[ALAC] Letter re NARALO/Grogan discussion in Dublin

[Alan Greenberg]

As many of you are aware, Allen Grogan, ICANN's Chief Contract 
Compliance Officer participated in the NARALO meeting at ICANN 54. 
Some of his answers were deemed less than satisfactory, and Garth is 
recommending that we send a letter to ICANN as a result. I concur.

If you wish to review the actual interaction, you can listen to it at 
http://audio.icann.org/meetings/dublin2015/naralo-19oct15-en.mp3, 
minutes 7:45 - 17:40.

You can find Garth's draft letter and both my redline and clean 
revision attached to Item 7 of the ALAC Agenda at 
https://community.icann.org/x/3rZYAw.

Aside from formatting and minor stylistic changes, the more 
substantive changes are:

- I have tried to reduce the more confrontational or personal 
aspects. As an example, I have removed asking Grogan to restate the 
goals of compliance, I have asked for ICANN to clarify its position.

- removal of statement that consumer trust in general was a major 
focus of the Affirmation of Commitments. Consumer trust is a focus, 
but specifically from the point of view of the New gTLD program and 
how the growth in the TLD name space will impact consumers. There is 
one more general reference in the introduction, but it is hard to say 
that this is a major focus.

- removal of the reverence to consumer trust being a major focus of 
the IANA transition. In my mind, other than the fact that consumer 
trust presumes the DNS stays working, it is not an issue and was not 
mentioned during the CWG deliberations. For the CCWG-Accountability, 
it is an issue only in that the AoC is being moved into the Bylaws, 
and the AoC words need to be faithfully carried over (and I have 
pointed out one place where that was not done properly). But as with 
Whois, consumer trust itself has not been a discussion item at all.

In the latter two cases, inclusion of the items, I think, weakens the 
letter as the points would be harder to defend. I really want to make 
this letter bullet-proof so it cannot be ignored on a technicality or 
judgement-call.

The ALT has already reviewed the revised draft and supports it.

My aim is to approve the revised letter, or a variation of it during 
the ALAC meeting on Tuesday. If you have any comments, please send 
them to the list prior to the meeting, if possible.

Alan