Thoughts on the Sept. 19 GNSO questions.

Sept. 19, 2008

      My thoughts embedded. Alan

At 19/09/2008 03:37 AM, Denise Michel wrote:
...
Dear Community Members,
As previously noted, discussions continue on outstanding issues 
related to GNSO Council restructuring.  I wanted to keep you 
apprised of issues and ideas under consideration that I am aware of, 
and give you (individually or as constituencies/advisory committees 
if time permits) an opportunity to provide input.  Thank you to 
those who responded to my previous email (included 
below).  Additional input received before 26 September on the issues 
noted below will be summarized for the Board prior to their 30 
September meeting at which these issues will be discussed.
1)  Registrants and/or Individual User Participation --  If the 
Non-commercial Stakeholder Group includes individual Internet user 
groups, should any distinctions be made with the membership of the 
ALAC and supporting At-Large structures (which represents individual 
Internet users' viewpoint across all of ICANN's structures and 
activities)?  The GNSO Working Group (WG-GCR) recommended the 
inclusion of "all interested parties that use or provide services 
for the Internet..." in the non-contracted party house and stated 
that it "should not be restricted to domain registrants."  The BGC 
GNSO Improvements Report adopted by the Board in June stated that a 
new Non-commercial Stakeholders Group "must go far beyond the 
membership of the current NCUC" (which is chartered to represent 
non-commercial entities). "We must consider educational, research, 
and philanthropic organizations, foundations, think tanks, members 
of academia, individual registrant groups and other noncommercial 
organizations, as well as individual registrants, as part of a 
non-commercial registrants Stakeholders Group."
I have some trouble figuring out exactly what is being asked in the 
first sentence. Membership of ALAC is a bunch of people and I don't 
see what this small group has to do with GNSO constituencies. The 
same goes for the RALO management (or whatever the right term is for 
those who carry out the chair/secretariat/etc roles). The issue of 
ALSs I have addressed in several venues when commenting on 
Recommendation 12 of the ALAC Review. I will reproduce my answer in 
my formally posted comments here. But in summary, I don't see the 
confusion. The distinction is one of the interests of the ALS or 
other organization, and they should be free to participate where they 
want, in line with other ICANN participation rules.

With regard to the other types of groups listed in the BGC report 
(educational, research, and philanthropic organizations, foundations, 
think tanks, members of academia, individual registrant groups and 
other noncommercial organizations), the more the merrier as far as I 
am concerned.

My comment to Rec 12:

Recommendation 12: That the ALAC should explore ways to differentiate 
between organizations that genuinely represent individual Internet 
users, and are therefore ALS candidates, as opposed to those which 
may be a better fit with the NCUC.
I believe that this question was not quite appropriate at the time it 
was asked, and even less so with the restructuring of the GNSO Council.

Without going into the letter of the formal rules, an ALS must 
credibly represent user interests. And at least one RALO allows 
individuals to join the RALO directly in lieu of joining an ALS. 
Pretty much any not-for profit can join the NCUC, and they are now 
planning to let individuals join as well. There is clearly overlap 
and that is not likely to change.
The differentiator is not necessarily the characteristic of the 
organization, but rather their interests. Ignoring for the moment the 
new GNSO structure:
o       NCUC is a part of the GNSO which has a mandate to develop ALL 
gTLD policies in ICANN. No more, no less.
o       ALAC and its At-Large organization have a mandate to advise 
the Board on ANY ICANN issue of relevance to users. But because of 
the wider scope, it will always need to pick and choose what it 
selects to address. It is not formally mandated to develop policy.
Depending on where their interest and priorities lie, they may pick 
who they want to associate with. Or both. There is (as far as I know) 
nothing that prevents an organization (or individual for the areas 
where they are allowed) from playing in both sandboxes. The ICANN 
Bylaws EXPLICITLY state that an individual or entity can participate 
in more than one GNSO constituency. I can see no reason that the same 
cannot be true for GNSO Constituencies and At-Large ALSs. I note that 
most ALSs existed before they joined At-Large - they have lives and 
interests of their own which may or may not coincide with multiple 
ICANN outreach directions. Once can easily imagine a community-owned 
wireless network becoming an ALS and a member of the ISP or Registrar 
Constituencies.
If the question being asked is should the ALAC help develop 
guidelines that would explain to outsiders why they might want to 
join ALAC, the answer is "Definitely". Just as presumably the NCUC 
will do for their prospective members. And in the presence of both 
documents, perhaps a "participation flowchart" could be developed.
...
2) Voting Thresholds for New Working Group Model -- An additional 
issue raised is whether voting thresholds were needed for electing 
the chair of a PDP WG and approving the charter for a PDP WG.  If 
so, what should the thresholds be? (see previous email below for 
other thresholds recommended by the WG-GCR).
I have no problem with these votes falling under the "all other" 
category requiring 50% of both houses, but could probably be happy 
with some other threshold if there were a compelling reason.
...
3) Electing Council Leadership -- There seems to be agreement with 
the WG-GCR proposal to elect the chair by 60% vote of both houses, 
and the discussion is focused on whether a back-up provision is 
needed.  If you have not provided comments, input would be 
appreciated on whether an alternate provision is needed in case no 
candidate achieves such supermajority and, if so, what that 
provision should be.  Ideas discussed include:  the full Council 
voting with a simple majority with weighted voting in the contracted 
party house to make the total house votes equal, and the NCAs would 
each have a single vote; and elect a chair by more than 50% of the 
vote of both houses.
I would prefer to have a simple mechanism which does not have the 
potential for deadlock, and in the previous set of answers supported 
the weighted voting mechanism. I can live with is as the fall-back 
method as well.
...
4) Implementation Plan -- The Board has directed that an 
implementation plan be submitted for Board approval that creates a 
transition to the new Council structure.  Further input would be 
appreciated on this point, including on transition timing and 
whether additional guidance or requirements are needed on the 
implementation plan.  Also, views would be appreciated on what 
provision should be made to fill seats on the new Council if a 
Stakeholder Plan is not approved by the Board.
Regarding timing, the recently announced revised timing of April 2009 
or later makes a lot more sense than the previous deadline of Jan. 1, 2009.

Regarding the allocation of Council seats, I have no easy solution in 
the cases where the N constituencies must divide 3 or 6 seats. Even 
in a "simple" case of 2 constituencies and 6 seats, it is not 
intuitively obvious that the division should be 3 and 3. The size and 
import of the two constituencies should play a factor, and both of 
those measures are going to be VERY subjective. This is an implicit 
problem with the Constituency:Stakeholder Group model proposed by the 
BGC. Although not a full solution to the problem, allowing fractional 
votes per council member may be required (that is, a given member may 
vote .6 of a vote Yes, and .4 No. VERY ugly, but unclear what better 
way we will have of representing constituencies if we are successful 
and have MANY in an SQ.
...
Thank you for your continued involvement and input.
Regards,
Denise
--
Denise Michel
ICANN VP, Policy
<mailto:policy-staff@icann.org>policy-staff@icann.org

Alan Greenberg

Sébastien Bachollet

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