ALAC ExCom 07.08.12 Transcript

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, everyone.  This is the ALAC ExCom, Executive Committee conference call on the 7^th of August, 2012.  And we will start immediately at 14:01 UTC which is great.  We’ll start with the roll call and apologies.  Gisella, over to you.

Gisella Gruber:                            On today’s call we have Olivier Crépin-Leblond, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Tijani Ben Jemaa, Evan Leibovitch, Alan Greenberg, Rinalia Abdul Rahim, Julie Hammer.  Carlton Samuels will be joining us in the next ten minutes.  Apologies noted today from Sebastien Bachollet.  From staff we have Heidi Ullrich, Silvia Vivanco, Matt Ashtiani and myself, Gisella Gruber. 

                                                I hope I haven’t left anyone off the roll call, and if I can please also remind everyone to state their names when speaking for transcript purposes.  Thank you, over to you, Olivier.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you very much, Gisella, and I note that Tijani mentions he hears me very badly.  Is anyone else having trouble hearing me?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    No, you’re all good.

Gisella Gruber:                            I hear you very well.

Tijani Ben Jemaa:                       I hear you very bad.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Tijani, can you hear anybody else well or is it just Olivier?  Are you hearing everybody else clearly, Tijani?

Tijani Ben Jemaa:                       I think it’s my line.  Can Adigo call me again?

Gisella Gruber:                            Yes, Tijani.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, I think we’ll do that.  I can see from the chat that everyone can hear everybody okay and you appear to have problems, so we’ll handle that.  So we can then move on to our agenda items and thanks to all of you for joining.  And we will immediately go to the action items of our last ExCom meeting on the 25^th of July, and I invite you all to have a look at them.  For the sake of saving some time, yes we do have in-progress long-term goals with no update required and in-progress long-term goals with an update required.

                                                What I suggest is that Matt and I go through these in our own time and then put them in whatever slot they need to be put in because we do need to have a look at those, and these, having looked at them, some of them are actually past their deadline and some of them have been affected.  But we can move directly to the open action items and the two of them that are there.  The first one is staff to send out a call for comments and to begin the process for the public comment, and of course that sentence makes no sense whatsoever – the public comment made by Evan, Carlton and Holly.  And Evan has been tasked with redrafting the statement.  Once this has been completed a vote will begin.

                                                Evan, do you have any update on this by any chance, if you know what I’m talking about?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Yes, I know what you’re talking about and I think I totally forgot that I was tasked with doing something with them.  I think okay, it’s coming back to me – forgive me.  It’s been a weird summer.  The last I recalled is I asked Matt to put up the transcripts of exactly what was said at the Prague meeting because it didn’t 100% match the drafts that we had done in advance.  Matt put those up and so I guess the next task is to put them…  Yeah, that’s right – there’s also a Wiki page and I believe the next thing is simply to take those, take out the personal comments which were interspersed in the Prague Public Forum comments and put them into a form that could be voted on by ALAC as a statement.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you, Evan.  So we’ll keep you following up on this.  Yeah, Evan?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Ah, no that’s okay.  Now if I recall correctly, statements were made for myself, for Holly, and for Carlton.  Holly I [don’t] think came up to the mic, so Carlton and myself are the only ones that actually spoke those into the record.  I do have the early drafts of all three comments though, so how would you like to proceed?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                That’s right, I also have those and in fact I think these are actually on another workspace as well.  The comment by Carlton is one about IDNs and we’ve already got an actual formal statement that was sent there.  So I suggest that this one gets dropped altogether.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay.  The one by Holly that wasn’t spoken was about the RAA negotiations, specifically a commentary on how these “negotiations” were essentially between ICANN staff and registrars and that the rest of the community was essentially left out of the process.  It was a comment more on the transparency than on any particular issue with the RAA.  ALAC of course, some of its volunteers have put forward actually very specific modification ideas for the RAA but Holly’s point that was to be made was about specifically the A&T issues about the way this was being done.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you Evan.  So this one I don’t actually see in the list of the statements workspace that Heidi has just pointed us to.  What I suggest is that maybe this gets added on there, replacing the statement by Carlton since that one doesn’t need to be there; and then you and Holly pick up the ball from there to take it to a full comment, or redraft it if you want in the way that you wish it to be for a comment.  Then we’ll open it to the ALAC to comment on and then we’ll, depending on what the comments are, make amendments and submit them.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay.  Is Matt on the call?

Matt Ashtiani:                            Yes, hi Evan!

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay.  I have Holly’s comment – do you want me to just send it to you in the private chat?

Matt Ashtiani:                            Sure, that’s fine.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay, thanks.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  So next we’ll go to the second open action item, which is Julie Hammer to monitor the posting by Mikey O’Connor related to the SSR Review Team, and then determine if the ALAC are to submit a new statement.  Julie, you have the floor.

Julie Hammer:                            Thanks, Olivier, and good evening, everyone.  I do still intend to do that and I’d hoped to get it done this week but unfortunately it’s been a busy week, so it’s really a reply and I will get it done – there’s still time to do it and I’ll definitely get it done this week.  But it’s just one that I will draft. I don’t think we need to call for input on that but we obviously will need to put it out for vote.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  Thanks, Julie.  Any comments on this, anyone?  So we’ll leave it in your capable hands and I look forward to-

Julie Hammer:                            Thank you.  Sorry I’ve taken longer than I’d hoped.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                That’s fine, don’t worry about it.  So next, the recently closed…  Well, this is just for information that a copy of the Steve Metalitz text was sent over to staff and that the I actually wrote to Steve Metalitz saying that the ALAC had no objections to signing this.  I haven’t had any follow-up on that so I don’t know whether the letter, the final letter was sent to the Board.  And it’s also hard to find out whether the Board has received it because the Board correspondence stage is (inaudible) on most of the correspondence to this.  So it’s summer, what can you do?

                                                Next, the newly-assigned action items and there are four of them: the first one is that the ALAC is to discuss the SOI template during the next ALAC conference call and Matt will assist the participants in creating their SOIs.  As you know, we now have the automated system that we can use to create our SOIs and add them, and so the next ALAC call we’ll spend I guess 15 minutes or so to explain this and perhaps Matt will be able to take us through the process to give us this.

                                                So and I see that Heidi is saying “Yes, I believe the (inaudible) will be [briefly today].”  Okay.  So next, Heidi is to follow up with Diane Schroeder and determine if there will be a Board meeting in August.  Ooh, the big question.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, this is Heidi for the record.  We determined that there was no Board meeting in July and I will follow up regarding the August meeting.  I will do that today.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Heidi.  Alan?

Alan Greenberg:                          Yeah, Sebastien’s note if I read it correctly, it said they’ve decided not to have Board meetings if at all possible because long, unproductive teleconferences are annoying but to have votes on issues electronically via email or whatever methodology they use.  And I have no problem with the concept, but I find that it sort of erases all the concepts of transparency and advanced notices of decisions and things like that.  It puts completely in the closet all the actions the Board is taking because it’s no longer having meetings; it’s having virtual meetings and there’s something wrong going on here.  I understand that they want to be efficient but it’s not supposed to have erased all the effort that we’ve put into it for the last couple of years of trying to find out what the blankety-blank the Board is doing.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Alan.  Any response or thoughts about this from anyone here?  I can see applause from Evan.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    It’s Cheryl here.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes, Cheryl, please.  You have the floor.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    My feedback from the people on the Board that I’ve poked include comments like “I’m working on it.”  That’s about all that I can say.

Alan Greenberg:                          Sorry. I think one needs to query the Chair of the Board on this.  We’re all for making the Board efficient and teleconferences are fine, electronic votes are fine.  But it shouldn’t be a reason for not having minutes anymore, not having briefing documents anymore on any of the decisions the Board is taking.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Alan, I think there are at least some parts of the Board that are very aware of that.

Alan Greenberg:                          I understand but apparently that isn’t the direction the Board is going in.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Certainly some people on the Board don’t seem to be doing that, so yeah.

Alan Greenberg:                          Noted, thank you.  I’ll keep quiet.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  Anyone else?  I don’t know if Tijani is back?

Tijani Ben Jemaa:                       Yes, I am here.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Any thoughts on this, Tijani?  And I’ll tell you why I’m asking, because I myself am rather surprised.  “Surprised” is a nice word that one could use to describe the situation, but the very fact that the Board is appearing to try and streamline its processes and reduce the amount of time Board members have to take on conference calls… I understand they’re tedious.  I try to cut a parallel with ourselves, and imagine if we did not have a monthly ALAC conference call and how would this actually, would this improve the way the ALAC works?  And I don’t know but I cannot imagine how the ALAC would work better if it didn’t have its monthly conference call at all.  That’s why I’m very baffled.  Evan?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Hi, Olivier, and thanks.  I just wanted to repeat what I said in the chat and perhaps expand on it a little bit.  When the Board had proposed to “streamline” the ICANN meeting by not having the Public Board Meeting, that in itself I did not personally oppose because I considered that to be theater.  But in retrospect that appears to have been the tip of the iceberg of a different attitude within the Board that sees efficiency as mattering more than transparency and accountability.  I would have had a totally different opinion about the cancellation of the Friday Board meeting. 

What I’m seeing is a trend that now that what might be considered to be the most contentious part of the Board’s work, that is approving the gTLD expansion is over, that it is saying now that it believes that its work is going to be far reduced at least in terms of the contentiousness of what it does.  I don’t believe that to be the case.  I think there’s still a lot of problematic things coming up.  But the move of the Board not only now in regard to its Friday Open Board meetings but as well the lack of a schedule of Board meetings, that basically makes it very, very difficult for the community to prepare to engage with the Board.  It indicates encouragement of the bubble that is forming between the Board and senior Policy staff that essentially further shuts out the community from decision making.

This is all a really bad sign, and I regret in fact my support of the removal of the Friday Board meeting because it clearly was an indication of this attitude away from transparency.  I thought that the Friday Board meeting was an isolated incident but apparently it isn’t – it’s part of a wide-ranging series of moves by the Board to further isolate itself from the community in the guise of expediency and efficiency.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.  Alan?

Alan Greenberg:                          Yeah, I guess I have to disagree with Evan on motivation but the end result is the same.  I don’t think they’re trying to isolate themselves in the guise of efficiency.  I think they’re looking for efficiency and I think they are unfortunately in parallel with that ignoring the second-order effect of that efficiency.  I mean I have no problem with them not meeting regularly in teleconferences. 

When I was on the Internet Society Board we had very spirited, very active email communication and we would regularly vote on things electronically.  There wasn’t a requirement to be open and public at that point in that group but it was a very efficient way of operating, and instead of having one Board meeting every three months we effectively had an ongoing Board meeting and decisions could be taken on a regular basis without any impediments of scheduling.

I support the concept but it’s now being done on private mailing lists.  We’re not getting any notice of an upcoming vote or a discussion or something’s pending.  We’re not even getting any notice that a decision has been taken unless there happens to be a public result of it and in some cases, such as I believe the request for input on how to do the prioritizing, I suspect that was a result of a Board motion.  But we don’t know that – all we know is staff put out a notice saying “Please advise us,” or the Board or someone put it out. 

So I think it’s being done under the guise of efficiency for the reason of efficiency and effectiveness, but I think they’re completely ignoring the other consequences of it and I think this is about the worst time in the world for them to go into a cocoon and operate like this.  Thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Cheryl here, Olivier.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Cheryl.  It’ll be Tijani first and then you, Cheryl.  So Tijani?

Tijani Ben Jemaa:                       Thank you, Olivier.  I think that efficiency is a good thing.  I think that if the Board is trying to be more efficient it’s very good.  But what we need is the feedback from the Board.  I mean I also say that whatever the form of their activities, whether meetings or conference calls, the most important thing is that we are aware of what is happening and what is discussed.  And if they decide to make less calls and less meetings that means that they are giving us less feedback from what they are thinking about, and I don’t think this is a good thing.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Tijani.  Next is Cheryl.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Thank you very much, Cheryl Langdon-Orr for the transcript record.  And thank you, Rinalia, for promoting your plea for an action item.  What I was going to say is, Olivier, I think the letter from you – and there is an action item there for a letter from you to Steve Crocker copied to all of our lists, and probably all of the rest of the AC/SO leadership – should say at least from the Executive Committee meeting “In view of today’s debate, what the hell is going on and please explain.”  You know, reference accountability and transparency; reference past review and review coming, and say “What the bloody hell’s going on?”

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you very much, Cheryl.  I violently agree with all of you by the way, so it’s one of these cases where I’m equally as frustrated.  Just reminding you of one thing, the letter which we sent to Steve Crocker which was effectively the statement that we sent to the Board complaining about the fact that decision on the .com renewal was done without community input, without concurrency, etc., that specific letter has been answered as being received but it’s now been what, three weeks? 

We have not had an actual answer on this and I thought this was going to be dealt with in the July Board meeting, but because there was no July Board meeting it still hasn’t been dealt with.  So does being more efficient, does that mean also being more selective about what one does?  I’m very concerned as well and it certainly is not the direction we want the Board to move into, especially from our point of view where we can give direct advice to the Board.  And if the Board does not meet or does not have a conference call to discuss the issues that we bring forward to the table, what then happens?

Now I understand that the Board will only convene if there is an important matter that needs to be discussed, so I then take it that the matter that we’re bringing forward which is of Board transparency is not important enough.  And well, I certainly would not like to think that this is the way the Board does that and I gather that this must be an oversight in understanding how serious the problem is.  I’m going to have to close this discussion soon because we’re taking a lot of time on it, but I know it’s important and the action item which Cheryl has described, there is one which I’m happy to pursue.  Evan, you have your hand up?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Thanks, Olivier, I was simply going to speak to the action item itself and suggest that perhaps there should be more than a letter to Steve Crocker.  Would there be value perhaps in… Oh okay, I just saw Heidi said “CC to the AC/SO leadership.”  Can I make the suggestion to extending the CC list to the Chairs of the various GNSO constituencies because I suspect and I fear that a mail that’s simply sent to the Chair of the GNSO doesn’t necessarily filter down to all of its implemented constituencies? 

I think this is a serious enough situation that we ought to make sure that especially some of the constituencies that have tended to support us on transparency issues such as the Business Constituency, the NCUC and so on – I’d like to make sure that they’re aware of our concern about this and perhaps they may want to join with us in noting this dissent from transparency.  Thanks.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.  I see that Carlton has joined the call.

Carlton Samuels:                         Yes, Chair, thank you so much.  I’ve been having difficulties with my communications.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, well welcome.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Olivier, Cheryl here.  Isn’t what Evan added there, I mean put it out to your leadership lists by all means.  But isn’t what Evan added as an action item the job of a liaison?  I mean it’s Alan’s job to get it to the GNSO and it’s my job to get it to the ccNSO and its Julie’s job to get it to the SSAC.  I mean that’s why we have a liaison sitting on the Board.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                I think that what Evan mentioned there was to say that the SO and AC Chairs being carbon copied, as in the action item that is at the moment on our screen, is one thing; what he mentions is the specific SGs as one would call them.  If this is something which Alan could forward over to the SGs that’s all fine.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Sorry.  I was simply saying that this needs to go beyond the GNSO Council and we need to make sure this goes into the hands of the various constituencies and stakeholder groups.  Alan can move it on to Council; we don’t necessarily have a formal liaison, for instance, to the IPC.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    The IPS [is a form of] the Council.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Not every constituency is on Council.  The stakeholder groups are there, for instance the Nonprofit Organization Constituency does not have I believe a seat on Council.  I just want to make sure it gets into everybody’s hands, and simple putting it into the Council doesn’t necessarily do it.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.  Next is Alan.

Alan Greenberg:                          Yeah, I just want to point out in general Stefan, and it’s no guarantee about the next Chair but Stefan is pretty good at forwarding things to Council.  I don’t know whether the Chairs of the groups are on the Council mailing list or not, I really don’t remember.  So I’m not sure it gets to the Chairs of the Stakeholder Groups and Constituencies.  I don’t have any explicit list of those, so all I can do is try to dig up addresses and hope I remember everyone.  I’m not sure I keep track of who the Chair of every Stakeholder Group is or every Constituency.  So I’m not quite sure how we could do that.

                                                There may well be another Council list that includes the Chairs.  I think Stefan has a list and I think there is a list of chairs but I’m not sure.  Glenn-  Pardon me?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                There is an AC/SO/SG list which is at ICANN-level, so what I would do would be to carbon copy that list, basically.  That would shoot in a wide enough array.

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, so let’s move on to the next thing which is…  My goodness, we’ve only just done a few of the action items but it’s a good thing we need to discuss here.  The next one is staff are to work on the recording of the webinar and push the information to the RALOs via the Secretariat.  Now of course poor marks for whoever wrote this one, this action item for making it as cryptic as possible: I think it has to do with the actual webinar on SAC054.  Is this correct, Heidi?

Heidi Ullrich:                             I’m assuming that’s what it is, yes.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                [laughing]  Okay.

Heidi Ullrich:                             I believe it has.  I will do a search but I’m quite sure it has done that, so we’ll look into it.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thanks Heidi.  The next: based on the discussions of the Toronto ALAC meetings and agendas from the ALAC monthly conference call of the 25^th of July, Heidi is to draft a tentative agenda and send it to myself, and of course later on in this call we will be discussing that agenda. 

So that’s all the action items reviewed, and I therefore invite you all to move to the next agenda item which is policy advice development page.  And we have several recently-approved ALAC statements, and as usual I’d like to thank all those who have been holding the pen on those.  It’s pretty hard, and there are quite a few of them that have been published since our last call or in the past three weeks or so.

There’s just a couple of things which need to be added.  As I mentioned earlier, #3A-IV: ALAC Statement Endorsing the IPC Statement of the .com Renewal and Thick WHOIS – I have sent that over to Steve Metalitz.  And also the, I think well all of those are done; there’s just one that needs to have a vote that will be closing soon – that’s the Request for Community Input on Formulation of 2013-2016 Strategic Plan.  I understand a number of people did not vote.  We had to extend the voting time and we will finish it in I think 48 hours.  Is that correct, Matt?  Have you sent reminders on that?

Heidi Ullrich:                             Matt?

Matt Ashtiani:                            Yeah, I was just taking my phone off of mute.  Reminders have been sent and the vote actually closes in about 24 hours.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Oh okay, perfect.  Right, thank you.  So next are statements currently being voted on.  The second one is Request for Community Input on SAC054.  It’s actually not being voted on; it’s being reviewed at the moment by the ALAC.  That’s the one where we had an actual webinar.  Julie, have you received any more comments since that webinar?

Julie Hammer:                            No I haven’t, Olivier, there’s nothing.  No one’s commented so if we find that there are no comments I’ll just submit a couple of issues that arose during the webinar and leave it at that.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                We still have time until the 23^rd of August.  Should we just have an action item of sending a reminder to the list for anyone who has comments on this; specifically also sending it to the Technical Issues list.  I was rather surprised not to receive emails from a couple of people who are well versed in data registration models.

Julie Hammer:                            Alright.  So should I do that or should staff…

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                We’ll let staff do it, it’s fine, because they have a standard reminder template I guess.  Is that recorded, Heidi?

Matt Ashtiani:                            Yes it is, Olivier.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Matt, I have recorded it on my own. Matt, have you put it into the official notes?

Matt Ashtiani:                            Yes.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  So next, the current open policy forums as listed here: the Proposed Modifications to the GNSO Operating Procedures.  That’s one where no statement was to be produced.  The .name Registry Agreement Renewal – no statement.  The Locking of a Domain Name Subjected to UDRP Proceedings – now, I know that Alan, did you have some time to look at this?  Is something from us required or not?

Alan Greenberg:                          I believe I said no statement was required.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thanks.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, I put it in the notes, I believe.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Good, done.  And then the Preliminary Issue Report on Uniformity of Contracts to Address Registration Abuse.  Alan indicated the ALAC should not submit a statement for the-

Alan Greenberg;                          Well but I also suggested other people who are more keen on issues of abuse might want to review it.  My personal position is it’s not something that is so onerous… We’re not likely to participate in it; I feel it’s inappropriate for us to say “Yes, yes, yes, it must be done, it’s really urgent” and then we won’t participate in it at all.  And I suspect this is one we will not participate in.  It’s something that does need to be done.  I personally think there’s a huge amount of research that could be done by staff without GNSO getting involved in at least the first phase and maybe the end phase.  Not everybody agrees as I pointed out in the mailing list.  The Council hasn’t had the discussion yet so I don’t know how it’s going to unfold.

                                                I don’t think it’s one that we need to urgently address.  I think it’s one ICANN should be urgently addressing because what they’re saying is they have a whole bunch of contracts, the contracts have different things in them.  If there are things about abuse in them they may well be effective but ICANN doesn’t see the need to try to have any uniformity.  Maybe experimentation is the right way to go at this point since it’s not clear what the right answers are.  I don’t feel strongly that ALAC has to make a statement on this.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you, Alan.  And the period is closing on the 15^th of August.  I see Rinalia has put her hand up.  Rinalia, you have the floor.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Thank you, Olivier – Rinalia for the record  Alan, the question that I have is if the issue is important, it’s okay to say that we don’t have to make a comment.  But how do we make sure that ICANN actually does do something about it?

Alan Greenberg:                          Well, it depends which part of ICANN we’re talking about.  If we believe the GNSO should take action and we want to advocate that, then commenting on the preliminary issues report…  Comments on a preliminary issues report have two impacts: they give us a chance to critique the preliminary issues report and they give us a chance to encourage the GNSO to go one way or another when it does come to a vote.  So that is an opportunity to do that if we believe that it’s a strong issue.  I’m happy to let it go as it is.  If the GNSO does decide to vote for a PDP – and remember, the threshold to approve a PDP is very low so there’s a good chance it will get approved.  If it does not get approved then I think it’s reasonable to advise the Board that we think ICANN staff should be addressing some of these issues to move towards a direction of contract uniformity.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Thank you, Alan.  That is what I was looking for.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you Alan.  So I gather that for the time being we can not submit a statement and we will just have to wait to see the developments on the GNSO; and Alan, of course, you’ll be able to tell us about those when they take place.  Before we close this item-

Alan Greenberg:                          Evan has his hand up.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Oh, I didn’t see it – I just clicked on the wrong screen.  Evan, please.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Alright.  Maybe I’m missing something but are we not getting into a basic distinction here between policy and implementation?  If there’s a policy that says we should have uniformity then staff and ICANN as an organization has a duty to implement that.  If we don’t have a policy that says that the contracts have to be uniform and that there’s certain leeway, I mean I guess I agree with Alan – can we not really sort of hone this down and say that this is a matter of implementation rather than policy?  If it’s policy then yes, GNSO needs to get involved.  If it’s a matter of implementing existing policy then staff should be able to do this, and the community shouldn’t have to weigh in simply to get ICANN to weigh in on what should be simply carrying out what it’s supposed to do.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.

Carlton Samuels:                         Can I say something, Olivier?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes, but first Alan because he put his hand up I gather just to answer Evan, and then after you, Carlton..

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay, thank you, Olivier, this is Alan.  Evan, I don’t think it’s that simple.  First of all we do not have a policy that all contracts should be uniform across the board.  We are in theory moving towards registry agreements.  The agreements we’re looking at in this case also include the registrar/registry agreements, which I’m not quite sure of ICANN’s authority over those.  There may well be some implicitly through the registry agreement, I’m not sure, but we’re also looking at things that… If a registry asks to implement a specific service and some of them have done things related to abuse or prevention of abuse, then it goes into their contract.  And the question is if those things are effective – and that’s an “if” – maybe we should require it to be on all contracts.

                                                That would end up being potentially a policy issue depending on whether it falls under consensus policy or not.  There’s a whole bunch of ifs, ands, and buts in it.  Some of these things that we’re talking about here may well require formal policy.  Some of them may not.  It almost becomes whether it’s a capital “P” or a lower “P” policy.  And remember, the GNSO, the Board doesn’t need GNSO action to implement contract changes but the GNSO has a right to comment and in fact do a formal PDP if it chooses on contract changes.  And if such a PDP goes through – and there has been a PDP like that in the past – the Board is required to implement it unless two-thirds votes it down.

So there’s a lot of innuendo, not innuendo but there’s a lot of subtleties in this and it’s not as simple as “We have a policy on uniformity – go do it, staff.”  So it is a messy area and it hasn’t been done in the past simply because it is a messy area and it’s going to require a lot of work.  There may be some benefits in it.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Alan.  Next is Carlton.

Carlton Samuels:                         Thank you, Olivier – Carlton for the record.  I want to follow up on the thing that Alan said because I think it’s important.  Yes, Alan is completely right that the way it’s stated now it is a thicket that you get into.  But I really do believe that there are some pieces of information that should be standard in all the contracts – for example, the issue of the domain name registration data model. I think that is one area where you should use uniformity.

                                                If you look at the registry agreements, the differences between the registry agreements in the cases where you look at standard information that you should have – there are differences there.  So I will take Alan’s, and I completely agree with what he’s saying about the way you have to approach this.  I just know there’s some things that we should insist should be uniform in all contracts, and for one I will start with the registration details.  Thank you.

Alan Greenberg:                          I’ve got a comment on that when my turn comes around – it’s Alan.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                And it’s your turn now.  Thank you, Carlton. 

Alan Greenberg:                          Evan’s hand is up.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Oh, I thought that was the previous hand.

Alan Greenberg:                          Oh maybe, I don’t know.

Evan Leibovitch:                         That was the previous hand, sorry.  I’m not able to take it down this second.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, so Alan, you’re up.

Alan Greenberg:                          I don’t disagree with what Carlton said but I believe it’s already policy.  The registration model is.  Now, it evolves over time and therefore as it changes in some cases it takes the next contract update to get it in synch because some of these things are not consensus policy, which require immediate change.  But as the information certainly on registration, what’s in WHOIS and including what the registries report to ICANN on a monthly basis, all of that is moving towards uniformity although there is a lag because of contract renewal issues. 

So let’s be careful we’re not trying to widen this particular subject wider than it is.  It’s looking at very, very specific kinds of abuse which could be prevented by contractual terms.  It also includes things like we could have a policy saying “No more pay-per-click advertising,” or “You can’t have a domain which only has pay-per-clicks on it.”  We don’t have a policy like that, we’re not likely to have a policy like that – it could be the kind of thing which we know would stop some level of abuse, a type of squatting and things like that.  So I’m not disagreeing with Carlton but I think the example he gave, that’s already in place unless I’m missing something.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you Alan.  I think we’ll close the subject her e and keep this on the side for the time being since this is a preliminary issue report and we’ll wait for the GNSO Council to decide whether they should have a PDP or not on this.  So what I do invite you to do before we close this section is to look at the policy advice development page itself, because responding to these public comments is one thing but there were a couple of additional points on the list in the open statements that are not on the public comments side of things.  One is the R3 white paper and I wanted to ask Evan if there is an update on this.  Evan?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Thanks, Olivier.  It’s been a while.  Essentially there was one comment that was received since the last draft.  Jean-Jacques and I need to go back and implement that.  Once that’s installed my preference would be to bring that to a vote.  And frankly, considering some of the questions that are now being put to ALAC regarding how should GNSO be restructured, how should ICANN react to new changes in its community based on the gTLD expansion – there’s all sorts of questions like that that have been addressed I believe very, very well at a sufficiently high level by the R3 paper; and in fact we’ve anticipated answers to questions that ICANN is just coming up with now.  So I will commit to going back with Jean-Jacques, incorporating any last things and preparing that to come up to an ALAC vote.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  And of course once this is set up are we still on course for having a full public comment for everyone else to comment on it as well?

Evan Leibovitch:                         I don’t have a problem with that but essentially the role I see for the statement in its current form is an ALAC response to the questions that the ICANN Board and others are putting out regarding the structure. I would love to see a greater community involvement in the document as a whole but given the fact that we are now starting to see questions from the Board and requests both at an institutional level and at a personal level of very high-level “What’s the future of ICANN as a community?” I think we’ve already anticipated that; and to a certain extent we already now have some answers to that.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you Evan.  Any other comments or thoughts on this?  I did receive a follow-up from Bertrand de la Chapelle who is the first person who sent the question out to the community of SO and AC Chairs, and Bertrand’s follow up was one where he believes the R3 paper could be one of the documents that the ALAC could submit.

But there could also be individual comments received or just the list of the compilation if you want of all the comments that we have received in our community.  So both the R3 paper but also the actual comments responding directly to the questions, saying “How do you think the new rivals in ICANN will affect the new gTLD process and how will the new gTLDs affect your community in particular?” 

I see that Heidi has put her hand up.  Heidi, do you have a comment?

Heidi Ullrich:                             Thank you, Olivier – yes, this is Heidi for the record.  I’m just wondering isn’t this paper going to go out for a public comment or are you saying now, Evan, that you’re thinking that ALAC will vote on it and perhaps see the main focus of a Board-ALAC meeting in Toronto?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay, Heidi, this is Evan.  Essentially we’ve already gone through an ALAC comment period where there was an extensive ALAC comment period, there was nothing received to the Wiki; however we did get one input that we need to put into the draft.  But as of now it’s gone through an ALAC comment process so it’s ready to be ratified by ALAC.  Having said that, once that happens definitely the plan is to bring it out into the wider community and get a broader engagement on it.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, so you’re saying you would like to go out for a public comment?

Evan Leibovitch:                         After it’s put out to ALAC.  I would like it to go through an ALAC vote so this then becomes our answer to these large questions that are being put out to us about what’s the future of the way the ICANN community is structured.  The R3 paper goes into that specifically, and so since we are being asked the question now and we’ve already prepared the answer I’d like to get ALAC endorsement on that answer and then turn that into the starting point of the discussion amongst the broader community.  But first let’s get this voted on by ALAC.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, so basically let’s say until the August ALAC meeting, so that can be another item for ALAC’s agenda.  Is that correct?  And then I’m just trying to plan the next several months.  After that maybe in early September have it go out for public comment, a full PC?

Evan Leibovitch:                         To be honest with you I’m not thinking too much about the specific timing at this moment.  I’m just thinking the order of things.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    The easiest answer to this – it’s Cheryl – is say yes because that way it fits into a schedule that Heidi can manage, remembering there’s a whole lot of stuff that has to happen to get an ICANN PC happening.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yeah.  Okay, so what I ‘m going to do is I’m going to plan for mid-September, because again it needs to be translated, etc.  So I’ll get back to you with another schedule but keep in mind that there’s a 15-day in advance of the Toronto meeting posting date so I doubt this paper is going to be ready in a new post-PC form for Toronto.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Understood.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Cheryl here.  That makes very good sense, thinking of Evan’s and the rest of the group’s desire for timing on engagement.  If the PC is open over Toronto that makes it perfectly reasonable and a good opportunity to engage not only on this matter with the ICANN Board but any interaction that the ALAC and wider leadership groups have, but other interactions that will occur within the Toronto meeting.  So it’s perfectly good timing from my experienced point of view anyway.

Evan Leibovitch:                         I agree and Heidi, can I just ask you to send any correspondence on R3 out to the Future Challenges Working Group?

Heidi Ullrich:                             That’s fine.  I mean I’m waiting for the latest version basically.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                So thanks, everyone, for sorting this one out and at least finding out where we’re going on this one.  The next one is the At-Large Registrants Rights and Responsibilities Working Group, RAA Section 3.7.8 Modification.  Now, I understand that this has some measure of similarity with some of the work that Evan has got in his At-Large Public Forum statement, and so my question is whether the two should be merged together or the two kept apart?  And if that’s, either way, Evan, could you follow up with Garth on this please?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay.  I simply have one, well first of all I have a response on what’s the difference between the two efforts, and I certainly have no problem leaving it to this group to help figure out the best possible course of action.  What I said during the Public Forum specifically went to the ability and hinted at the willingness of the ICANN Compliance Department to actually enforce the RAA.  It has nothing to do with the contents; it talks about the efficacy of the organization’s willingness to even enforce what there is right now.

                                                What is being done I believe, I think the clause is 3.7.8 which is a specific clause in the RAA, which in its current form leaves the door open to substantial amounts of abuse.  We have within the Working Group posted specific replacement wording.  And so the two actually are not totally similar at all – one goes to changes in the RAA itself and the other one has to do with the Compliance staff’s willingness and ability to enforce that once it’s put onto paper.  Thanks.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.  But the question then goes, since they both treat different facets of the same subject would these two benefit from being integrated into one longer statement?  Or do you maintain that the two should be separate statements?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Well one goes to ICANN Policy staff, the other one is for Compliance staff.  Compliance staff isn’t involved in the drafting of the RAA, simply with its enforcement.  So the part that recommends different wording is of no value to the Compliance department until it’s actually endorsed and put into the RAA.  So we have one thing which says to Policy staff “Please change the RAA this way,” and a different conversation with Compliance staff saying “Okay, please enforce the RAA.”  So they have similarities but it’s talking to different parts of ICANN staff about two somewhat different functions.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                You see, Evan, I’m somewhat confused about the ALAC drafting statements which are sent to Policy staff and which are sent to Compliance staff.  I thought that our statements would go to the Board. 

Evan Leibovitch:                         Ah, okay.  Well then if it’s a matter of putting together a single overarching letter that covers all of that certainly that can be done.  If the intent is putting this all together and wrapping it with a little bow that we can give to the Board I guess that would be useful.  Garth and myself could probably use some help on that.  I’m simply making the point that it’s a single problem, it’s a very, very large problem and so there’s two obstacles – one of which is deficiencies in the contract itself, and the other one which is deficiencies in ICANN’s ability to enforce even what’s there. 

So if the intent is to wrap this up into a single document that’s fine.  My concern is at that point if it becomes a single overarching thing it becomes easier to ignore as opposed to “Here’s action items for these people and here’s action items for those people.”  Again, this ends up being a matter of what’s the best tactics to be done to get what we want and I’m more than happy to defer to what everyone else here wants.  My goal is just-

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Hand up.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you, Evan. We have a few, so Alan first and then Cheryl.  Alan?

Alan Greenberg:                          Yeah, just a very quick comment: you mentioned something that we give advice to the Board.  We’re allowed to give advice to the Board and the Board has some responsibility to at least read it.  That doesn’t mean we can’t send messages other places.  If we’re unsatisfied with how other parts of ICANN respond we can then copy the Board and say “Compliance isn’t listening to us” or something else.  We shouldn’t feel that any message we have has to go through the Board, though.  That’s one of the options; it shouldn’t be the only one should there be other reasons for talking directly with other parts of ICANN.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Alan – noted.  Next is Cheryl.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Thank you, Cheryl Langdon-Orr for the transcript record.  I was just going to say one of the advantages, Evan, of putting a neat bow on this, if we integrate the two different Wiki spaces, etc., etc. – I don’t think it’s [going to loop] the stability to the [effective] because what it would do is become pieces of At-Large Advisory Committee advice to ICANN and all of the various component parts that sort of sits there for the ongoing public record, and then individual debates in the fora would be referred to the same way you’re referring to your R3 component and the R3, etc., etc.

                                                What I would suggest however, Olivier, is to see that the advantage as Evan said of putting a pretty bow on it, if you’re going to do that, and I think there could be some benefits in doing that, is to also thread into that the topic of the bow – printed on the bow, the other piece of important opinion that was put forward previously, and that is of course that ICANN Compliance should not be tethered to and under the direct control of ICANN Legal.  I can assure that part of the problem that Evan’s public comment issues were about was absolutely a cause and effect on that topic.  So we’ve got an opportunity of bringing in that third and I think possibly pivotal piece of proposal which is get Compliance out from under a particular bizarre and peculiar control mechanism.  Thanks, Olivier.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you very much, Cheryl.  Any other comments or thoughts about this?  Evan, your hand is still up?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Oh sorry, I haven’t been in the Adobe Connect for about five minutes.  Somebody please take it down for me.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay.  Do you wish to respond though to all of what you’ve heard?  Are you able to take all this in mind and take this up?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Well, Cheryl’s absolutely right.  I mean essentially if the two big takeaways we can get from this is fixing the RAA and detaching Compliance from Legal it’ll go a long way I think towards accomplishing a lot of this.  So if the intent is…  Well, for instance, one of the possible tactics of this is then to go back to the Registrant Rights Working Group and say “Okay, we have a large overarching issue with many different, shall we say tentacles from it.  Is there a way to put this into a single statement that deals forcefully with the issue with the different strategies and issues that are under it?  And can this be put forward as a single statement?”

                                                That’s probably worth going back to the Working Group. The one thing I don’t remember right now is who’s chairing that, because if it was Beau that’s problematic because he’s left.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Evan, you’ve still got Holly in there and you’ve also got the whole new lineup for ALAC soon.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Yeah, Holly’s there, I’m there, Carlton’s there.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Actually, Evan, so am I – remember?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Yeah, what I’m saying is we’ve got a bunch of people.  I just didn’t know if it had a Chair right now.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Hang on.  Most of us who are on this call are there – oh, it sounds like it, hello. 

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Exactly.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                [We could be using the same mailing list] as far as I understand it, so it’s on the mailing list.  Whether the Working Group has a Chair or not it really is down to the Working Group to choose what it wants to do next, and if we can… I would say that if we can have an action item that you basically, Evan, are tasked with bringing this to the Working Group and basically proposing that the statement gets put together and then gets sent to the ICANN Board, so it will come out of advice – a statement from the ALAC that gets sent to the ICANN Board with a carbon copy to Compliance and with a carbon copy to ICANN Policy staff as well.

                                                The reason for this approach I think is that if we do send it straight to Compliance or directly to Policy staff without having the Board involved in this whole thing then we don’t actually have a publication of what we’ve said.  And I’m always thinking of the track record and the impact that we can have, and being totally ignored by either Policy or Compliance, we will not have something to resort to afterwards as the next step.  If we go by the Board as well we can push on this.  Cheryl?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Oliver, it’s Cheryl, yeah.  Can I ask to do Chatham House rules and go off the public record please.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                If you wish.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Well you’d have to rule on that.  I’m asking you for that.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yeah, well then before that can I just ask for Alan who’s got his hand up, and then we can go in camera if you wish.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Thank you, that’s what I wish.

Alan Greenberg:                          Just a quick comment: Evan said before that Beau has left. 

Evan Leibovitch:                         Yes.

Alan Greenberg:                          Can you define what that means?

Evan Leibovitch:                         It means he’s unsubscribed from mailing lists, he’s quit as Chair of NARALO and he’s removed himself from every ICANN mailing list that I’m aware of.

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay, because I got a response from him regarding NARALO voting as an individual member a few days ago so I’m assuming he’s still on that list and is still active.  I can’t speak to what else he may have resigned from but as far as I know he still exists as a member and maybe an active one.  I don’t know that.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay, can I make a request then?  If you’re in good contact with him that maybe you send him a note and ask him what he’s part of and what he’s not, because he was involved in a number of things and I would still like him involved in the Registrant Rights stuff.  That was a big thing to him. 

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay.

Evan Leibovitch:                         I’m in full agreement with what you’re saying, Olivier.  I mean to me personally, this whole thing of Compliance and enforcement, to me this is the abuse issue that is most important as an end user issue.  Frankly I consider the full issue of the RAA and Compliance right now to be bigger as an end user issue than the gTLD expansion.  So anything that escalates this to the top of ICANN’s priority list or at least elevates it higher than it is now is exactly what I want.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  So now we have to go into an in camera session, and we have to stop the recording for a moment of time until we restart it.  Confirm when this is the case.

[break]

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thanks very much, Heidi.  So we’re back on and the discussion which just took place now in the Chatham House Rules related to putting together of several statements including the deficiencies in the contract enforcement and deficiencies in the actual contracts themselves.  I understand that Alan, you might wish to be able to bring a short summary of what we’ve come up with?

Alan Greenberg:                          Thank you.  Yeah, I won’t say it’s a summary but it’s a recommendation and I did send email to the basic, I think to the ExCom a week or two ago on it.  In Prague when the Board received the WHOIS Review Team report, they asked for advice from the community and explicitly from ACs and SOs on how they should implement, what they should implement, what they should do.  There were no dates specifically on that request but I know from GNSO discussions the effective date is the end of August, August 31^st. 

Although the ALAC has submitted an overall comment to the public comment period and implicitly to the Board that we recommend that the Board implement the full WHOIS report, I think if there are any items within that list of recommendations that we feel are of particular merit and important, and either we want to recommend how the Board implements it or that the Board implements it, that we make an explicit statement to the Board focusing on those issues.

Again, I would suggest it be short and concise and target the issues that we feel are most important, and the one that I think is relevant to the discussion of Compliance is the reporting structure – that is that they no longer report to ICANN Legal but report directly to a Board Committee or something to that effect where they are not subservient to any other part of ICANN, because effectively Compliance is not only monitoring the contracted parties but Compliance is monitoring the people that the contracted parties interact with within ICANN.  And therefore they need to be separate.

I personally don’t feel that they need to be a separate corporation with a separate Board as some people have suggested; I think that would be overkill and exceedingly difficult for the community to manage.  But I think reporting to the Board puts the responsibility where it deserves to be.

Cheryl Langdon-Or:                     Here, here.

Alan Greenberg;                          So I would suggest we make a statement to that effect.  There may be one or two other issues in the review report that we want to stress with an equal amount of fervor, but I think we should do that quickly and make sure we meet the deadline; and make sure it formally gets approved by the ALAC to make sure it has the power of the community.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you very much.  Cheryl?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    So that very much needs to be on your ALAC agenda I would think then, wouldn’t it, Olivier?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                It certainly would be but I was going to ask first whether this would need to be a separate statement or would this actually also fit within the unified statement that we would make about Section 3.7.8 and the other-

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Separate.

Alan Greenberg:                          This is, in my mind what I am discussing of recommending Compliance reporting as an implementation of the WHOIS Review Team is about as far as one can imagine from talking about a specific paragraph in the RAA.  We’re talking about orders of magnitude different import.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Here, here.

Male:                                        Yeah, these separate.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, perfect.  So let’s do these separate and let’s make this an action item.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    One is an urgent action item from ALAC at this coming month’s meeting; the other is a work-in-progress which will happen between now and Toronto.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Correct.

Alan Greenberg:                          And to be candid, one without the other is meaningless, it’s useless.  We’ve already established that.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                I see that Matt is about to ask for the action item to be said for the recording as we want it to be drafted.  Alan, do you have an actual one-liner for this?

Alan Greenberg:                          Advice to the Board regarding implementation of key WHOIS Review Team report recommendations.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, perfect, and we should therefore open a Wiki page for this to build this case.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Actually, if I may – Cheryl Langdon-Orr here.  What I would suggest, looking at the time between now and your meeting is that rather than put out a statement for discussion through that, what was probably going to be ignored because it’s summer anyway process – why don’t you put it out in advance as an advanced agenda item specifically to the ALAC so that they know that they will be expected to come to your meeting prepared to vote on text or suggest minor amendments to the text?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Cheryl, but one doesn’t stop the other.  So the process of creating the Wiki page itself is exactly the same.  The process of how we actually reach consensus on it might be different, and I do take your suggestion as it goes past – I do take your suggestion of actually putting this forward to actually discuss it on the ALAC call and make a decision on the ALAC call to support it.  But the statement has to be drafted first.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Sure.

Alan Greenberg:                          Olivier, I’m not at my computer.  Who has the pen on this?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                The pen on this specific part would really be between you and Evan.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    I’m happy to help with it, drafting it.

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay, I volunteer to draft something and I will send it out to the ExCom to start with.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                So we’ll have  a group effort here.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    That’ll do.  We’ll just need to dot the I’s and cross the T’s.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                So Evan, Alan, and Cheryl.

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay, if there’s anything else other than the reporting structure out of the review report that you feel we must focus on let me know.  I need to review the list myself.  Okay.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay.  Separated from this, the other action item being putting together of 3.7.8 issue that we spoke about before we went into Chatham House Rules.  You okay with this, Evan?  I see you typing.

Evan Leibovitch:                         I’m just intrigued that we’ve come full circle.  We started this conversation talking about two different issues that originally were instructed to be part of a consolidated statement; and now we’re realizing that the two really are sufficiently different and need to be attacked differently.  So I’m in agreement-

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Mmm, not really, Evan – Cheryl here.  It’s one part of the other but one has to have I guess a front attack on it first.

Carlton Samuels:                         Yes, for optics.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes, the famous optics.  Okay, right.  We know where we’re going on this one and I invite everyone then to move to the next part of our discussion because we are already one-and-a-half hours into this call.  And first if we could extend for another twenty minutes if that’s okay with everyone?   And we’ll then move to the second part of our agenda.  And I thought we were going to be ahead with our agenda but I guess there always are important discussions taking place here.

                                                So the next part is the items for discussion, and that’s the discussion of the Toronto ALAC meetings and agendas.  And as you all know there has been a lot of discussion already going on as to what sessions we should have, especially as a follow-up to the ExCom meeting that we had in Prague where some were saying that we had too much process, not enough policy; and of course some of us have also criticized the fact that some ICANN staff come and speak to us and it’s a bit of a one-way process.  And much time is spent listening to things that we’ve already heard before.

                                                So I invite you all to look at the At-Large Toronto workspace because Heidi has been very hard at work with her colleagues to build this time a Toronto agenda that’s going to surpass everything else out there I hope.  And I therefore invite you to go to At-Large Toronto meetings agendas, and I’ll perhaps pass the microphone over to Heidi for us, to take us through the whole list and to discuss the sessions and what else we would like to see in our sessions because ultimately we are the people that are building the sessions and that are going to make that week as worthy as possible for us to use that valuable face-to-face meeting.  Heidi, you have the floor.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Thanks, Olivier, this is Heidi.

Julie Hammer:                            Excuse me for a moment, it’s Julie here.  I’m sorry, Olivier and everyone, I have to drop off the call.  So I’ll disconnect now, I’m sorry.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thanks very much, Julie, for joining us for that hour and a half.  If you do have time you may wish to review the discussion by listening to the call, the end of the call – the last half an hour or so later on in your own time.  And if you have any suggestions with regards to meeting agendas then please don’t hesitate to email.

Julie Hammer:                            I will, thank you.  Bye, everyone.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Good night, Julie.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Heidi, you have the floor now.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Thanks, Olivier, this is Heidi.  So I’d like to take you through the week’s worth of meetings, and while I’m speaking I very much encourage your comments.  I know there’s been a lot of discussion on some new ways of doing things, incorporating perhaps some training towards the end of the week so I will very much like to hear from you.  You’ll see that I’ve scheduled the meetings very… For the most part the agendas are still quite open.

                                                So let’s start on Sunday.  I put the Sunday session into the Adobe Connect chat and then from there we can continue through the week.  So looking at Sunday, right now that day the morning is still left over from Prague, so that’s pretty much open with just one possible meeting which I’ll discuss in just a moment.  But the afternoon, everything after the lunch is new, it’s for Toronto.  So I’m just going to start with that, what’s confirmed. 

So you’ll see that we have Discussion with the SSAC Chair Patrik Fältström – he’s confirmed.  That again right now is just going to be Patrik.  It might be a few others but for the most part it’ll just be Patrik.  Then we’re asking Compliance to meet with us for 45 minutes, from 14:45 to 15:30.  Then there’ll be a 30-minute session on Consumer Trust and Choice; Cheryl, I put you down as the moderator for that.  Then there is one hour for the hot topics, which unless you indicate what that topic is it’ll just remain open for broader discussion.  And then towards the end the ALAC Toronto reporting as well as the Wrap-Up.

So in the morning right now we have tentatively… I’ve been in contact with Bart from the ccNSO.  Right now the last thing is I’ve gone back to him, suggesting that Sunday 10:00 to 11:00 might be a good time and right now we’re not sure whether that’s going to be just with the ccNSO leadership, with the Council, but it will likely not be with the entire group.  So Cheryl, if you have any more information on that I would welcome that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    If it’s going to be Sunday it will be with the Council but it can be, of course it’s open so any ccNSO member who is available and onsite can join.  I think that’s an important discrimination because Council does meet on the Sunday, but usually it’s a closed session.  So it might be important to let the ccNSO membership know that this particular interaction – as all ALAC interactions are – is open and they’re also more than welcome to join.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, I’ve looked at their schedule.  The closed session starts at 11:00 and that’s why we’re asking them to join the ALAC 10:00 to 11:00.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Yep, yep.  Just so that we discriminate those two things is all.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay.  I’m still waiting to hear back from Bart.  Olivier, I think Evan has his hand raised?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes, I was going to say – Evan, you have your hand up and you’ve actually also typed a question in the chat.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Yeah, there’s two issues in the agenda that are marked as updates.  When I think of updates during ALAC meetings I think of slideshows, and considering how late we often run and how much time we need to give to the interactivity issues, if something is an update that is essentially just talking to a slideshow I’d rather just get the slideshow and not run late.  So I’d like to find out in the case of both #6 and #10 – the DSSA and the Consumer Trust one – if this is meant to be simply a presentation that could be offloaded or is it actually an interactive thing that would require the engagement of 25 ALAC and RALO leadership.

                                                It’s just we keep running late, it keeps always happening in the same pattern, in the same pattern, and I would rather just simply say “If something is just an update and the presentation of a slideshow, give us the slideshow.  Make sure that people are aware that it’s something they need to be aware of to give more of our time to the interactive part.”  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.  And I can actually answer your question-

Carlton Samuels:                         Chair, can I say something?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Well, I was going to answer Evan’s question but Carlton, does this have to… Is it an add-on to Evan’s question or-

Carlton Samuels:                         It’s an add-on, and to just let you know I have no optics.  I have no internet access and I’m actually on my cell.  The storm passed by here yesterday and it’s created havoc with the telephone system and the power system, so we’re having a challenge with power right now.  So I have no other way to get to you, so I am going to be blind for all of this. 

But just to add to Evan, this is part of what Rinalia was suggesting , that maybe in terms of how we structure this thing we look very seriously at what kind of information we need and whether it could be useful to have a bit more structured kind of interaction – a more detailed, structured interaction with the various ICANN units.  So like Evan says, if it’s a slideshow they’re going to present let’s not have them.  Let’s just put them on the wire and be done with it.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you, Carlton.  So with regards to the DSSA Working Group update there is actually something of more importance than the previous times when there was just a quick update and “Thank you very much, you understand what we’re doing, good-bye.”  The Working Group at the moment is at this crossroads where there are some calls for it to actually end its activities.  To remind you of what the DSSA actually does is DNS security and stability analysis.  It is putting together a way to analyze, a method to analyze the DNS and to basically find out if the DNS is stable or not; and look in various sources to be able to do that.

                                                At the moment the Board is also putting together a Security and Stability, I don’t know the exact name of it, I don’t have the exact name of it at hand but it’s also doing something that is similar to that but is more led by the Board and more of a top-down thing where they would ask for an outside consultant to do the work.  The two sides to the DSSA are, the one that I’ve been pursuing and I gather that Cheryl who also is in the Working Group is supporting as well, is that this sort of work should be a bottom-up thing to be there to serve the internet users out there and make sure that we get the actual reality of things, rather than serve the Board which could be seen as a box-ticking exercise of saying “We’ve done that, we can get on with other things.  This thing we don’t even need to talk about.”

                                                And so the aim of the update on the DSSA Working Group’s work is just to give maybe one or two slides showing where the Working Group is and finding out from our members around the table which way would we really push for the Working Group to go?  Both Cheryl and I, and the others like Andre Thompson who’s done a fantastic amount of work on the Working Group as well and whom I’ve seen on several occasions – all of us are at this crossroads now where we really need to know if we’ve got the full community behind us to push this.  Cheryl, do you want to add anything to this?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    I’m typing so that’s alright.  There you go.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                So that’s the first one.  The one on consumer choice is also an interesting one.  Perhaps I should let Cheryl say a couple of words on this one.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Certainly, thank you very much – it’s Cheryl for the transcript record.  Evan: interactive, interactive, interactive is the answer, and in fact what we will be doing is taking the opportunity during that short session to giving the ALAC and the regional leadership a view into what will be the draft letter out of the Working Group’s activity.  Now at the moment, we have to remember that that Work Group of course is a GNSO Work Group, so the person, the group, the entity that it should be sending that material to is clearly the Chair of the GNSO and the GNSO Council. 

But rather than delay and getting some sort of “Wait till they deal with it and then talk to ourselves” it’s going to be in our best interest to have a preview and start formulating a surprisingly well-informed response, which of course the ALAC has to give the ICANN Board anyways as all the ACs and SOs do.  But Olivier and I and others have been working very hard to get a draft letter of advice put together which is meaningful and, Evan, you’ve worked on some of the early phases of that but we’re practically there.  What we want to do is make sure that the ALAC and the At-Large leadership have a heads up on what’s in that letter and get feedback from you before it goes to bed.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Cheryl.  And I see that Evan has been shouting on the chat that it’s an utter waste of time with regards to the CC.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    I was being polite when I said that you were involved in some of the early work, Evan. We hear your voice.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                [laughing]  Okay, next Rinalia.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Thank you, Olivier – Rinalia for the record.  I have a few comments about the schedule.  First of all I think that it’s an improvement but it’s still quite a packed schedule, so managing time will still be a challenge.  The first point is Olivier’s context setting – I don’t think that 15 minutes will cut it.  I’m not sure if Olivier realizes what I’ve asked him to do in terms of context setting but I think a minimum of twenty minutes.

                                                Second point: I’ve made some suggestions in terms of the format for At-Large working group updates.  I do hope that it will be taken up and staff will coordinate that with the individual working group chairs.  Third point about At-Large capacity building: my concern when we discuss ICANN Academy and capacity building activities, and I know that Sandra and Sala are both listed as lead-

Heidi Ullrich:                             Rinalia, it’s Heidi.  Sorry to interrupt but I have not touched that first section, so nothing has been changed from Prague.  So if you could just comment on exactly what it is that you’re looking for I’m happy to take that into account.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Okay.  The first thing that needs to be changed is the time allocated for Olivier.  It needs to be a little bit longer than 15 minutes and I think Olivier needs to give you advice in terms of how long his context setting presentation will take.  The second point is the At-Large working group update: in my email to ExCom I gave some suggestions in terms of how this could be done and I do hope that you can pick up on that in terms of implementation. 

                                                And then I’m going to go on-  Sorry?

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, Rinalia, sorry – I found your exchange interesting but again there are so many comments that I don’t know what the ExCom would like to see.  So if I can get some direction from you as a group that would be really useful.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Okay, I’m not sure that the group feedback would be useful at this point in time. Perhaps if you and I can have a bilateral discussion on that to clarify if ExCom doesn’t have any specific comment on it?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Well what I was going to suggest – it’s Olivier here – what I was going to suggest is that perhaps you make the amendments or the proposed amendments with Heidi and then this gets sent back to the ExCom for commenting, because I think it is hard for all of us to visualize the changes as they fly on the screen or they don’t fly on the screen, actually.  We’ve all received the advice on these different parts, and some of it will I think be pretty straightforward and pretty easy to understand.  Some of it I think might be a bit more confusing when one doesn’t have the actual elements at hand or an example of how we could look like. 

So can I ask you to work with Heidi to perhaps make the proposed amends and then we can send those over to the ExCom list and we can all say “Great, that sounds like the right way to go?”  I’m pretty positive, by the way, virtually on all of these but I haven’t heard the feedback from everyone here.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, Rinalia, I’m very happy to do that.  I found your suggestions fantastic so I just need to get more clarification.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Okay.  Mr. Chairman, may I continue on with my comment?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes, go ahead.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  On capacity building, my concern when we discuss ICANN Academy and capacity building is that most of the attention will be focused on ICANN Academy because of the issue of a control, ownership, etc.  My belief is that ICANN Academy, the development is well in hand.  The issue of control and ownership needs to be managed but we need to give more attention on capacity building activities that Sala is trying to initiate.  And I do believe that she will ask for a working group to start, and I think that we need to consider that.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                That’s fine, Rinalia. 

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Next point… May I go on?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Well, I was just going to comment on this, Rinalia – it’s Olivier for the transcript – that the ICANN Academy is something which we’ve all heard about, and I think that any update on the ICANN Academy might just be an update of what’s going on or what has gone on.  And I gather that by the time this meeting on the Sunday takes place, the ICANN Academy or the Leadership Program or whatever it’s called would have or would not have taken place; so the update will probably be either “It’s over, it’s not over yet, it happened” or “It did not happen.”  I totally agree with you that perhaps we should spend more time in this meeting on the actual capacity building activities in the wider sense that Sala was going to suggest.  Any thoughts from anyone here?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    I’m typing, Olivier – Cheryl for the record.  I would just say on that that such a thing as a new working group to pick up what Sala’s been proposing, etc., is a decision making process of the ALAC at its meeting during Toronto.  It’s very common, for example, for pivotal work groups in new directions to be created during those sorts of meetings, but it would be good to have the context put together on the Sunday.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Correct, yes.  The actual Wrap-Up can decide on the putting together of the working group, and if we can actually prepare things and actually have a rationale for the working group and perhaps even a call for members on the Sunday, that would be a good idea.  And I know we already have a number of people who have been working on this so it’s not like the working group is going to come out of nothing.  It’s already half baked – it just needs to be formalized and given a formal “Go ahead, start moving.”  Okay, Rinalia, back to you.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Next point is about the At-Large Outreach Working Group with Global Partnerships.  My understanding is that this Working Group is currently not active – is that correct?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    It hasn’t had its first meeting.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Okay.  I do think that before we meet with all these Regional Vice Presidents we do need to do a bit of preparation, otherwise they just show up and say “Okay, what do you want?”  So I think we should be in a position to say what we want and then have a discussion in terms of how to make it more effective.  And I note that Mandy will be there and I guess part of the discussion will probably be focused on Baku because I imagine she will probably want to discuss that as well.  But my point is that we need to have some preparation on it.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you Rinalia.  I see a hand up from Evan and also from Heidi.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yeah, that might be Evan’s hand still being up.  And we’re not able to take his hand down, so…

Evan Leibovitch:                         Nope, I took it down and then put it back up.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Oh, okay, sorry.  [laughter]

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                So Evan, you’re playing this game.  [laughter]  So okay, Evan, you have the floor and then Heidi after you.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Okay.  We’ve had discussions back and forth, I don’t know if it’s been Skype or email or whatever, about trying to increase the efficiency of meetings by having some of the things in streams; that is, rather than have everything packed, have everything crowded, have a mad dash to finish possibly before a half hour after the designed end of the meeting can we not give a little bit of breathing room perhaps with the idea of streaming some of these things?  We have a number of things – we have capacity building, we have the SSAC, we have Compliance, we have Consumer Trust.  Each of those things are issues that maybe not all 25 people are interested in every single one of those, and some of them either have or want to build expertise in some of them.

                                                I would rather give people the ability to stream and perhaps have maybe two of them going on parallel before lunch and two of them going in parallel after lunch in a way that would allow the proper amount of time to be given to each of them, to allow people to properly engage, properly discuss the issues without this constant pressure of being rushed before 6:00.  I mean this is just an ongoing thing.  Every time we go through this cycle and we say that we’re going to make things better, and then the next meeting we just plan the exact same pressure cooker and everyone comes out exhausted.

                                                Maybe just once we ought to consider the possibility of at least one experimentation with two tracks where people have a choice of something that is either inwards looking or outwards looking, or something that is process or policy or something like that; and just allows people to get some expertise, develop some expertise and then perhaps extend either the hot topics or the session wrap-up to allow the people who were in those streams to come back and inform the rest of the group about them.

                                                It’s just we keep going through this cycle, we keep promising to do things better and we’ve got to get out of this cycle.  And I think the only way to get out of the cycle while giving these topics the attention that they need I think is going to require a little bit of parallel sessions.  We’ve been talking about this before and here we are looking at the session now and the issue has just apparently been dismissed with.  I’d like it to be reconsidered.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you very much, Evan.  Two things: I think the first one, the idea of having parallel sessions-

Carlton Samuels:                         Logistics.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                …might sound good at first, there are two problems, really.  The first one is to do with, as Carlton just said, the logistics.  We need to have interpretation for each one of these and Sunday is not a day when we can have parallel interpretation in several rooms.  We’d be told very blatantly we can’t have it, they don’t have enough interpreters, they don’t have enough rooms that are set up by that time.  We have to remember, we are one of the first rooms that gets set up.  The first one is the GNSO Council one; the ALAC is the second one.  The rest of the rooms are being set up as we speak on Sunday.  So that’s the first one – having parallel sessions is very hard.

                                                The other thing is to do with your idea of Session #6, the DSSA Working Group Update, #7 Discussion with SSAC Chair, and #8 Discussion with ICANN Compliance being done in parallel sessions.  I understand that this would give us more time to discuss those issues definitely.  The problem though is that at the end of the day, when it comes down to an ALAC vote and an ALAC statement, everyone, not just a small number of those fifteen members but everyone has to know what this is all about. 

I’m totally against people voting on to things that they have absolutely no clue about, and the chance of being in a face-to-face discussion with the people that are doing the work is one which we shouldn’t negate, if you want, because that is their chance to be able to ask questions rather than having to read the documents that might or might not relate to them.  These are my reasons for being a little concerned about having those parallel sessions.

Now that said, I understand that we are so pressed for time on Sunday.  We do have some more space over the week, some more times over the week.  Perhaps should we take some of the stuff off Sunday and put it over, later on in the week so as to give us a bit more breathing space?  That’s a possible solution.  Heidi had her hand up and then-

Carlton Samuels:                         Can I say something?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                And Carlton as well afterwards.  And so Heidi first and then Carlton, and Cheryl and Rinalia, you have a tick there – I don’t know whether your hand is next to it as well or not.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Yes, my hand is next to it, too.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Your hand is next to it as well, so we’ll come back to you, Rinalia, and then we’ll come back to Evan afterwards for his feedback.  So Heidi first, please.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Thank you, Olivier, this is Heidi.  I’m just wondering on the Session #4, again, Carlton, for your benefit it’s the At-Large capacity building, participation and engagement.  And that umbrella session includes the capacity building activities so I’m clear on that – we will be discussing the possibility of starting a capacity building working group; and the second one is the At-Large outreach with the Global Partnerships Regional Vice Presidents.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    [I’d want to speak to that.]

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yeah, I’ve not approached them yet, and again, that’s left over from Prague.  But to let you know I have had discussions with some of the Regional Vice Presidents and they have indicated that they’re very eager to see movement on this.  So there is interest from their part.  And then Session D is the At-Large social media, so that’s only a few minutes, ten minutes with Sam so that might be able to come out.  So just to let you know where we are on that.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you, Heidi.  Next is Carlton.

Carlton Samuels:                         Thank you, Olivier, this is Carlton for the record.  I have to agree.  We have discussed the parallel sessions and it’s logistics as well, but you said the second thing and it’s the most important.  You really need to have face-to-face interaction with some of these people, and I agree with you – you can’t dispense with them.  What might work though is that we tend to crowd the Sunday sessions too much.  I think we need to pick the list of things that we can do effectively on Sunday and defer others to later on in the week.  Having said that, one of the problems that we always have in this is the lack of preparation coming into these meetings, and that is a bone of contention that I have.

                                                The meetings would go much faster if we were prepared to deal with the substantive issues.  And part of the problem that we have as a structural problem, is that for the most part we tend to get prepared at the meeting; and therefore the quality of the discussions and the effectiveness of the direction with the people face-to-face is diminished.  Probably we have to find some way to ensure that we are better prepared, and perhaps the capacity building sessions is one of these areas where we might begin to let people understand how important it is to be prepared ahead of having these face-to-face’s and make the most of them.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Carlton, it’s a very good suggestion – preparing before the meeting.  Next is Cheryl.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Thank you, Olivier – Cheryl for the transcript record.  I popped my hand up because I wanted to speak to Rinalia’s point on the capacity building – sorry, let me say it again: not specifically the capacity building on Sunday but rather the outreach aspect of it as it was listed.  So I’m really following on from that but then Heidi has said some of what I was going to say, which is of course that’s what we’ve done in Prague – it’s not necessarily how it needs to be done in Toronto.

                                                Then following on from what both Evan and Carlton have raised, I would suggest that an ideal opportunity exists for the outreach part of it and any interaction with the Global Partnerships VPs to be exactly what Evan suggests – an experiment in some parallel streaming.  But I would propose that that parallel streaming actually happens on the Tuesday at some time, and that what we should do is ask from those people that will be there – whether it’s the Regional Vice-Chairs, Secretariat or somebody who is representing their region – joins those of the ALAC and any who’ve already self-identified into the Outreach Work Group to meet with the Global Partnerships VPs at a time that fits in the Tuesday schedule or on some other day during the week. 

But that’s an idea one to cull out of the Sunday agenda and put into not so much a talk fest and an in-principle discussion but in an actual planning discussion of what’s going to be happening in the Q3, Q4 time.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Cheryl.  I see Evan is putting a green tick.  Do you wish to say a couple of words?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Nope, just I’m absolutely cool with what Cheryl was saying.  The idea of streaming, whether it’s on the Sunday or whether it’s on the Tuesday – I’m simply suggesting that we pick some strategic things that can be done in parallel as a way just to alleviate the pressure.  The particular sessions that this is done with or the day that it’s done with is less important than simply the concept of giving people a little bit more breathing room by strategically using that tactic.  Thanks.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you, Evan.  And I see Heidi is asking whether Cheryl is suggesting that the Regional Vice Presidents meet only with those in the Outreach Working Group rather than on Sunday?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Correct.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                And the answer from Cheryl is “Correct.”  Thank you.  Okay, we have Rinalia and then Tijani, and then Evan to close the discussion on this Sunday.  So Rinalia, please.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Thank you, Olivier – Rinalia for the record.  Just a thought that capacity building activities have a linkage with outreach, so I think that some kind of sequencing is needed where after we’ve discussed capacity building and identified a point that touch on outreach, that these are then parceled out to the discussion that are happening.  I’m not quite sure how it will be structured but I would assume it would just happen.

                                                Just additional points: Heidi, I don’t see a scheduling of the APRALO meeting and that’s quite important because we’re going to be discussing the Beijing Summit.  I might have missed it.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yeah, I’m going through all of those first here.  Olivier, should I continue or Tijani has his hand raised?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                We still have Tijani, yeah, and then Evan.  So Tijani?

Tijani Ben Jemaa:                       Hello?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes, we can hear you now, Tijani.

Tijani Ben Jemaa:                       Okay.  So I want to express my silence because I spent more than two hours with the telephone in my ear.  I’m only understanding now because my line is very bad and I just sent an email about that.  I don’t understand why I must use the Adobe Connect audio but it is a pity because I really participate in the [ExCom calls] in fact.  I understood from the small words only I have (inaudible) that we are speaking about the (inaudible) of the organization.  And we are not speaking about the discussions on the mailing list, about what has to be changed.

                                                I want to say only one thing, that we need to keep our contacts, our meetings with the staff about the policy issues but we don’t have to continue in the same way.  I mean we don’t have to have them come and make their pitch, the same pitch for all the people – it’s the same one.  It’s not what we need.  If we need to have the meeting with them we have to tell them not to (inaudible) [them to turn up].  Or we have to tell them what they have to give us so that we can prepare for these meetings, so that we can be more efficient.  Thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Thank you very much, Tijani.  With regards to your first comment on the reason why there’s nothing on the Adobe Connect, there is a technical problem in that it’s currently stuck with 3535 and not 1638, so it’s a technical thing and Gisella has apologized for the inconvenience.

                                                With regards to your other point I think that we have less briefings, staff briefings this time than in previous times due to the fact that I think in some of the possible briefings we’ve thought about having some actual webinars taking place prior to Toronto, and that would go in line with having people prepared for Toronto, for having them being able to discuss face-to-face and having already got the knowledge of the issues at stake.  So that certainly is one thing.

                                                With regards to the WCIT issues, for example, the current discussions with ICANN staff was if we could have a webinar at the end of August, therefore before the Toronto meeting so we don’t waste time in Toronto on watching PowerPoint presentations, etc.  So maybe we can go back to Heidi, or Evan, do you wish to… Because of course we’ve spoken about the parallel sessions here and I kind of explained to you the problems with doing them on Sunday.  We seem to have the ability to do perhaps the capacity building as a parallel session. 

                                                I’m a little concerned about having parallel main sessions in that we really start dividing our ALAC group into subgroups, and for me it really fits more in the idea of working groups; and of course, we do have time for all of the working groups to work.  And I guess the working groups could work in parallel, at least in two rooms.  That really depends on the local availability-

Carlton Samuels:                         This is precisely why we use the working groups [model layout] here, because the working groups can go in parallel.  But I really strongly would recommend that where we need to have full ALAC sessions, and here I’m saying we have to pick what it is we’re going to parallel.  But to me it’s very important that in a face-to-face meeting that the elements that we consider critical are in front of the entire group.  And I want to add again the requirement for us to be prepared, because if we were prepared beforehand like with webinars and so on we wouldn’t have to sit through those dog and pony shows.  And that’s what I’m insisting on.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yep, I think I hear that from everyone here.  So we have here an action item, then: so the At-Large capacity building, participation and engagement can go a separate session then that would be on the Tuesday, correct?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    No, you’ve got it the wrong way, Olivier.  It’s the outreach that should go separate.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, so #4B – outreach.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Cheryl here.  The capacity building does need to stay on the Sunday because it’s preview material for what then can be outreach some other time in the week, late on the Tuesday.

Carlton Samuels:                         Yes.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, I got it wrong, yes.  So it’s #4B – Outreach Working Group working with Global Partnerships.  That will be in a separate session.  The update from the Comm Department will remain on the Sunday; the At-Large social media will remain on the Sunday.  But at least we’ll have an additional hour, not even an hour – it’s 40 minutes for us to be able to spend more time on our discussions rather than having a really, really packed Sunday.  I see that Rinalia’s hand is still up?

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Oh sorry, it should be coming down now.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  Back to you, Heidi. 

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, thank you.  Just very briefly, I’m conscious of the time: I had a chat with Fadi and his Chief of Staff yesterday.  He seems to be quite open to speaking with ALAC.  I’m thinking perhaps Sunday or Thursday and then again during the ExCom.  So if you can indicate to me what your preference for the initial talk with them.

Carlton Samuels:                         Off the cuff – Sunday.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Sunday, okay.  Do you think 30 minutes?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    He’s liable to become more difficult by Thursday, that’s for sure.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yeah.  So the 30 minutes perhaps in the morning, would that be okay perhaps, even just after you, Olivier, after you’ve set the context if he’s available?

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Yes.  Early morning is better than the afternoon.  By the afternoon he already will have more white hair than in the morning, so… [laughter]

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, and I’ll also tell him for the ExCom on Friday as well.  So again, and perhaps you can send me your comments into the staff account.  For the policy sessions we now will have two of them on Tuesday.  They’re wide open, they’re two hours apiece, so you have a lot of time there.  Again, you’ve discussed that you would not like to have staff briefings at that time so all of that time is available for policy discussion.  Just let me know.  Olivier, if you can work with me on that, that’s fine.

                                                The working groups that have been established already: IDN – thanks, Rinalia, very much for that, we have the agenda for that; WHOIS – Carlton, we have an agenda for that.  We have New gTLD and the New gTLD Review Group scheduled for immediately following each other.  We have the ROP, I believe that’s a 90-minute session.  The RALO meetings we have scheduled so far is a two-hour NARALO GA and the APRALO, Rinalia, we know we need to schedule that.  We’re just waiting for the time because the current-

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Heidi, if I may, I think you should propose a suitable time and then we’ll respond to it.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, okay.  On the Wrap-Up session on Thursday, just a point of clarification there: would you like the Liaisons to have a 40-minute session or a 45-minute session on that day or would you like a separate session for the Liaison reporting back?  I know there’s been some discussion on that.  And then I only have one last part, and that would be on the Friday meetings: I will still need to put a request in for that but I’m hearing that it looks like the four hours will be okay, the whole.  So a two-hour Wrap-Up Session Part 2 or introduction for the new ALAC reps, followed by a two-hour ExCom – and again, the agenda for that is wide open with the exception of including Fadi for some slot.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, and thank you very much.  Thanks, Heidi.  Any question or suggestions?  Rinalia, your hand is up.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Yes, I noted that there are three regional leadership sessions two hours’ each, and I was wondering if there could be some distinction indicated for what they’re for?  And Evan has asked questions about the Future Challenges Working Group and Registrant Rights Working Group as well.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, could you indicate where those meetings are?  I know there’s a regional secretariats’ meeting on Wednesday, a two-hour one.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Sorry, it’s Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I noted that they’re two hours each. I  don’t know if there’s a difference between them, that’s all.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                On Friday?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Rinalia, those are the Wrap-Ups 1 and 2.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yeah, Thursday is the Wrap-Up and Friday is the new Wrap-Up.  It’s not the regional secretariats’ meeting.  Oh, I see – sorry, Rinalia.  It’s the ALAC and Regional Leadership Wrap-Up, so that’s a combined, similar to what we’ve always held – both ALAC leaders and the regional.  So the Wednesday session is just the regional secretariats.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Okay.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, and then Evan, regarding the question on the Future Challenges and the RRR, we’ve sent out two reminders and I have not heard back.  So if you would like to hold meetings please let us know.

Evan Leibovitch:                         Heidi, I’m just thinking even given the conversation we’ve had earlier in this call that there’s probably some value in having conversations within those groups.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, so you would like to schedule both then?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Well, I’d want to take it back to the groups.  I’m Co-Chair of one; I’m not Chair of the other so I don’t want to make a call on behalf of the groups themselves.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Okay, but you will send the message – this is Heidi.  Evan, will you send messages to those two working lists asking whether meetings in Toronto should be held?

Evan Leibovitch:                         I’ll do the Future Challenges one if somebody else can take on the RRR one just to lessen the load a little.

Carlton Samuels:                         I can do that.

Evan Leibovitch:                         I mean as we’ve said there is already a lot of overlap between this and that.

Carlton Samuels:                         I can do the Registrants Rights one.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Cheryl here.  Are we proposing that the work group activities are held in the parallel, wherever possible in the two set blocks of time?

Carlton Samuels:                         Parallel.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Yes, but the two set (inaudible).  I think that needs to be clear in what we send to the work groups, that’s all, so they know when we’re talking about as well as if.

Heidi Ullrich:                             So Cheryl, Tuesday is full.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Let me explain why.  For example, there might be a reason why somebody like Avri who has commitments to other parts of ICANN on Tuesday would not be happy with having work groups that she has major involvement in running on the Tuesday unless it was for a very defined block of time that didn’t clash with NCSG and NCUC.  Tuesday is Constituency Day.  Anyone who’s involved in a Constituency already has agenda issues.  So let’s be really clear when we’re suggesting the work groups have these parallel meetings.

Carlton Samuels:                         Yes.  Not a minor detail, indeed.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Any other suggestions?  So the question that I have regarding this is that we have the Sunday, if we have Fadi coming in on Sunday then the At-Large working groups’ updates would have to move elsewhere.  Where would these be able to move to, Heidi?  Would these be moving-

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    We gained an hour.  We’re only giving Fadi half of that.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                But we wanted to give the hour to our discussions rather than actually using the hour as running after time.  I know that Fadi for half an hour is going to probably last more than half an hour since I know how helpful we all are and how wonderful a community we are and people never want to leave.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Olivier, if I may suggest that the Wrap-Up Session on Thursday because it’s now two hours, so again, all the working groups will have more time to update everyone at that point.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, perfect.  So there is an additional thing with the Wrap-Up on Thursday.  One part of the Wrap-Up is to do with the usual wrap-up that we have, but Rinalia also suggested a more extensive discussion with the Liaisons for the Liaisons to be able to tell the ALAC more about what they do and what is going on in their world; and start having a bit more communication I guess within the At-Large, within the ALAC and with our Liaisons and etc.  So the suggestion was to add another session after the ALAC and Regional Leadership Wrap-Up, which would be specifically Liaison-led.  And I think maybe it’s not just reporting from our Liaisons but an actual discussion back and forth, bilateral discussions with our Liaisons.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Hand up.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Cheryl, you have your hand up.  You also look like you’ve just – wait, I’m not sure if I’m seeing-

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    No, it’s because I’m just going to my calendar and consequently I look like I’m away but I’m not.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Go ahead, Cheryl.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Thank you.  That’s all fine in principle – (inaudible), blah, blah, blah.  And I’m happy to do that as a Liaison but I’m not necessarily able to commit that volume of time on the Thursday depending on what it’s clashing with.  Every meeting for the last four meetings I’ve literally had to leave something else to come and do a mini presentation in the Thursday Wrap-Up.  So it might be that we might need to switch that to the Friday morning which is going to be much clearer.  And that also might fit in, Rinalia, with the concept of a more appropriate and focused briefing and bringing up to speed of people who are new to the ALAC at that time.  So I just did want to suggest that you also look at the general calendar of what’s going on, not just our own little calendar when you’re talking about the Liaisons because you know, what’s happening with Julie, what’s happening with Alan, what’s happening with me is not always in our control.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Good point, very good point.  I see Rinalia is also saying this is a good point.  So maybe then the Liaison discussion would be on Friday morning.  That would clear you up for duties with the ccNSO and Alan with the GNSO.

Alan Greenberg:                          It’s Alan, I’m not near my computer.  Have we been given clearance to have a real, full ALAC meeting on Friday morning which means the Travel people will allow people who would like-  Sorry?

Heidi Ullrich:                             It looks promising, yes.  It looks promising.

Alan Greenberg:                          Okay, thank you.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, perfect.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    For example, Framework of Interpretation often clashes on the Thursday, but let’s just look.  Gisella should be able to know what times exist so just have a look beyond their own calendar is all I’m pleading for.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you.  So Heidi, back to you.

Heidi Ullrich:                             So yeah, I think that we’ve made good progress.  It’s suggested in the chat that perhaps some parallel working group sessions could be held between 16:00 and 18:00 on Wednesday.  Currently that time block only has an IDN meeting so we could hold possibly the RRR and the FCWG meeting at that time. Evan, the early morning sessions – I think the FCWG normally met at 8:00 in the morning and those sessions now, 7:00 to 9:00 Monday through Friday will be now the NARALO capacity building sessions so those timeslots are out.

                                                So again, by holding the parallel sessions, I’m perfectly happy to schedule them but there will be some people who might raise a concern that they have too many choices at that time.  Okay, Cheryl, I see your comment. 

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay.  Anything else?

Heidi Ullrich:                             No, I’ll just wait to hear confirmations back from Evan and Carlton on the RRR and the FCWG.  Again, the 16:00 to 18:00 and anytime within that slot might work.

Carlton Samuels:                         Chair, this is Carlton, just to say that I am also dependent on Alan and his interaction with Beau, since Beau was the Chair of that RRR Working Group to hear what his intentions are.  I wouldn’t want to advise him without his knowledge.

Alan Greenberg:                          Beau is not likely to be at, well, he might be at the meeting since it’s in Toronto but since he is not Chair he won’t get travel funding.  So I don’t think one can presume he’s going to be there even if he still wants to be Chair of the Working Group.

Heidi Ullrich:                             This is Heidi.  Also Cintra is Vice-Chair of the RRR.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Heidi, this is Rinalia.  I would like to request that there be no clash between the IDN Working Group and the Future Challenges one because I would like to be present for both.

Heidi Ullrich:                             [laughing]

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Rinalia, we’ll all be able to give a list of 16 things we need to be at.  We’re going to have to make hard choices depending on the scheduling.  That’s just the way it is.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                So what I was going to suggest to make things easier, since we look as though we will have probably something like 35 sessions in Toronto is that 35 Doodles go around, in which cases we can-  [laughter]

Carlton Samuels:                         No, we just have to kick… We can’t continue to… One of the things that we do is we keep on having this mission [creep] and we have to understand that that’s what we’re affected by.  We just have so much time that we can’t shoehorn anymore sessions into this time block and be effective.  We just have to make some choices.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                And this was my point: we are going to have to review this agenda again in a few weeks’ time because I have the feeling that now that we are adding more and more and more sessions, and certainly with the NARALO sessions on as well it’s going to be hard for all of us and specifically hard for our staff and I’m mindful of this as well.  So let’s go along with building it at the moment and then we might have to cut some sessions off or simply do them prior to Toronto in a webinar or on a call if it’s really going to crowd our day too much.

                                                Heidi, anything else on this?  I’m so mindful of the time and we are already over time.

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, just quickly give me a day or so to incorporate your comments and I will then send out a tentative scheduling and some agenda items.  Again, I’m very much open to your comments on the Policy Discussions for Tuesday. We have four hours of completely open agenda, two agendas; and also start populating the questions, the Wiki pages that have been created for the questions to Compliance, the GAC, the Board, to Communications, etc. 

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Well, there will be a call for this over on the ALAC list I gather, and I will make a call during the ALAC meeting, the ALAC conference call this month for us to populate those pages.  However, with regards to choosing the subjects for our policy discussions I ask everyone here on the ExCom already to have a close look at this and to decide what do we want to discuss, bearing in mind that we see certainly consensus on people not wanting to have PowerPoint presentations but more face-to-face interaction.  And I agree – PowerPoint can be done in a webinar; face-to-face is better when you actually are face to face. 

                                                Okay, are you finished, Heidi?

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, thank you.  Very useful, thanks.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, thank you very much.  And we now reach Item #5, topics for the August ALAC meeting.  And we’ve already touched on a couple, and one of them that is listed here is the At-Large statement of interest and I just wanted to give you an advanced notice of the statement of interest Wiki page which provides instructions on how to create the new SOI.  Matt, you have a couple of minutes.  I know we’ve got very little time; I see we’ve got three minutes left.

Matt Ashtiani:                            I’ll be very brief.  Long story short, the ALAC statement of interest [portal] is up and running and I believe at the next ALAC meeting you wanted to have a run through.  And hopefully what we can do is I can do a screen share and people can just follow along.  It’s very straightforward, very simple and actually Alan’s and Carlton’s SOIs have already been completed – (inaudible) did them by request.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay.  I’m not quite sure I understood you too well but I gather you’ll be able to take us through this when we actually see this.  I see a couple of things saying “Unable to locate the desired parent page At-Large New SOIs – no fall back to accept.”  I don’t know if these errors are meant to be there or not.

Matt Ashtiani:                            The page name was recently changed but if you click the link that I just put into the Adobe Connect room you’ll be able to get to the SOI page.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Matt, because I’m on a mobile – it’s Cheryl – a mobile connection because for reasons, even though I restarted it still has not let me… It’s telling me, the web browser is telling me that it was a private meeting and not letting me back in.  And of course Carlton is not on AC at all – could you also Skype and or email that link please?

Matt Ashtiani:                            Sure, not a problem. 

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Thank you.

Carlton Samuels:                         Thank you, Cheryl.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                And I note on there that we both have an SOI for Alan and for Carlton.  Are these the ones that Alan and Carlton have submitted just now or are these copied from the GNSO?

Carlton Samuels:                         These are the GNSO, I think.

Matt Ashtiani:                            Yes, I believe so.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                If I can ask Alan and Carlton to review their SOIs there, and that would be great because I gather you’ve gone through the process; you’ll probably be able to help us understand how this works during the ALAC call.  And I think you’ll be getting 15, 20 minutes on the ALAC call – that’ll probably be a good time.  Sorry, you’re all talking at the same time.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Sorry, Olivier, I just want to make a comment – this is Rinalia.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Okay, Rinalia, please go ahead.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim:                  Evan raised a question about the meaning of the statement of interest earlier in the meeting, whether it is a statement of interest for something or a statement about no conflict of interest.  I think that the title should be clear in terms of what it is, or should be made clear if it is not clear.  Do you understand what I’m saying?

Evan Leibovitch:                         Yeah, thanks for the point.  Olivier, just for clarification, I don’t know if this is the case elsewhere but in NARALO they’ve actually been using the term “statement of interest” for people to use to self-nominate – when they want to go for a position of leadership they indicate a statement of interest.  So I just know that maybe this hasn’t extended to other regions but at least within North America there has been a little bit of confusion of purpose.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Which is why we try to use “expression of interest” rather than “statement of interest” for the leadership positions but there you go.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Unfortunately this was all carbon copied from the GNSO and so it is called “Statement of Interest” as well.  The page itself if you look at it has questions which we’ll say basically do touch on whether you have a conflict, etc.  So in effect they are a statement of interest; they do have the ability to state their conflict and we do expect most of our community not to have conflict on this so we wouldn’t call them conflicts of interest.  I hope this answers your question? 

                                                I think we really are over time with this so I’ll go to Item #6 ‘any other business.’  And Heidi, I thought you were going to raise something in ‘any other business.’

Heidi Ullrich:                             Yes, sorry.  It was the SOI so we’ve already covered that – this is Heidi.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Oh, okay.  Excellent.  Okay, well it’s been two-and-a-half hours that we’ve been on the phone.  Any last words?  I hear Cheryl?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:                    Just that I guess I’m going to try and channel Julie here as well: our calls start at midnight, it’s now 2:30.  She got to bail at 1:30 in the morning – you know, clearly you need your Liaisons to be made of stronger stuff.  A whole lot of this stuff is, you know… Tijani has asked for it, so many of you have asked for it – we can still work smarter on these calls.  This is not to criticize the timing of this call because there was a substantial discussion on things that had to be said, but there’s still a bunch of stuff that we still need to find a way of working smarter on and particularly at the beginning of the calls.  I don’t know how you’re going to make it better but keep working on it.

Olivier Crépin-Leblond:                Hard one, okay.  Well maybe we can make it very smart and very fast at the end of this call.  I thank you all on this call and it’s now 16:32 UTC.  This call is now closed.  Thank you very much to all of you.

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