Fwd: New ATRT issue.

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

At today's meeting I was asked to forward this message to our discuss list.

As I said I was informed by Berkman that:  " our work is constrained to activity before June 17, 2010."  They offered to forward it to the ATRT, and I assume they did.

In the note, the conversation refered to in the first paragragh, was a general interview with them on the ATRT issues.

a.


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Avri Doria <avri at acm.org>
> Date: 28 September 2010 11:42:02 EDT
> Subject: New ATRT issue.
> 
> To the reviewers,
> 
> Once again,  I want to thank you for the tone and receptiveness of our call. I enjoyed the conversation very much.
> 
> I do not know whether you are open for one more topic, but a recent event needs to be included in the ATRT review.  I am sure you will be receiving various inputs on this issue in the next few days and wanted to add my voice to that issue.
> 
> Just last week, the Board held a retreat where they made decisions of various issues concerning the  gTLD program.  The first thing that was unusual about this  meeting was that it had been specifically advertised as a non decision making meeting.  More disturbing than that, however, was the way in which the advice sent to the Board by several Board initiated working groups was ignored during that meeting.  I expect you will be hearing from others involved in the other groups.
> 
> I am currently the co-chair of a group responsible for making recommendations on financial and other support for new gTLD applicants who do not have the financial means to afford the currently defined ICANN pricing (Joint ALAC/GNSO WG on applicant support for new gTLDs aka JAS) .  This group was founded based on an ICANN Board resolution made at the Nairobi meeting.  This group sent the Board a summary of our  draft recommendations in time for their meeting (though a few days late an extension had been cleared with the Board chair).
> 
> I understand the Board's right to deny community recommendations based on their fiduciary responsibilities to the corporation.  What I question is the basis on which they denied these recommendations.
> 
> Some of the specific issues I, and much of the WG*, have are:
> 
> - We do not know whether the Board considered our proposal directly or whether it was filtered thorugh a staff presentation.  If filtered, we do not know whether that presentation gave an adequate and fair representation of the proposal.
> 
> - We do not know what recommendation staff may have made, if any, about our work.   If the staff did make specific recommendations we do not know what they were and have not been given any opportunity to repsond to any issues they may have presented.
> 
> - We do not know what the votes of the individual Board members were in making its decision.  We also do not know the basis of  any of the individual Board members for their vote.
> 
> It is my opinion that this is an egregious violation of ICANN's Accountability and Transparency standards and something that should be reported on and discussed by the ATRT.
> 
> The WG chairs have made a formal request to the staff requesting copies of their presentation to the Board, i.e. asking for the Board Book on this subject.  We will also be sending a specific request to the ATRT regarding the release of information regarding this event.
> 
> Please feel free to contact me for any clarification or for further information on this issue.
> 
> Again, thanks and best regards,
> 
> Avri Doria
> 
> Note: this communication is quotable.  I do not consider any part of it confidential.  
> 
> 
> * We will be taking a poll on a WG statement, but that will take several days to complete.  Hence this is just my opinion about the level of agreement in the JAS WAG