At-Large Advisory Committee
ALAC is the acronym for At-Large Advisory Committee, which is one of ICANN's advisory committees. The mission of ALAC is to function as an advocate for individual Internet users' interests.
Overview
ICANN represents the main organization that administers the DNS (Internet Domain Names), while ALAC is the advisory commitee of ICANN. ALAC has the main responsibility of providing advice on the activities of ICANN which are related to the interest of global Internet individual users. In this way, ICANN relies on ALAC's involvement and representation. [1]
ALAC History
In October 31 year 2002, the ICANN Board by means of the adopted New Bylaws (the result of ICANN’s 2002 reform process) established the ALAC and provided authorization for support At-Large organizations. The New Bylaws, came into force starting with December 15 year 2002 and established that ALAC should consist of ten members selected by Regional At-Large Organizations, with five supplement ary members selected by ICANN’s Nominating Committee. [2] The Interim ALAC consists of ten members (two from each of ICANN’s five regions).
At-Large Stuctures
The ALAC represents a network of self-organization and self-support for At-Large Structures throughout the world for Internet individual users. The At-Large Structures (already existent organizations or recently created organizations) are divided into five Regional At-Large Organizations (one in each ICANN region – Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, and North America). These Regional At-Large Organizations have as main goal the management and public involvement, and represent the main forum and coordination point in each region for inputs to ICANN.[3]
As a result of the creation of Regional At-Large Organizations (RALOs), the At-Large community is becoming stronger and more powerful. ICANN relies on ALAC and its supporting infrastructure when it comes to the representation of individual's user interests.[4]
ALAC responsibilities
Besides following the provisions of ICANN New Baylaws, ALAC has also other responsibilities such as assisting in the formation and qualification of other At-Large Structures and RALOs. Similarly, ALAC cooperates with GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organization) which has the duty for development of ICANN policies for ICANN Board for TLDs. Other responsibilities undertaken by ALAC and its organizations are as follows:
- Evaluating and analysis of accreditation process for At-Large Structures;
- Analyzing and publishing ICANN's policies and decisions;
- Providing guidance and advice to various organizations regarding ICANN's proposals and activities which are relevant for Internet individual users;
- Analyzing and approving the applications of At-Large Structures
- Developing Internet-based processes and methods to enable and ease the communication process between At-Large structures [5]