2020-02-27 APRALO Monthly Teleconference

Date: Thursday, 27 February 2020

Time: 06:00 - 07:00 UTC (for the time in various time zones click here)

Meeting Number: AL.AP/CC.0120/1

How do I participate in this meeting?

English Conference ID = 1638

Chinese Conference ID = 2038

Zoom room: https://icann.zoom.us/j/875888495

Action Items: EN

Recording: EN, ZH

Transcript: EN, ZH

Chat: EN

Participants

EN: Satish Babu, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Holly Raiche, Syuzan Marukhyan, Lianna Galstyan, Shreedeep Rayamajhi, Amrita Choudhury, Ali AlMeshal, Priyatosh Jana, Eranga Samararathna, Gunela Astbrink, Jaewon Son, Suhaidi Hassan, Leon Sanchez, Winthrop Yu, Justine Chew, Mohammad Kawsar Uddin, Kaili Kan, Nadira AlAraj, Prateek Pathak, Hanan Khatib, Amir Qayyum

ZH: None

Apologies:  Maureen Hilyard, Namrata Khetrapal, Amal Ramzi Al-saqqaf

Staff: Heidi Ullrich, Baher Esmat, Jia Rong Low, Gisella Gruber, Seher Sağıroğlu, Yeşim Nazlar

ZH Interpreters: Sandy & Ray

Call Management: Yeşim Nazlar

Agenda:

1. Roll call - Staff (2 min)

2. Welcome and APRALO Membership Matters (Satish, 3 min)

3. ALAC Policy Update -  Holly/Justine (15 min) 

Recently Ratified by the ALAC (since last APRALO Monthly meeting)

Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group
Executive Summary TBD

Proposed Dates for ICANN Public Meetings 2024-2028 and Revised Dates in 2022
The ALAC noted that ICANN has been striving to be more inclusive in an effort to engage more volunteers with diverse backgrounds. ICANN acknowledges the difficulty in getting new people to join and engage within ICANN and to increase the diversity of participants. The Multistakeholder Model Work Plan takes note of the importance to ICANN to develop pathways to enable effective participation. One of the more practical ways for ICANN to facilitate participation is for ICANN Org, to be more aware of and to avoid clashing with important holidays and religious days observed by volunteers who work countless hours to improve ICANN’s multistakeholder advisory work. By avoiding these dates as much as possible it is showing all  volunteers that ICANN Org understands their concerns and does its best to avoid conflicts. 

The ALAC made several other suggestions regarding ICANN meeting dates in 2022 and from 2024-2028.

Third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3) Draft Report
The ALAC noted the ATRT review has produced a considerable amount of work in little time and this is laudable. Nevertheless, from an end-user perspective, ATRT should consider deliberating the following questions: (1) How can ICANN better address conflicts of interest? The ICANN community is relatively small, with relatively few actors involved in the process. Conflicts of interest, perceived or real, can impact negatively on ICANN’s standing; (2) How can transparency be increased? (3) How can ICANN ensure that in cases where issues persist, processes are initiated to correct trajectory? (For example, if multiple reviews identify the same issue or if they find implementation to be lacking, how can this be fast-tracked transparently and effectively?) (4) Might it be necessary to “silo off” or ring-fence certain functions, including reviews, compliance, and other types of community oversight? (5) How can ICANN improve their responsiveness to community and review team questions and affairs, and what policies should be created to ensure these are dealt with? The ALAC also suggested taking several noted options into consideration, emphasizing from an end user perspective, more, not less, accountability and transparency is required from the ICANN community and org. 

Overall, the ALAC supports the suggested changes to the ICANN Public Comment, public input as well as the accountability indicators. We believe those changes would make the Public Comments more effective and show better transparency. We strongly believe that a wide, open and inclusive process should be maintained in policy development process especially with input representing the multistakeholder environment. Policy development must be transparent, efficient and should not be biased or skewed towards a group.

ALAC Advice to the ICANN Board on ISOC/PIR Issue
The ALAC noted the proposed sale of PIR to Ethos Capital has, understandably, created quite a stir, prompting commentary from many perspectives within the ICANN community, and applauds the efforts by the ICANN Board to clarify and make transparent, as much as possible, the process regarding the deal and to take the time to encourage the best possible result.

The ALAC Advice to the ICANN Board suggested (8) recommendations: (1) The Registry for .ORG must be organized as either a charitable non-profit [501c(3) in the US] or a “Benefit Corporation” (B Corporation); (2) One-third of the Registry Corporate Board must be representatives of charitable nonprofits; (3) One Board member selected by the ALAC; (4) The Registry for .ORG must enshrine in its bylaws that the principal focus of the domain is nonprofits and individuals and not commercial interests; (5) The Registry must enshrine in its bylaws a commitment to free speech and a resistance to takedown demands with a political basis; (6) The Registry must provide 6 months prior written notice to its registrants of any increase in wholesale price of their domain names registration renewal fees and the option of a 20-year renewal thereof at the pre-increase price; (7) The Registry Agreement must enshrine PIR prohibited practices such a bulk sales to commercial registrars; and (8) The Registry Agreement must establish a “DNS Abuse Ceiling”.

Additional:

• See ISOC/PIR Update (13 February 2020): A letter from Maarten Botterman to the Chair, Internet Society (ISOC), A letter from Jones Day to Public Interest Registry (PIR).
• "At-Large Valentine" submitted to the ICANN Board regarding Proposed Amendment 3 to the .COM Registry Agreement.
• ICANN Public Comment Update: See https://alpha.icann.org/en/public-comment and provide feedback by 13 March 2020 to public-comment@icann.org.

Public Comment for Decision 

Middle East and Adjoining Countries (MEAC) Strategy 2021-2025 03 Apr 2020 

Current Statements (ALAC Advice, Comment or Correspondence)

4. ALAC Updates (Holly, 10 min)

5. ICANN67 Update (Gisella/Heidi, 5 min)

6. APRALO Updates (15 min)

• APRALO Policy Platform 2020: Next steps (Justine, 10 min)

PDF

Link to Google doc for comments | Link to At-Large Policy Platform

• Regional Updates:  (Satish/Lianna, 5 min)
  • APRICOT2020
  • APTLD77
  • APStar Community
  • DotAsia AGM
• Call for volunteers for public comments on ICANN's MEAC Strategy (Baher/Evin, 3 min)

7. NomCom Update (Amrita, 5 min)

8. AOB (2 min)