ALAC ExCom 09.02.11 Summary Minutes

Participants:  Olivier Crepin-Leblond (OCL), Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO), Evan Leibovitch (EL), Carlton Samuels (CS), Tijani Ben Jemaa (TBJ)

Guests:  Alan Greenberg (AG)

Apologies:  None

Staff:  Heidi Ullrich (HU), Seth Greene (SG)

Standing Agenda Items

1. Review of the Action Items from 25 January 2011ExCom Meeting (Olivier)

Populating At-Large Standing Working Groups

a)  Staff to put call out to new ALAC members to join WGs - IN PROGRESS

Expected to go out later today.

Board/GAC Meeting

b)  OCL to write to GAC leadership and find out who topic leaders are. Also write to individual GAC members and find out if they have specific interest in certain areas. Also, to find out who from the GAC is planning to attend.- IN PROGRESS

OCLhas already written to GAC Leadership and certain GAC members.  Thus far, the following GAC topic leaders have been identified:

• Mark Carvell:  Intellectual property
• US GAC members:  Rec 6
  

JAS Charter

   c)  OCL to inform GNSO Chair that ALAC is proceeding with work on JAS charter. – COMPLETED

AG reported the following:

• The GNSO is no longer objecting to having two charters.  It thus does care about a unionized charter.  The GAC is willing to pass both its own charter and one from the ALAC onto the Board, while reserving the right, of course, to comment on any parts of the latter with which it disagrees.
• CS has, nonetheless, worked to unionize the two charters. 
  

AG suggests that, if the ALAC does create a unionized charter, it word it similarly to the GNSO’s charter, so that the WG can easily make recommendations that address both charters.  In AG's opinion, CS’s unionized charter does not do this.

FY12 Budget Requests

d)  The ExCom, with OCL leading, to have RALO FY12 Budget requests placed into broad categories, but allocate all requests that are submitted so as not to be a filter.- COMPLETED

The ALAC and Chair are pleased with the amount of input from the RALOs resulted from this process, which was a success. 

e)  ML to prepare initial grouping of the RALO FY12 Budget requests into broad categories by 26 January. - COMPLETED

f)  HU to work wtih ExCom to request additional basic services for FY12. - COMPLETED

Geo-Regions Report

 g)  CS to aggregate RALO views of Geo-Regions report into ALAC statement. Draft to be posted on At-Large Geo-Regions workspace and be sent to ALAC -Announce for a few days' comment.  Draft statement is then to be put out to ALAC vote. – COMPLETED

The ALAC would like to thank the people within the RALOs who took it upon themselves to connect to other RALOs in order to have the intense cross-RALO discussions that help make this process a success.

h)  San Francisco Meeting to have first ALAC-Oveview discussion on Geo -Region report.-  TOPIC SCHEDULED. COMPLETED

ATRT Recommendations

i)  Staff to take CLO's comments on ATRT Recommendation from ALAC meeting. – COMPLETED

Olivier noted that, in fact, this was completed well ahead of time.

At-Large in San Francisco

j)  At-Large Staff to work with ccNSO staff on organizing a meeting of ALAC Chair and VCs and ccNSO incoming and outgoing Chairs, and Liaisons in SF. Tentative date is Saturday, 12 March. - IN PROGRESS

k)  HUto ask Marc and Annalisa about their availability to work on possible Stanford Town Hall.  IN PROGRESS.

l)  Staff to create mailing list of At-Large ExCom, interested NARALO members, members of NCUC and select people from Stanford. - IN PROGRESS

m)  HU to follow up w/ ICANN Meetings re involvement in possible Stanford Town Hall. – COMPLETED

ICANN Meetings is too busy to help with the Stanford Town Hall meeting.

 n)  Conference call to be organized on whether to go ahead with ALAC/NCUC Town Hall:  COMPLETED

 o)  HU to prepare draft agendas for Sunday ALAC workshop and Tuesday Policy Discussion meetings for comments by ExCom/ALAC. - COMPLETED

 p)  ML to follow up with RALOs for draft agendas. - COMPLETED

 q)  SG to follow up with WTs to prepare draft WT agendas. - COMPLETED

  r)  EL to prepare formal proposal for local town hall in conjunction with each ICANN Meeting.  IN PROGRESS.

EL’s new intention is to propose a community-driven, not entirely structured event called a “BarCamp” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp), rather than a town hall.  The BarCamp has the advantages of encouraging local engagement and being inexpensive.

Items for Discussion

2. Review of the At-Large San Francisco Meetings Schedule (Olivier and Staff)

HU briefed the ExCom on the current ALAC/At-Large calendar of meetings and agendas for San Francisco. 

During this briefing, the following was noted and/or decided:

• Sunday:  The At-Large Improvements WTs would be allocated two hours at the beginning of Sunday’s ALAC and Regional Leadership session, given the previous legitimate concerns that not enough time has yet been successfully given for ALAC involvement in the project.
• Sunday (CHANGE to schedule):  Cheryl will be the moderator of the working lunch/team building exercise.  This is an important event especially for new ALAC members.
• Monday:  If the sponsors do not come through for the NARALO Showcase, ICANN funding is available.
• Tuesday (CHANGE to schedule):  The WT A call will start a half-hour later than scheduled, so it will run for 30 minutes from 8:00 am to 8:30 am local time.
• Wednesday (CHANGE to schedule):  The AFRALO/AfrICANN Joint session will start at 16:30 local time in order to extend it by a half-hour during which the AFRALO-NomCom meeting will occur.  The AFRALO-NomCom meeting should be scheduled for the end of the session, because AfrICANN does not need to stay for it.
• Anytime convenient (CHANGE to schedule):  An ALAC-GAC meeting needs to be added to the schedule. 
  

Regarding ALAC-GAC meetings:    

• There needs to be a standing forum in which the ACs can discuss common goals and concerns.  The present schedule of the ALAC and GAC meeting at every other ICANN Meeting should be increased. 
• Despite this schedule, there was no ALAC-GAC meeting in Cartagena and, as of now, none in Silicon Valley.  Hence, the meeting must be added.
  

In addition, it was suggested that Olivier revitalize AC-SO interactions and the associated mailing list.

3. At-Large FY12 Budget Requests - Initial Feedback from ICANN Controller (Olivier and Juan Ojeda)

Reference:  At-Large FY12 Master document

HU reported that the budgetary requests (using the new templates) that the ALAC/At-Large submitted are considered to have enough information.  The requests from some other constituencies, however, did not, so they are being revised, which is delaying the process a bit.

OCL thanked all who worked to get the RALOs’ budgetary information and requests onto the templates and to the ALAC.  This process successfully resulted in many RALO budgetary requests.

4. AGAT Update and Next Steps (Evan)

The AGAT group has been formed, although more GAC people are needed to join.  Its wiki page is up, and its first call will be in the next few days. 

The next steps will be to identify the contentious sections of the DAG and assign individuals to drafting alternatives. 

OCL met with Mark Carvell, the GAC UK representative, for two and a half hours regarding IP issues and the GAC’s concerns.  Mark is very interested in the work of the AGAT and in having the results by Brussels.

5. At-Large Plans for GAC/Board Meeting (Olivier)

Not all the recommendations of the NTI have been passed onto the Board, as we expected.

Again, OCLmet with Mark Carvell, the GAC UK representative, for two and a half hours regarding IP issues and the GAC’s concerns. 

OCLEL and others are meeting with the GAC US representative on this Friday, mainly regarding Rec 6.

6. Board Resolution on Consumer Choice, Competition and Innovation - Next Steps (Olivier)

Currently, there is an e-mail discussion going on regarding how this initiative will move forward.  Apparently, there is a delay within the GNSO (due to its staff not having time for to work on the initiative right now).  Two informal proposals are being discussed:

• This work would be better done between the Silicon Valley and Amman Meetings.
• The process would include open discussions in Amman rather than only a cross-constituency WG.
  

It is unclear whether the ALAC or GNSO will need to drive this initiative. 

• In at least one presentation (which Evan saw), the GNSO reported that the ALAC would be doing so.  And there is certainly some interest for an ALAC-led session in San Francisco on consumer issues.
• On the other hand, there are certainly people and WGs within the GNSO that are interested in working on this. 
  

At the very least, the ALAC might have to take a bigger role, while not going beyond its mandate.

The reason it is unclear which group will need to handle this initiative is because the way in which ICANN defines “consumer” -- the central issue here -- is ambiguous.  Does it define “consumer” as a registrant, an end user, or both?  This ambiguity has prevented the initiative from gaining any traction.

The suggestion was discussed that the ALAC should define “consumer” as it sees fit and then others can agree or disagree. 

The ALAC, of course, does not want to duplicate Beau’s group with one of its own.  (Alternatively, if ICANN defines “consumer” as the end user, the ALAC doesn’t want Beau’s group duplicating one within At-Large.)

7. Review and Revise Timelines on the Policy Advice Development Calendar (Olivier)

Reference:  Click here for all currently open public consultations.

The following currently open public consultations have not been scheduled for comment by the ALAC. What are the next steps the ExCom wishes to take?

• GNSO Working Group Guidelines (ends 8 February 11)
• Proposed Process for Recognition of New GNSO Constituencies
  (ends 4 March 11)
• Interim Report of the Internationalized Registration Data (IRD) Working Group (extended to 14 March 11)
  

The ExCom decided that the ALAC would submit comments on all three of the above public consultations. 

GNSO Working Group Guidelines (ends 8 February 11)

Evan suggested that ALAC’s comment include the suggestion that, as a general matter, the GNSO in the future invite representatives from other constituencies to participate in the policy development from the beginning.  This would cause less damage control to be needed later.

Vanda, Cheryl, and Alan played integral roles in the development of these guidelines, so none of them can draft the ALAC comment.

Proposed Process for Recognition of New GNSO Constituencies (ends 4 March 11)

 Interim Report of the Internationalized Registration Data (IRD) Working Group (extended to 14 March 11

Two Webinars and an At-Large call next week are planned on the IRD report.

8. Any Other Business (Olivier)

Leaked US Commerce memo

(This item was discussed during agenda item 1b.)

A US Commerce memo, partly addressing intellectual property issues, was recently reported as leaked.  According to Alan, various blogs have referred to it.

OCL suggests caution regarding this topic and notes that he and others will be on a planned call with the Commerce Dept. on Friday afternoon.

Staff discussed upcoming staff transitions.