Joint NCUC ALAC meeting

[Milton Mueller]

Joint meeting of NCUC and ALAC in Kuala Lumpur ICANN meeting

Part 1: meeting with Markus Kummer, Executive coordinator 
of the Secretariat of the Internet Governance Working Group.

Mr. Kummer discussed the schedule and objectives of
the Working Group in Internet Governance and answered
questions from the group.

Part 2: Update and coordination on ALAC-NCUC
policy efforts. Mostly confined to a discussion of Whois.

Part 3: discussion of ALAC's problems in organizing users. 
ALAC wants to find ways to work with NCUC to attract more 
individuals and users into the ICANN process. MM explained that 
ALAC's need to create regional at large organizations (RALOs) 
was the source of its problem. It is difficult enough to get 
organizations to join and participate in NCUC or ALAC. Asking them 
then to work on building an additional organizational structure was 
too much. ALAC needs to find a new, better model for individual and 
user participation. 

Izumi Aizu and Roberto Gaetano explained that if user representation 
in ICANN didn't work out, the idea might be abandoned and 
governments might step in as representatives of the public. This was 
the right time to make it work, because WSIS process was putting
pressure on ICANN to be more legitimate, and now Board members 
were more sympathetic to the idea that users should be involved in 
and represented in ICANN. Board seems willing to allocate more 
money to ALAC to help them make it work. However, NCUC members 
said that there was still a limited number of activists who would spend 
time and resources to participate, regardless of how much money 
was allocated. Urged ALAC to find a better model for user 
representation. The model initially proposed by the Bildt committee 
was discussed, having a separate Supporting Organization for users, 
one for suppliers and one for "developers."