As previously announced, there was a meeting with a number of Board members from the New gTLD Process Committee last Thursday. Attending on behalf of the ALAC were Alan Greenberg, Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Evan Leibovitch and Cheryl Langdon-Orr. Holly Raiche could not attend due to a scheduling conflict. For the Board, there was Cherine Chalaby, George Sadowsky and Rinalia Abdul-Rahim who chaired the meeting. Chris Disspain and Markus Kummer were both unable to attend due to travel. Also in attendance was Heidi Ullrich, staff members supporting the Board and from the ICANN General Council's Office, Compliance and the Global Domains Division. It was a productive meeting and definitely not a "pat them on the head and pretend we care" event. All parties were extremely candid. The meeting opened with a brief review of the ALAC concerns, the rationale for us requesting the freeze, and a summary of possible paths forward. Based on the letter requesting the meeting, it was clear that the NGPC hoped that a GNSO PDP might be a possible way to resolve the impasse of critical TLDs not yet implementing all of the safeguards required by GAC advice through Public Interest Commitments (PICs). I believe that we made a convincing case that PICs were not likely even eligible for a PDP Consensus Policy (required to alter already signed contracts) and even if they were, the outcome would not likely be satisfactory. We also raised the issue of whether ICANN was willing to publicly commit to having compliance actively follow up on all complaints submitted by governments, consumer agencies and regulators - a critical part of ensuring that once PICs are made, that they are adhered to. Rinalia did not play an active part in the discussion, but was very effective in chairing the discussion. George was very supportive of our position and Cherine as NGPC chair took a balanced position but I think understood that something needs to be done. Everyone was quite candid. Overall, I think that there is good understanding that ICANN needs to at least try to fix the problem and can't just ignore it. That does not necessarily map to succeeding of course. It was clear that no one has a magic bullet - voluntary agreement from all concerned registries was unlikely, unilateral contract changes would be ugly, and it was unclear what could be done to entice most or all registries to fix the problem. And the Board is therefore in a difficult position with respect to the GAC, as well as the rest of us. Whether they will backtrack and at least imply that they are considering a freeze to force the issue was not discussed. I suggested a meeting of all parties (NGPC, ALAC, GAC, BC and perhaps Registries) in Singapore and Cherine seemed to think it might be a good idea. It remains to be seen if it will happen. The issues will be further discussed at the upcoming NGPC meeting, and the duration of that meeting was explicitly lengthened to ensure that there was adequate time for a thorough discussion. Overall, I was very pleased with the meeting. Despite the heavy presence of support staff, the meeting was frank and I believe productive. It sets a good precedent for such future engagements. Alan At 22/01/2015 07:11 PM, Ron Andruff wrote:
Dear Alan,
I'm waiting with bated breath... can you brief me on the meeting?
RA
Ron Andruff www.lifedotsport.com
-------- Original message -------- From: Alan Greenberg Date:01/21/2015 22:41 (GMT-05:00) To: Ron Andruff ,'Evan Leibovitch' Subject: Re: Any news from Thomas?
NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION
Not much to report. I did not get a chance to talk to him until yesterday afternoon. Most of the GAC members who cared about the subject were not on the call. Discussion effectively deferred until Singapore.
Alan
At 21/01/2015 01:47 PM, Ron Andruff wrote:
Good afternoon,
Checking in to see if you had a chance to speak with Thomas this weekend in FFT?
I understand the NGPC-ALAC call is scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday). Any updates or other info to report by chance?
Thank you in advance for your soonest response.
Kind regards,
RA
Ron Andruff dotSport LLC <http://www.lifedotsport.com>www.lifedotsport.com