts at the ICANN59 Policy Forum (Johannesburg), the next APAC Space will be held in web conference format in early-July 2017. Date to be confirmed.