[NCSG-PC] Meeting with Board in virtual Cancun

[Rafik Dammak]

Hi Stephanie,

some comments below:

Le sam. 29 févr. 2020 à 05:45, Stephanie E Perrin <
stephanie at digitaldiscretion.ca> a écrit :

> As you are no doubt aware, we have had two planning meetings for virtual
> cancun this, week, and it is clear we have very little time and a much
> shrunken agenda.  However, we do have to get topics to discuss with the
> Board. Nobody has responded on the list to my call for input, and it is due
> today.
>

it will be one hour call and the board having several calls in row so no
idea how productive it will be :) however, I am usually for keeping the
discussion focused on few topics and not going around too many. I will
support keeping to 1 or 2 topics since the board already suggested some too.

>
> How about this.  the NCSG, reflecting the views of civil society
> generally, would like to comment on a few recent events at ICANN that have
> raised alarm bells in terms of the ongoing affordability and sustainability
> of an open, free, and vigorous DNS.  The first of these is the impending
> sale of .ORG.  We did not raise our concerns about the removal of price
> caps, although a significant proportion of our community were dead against
> this action.  Many others had faith in .ORG, and trusted their commitments,
> We were disappointed to learn of the sale in the manner in which  we did,
> so soon after the removal of the price caps.
>
> The second issue is the removal of price caps for .com.  Since .com still
> accounts for 80% of GTLD registrations, how can ICANN justify the removal
> of price caps for such a monopoly registry?
>

I guess the question of removing cap has many aspects.  It is about the
whole process of agreement renewal and how it is used to add for example
other RPMs like URS. We responded to those public comments before and we
missed others. Many questioned if the comments have any impact which is a
legit question. Regarding the affordability and access, board can easily
point that the market has more competition and choice than before for
users. The issue of access to domain name in developing countries has less
to do with registries than access to registrars that can respond to that
market needs.

> The third issue we want to highlight is the cost of the impending SSAD
> being developed by the EPDP, bearing in mind that the benefits of this
> system have not been balanced against costs, and many of the decisions
> which are driving the high volumes of requests CANNOT be automated.  Is the
> cost of this white elephant [you tell me if that is still an acceptable
> expression, actually I should check that with my most culturally aware kid,
> since after all for a non-english speaker it must be hard to keep up with
> our political correctness.....] driving ICANN to permit wholesale price
> increases in the industry?
>

I assume the board and Goran will point that they communicated to EPDP
before about the costing and they cannot give any numbers till EPDP team
finish its work. I think we need to double check first in the ICANN 5 years
strategy and budget about what was planned in term funding.

> Another topic we wish to raise is the ongoing sustainability of the MS
> model.  You have hinted in the past that travel costs and concern about our
> carbon footprint may dictate fewer face to face meetings.  Given the
> growing complexity of the policy work  (cf. the EPDP, which comes on the
> heels of the RDS working group, an exhausting debate highlighted by limited
> progress and much disagreement) we doubt that we can produce good results
> without face to face meetings.  We applaud staff and the community for
> responding quickly to the crisis precipitated by the cancellation of the
> CANCUN meeting, but it is very clear that this meting is a pale shadow of a
> normal ICANN public meeting.  Given the strong possibility that ICANN68
> will also have to be cancelled due to the Corona virus situation, may we
> suggest that a study group be struck to make recommendations about how to
> improve these virtual meeting and make them more accessible to all global
> players?
>


I think that is  reasonable idea and to think carefully about all those
meetings in holistic manner (one concern among others I have is that
meetings become milestones and drive all the work) . I have personally some
doubts about F2F meetings and their effects would impact us in long run. We
need to find the balance.

Circling back to board suggestions:
- Key priorities for action of ICANN constituencies in 2020 (e.g.
prioritization of recommendations, streamlining of reviews, improve
effectiveness of ICANN’s multistakeholder model, ...)
- Specific developments coming up that ICANN constituencies feel need to be
addressed when updating the ICANN Strategic Plan.

I guess we can highlight that we are supporting PDP 3.0 improvements. with
regard MSM evolution, we probably need to understand how we will be to get
involved when the different tracks are assigned to SO/AC. for
prioritization of recommendations, I assume that is about those coming from
review teams and I am . I don't think we discussed that throughly within
NCSG and I am not sure what we can respond with confidence other than what
I mentioned in the beginning or that we are working GNSO future work. This
is something for PC to manage this month and work with NCSG members
regarding our priorities.


Best,

Rafik
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