ED Report - 13 October 2006

Staffing

Nick Wallingford’s fixed term contract with InternetNZ will conclude in December 2006, and I am soon to commence advertising for a replacement.

Christmas Office Hours

In keeping with last Christmas, it is intended that the INZ office will close for the 2 weeks over Christmas, so the last working day for staff will be Friday 22 December 2006 and the office will reopen on Monday 8 January 2007.

Telecommunications Regulation (Public Policy)

Following Council’s endorsement, InternetNZ and TUANZ jointly commissioned reports from Dr John Small and Dr Tommaso Valletti, to assess the Howell submission to the Select Committee. TUANZ and InternetNZ also collaborated in holding a media conference to provide further explanation of our own submissions and to release the reports from Small and Valletti.

The Select Committee has concluded hearing submissions and is due to report back on 6 November.

Antispam (Public Policy)

Further submissions have been received by the joint TCF-Marketing Association-INZ Task Force on the Code of Practice and at last week’s meeting of the TF a number of amendments to the Code were agreed.

The Select Committee recommended a number of changes to the legislation. Most useful from InternetNZ’s perspective is the amendment for Government to establish an enforcement agency, (which can accept complaints from the public), in keeping with our original submissions at the Bill drafting stages.

Legal opinion on the amendments has been received and also considered by the joint TF.

After re-drafting the Code of Practice we will seek legal opinion on this, and will commence planning the programme for fuller industry consultation, possibly coinciding with the INZ member consultations early next year.

MED requested, and have been provided with our opinion on civil vs criminal liability as a penalty for spam – our opinion generally supporting a hybrid approach with a preference for criminal action reserved for serious spammers and civil action for more minor infringements.

We are also seeking to meet with DIA officials to discuss some aspects of their establishment of the Enforcement Agency.

Cyberlaw Fellow (Public Policy)

Victoria University have advised us that their original preferred applicant for the Cyberlaw position, who initially was unable to take up the role, has now become available for the 2007 year, and contract negotiations are being finalized currently.

ICT-NZ

I will be attending an ICT-NZ board meeting by teleconference on the morning of the Council meeting, and will therefore only be able to provide a verbal update to Council from the outcomes of this meeting.

We have a specific agenda item to discuss our options elsewhere on this Council meeting agenda.

Advertising .nz spending on non .nz activities

Last year $30,000 was spent on producing and publishing full and half page advertisements in the Dominion Post, Computerworld and the Herald. The aim was to publicise the spending of .nz funds on non .nz activities, as a result of the request of the members at the 2004 AGM. The specific advertising also was used as a membership drive. The advertising did not prompt any membership applications. The members indicated that Council review the merits of such advertising at last years AGM.

We have $10,000 allocated for this advertising in this year’s budget. As we have no specific mandate on this issue, we seek Council’s guidance as to whether or not it wishes to proceed with this advertising. Recommendation 4 therefore seeks Councils approval to not proceed, but understand that Council may choose to amend the recommendation to proceed.

Internet Governance Tiger Team

Council at its last meeting accepted NZOC’s proposal to develop a project outline for formalising relationships with ICANN and the New Zealand Government. In light of that the proposed ToR for the Internet Governance tiger team needed to be revised.

I therefore recommend the adoption of the following amended ToR:

Composition

• Chair of NZOC, Vice President, President (ex officio), Peter Dengate Thrush (Advisor), Executive Director, DNC.

• To retain an overview of national and international Internet Governance issues

• To actively engage in promoting or protecting the “.nz” model

• To maintain an overview of formalizing InternetNZ’s .nz delegation with the NZ Government and / or ICANN

• To consider non-staff travel applications to attend international Internet Government forums.

• To report and provide recommendations to Council on Internet Governance issues

Objective

• To protect the .nz delegation and model.

• Open discussions with ICANN, the NZ Government, the UN and ITU and any related stakeholder groups.

• Prepare recommendations for InternetNZ Council consideration.

• The DNC shall report to the NZOC.

• The ED shall report to Council.

Councillor Benefits

An Action Point arising from the last Council meeting was for the ED to develop policies for suggested “Value-added benefits for Councillors”, as per the following list. As the discussion on these items has occurred in isolation from my input, I have some suggestions for policy direction and questions of clarification prior to putting any recommendations to Council.

1. Use of InternetNZ Taxi Cards (possible policy)

• Councillors are entitled to request being issued with a taxi card, which enables the user to have taxi fares automatically charged to InternetNZ.

• Use of Councillors taxi card is strictly restricted to InternetNZ related taxi usage.

• Councilors must, at least on a monthly basis, provide copies of all taxi chits, notated with the event / purpose of the trip, to the InternetNZ office

2. Mobile Broadband (possible policy)

• Councillors are entitled to request being issued with a Vodafone 3G card and SIM

• InternetNZ will directly incur the monthly base cost for the connection

• Any Councillor use that exceeds the monthly data cap, or incurs additional data costs incurred while engaged on international travel for InternetNZ will, generally be required to refund InternetNZ for the additional costs, although the Executive Director may apply discretion in special circumstances.

3. Real email

• I assume this is a request for InternetNZ to establish POP and IMAP mail services for Councillors, rather than commercially buying 14 POP mail boxes from a commercial ISP?

• This will take some to consider in terms of the support level required, but my fear is that we would have to offer a 24/7 ISP service, and that the costs of support would be unrealistic.

• I would therefore appreciate further input from Council as to their level of desire to proceed, prior to commencing a feasibility study.

4. Office Software

• I assume this would be to provide councilors with a copy of Microsoft Office Software?

• If this is the case, I will speak to Pete Macaulay and chase down his contact at Microsoft to see if the previously attractively priced purchase option is still available.

• If it is a question of Open Office, then this is available for free download from www.openoffice.org, and certainly we could download once and cut CD copies for Councillors on an as required basis.

5. Governance Training

• Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control governance training has not been possible for either the first or second Council meeting this year.

• It is now intended that a governance training session will occur at the December Council meeting, and also further sessions prior to next years AGM.

• I wonder if the restrictive “Institute of Directors” clause is necessary, as I would suggest some other governance training bodies (e.g. Society of Accountants for “Accounting for non-accountants session)?

6. Cellphone for Officers

• We currently reimburse any Council claims for cellphone or toll usage for InternetNZ business.

• I do not have any clear view as to what the proposal for “up to a limit of $150 per month” is supposed to represent, but point out that unless the claim can be substantiated as business related, then such payment would attract fringe benefit tax, and thus, would it not be better to consider increasing honoraria payments?

7. Attendance for a relevant conference (possible policy)

• Councillors may apply for financial assistance to attend a conference related to InternetNZ’s activities, or for governance training.

• The Executive Committee may at its discretion approve councilor applications for expenditure of up to $750 per councilor, once during each 2 year period.

• Councillors attending courses will be required to provide receipts supporting the cost of their attending such conferences.

8. Broadband Connection

- I assume this is seeking home broadband connectivity for Councillors, yet it is likely that the 1 Gig monthly limit on Vodafone 3G cards would provide sufficient data allowance for all InternetNZ related Internet use, and therefore any such additional reimbursement for Broadband connections is likely to be subject to Fringe Benefit Tax. Would it therefore be more economical to increase councilor honoraria instead?

InternetNZ has today been confirmed an “At-Large Structure” by ICANN, following on from our application several months ago. Further information on our participation in this constituency will be forthcoming from ICANN in the near future.

Recommendations:

From this report:

1. That the Executive Director’s report be received.

2. That the imminent appointment of the 2007 Cyberlaw Fellow be noted.

3. That Council agrees not to proceed with the advertising budget for “expenditure of non .nz fund use”
   

4. That the Internet Governance Tiger Team be constituted, with the composition and Terms of Reference as outlined in this report.

5. That Council note ICANN’s confirmation of InternetNZ as an “At Large Structure”.

6. That Council gives tentative approval to the Netsafe proposal.

Keith Davidson
6 October 2006