DRAFT v. 1.0. Those who were there, feel free to supplement.
NCUC Lisbon meeting notes
ATTENDANCE:
Milton Mueller, Syracuse University Convergence Center, Chair
Norbert Klein, Open Forum Cambodia, GNSO Council Rep.
Marcelo Fernandes, CGI Brasil, Executive Committee, LACC region
Robert Guerra, CPSR, Executive Committee, North America region
Karen Banks, APC, NCUC NomCom appointee
Glen Ricart, University of Maryland, PIR Board
Carlos Afonso, RITS Brasil,
Tinwee Tan, National University of Singapore
Victoria McEvedy, Solicitor, NCUC rep on new gTLD working groups
Adam Peake, Glocom
Avri Doria, CPSR/APC
Nonmembers George Sadowsky, Bill Manning, Liz Williams, and Monika Ermert visited at various times
CONSTITUENCY BUSINESS
Financial Report: We have most of the last PIR and Afilias grants remaining, mostly allocated to travel.
Election results, officers, terms:
Thanks to Marcelo and CGI for their excellent election software.
Milton Mueller was elected chair for the next year, but warned that he will not run next year and it is not too soon to think about who might do it next.
Robin Gross elected to another 3 year term for GNSO Council
New executive committee:
North America region: Robert Guerra, CPSR, Canada
Europe region: Georg Grève, Free Software Foundation Europe, Germany
Africa region: Olivier Nana Nzepa. Africa Management, Cameroun
Latin America/ Caribbean region: Marcelo Fernandes, The Committee for
Democratization in Information Technology of Pernambuco, Brazil
Asia-Pacific region: Horacio Cadiz, Philippine Network Foundation, The Philippines
All serve one year terms.
There was some discussion about asking members to renew; this would be good for the constituency if we had the capacity to pull it off. Need to develop an annual report.
4 new members: March of Dimes, FSF Europe, ISOC-NY, MINC.
Domain name: use the one developed by the Brazilians? Gain access to ncuc.icann.org
PIR RELATIONSHIP
End of first round of grant commitments made under Ed Viltz's term as CEO. Karen and Carlos volunteer to develop another proposal. Robert Guerra volunteers use of CPSR's account if donors need to give to a 501(3)c.
Glen Ricart reported that PIR was searching for a new CEO, and for new Board members. He said he believes there is support for a new funding proposal.
NOMCOM VISIT
George Sadowsky and Bill Manning entered to pitch nominations. Bill Manning said that ICANN had the opportunity to significantly recast itself. Three Board members -- seats currently held by Joie Ito, Vanda Scartezini and Vint Cerf -- are needed. Vint Cerf is term limited and cannot reapply. Same is true of Alejandro, although he was appointed by GNSO not Nomcom. The GNSO Council positions held by Avri Doria and Sofia Bekele are up for reappointment via Nomcom. So are ccNSO positions and the ALAC seat held by Jacqueline Morris. Constituency members encouraged strongly by Karen Banks to think of good people for these positions. Statements of interest will be due May 1. The Committee is concerned about the pace at which it is receiving applications. By June, the Nomcom will be asking us to appoint a new representative.
BRUCE TONKIN VISIT
Bruce Tonkin, candidate for the GNSO Board seat running unopposed, visited and we discussed some of the GNSO issues, notably Whois and new gTLDs. He was also asked about his centrist tac and his role as a facilitator of Board-GNSO relations.
ISSUE DISCUSSIONS
IDNs * Dec05 PDP working group
Avri: IDNs are part of the new gTLD proceeding, but results hav not been discussed in a council meeting yet. Liz: IDNs should as much as possible be subject to the same criteria as other new gTLDs. Tin Wee Tan reported. Language communities * should they be independent of ICANN process, or coopted within ICANN process? There is activity in ccNSO and GAC around this. No answer yet. PDP has no idea what kind of an evaluation process will be implemented. Who can represent a language community? TTW: various groups formed for this, e.g. Arab and CDNC. These groups may not believe in the effectiveness of any ICANN process, and may not want to participate. China's "nuclear option" announced last March, no Chinese involved in GNSO IDN process. MM: can we define principles to narrow decision making criteria of these groups?
Principles to guide position formation on IDN issues:
* IDN implementation is a priority for ICANN and for NCUC
* New IDN gTLDs provide an opportunity to create a more diverse global distribution of registration suppliers.
[* Introduction of IDNs should extend access and not fragment it]
* While we recognize that governments (at all levels) and ccTLDs have a significant interest in IDN implementation, their monopoly control of IDNs should not be a policy presumption.
Carlos: translations/transliterations of domain names - position needs to be determined
WHOIS
Strong pressure for a "natural person, noncommercial" vs. "corporate, commercial" distinction
NCUC believes that commercial status of domain is unimportant; there are individual businesspeople, "sole traders," using their home as offices. These have a right to privacy regardless. Too much activity can be considered "use in commerce" to make this the dividing line. Should you be able to see who you are doing business with? Yes, but this is dealt with adquately in other legal spheres. Should city be added to jurisdiction? No.
Access for law enforcement ("tiered access")
Who gets it? Just law enforcement or private actors? Many of us prefer status quo to a "white list" tiered access that includes private actors and gives them unrestricted access. Who pays for it? Cost must be placed on users of the system to access information.
Procedure:
We are against a new, 30-90 day working group. The basis for an acceptable compromise should be worked out here. We support some kind of a Council vote to take "special circumstances" off the table. This will also pressure the other side to compromise (finally).
NEW GTLDs, PRO, RESERVED NAMES
Background: PRO: Currently collecting "best" sunrise practices and dispute resolution practices. RN: probably renewed for another 30 day cycle. More work on controversial names, geographical names, needed. Board must approve any decisions at some point. No possibility of creating an automated process. Ergo, Avri believes that any "bad" name will be stopped by Board if the rules don't stop it. Challenge mechanisms: must be minimized and carefully circumscribed
Can the draft mention freedom of expression somewhere? Victoria says she put it in. Trademark law is territorial, free expression a defense in trademark cases. No one country should have a veto. HR Conventions. FoE includes right to offend. Every national government has content laws, so TLD strings can fall under those, as can the content associated with web sites under those names.
JOINT NCUC-ALAC MEETING
For NCUC: Mueller, Banks, Klein, Ricart.
Izumi Aizu read a summary of comments by Vittorio. LSE report did not necessarily say NCUC and ALAC should merge, it might just include individual users in a new GNSO civil society constituency. Should we merge? I [vittorio] do not know. By not merging, we have two separate voices. Direct individual participation fits in well with US culture but not otherwise. Bad time for a merge, give RALOs two years and allow ALAC review to take place.
Mueller: We did not propose a merger of NCUC and ALAC and are not interested in getting into that now. We would like an umbrella organization for civil society in ICANN. LSE report is vague about what civil society is, blurs the difference between noncommercial organizations and individual users. This indicates that the rest of the world is probably confused as well. This confusion could be dangerous in a restructuring of GNSO.
Banks: We don't need to merge we need a civil society forum. A looser structure where you don't have to worry about what hat you are wearing. Likes umbrella idea.
Izumi: doesn't like umbrella term. What is above us, what are we sheltering from? ALAC getting more complicated. Review makes things shaky.
Alice: I am confused about how NCUC and ALAC relate.
Greenberg: she is not confused, the structure is confusing.
Izumi proposes issue cooperation, focused on the new domain tasting resolution.
Mueller, I don't think issue cooperation is the problem. It is the confusion of entry points for participation in ICANN. There needs to be a firm, joint recognition of the way people who are not business interests come into ICANN and where they go. What about organizations that apply to be ALS's but do not qualify, yet they may qualify for NCUC.
Alice: proposes a procedure for ALS handling that ensures that the correct applicants go to the correct way. We appoint a NCUC-ALAC liaison.
The group agreed to do that within one week.
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