Dear Councillors Please have a look at the following message from Garth Miller (.cx) sent to Nigel Roberts and Patricio Poblete. With this information, a new version of our letter to the ALAC Chair is in order and I will circulate it with you soon. Best regards, Alejandra -- [image: Photograph] *Alejandra Reynoso*Investigación & Desarrollo | Dominios .gt *P:* +502 23688565 *E:* alejandra.reynoso@cctld.gt 18 Ave. 11-95 Zona 15, V.H. III. (A-109) Guatemala, Guatemala www.gt ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Nigel Roberts <nigel.roberts@board.icann.org> Date: Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 5:27 AM Subject: Fwd: ICANN 71, ALAC To: Alejandra Reynoso <alejandra.reynoso@cctld.gt> Cc: <nigel.roberts@board.icann.org> Garth's email. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: ICANN 71, ALAC Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2021 17:10:56 +0100 From: Nigel Roberts <nigel.roberts@board.icann.org> To: Garth Miller <garth.miller@cxda.org.cx>, patricio.poblete@board.icann.org CC: nigel.roberts@board.icann.org Dear Garth This is to confirm receipt of your email, and thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention. Should matters indeed be as you describe (and I will be looking at the relevant transcripts/recordings shortly) there may be several areas of concern that should be looked at and, accordingly, I wpuld intend to take these up with the appropriate people within the Board, Community and/or Org. I presume I have your permission to forward your email in its entirety where necessary? Please confirm. Kind regards On 07/07/2021 14:26, Garth Miller wrote:
Dear Nigel,
I write to express my dismay regarding the presentation by Ms. Holly Raiche (an ALAC member) during an ALAC session at ICANN 71.
I am finding it impossible to ignore the impropriety of using the timeme granted to the speaker to discuss .au in an internationally streamed session to attack the administration of the .cx ccTLD and base the attack on publication of child abuse images - for which there is absolutely no evidence that I am aware of. This is beyond the pale.
Ms. Raiche`s statement that the .cx ccTLD is "one of the major sites for child abuse and other criminal activity" has absolutely no basis in fact. This is problematic given that this statement was made in a public fora, live streamed globally - and is now available in perpetuity on the ICANN website in meeting archives.
I am always prepared to be proven wrong, but unless the speaker is prepared to back up the claims with substantive evidence, ALAC, as the sponsor of the session, should issue a clarification.
Of the five Australian entities that run ccTLDs in Australia, Christmas Island Domain Administration (cxDA) was the first entity to join the UK based Internet Watch foundation (IWF) and support its effort to combat sharing of child abuse images. cxDA has been a member and received IWF feeds since 2016.
A review of publicly available statistics and IWF annual reports would not show the .cx ccTLD as a TLD with a major problem. In fact, the .cx ccTLD does not appear in any of their annual reports or rankings of problematic TLDs.
In 21 years of running the ccTLD cxDA has received three (3) suspension requests from the IWF ( which were acted on by cxDA immediately ) and none from domestic or international law enforcement agencies.
On the matter of criminal activity, the presenter appears to again have made baseless and false claims. The level of abuse in the .cx ccTLD is about .06%, half the figure of .12 % , that ICANN reports as the average for ccTLDs that are utilising the ICANN Domain Abuse Activity Reporting system.
cxDA has historically provided Australian Law enforcement, specifically the Federal Police, with daily reports and credentials to the .cx ccTLD abuse monitoring platform.
The above and other multiple factually incorrect statements in the speaker's presentation have created significant reputational damage to the cx ccTLD manager in the community.
I would like to formally request that, as the ccNSO representative on the ICANN board, you raise this issue with the ccNSO council and ALAC (the session host).
Also while presenting, the speaker brought up the nationality of the TLD manager. Although far from my main concern, in the ICANN community bringing up the race, gender or nationality of a community member in a way that implies they should not be entitled to perform a given role on that basis is highly inappropriate.
While cxDA obviously has concerns, there is also an issue for ICANN to address, the use of live streamed ICANN sessions by speakers to launch public attacks on other members of the community - without accountability or giving the subject of their attack an opportunity to counter the accusations.
Thank you for your consideration.
Garth Miller
Christmas Island Domain Administration Limited