This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Erstes Treffen der At-Large Structures ICANN
For the first time in ICANN history, at the 34th International ICANN meeting in Mexico City the representatives of 88 At-Large Structures (ALS) from five Regional At-Large Organizations representing ICANN's global At-Large community came together to discuss the main ICANN policies and ALS's role in ICANN institutions.
The first-ever gathering of the representatives of individual Internet users (At Large Summit - ATLAS) participating in ICANN was an opportunity to make direct recommendations in relation with ICANN policy, by developing a public statement on 5 key-areas where five working groups with ALS members have identified the major issues as brought up by the Internet user representatives. Four EDRi-members (Netzwerk Neue Medien - Germany, FITUG- Germany, ISOC Bulgaria and APTI Romania) part of the European At Large Organization (EURALO) participated in the working groups.
The first working group focused on engagement in ICANN recommending the consultation of regional ALSes for the most effective ways to reach communities and end users and to use the multilingualism best practices of other international organizations, such as the UN.
The second working group discussed the future structure and governance of ICANN, as capture, internationalization and the continued funding of ICANN are among the more important governance issues now facing the institution. The group suggested a number of actions to provide safeguards against capture. They have also underlined that "given the economic and social importance globally of a safe and stable Internet, the process of internationalization of ICANN must safeguard the global/worldwide role of ICANN regarding domain names and numbers identifiers and promote larger participation from all stakeholders globally."
The new gTLDS (generic Top Level Domains) and IDNs (internationalized domain name) was the main focus of the third working group, highlighting that the current fee schedule for the new gTLDs is a clear barrier to the entry of potential applicants, especially those who have no interest in monetizing the TLD and those initiated in the developing and least developed countries. The group also suggested opening a third round of gTLD applications, with a fixed deadline, that will be subject to the string contention dispute mechanisms described in the current guide. The ALSes expressed their concern that the proposed "Legal Rights" objection protocol exceeded the existing territorial and class-of-goods limitations contained in the current international trademark treaties. They suggested that ICANN should not engage in any trademark protection regime which extends beyond existing international treaties; doing so in effect turns ICANN into an unauthorized treaty organization.
Working group four debated the hot topics of transparency and accountability and issued reconsiderations regarding the development of a budget for each ICANN entity (including At-Large) according to their mandates including staff costs. The budgets should be made public with the annotation of substantive ICANN documents under consultation to indicate the origin of support or dissent for specific proposals.
The members of ALSes also envisaged "that in order to give ICANN a clearer image of a multi-stakeholder organisation, including Civil Society, the composition of the Board should be re-balanced to afford a greater visibility and representation of the Civil Society as represented by the At Large Community. ALAC proposes that the ICANN Board should include two voting Directors nominated by the At Large Community."
New DNS security issues that fall within the ICANN's Mandate formed the core of the debates in the fifth working group and urged ICANN to support the industry efforts to accommodate DNSSEC and its provision in a more secure environment and to proceed in the process of having the root signed in a way that provides integrity and is globally accepted.
The ALSes also initiated a series of thematic sessions on the topics interesting for its members, but also other ICANN constituencies. The session on the Internet rights and principles noted that "ICANN still lacks a coherent and systemic approach to evaluate the impact that its policy decisions have on rights in general, be them human rights, consumer rights or other founding principles, as internationally recognized and/or defined in the major national legislations."
A hot topic was privacy and the Whois database, where the Internet users representatives highlighted the ICANN's inability to progress and to make policies compatible with the various national laws. It was suggested that ICANN should cease aiming at a single global policy and accommodate national differences instead, depending on the country of the registrar and registrant, explaining the differences in privacy regulation between Europe and US.
The sessions discussed the issue of respecting freedom of expression when selecting new gTLDs. The ongoing policy provision that allows ICANN to reject applications based on morality-based objections was criticized.
The participants supported the idea of a standardized statement of registrant rights (Registrants Rights Charter) to be compulsorily shown by registrars (and resellers as well) when a registrant buys a domain name. Participants agreed to work further on a proposal for its substance as well as means to include the charter into ICANN's policy body as a follow-up to the meeting. The process is open and anyone can join.
Another Thematic Session highlighted the failure of ccTLDs as regards the identity control of registrants and registrars. A second aspect was the abuse of the weakness of registrars in the GTLD space giving the spammers and other criminals, free way to do what they want.
At the end of this ICANN meeting, the announcement of Dr Paul Twomey, the President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN that he would not seek renewal of his contract at the end of 2009, was acknowledged by the ALSes as a starting point for further activities and challenges.
At Large Summit (Atlas) Declaration Mexico (4.03.2009)
http://www.atlarge.icann.org/files/atlarge/correspondence-05mar09-en.p...
At-Large Summit Successfully Concluded (5.03.2009)
http://www.atlarge.icann.org/announcements/announcement-05mar09-en.htm
Registrants Rights Charter - draft
http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/node/74
ICANN's President and CEO Announces Departure (2.03.2009)
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-02mar09-en.htm
Briefing Note - Overall Summary of the Mexico City Meeting (5.03.2009)
http://mex.icann.org/briefing-note