[alac] Report from Board Liaison
In preparation of today's teleconference, for the sake of efficiancy and transparency, I think I would write some notes in advance about what is currently on the Board's plate. The main issue for the Board right now is the redelegation of .ua. The problem is, IMHO, the fact that we have inherited a system that used to work when the Internet was much differnt, and there is no consensus for the establishment of a new set of rules. In this situation, there are many parameters that have to be taken into account: the position of the government, the interest of the local community (not easy to assess, incidentally), the risk of a switchover if the current operator is unwilling to release all information (we have provisions for escrow data only for gTLDs, not for ccTLDs, as these agreements predate ICANN), and so on. Right now, there has been in the previous Board teleconference a request for some more specific information, and IANA is collecting the requested material. The matter is further complicated by the sudden death in mid-March of the former responsible of .ua operations, Boris Mostovoy (Siavash, you probably knew him from CENTR meetings). Some Board members have raised the issue of minutes of past meetings. It seems that after having cleaned the backlog a while ago, we are again failing to provide prompt information to the community. Everybody agreed that this should be done, and I expect the praxis of prompt approval and publication of minutes to be operational starting the next teleconference. Another hot item, in all senses ;>), is the .xxx approval. Right now there is correspondence between ICANN and GAC, as the GAC has asked some questions, and ICANN has replied. I might be too optimistic, but I see also this subject proceeding towards a conclusion, as there is consensus that the matter has been going on for too long, and the inability so far to reach a closure is in itself worse than either yes or no decision. More difficult to assess for me is the outcome, because, as I have already reported in previous cases (and as is recorded in the vote results) the range of opinions in the Board varies greatly. There has been also a couple of exchanges on the CFIT lawsuit, but I would leave it to Bret to report on this, as he knows much more than I do on the subject. A matter that is relevant for us, is the approval by the Board of the Ombudsman reports and recommendations. While the content of the Ombudsman is confidential by its very nature, also to preserve anonimity of the complainants, we all know that one of the issues on the table was the lengthy process of ALAC in getting the ALSes approved. I did report that ALAC is alredy getting its act together, and that we have several applications in the pipeline that are being worked on. This means that ***we need to process all pending applications as a HIGH PRIORITY*** (sorry for shouting, but I'm losing my temper here), including communicating to the ALSes for which we need further information before taking a decision, or for which we would need more time because there's no consensus, the reason for the delay. I think this covers the main items. During the teleconference I will answer specific questions or provide more details, if needed. Shall I continue to provide, roughly monthly, written statements on the Board's activities? Maybe the good timing would be a couple of days before our teleconferences. Your feedback would be appreciated. Regards, Roberto GAETANO ALAC ICANN BoD Liaison _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
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