Scribe's Notes
 November 4, 1999
Los Angeles, California
ICANN Open Meeting
I.   Welcoming Remarks - Dyson
   A.   Session about membership
   B.   Crew to lead
II.   Crew
   A.   Last year Board specified bylaws under which Membership to take place.
   B.   PowerPoint presentation
III.   Review of Proposal to Markle Foundation: McLaughlin
   A.   Reviews [Proposal on the web]
   B.   Advantages of indirect election mechanism
       1.   ICANN unlike a normal policy-making body: Must preserve stability of the Internet resources for which it is responsible.
           • Membership through a council provides parity with SOs that operate through Councils. At-Large Council could play a key role in managing flow of input to and from individuals, providing policy input, etc.
       2.   Dyson: The Council might be like "an elected MAC."
IV.   In Santiago, created a Task Force to assist the Board in work needed to get membership up and running.
   A.   Roberts: Had hoped that progress towards funding would have proceeded somewhat more rapidly. But now that Markle grant has come through, will work to recruit necessary staff.
       1.   Will recruit members of MAC for their accumulated expertise as well as people with new ideas for diversity of perspective. Task Force to help recruit a strong, diverse, numerous, geographically balanced membership.
       2.   Concern if membership grew phenomenally huge. Can deal with several thousand applicants for membership. But hundreds of thousands would be a considerable challenge. How to handle "success squared" could be a tough problem.
V.   Questions & Comments from Audience
   A.   Aizu (former MAC member): Former MAC members present in LA met and prepared a proposal to be posted shortly. Suggest ten representatives to new task force (two from each region – half from original MAC, half new). To work on six sets of challenges:
       1.   Election mechanics
       2.   Criteria for fair elections
       3.   Outreach
       4.   Campaigns (Debate forums, etc.)
       5.   Nomination procedures
       6.   Function of At-Large Council itself
   B.   Crew: Recommend that comments from Aizu and other MAC members be given weight.
   C.   Abril i Abril: Membership systems are attempting to answer the wrong question. Need a mechanism to select members. But the past shows that, while ASO and PSO have produced "very representative" directors, the DNSO chose "less representative" members. That doesn't mean the DNSO's representatives won't do a good job, but politics of NC made the DNSO election process "strange and difficult."
       1.   McLaughlin: Basic geographic diversity rules for Board on At-Large side are at least one from each region plus four to be elected globally at large. Re review period, to have a two-stage election process to assure that system is working properly.
       2.   Crew: At-Large directors, as selected, will replace initial directors. So, among the first directors selected, will need representation of Africa and Latin America.
   D.   Capdeboscq: Geographic diversity of Board is warranted by by-laws. But geographic diversity of membership itself requires further work.
   E.   Langston (#678): Requirement that membership stay above 5000 is a dangerous rule – allows a large group to manipulate the ICANN Board by directing their membership to withdraw from the At-Large Membership.
       1.   Crew: Have thought long and hard about this. Need simple rules.
       2.   Dyson: Nominees should not be unknown. That's why we have the At-Large Council.
       3.   McLaughlin: No one gets kicked off if there aren't enough people in Membership. Rather, 5000 members is a precondition to holding an election so as to assure election not vulnerable to capture.
   F.   Schaefer (#679): Why pay dues to belong to an organization for the sole purpose of electing an unknown representative who will in turn elect Board Members?
   G.   Request for clarification of a slide: Members have to renew each year?
       1.   Crew: Do keep members in place from year to year. Membership might even stay in place until the first At-Large reelection.
   H.   Amato: Some concerns. What's to prevent one large company or organization from submitting all its members without an affirmative "opt-in" from its members? How will the Council choose the Board? Appointment or election? What kind of voting mechanism? Do candidates for At-Large Council get access to membership list in order to campaign? Have other foundations been identified, applied to for further outreach? What if the research done by Markle suggests changes to the election process?
       1.   Crew: View of MAC is that a large and globally diverse membership would not need further protections against capture by a single organization. (Note that bylaws limit representation of any organization on the Board.) Other issues identified are important, merit consideration.
       2.   Dyson: Believe we haven't applied to other foundations outside the US.
       3.   McLaughlin: Have sent letters of inquiry. Capture by a large corporation is worrisome. Certain Internet companies have both resources and incentives to (attempt to) capture ICANN Board. Perhaps use a nominating committee, but then there are problems of who chooses nominating committee, why they're legitimate, etc.
       4.   Wong: Read the Markle Foundation's press release. Bringing in other issues is not desirable. To further politicize ICANN's work is not appropriate.
           • Dyson: "It's been a perpetual fight."
       5.   Kleinwaechter: Gender diversity in Board a concern.
    I.   Fockler: Want to hear comments on other issues also.
   J.   Chon: Concern about indirection of Council with multi-stage election. Why use this process? What's the reasoning?
       1.   Crew: Want to phase in the At-Large Council and Directors. Want to review the process and verify that it's satisfactory and meets all criteria for success. Also, want to phase in new directors. If all the initial At-Large Directors retired in one fell swoop, would lose continuity. Some details on schedule are available – still being finalized.
       2.   McLaughlin: Two-step process to build confidence. Reason to elect three directors in the first step is to have something to test. Doesn't have to be that way, but it's a confidence-building procedure.
   K.   Gonzalez (#681): Already addressed.
   L.   Goodwin (#682): What checks and balances to protect the public if BoD breaks bylaws?
   M.   Cukier: US SBA has said that ICANN is bound by US Law as a result of MoU with DoC. Wasn't ICANN created to be insulated from such concerns? How will ICANN prevent itself from getting into such a situation?
       1.   Dyson: Letter was public, will answer in public. Do not have a MoU with WTO and do not intend to. Think appropriate process is in place to protect against such worries.
       2.   McLaughlin: You may be misinterpreting the SBA's letter.
       3.   Menge: Agree with McLaughlin – letter didn't say that. DoC is bound by US Law, and its duties should in some way apply to ICANN also. Anything ICANN does should take into account the laws and procedures of other nations as much as those of the US.
   N.   Lin: Concern that certain companies have resources and/or intention to capture the Board. Can the Board strip members of their rights or otherwise protect ICANN when faced with such a concern?
       1.   McLaughlin: Hence the two-step process. "Running code" – try it, see if it works, and only go forward if it does.
       2.   Roberts: Membership is to consist of individuals. Members should be given their home address, etc. If told at work to do so, we'll perhaps notice via demographic analysis.
VI.   Open Comment Period
   A.   Fockler: Should have explained yesterday that was on ARIN Board, was treasurer of ARIN. In those capacities, came to understand challenges of membership. Should clarify housekeeping details re legacy addresses, how IANA operates, etc. Need input from the ASO to do so.
       1.   Wong: Also need criteria for new RIRs.
       2.   Roberts: Staff has discussed these issues. Concern still exists re why some entities, especially some in US, have so much IPv4 space for no apparent reason.
   B.   Connelly: Stranger served him an envelope yesterday pursuant to a suit by an entity that thinks it has rights on a particular as-yet-nonexistent gTLD.
   C.   Amato: Access to ICANN documents to be available to the extent feasible. Can the public obtain letters received by ICANN by some procedure?
       1.   Dyson: The "nonexistent" letter we didn't receive?
       2.   Roberts: We live in an electronic world. Some communications have "an official look." Best to think in terms of content rather than format.
       3.   McLaughlin: Post documents on [http://www.icann.org/correspondence/correspondence.htm]. Some correspondence is confidential or simple problem-solving. Will personally commit to be more timely.
       4.   Amato: Important that public be able to access all parts of the process, even those that aren't deemed to be of sufficient importance to go on the web.
       5.   Dyson: If the correspondence requires action, a response from Mike or Esther, etc., then will post it. But if it's an "I'm not listed in WHOIS" letter, we don't post it.
       6.   McLaughlin: Same for "Please give me whatever new gTLD."
       7.   Amato: Don't mean to suggest that every communication needs to be posted. But what if I'm concerned about a particular communication? Or what if I want to see all the taxi receipts? Thinking in terms of US information law.
       8.   Wilson: Those rules apply to the government. We can benefit from considering their purpose, how they work, how they don't work. But need to think about both how we're like a government and how we're not. Perhaps Amato really wants explicit procedures so that public knows what's legitimate to ask about and what sorts of requests will get a response.
   D.   Rutkowski: This time, it was a communication from the EU re privacy laws in WHOIS database. Communications like that should receive notice.
       1.   Dyson: Agreed based on that description of the letter.
       2.   Roberts: It's a matter of interest to the Board. Will have discussions in Europe in a couple weeks. Need to balance public's need for access to information for law enforcement, etc. against need for personal privacy. Not an easy question.
   E.   Lowenhaupt (#686): ICANN says "role is limited… just names and numbers… what are you getting so excited about?" What's been found outside of ICANN's charter? How should such topics be addressed?
       1.   Dyson: A great essay question for ICANN Board.
       2.   Blokzijl: Names, numbers, and protocols. Not world government.
       3.   Conrades: Lots of issues we don't address.
       4.   Wong: Need to assure that we are correctly perceived by the public.

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