Why you don't you ask him the question directly ? :) Danny Younger a écrit :

Hello Khaled,

Just wondering... the candidates for this position are expected to provide leadership and guidance in building new GNSO Constituencies in the specific community categories for which they have applied. As Raffik is currently an individual member of the NCUC, might you know what new constituency he intends to build?

_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

Thanks for the clarification, Nick. I was aware that this wasn't an At Large appointment. I believe the Board acted on recommendations of ICANN's Staff, so my criticism is directed at whatever process/persons produced this strange result. I don't know how this recommendation made its way to the Board, so I don't know where to properly direct my rebuke. Perhaps you could point me in the right direction. Bret -----Original Message----- From: at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Nick Ashton-Hart Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 9:33 PM To: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] Fwd: Board appointments to fill 3 non-commercial seats on the new Council Thanks for your note Bret. For the avoidance of doubt, from your email it seems that you think At-Large had some role in selecting or vetting the three people nominated by the Board, but it did not. Bret Fausett wrote:

Have you people lost your minds? Two of these people are *not at all* representative of non-commercial interests. You either failed to do any due diligence on these applicants or the process has been completely gamed. Either way, real non-commercial users should be disgusted.

...

Rosemary Sinclair - Australia

Straight from her bio: "She is experienced in public policy and high-level strategic development and in representing the interests of corporate users of information and communications technology."

http://www.atug.com.au/rosemary_bio.cfm

Yes, she works at a non-profit, but it's a non-profit designed to represent the interests *of corporations* before government.

http://www.atug.com.au/general_text.cfm?section=membership&id=membership

...

Debra Hughes - United States

Ms. Hughes comes straight out of the IPC. She is trademark lawyer for the American Red Cross, formerly the trademark lawyer for Wal-Mart. Here are her current affiliations, according to her LinkedIn page: Global Intellectual Property & Business Lawyers; International Trademark Association (INTA); In-House Trademark Counsel Group; TTAB Law Forum.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/debra-hughes/5/97a/283

I am sure both Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Hughes have much to offer ICANN -- just not sitting in the "non-commercial" seats on the Names Council.

-- Bret

_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org

http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann .org

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

-- -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director for At-Large Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Tel: +33 (450) 42 81 83 USA Tel: +1 (310) 301-8637 Fax: : +41 (22) 594-85-44 Mobile: (Switzerland): +41 79 595 5468 email: nick.ashton-hart@icann.org Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann .org At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

2009/10/1 Nick Ashton-Hart <nick.ashton-hart@icann.org>

Here I may be able to be more useful to you :)

I recall reading Denise's mail properly the first time. It offered no details on the mechanism used, beyond the vague instructions given by the Board.

"Under the terms of the NCSG transitional charter approved by the Board on 30 July 2009, three of the six NCSG representatives on the new GNSO Council to be seated at the Seoul meeting were to be selected/appointed by the Board. The Board's Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) considered applications from a talented and diverse group of volunteers

Could you please let us know when the public call for applicants was made? I don't recall any, certainly there were many from within At-Large who may have applied. I see a very deliberate bias within the selections made based on Bret's revelations, and with all the volunteer mechanisms that exist within ICANN it is saddening to witness Staff and the SIC having appeared to have done this (dare I say, conspired to do this?) without any community input. This is not the kind of move that instills confidence in ICANN's ability to pick the best people for the job, especially with the level of upheaval going on within the GNSO. More trademark lawyers are NOT what the GNSO needs.

I am not absolutely sure, but I'm reasonably confident the best person to send comments to is Marco Lorenzoni - Marco.Lorenzoni[at]icann.org. He's Director for Organisational Reviews.

I've Cc'd Marco on this message. The community is owed an explanation of why it was not consulted, or considered as a source of candidates, and why the process has generally been so opaque. Certainly there has been little if anything from our Board Liaison regarding this issue. - Evan

There was an announcement <http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05aug09-en.htm> I don't remember if it was sent to At-Large. I think not. Adam

2009/10/1 Nick Ashton-Hart <nick.ashton-hart@icann.org>

...

Here I may be able to be more useful to you :)

I recall reading Denise's mail properly the first time. It offered no details on the mechanism used, beyond the vague instructions given by the Board.

...

"Under the terms of the NCSG transitional charter approved by the Board on 30 July 2009, three of the six NCSG representatives on the new GNSO Council to be seated at the Seoul meeting were to be selected/appointed by the Board. The Board's Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) considered applications from a talented and diverse group of volunteers

Could you please let us know when the public call for applicants was made? I don't recall any, certainly there were many from within At-Large who may have applied.

I see a very deliberate bias within the selections made based on Bret's revelations, and with all the volunteer mechanisms that exist within ICANN it is saddening to witness Staff and the SIC having appeared to have done this (dare I say, conspired to do this?) without any community input. This is not the kind of move that instills confidence in ICANN's ability to pick the best people for the job, especially with the level of upheaval going on within the GNSO. More trademark lawyers are NOT what the GNSO needs.

...

I am not absolutely sure, but I'm reasonably confident the best person to send comments to is Marco Lorenzoni - Marco.Lorenzoni[at]icann.org. He's Director for Organisational Reviews.

I've Cc'd Marco on this message. The community is owed an explanation of why it was not consulted, or considered as a source of candidates, and why the process has generally been so opaque. Certainly there has been little if anything from our Board Liaison regarding this issue.

- Evan _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

I am not absolutely sure, but I'm reasonably confident the best person to send comments to is Marco Lorenzoni - Marco.Lorenzoni[at]icann.org. He's Director for Organisational Reviews.

I copy Marco in this message, but I think that the questions asked are really for the Chair of the SIC to answer. I am sure that we are going to have a very interesting debate in Seoul about this, but I can anticipate a few comments. First of all, the interaction with the community. The process that the Board has chosen is modeled on the NomCom, although simplified. This means that the first step has been a call for candidature, issued, if I remember correctly (staff might correct me and/or give exact references), in the beginning of August, with deadline the end of August. Public discussion of the candidatures was explicitely excluded, in the same way as you do not have public discussion of the candidatures presented to the NomCom. It is extremely unfortunate that most of ALAC has not paid attention to the call, that I am sure was posted. Some parts of ALAC were well aware (I remember having had a discussion on the EURALO list, for instance), and I was assuming that all of ALAC was. The reason why I state that it was an unfortunate fact, is that we have received only 14 candidatures. I believe that at one point in time staff will publish the summary, including percentages by geographic region and gender. Second question, how the selection was done. The whole purpose of the exercise was to appoint people who were part of the non-commercial community that was not sufficiently represented. That included, but was not limited to, geographic regions not represented by the other NCSG councillors, constituencies to be formed, gender equality. For geographic regions, we noted that the current NCUC councillors are Bill Drake (NA, although with EU domicile), Mary Wong (AP, although with NA domicile) and Carlos Souza (LAC). The obvious absence was Africa. We considered, therefore, to have an African appointed as a priority. For constituencies, we noted thyat the a Consumer Constituency had a petition under approval process, that the technical research and academia has a theoretical representation (one representative appointed yearly to the NomCom) but no practical presence in the GNSO, that philantropic institutions have a growing importance, that non-commercial registrants are also not represented. But here comes the problem. With the narrow set of candidates it has been all but easy to cover these needs. Third question, about the individuals chosen. I have to admit that I do not like to make public statements about the quality of the candidates when I am part of the panel who makes the decision, and even less I would like to get into discussions on possible alternatives and why the SIC has ended up in not considering them. However, there are a couple of things I can say. About Rosemary Sinclair, she is the president of the INTUG, which is an international umbrella organization who has several national consumer organizations as members. The fact that ATUG, her employer, is a consumer organization mainly oriented to business users has been considered, but on the other hand it has also been considered that the organizations in INTUG are covering a wide spectrum, geographically and in terms of interest groups. There are two points to be taken into account: the first is that if the objective is ultimately to build a consumer constituency, the president of the largest consumer organization worldwide could be a good starting point, and the second is the commitment Rosemary has made to work in the interest of the non-commercial users worldwide during her tenure at the Name Council. Noting also that we have checked the references, I have personally no doubt that she will be very useful for the non-commercial user community and instrumental in outreaching to different consumer organizations that are now not involved in ICANN. About Debra Hughes, I confess that I am extremely surprised by the reaction. The International Red Cross has been one of the most frequently quoted examples of the type of organization that we hoped to get involved in the NonCommercial User community. Just few weeks ago in a letter to some Board members Robin Gross pointed out the fact that now the Red Cross has joined the NCUC. I find most surprisingly to have objections about having a representative of this reputable international organization, twice Nobel laureate, integrate the Name Council. While I do agree that she has an IP lawyer backgroung, I would like to stress that she is not in the Council as an individual, but as a representative of her organization. I wonder how many Registries and Registrars are represented in their constituencies or stakeholder groups by lawyers. And even ALAC itself has appointed years ago a representative to the NomCom who was working for a Registrar. So what? Maybe it would have been less contentious to have somebody with a different profile, but I personally feel happy that, given the exceptionally small number of applicants, we have found people who are well above the minimum requirements for the job. I would also like to add a last consideration. People have different interests, wear different hats, what is important is how they engage for accomplishing the mission given to them. There are a few tasks for these "special" NCSG Cousellors. One of them is outreach, in particular in their community. Another one is the ability to work together with people who have different views, as this will be the case in the Council, but even in the House or the Stakeholder Group. Staff has done the ground work, and prepared tables; the SIC has discussed for several days, online, by phone and in person, and has formulated a recommendation; the Board has discussed the recommendation and approved it during a teleconference. There has been a lot of work put in, in good faith, by a lot of people for getting this accomplished on time to have the GNSO Council seated in Seoul, which will mark a historic change in the GNSO. What I will ask now is to give the chosen people, who have little or no previous experience of ICANN, the benefit of the doubt, and judge them by their actions in few months from now, and not prejudge them based on line items on their CVs. The Council has to work together, the NCSG has to work together, to start pointing fingers a few hours after the appointment is not a good way to start. Watch their actions closely, criticize them bitterly (but politely) if they take positions that in your opinion are against the non-commercial community, but please wait until they act for passing judgement. Best regards, Roberto

Roberto Thanks for your detailed response... Agree that public discussion about people should be done with a lot of discretion. Here we are not discussing people as much as the nature of a constituency and its representation, which matter deserves public discussion. Just two points. One, I have not been able to understand why sufficient distinction is not being made between commercial users and non commercial users, in which context most 'consumer organizations' are formed and spoken of. As I understand general consumer constituency means non-commercial consumer, and that is also represented in the name of the implicated constituency in the ICANN structure. (in this respect, i am not able to understand the meaning of ' the president of the largest consumer organization worldwide', which group is being referred to here ?). Second point: in the first case at one point you seem to suggest that one's formal employer - and its status and declared persuasions - are irrelevant to the case, but you build the case for the second person precisely on the ground of the employer's status etc... parminder Roberto Gaetano wrote:

Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

...

I am not absolutely sure, but I'm reasonably confident the best person to send comments to is Marco Lorenzoni - Marco.Lorenzoni[at]icann.org. He's Director for Organisational Reviews.

I copy Marco in this message, but I think that the questions asked are really for the Chair of the SIC to answer. I am sure that we are going to have a very interesting debate in Seoul about this, but I can anticipate a few comments.

First of all, the interaction with the community. The process that the Board has chosen is modeled on the NomCom, although simplified. This means that the first step has been a call for candidature, issued, if I remember correctly (staff might correct me and/or give exact references), in the beginning of August, with deadline the end of August. Public discussion of the candidatures was explicitely excluded, in the same way as you do not have public discussion of the candidatures presented to the NomCom. It is extremely unfortunate that most of ALAC has not paid attention to the call, that I am sure was posted. Some parts of ALAC were well aware (I remember having had a discussion on the EURALO list, for instance), and I was assuming that all of ALAC was. The reason why I state that it was an unfortunate fact, is that we have received only 14 candidatures. I believe that at one point in time staff will publish the summary, including percentages by geographic region and gender.

Second question, how the selection was done. The whole purpose of the exercise was to appoint people who were part of the non-commercial community that was not sufficiently represented. That included, but was not limited to, geographic regions not represented by the other NCSG councillors, constituencies to be formed, gender equality. For geographic regions, we noted that the current NCUC councillors are Bill Drake (NA, although with EU domicile), Mary Wong (AP, although with NA domicile) and Carlos Souza (LAC). The obvious absence was Africa. We considered, therefore, to have an African appointed as a priority. For constituencies, we noted thyat the a Consumer Constituency had a petition under approval process, that the technical research and academia has a theoretical representation (one representative appointed yearly to the NomCom) but no practical presence in the GNSO, that philantropic institutions have a growing importance, that non-commercial registrants are also not represented. But here comes the problem. With the narrow set of candidates it has been all but easy to cover these needs.

Third question, about the individuals chosen. I have to admit that I do not like to make public statements about the quality of the candidates when I am part of the panel who makes the decision, and even less I would like to get into discussions on possible alternatives and why the SIC has ended up in not considering them. However, there are a couple of things I can say. About Rosemary Sinclair, she is the president of the INTUG, which is an international umbrella organization who has several national consumer organizations as members. The fact that ATUG, her employer, is a consumer organization mainly oriented to business users has been considered, but on the other hand it has also been considered that the organizations in INTUG are covering a wide spectrum, geographically and in terms of interest groups. There are two points to be taken into account: the first is that if the objective is ultimately to build a consumer constituency, the president of the largest consumer organization worldwide could be a good starting point, and the second is the commitment Rosemary has made to work in the interest of the non-commercial users worldwide during her tenure at the Name Council. Noting also that we have checked the references, I have personally no doubt that she will be very useful for the non-commercial user community and instrumental in outreaching to different consumer organizations that are now not involved in ICANN. About Debra Hughes, I confess that I am extremely surprised by the reaction. The International Red Cross has been one of the most frequently quoted examples of the type of organization that we hoped to get involved in the NonCommercial User community. Just few weeks ago in a letter to some Board members Robin Gross pointed out the fact that now the Red Cross has joined the NCUC. I find most surprisingly to have objections about having a representative of this reputable international organization, twice Nobel laureate, integrate the Name Council. While I do agree that she has an IP lawyer backgroung, I would like to stress that she is not in the Council as an individual, but as a representative of her organization. I wonder how many Registries and Registrars are represented in their constituencies or stakeholder groups by lawyers. And even ALAC itself has appointed years ago a representative to the NomCom who was working for a Registrar. So what? Maybe it would have been less contentious to have somebody with a different profile, but I personally feel happy that, given the exceptionally small number of applicants, we have found people who are well above the minimum requirements for the job.

I would also like to add a last consideration. People have different interests, wear different hats, what is important is how they engage for accomplishing the mission given to them. There are a few tasks for these "special" NCSG Cousellors. One of them is outreach, in particular in their community. Another one is the ability to work together with people who have different views, as this will be the case in the Council, but even in the House or the Stakeholder Group. Staff has done the ground work, and prepared tables; the SIC has discussed for several days, online, by phone and in person, and has formulated a recommendation; the Board has discussed the recommendation and approved it during a teleconference. There has been a lot of work put in, in good faith, by a lot of people for getting this accomplished on time to have the GNSO Council seated in Seoul, which will mark a historic change in the GNSO. What I will ask now is to give the chosen people, who have little or no previous experience of ICANN, the benefit of the doubt, and judge them by their actions in few months from now, and not prejudge them based on line items on their CVs. The Council has to work together, the NCSG has to work together, to start pointing fingers a few hours after the appointment is not a good way to start. Watch their actions closely, criticize them bitterly (but politely) if they take positions that in your opinion are against the non-commercial community, but please wait until they act for passing judgement.

Best regards, Roberto

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

Thanks for your points of clarification Roberto... Now can this list please consider that there would be merit in allowing some measure of outcome or performance of these volunteers to ICANN the GNSO and specifically the NCSG to actually be able to occur before we all continue second guessing and commenting on merit and motivation please... So again here I will repeat my original message to this list (sent as a bcc or fwd to the appointed people as to my knowledge none are on this list) perhaps I can also *strongly encourage participants on this ALAC At-Large list to leave this clearly complex situation of appointments by the Board SIC to the GNSO- NCSG at that... and for the record I think continuation of this discussion in this list is really quite presumptuous and ill advised I believe as a matter of principal we should wait for performance before review but as you know I'm also quite biased (as you can measure by my performance as ALAC Chair over the last 2 years) on how things should be done in an idealized internationalized globally accountable and transparent ICANN *and its constituent parts* i.e. with a professional approach to the use of courtesy and consideration, trust and trust building as well as careful change management processes... <snipped from earlier email by CLO> Thank you for this advice Denise, I've worked with Rosemary in other consumer fora; and have seen the contribution made by Debra to ICANN in recent years, and to a lesser extent of Rafik with the youth sessions at the IGF meeting in Hyderabad and I'm sure I speak for many in At-Large and the ALAC when I say we look forward to working with the NCSG and these newly appointed leaders in the User House of the restructured GNSO... I personally look forward to having time (perhaps in Seoul) to get to know all of them better and to explore how ALAC can continue to assist in facilitating individual Internet end user and non commercial Registrant involvement in the GNSO over the coming months and long term future.. <end snip> Cheryl (CLO) 2009/10/2 Roberto Gaetano <roberto@icann.org>

Parminder wrote:

...

Thanks for your detailed response...

I felt it was my duty, not staff's task, since the decisions were taken by the SIC, and it is my intention to take full responsibility for them, correct or incorrect, fair or injust they might have been.

...

Agree that public discussion about people should be done with a lot of discretion. Here we are not discussing people as much as the nature of a constituency and its representation, which matter deserves public discussion.

Agree. I only felt the risk of passing the fine line between judging the process and judging the people. I was worried when I started seeing names, and passing judgement on them.

...

Just two points. One, I have not been able to understand why sufficient distinction is not being made between commercial users and non commercial users, in which context most 'consumer organizations' are formed and spoken of. As I understand general consumer constituency means non-commercial consumer, and that is also represented in the name of the implicated constituency in the ICANN structure. (in this respect, i am not able to understand the meaning of ' the president of the largest consumer organization worldwide', which group is being referred to here ?).

Generally speaking, consumer protection organization do not make strict distinction between commercial and non commercial users. Even the ATUG, described as a business-oriented organization, has non commercial and non profit members, although they are not in majority. The situation is different for INTUG, that as I said is an umbrella organization that has consumer protection organizations as members, and these organizations are quite different from eachother, so the situation becomes even more mixed and blurred. My point, to make a long story short, is simply that to have a consumer protection constituency composed by consumer protection organizations that only address the needs of non commercial entities is a nonsense, as we will have a very poor coverage of the real world. It would be like if the IP constituency would not accept as member an organization that is non commercial or not for profit who wants to protect their brand name.

...

Second point: in the first case at one point you seem to suggest that one's formal employer - and its status and declared persuasions - are irrelevant to the case, but you build the case for the second person precisely on the ground of the employer's status etc...

I never said it was "irrelevant" in the first case, quite the contrary. This candidate has two affiliations, as she is also President of the INTUG, and the application has been made referring to this second hat. All the examples and the references in the application are related to this organization, and therefore the affiliation did indeed matter. As in the second case.

I hope I have answered your questions. Regards, Roberto

_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org

http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

-- Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO)