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Two Draft ALAC Statements to the ICANN Board Up for At-Large Community Comment
by At-Large Staff April 7, 2008

April 7, 2008

Dear Community members: We have been asked to notify you that two draft statements to the ICANN Board from the At-Large Advisory Committee are now open for comments from all members of the At-Large community. Comments will be accepted until 16th April 2008, at 1200 UTC, after which time comments will be reviewed by the ALAC Finance and Budget committee before transmitting the final text to the Board of Directors as an Advisory Committee statement. Draft Statement to the ICANN Board on the Budget and Operational Plan Framework for 2008/2009: https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?al_alac_bud_sc_0308_1_2 Draft Sttatement to the ICANN Board and to the Public Consultation on an ICANN Travel Policy for Volunteers: https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?al_alac_bud_sc_0308_1_1 These two are important because the planning now going on and especially the consultation related to travel support can have significant impacts upon the participation of the At-Large community in ICANN meetings and in the work of ICANN. Comments may be made by clicking the Comment¹ button at the top of each of these pages. Please do sign your name in your comments, or the name of your ALS if you are commenting on behalf of an ALS. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart, Matthias Langenegger, Frederic Teboul ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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ALAC Draft Accountability Framework and Conflicts of Interest Policy
by Nick Ashton-Hart April 1, 2008

April 1, 2008

Dear Community members: The ALAC decided at their last meeting to request the staff to draft up a comprehensive Accountability Framework, which the ALAC Executive Committee was to review and amend at its meeting this month. The Chair proposed to the ExComm that at the same time a Conflicts of Interest Policy should be prepared as this was a natural accompaniment to the Accountability Framework. he ExComm has reviewed these two texts, and the ALAC is now to review the draft from 1 April until 11th April - comments from the wider At-Large community are of course welcomed. Any comments received are then to be incorporated and the resulting text will be on the agenda for adoption at the next ALAC Teleconference, in May. The URL for the text is as follows. In order to save bandwidth for those who do not have broadband, the text has not been attached to this message: https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/alac/attachments/8_april_2008:20080331… French and Spanish translation will be available once they are ready. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director for At-Large Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +41 (22) 594-85-44 Mobile: +41 (79) 595 54-68 email: nick.ashton-hart(a)icann.org Win IM: ashtonhart(a)hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart(a)mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart

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APRALO Working Groups
by At-Large Staff March 31, 2008

March 31, 2008

Dear All: We understand a question arose on the last APRALO teleconference related to who were members of the Budget working group. Please note that all working groups and members can be found at: https://st.icann.org/asiapac/index.cgi?apralo_working_groups In particular, the budget WG members are as follows: Budgets and Projects John Fung HKIF, Nirmol Agarwal ISVK, Gurumurthy Kasinathan -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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New Community Website - conversion done, new site online!
by Nick Ashton-Hart March 26, 2008

March 26, 2008

Dear members of the community: I'm very pleased to be able to tell you that the conversion has been completed and the new website is up and running at www.atlarge.icann.org! There's still much to do though: 1. We will begin to change the menu structure on both the sides and the top to make things more intuitive. A number of documents also need to be changed from one long piece of text (like the main page) to individual 'pieces' of standalone text. The integration of forums and mailing lists for a two-way link between them is also pending. As those things are done we will also: 2. start migration a lot of the wiki content over to the main site - and also migrate the calendar from Google calendar 3. We'll create the regional sub-sites, so that it will become possible to allow community contribution of material to the site. 4. We'll start to 'turn on' features such as: RSS-feeds of blogs of members of the community related to ICANN (we will put out a call for those of you with blogs to send your URLs in - but hang on; we're not ready quite yet. I hope that you are all as excited by this milestone as I am. It has been a year in the making, and it may still look a bit like the old site - but we've now got a solid foundation to build a truly collaborative future! -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director for At-Large Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +41 (22) 594-85-44 Mobile: +41 (79) 595 54-68 email: nick.ashton-hart(a)icann.org Win IM: ashtonhart(a)hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart(a)mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart

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Draft GNSO Improvements Statement from At-Large: Comments due by 31st March 1200 UTC
by At-Large Staff March 25, 2008

March 25, 2008

Dear Members of the At-Large Community: I have the pleasure to provide you with the attached draft statement of the ALAC Ad-Hoc Working Group on GNSO Improvements. It is intended that the statement should be transmitted by the At-Large Advisory Committee to the Board of Directors of ICANN as a formal statement on behalf of the At-Large community. In order to do this, the following timeline has been established by the Working Group: 1. At-Large community views on the document are requested to be received not later than 31st March at 1200 UTC; 2. The Working Group will meet on 31st March to revise the statement as necessary to reflect the views of the community; 3. The Chair of the ALAC will transmit the finalised statement to the Board of Directors directly after it is finalised. We are requested to point out to you that the consultation on the GNSO Improvements proposal has been extended to 25th April 2008. As a result, the attached statement once finalised will also be transmitted to that public consultation. The consultation is open to all concerned and it is the hope of the ALAC that many members of the community will take this opportunity to comment directly. The consultation can be found at: http://www.icann.org/public_comment/#gnso-improvements-report-2008. Comments may be sent directly to gnso-improvements-report-2008(a)icann.org. The comments of others may be found at: http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-improvements-report-2008/ -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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Tuesday, 25 March, APRALO Teleconference
by At-Large Staff March 20, 2008

March 20, 2008

Dear all, We would like to remind you of the upcoming APRALO March Teleconference, which is going to take place on the 25th of March at 0500 UTC. Please note that this is different form the date that was mentioned in previous messages. We are sorry for the confusion this might have created and would like to reaffirm that all the APRALO teleconferences in 2008 are scheduled on the 4th Tuesday of every month. We set up a meeting page were find the agenda items as well as the dial in numbers and the access code. https://st.icann.org/asiapac/index.cgi?25_march_2008 Because of the holiday period it will be difficult for us to set up dial out requests in time. However, you can use the online form from the provider at http://go.adigo.com/go/outlink.php?sid=7298. Just please make sure you do not use it before the actual start of the conference. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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AT-LARGE ANNOUNCEMENT: Resignation of ALAC Vice-Chair
by At-Large Staff March 18, 2008

March 18, 2008

Dear Community: The Chair of the ALAC has requested that the At-Large Staff notify you that Robert Guerra has resigned his office as Vice-Chair of the At-Large Advisory Committee for personal reasons. The ALAC wishes to convey its thanks for his work in this position until his resignation. Robert remains an elected Member of the ALAC from North America and the representative of At-Large to the Security and Stability Advisory Committee. This situation is provided for in Rule 9.1 of the Rules of Procedure of the ALAC as adopted in October 2007: ³If for any reason whatsoever (including lack of quorum, lack or loss of eligibility requirements, resignation, or recall) an officer position becomes vacant before the end of the term, the Chair will promptly start an election to fill it, by sending an ³election call² message and starting the procedure from rule 9.1² In conformity with Rule 9.1 an election call message from the Chair will be forthcoming, which will provide the relevant details of the process to elect a replacement co-Vice-Chair. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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FW: [ALAC-Internal] ALS Application from CDNUA
by At-Large Staff March 17, 2008

March 17, 2008

Sorry about that we left you all off first time around ------ Forwarded Message From: At-Large Staff <staff(a)atlarge.icann.org> Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:57:58 -0700 To: <alac-internal(a)atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: [ALAC-Internal] ALS Application from CDNUA Dear all, We would like to inform you of the reception of an ALS application from the Chinese Domain Name Users Alliance (CDNUA), a Beijing-based organization. Please find it attached. The application was passed on to the regional liaison for Asia in order to process the Due Diligence form. We will forward the completed DD form to you after reception. We are currently unable to post the ALS Application on our website because our site architecture is in the process of being remodeled. We will put it up as soon as possible. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org ------ End of Forwarded Message

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ALS Application from CDNUA
by Matthias Langenegger March 17, 2008

March 17, 2008

Dear all, Please find attached the ALS application we received from the Chinese Domain Name Users Association (CDNUA). We will send you further information on the application in due course. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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URGENT: Statement on Domain Name Front Running
by At-Large Staff March 13, 2008

March 13, 2008

Dear Members: The statement reproduced below on the practice known as ³Domain Name Front Running² was approved by the NARALO on 10 March 2008. The ALAC reviewed this statement on 11th March 2008, and by decision of the ALAC you are kindly asked to register any objections to this statement not later than Monday 17 March at 1200 UTC after it will be considered approved by the ALAC and transmitted to the Board by the Chair at her convenience. The statement may be found at the following URL in addition to being reproduced below: https://st.icann.org/naralo/index.cgi?statement_to_the_icann_board_on_domain _front_running Statement on Domain Name Front Running Presented to NARALO by electronic Mail, 1 March 2008 Dear ICANN board directors: While we are aware that you have been monitoring the public outrage in response to registrar activities that have been variously described as "front-running" and/or "domain reservation" or "cart-hold" or "cart-reserve" activities, we are of the view that the obligation to safeguard the operational stability of Registrar Services now requires the immediate temporary establishment of a consensus policy curtailing such practices to be taken in accordance with the board's authority under the provisions set out in section 4.3.4 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, that states: "A specification or policy established by the ICANN Board of Directors on a temporary basis, without a prior recommendation by the council of an ICANN Supporting Organization, shall also be considered to be a Consensus Policy if adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors by a vote of at least two-thirds of its members, so long as the Board reasonably determines that immediate temporary establishment of a specification or policy on the subject is necessary to maintain the operational stability of Registrar Services, Registry Services, the DNS, or the Internet, and that the proposed specification or policy is as narrowly tailored as feasible to achieve those objectives." Please be advised that we have reached this conclusion based in part upon the following considerations: 1. The use of "cart-hold" or "cart-reserve" systems has been actively under discussion within the registrars constituency since early October 2007 when three different registrars first advanced the concept within the context of a straw poll on the impact to registrants were the AGP to be eliminated in its entirety (see footnote 1 at the bottom of the page) 2. The use of this domain name reservation practice next came to be adopted by a large-volume registrar (Network Solutions) on or about 8 January 2008, and the practice was immediately condemned by the community at large (with extensive coverage in the Tech media, the general press, in blogs world wide, on domain name forums, and on community discussion lists). 3. The actions of Network Solutions has now spawned a similar project on the part of another large-volume registrar (register.com) and we have no reason to believe that other large-volume registrars will refrain from rapidly setting up comparable efforts. (see Footnote 2). While we recognize that we are unable to point to an ICANN-approved definition of "operational stability of Registrar Services" (as no such definition exists within either current ICANN contracts or supporting materials), we take guidance from the ICANN Policy Document ICP-3 which posits that activities that do not interfere with the operation of the DNS are, generally speaking, those that operate within community-established norms. Such norms tend to respect a set of long-established principles such as the principle of least astonishment. When registrants currently search for a domain name at these registrars using normative search practices, they are clearly astonished by that which results from their efforts: the inability to readily register the domain name of their choice with a more competitive registrar and/or the domain name that they have selected appearing in the WHOIS with the name of the registrar as the registrant of record. (Footnote 3 The community's trust in ICANN's ability to manage the Domain Name System is at stake. It is inappropriate for such registrar activities to proceed unabated in a policy vaccuum. Accordingly we call upon the ICANN board to establish a temporary narrowly-tailored policy as a stopgap until such time as the relevant policy-recommending ICANN Supporting Organizations can provide a comprehensive consensus policy solution. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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