Transcript ExCom 15 February 2010

Operator: Joined.

Marco Lorenzoni: Marco Lorenzoni.

Operator: Joined.

Heidi Ullrich: Heidi.

Operator: Joined.

Marco Lorenzoni: Hello, everyone. Marco and Alice are joining from Brussels.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi Marco.

Marco Lorenzoni: Heidi, hi. How are you?

Heidi Ullrich: I'm fine.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, as you see – as you saw from my message, unfortunately both Alice and my self will join only for half and hour to 40 minutes (inaudible) because then we have another call, unfortunately.

Heidi Ullrich: That's fine. Are you able to join us in the Adobe Connect Room?

Marco Lorenzoni: Let me see.

Heidi Ullrich: It is at the top of the page on the agenda page.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay, just a moment. Yes, it should be in a while – in a short while. Yes, it's connecting.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, there you are. Okay. They've prepared the documents. Let's see.

Marco Lorenzoni: And the first item is on (inaudible) isn't it? Yes, discussion on (inaudible).

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, in fact they (inaudible) some documents.

Marco Lorenzoni: By the way, Heidi, please meet Alice. And Alice, please meet Heidi.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi.

Alice Jensen: Hi, Heidi. Nice to meet you.

Heidi Ullrich: Very nice to meet you. We're going to be meeting a new person working with At-Large as well today.

Alice Jensen: Oh.

Marco Lorenzoni: Ah, great. Whose name is?

Heidi Ullrich: Seth Green.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay.

Heidi Ullrich: Seth Green. He is joining us from New York and his is (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: Alan.

Operator: Joined.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi, Alan.

Alan Greenburg: Hello.

Heidi Ullrich: He is going to be the At-Large improvements project manager.

Marco Lorenzoni: Great.

Alan Greenburg: Who is that?

Marco Lorenzoni: Hi, Alan. This is Marco here.

Alan Greenburg: Hello. Heidi, who is going to be the improvements manager?

Heidi Ullrich: His name is Seth Green. And he will be joining us shortly. And if he doesn't have any problems dialing into Adigo. And there's a place on today's agenda just for a brief introduction today.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Heidi Ullrich: And also, Alan, as I noted, Marco and Alice only have about 30 minutes to (inaudible).

Dave Kissondoyal: Dave Kissondoyal.

Operator: Joined.

Seth Green: Seth Green.

Heidi Ullrich: There's Seth. Hi Seth.

Operator: Joined.

Matthias Langenegger: Matthias.

Operator: Joined.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi, Seth.

Seth Green: Hello, can you hear me, Heidi?

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, hi. You're on the Adigo – on the Adigo call and we have a few people with us already.

Sebastien: Sebastien.

Operator: Joined.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi, Matthias.

Matthias Langenegger: Hi, Heidi. Hi, Seth.

Seth Green: Hello, Matthias. Nice to meet you over the phone at least.

Dave Kissondoyal: Hi, everybody. Dave here.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi Dave.

Alan Greenburg: Hello Dave.

Heidi Ullrich: Welcome. We also have on the call with us – we have Alan, we have Dave, we have Sebastien. And I – the executive members that I've mentioned this late last week. And we also have with us some staff members: Marco – I'm not going to do last names because it will be totally confusing. We have Marco and Alice from our Brussels office. And they will be joining us today to talk on the first agenda item about the affirmation of commitments volunteers and the process regarding that.

Speaker: Has someone woken up Cheryl?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be me.

Speaker: Ah.

Heidi Ullrich: Ah, here we have Cheryl. Welcome, Cheryl.

Speaker: That takes a fair amount of willpower to wake yourself up at that time.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, that's why I request start up. Now I did also mention maybe using an Adobe room if we were going to share some documents. Has that happened or not?

Alan Greenburg: There is one up.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent.

Alan Greenburg: The address is in the agenda and on the ExCom Skype (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'll have to – no, the agenda – I'll have to refresh, that's all.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes. Seth, if you have a chance, if you could join us in the Adobe Connect Room? And how you would do that at the moment is just signing in with your first name as a guest. And again the –

Seth Green: I'm sorry, Heidi. Would you kindly just repeat that?

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, the Adobe Connect Room. The link to that will be –

Vanda Scartezini: Vanda.

Heidi Ullrich: – will be on the top of our agenda page on the Wiki that I just sent you.

Operator: Joined.

Seth Green: Yes.

Heidi Ullrich: And when you click on that, you just sign in as a guest, just by putting your first name on that.

Seth Green: Okay, thank you, Heidi.

Seth Green: And then you'll be able to join us – what this room allows us to do is share documents so we can all look at the same document and we can also chat with each other.

Seth Green: Now embarrassingly, Heidi, I don't see where the Adobe Connect link is on the Wiki page yet.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, you might need to refresh if you're still using the one that I sent you last – on Friday. So the one that I just sent you today –

Seth Green: Right, no I've refreshed.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, it will be on top of the agenda page.

Alan Greenburg: Should be just above Items for Discussion.

Seth Green: Ah, thank you. Yes, I have it. Thank you very much.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's all right, Seth. That's exactly what I was saying. Hang I'll have to refresh.

Heidi Ullrich: Exactly.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Vanda. She's talking to someone else.

Alan Greenburg: Or she's talking to us. We never can quite tell.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, I know. I'm talking with you.

Alan Greenburg: Then you need to talk louder.

Vanda Scartezini: What is the connection? It's Adobe in the Wiki?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Vanda we need to buy you a new telephone.

Vanda Scartezini: No, it's the (inaudible) of Carnival here.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well if we've got to get over Carnival I expect it'd be quite a challenge.

Vanda Scartezini: (Inaudible)

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Have you got the Wiki agenda up?

Alan Greenburg: The links are in the ExCom chat if you need them. I have to keep telling people that because I'm so proud I actually put them there ahead of time. Must be the first time I didn't need to ask for them.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, is Marco with us then? Who have we got on the call?

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, we have –

Marco Lorenzoni: Hi.

Heidi Ullrich: Hi, we have Marco; we have Alice Jensen as well. We have Dave, we have Sebastien, Alan, Seth Green has joined us. And we also have Marco and myself. And (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, no Carlton yet?

Vanda Scartezini: And Vanda.

Heidi Ullrich: Oh, and Vanda. Sorry, Vanda.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And Carlton?

Alan Greenburg: Haven't heard him.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: He was on my earlier call, so I did say don't forget you're on another call.

Alan Greenburg: Marco and Alice only have until half past the hour, so we probably should –

Gisela: Sorry to interrupt. It's Gisela. Carlton is currently on voicemail. We'll try and track him down. Thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thanks, Gisela. Since he was on that earlier call, so I knew he did know about it. Okay, perhaps he'll be joining us soon. So if we have a look in the – is everyone in the Adobe room? Vanda's not with us yet, but she will be soon in the Adobe room.

So top of the agenda for today is looking at the AoC volunteer – an AoC volunteer review team process. And as you know, Marco and Alice, sorry for you to be diving in the deep end with all of this, but parts of – various parts of ICANN community and certainly some of the leadership of some of the advisory committees and support organizations have been less than thrilled and excited about the timing and aspects of this process. And we've tripped over a couple of those issues.

So hopefully our chat this morning, this afternoon, or this evening, depending on what time zone you're in, might go some way forward to not only making sure that you guys, as sort of managing some of the incoming on all of this and dealing with the interface onto what goes forward for a final decision, and us might be able to start to work from at least an understanding, if not an agreement on the merits of what we'll be doing.

So Alan, you've got the draft you've put together that's based on a lot of details and a lot of work. Do you want to take us through that in the room? Or how do you want to proceed?

Alan Greenburg: Sure, I can do that. Does everyone have it on – does everyone have access to Adobe now and has it on the screen? Is there anyone who doesn't?

Vanda Scartezini: I have in the screen, but I'm not (inaudible) the Adobe. (Inaudible)

Alan Greenburg: All right.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, Vanda, but you'll have to yell at us as well, because it's very hard to hear you. So we have something that we're planning on sending out to our community so our community at least has some sense of understanding. Alan, it's all yours.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. In starting to draft this, I realized that at least parts of our community will not have read all the documents and digested them. So the first page of the document attempts to outline all of the background issues that must be addressed in this process. I don't need – I don't think I – has everyone read them and is everyone happy with what's there? I don't think I said anything too controversial.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, it's not.

Alan Greenburg: I can't scroll this document. I don't know who has control of it. Usually these documents are scrollable, but not this case.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, right now all I've got is blank white spaces, so I’m hoping I'm not the only one.

Alan Greenburg: Try refreshing. You may be the only one. Ah, now everything is –

Matthias Langenegger: Now you have the authorization, Alan, I guess. Go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: All right. Cheryl, do you have anything yet?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, but it takes a long time for things to get to the Antipodes and back. Go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: Well, do you have another copy of the document you can look at?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I've got it open in Google Docs as well.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, so I'm essentially – I've summarized what the affirmation requires in terms of reviews and specifically the first review, which must be done by the end of this calendar year. Talks about the membership of it, which says there will be the GAC – the ICANN board represented by their chairs or delegates, and the US Department of Commerce, and representatives of the relevant advisory committees in supporting organizations.

Now, Marco, a question for you. The wording says, "Or their delegates in front of the whole thing." Is the intent that anyone can have a designated nominee? Or just the chairs?

Marco Lorenzoni: The two chairs. And the intent, I think of the affirmation of commitment, both the GAC chair and the board chair could participate directly or through their designated nominees.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, because that isn't quite what it says, but I assumed that was the intent.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: The composition is supposed to be selected by the chair of the GAC and the chair of the board.

Marco Lorenzoni: Correct.

Alan Greenburg: It is not clear just how that is done. The paper also says – or actually the affirmation says that the composition of the team will be published for public comment. It is not clear that there's any process to deal with those comments, so I don't know how relevant to our process. Marco, again if you have any insight in this, you could please just jump in.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, well the only insight I can give you on this is that time importantly is so tight for the first review that unfortunately all the processes need to be reduced in terms of land in order to be able – the review teams to deliver in October, let's say, their draft final report for final comments from the community for the presentation of the final report by the end of the year.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, but the confusing thing is the proposal did say there would be public comment, but no suggestion what they're – what will be done with them. So I'm assuming nothing.

The call for applications went out in January. And we have pointed out in our comments to it that we would think that one person representing At-Large, given the diverse community that we have, is not going to be sufficient to properly represent us.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, the – on this I can add that it is also the same position of many other comments we got to the public comments. We are just now, with Alice, finalizing the public comments and hopefully those will be published very, very soon. I hope by the end of this week.

Alan Greenburg: Is your perception that there will be any change in it based on those comments?

Marco Lorenzoni: I cannot pretend to speak on behalf of Johannes and Peter.

Alan Greenburg: I understand.

Marco Lorenzoni: But for sure there is (inaudible) from different components of the community for having review teams larger than what has been proposed in the draft proposal.

Alan Greenburg: So in our work, we should assume that there may well be more than one. But no guarantee.

Marco Lorenzoni: (Inaudible). I think it would be very wise for ALAC to have more than one candidate to put forward, more candidates.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well in the case of GNSO – this is Cheryl here – in the case of the GNSO, they're going to put forward six candidates, so it should be fun.

Alan Greenburg: Indeed. And the GAC I'm sure will put forward at least 35. So.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, they've got a chair or a nominee. They know exactly what they're doing, unlike the community.

Alan Greenburg: You know what the proposal said; you don't know what they're asking.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, true.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. The wording in the draft proposal and the call for applicants was very confusing in that it says, "Candidates must be endorsed by the supporting organization or advisory council," yet were forwarded directly to ICANN and do not have any explicit requirement in them that they say even what group they are – say they're going to be representing or what to be representing. I understand that is being addressed by Marco and Alice by asking for clarification if it's not obvious what the answer is.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, it is the case. And there was practically a requirement in the code for candidates to spell out the identity of their supporting organizations. In fact, some of them already indicated their supporting organization or advisory committee and some not. In this case, we address the issue by diverting immediately back to the candidates and as soon as we are receiving this further piece of information, we immediately send the candidate two package to the relevant supporting organization. (Inaudible)

Alan Greenburg: Okay. I have seen the one –

Marco Lorenzoni: (Inaudible) that we received over the last day – over the last period of time.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. I have seen the one for Kurt Snyder. I have not seen the one for Christopher Wilkinson. Has anyone else seen it in our site?

Marco Lorenzoni: It went out, I think, half an hour ago.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Marco Lorenzoni: No, because we just received the (inaudible) information with (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: Okay, has anyone – have any others been received?

Marco Lorenzoni: From people mentioning ALAC?

Alan Greenburg: Yes.

Marco Lorenzoni: No.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Marco Lorenzoni: We'll see the others from other circles, let's say. Other (inaudible) groups or other constituencies, but none from ALAC.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. The original request was that applications be in by midnight of the 17th. And I assume that meant at the end of the 17th. Is that correct?

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, that's correct. And we extended it to the 22nd.

Alan Greenburg: It would be useful in the future – you say 23:59, so we know which day it is midnight of.

Marco Lorenzoni: You are perfectly right. I am revising that, thank you.

Alan Greenburg: Each date does have two midnights.

Marco Lorenzoni: Correct.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. The original paper said you hope to have the review team selected three days after the end of the deadline. The new – with the revised deadline, there has been no dates mentioned. I don't really care when you will select the people by, but it is critical that we know what the absolute deadline is for us giving our endorsements.

Marco Lorenzoni: For you – I mean once that we receive all the candidate (inaudible) of course, we will continue all the candidates that we receive mentioning ALAC. The very ultimate deadlines for us that having your endorsement – and sorry for using this term, it's a – the term that is – has been used in the affirmation of commitment is so vague, that it's difficult even to rephrase or (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, Marco, no need for you to apologize.

Marco Lorenzoni: Your endorsement is the 1st of March.

Alan Greenburg: 1st of March.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes.

Vanda Scartezini: So we have time.

Marco Lorenzoni: Really at the latest, 1st of March, we need your endorsement, blessing, or approval, or anything you are able to deliver to –

Alan Greenburg: So essentially we have seven days.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But we have a meeting on the 23rd.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Well we do, but we have a deadline now a week later.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, Marco, and I assume that is the end of business on the 1st? Or --?

Marco Lorenzoni: End of business, 1st of March, yes.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. End of business on the West Coast. On the US West Coast.

Marco Lorenzoni: Your time zone.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Which still sticks in my craw.

Alan Greenburg: I don't care when it is. I'm just trying to get clarity on what it is.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, mixing metaphors and mixing time zones.

Alan Greenburg: So we're talking around about 9:00 AM UTC on the 1st of March, which is –

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, if it's –

Alan Greenburg: No, I'm sorry. I just did it backwards.

Vanda Scartezini: No, 9:00 PM.

Marco Lorenzoni: Wait. 23:59 UTC. 23:59 UTC.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. That's not quite end of business. That's end of business on the East Coast. That's fine. Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that's okay too, as along as we have (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: End of the calendar day UTC March 1st.

Marco Lorenzoni: Excellent.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. All right, so now we have some clarity. We'll adjust the document based on that. Yes. The GNSO has explicitly said they want some additional information that is not explicitly called for in the document. I believe we will want something similar. How do we do that? Just specify it to you and you will make sure to ask a further question if it isn't already contained in their motivational letter?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Going to be problematic for those who've already prepared, I would have thought.

Marco Lorenzoni: Sorry. The only – with the GNSO, what we agreed is that to people submitting applications before the 18th, because the 18th the GNSO will decide on the possible further additional information. We will inform people that CSO council will revert directly to them with the request of staff additional information. If you need to do the same, we can do the same also for you. No problem.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. Well we will not be formally meeting until after the end of the deadline, so – but that's an internal problem we will have to address.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay. So would you prefer to deal directly with candidates?

Alan Greenburg: Well I think we will deal with any we know about once we make the decision. And as how we'll make the decision, we need to decide later in this meeting. But once we've – when and if we make a decision, we will let you know for all future applicants.

Marco Lorenzoni: Great.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. That's done. Now the proposal says that any people we endorse will be – who are not selected for this review will be carried forward into further ones. I presume we can endorse someone, but for one committee only and they not be carried over. Is that correct?

Marco Lorenzoni: In the vagueness of the affirmation of commitment, the final decision on membership is with the two selectors, so yes, Johannes is (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, Marco? Marco, Cheryl here. That's not the vagueness of the AoC. That's the vagueness of the call for expressions of interest from the public that went out. I agree there's more vagueness than we can be reasonably expected to deal with, but that's not a vagueness of the AoC. That's a vagueness of the call for applicants people are responding to.

Alan Greenburg: And the draft process.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And the draft process, which we've already complained about.

Marco Lorenzoni: Which (inaudible) on the text of the affirmation of committee.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, so I will work on the assumption, and you can tell me if it is a bad assumption, that if we explicitly say these people are being endorsed for the ANT review only, we will not be overwritten in some further review. As I said, I am working on that assumption that we are going to issue a time-limited endorsement. When we have more time, we may use a different process for the future ones.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, Marco, you see where we're heading with this. That with the way everything is written, from the process on we have huge issues. We're trying to find a way through so it is not obstructive and rather will work, at least for this time critical exercise. The fact that it is time critical we recognize. The fact that it needs to be we disagree with, but that's another story. And what we want to make sure is that if we put in limitations to our endorsement for this ANC review team process, that we would have some indication that will be powerful or be taken any notice of.

And I’m not sure that you're in a position to tell us the answer to that, but you are in a position to make sure that it's clearly understood, at least within the ICANN staff structure, because I can assure you me and a couple of the other AC and SO chairmen who are meeting later today will be making very certain that it's clear to the board. Won't we, Vanda?

Alan Greenburg: I think for clarity, the person we select for an accountability and transparency review is not necessarily the same one that we would select for a security and stability review. Number one.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely.

Alan Greenburg: And the person that we recommend for a security stability review is not necessarily the same one who we would pick for a consumer protection issue.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good.

Alan Greenburg: These are very, very different reviews and we are reserving the right to select who we believe is best for each of them.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, it makes total sense. It goes (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we know that you have seen those results – or would be seeing those results as you – as Alice quantifies and looks at the comments. But our problem is this process we're in the middle of now makes some clear, public statements and assumptions. And we're actually ICANN to pull back or overturn them. And that one is one of them.

Alan Greenburg: Marco, you just said what we're asking for makes complete sense. We think so also, and it would be nice if the ICANN leadership, who has issued these proposals in the call for applications, would have agreed with us ahead of time. But we weren't given that option.

Okay, lastly the GAC and the board in the AoC are given the – what I think is the courtesy of being represented by their chair or a delegate. When will that delegate have to be identified? Specifically, if you say the team will be selected by the 1st, is the chair – are the chair of the GAC and the chair of the – not the first, but we'll start on the 1st – are the two chairs required to identify their delegate ahead of time? Or is that a courtesy, which they can fill in later? It is a really important question.

Marco Lorenzoni: Up to the – yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And then we have something from Sebastien.

Marco Lorenzoni: (Inaudible) because there is no precise prescription on the process of that being requested by the affirmation of commitment.

Alan Greenburg: Yes, I mean specifically what we're asking is do we have the option of – by saying we will name a delegate to represent the person, and that as well you'll get at the beginning?

Marco Lorenzoni: So you want the right to name a delegate to (inaudible)?

Alan Greenburg: Well, we might. We – as I say, we have a process we have to go through. And the question is, do we have that right also? And does that right allow us to name the person after the 1st? Sebastien?

Marco Lorenzoni: You mean an alternate member?

Alan Greenburg: No, an alternate is someone who – she's on the mailing lists but doesn't speak in a meeting presumably, if the first one is there. We're talking about – just like right now, the chair of the board may sit on this committee, or the chair may name someone else to represent him. We are saying do we have that capability – can we have that capability also?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The thing is though – let's just hear what Sebastien wants to say while Marco works on that. And Marco, if it helps, for example, we have quite seriously discussed with this first very important issue of ANT that the At-Large advisory committee, when it meets on the 23rd, may prefer to put in a person. There is no process for us to put in a person. There is only a process for us to endorse or otherwise those people who put themselves in. Sebastien, go ahead.

Sebastien: Yes, I think it's an important point and question today. In the process there is no possibility to name people. And we have just to wait for people who come through the ICANN process back to us to be endorsed. And that's a part – it's a difficult part of the thing.

The second point is that we have really – you have really – or the two chairs really to think about that we are not representing a government and the government can speak on behalf of all the governments of the world obviously, and about any type of question because they don't know anything and they are able to do – to speak about everything.

We want to have somebody who are really relevant to the review. And not just relevant for us, but also for him or herself because I am the chair. For example, if we take the name of Christopher Wilkinson, because it's on the list now. If he's willing to be candidate for the – let's for the (inaudible) review, and then I am the chair that's even you ask those candidates who came for the first review to be sure that they agreed to be on the list of the next ones. And then it just – it's not just a question for the group to decide, but it's also a question for the people to decide if they want to be or not to be on the list of the next review team organization.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, before we continue, Marco, how much more time do you have?

Marco Lorenzoni: Ten minutes, something like that. Sorry, just to understand because really maybe it was a linguistic problem, but I have difficulties in understanding your points. In other terms, you were asking whether it would be possible for ALAC to suggest a list of priorities among the members you are to propose for candidate (inaudible) for this position. Is that correct for you?

Alan Greenburg: It is one of the things we are considering.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's one question.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay. So I see no obstacle for you to do this. It's when submitting the application, just give the (inaudible) priority.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Marco, can I give you an example? Marco?

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Cheryl here. Can I give you an example, which might make it clear linguistic challenged or otherwise? There has been a proposal that says the ALAC should say that it is the ALAC chair or their delegate who should be on this review team. How in the advertised process, all the calls for applications can we do that? Because it's not a person, it's a role. All right? Now maybe you can't answer that, but that's the issue we're trying to answer.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because that's not a person. There is no mechanism for that to go forward. And can you imagine how we as a community, let alone as an advisory committee will react if we put that forward and Mrs. Jemison from West Kenya is put in in preference over the ALAC chair or their nominee by the chair of the GAC and the chair of the board?

Alan Greenburg: Well, Cheryl, I'm assuming that if we do not endorse someone, they cannot be picked.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What makes you say that?

Alan Greenburg: I just said it because it said applicants must be endorsed to be considered.

Marco Lorenzoni: (Inaudible) information (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: They must be endorsed to be considered, but it does not mean that it we put (inaudible) –

Alan Greenburg: Hold on.

Marco Lorenzoni: (Inaudible) representatives of the relevant supporting organizations (inaudible) committees.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It doesn't mean if we put a ranking in that it can be assumed that they will be taken in that preference order.

Alan Greenburg: No, it does not. But if we only endorse one person, they have no choice but to take that person.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Which means – that brings me back to my other point that I've been having on – not with Marco on the calls but with all of you on the calls, and that is again thanks to the mechanisms of this process and the poor timing of these things being mismatched between community feedback and the process having to begin, how we are going to manage the collateral damage with our members who have put themselves who have put themselves forward in good faith to then be told the community they would like to represent doesn't have sufficient faith in them to do so and to have that public. That'll go down well.

Alan Greenburg: Well there's many things that aren't going to go down well. I just said that if we only endorse one person, we are guaranteeing that person goes in and ignoring the fact that we can't name the chair. However, if in their wisdom the two – the board chair and the GAC chair decide we're really going to allow two At-Large people –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well then at the moment – yes.

Alan Greenburg: Then we've only endorsed one and we've restricted ourselves to one. The whole process is somewhat outrageous. However –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Flawed.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. Marco has six more minutes. Can we --?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Let's make the best of it we can.

Alan Greenburg: Can we go ahead?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. So Marco, we need to try and make the best of this that we can. And this is why we need this call with you and we need some feedback before what you see in front of you goes out to our community, because our community now has to debate it, and it has caused us huge problems.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, there are some very critical questions that we have not a clue about. The one perhaps more important one is to what extent is this committee going to work, or this review team going to work in camera? That is, without communication back to the groups they are representing? The proposal said that the work team, once it's created, will set up its own working rules. If we do not know ahead of time whether our representative will be allowed to talk to us, will be allowed to ask us questions, whether we will be allowed to participate in the process at arm's length or not. Can you provide any clarity on this at this point?

Marco Lorenzoni: No, I can't. I can't provide any clarity on this because the (inaudible) is to be decided by the review teams. And really from the top of my head, I imagine the process for the teams in which they need both in camera meetings and the public meetings. It's entirely in the hands of the review team.

Alan Greenburg: Well I'm not as worried about whether the meetings are really in camera but whether our representative can interact with us on a regular basis going through or not.

Marco Lorenzoni: The only thing I can say is there is a request, which is absolutely identical from you and from GNSO, for instance, to have this kind of mechanism of liaison between the people you are going to nominate and the community. So I will – I imagine that the review teams, when adopting their methodology, will make this possible. But this is in the hands of the review team.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. To be candid, the GNSO request suggested that the Chatham House Rules or a slight modification would be acceptable. I don't believe that would be to us. I mean just imagine, we are talking about an accountability and transparency review.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Without any.

Alan Greenburg: The process of which has not been transparent at all and the actual carrying it out may be very un-transparent, with no accountability.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And Marco, this is one of the reasons that the question of the ALAC saying the chair of the ALAC or their nominee. Not a person, but an entity role may be the most appropriate single recommendation or endorsement to put forward because then we have as a community a firm accountability mechanism for whoever is on this review team. In other words, the ALAC itself has a clear control and command relationship and a set of expectations for the person they have in this review team to act in the best interests of the community.

Marco Lorenzoni: From a personal point of view, it is difficult for me to disagree with you. But once again, it's not in my hands. It's in the hands of the review team.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We understand.

Alan Greenburg: Well can we get a ruling from the two chairs as to whether that will be acceptable in their selection process or not?

Marco Lorenzoni: I think you have the legitimate right to ask for this.

Alan Greenburg: Can we ask for it through you or do we need to go through other processes?

Marco Lorenzoni: No problem at all. Can you put this in an email and we'll send it immediately to Johannes (inaudible)?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can you leave that until after 11:00 my local time today? You may find it comes from more than just the ALAC, Marco.

Marco Lorenzoni: Please?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think you might find that request will come from more than just the ALAC.

Marco Lorenzoni: Yes, no problem.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So the answer is yes, I think you'll find something will be coming to address this particular issue. Heidi, have you captured that for us, please?

Heidi Ullrich: Matthias is taking notes, so –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. That's all (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: I think several of us understand the issue.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fine, but I'll want it while I can use before my 0930 today. Thank you. Because I want to give the other people I'm talking to at –

Alan Greenburg: Is that – by the way, is that a meeting that vice chairs are invited to?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, it's not even a full ACSO meeting.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, no just asking. Okay. Let me go through.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You might – you'll find a full meeting will probably follow up from it, but –

Alan Greenburg: I just wanted to know if I had something missing on my calendar or not.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, you don't.

Alan Greenburg: Good. All right, I think that's all we need to clear up with you. You can read the rest of our document. We have some virtually impossible tasks ahead of us. Not only are we not likely to be able to involve At-Large, and the ALSs, and the RALOs, I don't even see how we can effectively involve the whole ALAC at this point, given the timeframes. Which puts us in a, as Cheryl said, a position of explaining to our community why on such a crucial issue they have been virtually excluded.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Deliberately.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. Is there anything else we need to clarify with Marco and Alice before they take leave?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I know that we're very much aware it's not Marco and Alice's – it's not an issue of their making.

Alan Greenburg: Not their doing. I do thank you, by the way, before we go ahead, for the full week after the applications are in to actually look at them. That's far better than the one day the previous scenario had.

Marco Lorenzoni: No problem.

Alan Greenburg: So to the extent you were responsible for that, thank you.

Marco Lorenzoni: No (inaudible).

Sebastien: I just want to add one point to you, Alice and Marco. Don't take all what's extended to you as a – by the people who want to be candidates as the truth. I already see some untruth in some emails and by some of them. And first ask us if you want to know what is our position on one of the other subjects. And sometime – something could be written even by some people of our team or At-Large or RALOs, and that something who could be understood by people inside, but if it's said by the same way to outsider, it will not be understood.

Alan Greenburg: Sebastien, may I be very specific on this? I know you don't want to say anything impolite. May I?

Sebastien: I can go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: No, I was –

Sebastien: Okay, go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: I was trying to save you the problem. Specifically, Sebastien as an active participant in your RALO does not know the basis of the decision that the chair of the ARALO sent to you.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay, that probably – yes.

Alan Greenburg: Specifically Wolf said that your RALO endorses Christopher. It's not clear what process your RALO followed to do that. So please be careful in what you send to – even send me public lists. And by the way, the ALAC ExCom list is a public list.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Is public.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So we now have a situation where we're forced into a de facto recognition of something that we know (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: Hold on. We have Cheryl and Marco talking at the same time.

Marco Lorenzoni: (Inaudible) work we got from you. So just say that if you want to use a different email list, no problem at all. And from our side, of course, there is the commitment to send you all the applications received mentioning ALAC as soon as we see them. So (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: I have no problem with you using that list; just don't put in your words that a RALO has endorsed someone, for instance. If the chair says it, that's his or her problem.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Marco do you see what you're being told? All right? We've got emails from you – well, from Alice, that says EURALO has endorsed Christopher Wilson – Wilkinson. That's in a list that is publicly archivable and readable. Now we just have to take that at face value despite the fact that you have now been told very clearly that there has been no RALO-based endorsement process for you to have ever had that information concerned. And we were trying to make sure the mess of these problems happen between now and almost midnight on the 22nd rather than more of these problems happen.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay, no problem.

Alan Greenburg: It's not only our ICANN in general who has political problems; we have our own.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Quite literally now. ALAC is in some ways being forced to accept or to reject all things that haven't gone through a formalized process.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, we can't fix the overall process.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No. More's the pity.

Alan Greenburg: Indeed.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So Marco, it's not in any way a criticism of you and Alice. It's just we need to establish how we move forward both within our community, but also to make sure that what's happening in good faith under perfect circumstances between you as you see to us who's coming through and we're happy for that to come to the ExCom list, because that is public, and we are very transparent in what we do. That's fine. But the assumptions, it – words like "endorsed" can't happen until after a formal meeting of the ALAC after the 22nd for anyone.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay, no problem. The –

Alan Greenburg: And just to be clear, despite what Mr. Snyder thinks, neither Cheryl nor the ALAC has endorsed him so far.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What we've said is we'll be happy to put forward his name and we'll discuss.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, thank you, Marco.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And thank you, Alice. Sorry that particularly to Alice, she must feel like she's drowning not wading. Things are not always this exciting in ICANN. Often, but not always.

Marco Lorenzoni: Okay, see you all.

Alice Jensen: Thank you.

Marco Lorenzoni: Bye.

Heidi Ullrich: Thank you, Marco. Thank you, Alice.

Vanda Scartezini: Thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastien, you've still got your hand up.

Sebastien: No.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Hi, Seth. Welcome to our world.

Seth Green: Welcome, yes. Thank you.

Heidi Ullrich: So that was just a very welcoming introduction, so get used to it.

Alan Greenburg: We are really nice people.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Crap we are. You said, Alan, and I'll have your balls for breakfast. Seth, let's make that real clear from the beginning of it all.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, some of us are nice people.

Seth Green: Yes. I apologize for my public/private comment in the chat box so far. I –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's all right. I entrapped you beautifully, thank you.

Heidi Ullrich: I just – I wanted to introduce formally to you first, before we're going to be sending Seth's bio to the list probably tomorrow. I wanted to give you a chance to speak with him and learn a little bit about him. Cheryl, you're laughing.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I just wish we had video running on this at the same time. Be so much fun if I could see Seth's face through some of that call in the last 10 minutes.

Heidi Ullrich: Cheryl, I had a long talk with Seth on Friday and the – rather than talking policy, I talked about who the executive committee – the members, and gave a little bit of background. So he's – he has some indication already.

Alan Greenburg: I think in the interest of transparency, you should tell us what you told him.

Seth Green: Or at least parts of it at least. Not everything.

Heidi Ullrich: I'm sorry, Seth?

Seth Green: Parts of it if not everything (inaudible).

Heidi Ullrich: Actually I'm thinking that just the last few minutes may have given him a good indication already. But on a more serious note, Seth comes to us very much awaited and very much ready to start and to dive into the At-Large improvements. His background is really impressive. He's worked in the nonprofit sector for the World Bank, the micro finance center for Central and Eastern Europe, and the Open Society Institute. And he's worked in that context with a very diverse global community. He's worked particularly in areas of Eastern and Central Europe, of emerging markets as well. He also has a lot of experience as an editor, so he will be able to help us with our documents and our reporting, and our projects. So Seth, do you – would you like to talk a little bit about your background? Things that I --?

Seth Green: Sure, thank you, Heidi. Briefly, let's see. I think by way of self description, I'd just like to add – say a little more that among the resources that hopefully I'll be bringing to my work supporting ALAC is my – as you said, somewhat extensive experience working with a variety of diverse global communities. But interestingly I like to think diverse not just geographically, but certainly diverse socioeconomically. That's the benefit, and granted, the challenge of having worked at least at times in micro finance.

Another benefit, hopefully, of my experience is that the time flexibility required by an organization as geographically spread out as yours and of ALAC specifically won't be too much of a shock to my system. I think I've long been sleeping with one eye open. So you'll no doubt appreciate that, I have a bad feeling. But seriously –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sleeping with one eye open, Seth, is very handy anyway.

Seth Green: I'm realizing how much so from this meeting. But seriously, most importantly though, I would like to say that I do have an enormous respect for what ALAC does to represent individual Internet users in the development of policy – of Internet policy. I believe you'll be relieved to know, I hope, that I think I have a clear, though granted still very nascent understanding of how the planned improvements will help you do that. And honestly, I'm very sincerely excited to get started. I think that's all I have for now probably. But thanks. Thank you to the executive committee, and of course, Heidi to you too for this opportunity. I'm glad to be here.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm very certain that we're all very glad to have you because we have a huge amount of work to progress in implementing the outcomes as the ALAC review process, some of which has a great, for obvious reasons, received more community attention and committee attention than others. But to have a guiding hand, and a synthesis, and a project manager who not only knows what they're doing, but knows who they're working with as opposed to for or despite, is going to be incredibly useful for us to reach our own benchmarks. And that I think the other thing is, yes it's challenging, yes it's exciting, yes it will keep you on your toes, but you'll get many more smiles than you will tears. I'm fairly confident at that.

Alan Greenburg: Two quick questions. Seth, assuming where in Nairobi are you going to be?

Seth Green: I am told by Heidi that I will be participating remotely.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, that is due to the additional cuts that we've made of staff who are going to be attending Nairobi on the ground. But we are going to bring him in remotely, particularly on the Sunday afternoon session, if not the entire workshop session, because that day we'll really be focusing on a lot on the At-Large improvements issue. And as well as the executive committee meeting on Friday the 12th where there is going to be an agenda item of discussing the At-Large improvements, and particularly the budget with Kevin. So we'll bring him in remotely that was as well.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's another thing for us to mourn the penny pinching small-minded view of how monies are best applied in this organization because it is an ideal opportunity for us to work so productively and do the getting to know you is very, very important working with diverse culturally, linguistically and geographically diverse groups. And I'm sure I won't be the only one who'll take future opportunities. I've certainly taken previous opportunities.

My most recent one was in a discussion I had on my Saturday morning for a 45-minute call with Denise looking at transition between her and David's role that not having Seth supported to come to the Nairobi meeting is a huge shame and certainly something that I think is a great regret and a false economy. But you're all working under particularly tight controls at the moment. And we realize there's nothing you can all do about it, but we appreciate your willingness to work in the remote world, Seth, because it isn't easy. And everyone on this call are veterans on – in excess of eight or nine hour solid teleconferencing, so we do know what we're asking you to do. So thank you greatly for that.

Seth Green: Sure, thank you, Cheryl. I'll do everything I can doing Nairobi, I assure you to make you not regret that I'm not there in person.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, it will be the only thing you probably will appreciate is the fact that you won't have to be sort of on buses getting carted around the streets of Kenya for hours on end in traffic jams to move very small amounts of time – of distance, sorry. And do remember to use your mute button when you make your coffee, your toast, and flush the loo.

Seth Green: Thank you for that. You've been my biggest technology teacher so far.

Heidi Ullrich: Alan, you said you had a couple of questions.

Alan Greenburg: Well the second question isn't as relevant. I was going to ask is your picture up on the ICANN website yet, but if we're not going to meet you in Nairobi, you have a bit of time before you have to do that.

Seth Green: Right, yes. I hope it's not, only because I have not submitted one. So it'd be very scary if you Internet people have one up already.

Alan Greenburg: Actually only having you remotely perhaps increases the need to have that picture.

Seth Green: Right, okay. Will do.

Heidi Ullrich: We'll get that sorted out too. We are actually getting him set up for an ICANN email today or tomorrow. Today is a public holiday in the US, but we'll have that tomorrow. And we are also bringing him out to Marina del Rey Thursday and Friday for a face-to-face discussions as well. So (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: Where are you stationed?

Seth Green: In New York.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Seth, one other question. We're increasing the – and some of us are pushing it more than others. I'm in the pushing it more than the average pile – at trying to use some collaborative and communication tools that we can integrate and go cross platform with that includes Google Wave. So if you have a gmail account, we probably find it's – you can – I can get you onto Google Wave with any email account, but a gmail account brings with it all the other Google things, like when you've decided whether you're visible or not and various other things. So if you let Heidi know that or we'll also join you into our ExCom and other Skype chats and things.

One of the advantages we've found, for example, working with some of our representatives from China where they cannot access Google Documents, they can in fact access, at least at this stage, Google Mail and also their Wave – their Google Wave form. So if we put up a collaborative document, a Google Doc within the Wave form, they can see what we're editing and participate by one degree of separation. But nevertheless, be actively involved in that open collaborative tool. So you might want to get that set up as well.

Seth Green: Yes, Heidi's actually explained that to me, and I have sent my Google address to Marilyn. And we'll certainly get that set up.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Heidi, if you can just ping that to me, I'll get him invited while we're on the call.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I will do that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you.

Seth Green: Thank you, Cheryl.

Heidi Ullrich: Any other questions? Sebastien, do you have any questions? Or Carleton? Or Dave? Are they on the call still?

Sebastien: Yes, I have no questions.

Speaker: (Inaudible) questions (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: I have a comment.

Heidi Ullrich: Oh, Vanda as well.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: Just a candid comment that we have a number of very active people on – in At-Large and a number of very inactive ones. And the work is not always equitably spread over the entire community or entire At-Large advisory committee. An unfortunately part of your responsibility in overseeing the implementation of the various new things is going to have to include a fair amount of prodding and perhaps backdoor comments to people that you're not getting those responses or participation that you need. Or people who volunteer for things they're not delivering. And we understand that it's a problem and we're willing to work with you to try to fix it. So don't be shy in telling us that there are problems they've got going on as we proceed forward.

Seth Green: All right, will do. Thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. All right. Guess while I'm wandering around the wonderful world of Wave making sure Seth's gmail account has got an invitation so he'll see us there shortly, Sebastien, can you, seeing as we've already utilized Alan fairly extensively, just take us into the next agenda item for our formal meeting now please?

Sebastien: Okay. We – the next item, it's review of At-Large improvement (inaudible) I guess.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. And to that end, Heidi, are you in a position of putting up your draft that is going –

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, it's in the Adobe Connect.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, please so we can all share.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, it's in the Adobe Connect.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And you should already have my feedback. You just pinged me going doing I wish to review --?

Heidi Ullrich: No, I – sorry. I have your feedback, Cheryl. I wanted to know given where we are in the agenda and the time, do you want to – would you like to --?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah, so basically you were psychically connected to the next thing in the agenda. So the answer is yes, Heidi. We're doing that now.

Alan Greenburg: I'm totally lost, but I'm assuming you people know what you're talking about.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Very rarely, but yes, it'll be fine in a minute.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so I just wanted to highlight that I did prepare a very draft update on where we are on the At-Large improvements. And that is in the Adobe Connect now. Now this one's basically – this document is just a chronological table of where we are and I'll be – Cheryl's already very usefully added some comments. Marco has as well. But just given the time and I'm wondering whether we should discuss this maybe tomorrow Cheryl with Seth?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm happy for everyone else to have a quick look at it, but I think it's important that they know why it's the way it is and who's the intended audience.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, the intended audience is the – are the members of the SIC and the governance – the BGC. And they have asked for, including Cheryl – the meeting that we're going to be holding Tuesday in Nairobi with the members of the SIC and the BGC have requested a discussion both the At-Large director selection process as well as where we are with the other issues of the At-Large review implementation. So Marco is going to be preparing the report for the At-Large director selection process, and this is just a brief note on where we are with the At-Large improvements plan outline.

The primary updates really are on the Google documents with the various sheets of all the recommendations.

Alan Greenburg: Heidi, just a quick question. The document that Marco is going to prepare on the board member selection, will we see a copy of that?

Heidi Ullrich: I would hope so, yes. I have been trying to get a copy of it as well.

Alan Greenburg: It would be nice if we could see it prior to its distribution, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes. Well this is the one – I will ask him to send the one that is going to be for discussion during that meeting, yes.

Sebastien: I love this organization who admits to have a document made by staff on behalf of a document made by people like us. I really – (inaudible) I think is working. Why we need to duplicate the work and so on and so forth. But nevertheless.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastien, just on that point, I believe ExCom was all copied in on where this came from. There was a quite unsatisfactory moment whereby my reading of where the chairman of the structural improvements committee was trying to head with our requests to meet with the SIC regarding the – all parts of our improvements implementation, inclusive of the appointment process for a board member was, "Oh dear, no look. We won't have a meeting about that because it's got to do with board review things and we have to wait for briefings."

So my response to that was well, we're not asking that – for that to be usurped or got around. We're continuing on from our last face-to-face meeting in Seoul with the structural improvements committee, where we reviewed this bridge sheet document and mooted how we would move forward and in fact have got to where we are today with the – at stage I think that was within 24 hours of releasing for public comment our white paper.

And I think it's not unreasonable for then where a meeting became to involve both the structural improvements committee with a new chair and with a chairman who was not a member of the SIC last time we met them. But also for the board review committee, for them to have a staff synopsis. I'm less concerned this time about that as a matter of duplication and rather more pleased that it gives us I think a nice clarity piece that our members can also benefit from.

What does both me however, is if we don't see what Marco puts together in our name, or it gets down to not about us without us as far as I'm concerned. Your responses Sebastien, because you've still got your hand up?

Sebastien: Yes, I want to thank you for all this exchange with a share of these two committees, because you do that very quietly and I appreciate. I will not have been able to do that at all. It was so painful to read that really. I was just – I think – yes, once again thank you because you were there and you do well.

But it's also very difficult for us as – to have people from the board who say, hey guys, I am new, you need to explain me again what you do. We don't care what's happened before. And that's not what ICANN is. ICANN is supposed to be a continuing organization. If each time we change somebody we change everything, it's not good at all. And I really support that we go ahead with our plan and we will see how it could be linked with what SIC and BGC will be able to do for the board themselves. Thank you.

Alan Greenburg: I will reiterate however that it would be really good if we saw that document for a day or so before it is distributed so we can correct any errors in fact.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. So perhaps Heidi, you could make that really clear to Marco that we know he's had a fun day with us so far, but he would actually start to be getting on thin ice if we didn't have the opportunity to not publicly, just the executive committee, in private if needs be, unofficially if that's the way it has to be. But he really should be encouraged to – capital E – to make sure we have an unofficial if not official signoff on what's going on. In other words, not about us, without us.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, but this is just to clarify. These are going to be two very brief documents for discussion – open discussion during the meeting with the ALAC and the members of the SIC and the BGC.

Alan Greenburg: Heidi, acknowledged, but let's assume that the members of those two committees are diligent and read their documents ahead of time. What they read is what will remain in their brains.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If there is an omission or an error, it should be picked up before it goes to those committees or we're going to spend the first 10 minutes of our 40 minutes meeting making errata corrections.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I'm not going to do that.

Alan Greenburg: But I will and you're not going to appreciate it.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, but – well, yes that's true too. I wouldn't appreciate it.

Heidi Ullrich: I have not seen the document myself.

Alan Greenburg: I – all the more reason for what we're saying.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, yes. I will –

Alan Greenburg: And the deadline is coming very close. I think it's today for submitting things for the board.

Carlton: This is Carlton. I'm driving, I'm almost at the campus, but I just want to bring up this question. If as I read the exchange between Cheryl and Ray, and members of the SIC and BGC, it seems to me that they don't want to have a meeting officially endorsed. Would a letter from the staff not be considered official in that sense?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Staff, how are your briefing papers normally received by SIC and board?

Heidi Ullrich: There are two documents going. One – we'll just call this – it couldn't be an update as requested by Cheryl, you and Ray, for staff updates on where we are with the At-Large review implementation.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, which is perfect timing because Seth gets to put his teeth straight into something at the beginning and make it his own, and we can fight over things, and it'll be fun.

Heidi Ullrich: Exactly. Now those documents again are going to be very brief updates. Marco's drafting the one on where we are with the At-Large director selection process. I'm drafting the one with the other elements. We need to merge those in my belief as well somehow. So I need to talk with Marco about that. I know that the posting deadline is today, but I just don't think that we're going to be able to do that. I haven't even seen, again for the third time, not seen what Marco's drafting.

Now the other document is the one – it's a staff paper that was mandated to be sent to the members of the SIC after the report – and the BGC after the board review final working group released their final document.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Which is the one he spoke to us about at our last meeting and it was on the "as soon as possible" pile.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, and my understanding is that that is something that legal has looked at as well and is going to go to the members of the SIC and the BGC.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we have – yes.

Heidi Ullrich: And I don't – and that document I don't know to what extent is – I'm able to share that et cetera.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. None of us will know until it is blessed for us to look at or not.

Heidi Ullrich: I'm sorry?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I say none of us will know until it is blessed for us to look at or not.

Heidi Ullrich: Exactly. And I don't know whether that blessing's going to be forthcoming on that particular one. While again the other one then, yes, I mean given that it's – that we're calling the meeting, I would assume that the ALAC is going to be – Marco will share that with us.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. In a timely manner. Not here is a copy as I'm sending it to the other people as well.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I've also (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: Or as we walk into the meeting.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, well I've also shared the document that you're now seeing in the At-Large – in the Adobe Connect as well as on the agenda. I've shared that with him as well.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good, okay.

Carlton: This is Carlton. I have to get off the line because I teach for the next 15 minutes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure.

Carlton: I will try to come back, but I will send a note to you on the schedule for the new additions to the pack. And I'll circulate that by email or go online in the chat room and tell you what I've proposing for that. Okay?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Thanks, Carlton. Just before you go, one quick question. It's a piece of any other business, but I want to grab you now. Are you aware of any concern within the Latin American and Caribbean community about meeting number 37 continuing to be held in Nairobi?

Carlton: None at all.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you.

Carlton: None at all, Cheryl.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you.

Carlton: None at all.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you.

Carlton: We'll talk back to you later in a little while. 15 minutes if I'm lucky.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. Thanks, Carlton. Okay.

Carlton: Bye.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so we have 15 minutes left – or at least before Matthias and I really have to leave.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that's fine. Well the most important thing of course was to see where we're heading now with this document because of the deadline. So I don't think there's any problem with this – with your part of this going ahead to be in by deadline party. If Marco can get his part to us, we will be able to respond back promptly, although you would probably pick up on major error if there is any.

Heidi Ullrich: Well the deadline is today for the official board meetings, but again, I'm going to be offline in about 15 minutes. And Marco – I don't know if I can catch him still tonight. I'll write to him tonight but I – I mean right now, but I don't –

Alan Greenburg: Okay, the sooner we can see a copy, if we're going to be allowed to it all the better.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But what I'm saying to you is do you want to put your part – this in now or have Matthias do it now, because he's not on a public holiday, so that that's in on deadline?

Heidi Ullrich: If you think that it is in a place – in a state where it would be okay, then I would be happy to do that. But I have received comments from you as well as Marco and I will not be able to do that until tomorrow – incorporate those changes.

Alan Greenburg: If getting it in a day late is not a problem then fine.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think, okay that's fine. So is there anything else you need us to deal with that's time critical for you then, Heidi?

Heidi Ullrich: Absolutely because Cheryl, I assume that we'll be talking at length tomorrow. So I mean we can cover some of these other issues as well. As a group, do you want to discuss what is being for the ALAC agenda next week? Or do we now know that it's really going to be a lot with the ALC volunteer issue?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well I think that's something that we could profitably spend the rest of your available time over on this meeting, yes. Anyone else want to up the ante on that? Or is that what we should --?

Alan Greenburg: Well based on the ABS drafting team meeting tomorrow, which I assume is still on at an ungodly hour for me, there may be some stuff that rises to the top that has to be addressed in the ALAC meeting. I don't know – I don't remember what else is on the agenda to know whether there's anything, but I can't imagine that we can ignore – we can't leave that meeting without at least deciding what the process going forward is. We now know we have a week afterwards to finish implementing it, but we need to have come to closure on what that process is by that meeting.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: To be honest, Alan, I – and I’m happy to have the remainder of Heidi's and Matthias' time with here cover this off first. I actually don't see any particular comfort in it being the first as opposed to the 23rd because I actually don't see us having a better opportunity to get a quorate outcome from the ALAC beyond that meeting.

At least having the seven-day later go until the 1st of March deadline at least means if we are at loggerheads or we cannot finalize what we need to on this matter during our ALAC meeting on the 23rd that we can call a second part or another deadline prior to the first to finalize it. So there's sort of some comfort in that. But I don't see how we can up then devote a huge amount of our time in the ALAC meeting to this topic. Now does anyone see any other way forward?

Alan Greenburg: Well I – okay. Just let me say my part quickly. What I would like to get out of that meeting is the process is locked in by the end of that meeting and then if we have a week to actually implement the process of selecting. Remember we may be seeing applications, which we haven't seen before as recently as 15 hours before the meeting, much of which is sleeping time for some of the people.

So going into that meeting with the assumption that we will pick the person or people I feel less comfortable with. I would like to see a meeting scheduled for the 28th of February or something around there that we schedule right now so that we have that time in. And then so we don't spend the next week's meeting haggling over the pros and cons of one person versus another, but identify who it is that's going to be doing that work and implement that over the following week. There's enough other substantive questions that we have to – I think that we have to address.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well even just doing what you're proposing, do you see that other than a lion's share of our allocated meeting time? Because I don't. Not with the ALAC the way it operates.

Alan Greenburg: No, I've said that already. I think it's going to be a substantive part of that meeting.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, so really it's that and our improvements plan. What else can we fit into it? Not a whole lot. Vanda, when's the next board meeting? Is that only in Nairobi now?

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, and the board is dealing – well, mostly wastes time with this Nairobi issue, decide where to do with the people that decide not to go and probably sponsor some kind of hub hotels to them. And the other issue we are only discussing is the vertical issues, because we've got some – not really encouraged economies in all of this. And we are just talking about that. That's exchange emails. And so far the only thing we're going to have is another meeting in Nairobi.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. I've got myself in duplicate, which I never have a problem with, but it puts other people off if there's more than one of me in audio or in real life. The vertical separation issue is one I'm glad the board has on its agenda, because it's one of those matters that I think we need to ensure our At-Large Advisory Committee representatives and the regional leadership are well prepared for before they come to Nairobi. And we have not got it in our preparatory agenda.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, I believe that there is a lot of issues debating among us that is quite interesting really. A different point of view. And I believe we need to have a clear participation of ALAC. I just sent today and I can send it to you also the issue I was talking. And just in my point, and I believe I don't see how registrants will benefit from vertical integration. And so I can see here in Brazil that we don't have registrars at all, we have four of them – four or five. And most of them, as I went to the meetings with (inaudible) here in Sao Paulo, and most of them are willing to get out from the registrar. Mostly because there is a market issue that don't give them opportunity to have margin in their business being a registrar.

So it's not the same thing, that the same reason when you have a vertical integration between registries and registrars, we're going to have what here we can see in mostly multinational companies. Whatever ICANN do, they will never enforce people not to have a (inaudible) price among them. So the other registrar will lose competition. And in the end of the day, we get – we'll have only those under this same umbrella of any registries. That will be, in my opinion for sure, not a good prospective from – for the registrars.

So the issues talking about, it's some of them in favor, some of them debating economic issues only, but not business model where you cannot control prices in fact. So the problem is just that. And they personally can have much more margin. They can have much better integration and save money and so on. But tiers will not go into the benefit of any registrants in any place of this work.

Alan Greenburg: Vanda, I agree with you. I think from a registrant's point of view there is very little reason to go ahead with the integration model, even the partial one that staff are suggesting that is up to a limited number of domains. However in prior conversations, there have been other members within At-Large that very strongly feel in exactly the opposite way. And I’m not quite sure that we – that At-Large will be able to come up with a single unified answer to this.

Vanda Scartezini: I don't see either because these are in the board. We cannot have consensus in this issue.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But what we do need is to have our regional leaders and our ALAC representatives coming to Nairobi prepared with the ability to put their members' views, whether they're saying this is the view of XYZ RALO and within that RALO we have the following divergent points of view, A, B, C, and X or not, we still need to make sure that they're actively involved in the debate. And Vanda, from my perspective, one of the things I fear is that the debate actually happens in Nairobi so that the board can benefit from community view on it. And that what happens is not a show and tell exercise.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, that was one thing that most of us have opposed was raised had been some time during this debate here a proposal to decide, get the decision made by the board. So most of the people just don't agree. It's – I include it of course. It's not a matter of a board decision. It's not the board that makes policy. Policy is supposed to be made by the community. So it's very – those issues are become more and more important as a concept of this organization.

Alan Greenburg: I guess the defining question for me is who benefits from increasing vertical integration as suggested by staff? And the answer in my mind and I guess if I get quoted on this it will be awkward, but it's my feeling, a bunch of rich people will really get some benefits from it. And I don't think there are any other people who are going to benefit from it. And there is potential harm.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, and –

Alan Greenburg: Helping people who are already rich I'm afraid doesn't really impress me.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes. Well that's one thing. But it's not only good for – it's not good for ICANN because ICANN will lose more and more money because the number of registrars will –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, lessen. Yes?

Vanda Scartezini: So there is a lot of the issues to be debated and this is very and from my point of view, one thing that's become more and more important is concept about the way this organization works. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the whole of the board, the whole of the ASOs. It's in my opinion, it's time to refresh those concepts and make sure everybody is understanding which road you are working with. And what is your duty here? And what is not? And so we have a lot of debate about that because (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, and a lot of staff re-education to some extent at quite high levels that's going to be needed as well.

Alan Greenburg: I have one other question on vertical integration before you finish.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: Vanda, the minutes of the board say that during the – for the discussion on vertical integration, two board members were excluded because they have a conflict of interest.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: And the four liaisons who were there were also excluded because they have a conflict of interest.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes. I can explain that. What I sent you – I can send to you, I have no problem with that. I sent to – I was invited to be advisor in the board of a company that is not at time working with ICANN. But they intend to apply to be a new gTLD. So even that, there is no money between myself and this company, and I put all those things into the paper, even that (inaudible) believe that there is some conflict of interest.

But let me explain the further things that happened in the – not in the meeting, but after the meeting. Some of them just enter into discussion, analyze what they got from the economic analysis. And at the end of the day, everybody is almost agreeing that the economic issues has no value because they don't think they understand really the market. So an economic analysis without how the market works, how the models, how people work around the world is trash.

Alan Greenburg: I think that was a very astute analysis. I think the economic models that were done were beautiful theoretical models that did not apply at all to our world.

Vanda Scartezini: It's not applied. So the fact that we were not in possession of this economic issues means at the end of the day nothing because all those that have (inaudible), that (inaudible) in these papers said that well, let's not apply to our model, let's not apply it to all of market, and blah, blah, blah. So we are now debating about the issue itself and we start the – what is the role of the board on that? And what is the role of the community on that? So it's – but now we are decide to go to the public and anyway we are debating among ourselves to understand better what is the best issue for the community, for ICANN, for the companies, and so on. And until now we have no one single opinion on that. There is a lot of different opinions circulate among us.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. A question and a comment. You were –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm sorry, Alan. Just before you do, noting the time, Heidi you need to leave now?

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I'm sorry. My godson is eagerly trying to get through the Monterey Aquarium. I can't put that off anymore.

Alan Greenburg: Have fun.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I just wanted to thank you very much and also can I ask the ExCom, I think we should make a formal note through Vanda to the board to ask about the rationale of having a deadline before a public meeting that happens to fall on a public holiday in the country where the majority of our staff are employed. I think this is extraordinarily poor planning and is just another beautiful cock up. Thank you, ICANN.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, well I do believe that this will not – the idea to go through the (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think it's so unreasonable that Heidi's had sit in an aquarium having a meeting with us. Thanks so much, Heidi and apologies to your godchild.

Heidi Ullrich: No, I'll let him know that. Just a quick note before I go. We are going to be posting either today – well it's going to be some time my day today, it might be late my night – the non-lawyer's guide to the RAA that Cheryl has requested. I'm just seeing the final version coming. I'm actually going to forward that to each of you individually right now. And then we'll have that posted and send it out to the At-Large list.

Cheryl, I will be on –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And Heidi, just on that – from your point of view, and I’m only interested in your point of view and Matthias' point of view because you're the only two traveling At-Large staff members, do you two have any particular concerns about going to Nairobi?

Heidi Ullrich: I personally don't.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I wouldn't have thought so, Heidi. If you'd have said you did I would have been shocked and horrified. Matthias?

Matthias Langenegger: No, I don't.

Heidi Ullrich: He's actually going to the safari camp that I went to several years ago (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic. This is very important because I've been asked by a couple of the other chairs to write to Doug regarding the views of our community and of the At-Large Advisory Committee on concern or otherwise with holding the meeting in Nairobi. And what I said I would do at this meeting was pole my – at least one representative from each region and staff, which I've – you've heard me now do, including staff. And I think if you're all happy I will not quote you specifically name-by-name, but I will be very clear in what I write to Doug. And Vanda, you get a copy of that so you can make sure the rest of the board is aware of it as well.

Vanda Scartezini: Okay, well they – the board will be there. And of course they are providing some percentages for those that are afraid to go and most of them are Americans. And probably they have some reasons to not to go, but anyway it's the idea to not to go there and I believe most of those people, not from United States, already got tickets and we are willing to go.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent news. So we'll just make sure that we get something. I'll get something to Doug later today. But I did want it to be an official thing from the At-Large Executive Committee speaking – having had that discussion. So thanks very much, Matthias, for that information. Heidi, go, go.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay. Cheryl, I'll be speaking with you or chatting tonight my time. (Inaudible)

Vanda Scartezini: (Inaudible) here is Carnival. This is holiday here.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go girl.

Heidi Ullrich: Go have fun.

Vanda Scartezini: We are in the same zone.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly.

Heidi Ullrich: And Sebastien again, happy birthday. I hope your birthday was fantastic.

Sebastien: It was. Thank you very much.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And Sebastien –

Heidi Ullrich: Just a quick question –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was going to say and he had a very exciting historical something from his – your grandfather. A new book was launched on your birthday too.

Sebastien: Yes, it was. And then if you want to listen something in French I will give you the link when the –

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, send to us.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Please.

Sebastien: – when it will be published on the web.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That'd be great. Very much.

Vanda Scartezini: Okay, thanks a lot.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Bye, Heidi.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay. I'll speak to you later today.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You know where I live, dear.

Heidi Ullrich: Yes, bye. Bye, Seth. Thank you for joining us.

Seth Green: Sure. Thank you, Heidi.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Seth, you're more than welcome to hang around.

Seth Green: Thank you, Cheryl, if you don't mind.

Heidi Ullrich: And I expect a full report, Seth.

Seth Green: Certainly.

Heidi Ullrich: Okay, bye.

Seth Green: Bye, Heidi.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, Matthias, just before I let you go, and I do realize that it's evening for you and you have this predilection to working office hours, the question I have is reading through the notes for tonight – or today's meeting, I actually don't see where it's captured what Marco asked me to write to him about.

Matthias Langenegger: I know. I have to listen to the recording.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: He specifically made a comment and I need to know what that was referenced to before I meet with the chair of the GNSO and the chair of the CCNSO because the very next thing we three are going to is have a little chat to Johannes.

Matthias Langenegger: When are you meeting them?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That will be 10:00 AM my time today. In a few hours. So I was rather hoping that might have captured it, but I can't see. So before you disappear, can anyone else remember so it can be put in the discussion notes and I can utilize it from them? Great.

Alan Greenburg: Well, it may have been – I believe it was respect to do we have the prerogative of naming the chair or a delegate to the workgroup – to the review teams?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There was that much, but I thought there was more. How do we – the question was how do we put in a non-personalized (inaudible)?

Alan Greenburg: Well yes. Do we have the prerogative, which implies how do we do it? And then there was the slightly related question of when are we expected to name, put a person's name on the delegate if we choose that option?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, the delegate issue was the other one. Sebastien, have we captured everything there just before --? Because I just wanted –

Sebastien: Maybe it was also the question, and you can ask him, if he has some insight to give it to you how the selection will be made. Because if we make – if we put fine name in order, how they will react as a chair of – and – yes. That's one point I guess you can discuss with him directly.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So ranking is the other thing. Okay, Matthias, because you've got the ability to put those in the discussion notes, if you could do that before you disappear, that would be greatly appreciated. Then I can just cut and paste that into my next meeting.

Matthias Langenegger: All right.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. And thanks for attending, Matthias. I appreciate that. Okay, really the only thing I don't think we've covered off adequately –

Alan Greenburg: Cheryl, I was trying to address two issues on vertical integration before we went to thank Heidi and various other things.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, sorry. My error. Go ahead.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. Is Vanda still with us?

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, the question I was getting at before, and I'm even less clear on it now, is if you are excluded from the discussion, you're talking as if you're part of this discussion, but you – the minutes also said that you are not participating in the discussion. So I'd just like some clarity on that.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, they debate about the economic issues. Only that.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Vanda Scartezini: Because (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: So that part you're participating in, but you wouldn't participate in any formal decision.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, I haven't seen that. The economic issues. But what the economic in detail is saying I don't know. And this should be if the (inaudible) was available could be interesting for someone that is connected with any other registrar or (inaudible) and so on. That it was only this that was (inaudible). After that, we debate in more than, I don't know, 100 in long emails exchanged among us.

Alan Greenburg: So you are participating in that part of the discussion.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Okay. Just one –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But not the economic analysis.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, just one other note. At the last meeting, the GNSO approved the start of a PDP on the issue of vertical integration against staff recommendation. And also the review – the motion to approve the review explicit – in the issues report staff said that the GNSO can have whatever PDP it wants, but it's not going to start – it's not going to affect the new gTLD process. The motion explicitly says, "And what we do will apply to the new gTLDs." That is at odds with the staff recommendation.

Vanda Scartezini: Well it's –

Alan Greenburg: No, I'm not debating, I'm just simply saying it is at odds and it's not clear who wins in this case. So there are some people on the GNSO who feel the board action right now is inappropriate because if the GNSO has already said they're working on it.

Vanda Scartezini: Well that is the concept I was talking about. There is a lot of things that is the rule of the board and the other things – well. The first was one point that was the first point was let – who does the board decide if we're going to have or not in the new gTLD the vertical integration. Allow it? Well. So the position of the majority was it's not – this is a policy issue because this will affect everybody. All the other registrars, and all the other registries already existing, not only the new ones. So it's a policy issue. So policy issue is something that it needs to go to be posted, to be debated and so on.

Now if it's a PDP process is another issue, because we are not – we don't have a consensus in that inside the board. This is my personal opinion. I believe that's not time to start the PDP. We need to go out with the new gTLD.

So it's there to keep the way they have. And that after this information right now and because we're going to get feedback from the public and this community during Nairobi and before that. So after that and after the decision that the best thing to do is keep the same role we have now and leave to the policy decision so the PDP to define how if we work in decision. So the GNSO can start of course the PDP. But the timing is not correct because they will start the process that may postpone it, the decision after the new gTLD. And who knows who is pushing for that?

So that's the general view of what is going on in the debate. A lot of issues for technical staff and so on are also debating. But the main picture is something like that. It's still not a clear position on all of that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Anything else, Alan?

Alan Greenburg: No.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Where I was hoping to jump to next was in terms of our agenda for tonight, I actually think we're fairly well covered, excepting quite clearly we need to look at what we can put effectively into the time we have for our 23rd February meeting. What I'd like to propose in the agenda that we'll work on in the next day is that the lion's share of the time on discussion and if you prefer not to push it to decision, at least to discussion, but I – do you want to push it for decision, that's something I need the feedback from you.

Alan Greenburg: I think we need to push the process for decision. If we can't do that in that meeting, then we're lost.

Vanda Scartezini: No, we can't (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, exactly. Okay, so we want that on there for process with the linked documents out, now that's going to decision. That email, when are we going to be sending that out?

Alan Greenburg: The one that I drafted originally and Sebastien worked on?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, I need to make some revisions based on what Marco said. It will go out imminently as soon as – well, very soon after this meeting ends. The question is who does it go to? It wasn't clear if it's going to just the ALAC public list and they can disseminate if they choose, or does it go to a wider list?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You mean the ALAC working list? Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: When I started drafting the first one, I was thinking about ALAC working list and leaving it up to them to disseminate. But what's your view?

Alan Greenburg: That's – I support that completely.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastien?

Sebastien: So do I.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Vanda, are you happy with that?

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, very well.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Dave, what do you think? Africa would be happy enough with that?

Dave Kissondoyal: Yes, absolutely.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good. You'll just need to make sure you push it to them and it gets to be on their agenda as well and I'm just concerned that what will happen as the result of this is we'll have six or seven people put their hat in the ring, which would be more problematic, not less problematic.

Alan Greenburg: Is everyone happy with the words I used? We didn't discuss it with Marco because it's not – it wasn't his domain, but with the words I used on the additional statement – additional input we want? Specifically I used the words we want a statement saying – explaining why they believe they are in a position to fairly assess ICANN's accountability and transparency and focus on the issue of users. In other words why they are in a good position to assess what the subject of the study is. And number two, why they believe they will be able to do this from a perspective of ICANN At-Large – by the At-Large community, and the ALAC.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The only thing I would have said was global. I don't want regional crap in here because when they look at what the GNSO's put forward, which is fine for the support organization in the way it's structured, let's find six names and put them forward. That's one way of doing it. But it doesn't work in a regional model unless you're clearly aiming for a global representative.

Alan Greenburg: Well, the formal subject of the review is accountability, transparency, and focus on the interests of the global – of global Internet users. So the word is there.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I'd like to tell them – I'd like them to say why they think they can represent global Internet users.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, got it. Understand what you just said.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Sebastien: On that subject, I got some exchanging here in France, and it seems that the government, the GAC is willing to request one participant by origin from the government. That means that they are on their way to have six member of this committee.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: God, that's ridiculous.

Sebastien: Yes, I am just the postman.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, but even if they were to get it, we are not.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Sebastien: No, and that's the point. What we do –

Alan Greenburg: It doesn't affect us.

Sebastien: Yes, it's affect us indirectly at least, but what we do? Do we request with more harm with more proceeded to have more than one? That's one point. And my second information that I want to give it to you, it seems that people that are looking for our quite high position in their own organization governmental – governmental organization. And it's one other reason I really would like to push the idea of the chair of ALAC going there. Because if you have in front of you, I don't know what is the level, but some vice minister or director – one important administration, one country, or one region. We need to have very strong people. Because it will not be adjusted to the chair of the GAC and the chair of the board will be pushing something, but the other could be too.

Alan Greenburg: Don't forget, there's an ex officio member of that committee. A voting ex officio, the assistant secretary of communications for the US Department of Commerce.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's right.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And you need somebody (inaudible).

Alan Greenburg: This is not a junior Boy Scout meeting.

Sebastien: No, I agree, but I was thinking that there was a two governmental representative, but it seems that it will not be and that it will be the same level of the US government where they are thinking for somebody like that in the other regions. And it's quite important.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that makes perfect sense. Yes, makes perfect sense if you think about it from their perspective. And more importantly, it is one of the reasons, Sebastien, that I wholeheartedly agree with what you're putting forward and why it needs to be nomenclature that has a level of longevity. Because I think that what's going to happen this time around will probably end up being set in stone.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Sebastien: Yes, and it's also important that we state that we do – we send this list. It's this list for this committee.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, absolutely.

Alan Greenburg: And Cheryl, I would suggest that we add just a very light phrase somewhere to say that if the chair chooses a delegate, there will be consultation involved in that process. Doesn't mean you listened, but there'll be consultation.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well that's one of the advantages, which is where of course the governments are coming from too. That if you've got something that's tethered to a clearly accountable, be it elected or appointed position, you've got that rug under that person you can haul out anytime you want. And that's exactly what you want. You want them balancing on a knife's edge so they have to be in there and fighting at the level that is going to be required to make sure that there is balance in these outcomes.

Alan Greenburg: Yes.

Vanda Scartezini: Well, may I express my point in enough?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, please Vanda. But can you yell at us please because it's very hard to hear you.

Vanda Scartezini: Okay. That better now?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: A little bit better. Thank you, darling.

Vanda Scartezini: Okay. I was a little concerned about to have the former vice chair of this GAC as representing ALAC. Even he is in the ALAC and ISAC for so long. Because they have a pending fee. You think about government and think with them. And we work for long time together in the GAC. And I really like Wilkinson. But not for this specific position.

Alan Greenburg: It was not accidental that I put his past history in the document.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I do think these are the things that we as the endorsing, in inverted commas, advisory committee, these are the things that we need to be able to have a full frank and fearless debate on.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, because even we need to say a lot of (inaudible) because the GAC will always strongly use this opportunity.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed.

Vanda Scartezini: So it's very important not to put there. That's why I endorse to have you sitting there. Someone that again hits the table and stand up and say what you think. And not someone that for any reason will be afraid of the governing officers. That's the same probably. You never know. The same country they belong and the (inaudible) to go again.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Or your next contract. That's one of the problems when you act a consultant in some of these areas. You've got to look at what is this action I'm doing now? How is it going to affect my next potential contract?

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that's something we have to be able to avoid.

Vanda Scartezini: We have – we need – I'm really hating this issue because we don't have time. This was the issue to spend that at least two days face-to-face to raising all the issues we need to pay attention.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Couldn't agree with you more.

Vanda Scartezini: So this is something like let's pay for some guys to say we are okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I couldn't agree with you more, Vanda. And I must say I would like to think you'll be saying exactly those things in the boardroom when and if the conversation comes up, but I'd like to think that you'd also be arguing very, very strongly that this has been a hugely faulted process and we do believe that with the public comments being called for, there should have been an opportunity for those comments to have been integrated, and reacted to, and debated before the call for applicants came out. We understand why it didn't happen, but it's just not good enough.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, but Cheryl there's one other issue. If you read the draft proposal, it says – and the one place that it uses words like this – they say, "It is crystal clear from the affirmation that the review team members will be selected by the chair of the GAC and the chair of the board for the first one." And they use the term "it is crystal clear." Given that they have mangled the terms in the affirmation related to the review in so many ways, if they decide that that is the one that they are enforcing, it is a complete sham.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, but looks like that's the way.

Alan Greenburg: Well no, but by enforcing it it says we must give them a name of a person, the rules that they have set up, and they get to pick it as opposed to the will of a committee, which may say, and ours may not say it, that we want the board – the committee chair or delegate to take it. What I'm saying is they have chosen to twist many of the terms, like representative, which is a very key term in that clause of reviews. And they've managed to twist that one God knows which way. They have to provide the same level of flexibility to us I believe. In any case, in terms of timing, the 1st of March is a Monday.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: That means we have the opportunity to have a meeting on that Monday to make our final decision should we choose. We've demonstrated the ALAC cannot meet on a weekend, we know that. Fridays are very often not liked, which would make it Thursday, which is two days after the 23rd meeting. But I think we either have to make it – if we're going to have another meeting to decide – and we may cancel it. It may not be necessary after Tuesday, after the ALAC meeting. I think we need to tentatively schedule a meeting either for Friday the 26th or Monday the 1st.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It has to be Friday the 26th.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because I'm already in a UDA world on the 1st and 2nd in my life, which means I literally could not do it. I'm in a board retreat.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, then I will get Heidi and Matthias tomorrow morning – their tomorrow morning to start trying to scheduling a meeting for the 26th.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, and the only other thing I think Matthias has probably already left us, but the only thing in the notes – oh you're still on. Thank you, dear. Okay, just where you've got the 1st of March 2010 close of business is the deadline for constituency endorsements. In fact it's 11:59 UTC on the 1st of March.

Matthias Langenegger: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Not close of business.

Alan Greenburg: That's probably corresponds to close of business somewhere in the world, but –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, undoubtedly. It's like the sun's always over the yardarm somewhere in the world. Something I must say I'm tempted to start using today as an excuse. It's not yet 7:00 AM.

Alan Greenburg: Probably India or somewhere like that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's not even 6:00 AM and I feel like a scotch. Okay.

Alan Greenburg: I think it's Kyrgyzstan actually.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Kyrgyzstan, right. Well I probably wouldn't be having a scotch if I was in Kyrgyzstan so I'd miss it. Perhaps I'll have to have some yak milk butter or something.

Alan Greenburg: I was going to say fermented goat milk will have to do.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Guys, the only other thing I wanted to do in terms of our planning for our meeting, I'm going to suggest that all of the new things that are on tonight's agenda, those things that are listed as open consultations, every one of those, with the exception of the one that we put out into the world of public community comment and the genus --I want to speak to you on that in a moment, Alan – workgroup guidelines, registration abuse policy, the strat planning for SSR, which we need to watch very carefully because there's going to be a huge bite out of budget if that's to go the way it is. And the global DNS business case –

Alan Greenburg: I'm sorry, for SSR?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Correct.

Alan Greenburg: What is SSR?

Sebastien: Security, stability, and resiliency.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Resilience.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, sorry.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry. They all end after the Nairobi meeting, so I was going to propose that we make sure we have those as seamed discussions during the Nairobi meeting and that we set up some community calls if they are decided between the end of Nairobi meeting, if they decide it as merited, between the end of Nairobi meeting and those closing dates. And I think if we put that in the agenda so we don't discuss it, but rather it's a fait accompli, that's the fastest way through all of that.

Alan Greenburg: Fine.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay? Now Alan, I assume you do not desire as the genus representative liaison to the GNSO from the ALAC for us to put in any comment at all about the amendment of GNSO operation procedures on the 2010 selection process for ICANN board seat 13.

Alan Greenburg: No, I don't believe we need to.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good, so that one can come off and I will just get the whole – the rest of them across as pro forma into the other agenda. Anything else that we need to put on our agenda then?

Alan Greenburg: No, but I have one other thing for your agenda.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. No – anyone else with anything for the 23rd agenda?

Vanda Scartezini: No, I just want to ask if you know that Phillip Shepherd is the new chair of the (inaudible) group?

Alan Greenburg: I can't hear you, Vanda.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Say again.

Sebastien: I guess she's saying that do you know that (inaudible) is not coming and is asking to withdraw the Nairobi meeting.

Vanda Scartezini: Hello?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Vanda.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes. No it's just to make you know that Phillip Shepherd was elected asking group of organization inside the GNSO as a share of the OSC.

Alan Greenburg: No, I didn't know that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No.

Vanda Scartezini: And he will not be in Nairobi because his employer said he cannot go.

Alan Greenburg: Yes, that I knew.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, well that latter's a very good thing; the former one concerns me greatly. And I say that knowing that these are transcribed and recorded meetings. Thanks for that, Vanda. Makes me wonder about consistencies in the GNSO even more than I have been to date. Sebastien, go ahead.

Sebastien: Yes, it's not just the fact is if – that Phillip is not coming to Nairobi, but he is also asking to the business constituency and I guess and to the GNSO to ask the staff to – and the board – not to have the meeting in Nairobi.

Alan Greenburg: There are many people saying that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Alan Greenburg: And many people saying the opposite.

Sebastien: Yes, and the –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that's one of the reasons why writing to Doug is very important from our perspective.

Sebastien: Yes, and as I discussed with Alan that before what I want to be – to say it again, even if by any way they have not the meeting in Nairobi, I am as they already organized all the (inaudible) for At-Large ALAC participants, I think we need to take this as an opportunity to meet in any case in Nairobi. Thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Now I am going to then write with all of our views, but I haven't – I know Vanda's views. I'm fairly confident, Dave, that as a representative of the African region, you'd be very happy to have people travel to Nairobi. But more importantly, I doubt that many people in your region would be all that concerned about going to Nairobi. Is that a fair and accurate representation of the region's views?

Dave Kissondoyal: I don't think, yes, we will be concerned because I will say that we are already local African, so already local in Kenya and Nairobi, so our ALS, everybody will be more than happy to be meeting in Nairobi.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. Thank you. I would have been somewhat shocked and horrified if you'd have told me any different. Sebastien, have you heard any specific concerns out of Europe?

Sebastien: No, I – quite the reverse. That people are waiting to come and to go to the meeting. And it's important to have this meeting organized and done. Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Now, Alan, I've seen concerns coming out of America, obviously, but what I haven't seen is concerns coming out of the North American region At-Large organization. Quite the opposite. I've seen the chair of the NAROLO make a very good argument why it's an ideal place and time to have a meeting if culls down overbearing, over endorsed, and over listened too business interests.

Alan Greenburg: Would you like my opinion?

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I'm asking.

Alan Greenburg: I think that particular statement that if we'll be the only ones there, therefore we can capture all the board members and all the other important people, I think is a pile of crap. I think there'll be enough other people who'll capture them and we will still be as disenfranchised as we normally are with important people walking by us in the hall and not recognizing us. Okay. So that's part number one.

Part number two, in any arguments that we make for holding it, please do not make the statements that we are – we don't care about going to dangerous cities, we are used to it. The issue at this point is no longer Nairobi. That was the issue we were discussing a week-and-a¬-half ago when the board decided to maintain the meeting. The issue is going to a venue, a building, which was specifically targeted.

So for instance, Evan's bravado saying if the meeting is cancelled, I'm still going to go and give a talk at the university is irrelevant. The issue is not Nairobi with its street crime; the issue is going to the convention center, which was specifically targeted. So let's not mix those arguments because I believe it makes the argument much weaker by not differentiating between those two threats.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: My statement – and it'll be going out to you before it goes to Doug, will be we hear no call for withdrawal.

Alan Greenburg: Yes, okay. But – okay, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to fix a problem that hasn't happened yet.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm not going to reargue the cases.

Alan Greenburg: It's just that if you look at the discussions on the NARALO list, or what Carlton said, or some of the other discussions on this very meeting. We talk about we have no concerns of going to Nairobi. That's not the issue anymore and let's focus on the issue.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well when I've used the term Nairobi tonight, I'm talking about the ICANN meeting number 37 in Nairobi.

Alan Greenburg: In Nairobi, in the KIC (inaudible).

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I did use ICANN meeting number 37 earlier on.

Alan Greenburg: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, I'm a little tired.

Alan Greenburg: No, I understand. It's just that I have a person aversion to taking an argument, which is moderately strong and weakening it by adding garbage to it. I didn't say you did that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But I have no indication from anyone that any region in our community is other than committed to having the meeting.

Alan Greenburg: That is basically correct. There are certainly individuals who feel uncomfortable.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that's important for – that is why it's important for ICANN to share all of its information (inaudible) to make personal choices.

Alan Greenburg: Well that was what I was going to say. They have shown admirable wisdom in publishing what they did last week. It's unfortunate that I think the notice that's up still from last Friday, but I think they need to let people make decisions and the sooner the better. In other words, if they are going to take the position that we are not willing to take the risk, we do not want to be the people who approved the meeting if there is a disaster, make it sooner rather than later.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. I'm not planning on making a statement that way, or one or the other on that. I've –

Alan Greenburg: No, I understand. But if it comes up in the conversations in your next meeting.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, well excepting we're not going to be talking about that. We're going to be talking about the other important matter at hand, which is this ANT review team of the AoC.

One thing I did want to share with you all formally and for it to be part of the minutes of our executive committee meeting before we close, is that in the Australian government's view, our security people do not believe, it is the advice we are getting, because have asked. You'll know who the we is obviously, and we are working in dot AU on behalf of the Australian government, so they do have to answer our questions properly on this. They do not believe that is a credible threat. Quote/unquote. All right? That I was told today.

Alan Greenburg: I saw that note from Chris. He has more faith in government security agencies than I do. But that's fine.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, maybe there's a difference between us trusting yours and you trusting yours, and vice versa.

Vanda Scartezini: (Inaudible) I also talk with the government and they just add more people to go.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's the attitude I like, Vanda. I knew I liked Brazil. Any other business before we bring this evening's soiree to a close?

Vanda Scartezini: No, thank you.

Sebastien: No, thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And thank you, Vanda. And happy Carnival.

Vanda Scartezini: Yes, thank you.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go and enjoy, my dear.

Vanda Scartezini: Okay, I will.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Dave.

Alan Greenburg: Cheryl, I did want to add one thing on your agenda.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I know you've got something for me, but for the meeting agenda?

Alan Greenburg: No, they can listen.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's fine. That's okay; I'm just letting people get back to their real lives. Some of them actually have real lives, Alan. This is amazing. I don't know how they have time for it, but –

Vanda Scartezini: (Inaudible) how they can do that.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly, Vanda. I'm not sure.

Alan Greenburg: I can say it in one sentence.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go for it.

Alan Greenburg: I would suggest that for the – by the time of the meeting next Tuesday, you have prepared a short CV and a very short motivational letter why you as the chair believe you should be representing At-Large on the review committee.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.

Alan Greenburg: Your CV must be personal of course, but it is currently identified as the current chair of the ALAC. And the motivational letter should be largely to – from the persona of the chair. In other words, be ready to submit a paper – a document should the ALAC think this is not a bad thing.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: At the 11th hour. Okay.

Vanda Scartezini: Okay.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fair enough.

Vanda Scartezini: We can make some (inaudible).

Sebastien: So you want to be ready for when?

Alan Greenburg: Ready to submit it the minute after the ALAC meeting.

Sebastien: Yes, but –

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be after the deadline.

Sebastien: It's after the deadline. I guess she needs to do that prior.

Alan Greenburg: You're right. Sorry, I have miscalculated.

Sebastien: And we need to make –

Alan Greenburg: Then it needs to be done before and we can talk about the timing.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.

Sebastien: And I guess it's not a request from Alan, it's a request of the ExCom to our chair to do that prior to the deadline, please.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. And the CV is very simple. It will be linked to exactly the same public documentation that I have on every one of the workgroup links.

Alan Greenburg: Yes, I didn't think it was hard.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, that's what I'm saying. Yes. Okay.

Alan Greenburg: And the motivational letter you've already said it four times in this meeting, so.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely. We'll get it from the transcripts. So that's actually a – well, not a voted, but an outcome of tonight's meeting. So that's a formal outcome of today's meeting.

Alan Greenburg: Yes, and there's nothing cast in concrete. The ALAC can choose to ignore it.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly.

Alan Greenburg: But we should be in a position to accept it should we choose.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly. It needs to have its hat in the ring.

Alan Greenburg: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right then. Well thank you all. Seth?

Seth Green: Yes.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Welcome aboard again.

Seth Green: Thank you very much, Cheryl.

Alan Greenburg: Okay, two-and-a-quarter hours into the one-hour meeting, I've got to leave.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Bye then.

Sebastien: Bye-bye.

Carlton: Bye, everybody.

Matthias Langenegger: Bye-bye, everybody.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Matthias. Appreciate it. Gisela, thank you. Bye, Carlton. Bye, all. Bye, Dave. Bye, Sebastien.