ASO AC face-to-face Meeting 23 June 2015
MINUTES
ASO AC face-to-face meeting held on Tuesday, June 23rd 2015 Buenos Aires, Argentina
ASO AC Attendees
AFRINIC
Douglas Onyango, DO
Fiona Asonga, FA
Mark Elkins, ME
APNIC
Tomohiro Fujisaki, TF
ARIN
Jason Schiller, JS (remote participation)
Louis Lee, LL (Chair)
Ron da Silva, RS
LACNIC
Hartmut Glaser, HG
Jorge Villa, JV
Ricardo Patara, RP
RIPE NCC
Filiz Yilmaz, FY (Vice-Chair)
Dmitry Kohmanyuk, DK
Wilfried Woeber, WW
Observers
Hans Petter Holen, HPH
Axel Pawlik, AP
Alan Barrett, AB
Apologies:
Ajay Kumar, AK
Aftab Siddiqui, AS
Draft agenda:
0. Welcome
1. Agenda Review
2. Presentation on 2015 Leadership Training Program by Sandra Hoferichter
3. Public Safety Working Group (PSWG) by Robert Flaim
4. Removal of ASO Appointee
5. ICANN Board 2016 election timeline and 2015 election debrief
6. NomCom appointment
7. Mailing subscription
8. Reports
9. AOB
10. Adjourn
0. Welcome
LL welcomed everyone to the meeting.
The meeting began at 14.40 UTC. Quorum was established with 12 members in the room and 1 remote participant.
1. Agenda Review
LL reviewed the draft agenda and proposed an addition under AOB:
– Appointment of the second vice-chair (proposed by LL).
GV then proposed adding the following item:
– Update about ASO travel policy.
2. Presentation on 2015 Leadership Training Program by Sandra Hoferichter
Sandra Hoferichter (SH) introduced herself and her working group. She mentioned that the Leadership Training Program has been up for three years in a row and that the third edition would take place the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday prior to the ICANN meeting in Dublin.
Regarding the Program, she said the following:
– The scope of the Program is for the communities to get a better understanding of each other
– Three days and nights (includes social program).
– There’s an online registration form where the ASO can submit their interest.
– Two slots are reserved for the ASO. Nobody from the ASO has participated before, so she encouraged members to participate – teaching as well as learning.
– Biggest value: working with Board members, GAC members, gaining a better understanding of what others are doing and why they’re doing it.
– ICANN paid for the course and food but not the travel expenses.
FA said she’d heard the Training Program was very good, that she would like to go through it.
WW noted that an important aspect was the lead time with which the AC members would be aware of contents and whether they’d be accepted or not.
SH replied that the program (contents) would be up soon and that, as far as being accepted, the AC itself are the ones who will decide who will use the two slots (there are up to 2 seats for their constituency).
DK noted that participating would mean at least 10 days away from home.
LL asked whether for the ASP education part of the program they would synch with the RIR staff.
SH replied that they would, adding that it would also be useful to have representation of all stakeholders, standing members who they can rely on.
HG asked if this training program was in line with the ICANN academy, to which SH replied that the Leadership Training Program was not the ICANN Academy but under the umbrella of the ICANN Academy.
Before leaving the meeting, SH left some cards and encouraged the AC to assign two members of their constituency to participate.
FA and WW expressed their interest in participating in the working group.
DO asked whether participating in the Leadership Training Program would preclude members from participating in the ICANN Academy program. LL replied that it should be two different things.
After some further discussion, the following motion was proposed:
DO: Motion to post back on the list the information about the 2015 Leadership Training Program. Nominations will be received until midnight of July 1st, so that the ASO AC can decide during the July 2nd teleconference.
The motion was seconded by WW. No oppositions or abstentions were heard, so the motion carried.
3. Public Safety Working Group (PSWG) by Robert Flaim
Bobby Flaim (BF) joined the meeting at 15.20. He introduced himself and his colleagues and described the activities they were participating in during the ICANN meeting.
BF said that he wanted to talk about the new working group – the GAC Public Safety Working Group. He presented a slide deck on the initiative. Highlights included:
– Why? The group had been created because of the surge in the amount of issues at ICANN that raise public safety concerns.
– Who? Government representatives from consumer protection, civil and criminal law enforcement, other agencies responsible for protecting its citizens.
– What? A focus on policies and procedures related to ICANN.
– How? Participation in ICANN working groups to provide input on public safety concerns
– Areas of interest:
– Whois
– Contract compliance
– Implementation of new gTLDs
– Internationalized domain names
– When? Now!
After the presentation there was a round of questions, during which LL asked whether one of the roles would be a structured way for another entity to ask the new group’s input regarding the security aspects of a policy. BF agreed, and added that, because they don’t have the resources to provide input to all working groups, they were trying to adopt a surgical approach to providing input where it’s needed.
FY mentioned that part of the work relates to whois usage, which can be tackled between the RIRs (or the NRO) and BF’s organization. She asked whether BF saw any implications for policy changes required that need some kind of PDP process applied regionally.
BF said they need to ensure the whois database is accurate, that they’d tried a few things, some of which have been successful while others haven’t. He noted that, because cybercrime is very international, it would be great if the databases could be accurate.
ME asked if he was looking for a global policy. JS said it would actually be a globally coordinated policy.
FA asked what was the relationship between BF’s working group and the SSAC.
BF replied that they are government, so they have to be part of the GAC. He added that they work with the SSAC, they are in agreement on several things, they work with them, but they are two separate bodies.
LL asked how both group’s goals differed. BF replied that they don’t always differ.
DO asked the following question: “Do you have mechanisms through which you can convey some of the recommendations you’ve compiled? AFRINIC is not the GAC, how will the recommendations reach the RIRs? I’d like to see some of this to get back to the RIR system, otherwise this is not relevant.”
FA proposed an assignment for BF: to share with the ASO AC a clear strategy of how they intend to work at RIR level, as governments and the technical community need to work together for the common good, but that is not happening.
BF noted there has to be active participation. “It’s a coalition of the willing. Government participation will depend on the governments. Some people get the importance of this in their daily jobs, others don’t.”
FA said that BF’s group should encourage governments to go to RIR meetings. BF replied that the new group was trying to do that. “It may work, it may not. It’s a new initiative.”
WW noted that it was a good thing to have BF and his “support army” at the ICANN meeting; that everyone should be aware that they are wearing two hats – what the AC is formally doing here is interaction with the IANA service. This is not necessarily formally the place to engage. He said he saw two ways forward: 1) go to the NRO (top down approach); 2) go to the regions, where BF and his group wouldn’t have to wear their GAC hat or their formal law enforcement hat. He added that the top down approach wouldn’t do any damage, but it might be more effective that some individuals attend the meetings and get in touch with the people who understand.
BF said they do go to regional meetings and have tried to attend and participate fully. He said he has personally participated fully in ARIN.
WW asked what real problems BF perceived at that moment (access to the information in the database is not homogeneous? different levels of accuracy in the different databases? etc.).
BF said that accuracy was definitely a problem, as in order to present court orders they need accuracy at international level.
HPH commented on his experience from the RIPE region – there has been participation, but RIPE is doing conferences specifically for law enforcement. He noted that others could do the same and added that in the RIPE region there are differences in how law enforcement is perceived and that building trust and relations takes time.
BF agreed that it takes a long time, adding that they’re working on it but some people on the law enforcement side also don’t see the importance of the technical community in the process.
LL concluded this part of the meeting by thanking BF and noting that this session might have been a bit of a preview of how they might see the group working if they needed the AC’s help or that of the different RIR’s staff.
BF thanked everyone for their time. He and his group left the meeting at 15.51.
[Short break]
4. Removal of ASO Appointee
LL said that JS had already sent a proposed procedure to the AC-COORD mailing list with some text about removal of ASO appointees. He said he hoped everybody had had a chance to look at it and that FA had already replied on the list.
DO said he had three comments regarding the proposed text:
1. The text that has been proposed should be the AC’s last option with two others before, namely: a) voluntary acceptance; b) some form of consensus between AC members, c) vote should be the last option.
2. Use of the term “e-voting” in the text, which might be very prescriptive if the AC decides to vote some other way.
3. Timeline of 7 days to allow for the e-vote, as in some cases an immediate replacement might be needed.
DK said replacement and removal are two options and that he wouldn’t tie them together (immediacy of removal does not imply immediacy of replacement).
JS said he assumed they’d use their regular removal procedures and, if there’s not enough time, the Chair can call for an e-vote.
DO noted that, according to the proposed text, unless they did the vote to remove and the vote to replace in parallel, the process would require more than 7 days.
JS said the 7 days to remove and 7 days to replace could be in parallel.
LL noted that in the ASO AC the convention is that everybody needs to cast a vote for the election to close, even if the vote is an abstention.
WW said they have the tradition that we want very strong support for the individual who is elected (it doesn’t change the result, but it might give more backing to the individual).
JS said he hadn’t offered removing an appointee during a meeting because he didn’t want simple majority of the people in the meeting to be enough, adding that if all 15 members were present at the meeting, then it would be OK, but otherwise he didn’t want simple majority to be enough.
DO said that even if there was a situation where the 15 members were in the room, then JS’s text would not allow them to vote (they’d have to e-vote anyway).
LL said that, if the goal was that 5 people vote, they should just say that – just maintain the minimum number of votes cast, remove the requirement that it be an e-vote.
DO asked what would happen if not all 15 people vote at the close of the period.
RP noted that the first item of the e-vote text talks about “start” and “end.”
JS said the problem was that all measurements were based on “out of 15” (it was a 2/3 majority “of all eligible voters that did not abstain”). If less than 2/3 vote, the election can’t move forward.
After further discussion, to summarize, LL agreed that the idea of having a procedure to remove ASO AC appointees was sound, as it would be is a way to provide accountability to the people the AC puts up.
FA added that having a procedure was important, as after the IANA transition every community would have to have a mechanism in place to remove their board members. She noted that this part of the proposal had gained a lot of traction from the comments, so it’s good for the AC to think about this and cover that eventuality.
DO said they needed to define grounds/criteria for removal, noting that FA had already suggested 2 or 3 on the mailing list (1. The inability to perform the functions of the role, 2. Acting contrary to the interests of the numbering community) and that they should build on that.
JS noted that Ray had replied saying that “since the appointee is not a representative of the selecting community, there is a problem with #2.”
WW noted that they were broadening the applicability of this procedure, as up to today he thought they had well-established procedures regarding Board of Directorship, but not to the rest of the world. Now he got the impression that they were trying to get one procedure for “removal,” while still stuck with a procedure for selecting someone to the board.
RS asked if WW meant that an ASO member that was still an ASO member was different than a board member that was not an ASO member.
WW confirmed that was the distinction.
FA commented that it was important that they have a clear procedure for appointees that are going to different working groups if they are not able to deliver. Then they’d have to see their board appointing procedures and give much thought to how they would go about removing a board member who has to act in the interest of the organization (ICANN). She added that it was important that that removal of a Board Member be separated from the others, but that a lot of thought was still needed.
LL asked whether it was it worth doing something for the board that was close to what JS has put out and then tweaks it, adding that they might refine it over the next few months.
JS noted that his intention had been for his text to be for general removal (“This procedure will apply to removal of such appointees, when permitted, except where the ASO AC has a more specific removal procedure.”)
HPH advised keeping the procedure simple, as adding too many clauses might mean that a procedure could stop the group from doing the right thing.
DO said they should make sure that the AC recognizes from the start that they are sending people to the board who have other interests – perhaps adding some language to that effect might help the AC have one set of rules that can be applied to any situation.
JS said a possibility would be to say “here’s the process for removal” and have another document that says “this is how we’ll apply this in 3 different cases.”
AB said they shouldn’t tie their hands too much – if the AC writes a list of reasons why they might want to remove someone but forgets something, which might cause a problem.
ME noted that the text state “including the following.”
To focus the discussion, at this point LL asked what election criteria they wanted to put in, noting that JS had said “a supermajority of 15 in a certain period of time.”
DK questioned the difference between “abstaining = abstention vote” vs. “abstaining = not voting,” suggesting instead the use of “abstaining” for “non-voting” where appropriate.
WW said that coming to consensus of what the majority is depends on three parameters: a) number of votes; b) number of votes cast; and c) time. He added that if the AC raised the bar too high, that might prevent them from coming to a decision.
LL summarized what WW had said as follows: “have one bar for in-person or teleconference voting, and another, a slightly higher bar for e-voting.”
FY agreed and said they were overcomplicating the issue at the moment – being very academic, as there was no previous case which they could build on. She noted that removing somebody who was elected by the community was serious and gave the example of what the RIPE region was doing (although she understood that it was not the same at all, she still wanted to share): “Elected PC members may be removed, by a unanimous vote of the PC.” She suggested trying to simplify and agreed they needed criteria as suggested by FA.
LL said they might look for a way to accomplish that quickly and then work on what JS and FA had put out.
DO noted he was hoping to get some feedback to his feedback (suggestion of having two other options before voting).
LL asked whether the AC wanted to formalize how they would approach the appointee to sort things out before voting his or her removal.
ME said that wasn’t necessary, as in a normal working environment that would happen just the same.
WW said he liked the idea of having a staged process, but wondered how the group would formally agree to start with “phase 1” of the removal process.
LL said it might be as simple as one of them talking to the person, suggesting that documenting this procedure might be too much.
FY agreed. She noted that in a normal working environment it would be like a performance review, but that there might be circumstances where they can’t have that staged process. She noted that, if a member loses the confidence of their community, they must take action immediately and being too prescriptive might tie their hands in certain circumstances.
DO suggested phrasing it using “might/may.”
LL observed that, if they overcomplicated things, they wouldn’t have the chance to immediately remove someone, as everyone would still need to understand what had happened.
JS asked the following question: “Can I, as an ASO AC member, decide that I want to remove, for example, a NomCom appointee, or is this something that the AC does as a whole?”
At this time, FA stated that, in the interest of simplicity and being practical, it would be better to have the general procedure as suggested. “When I look at how we’ve been interacting, we’d see if someone is not getting results. Normally, if necessary, we’d go to the chair or co-chair and explain that we’re not being able to perform our functions. That already triggers a discussion on whether I should continue or not. The code of conduct states what the responsibilities of the chair are, and that is not lobbying for votes to remove someone. If we are honest and respectful with ourselves, we will not need to reach the voting stage. I’m assuming that common sense would prevail. Not documenting the three stages, but knowing that the voting comes in as a last resort because the chair has to explain what the issues are and ask for a vote.”
DK observed that FA had said something he himself had wanted to say. He added that no amount of bylaws was going to prevent a true evil; that usually each person has enough of a mind to step down if they can’t do the job; and that if they really need to remove somebody who is against being removed, then the chair could call for voting (emergency meeting). His conclusion was that they don’t need a procedure for something so terrible, but simply for regular situations.
In the interest of time, LL proposed the Take the “Removal of ASO Appointee” topic to the mailing list and includes it in the agenda for the next meeting.
At this point, Adiel Akplogan (AA) provided the following information regarding ICANN technical community engagement activities :
“Just to put this in context, I requested from the chair to meet with you to chat around the technical engagement activity posture ICANN is taking now and see how we can work together. The ASO AC has been identified as a key group of the technical community. As you’ve noticed, ICANN’s involvement in the ecosystem is evolving, so it’s important to coordinate better with all stakeholders, including the technical community. But we won’t be able to succeed if we don’t have feedback from the community, so I’m here to get your feedback on which direction you see ICANN strengthening engagement with the technical community.”
AA then opened the floor to AC member questions.
FY said it was good that Adiel was looking into this, as he knew the group and would hopefully find the right synergies. She said that, unfortunately, the Technical Experts group at this meeting was conflicting with the AC a little and that there had also been many changes of room, the name was difficult to identify, etc. She added that the ISP Interconnection and Access session had been very insightful, but that flagging those things for them be immediate and practical help (with GV’s help).
FA said she thought that session was missing appropriate speakers. She added that, in terms of the role they’re playing, it’s opening up a lot of opportunities for the technical community, for engagement and partnering with ICANN, the existing organizations, so there should be more outreach into the vast technical community that is developing in the African community so that they can engage. She mentioned that she had a few proposals in mind and would send them to AA.
Regarding the ICANN Agenda, AA mentioned that one thing they’d done this year was to use more distinction for technical activities in the agenda (color coding). He said another idea he’d had was how to make it more coherent, avoid overlaps, and so on. He said he’d take the idea back to the meeting team.
After further discussion, AA said there was the need to have a clear bridge in terms of communication between the technical community and ICANN the organization. He commented that one of the areas he’d like to work on with the AC was how to create a constant channel of communication that will allow them to solve any problems before they become a big issue.
LL said they’d talk.
AA asked whether ICANN staff usually attends ASO AC meetings. LL replied that Carlos and Barbara usually attended the teleconferences.
5. ICANN Board 2016 election timeline and 2015 election debrief
LL said they needed to kick this off soon, as Kuo Wei’s term is coming up (ICANN’s bylaws allow three terms, but in the past Ray and Kuo have committed to have just two to allow others to participate. He asked everyone to think about who they would like to see participate.
About the 2015 debriefing, LL noted that RS had already brought up an issues: in the case of good candidates, why not put their names up for the NomCom?
HPH observed that the candidate themselves needed to submit their expressions of interest.
FA said that this time they had had really good candidates – good outreach, so the selection process had been competitive.
HPH provided the timeline, noting that it was the same each year (March 1st deadline for receiving applications).
LL concluded that it wasn’t going to be feasible to match the ASO AC and NomCom selections, so they might send out a message to the list so that this issue doesn’t keep coming up every year.
6. NomCom appointment
LL said the group was not looking to get this topic decided today, but were instead looking to have a name by October (Dublin meeting). He added that he’d received some interest both from the AC as well as from outside the AC.
WW moved to take this agenda item to the mailing list. FA seconded the motion. No abstentions or appositions were heard, so the motion carried.
Before going on to the next agenda item, HPH urged the group to try to hurry the process, as the appointee would have to start working in Dublin.
7. Mailing subscription
LL suggested taking this item to the list. All agreed.
8. Reports
LL suggested moving this to next teleconference
9. AOB
– Appointment of the second vice-chair (proposed by LL).
LL said that there had been an open position since AB had left the AC, adding that he’d received expression of interest from Ajay Kumar and Ricardo Patara.
LL and FA proceeded to explain the procedure for filling a vice-chair position.
WW moved to appoint RP to be vice-chair, JV seconded the motion.
GV performed a roll call vote with the following results:
RP – abstained
TF – in favor of the motion
WW – in favor of the motion
FA – in favor of the motion
RS – in favor of the motion
HG – in favor of the motion
DK – in favor of the motion in favor of the motion
DO – in favor of the motion
ME – abstained
FY – in favor of the motion
JV – in favor of the motion
JS – not present at the time of voting
With 9 votes for, 2 abstentions, and 1 vote not recorded, the motion carried.
– Update about ASO travel policy (proposed by GV)
GV commented that, starting next year, the NRO will only support the travel of the chair of the ASO AC, so members would need to check with their own RIRs as they would be subject to their travel policies. He noted that all RIR would maintain the criteria of sending at least one representative per region to ICANN meetings and all representatives to face-to-face meetings.
10. Adjourn
There being no further business to discuss, at 17.34, DO moved to adjourn the meeting, WW seconded the motion. All were in favor and the motion carried.
Last modified on 29/01/2020