Transcript EN
- Laura Kolker
Nick: For action items…
Mohamed: Yes.
Nick: We have Hawa and Mohamed to work together in Sydney, to define a series of participation criteria for AFRALO. And an action plan that… I believe that was done, actually.
Mohamed: Yes. That's done. I will brief the meeting on that.
Nick: Yes. On the draft bylaws, Heidi was to contact Khaled to see if he and Yaovi finalize the draft. If they can't, then Heidi would write a summary of the proposed modifications.
But Heidi… I find I don't have a note from her about that.
Mohamed: Maybe Baudoin if you had been approached to talk with Khaled. Do you have any information?
Nick: Well, Heidi was to approach Khaled and see if he can – with the assistance of Yaovi finalize the outcome. So maybe Yaovi.
Mohamed: I don't think we have Yaovi, now. So can we save this action item to the next meeting?
Nick: Sure.
Mohamed: Tijani. Can you just give us please your comments? You have mentioned on the Wiki. The nature of the bylaws to be addressed at this meeting.
French Channel: As far as the statues are concerned of AFRALO, I believe that it's a very urgent question to be resolved. We already have a draft, and we have a lot of commentaries and remarks. We hoped that Heidi will compile all of that.
Then she said she was leaving for her holidays. So I think this is really important to have done. Maybe we need to try to find somebody to do that as soon as possible. Because without that, we can't work on these bylaws.
Then the second point is, is the budget for AFRALO…
For the 2010 budget for AFRALO.
Nick: I'm… This is Nick, here. Mohamed, do you know what that means?
Mohamed: Okay – regarding the first point, Nick…
Nick: The first part, I understand. But I mean the budget for AFRALO.
Mohamed: I think the last meeting had requested to check if we could have plans for AFRALO that could be included in 2010 budget. Correct me, Tijani, if I'm wrong.
French Channel: In what? It's included in… What is the question?
Mohamed: In a previous meeting, some of the members have asked that we could have activities within AFRALO. That needs to be done in 2010. And if we could have a budget for that from ALAC, I think. But I'm asking Tijani if that's correct.
French Channel: Okay.
Mohamed: And Nick – I think if you could assist us, can someone from staff handle the issue of the bylaws with the Yaovi and Khaled.
Nick: Yes. I can certainly help with that. On the budget question…
French Channel: Sorry – he's about to say something. Just one second.
Tijani: The last time we decided that the people who were there would work with Khaled, who had done the draft.
- Qui a fait la compilation? -
At the last meeting, we had asked for the people who went to go to Sydney – Hawa and Mohamed, this year… We had asked those two people – once they were in Sydney – to see about this, with them in Sydney. And to compile all of this.
Le synthese de quoi?
- Of all the commentaries – the remarks. And to include it in the draft that they had already drawn up. In order to have a new, updated draft.
Mohamed: This is for the bylaws.
French Channel: Yes. It was for the bylaws. Definitely.
Mohamed: Yes. I can confirm that we had two meetings in Sydney, of AFRALO leadership. The problem was that we couldn't have Khaled on those meetings, because he arrived almost on the last day. And we didn't have a chance to meet him.
So we didn't meet Khaled in Sydney regarding the bylaws.
French Channel: So the final results?
Mohamed: The final results – currently, we can say that the staff and yaovi and I can myself can volunteer of that. The follow-up with Khaled and just decide on the bylaws.
Nick: Are the bylaws and all the comments related to them all located in one document? Or one place on the wiki?
Mohamed: Yes. There are several comments that have been provided by – I think – Fatimata and Tijani and the members. We need to have a new version to follow up. We are trying to get it from Khaled.
French Channel: After the new version, what did you say?
Mohamed: We need… those comments have been provided by the members to be reflected on a new version. Khaled was doing that. So we need to confirm if he is able to continue or not? If not, we can assign that to someone else who can proceed.
But I do agree with Tijani that it's very important. And we need to finalize it.
French Channel: Just a second, please.
No – that's exactly what was decided. So that's good. And if we can do that, that's great.
And Heidi had said that she could do it. But unfortunately, she was on holiday. So that was the only problem.
So now the important thing is that everybody just gets the work done and participates.
Mohamed: Yes.
So if we can summarize the issue of the bylaws… Nick has already stated that he or one of the staff will follow up on this issue, and we'll make sure that Khaled is either committed to continue the work, or we'll replace him with someone else who can continue to finalize a new version of the bylaws.
Nick: Sure. I'm up for that.
French Channel: Okay.
Nick: Okay.
Mohamed: So then we can proceed. Do we have any other action items?
Nick: Several.
French Channel: Just one second – I believe he wants to say one thing very quickly.
D'accord parlez - qui parle?
Baudoin is speaking:
Regarding AFRALO - As far as the AFRALO bylaws are concerned… We discussed that locally here. There are some amendments that need to be gone over.
- Je ne vous entends pas - parlez plus lentement et plus fort -
Nick: You're speaking in French.
French Channel: Sorry.
Otherwise, as you said before, there have been some drafts sent. They have been gone over by the local committees, and they are now preparing various amendments. So we need as much information as we can get from you all.
Mohamed: Thank you, Baudoin. I do agree with that. The main issue here is that the person who is currently responsible for drafting that… We need either to confirm he's continuing to do that, or we can have a (inaudible)
French Channel: Please start again. I'm sorry. He was speaking at the same time you were. I asked him to wait inaudible
Mohamed: Yes. I'm just agreeing with what he said. We are just agreed now that we send a note to Khaled to either confirm he will continue on doing this – so we can have everyone's comments on it. Or we assign someone else to do that, with the help of the staff. So we can finalize it.
French Channel: Oh – I just wanted you to know that it was Baudoin and not Yaovi who was speaking
Mohamed: Sorry for that.
Nick: Shall we go on to the next action item
Mohamed: Also, I'm suggesting that if we have action items that related to someone who is not attending the call, we could be brief on the status. We can skip it. If that's okay.
Nick: Well, there are several related action items under capacity-building. A number of which I had news related to, anyway.
AFRALO members would send proposals for teleconference briefings to be held on subjects that interested them. Ann-Rachel would – perhaps – present those. Or if another person were more appropriate, they would do so.
Yaovi suggested that the ICANN International Meeting should be one of the possible subjects. Though I'm not quite sure how you would have a briefing on a meeting.
Didier was to gather any proposals submitted, in order to try to arrange for a briefing to be held at this meeting. I think given the fact that people were at the ICANN meeting, that probably made that rather difficult. But if you want, we can just carry that forward.
Mohamed: Exactly. If we can carry that forward and clearly state that the secretariat needs to coordinate with AFRALO, to ask what briefings are needed… Then take that forward to the staff to provide the possibility of that.
Nick: So we need…
Mohamed: So we need to decide first what briefings we need. Is it possible to do that?
Nick: Sure. There will also be – as you know – there are briefings that are held for the community in general, with some frequency.
Mohamed: Exactly. Yes.
Nick: Specialized briefings, if those are needed. There's an action item to continue discussing a way to allocate subjects to specific members of AFRALO – related to their interests and competence. So that there could be point people within AFRALO for various subjects.
Mohamed: Regarding that item – I would like to be the first one to forward and put my interests. I can say that I could brief AFRALO regarding issues for IDNs, and ccTLD's the issues on conference calls.
French Channel: Sorry. Could you repeat? I'm sorry – there was a bit of static. Is this Mohamed speaking?
Mohamed: Yes. It's Mohamed.
French Channel: Could you just repeat what your plan was?
Mohamed: Yes. I was saying that I want to express my interest to be a focal point – and provide AFRALO with updates regarding IDNs and ccTLDs the issues. I can brief AFRALO on teleconferences about any updates.
I would like to suggest that the secretariat send the mailing lists asking the AFRALO members what areas they could be interested in. So they could follow up on that area.
For example, it would be good if we could have someone from AFRALO interested in the gTLD process. They could follow up on the new gTLD issues.
Nick: If I may, there are of course working groups on several different areas you know, Mohamed.
Mohamed: Exactly.
The point is that you'd have a focal point from AFRALO to each working group or to each working group.
Nick: Yes. I think it would be easy for us to see who's on those working groups, and just reconfirm that they were willing to continue and remain active in the various subject areas. Then, to ask anyone who isn't in a working group now, if there's one that they'd like to join.
Mohamed: That would be good. Is there any suggestion from the French Channel?
French Channel: Just a moment, please. French
Tijani is now speaking.
What I'd like to say…
At the beginning of each teleconference…
French
All right. Now – Tijani is saying that usually, we have to decide what amount of time we have to give to each subject on each teleconference. I believe that we need to send an e-mail to the list, so that all of the participants of AFRALO know what the subjects are, and that they have been identified. So that they can participate.
Then if the community does not have a subject to discuss, then obviously we're not going to have a briefing on that. But we need to know. The members of AFRALO need to generate these subjects. So that we know what we're going to be dealing with and talking about. D'accord.
Mohamed: It's fine, and I do agree with that. That could be done by an AFRALO member who is already part of that subject working group. So that could be done, definitely.
Nick – do you have anything else on that item, so we can go forward?
Nick: The…
French Channel: Just a second. Excuse me. Tijani is speaking. Just a second.
I was saying that as far as these briefings are concerned, we have to… We only have an hour of this teleconference. We need to know how much time is going to be given to this briefing, when we're doing the teleconference.
Nick: I think it would depend on the subject matter, really.
Mohamed: Usually, when the agenda is sent, the person participating in that working group could come forward and request to be included in the agenda. So we could allocate the time accordingly between the subjects.
I think we should try to not extend the meeting.
French Channel: Excuse me – there's another question from the French. Sorry.
Mohamed: Yes. Go ahead.
French Channel: I have a suggestion. inaudible vous dites…
Oh. It's this one. It's Baudoin who is speaking, now.
I have a suggestion, because we have a work group here. In this work group are a number of people who are very interested, and would like to contribute and participate in the conference. It's hard to hear him.
But I believe he's asking that some of these people might participate in the conference. Let me double-check that, please.
Nick: What conference?
French Channel: Okay.
I'm talking about the AFRALO bylaws.
Mohamed: Okay.
French Channel: We are 10 people. We are participating in these debates together. We would like these 10 people or whoever wants to participate, to be able to participate in this. In other words, the people who are able to participate, we'd like to have them participate. I would ask that he also send an e-mail to that effect.
It's not too easy to hear him, but I believe that's the gist of what he's saying. I will ask him again. You'd like to respond?
Mohamed: It's fine. Whatever. I mean – okay – regarding this. Anyone can help on the bylaws. It's just now that we need to have a focal point – and we are going to as agreed.
I would like to suggest that we defer some of the… I currently have the meeting agenda action items. I'd like to request that we transfer some of the items. Because they require feedback from Didier or Hawa on those issues. Especially the travel support guidelines. And the proposal has been forwarded by Fatimata on that issue.
French Channel: Yes. That's fine, he said.
Mohamed: Okay. So we have the other items, currently – which is a report from Sydney. Briefly, I can say that Sydney was one of the busiest ICANN meetings I did attend up to now. Many issues have been discussed.
I think that the major issues were related to IDNs, TLDs, new gTLD applications and the IRT work. I can give a short brief about IDN's TLDs. There's a third draft of implementations that has been discussed. There were issues raised regarding application fees. And the process regarding timelines almost has been identified as the end of this year. This is the general .. made by the board, regarding that.
GTLD issues have also been under discussion. Many issues – especially in Intellectual Property… Different objection procedures and all that… And I'd like if Nick could give us a brief about the IRT and what's happened at Sydney.
Nick: I'm happy to.
I would just note – with respect to IDNs and the Fast Track… There is an open public consultation on Version 3 of the proposal, for how Fast Track would proceed. The IDN liaison for At-Large has posted a draft ALAC reply, and public comments are now being taken from the At-Large community on that statement.
So I would encourage any of you who are interested in IDNs to read the draft statement, and make any comments that you wish, before the 8th of the month.
The 8th. Your comments need to be compiled, and then ALAC has to vote before the 15th.
Mohamed: Okay.
Nick: On the IRT, this is the response of the trademark community to the protection of their interests in new top-level domain streams. Their report was extensively discussed in Sydney. It was fairly controversial.
There was support and then there were many voices saying that the plans proposed in the IRT final report were not acceptable. Or they needed modification for various reasons.
The board, in the end, thanked the IRT drafting group for the work they had done. And we will see what – if any – steps are next, related to the issues surrounding trademarks and TLDs.
I think – hopefully – Mohamed, you'd characterize that as a reasonably accurate statement of where we are?
Mohamed: Yes. Thank you very much, Nick.
I think these are – in a nutshell – the major important items regarding the meeting.
Nick: Though I should mention, of course, that there is an ALAC statement on the IRT – which is now being voted on. Or it's about to be voted on by the ALAC. In relation to travel support and the comments of various people about travel support in the last meeting, those comments have been noted. There is an open consultation on the travel support procedures. And of course, if AFRALO wanted to make this comment directly to the public comment period, there would be nothing that would prevent you from doing so.
The ALAC is presently voting on a draft statement on the travel procedures. It incorporates AFRALO, as well as everyone else's – all the other RALOs' – views on the subject.
Mohamed: I'm not sure if there's any comment regarding that. If we don't have, can we proceed to the next item?
French Channel: Just ask them.
Mohamed: Yes.
French Channel: Yes.
Dejani has a question. Alo?
Mohamed: Yes.
French Channel: Okay. Those who were at Sydney – could you tell us… What are the decisions as far as the new TLDs? Is there going to be a review of the cost of these? French
As far as the first-rate domain names – are they being kept for the first quarter of 2010?
Mohamed: Tijani I'm trying to answer your question. I'm assuming that your question is related to that. Either IDNs or TLDs using the Fast Track? And new gTLDs will be launched during the same period of time – or whatever the time frame is for that. If I am correct in understanding your question.
Regarding the first part, the IDNs are still the first strike.
French Channel: I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said about the first part. Could you speak up a bit?
Mohamed: Related to the timeframe for the applications for both IDNs, new ccTLDs and new gTLDs… I'm saying that regarding the IDN's ccTLDs, the early decision was to have the community and staff finalizing the implementation plan before the annual ICANN meeting, and the board would decide, then. That's why there are assumptions that at the end of the year or at the first ICANN meeting in 2010, that might be the time to start receiving applications.
Regarding new gTLDs, maybe Nick could also give us an update. I'm not assuming that anything could happen before first quarter of 2010. Nick?
Nick: Yes. I'm happy to do that.
There are a number of documents on new gTLDs, which were posted before the Sydney meeting. They were posted in the six UN languages as they became available. They are now all available in the six UN languages.
Included in those documents is a summary of the comments received. There were quite a few comments about the application costs. Not just from the ALAC, but from many other quarters, in relation to the need for differential pricing. And to take into account developing countries and least-developed countries.
There is a suggestion that for various reasons – which are explained in the summary – there wouldn't be differential costing for this round. So for those of you who are concerned with the subject, I recommend to you that you look at that section of the summary of comments.
At the same time, there are four overarching issues. It's been said that until there are solutions related to these four overarching issues, the application round would to open. Because the guidebook would not be complete until it incorporates those issues.
Trademark protection is one of them. But ensuring that the potential for malicious conduct in new TLDs is reduced is another one. The issue related to how the root zone would scale, and how stable it would be if the number of top-level domains dramatically increased… There is a pair of studies that are being prepared, related to that.
There is a final report on competition and pricing – which is the other overarching issue. That has been posted, and is also available in the six UN languages.
So the idea is that as solutions are felt to have evolved on these four subjects, there would be a new guidebook released in time for the meeting in Seoul. That would then be the subject of further comments.
There is no specific date for the launch of the round. It depends on the resolution of these questions, basically.
Mohamed: Okay. Thank you, Nick, for that update.
I think IDN's ccTLD, one of the issues currently pending is the issue of processing fees. That's almost been identified as USD27,000 per application. That's a processing cost. The application fee is estimated to be from 25,000 up to 55,000.
The community has extensive discussions about those two cost factors. The staff has requested to go further and study that. Many comments have been made in that area.
I also encourage AFRALO members to contribute to those comments, as the identity is on documents, currently open for comments.
If we can proceed to the next item – which is… I'd like to jump to the AFRALO strategy meeting at Sydney.
Basically, we had a meeting in Sydney that included myself, Hawa, and Didier. The main theme of that meeting was the issue of participation and active participation, and how we enhance that.
If you can remember before, in the previous meetings, I promised that I would provide a document before Sydney, to be discussed – regarding the meaning of participation criteria.
This document provides inaudible to our fellow members in Sydney and I'll circulate that to the mailing list shortly, at the meeting, for discussion.
The document's main objective is to list available AFRALO participation channels. Seeing that currently, we have the teleconference and the mailing lists. Those are the participation channels that we currently have.
The document is suggesting a minimum participation criteria for AFRALO members. For example, regarding the teleconference meetings… I'm suggesting that at least the members should be encouraged to participate in a minimum of 50% of the yearly teleconferences. There is supposed to be a monthly teleconference. So we'd assume that we need the members to participate in a minimum of 6 teleconferences.
Regarding the mailing list… I think we need to have a discussion on the mailing list. It's very hard to measure a mailing list's postings – definitely. But we need members to be active in that.
The main theme of the document is to list the current participation tools available for AFRALO. When we have new members, we can provide such documents to the new members, so they know what communication tools we have, and they will try to participate.
At that meeting, we also identified the importance of the activity of the secretariat – to have more active AFRALO inaudible and more active secretariat role. We discussed also the capacity-building document, and Howah's report on the survey she did at - after the summit.
So this is – in a nutshell, quickly – an update about that meeting. Our personnel will be sending that document to you – to the AFRALO mailing list – for discussion. But this document is not intended to be a tool for sanctions or non-active member inaudible. It's intended to encourage members to participate more, and give them details about how to participate.
Any comments from the French Channel?
French Channel: Just a moment, please. Is there Francais, ou…
Tijani … I'm waiting anxiously the report that Mohamed drew up.
Mohamed: I'll be sending that to the mailing list by tomorrow. It will be good if we could have discussions about those documents and agree on that.
French Channel: Great. Thank you.
Mohamed: So, this is the last item on the agenda. I think we covered also the items and we deferred the action items that related to members who are not present to the next meeting.
I'm sorry for what seems to have been a technical issue at the start. We currently are half an hour after the supposed the end time of the meeting… So maybe next time we could finish in a 1-hour period.
French Channel: Tijani is speaking, now. I would like to reiterate… What you had said at the beginning, and also what Mohamed has said… The technical problem really was a problem being on the phone for half an hour. I hope that with the next meeting, we will have better conditions. I also hope that we have the start on time and finish exactly an hour later – so that we don't drag this out and have to wait by the phone for so long.
Mohamed: Yes. I do agree with you, Tijani. Yes. It's sometimes frustrating waiting for very long.
I'm not sure if we can… if the operator could start the call, maybe Nick, 10 minutes earlier. I'm not sure how…
Really if we're starting, maybe… They called me today I think it was after 10 minutes or something like that. So we need to meet earlier, to identify if there is a problem, really.
Nick: Sure.
Mohamed: I think that can conclude the meeting. Thank you very much for your patience, and we hope the next meeting will be short, and without difficulties.
French Channel: So the meeting is concluded?
Mohamed: Yes. The meeting is concluded.
French Channel: Thank you.
Mohamed: Thank you very much.
Nick: Good night, everyone.
Mohamed: Bye-bye.
Mohamed: Goodnight.