Thank You Wendy... Please see some of my *personal* comments noted interspaced below... and in general you might wish to raise with the Board the following matter of ALAC input via you as liaison into future Agenda's... and activities... under item 13) Other business. Or in relation to item 8) ALAC Review Working Group... 1. Considerable restructuring of collaborative work spaces-> WIKI as a set of inter-related and linked from the ALAC Wiki, Working Group Activity Workspaces and Working Group lists (which have all been repopulated and an ALAC Issue co-ordinator and a Chair or Co-Chair from the At-Large Community or ALAC appointed, see https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?at_large_policy_working_groups & https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?at_large_officers_and_working_group_lead ers ) has been carried out by ALAC and At-Large since the LA meeting. With the intention of increasing our productivity outcomes and input into ICANN processes and policy development. Reference here should be made in particular to the Structured work flow - Proposed by Vice Chair Vanda Scartezini and supported in principle by the ALAC ExCo at their meeting on 30/11/07 found at https://st.icann.org/alac-excomm/index.cgi?draft_proposal and we are also making extensive use of online tools between meetings and during teleconference meeting of bookmarked Skype chat conversations which allow for all comments to be reviewed on as history and allows for ongoing interchange of concepts and comments without the time zone limitations limiting inclusion. Wiki (Social text) training has also been made available for us to better utilise this valuable tool, and several of us have already taken advantage of this training. Our Thanks to ICANN Staff and Yan Sun in particular should be noted here. 2. ALAC ExCo (Chair, 2 x Vice Chair and the Rapporteur) now meet in the alternate fortnight (via teleconference) to the monthly ALAC meetings. Our next meeting is scheduled for December 21st... All meeting notes and Agenda's can be found here https://st.icann.org/alac-excomm/index.cgi? We will aim to have future ExCo meeting occur before the ICANN Board meetings in future (wherever possible) so that you can join us for part of the Agenda to interchange ideas and gain specific points on behalf of ALAC regarding your representations on our behalf at these meetings... 3. A main feature of the OneDay workshop for ALAC and the RALO secretariats, in the New Delhi meeting on Sunday the 10th of February, will be a focus on communications and increasing ALS and public participation in ICANN activities and policy development processes, and at that meeting it is expected that we will have broad base agreement on the workflow draft plan previously mentioned, and as a result of this activity we should have clear outcomes (and identify any required facilitation needs) leading to what we trust will be increased activity from the RALO's and ALS's, during 2008. 4. Other matters we have previously discussed via email or in the ALAC Meeting on December 11th, including:- * follow up on your requested clarification of the means by which public comments are incorporated into ongoing issue negotiation, particularly in multi-round negotiations. I await further information for the at-large community on how to assure that the concerns of individual users are heard in these discussions as effectively as the representatives of constituency or special interests. * ALAC's concerns about the Add-Grace Period - with specific reference to our recent Domain Tasting statement of December 5th (**text inserted below**) and our recognition that AGP is the current technique used for tasting but it not the only possible mechanism as per email traffic to the internal lists of the same date. *Future ICANN meeting planning in terms of regional and local knowledge input (where we may have avoided an AP meeting right on top of Lunar New Year combined with the height of the Wedding season in India for example) as well having timely and advanced planning for travel and visa arrangements to be made. * Regarding an update on the proposed At-Large Summit, please note to the Board that the new WG for this proposed activity, met for the first time on the 17th of December (see https://st.icann.org/summit-wg/index.cgi?17_december_2007 and note the summary minutes are already available with more information being posted soon) our next teleconference meeting will be in January on 3rd (or possibly 4th or 7th) with considerable work going online and by action items on WG Members between now and then. -----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Wendy Seltzer Sent: Tuesday, 18 December 2007 9:34 AM To: At-Large Subject: [At-Large] ICANN Board meeting: Dec 18 The ICANN Board will meet tomorrow (late evening US Eastern time), The Board Agenda for the Special Meeting of the Board (as set by the Executive Committee on 11 December 2007): 1) Approval of Minutes for 20 November 2007 Special Board Meeting - Preliminary Report is posted publicly @ http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-20nov07.htm 2) Discussion of .TEL Contractual Amendment - Possible Board Action 3) Discussion of ICANN Strategic Plan July 2008 - June 2011 <CLO> under this item please do note that a formal ALAC response will be on the ALAC ExCo Agenda for 21st of December; Note also that the ALAC ExCo has already identified that the Strategic Plan 2008 - 2011 doesn't address a number of areas which ALAC has previously said are very important:- specifically translation, interpretation, accessible information in user-friendly format, summaries of long reports which are accessible and understandable for end users, etc. As an advance indicator of what our specific comments will be addressing. 4) Update on New gTLD Process <CLO> ALAC and our Working group on this matter look forward to an update. 5) Discussion of Joint Project Agreement with the NTIA 6) Discussion of ICANN Accountability and Transparency Frameworks and Principles Document (Management Operating Principles) <CLO> Please note that our current issue paper on accountability and transparency is still in draft form at https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?alac_comments_on_accountability_and_tran sparency_frameworks_and_principles_for_consultation but that it is about to go under final comment call to the At-Large list, and that to date no opposing comments on its content have been received... 7) Discussion of Supporting IPv6 in the Root Server System <CLO> ALAC and our Working group on this matter look forward to an update. 8) Update on Formation of BGC's ALAC Review Working Group <CLO> we all wait on with great interest and the ALAC ExCo stands ready to co=operate and facilitate in any way it can. (Note Vanda will be taking the lead in this) 9) Discussion of President/CEO's Report for November 2007 10) Discussion of President/CEO's Performance Review Goals 11) Whois Conflict of National Laws Procedure <CLO> ALAC and our Working group on this matter look forward to an update. 12) Update on Czech Arbitration Court UDRP Application 13) Other Business Agenda posted at http://www.icann.org/minutes/ Most of these are informational items, from which I will report back any new information on which the At Large may wish to express its opinion. Did the ALAC want to share its AGP report to the GNSO with the Board as well? Shall I raise the Transparency concerns in the document Bret began? <https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?alac_comments_on_accountability_and_tra nsparency_frameworks_and_principles_for_consultation> <CLO> See above * point under my 4. and also note under Agenda item 3) Thank You Wendy :-) Do you have future dates for Board Meetings so we can reset our ExCo ones if needed??? --Wendy -- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Professor, Northeastern University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/ https://www.torproject.org/ _______________________________________________ ** text of the ALAC Domain Tasting Statrement** ALAC "Constituency" statement regarding the PDP on Domain Tasting Overview: The ALAC advocates any and all actions that will quickly eliminate domain tasting. There has been much discussion on this issue in the RALOs and on the general At Large discussion list. Although not all regions have been similarly active, the preponderance of views to date favour the complete elimination of the AGP. Rationale: While the AGP had legitimate roots, the reduction in domain name pricing combined with better registrar software eliminates this need. Preamble: The At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) is pleased to have been asked to submit a statement regarding the newly launched GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP) on Domain Tasting. The ALAC is not yet in a position to thoroughly vet such positions through the Regional At large Organizations (RALOs) and At large Structures (ALSs) but this statement has included significant input from the some RALOs, ALAC members and the At Large community. As work proceeds on the PDP, additional input will be sought from these groups. Domain tasting is the use of legitimate ICANN-approved processes to register a domain, test if there is any substantial traffic (perhaps because it was recently in use by someone else or is similar to another regularly used domain), and if not, cancel the registration within five days at no net cost to the registrant - an Add Grace Period (AGP) delete. Domain Tasting and the PDP: The issue of domain tasting has been regularly been discussed since the phenomena began in 2005 - and with good reason. In January 2005, before the practice was common, for .com and .net, there were about 1.7 million domains registered and 0.7 million domains deleted for a net increase of 1.0 million domains. By the end of that month, there were just over 40 million total domains registered. Two years later, at the end of January 2007, the total number of domains had increased by 78% to 72 million domains. However, in January 2007, there were 51 million domains registered and 48 million domains deleted. That is, there was a net increase of 3 million names, but most of the rest were just being "tasted". In the period since January 2007, the practice has grown even more. Although the practice is relatively widely used, the majority of tasting was being done by just three registrars, all of which have the same address, telephone number and formation date. The AGP was originally created to allow domain names that had been accidentally registered to be cancelled. Although a legitimate requirement at the time, the reduction in domain name pricing and better registrar software eliminates any substantive requirement for the AGP as it was originally envisioned. Moreover, many registrars and resellers do not even pass this benefit on to registrants. It was and is the position of the ALAC that the domain tasting enabled by the AGP is both inappropriate and harmful and should be eliminated with due haste. To this end, the ALAC initiated the formal investigation of domain tasting by requesting that ICANN develop an Issues Report. This was done with the support of several GNSO constituencies. Ultimately, the Issues Report was delivered to the GNSO and it included staff agreement that this was indeed an ICANN policy issue. At the ICANN meeting in Los Angeles, the GNSO decided to undertake a PDP with the intent of further understanding the effects of domain tasting and if appropriate, recommend measures to impede domain tasting. The ALAC is not only pleased that the GNSO has taken this action, but is particularly pleased that the action was taken with a 72% vote where only

33% was required to initiate a PDP. This indicated wide GNSO constituency support for some action. Although each constituency may have different reasons for supporting the process, it is nonetheless encouraging that the end target is the same.

The GNSO has chosen to solicit constituency statements and most likely will create one or more working groups to further investigate domain tasting.

From the ALAC's perspective, our main concerns were raised in the request for the Issues Report and with the possible exception of the reference to Facilitation of Criminal Activity, the positions remain valid. Specifically:

. Destabilization of the Domain Name System due to volume and rate of domain name adds and deletes; . Creation of consumer confusion undermining confidence in the Domain Name System; . Increased costs and burdens to legitimate registrants; . Facilitation of Trademark Abuse which also leads to consumer confusion. ALAC Position: The ALAC advocates any and all actions that will quickly eliminate domain tasting. Whilst at this stage there is no unilaterally supported view from all the RALOs at least one RALO (North America) and several ALAC members formally and strongly advocate complete elimination of the AGP, as the optimal way forward. The ALAC and RALOs have taken the opportunity to consult their user communities over the last several weeks. Active discussion resulted and opinions varied ranging from the North American RALO position that the AGP is not beneficial to the public good and should be abolished, through to the Latin American and Caribbean RALO and the Asia Pacific RALO positions (as given in previous regional statements) where they respectively stated that "action to control the practice [of domain tasting] may be necessary" and that "the effectiveness of economic tools should be investigated, such as has been successfully used in the PIR." ALAC does recognize that there are other actions which could lead to the effective elimination of domain tasting including: . Application of a registry-charged fee for all AGP uses. The fee would need to be set to effectively eliminate tasting and not just change the dynamics of it. . Application of a registry-charged fee if AGP uses exceed some threshold per month (this is effectively what PIR did). The fee could be as much as the full cost of the domain. The threshold would need to be set to catch domain tasters but to not cause perceived pain to registrars who use the AGP for legitimate, non-tasting purposes. Similarly, the fee would need to be set to effectively eliminate tasting and not just change the dynamics of it. . ICANN currently charges registrars $0.20 per domain added excluding AGP deletes (actually $0.25 decreased this year by $0.05). The exclusion could be removed in the next budget (or perhaps even sooner). Alternately, it could be removed only if a threshold of AGP uses were reached (there is already an AGP threshold used in a different registrar fee, so the mechanism is there). It is unclear if this fee would be sufficient to eliminate domain tasting, but it would almost surely alter the phenomena. . The RAA could be altered to change the clause stating that registrars cannot activate a domain unless they have a reasonable expectancy of being paid (3.7.4) to a clause which requires them to have a reasonable expectancy of being paid AND keep the money. The ALAC recognizes that some of the possible methods of attacking domain tasting may not require GNSO action at all, but rather may be effected by independent action of one or more parties. Such actions are encouraged. However, until such actions are actually taken and prove effective, the GNSO is encouraged to begin policy development on the issue. The ALAC will support the PDP in whatever ways are most productive to better understand the impacts of domain tasting and to eliminate it in the shortest possible time-frame. Should working groups be formed, the ALAC would welcome participation. Endorsed by the ALAC on December 5th, 2007 Transmitted on behalf of the ALAC to the GNSO via email by Alan Greenberg {insert time & date stamp here}