GNSO OPEN COUNCIL MEETING Wednesday, 4 March 2009 ICANN - Mexico City >>AVRI DORIA: Good morning. I think it's time for us to begin this meeting. It's a little after 8:00. We're ready to begin. I welcome the early birds who came to the first section of the meeting. I'll start with the agenda and the first thing on the agenda is the roll call of council members. Would you do that, please. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Certainly, Avri. Chuck Gomes. >>CHUCK GOMES: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Greg Ruth. >>GREG RUTH: Here. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Tony Harris. >>TONY HARRIS: Here. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Tony Holmes. >>TONY HOLMES: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Mike Rodenbaugh. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Philip Sheppard. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Present. And could we have the lights turned down a little, please. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Zahid Jamil. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Yes, the lights, please. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Tim Ruiz. >>TIM RUIZ: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Stephane Van Gelder. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Yes, here. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Adrian -- he is running up -- Adrian Kinderis. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Present. [ Laughter ] >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Olga Cavalli. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Alan Greenberg, our liaison from the ALAC. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Present and no longer blinded. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Mary Wong. >>MARY WONG: Present and ditto. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Carlos Souza. >>CARLOS SOUZA: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Kristina Rosette. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: William Drake. >>WILLIAM DRAKE: Present, more or less. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Jordi Iparraguirre. >>JORDI IPARRAGUIRRE: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: And Edmon Chung. Not here yet. And on the line we have Cyril Chua. >>CYRIL CHUA: Present. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Is anybody else on the line, Terry Davis or Ute Decker? >>AVRI DORIA: And this is Avri. I am present also. Okay. Thank you. We definitely have a quorum, and I'm sure we will have the other members as time goes on. >>CHUCK GOMES: Avri, you are going to need to get a little closer to the mic, I think. >>AVRI DORIA: Sorry. Let me rearrange things. Oh, it was stuck down, that was the thing. Is that better? Thank you. At this point, I need to ask if anyone on the council needs to or wishes to update their Statement of Interest. I have not sign any posted in the last week, but just wanted to give anyone an opportunity. Was that a hand raised? No, okay. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: No, I can't hear you. >>AVRI DORIA: You can't hear me? Or is it just muffled? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: It's kind of muffled. >>AVRI DORIA: Maybe I am too close now. Okay. So there are no statements of interest. Remind everyone that if they need to update theirs, please do so. Please send it to the list, and then bring it up at the next meeting so it can be reviewed. I would like to go and review the agenda at the moment. One thing I want to say about the agenda which is different than what we did last time is that we will not start any of the issues before the time it's listed for. So if we finish an issue before the next issue is due, we will wait. That's basically because we have requested that people come and give presentations, and they aren't necessarily free all morning, and, therefore, we have to give them the opportunity to come at the appointed time. So the first hour we'll basically be working on the WHOIS issue. There's two parts to that. There's discussion of the WHOIS studies with a presentation of the material building up to the staff request and the motion. There will be a reading of the motion. Then there will be open discussion, and then the council will vote on that motion, or are scheduled to vote on that motion. Then we will do the current WHOIS policy requirements for IDNs. There will be a presentation on the issue and open discussion. There is no motions on it. At 9:00, there's the RAA discussion. There's a staff update on status and options, then basically we'll open the floor to -- there are two motions, at the moment. They will both be discussed. Anyone on the council will give their positions. Then we will go to open discussion after council members -- the council members that wish to, have had a chance to speak on the motion. We will have open discussions, and then we will vote on a motion or two motions. There are two pending at the moment. We have a scheduled break. Then we'll have a staff update on the registry services evaluation process, answers to any questions that were raised on the council list, and then a Q/A and open discussion. And at 10:30, GNSO improvements and restructuring divided into several parts, first on the policy process and the operations, Steering Committees and their activities including what's going on in their work teams. An update on constituency recertification process, all of these with presentation, then Q/A and discussion. Update on stakeholder group charters, Q/A and discussion. Then an explanation of the report from the joint ALAC/GNSO working group on user involvement in the GNSO; discussion/explanation of the report; again, Q/A and discussion. Then there is a brief self-introduction of the three constituencies that have filed notice of intent to form new constituencies. Each of them will be given five minutes. There won't be any specific Q&A on those, there will be a break, and then we will come back from open mic when anything that was in the previous agenda can be questioned about again and any other issues that anyone has that they wish to bring up can also be brought up. Any questions or amendments on the agenda? Okay. Then we will proceed on that agenda as it is written. And I invite Liz to come up and speak on presentation on the request being made to staff. And you can switch to the slides. Thank you. >>LIZ GASSTER: Oh, yeah, those lights are fun! Good morning. My name is Liz Gasster. I am a senior policy counselor on the ICANN policy staff, and I am just going to be giving you an overview and update of WHOIS activities essentially for the last year or so as a foundation to the motion that the council is going to be delivering today. This is really what I'm going to be covering. A brief update on the WHOIS studies themselves, and then I do have a couple of slides on WHOIS and directory services that relates to two different Security and Stability Advisory Committee reports that were issued last year, and then a new report from the SSAC that's just being released on WHOIS usage and display and support for local languages and scripts. So beginning with the WHOIS studies. As you know, WHOIS is the data repository containing registered domain names, registrant contact information and other critical information. And for many years now, questions have persisted concerning the use and misuse of this important resource, and those concerns about use and misuse can I'm sure be articulated differently by different people. But if I were to try to summarize here, I would say essentially maybe three broad areas of concern. One, certainly, a concern about the accuracy of WHOIS data today. A concern about the difficulty involved in reaching the actual registrant or licensee, if there's an issue or a problem with the domain name, and the ability to get a response from that registrant. And then the Third category of concern I would just broadly describe as privacy concerns about the public display of WHOIS contact information, particularly with regard to natural persons who may be registering domain names for a noncommercial purpose. That's my paraphrasing of the general community concerns. I'm sure others have other concerns and ways of articulating them. But I think in sum, that essentially captures at least the broad debate. So in October of 2007, the GNSO Council decided that it would be very useful to conduct a series of studies to increase the basis of factual information and other information that might be relevant or useful or instructive in terms of future policy-making on WHOIS. And that decision by the council led to about a year's worth of, first of all, soliciting ideas for WHOIS studies from the public, and we received roughly 25 or so recommendations that were on point and relevant. And then in the course of this consideration of studies from the public, we also received from the Governmental Advisory Committee -- and when I say "we," the council and the board received a very detailed letter from the GAC suggesting approximately 15 additional studies be conducted. Since that time, the council and the constituencies have spent a lot of time talking about those specific study recommendations. Some of what was done is just looking at grouping studies into logical clusters where study recommendations overlapped, doing some work to make sure that each -- that the framing of each study hypothesis was framed in such a way that it would be clear to someone who was actually asked to conduct the study what the testable hypothesis would be. Spending some initial time trying to just take the pulse of the constituencies and the community about these studies. And then in the recent weeks preceding this meeting, focusing much more intensely on soliciting viewpoints from each of the constituencies about the studies; in particular, asking each constituency to consider the list and decide or recommend which studies, in their view, might be the top priority studies. And also considering feasibility questions. There may be studies that people think would be very useful to conduct or know more about, but where the actual feasibility of conducting the study may have some challenges in terms of availability of data or the ability to craft a study that will produce accurate or empirical results. So the council and the constituencies did, in fact, all consult, and we did receive input from all of the constituencies and from the ALAC, and there is a list of studies here that I will read through that most of the constituencies, with the exception of two, and I will come back to that in just a moment, kind of agreed were the top studies that ought to be considered first out of the list of roughly 40 or so. When I say that there were four constituencies plus the ALAC that did provide specific rankings of studies and their views of what the priority should be, I also want to acknowledge that there were two constituencies that had grave concerns about conducting any studies at all. The two constituencies I'm referring to are the registrar constituency and the noncommercial users constituency. Their specific views are on record about why they oppose studies, but I will attempt to paraphrase my understanding of their concerns. I think both the registrars and the NCUC were quite concerned that given the history of WHOIS and the polarization in terms of viewpoints of community members, there was the concern that even if a study provided additional factual information that it would not be helpful in changing people's minds; that the members of the community are so dug in on the positions that they have. That incurring the expense and time of conducting lengthy studies may not actually achieve the result that was hoped for at the outset, which was the notion that these studies would be -- the results of them would be very useful in informing future policy discussions. And I think it's fair to say in the case of the registrars, in addition to that concern, that they also had concerns about the data that might be required in order to do some of these studies and how that data would be obtained and the likely possibility that registrars might be asked to provide data or to participate in some way because of the access to data that they were reluctant to or had some concerns about sharing, probably from several perspectives: cost, confidentiality, competitive issues, and the like. So I -- That was my paraphrasing. I encourage you to read the report that actually outlines in their own words their concerns, but I do want to make clear that while there were four constituencies plus an advisory committee that felt that studies should be done and would be helpful, there were two constituencies that do have some reservations about that. So the list of studies is up on the screen. I want to make clear that the vote that the council is embarking on today is a vote simply to direct staff on these six studies, if it is approved, to assess the feasibility of those studies, attempt to cost out the cost of conducting those studies, and also to consider different ways in which studies can be conducted. Researchers know quite well that there are different ways to construct studies and there can be differences in cost, differences in empirical or statistical accuracy that may be at play, but that it would be helpful or important to have some latitude in how exactly studies might be conducted. So importantly, the vote that is before the council today is not a vote to actually initiative studies. It's a vote to direct the staff to do the feasibility assessment and cost assessment that we would then provide to the council for further decision-making. Soap the six study areas that kind of rose to the top in the priority list again are, number one, the extent to which WHOIS data is misused to generate Spam or other illegal or undesirable activities. And again, this is an abbreviated description, and there is, in the motion that will be read, it's the detailed language there, but I wanted to just try to provide you with a bit of a shorthand description of what's intended with these studies. The second would look at the growing use of non-U.S. ASCII characters in WHOIS records and whether this would detract from data accuracy and readability. And just an extra point on that study. What that's really suggesting that we take a look at is the increasing reality that with more and more registrations being filed in countries using local character sets, that that contact information would also be displayed in local character sets and that this could potentially raise challenges for the broader community in terms of readability, and possibly have some implications for accuracy as well. So that particular study may be a bit more of a technical study rather than a sort of more empirical or statistical study, as some of the others are likely to involve. The third area looks at the extent to which proxy and privacy services are being used for abusive and/or illegal purposes, and the extent to which proxy and privacy services may complicate investigation into e-crime. The fourth area would look at the extent to which proxy and privacy services respond to information requests when presented with reasonable evidence of actionable harm. This is a study that focuses on the language of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, Section 3.7.7.3, and really would look at an assessment of the effectiveness of that provision as drafted today. The fifth study will look at whether legal persons and/or those registering names for a commercial purpose are providing inaccurate WHOIS data that implies that they are natural persons or registering for a noncommercial purpose. And the last area looks at whether proxy or privacy services are used by registrants who are legal versus natural persons, and whether most information requests are directed at registrants who are natural persons. So those are the six study areas that kind of rose to the top in terms of priority. In most of these cases, they are groupings of several study recommendations that overlapped, and so staff will be looking at these and trying to approach how best to actually craft a study. So in terms of next steps, I mentioned that the council will vote today on a set of initial studies to evaluate. Assuming that that motion is approved, the council will request that staff conduct the research and cost estimates and report back to the council. We are invited to develop creative ways to determine cost estimates and to determine study methodology, which I appreciate, because I think it will given us the opportunity to look at different ways that might be more or less accurate, more or less expensive. And so that's going to be quite helpful in being able to respond to the council with maybe some options to help make their decision-making a little easier. We'll provide the cost estimates and these feasibility assessments as soon as we can, and the council and staff will then consider what studies should be pursued. I will just note here that I think that the task that we'll have, assuming that the motion is approved, from the staff perspective may take a little time. And the council and I have discussed that, and I'm certainly prepared to give progress reports as that work unfolds. But given the complexity of crafting studies that are accurate and, particularly, we want to provide cost estimates that are accurate so that the community has an appreciation for what the expenses associated with these might be, that it just realistically may take a matter of months, although we will attempt to do it quickly. And it was also my thought that if we were able to do these feasibility assessments kind of serially, that we may be able to provide the council, along with progress updates, perhaps some information on specific studies as we go. There are, again, two other -- >>AVRI DORIA: I was mis-thinking when I told you to continue on. >>LIZ GASSTER: Okay. >>AVRI DORIA: I hadn't quite understood. I think it was best if we stop here like the agenda had. So that's totally my fault for not thinking clearly when you asked me about proceeding. >>LIZ GASSTER: Okay. I can come back. You bet. >>AVRI DORIA: I would like to start the discussion. I guess I would like to ask if there is anyone on the council who has an initial remark. And I should start creating a queue. Go ahead, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Just to follow-up on Liz's last point, you will see this better when you see the motion, I think. But the motion was crafted, like she said, to allow quite a bit of flexibility. And that, as you will see, she did mention there are six areas, but each of those areas include, in most cases, several studies. So the motion is intended to allow staff some flexibility that they can progressively go through these and do them. I don't think we're really intending that they, you know, try to work on all of them simultaneously. If they can, that's fine. But there will be a progressive nature to the tasks that we're asking them to do. And hopefully the motion is crafted in such a way to make that flexibility clear. >>AVRI DORIA: Chuck, actually, at this point it might be good to read the motion as part of the discussion. >>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Is it up there? Do you want me to do that, Avri? >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, I would like you to do that, if you would. >>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. >>AVRI DORIA: And by the way, this motion still needs to be seconded, so after Chuck has read it, hopefully people will take a chance and someone will second it. >>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Bear with me. To make sure that it's clear what the motion entails, it's a very long motion, so here goes. Whereas, in October 2007, the Generic Names Supporting Organization council concluded that a comprehensive, objective, and quantifiable understanding of key factual issues regarding the gTLD WHOIS system would benefit future GNSO policy efforts. Whereas, before defining the details of these studies, the council solicited suggestions from the community for specific topics of study on WHOIS -- on WHOIS. Suggestions were submitted, and ICANN staff prepared a report on public suggestions on further studies of WHOIS dated 25 February 2008. On 28 March 2008 the GNSO Council resolved to form a WHOIS study working group to develop a proposed list, if any, of recommended studies for which ICANN staff will be asked to provide cost estimates to the council. Whereas, the WHOIS study working group did not reach consensus regarding further studies, and on 25 June 2008, the GNSO Council resolved to form another group of volunteers called the WHOIS hypothesis working group to review the report on public suggestions on further studies of WHOIS and the GAC letter on WHOIS studies. Whereas, this working group was tasked to prepare a list of hypotheses to be tested and to deliver a report to the council. The WHOIS hypothesis working group delivered its report to the council on 26 August 2008. Whereas, on 29 October 2008, the registry constituency circulated its recommendations for consolidating and considering further WHOIS studies. Whereas, on 5 November 2008, the GNSO Council decided to convene a series of special meetings on WHOIS studies and to solicit further constituency views, assessing both the priority level and the feasibility of the various WHOIS studies that have been proposed with the goal of deciding which studies, if any, should be assessed for cost and feasibility. The council would then ask staff to perform that assessment, and following that assessment, the council would decide which studies should be conducted. Council chair Avri Doria convened a volunteer group of councillors and interested constituency members to draft a resolution regarding studies, if any, for which cost estimates should be obtained. The WHOIS study drafting team is tracked on the Wiki page at WHOIS discussion. Whereas the WHOIS study drafting team further consolidated the studies and data requested by the GAC. For each of the consolidated studies, constituencies were invited to assign priority rank and assess feasibility. Five constituencies provided the requested rankings while two constituencies, the NCUC and registrars constituencies, indicated that no further studies were justified. The GAC was also invited to assign priorities, but no reply was received as of 22 June 2009. The drafting team determined that the six studies with the highest average priority scores should be the subject of further research to determine feasibility and obtain cost estimates. The selection of these initial studies does not foreclose further consideration of the remaining studies. Resolved, council requests staff to conduct research on feasibility and cost estimates for the WHOIS studies listed below and report its findings to the council as soon as possible, noting that staff need not fulfill the full request at once, but may fulfill the requirements in stages. Number 1, group A -- in the parenthetical there, as you can see, it references the studies. I won't read those but I will just summarize the studies. Study one hypothesis: Public access to WHOIS data is responsible for a material number of cases of misuse that have caused harm to natural persons whose registrations do not have a commercial purpose. Study 14 hypothesis: The WHOIS database is used only to a minor extent to generate Spam and other such illegal or undesirable activities. Study 21 and GAC data set 2 hypothesis: There are significant abuses caused by public display of WHOIS. Significant abuses would include use of WHOIS data in Spam generation, abuse of personal data, loss of reputation or identity theft, security costs and loss of data. Sorry for the numbering here. Loss of data. Sorry for the numbering here. I believe the next one should say 2 where it says study 11. Study 11 hypothesis: The use of non-ASCII character sets and WHOIS records will detract from data accuracy and readability. The third group is what we call group B, including the following studies. Study 13 hypotheses: The number of proxy registrations is increasing when compared with the total number of registrations. Hypothesis B: Proxy and private WHOIS records complicate the investigation and disabling of phishing sites, sites that host malware, and other sites perpetrating electronic crime as compared with nonprivacy registrations and nonprivate registrations. Hypothesis C: Domain names registered using proxy or privacy services are disproportionately associated with phishing, malware, and other electronic crime as compared with nonproxy registrations or nonprivate registrations. Hypothesis for study 17: The majority of domain names registered by proxy privacy services are used for abusive and/or illegal purposes. GAC study one hypothesis: The legitimate use of gTLD WHOIS data is curtailed or prevented by the use of proxy and privacy registration services. GAC study 11 hypothesis: Domain names registered using proxy or privacy services are disproportionately associated with fraud and other illegal activities as compared with nonproxy registrations. The -- what I think is group 4 -- I don't see it. I see they're not showing the motion. >>AVRI DORIA: Sorry. I had trouble with my machine. I will get the motion up there shortly. >>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Group B, study 3 hypothesis: Some proxy and privacy services are not revealing registrant licensee data when presented with requests that provide reasonable evidence of actionable harm as required to avoid liability under registration agreement provisions that reflect the requirements of registry accreditation agreement Section 3.7.7.3. Study 20 hypothesis: Some proxy and privacy services do not promptly and reliably relay information requests to and from registrants/licensees. I think group 5 then is a group we categorized as group C including two studies. GAC study 5 hypothesis: A significant percentage of registrants who are legal entities are providing inaccurate WHOIS data that implies they are natural persons. Furthermore, the percentage of registrants with such inaccuracies will vary significantly depending upon the nation or continent of registration. GAC study 6 hypothesis: A significant percentage of registrants who are operating domains with a commercial purpose are providing inaccurate WHOIS data that implies they are acting without commercial purposes. Furthermore, the percentage of registrants with such inaccuracies will vary significantly depending upon the nation or continent of registration. And area 6, which we call group D -- and there's four hypotheses there. Study 18 hypothesis: The majority of domain names registered by proxy privacy services are used for commercial purposes and not for use by natural persons. Study 19 hypothesis: A disproportionate share of requests to reveal the identity of registrants who use proxy services is directed toward registrations made by natural persons. GAC study 9 hypothesis: A growing and significant share of proxy privacy service users are legal persons. GAC study 10 hypothesis: A growing and significant share of domains that are registered using proxy privacy services are used for commercial purposes. Council further requests that staff refer to original study submissions for statements of how study results could lead to an improvement in WHOIS policy. Many submitters also describe the type of survey study needed including data elements, data sources, population to be surveyed and sample size. Staff is invited to pursue creative ways to develop cost estimates for these studies including reformulations of the suggested hypotheses. At any time staff may come back to council with questions regarding study hypotheses. Council further requests that staff communicate the resolution to the GAC representatives once it has been approved. And that is the end of the motion. [Applause] >>CHUCK GOMES: Just one comment that probably is a good point to clarify. And Liz may have covered it. But, if she did, I'll repeat it. The hypotheses for the GAC studies were developed by the hypothesis working group that was mentioned in the whereas clauses, because the GAC did not actually provide hypotheses for their suggested studies. So what we did in the working groups was to recraft -- to attempt to properly capture what the GAC intended in the form of a testable hypothesis. And then we did send those back to the GAC for any feedback that they might have. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you, Chuck. Two things. One, I want to apologize for the thing on the screen. I've been having trouble getting it to fit into the screen. I've got my computer set up incorrectly. Two, I do have up there a possible friendly amendment that I'm going wish to offer based upon the ALAC results and -- but I have Adrian on the queue. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Thanks, Avri. Chuck, just for the record to be clarified, I believe part of the motion where you said the GAC was also invited to assign priorities but no reply was received as of -- I think you said 22nd June 2009. Just for clarity, that was 22 Jan 2009. >>CHUCK GOMES: Thank you. And, actually, Adrian, we could actually make it today's date. The -- because we have not received anything even to today's date. So thanks for catching that. >>AVRI DORIA: Mike? >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Thanks. You mentioned near the end of the motion, I think several times in the motion it says they want to basically look at commercial purposes. And I guess, ultimately, part of our intent of doing some of these studies anyway was to look at illegal purposes. I assume -- and I'm just asking, I guess, for confirmation if that was the assumption of the group that illegal purposes are subsumed within commercial purposes. >>CHUCK GOMES: I don't think that necessarily follows. Keep in mind, Mike, that what the hypothesis working group tried to do was to the best of their ability capture what the proposed study hypothesis was. So I think we have to be a little bit careful of modifying these because of that intent. Now -- and we did in each case send the way we crafted the exact wording of the hypotheses that were developed back to the submitters to have them check that. So I would just be a little bit cautious about that. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'm not asking to change the motion or anything. Obviously, it's difficult enough to determine whether something commercial or noncommercial, I think. There's gray area there. Certainly, there's even more gray area and a more important determination whether something is legal or illegal. I understand it. I just wanted a little more clarity on that. >>CHUCK GOMES: And, again, remember that we've given staff the flexibility to come back to us and work those sorts of things. So I think your concern is a good one. And I think it can be dealt with in the parameters that we've given to staff with this motion. Okay. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Thanks. >>AVRI DORIA: I've got Stephane, and then I put myself in the queue. Blue one is walkie-talkie mode, red one to lock yourself into talking. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: How's this? Much better. Just come back to a point Liz made earlier on. If the motion does go through, Liz, you talked about the time that it might take staff to carry out the feasibility studies and the possibility that some of the result of your work might come in earlier as you look at each possible study area. Is that -- just to make sure that's clearly what you meant, that you would do the feasibility study or analysis per study and be able to come back to us with regular updates so that this wouldn't just drag on for months and months and months? >>LIZ GASSTER: Yeah, that is my hope. And the only caveat I would add is that smarter researchers than I may see connections or overlaps in the studies that make it, you know, may make that a little bit challenging in certain cases. But it is my intent to, A, to expedite the process as much as possible but also be able to provide information to you, you know, as it's ready so that you can see the progress and maybe, you know, make some initial determinations or reactions if it's helpful. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. I wanted to take a break now because -- on the conversations. And I'll get back to speaking. We still do not have a seconder on this motion. So -- okay. I've got Tony, Olga, and Kristina. So I've got seconders. Thank you. The other thing I wanted to offer and the reason I put myself in the queue is I wanted to offer a possible friendly amendment. But I couldn't do it until it was seconded, I believe. In that now we have now received a response with ALAC with their priorities on studies. And the amendment I'd like to offer as opposed to getting specific about changing the motion at this point is staff has also requested to consider the results obtained from the ALAC on its priorities for studies and include any of the studies that fit into the groups designated in this resolution. I don't know if that would be accepted as a friendly amendment. Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: Clarification, Avri. Do you mean -- we're not necessarily considering everything the GAC or the ALAC responded to or prioritized but, rather, those that fit in the -- the priority cutoff that we used, correct? >>AVRI DORIA: To include any of those that fit into the groups, yes. Okay. Yes. Follow -- perhaps I should say following the same procedures we did. >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. And I would consider that a friendly amendment. I guess we should ask Tony and Kristina. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Fine with me. >>AVRI DORIA: Tony, you're also in favor? Okay, I'll make that change. And now I thought I had someone from the floor. Yes, Steve. And, please, make sure you give your name for the record. >>STEVE DEL BIANCO: Thanks, Avri. Steve Del Bianco with Net Choice, a member of the study group. It was amazing, Chuck. I drafted the motion. I think it took you longer to read it than it did to write it. It was an extremely long motion, and I apologize for that. But it's a comprehensive list. And I wanted to respond to Mike's question, and then make one recommendation for how staff attacks the order. Mike, the commercial purposes was in there because, as we understood it, national laws with respect to privacy differ with regard to citizens that are there for just their own personal purposes or if they're having commercial purposes. So there are certain privacy protections that couldn't extend to an entity or nation that was using a Web site for commercial purposes. That's what that means. Doesn't try to imply whether it's legal or illegal commercial. But commercial purposes mean it may not be allowed to hide its identity whether by proxy or through an undisclosed WHOIS. I want to acknowledge staff has done a fabulous job on this. And, as we attacked the studies, we didn't necessarily apply the order in which they should be evaluated, sort of leaving that to staff. And, given all that's happens this week with respect to the new gTLD guidebook, I would invite staff to attack, first of all, the studies that would inform the policy debate about whether in the new gTLD guidebook we would require new TLDs to host a thick WHOIS or not. I understand the current guidebook does not. I know there was a lively debate about whether it should require thick WHOIS for new TLDS. So anything staff can do to assess that nature of the policy question will inform any revisions to the guidebook. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I've got Tim, and then I've got Alan. >>TIM RUIZ: Tim Ruiz, registrars constituency. I'll be voting in favor of the motion today. But I just wanted to make clear that it doesn't indicate or signal a change in registrars' views or concerns about pursuing the studies. But we do think it's reasonable that, if we are going to pursue them, that we understand the costs and feasibility involved. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Alan and then -- and Carlos and then -- >>ALAN GREENBERG: I just wanted to give thanks to the ALAC for including our studies -- the studies that we prioritized high in the final resolution despite the very late date that we submitted them. And I do note, for the record, that, although the ALAC did approve the list that we submitted, we did have a minority of members who supported the registrars and NCUC position of don't do any more studies. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Carlos? >>CARLOS SOUZA: Carlos Souza from NCUC. I would like to just advance, as the motion is currently drafted, NCUC is getting to vote in favor of it. But we would like to stress that it doesn't represent any change in the position of NCUC that has been starkly defended that we think that no further studies are needed. But we really want to be constructive here. And, as it is a motion that is pointing at only the request of cost estimate savings and feasibility (inaudible) we understand that NCUC we, vote in favor of it. But we really understand that during this crucial time in which staff has a lot of work to do on other crucial issues like new gTLDs, we seem to understand that to spend a considerable amount of time with the all complex WHOIS hypothesis could be -- and pardon me for my expression -- could be a waste of precious human resources and time. But, in any case, we want to be constructive here. And we'll vote in favor of the motion as drafted as NCUC has been joining the team and working together in order for us to have the best wording possible. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I want to thank you very much for that. Bill? >>WILLIAM DRAKE: Carlos took the words out of my mouth, so -- >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Yes, Tony? >>TONY HOLMES: Thanks, Avri. I'd like to express support for the remarks made by Steve Del Bianco from the floor. In addition, I'd like to make the comment that we discussed this motion yesterday at the ISP meeting. And it appeared to us that, even though we support the motion and to studies that have been listed, potentially, it may ease things and make it easier for staff and whoever is looking at these studies to consider combining some of those items together. I don't think it necessarily changes the motion. But I think an acceptance that they could adopt that approach may ease the way forward. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: Just very briefly let me say that the reason the registry constituency supports going through with some studies, assuming cost and feasibility are within reasonable range, is that we believe that for years now, many, many years, there have been -- all of us have very definite opinions about different issues with regard to WHOIS. And we think it would be very helpful to either substantiate those opinions or prove them false and that that would then guide the -- any policy efforts that we might do in the future. And so we really like the idea of studies providing some, hopefully, objective data to either validate these hypotheses or prove them wrong. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you, Chuck. Yes, Liz. >>LIZ GASSTER: Liz Gasster. I just wanted to also respond to Steve del Bianco's question or point about whether WHOIS studies should be made thick for new gTLDs and how we might handle that. And I just conferred with Kurt Pritz. And what we would recommend is that that be assessed and responded to in the context of the new gTLD implementation rather than a study that is initiated as part of this effort, that that would be a more appropriate way from a staff perspective to address that. So he's committed to taking a look at that and responding to it, if that's acceptable to everyone, rather than adding that as an additional study to this process. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. I'm not prepared to speak for Steve. But I don't think that was what he's intending. But, if you look at group two study 11, for example, the use of non-ASCII characters, that's some studies that could inform the process. And I think that's what Steve was saying there. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, Steve. >>STEVE DEL BIANCO: Thank you. Chuck is exactly right. We're simply asking that staff do the studies in the order in which they could inform the separate policy process of developing the new gTLD guidebook. And what will inform it is not only that question but a few of the other studies. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. I see no one at the mics. Does anyone in the council wish to comment? No? Is there any objection to doing an ayes and nays vote on this, or do we need to do a polling vote? Seeing no objection -- yes, Adrian. No, Adrian. Thank you. In which case, all those in favor of accepting this motion please say "aye." >>Ayes. >>CYRIL CHUA: Aye. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. So we got -- that was online aye. Okay. Great. And any opposed please say "nay." Are there any abstentions? Okay. Thank you. The motion is passed unanimously. Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: I just want to say thanks to all of the people on the council, previous members of the council, and the community that have been -- contributed huge amounts of time to get where we are. I know people think it's terribly slow. But there was a lot of serious work to get to where we are, and I compliment everyone that contributed to it. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes. Thank you. We ran a bit long on that one, but it's time to get to the rest of Liz's presentation on IDNs and WHOIS. >>LIZ GASSTER: Thank you, Avri. And I'll try to make this short. So there were two studies that were conducted by the security and stability committee last year taking a look at WHOIS. They're SAC 027 in February and SAC 033. Essentially, the -- and I encourage to you look at these reports. But, essentially, the upshot of the conclusions was concern that the WHOIS protocol is really inadequate in key areas like authentication, data accuracy, data confidentiality, and data integrity and that they are sort of institutional limitations to the current WHOIS protocol and considerable variability among WHOIS implementations that kind of may contribute to the poor quality of registration data. They recommended a sort of combined process of policy development and adoption of a uniform directory service that would provide these features like enhanced confidentiality, enhanced authentication, enhanced data integrity, including some auditing capabilities that could benefit the domain name community. But, in conjunction with policy development, recognizing that even a broad assortment of additional features that might be available still might require decision making on policy questions as to how those features would actually be implemented. And in SAC 033, they made some recommendations for how we could identify features common to public and private directory services and discuss how such features could benefit the domain name community and to propose a methodology for trying to really take a look and whether WHOIS should be replaced by a new protocol that would provide for these additional capabilities. So I think I did want to mention that, although these are not new studies, they are relevant in the sense of considering what the limitations of the current WHOIS might be and what some options for the future might be. Now, the SSAC is also announcing or posting a report this week. It's number SAC 037. It deals with WHOIS language in display and support for local languages and scripts and, essentially, is dealing with the topic that I listed on that second study on my slide about what the implications of increasing amounts of non-ASCII character sets in contact information and what the consequences might be. Many IDN standards apply to domain name composition. There is no standard -- uniform standard today that addresses how registrant contact information is submitted and displayed in WHOIS. And registrars have the discretion to address that as a local matter. And, while there are Internet applications that support characters from local languages or scripts, there's nothing now to address this problem. So the concern essentially identified in the SSAC report is that over time, as increasing number of registrations are filed in -- using local character sets including in the contact information, that it could affect the readability for the broader community. And it also could have an impact on accuracy, WHOIS accuracy as well. So there is no specific policy development activity under way within the GNSO council right now other than the study that we're recommending on non- U.S. ASCII character sets to examine this. But the council is interested in this and talking together about this. And we wanted to express to the community that we expect that there would be further conversation among the councilmembers about what next steps might be to explore some of these options as a replacement for the current WHOIS, recognizing that there are also potential costs and other questions -- policy questions that would need to be resolved and addressed. My last slide on links (off microphone) and reference material that reflects all of the discussion that we've had this morning. And this is posted on the schedule for today and also posted on the GNSO Wiki workspace for your reference. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I'd like to open it up to Q&A or questions, discussion. Yes, please. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. I have a question -- I think it's a question for clarification, so Liz probably shouldn't go too far from a microphone. I've been thinking a lot about the issue of incorporation of non-ASCII characters into WHOIS. And my -- so my question is kind of a forward-looking question. In today's world of collecting data from a registrant, we clearly have to be thinking not just about WHOIS but about the fact that data that is going to be related to transfers between registrars may also include a significant amount of data that is in non-ASCII characters. So I was sort of trying to understand the points that SSAC is making, which clearly may have issues to do with how is data that is gathered for WHOIS, if it is displayed and used for purposes of dealing with resolution of incidents or harmful incidents, et cetera, et cetera, but also used for information -- legitimate information, whatever we decide legitimate is, legitimate purposes, whatever we decide legitimate is, where would we work together to make sure that the gathering and display of data that addresses not just display in WHOIS but might also have other implications for transfer, et cetera? And isn't this actually an issue that is cross-cutting across the -- if we -- the CC community of registries and the gTLD and IDN community -- badly worded, but I hope I got my question across. >>AVRI DORIA: Liz. >>LIZ GASSTER: Actually, those are two really great points, and I think I might have skipped one slide where I talked about point in the most recent SSAC 037 paper they make a couple of recommendations about how the community might work together to discuss this or at least begin to provide a foundation of understanding of both what the technical issues might be, the business issues might be, the policy issues might be, including recommending a workshop in Sydney that would bring relevant communities, interested community, the technical community, together to really start to talk about this in a way that addresses, I think, some of Marilyn's very astute observations that this is not something that is just going to affect, you know, the GNSO or the ccNSO. And, in fact, the one application that I know of already of this new directory, the IRIS or I-R-I-S, protocol developed by the CRISP, C-R-I-S-P, working group of the IETF, the DNIC, in fact, has adopted such an approach. So I think it is very worthwhile to think about a community dialogue, maybe with breakout sessions, that explore separately the technical issues, the cost and business issues, consumer-related issues, user- related issues, that would really help provide a foundation for guiding us on next steps. And I think the SSAC in its report also suggested a working group be convened that would separately include members of the SOs and ACs, and possibly the IETF as well, to take a closer look at this. So I think that's a very good point, and something that we should explore further as a community. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Mike. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Just briefly. Marilyn definitely makes good comments there. And we discussed that issue, actually, in our ccNSO/GNSO meeting the other day. It was pretty clear, probably, that we will never get any sort of standardized WHOIS records across all the country codes since so many countries have different privacy laws, et cetera. Except it seemed Chris Disspain at least agreed with the notion that we could probably get a standardized process where at least the domain name and the name servers were both available publicly in both ASCII and IDN scripts. And I think for the law enforcement community, at least, that would be a goal that we should try to reach as soon as possible. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: I know we are way over time so I am going to make a suggestion that we not wait for a workshop in Sydney, I think that's a very good idea, but that we put this on our either -- one of the next two agendas, if not the next one, so that we focus a little bit further on this, because I think it is very timely. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on this at the moment? No. In which case, we'll end this topic now. Due to both some technical difficulties that I'm having and some last- minute discussions that are going on on the RAA motion, I'm going to actually take our 15-minute break now so people can get coffee. And those of us that are having technical difficulties and those of us that are still discussing motions can do that during the 15 minutes, and we'll be back -- we will start promptly at 9:30. (Coffee break.) >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. If everyone can -- especially those that are up here, can get back to their seats so that we can restart. Okay. Just before we start, I'd like to sort of remind everyone that it's easiest to make sure your microphone is off if you only use the walkie-talkie mode. If you use the red button, what sometimes happens is that you forget to press it again, and then side conversations are broadcast into the room, which is very distracting for everyone else. We can't hear it for some reason, but the folks out there can hear us having our side conversations. So unless you want to talk for a long time, I do recommend using the walkie-talkie button, the little blue one. Okay. So the next thing in the agenda is the RAA, and I'd like to ask -- who is it that's going to -- Kurt, if you could -- is Kurt here? Is Kurt still with us? >>DENISE MICHEL: Just one second. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. As soon as Kurt is found, and, you know, he has we are at 9:00, in fairness to him. It's technical difficulties and everything else that gave him a chance to do some other work, I'm sure. Apologies, Kurt. I know you were here at 9:00, ready to start when our schedule said, and I appreciate your coming back and still being available. Are you going do it from there? Okay. Thank you. >>KURT PRITZ: I am talking to you guys. Thank you. Of. I apologize for not being here when you started up right when you said you would. We've discussed the proposed set of RAA amendments. In past meetings, there have been briefing papers offered in the past that are a part of the agenda. And so, just for the record, those attending this meeting here or by phone can find that documentation online. So I can be fairly brief, I think. The RAA amendments, as developed through the process described by the board in their resolution in San Juan, I think represents significant improvements, especially for the protection of registrants. There's a few different categories of amendments. One are improved enforcement tools that explicitly provide for compliance audits of registrars, provide for sanctions and suspension intermediate compliance tools where before we just had the termination tool. Sort of a death sentence that is not always appropriate in trying to bring registrars into compliance. There's a provision for group liability where there is serial misconduct by registrar -- a registrar that owns multiple registrars, that the registrar accepts liability across his group for the misconduct by one. There's registrant -- a set of registrant protections in the amendments that include addressing safeguards for privacy registrations and proxy registrations and notification to registrants that their data will not be escrowed. So I think that's important to shine a bright light on the risks associated with privacy and proxy registrations. There's improvements in the contractual relationships between registrars and resellers, and there's additional disclosures required for licensee contact and register contact information disclosures. There is also a set of amendments going to promoting a stable and competitive registrar marketplace. For example, there is safeguards put in place in the case where there is an accreditation by purchase, and that new entity owning the registrar has to requalify as an accredited registrar. So I think all these things are good. Are we pleased with the set of amendments? Yes, we are. Are we totally satisfied with the set of amendments? No, we're not. And I think the council -- one of the council's motions to, with time certain, address or propose additional amendments and work together is an equally important part of that motion that you are considering. I think timing very important. As you know, these amendments, if approved by the council and then by the board, would be incumbent on registrars to adopt upon their renewal of their agreement. I don't know the precise number, but 70% of the registrars are renewing their agreement in the next 18 months to two years, something like that. And also, even in the cases where they are not renewing in the immediate future, ICANN will offer incentives to encourage registrars to adopt the amendment. So with that, I'll be here to answer any questions for the next half hour. And I thank you very much for your attention and for working together in this meeting and in Cairo to move these things forward. Thanks, Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And thank you for your help in doing this. What I'd like to do now is they we basically set that we go for brief position statements from the members of the council. And what I would like to start with is the two motions that we have on the table. So I would like to start with Mike to discuss his motion, and then I would like to go to Tim to discuss his motion. So Mike. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Thanks, Avri. So I can't speak for the majority of the council members that rejected these proposed amendments a month or so ago, but I can speak for the B.C., certainly, and explain why we did that, because I think it's important to get that out in a public meeting. Certainly, the proposed amendments are -- would be an improvement over the RAA. It hasn't been amended in nine, ten years. It needs amendment. It needs -- From our perspective, however, it needs much more amendment. Some of the amendments we think don't go far enough. So basically we had issues over the process and over the substance. And basically the process resulted in substance that we found essentially unacceptable because we feel if there was a better process, we would have -- it would have resulted in better amendments. Essentially, although the RAA contemplates council approval of any amendments, council was simply never involved in the amendment process until the registrars and the staff had negotiated a set of amendments, and then brought it to the council and essentially said approve these wholesale or not. And we decided not to for that reason, and, again, because the substance wasn't quite right. So I think this face-to-face meeting has really helped. It's helped me and I think my other councillors and constituency members to have trust that the registrars are operating in good faith and will listen to our concerns about further amendments. They have committed to do that in a set time frame. And we very much appreciate that as a good next step. And therefore, we will withdraw my motion, and we will support the agreed motion. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much, Mike. Very much. Tim, would you like to speak on the alternate motion that has been discussed by many of you over the last couple days? And it still needs to be seconded, I'd like to note. >>TIM RUIZ: Right. Thank you, Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Sorry, I'll note that it was seconded by Kristina online. I hadn't seen that. Thank you. >>TIM RUIZ: Thank you, Kristina. Yeah, I think the issues that -- in regards to the process that Mike referred to, have been made very clear, and those points very well taken. What we have attempted to do in the last few days was to work with a number of the councillors sitting here today, both on the NCUC, the IPC, and with the business constituency, and others as well, in drafting a motion that would not only approve the current amendments, but also commit the registrars to sitting down and working on the registrant rights charter, which is actually called for within the amendments themselves. And also to commit us to sitting down and discussing further amendments to the RAA, and to identify any of those in which further action might be desirable. And again, we believe and feel that these amendments are a vast improvement over the current RAA, and go a long ways to providing protections to registrants. So it's important to us that we see these amendments approved given the two years of work that have been put into it. So we really are thankful, and we appreciate the work that the other councillors have engaged in over the last few days in helping us to come to an amendment -- or to a motion that we feel is acceptable to everyone. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Would you like to read that motion? >>TIM RUIZ: Yes. Whereas, the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, RAA, has not been amended since May 2001, and ICANN has undertaken a lengthy consultative process related to amending the RAA, including several public comment periods and consultations. Whereas, the proposed changes to the RAA include important compliance and enforcement tools for ICANN; the council wishes to approve the set of proposed amendments as quickly as possible so that the ICANN board may review them and, if approved, implement them as quickly as possible. And, whereas, the council would like to proceed on the drafting of a charter identifying registrant rights that registrars would be obliged to link to as contemplated in the set of amendments. The council would like a specific process and time line to move forward with additional potential amendments to the RAA. And the registrar constituency is supportive of these efforts and is willing to participate on a good-faith basis on anticipated next steps. Resolved, the GNSO Council supports the RAA amendments as documented in the link given and recommends to the board that they be adopted as its meeting of March 6, 2009. Within 30 days of board approval of the set of amendments, representatives from the GNSO community and the ALAC shall be identified to participate in drafting a registrant rights charter, as contemplated by the amendments and the current GNSO Council discussions, with support from ICANN staff. A draft charter shall be completed no later than July 31st, 2009. And within 30 days of board approval of the set of amendments, the GNSO Council will form a drafting team to discuss further amendments to the RAA and to identify those in which further action may be desirable. The drafting team should endeavor to provide its advice to the council and ICANN staff no later than July 31st, 2009. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I'll get to list in a second. I've got Mike. I would like to point out for this motion to approve those amendments it, will need to be approved by a two-thirds vote. I also would like to point out that as this is a consensus -- or similar to a consensus policy, I will be using the bylaws absentee voting rule, but within that rule it allows me to call for a shorter period. And basically, if there is any absentee ballot, so if we don't have all the members on the phone at the time of the vote, the absentee ballot will extend until noon tomorrow, UTC. Noon UTC tomorrow. So that gives people around the world at least some time to act on it. Hopefully, though, at the time of the vote they will be on the phone and there will be no need for absentee, but should that occur, that would be the case. And now I'll take -- I would like to get any council members that want to comment on this to comment, and then I will go to the floor. I have got Mike, I have got Kristina, okay, I've got Bill, I have got Alan. Okay. Go ahead, Mike. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Just very briefly. I don't want the motion to be misinterpreted. We discussed it but didn't really clarify one small point. I think it mentions that the representatives from the GNSO community and the ALAC will be invited to participate. I just want to ensure that we also request a representative from SSAC in particular to participate. Thanks. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. It doesn't need an amendment, does it? Just I'll make sure that SSAC is aware. Thank you. Kristina. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: As I think many of you may know, I abstained from the original vote because I felt that the consultative process was flawed. I had concerns about the weighted voting, and I also had concerns about accepting these amendments and having that be the end of the process. I am supportive of this motion. I have seconded it. I think it is important, now that, frankly, I have made my point about the past consultative process and am pleased with the registrar constituency's willingness to work forward on this, I am very hopeful that we will not have a supermajority but perhaps even unanimity, and if that happens, I would very much encourage the board to approve the amendments in its meeting on Friday. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Bill. >>WILLIAM DRAKE: We, from NCUC, also voted against on the first draw. By the way, okay, this time I am William Drake. Last time the scribe had me as "William Blake," and I am not actually an English poet, so improvement there. As Mike and Kristina both pointed out, we had some process concerns and we also were particularly concerned about the lack of real discussion of registrant rights in the discussion that had taken place just prior. And also concerns about the asynchronous implementation with the renewals and the lack of a charter, really, for registrant rights is a particular concern. So we have been very happy to be able to collaborate with colleagues on revisions that address all of our concerns. While there are people out there in our constituency who still have profound issues with certain aspects of the RAA, we have a commitment to go forward with a dialogue in which, hopefully, some of these can be taken up. So it seems to me that this is a good-faith process that everybody is committed to, and we're really happy to have been able to work with the registrants and intellectual property people and everybody else to get behind this. So we will be voting yes. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much. I have Alan. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Two things. First of all, although we're quite happy with the wording as it stands, I would like the record to show that we are -- the motion implicitly is talking about issues that are within the picket fence and eligible for traditional PDP processes and giving advice or making statements on things which are subject to contractual -- to negotiation on contractual issues, but that they are still within our range for discussion. And the second one is, I'd like, in the hopefully small case that the board decides that they cannot approve this this Friday, I would like them to be well aware -- that staff make them well aware of how many registrars will be missed if they delay it by a month or whatever the next meeting is. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much. Would anyone else from the council like to put their position on the table? Okay. Is there anyone in the -- participants in the house that would like to comment at the mic on this? No? Seeing no one. Okay, this will then -- Any other discussion before I call for a vote on this? This will be a polled vote where each person will have to respond individually, and, Glen, can you call the vote, please. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Certainly, Avri. Philip Sheppard. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Mike Rodenbaugh. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Zahid Jamil. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Kristina Rosette. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Cyril Chua. >>CYRIL CHUA: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Have we got Ute Decker? Tony Holmes. >>TONY HOLMES: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Tony Harris. >>TONY HARRIS: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Greg Ruth. >>GREG RUTH: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Mary Wong. >>MARY WONG: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: William Drake. >> (Off microphone.) >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Carlos Souza. >>CARLOS SOUZA: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Adrian Kinderis. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Tim Ruiz. >>TIM RUIZ: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Stephane Van Gelder. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Jordi Iparraguirre. >>JORDI IPARRAGUIRRE: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Chuck Gomes. >>CHUCK GOMES: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Edmon Chung. >>EDMON CHUNG: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Terry Davis. >>TERRY DAVIS: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Avri Doria. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: Olga Cavalli. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY: That is unanimous, and there is one person absent, Ute Decker, who will be sent an absentee ballot. [ Applause ] >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. So in the meantime -- And I have you on, Bill. So in the meantime, we can notify the board that we have cleared the two-thirds majority, and when either we get Ute's vote or at 12:00 UTC tomorrow, whatever occurs first, we will be able to announce the final results. Yes, Bill. >>WILLIAM DRAKE: Maybe I didn't press the button hard enough. When I looked at the transcript, the scribe didn't have "yes" after me. So just to be clear I did say yes. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, we heard it here and it got notated. Thank you. Okay. So that one is completed in much shorter time than I had scheduled. And it looks like we're nine minutes away from starting the next item. As I said, I wasn't going to start any item before its time. Therefore, it looks like we have another nine-minute break, but I will start at 10:00. So don't go too far if you want to be here for registry services evaluation process. Thank you very much to everyone that did all the hard work on bringing that one to a very successful almost conclusion. (Break until 10:00) >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, we're starting again. Everyone find your seat. I've been told we take too many breaks. >>CHUCK GOMES: That's a first. >>AVRI DORIA: But I also countersuggested that, if that person came to a mic and made a comment, we wouldn't have needed a break. >>CHUCK GOMES: I don't know if we wanted a 9-minute comment. >>AVRI DORIA: Next thing on the agenda is Registry Services Evaluation Process. And Patrick is here. Are you going to show slides, or do it from down there? Okay. So Patrick will be doing it from the floor. >>PATRICK JONES: All right. Thank you. Patrick Jones, ICANN staff. I think this can be rather brief. I wanted to provide some information about the draft statement of work on the funnel review, which is the registry services evaluation process that was provided to the council list on 24th of January of this year. You know, this is based on the registry services evaluation policy and the process that was implemented in 15 August of 2006. So it's approaching its third year of implementation. And this is ICANN's process to support the timely, efficient, and open review of proposed gTLD registry services for impacts on security, stability, and competition. And also to ensure that proposed services do not introduce changes to the Internet operations without adequate notice to the community. So at this stage ICANN has handled 21 registry services requests and it's been, you know, ICANN keeps a dedicated page on the Web site where all the information related to these proposals are posted with any links to public comment, other documents and board decisions, if any, are necessary. So what we've done in providing this draft statement of work to the council is to seek some input and guidance from you, see if the -- there's anything in the wording that can be changed or the focus of the review itself. We recognize that there's quite a substantial bit of work under way in the community. And this was seen by staff as a way to take a bit of the pressure off of the council and the community for doing a extensive review and having some independent third party provide some assistance in managing this review that can then be fed back information to the council on the effectiveness of the implementation looking specifically at how ICANN staff has dealt with the implementation of the process and not on how the policy was developed. So at this stage I'm open to turning it over to the -- to you for questions and can be able to provide further information at a later council date on another call. >>AVRI DORIA: Chuck, I'm not even going to wait for you to ask me to come to you. You were the one that posed the questions. Where do you stand on -- please, go ahead. >>CHUCK GOMES: Well, as I communicated on the council list, I don't think that hiring an outside firm to do a review makes sense. I appreciate the concern for the council and our workload. But, first of all, reviews of consensus policy, in my opinion, in my memory, are usually at least first handled by the GNSO, not by ICANN corporation -- of course, we're all part of that, a community. So I'm not sure it makes sense in that regard. But more importantly, I don't think it's necessary to go to that expense. And I think it's important for us to be good stewards of the funds in the ICANN budget. In my personal opinion, the problems that have occurred with at least three registry services proposals this past year really are a staff implementation issue. And it's my opinion that, as a first step, we'd be a lot smarter to form a small group of interested people from the community to look at what's happened and sit down with ICANN staff. And let's see if we can't deal with the issues that have occurred in a very simple way rather than making it a full-blown review that's going to cost tons of money. So that would be my suggestion with regard to this issue. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Patrick, did you want to respond at all to that before I go to other questions? Okay. I've got Mike. And, of course, if anyone, you know, sitting down would like to add to the questions, this is open discussion at this point. >>AVRI DORIA: Keep your finger on the blue to talk or press the red. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'm doing both of those things. Nothing's working. Hello? So, thanks, Chuck. I mean, I think your comments have been very helpful. I'd certainly agree generally that the council ought to be the first place that our consensus policies are reviewed and considered. I'm curious, Patrick, if you'd answer a question. Why, in a nutshell, did staff take this on or feel that -- that to take the initiative to request an independent review of this? Particularly, it's only been two years, which I think we've had a lot of discussion about how many reviews we have constantly going on of everything. And that perhaps reviews ought to be five years or something rather than every three years is typical. So, please. >>PATRICK JONES: So this grew out of an effort to look at the effectiveness of the information given a number of the questions and concerns that have been raised particularly from the registry constituency and their letter to Peter from October. You know, staff wanted to take this as an opportunity to look at how the process is working and, if, by having an independent reviewer assist with that, that we can then come back to the council or at least work collaboratively with the council on how the process can be improved and -- from its management. Not looking at doing a full-blown policy review, but at least looking carefully at ways to streamline and improve how the implementation is being managed. And it might be a good approach. So I hope that answers your question a bit. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: It does. Thank you. Would you, though -- would you be supportive of what Chuck's suggesting that, basically, the council look at it first; and, then, if you still feel that an independent review is wise, then make that recommendation again? >>PATRICK JONES: A statement of work was provided to the council. So we could get your input and suggestions on how to move forward. So I think Chuck's suggestion is a good one and maybe start there. And then out of that some parameters can be built on how an independent review can go forward. And that might be a result that comes out of the small group. But we're, you know, trying to at least take some of the pressure off of this group that's already doing quite a bit of work. And to have that at least start from staff and then can come back to you with -- you know, a set of observations that can then be taken on. But I think Chuck's suggestion is a good one. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I actually like your suggestion better, which incorporates Chuck's but with some staff input first. I think that's a very good idea. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. I think there's two people at the mic. You were there. I'm Paul Foody, a domain name owner, a group of individuals who are markedly absent from this conference. What I'd like to know is, having spent the last 2 1/2 years trying to get written hard copy confirmation of domains in my ownership and in the ownership of my family, is there any responsibilities on registrars to provide that information? I was told by Network Solutions, who phoned my solicitor and told them -- told my solicitor that I'd have to -- I would have to get a subpoena to -- >>AVRI DORIA: Excuse me. >>PAUL FOODY -- to get hard copy records of my domains. Is there any requirement in the RAA for that? >>AVRI DORIA: Excuse me. That might be a good question for the full open forum that we do at 11:30 or actually the open forum. Either one of those. But it's not specifically related to the registry service evaluation process. >>PAUL FOODY: I thought this was the RAA. >>AVRI DORIA: No, the RAA was in the earlier hour. >>PAUL FOODY: Sorry. I had to knock off -- >>AVRI DORIA: You will have -- at 11:30 we start an open mic on any question and then -- >>PAUL FOODY; You can save this for then. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Okay. Jeff? >>JEFF NEUMAN: Thanks. Jeff Neuman with NeuStar and the registry constituency. I want to echo some of Chuck's comments. And we asked direct questions of staff. And I don't think we need an independent review to get the answers to some of those questions. One of the things that's really frustrating is that we ask the questions. We don't get an answer. And then it goes out for independent review, and who knows how long that take. For example, in the registry services process, there is a requirement that, before a proposal is posted, that it be complete. And, as one of the original drafters of that process, it seemed pretty self-evident to us what it meant by the word "complete." In other words, all the questions were answered and then it be posted. It was never conceived of at that point that there would be a whole bunch of other things before a proposal was deemed complete. For example, in some cases ICANN staff would ask questions. And, until the answers were given to ICANN staff, which were not questions on the original form, they would not deem it complete and would not post. Now, things have gotten better since then. But we're still waiting for a definition of what is -- what does it mean for a proposal to be complete before it's posted? That's not really an issue for independent review. That's a pretty straightforward answer. And it's just a list of criteria. You know, once they give us the list of criteria and answer the questions, if we're not happy with those answers, or if the council's not happy with those answers, at that point you could commission an independent review to see what the criteria should be. But, until we get those answers, it just doesn't make sense to me to spend all that money to have an independent review. These are pretty straightforward questions. And, again, I do want to compliment staff. Things have gotten better since we've written that letter, but we still don't know the objective criteria that are applied. >>AVRI DORIA: Patrick, did you have anything you wanted to comment on? >>PATRICK JONES: Jeff raises a good point. It's something we've tried to improve upon since the letter was provided to the board. You know, staff is in a tough position when a registry service proposal comes to us in that we need to have all the answer -- or at least enough of an answer in order to present the request to the community and initiate the preliminary determination period on the security, stability, and competition questions. We've gotten better on this. But it might be helpful, as part of the small group that Chuck suggested or out of this independent work to look at the question of when do you deem something complete is something that we need to work on. >>AVRI DORIA: Jeff, had you wanted to comment further? At one point it looked like you were telling me you wanted to comment further or not? >>JEFF NEUMAN: Yeah, just a quick point. One of the things we had suggested is that, once answers are provided, you know, there's no reason why ICANN staff can't comment just like everybody else comments at the same time. So, when it's posted, if ICANN staff doesn't have the answers, it could still be posted. And ICANN staff could submit a public comment just like everybody else can. Just an idea, but -- >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: And one of the specific issues where completeness came in to a consideration by ICANN staff, it seemed inappropriate, was whether or not there was a contractual change and some desire on their part to try and work out the details of that before it was posted for public comment. Well, the RSEP process, if you read it, one of the purposes is for contractual changes. So there's no reason not to let the public broadly see the proposal even if there is a possible contract change. So, again, I've made a suggestion. I think that this is a solvable problem and look forward to us working on that. >>AVRI DORIA: I guess before -- I don't see any other questions now. I'm sort of confused myself in terms of understanding, actually, what's going to happen next. I mean, we've talked about -- and there's been a suggestion and it's a good suggestion, et cetera. But, if somebody could give me a clear idea of how this is going to proceed, I'd appreciate it because I don't quite understand. >>PATRICK JONES: So, other than the questions that Chuck has raised back in February on the draft statement of work -- and there were a few other councillors that commented on Chuck's questions -- we really haven't, staff hasn't really received feedback on the council on the draft statement of work. So either, if that feedback comes as the result of a small group of interested people from the council or if you can individually provide us with that feedback, then that would be our sort of next steps. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, Tim? >>TIM RUIZ: Could we kind of go along beyond that, just kind of follow through what all the steps are? >>PATRICK JONES: Well, perhaps we come back at the -- you know, the next council call from Mexico City and staff can provide more of a timeline on where we think -- you know, how this review of the funnel implementation can be handled, if that's okay. >>AVRI DORIA: So that's not already something that's projected or - - >>PATRICK JONES: Well, in the document I provided the council we were looking for feedback by the end of this meeting, essentially, so that then ICANN could post publicly the statement of work and then have conducted the work, you know, within April and to report back by -- to the council and the community by May so that at least this work could be done by the Sydney meeting. That's our expectation is to try to do this work before we go to Sydney. Because while the registry services evaluation process is not tied to the new gTLD work, that this might help inform the new gTLD effort. So look at the registry services evaluation process as part of that. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: I wonder if it would be helpful for Patrick and his team for the council to maybe give a little sense -- is there anybody -- of where we're at. Is there anybody that thinks we should proceed with a -- at this stage? We may decide later. But is there anyone at this point in time that thinks that we should pursue an independent review as has been proposed by staff? >>AVRI DORIA: Would anybody on the council like to speak to that issue? I'm certainly not going to ask for a vote or a poll on it. I'd like to ask if anyone would like to speak to that at this point? So is it that there are no opinions, or is it that no one thinks it's necessary? Yes, Tim and Kristina. >>TIM RUIZ: Well, I guess it seems to me that the registries don't agree that it's necessary. I don't get a feeling that there's a lot of other community requests for it. And so I'm just -- you know, is it being done just because it was said it needed to be done? Or because there's actually a real need or a request for it? >>AVRI DORIA: I've got Kristina. Then I've got Jeff. Then I've got Mike. But were you going to respond to that as a question? >>PATRICK JONES: I'll wait for Kristina and Mike. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: It has not been a subject of discussion within our constituency. It is my personal opinion that if there are going to be expenditures for external independent experts or reviews of that sort, that my constituency would prefer that money be spent on trying to resolve the trademark issues in the new gTLD draft applicant guidebook. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Jeff. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Thanks. I just want to -- and, again, the last process that dot biz went through actually went well. But again, I want to emphasize, all the registries want are answers from the staff. That's it. We've asked questions, questions like what does it mean to be complete? We didn't ask for review. We just want answers. And so too often what happens is that people -- that these issues -- you know, what they're talking about is well, we'll collect feedback from the community and we'll post it. But I never heard that we'll get answers to questions that we've asked. That's it. And, if council could just support that, just make a statement saying "Staff, answer the questions that the registries have asked." And then you at least some something on which to base a review. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. I've got Mike. Then Chuck then -- >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I think, Jeff, it might help to send around those questions again to the list. This hasn't been discussed in our constituency yet either. So, I mean, my personal view is that the industry review certainly can still be on the table for a future date in the event that the questions or the feedback we get from this little mini informal process might warrant that. And, of course, we'd then have time to discuss it with our constituencies and make some sort of recommendation. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: And I want to make sure it's clear. The registry constituency isn't supporting an independent review. We think this could be solved much more simply and much more cost effectively. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I think I understood that. Stephane. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Thank you. Just to answer Chuck's question, my position is there seems to be need for more conversations between staff and the registries before moving on. So I fully support Mike's point that it might be useful for us to have a list of questions from you. I don't think we're all too clear on all the issues here. So it's difficult to come to a decision at this point or to give an opinion. But it certainly seems as though we're trying to move forward a bit too quickly. And, if the registries don't support independent review, then maybe you and staff can get together, talk a little bit, and then give us a list of the questions that are being asked. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Is there anyone in the part of the community that's sitting in the house as opposed to sitting on stage here that would like to comment on this before I ask another question of the council? Okay. Yes? On the issue, yes. >>PAUL FOODY: At the risk of making the same mistake, what is the issue? >>AVRI DORIA: The issue is on the registry services evaluation and the staff's request for comments on a statement of work that includes the hiring of an outside professional to help do an evaluation. >>PAUL FOODY: I think there definitely needs to be an independent review. >>AVRI DORIA: Can you give us a reason for why you believe that? >>PAUL FOODY: Because I've spent 2 1/2 years trying to get a response out of ICANN and Network Solutions and haven't. >>AVRI DORIA: On the registry services, on the RSEP process? >>PAUL FOODY: You didn't actually clarify the RSEP services. What is that? >>AVRI DORIA: Chuck, would you -- I'm sure you could do it much quicker than I can. >>CHUCK GOMES: The RSEP is the registry notice -- not registrar -- registry services evaluation process. It's a process that was developed through a consensus policy and was approved as a consensus policy to provide a procedure by which, when a registry wants to introduce a service that's not already in their agreement with ICANN, could -- it's a very well-defined timely process that provides a way of proceeding with that proposed service and that cannonball of contractual changes as well. And there's comment involved, et cetera. The real issue in this case that in, at least three cases, as I cited from last year, it became very unclear whether the process was even being followed by staff in implementing it. And it took excessive amounts of times. And, in at least one case, it was never even posted for public comment so that the community could weigh in on it. So that's the issue that is at stake here. But it does not relate to registrars at all. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. >>PAUL FOODY: Thank you very much. Based on the fact that ICANN staff are having trouble following this, you know, you might just be a little bit more patience with the likes of me who have come here for the first time and have been completely overwhelmed by what's -- transparency. This isn't transparent. >>AVRI DORIA: Sorry. Didn't realize we were being impatient. >>PAUL FOODY: No. No. You cut me off the first time. So I do apologize. >>AVRI DORIA: I actually invited you to come back to the mic during the appropriate time. Thank you. Yes, Adrian. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Thanks, Avri. Can I direct a question to Patrick? We just had a little chat here. I'm just trying to work out where the notion of a review came from. A review, particular. >>PATRICK JONES: As I mentioned at the beginning, the registry services evaluation process has been in place almost three years. And we thought that also based on the letter and the request from the registry constituency from Peter and the board to look at how the implementation was being conducted that, given the workload of the -- that this community's under, and that the process might benefit from an independent reviewer to help staff and the community look at some of the issues that Jeff and others have been raising. So this was a way to sort of prioritize and get the work done in a timely manner so that then this -- the council could look at improving the process. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: So the short answer is ICANN staff? >>AVRI DORIA: So at this point what seems reasonable is -- and I don't think there's any objection on the council to asking this -- is for us, A, to put this on an agenda for our first meeting to comment on the statement of work; but, B, in the meantime to ask staff to respond to the pending questions so that at that meeting we can both talk about the answers and talk about the statement of work. Everyone would have had a chance to consult their constituencies about, you know, what they want done further. And, hopefully, we can move on. Is it okay with you to put off the response, as opposed to this week, making it our next meeting, which is probably in less than three weeks, but I don't remember the exact date? >>PATRICK JONES: Yeah, I think that would be fine by the staff. And the comments on the statement of work would be certainly welcome. And also the suggestions from this group to have a small group look at the, you know, statement of work and the review. I think that would be great. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. And we can talk more about perhaps putting together a small group at tomorrow's meeting where we talk about how we proceed with work in the next couple months. Okay. Any more comments on this one before we move on to the GNSO improvements and restructuring discussion? No? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. We have several items in the GNSO improvements and restructuring. The first one will be a update from the policy process steering committee and the operations steering committee. I understand that the policy process steering committee update will be done by Jeff. Okay. I wasn't sure whether it was Jeff and J. Scott or just Jeff. And, please. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Actually, it will be -- >>AVRI DORIA: You can both take a microphone and do it sort of in stereo. >>JEFF NEUMAN: We'll do it at the same time. You ready? >>J. SCOTT EVANS: That could be the scariest thing you've ever asked anyone to do. >>JEFF NEUMAN: I'll give the first part, and then J. Scott will give an update on the working group work team. So the policy process steering committee. I'm thinking of Paul that just came to the mic. And there's a lot of abbreviations, especially on the restructuring. So I apologize to those who may not be following all the abbreviations. The policy process steering committee had a meeting on Saturday, a good three-hour meeting, which involved the PPSC as well as the two work teams, the PDP work team -- that's the policy development process work team -- and the working group work team. Basically, what we did is did a general overview of the entire PDP process as well as comparing that to the recommendations that the board made with respect to improving the process. And that's not recommendations of specific items, but recommendations of issues for the two work teams to look into. The second half of the meeting, the two working groups -- or sorry -- the two work teams split up. And, as far as the PDP work team, I'm current interim chair. What we did is discussed the initial deliverables. The first deliverable will be a work plan that we hope to finalize by middle to the end of March. We're having calls the next several weeks to put that work plan into place. And, as the initial start of the work plan, we had a session, kind of a brainstorming session, to kind of categorize the different issues that were brought up both on the slides from the board as well as issues that were brought up by the entire PPSC and the two work teams at that meeting. So we're going to have a call next week to try to move forward on the work plan to elect a chair of the work team and, hopefully, get that initial deliverable by mid to late March with a goal of prioritizing the issues, because there are so many, to determine which issues need to be decided or which issues need recommendations by the time that the restructuring is put into place by June and which issues can actually wait until later so that we can make sure all of the issues are addressed. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: We also had a meeting, a breakout meeting of the working group working team. And in that meeting we decided that our deliverables would be to get a plan out by the Sydney meeting so that it could be considered by the community. Our first deliverable, again, is a work plan that would take into account the things that we've been asked to consider with regards to working groups and establishing policies and processes for that. We also had some presentations from other groups, other Internet-related groups and technical community groups that use working group models to sort of do outreach and educate ourselves on what other institutions do with similar models. And that's thanks to Avri Doria who reached out and asked very intelligent and wonderful people to impromptu deliver their information to us. It was a great download. We had a motion by Tim Ruiz to amend one of the -- the first point, if you go to the Wiki, which I learned how to say on Saturday as well, not Twiki, which is what we say at Yahoo!. I learned if you go to that you will see on the Wiki there is a list of nine points, and it's the first point that Tim has requested that we consider an amendment, and we are going to take that up on the list and hopefully make some decision by Monday. Our plan is to have our work plan in place by March 21st, which would be 15 days from the end of this meeting, which is the 6th. And then we will charge forward. And I have asked each of the members of the working team to consider the issues on that list that they are particularly driven to so that they might break up into smaller groups. They could do outreach on those issues and then bring it back to the larger group for consideration. And I was elected chair of the working group team. I don't know if that's an honor or a burden, but I am going to serve. And I also heard, just -- I have do this because my friend and I have been laughing about it. My friend from Washington, D.C. has been put on the policy development working team. So when you meet me, I will introduce you to Bea from D.C., who is on the PDPWT for the PPSC that reports to the GNSO. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Listening to you, it occurred to me that it's probably a good idea for us to add a glossary of terms and stuff to the front of the GNSO page. So I think that's something we'll work on. And I also always appreciated you call it Twiki because I know the Twiki/Wiki was the first of them, and so anybody that was a very early adopter might have actually learned to call it that. So it always sort of took me historically back. Historically all the way to three, four years ago, to hear it called. Okay. I will take a queue, and of course open to both, you know, house and stage. So I have got Adrian and I have got Stephane. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Thank you, Avri. Just on the point of acronyms and a glossary, I thought potentially we could either post something of commonly used phrases, particularly that are potentially useful within a session, something that was visual that everybody could see, so when we said the words PDP, so if you were sitting here and you don't have a laptop to be able to see it, you could see the terms. Or potentially we could print out some paper at the door. >>AVRI DORIA: Paper! >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yeah. Old school. Recycled paper. Thanks, Tim. At the door that potentially could be picked up by somebody sitting in the audience to get a bit of an idea of some of the terms we use. >>AVRI DORIA: I am certainly friendly doing the idea of putting it on screens. I am definitely paper adverse so we will have to talk about the paper problem. Yes, Stephane. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Thanks, Avri. Similar point, really, but just to take up the point the gentleman earlier on said about this not being a transparent organization. I think -- I just wanted to -- I mean, I realize that there's a lot of acronyms and we're deluged by it, believe us. There's so much stuff coming in to the GNSO Council that we have to look at and understand. But I think that's the opposite of lack of transparency. I think it actually shows that everything is up there. There is a lot to understand, and I realize that when you are new coming into the ICANN process, it can be overwhelming. But I don't think it's a lack of transparency. I just wanted to make that point. >>AVRI DORIA: Kristina. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: In recognition of the fact that I think we're all drowning in work, if I could suggest that perhaps the overall ICANN glossary be updated, and then allow us to just link to it. For example it, doesn't even include PDP. So.... >>AVRI DORIA: I didn't even know we had one. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: We do. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: Avri? >>AVRI DORIA: Yes. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I heard last night that the staff, under Kieren McCarthy, has a new technological solution that they have been working on, and it has been presented and used at this meeting for the ccNSO, in which -- so I would urge them to get that solution that they have been working with, which is an electronic solution, Avri, that would supply a lot of these materials on the screen for participants. And so I would urge them, if it is at all possible, to get that to the GNSO as quickly as they can. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. And of course this was relevant to the topic, because what this whole 6.1 is about is GNSO working methods. And so at first I was saying, gee, we are not talking about -- and, indeed, what we are talking about is the working methods issue. Please, Jeff. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Yeah, I forgot to mention one point. The whole policy development process was a subject that came up at the joint Supporting Organization/Advisory Committee session which was -- I am getting my sessions mixed up, but a couple of days ago. >>AVRI DORIA: Monday. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Monday, thank you. And I am going to say the same thing I said there. There are a lot of people in the community who have opinions and good thoughts on what the policy development process should be, and I just want to emphasize that the work teams are open. And if anyone in this -- up there or down here or out in the community is interested in working on the issues, that they still can apply to be on the work teams. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes. >>PAUL FOODY: Yes, I would just like to respond to Jeff on that point. I was lucky enough to observe one of his meetings the other day, and he made it very clear that if you join the meeting, you have got to go by the consensus. So if you are going to be someone like me who basically is very opposed to gTLDs and believes it's just a global theft, you might as well not join the workshop because you are just going to get gagged. >>AVRI DORIA: I don't believe that working on consensus necessarily means that people are gagged. That means that -- and -- >>PAUL FOODY: Not if everyone is represented. >>AVRI DORIA: I think the teams are working on rough consensus, aren't they? Or are they working on full consensus? >>JEFF NEUMAN: Rough. >>AVRI DORIA: Rough, which means you are not gagged, which means basically it's important for people to fully understand all the opinions, but then after all the opinions have been understood, there is a single minority opinion. You still can move on with the rough consensus. >>PAUL FOODY: That only works if there is a fair representation of every affected party. And I think what we can see here is that the whole of the ICANN conference here, 500 people, perhaps, is almost 90% made up of people with vested interests. >>AVRI DORIA: I think many of us up here don't have vested interest, but it's something we would have to statistically study before we could make it for sure. >>PAUL FOODY: I said 90%. >>AVRI DORIA: I doubt it. Yes. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Sir, I would just like to respond to that as a member of the business constituency. I have spent ten years of my life as an unvested interest in this organization, representing thousands of others. Please feel a crumb of comfort. >>PAUL FOODY: Thank you. But how easy would it have been to e-mail every domain name owner and let them know about the potential consequences of the meeting you had last year, I think in Paris or Cairo, when the gTLD proposal was made public? >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Great question. Not me to answer it. >>AVRI DORIA: And things like that are probably good to look at in terms of is this something that ICANN should be doing, and is it something that we want to recommend. Those are really good questions. >>PAUL FOODY: Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Anything more on 6.1 before I move on 6.2? Anyone on stage wish to comment? Anyone in the house wish to comment further on 6.1? In which case, move to 6.2, and I believe Rob is going to give an update on constituency recertification process. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Certainly. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I didn't know if you wanted an update from the OSC. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you for reminding me. Chuck. Thank you for reminding me. >>CHUCK GOMES: Let me take just a minute or two to settle context, because I think some comments have been made, it's not only acronyms that are a problem but also context of some of the issues that we come up with. Those of us have been working on the issue of GNSO improvements and GNSO restructuring for a couple years at least. And the plan that was developed to work on implementation of the board approved recommendations for GNSO improvements involve two steering committees, and then each of those steering committees forming work teams. J. Scott and Jeff just did a very good job of explaining what is happening with regard to the policy process Steering Committee and their two work teams. I am involved with the operations Steering Committee, and there are three work teams that are associated with that, and that is the GNSO operations work team, tasked with developing recommendations to send to the council that relate to implementing the board recommendations for GNSO improvements related to the GNSO and the council that you see up here. The second work team is a constituency and stakeholder group operations work team. The stakeholder group concept is a new one in the restructuring that I won't try to explain here, but I will be happy to talk to anyone individually about that or you can see it online. And the third team is a communications work team that is tasked with making recommendations for how to implement some improved communications within not only the GNSO but the ICANN community as a whole. In particular, communications between the GNSO and the ccNSO, the GNSO and the Advisory Committees, et cetera, and including community -- communications with the ICANN community in general, one which have is a real easy one to appreciate and that's improvement of the GNSO Web site. So it makes it much easier to find information and so forth. Now, real quick, a status update. The three work teams that I just named each met on the weekend, and the operations Steering Committee met following, after all three had met, and I can report that all three work teams are off to a good start. Their first tasks are to elect permanent chairs and vice chairs, and some of that has already happened, some of it is in progress. Another initial task is to finalize the charter -- the draft charter for each of the work teams that was proposed, and some start on that work happened. And then as -- I forget whether it was Jeff or J. Scott, but there is the task of deciding which tasks need to be done before June, because the bicameral structure of the council is scheduled to be implemented in June. That particularly affects the GNSO operations work team, because things like the operating rules that we operate under here in the council need to be revised to reflect the bicameral model and other issues that may have changed since those were established many years ago. And there are several other tasks that they have that will be very necessary for us to get started on the bicameral council in June. So I think we're off to a good start, and, again, the working teams are not closed, even now that we have already started. We just ask that those who join late in the game -- and this is not late, so I don't mean it for now -- you know, come up to speed without the working team having to retrace its steps. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I would like to open it up to comments from -- yes, Tony? >>TONY HOLMES: I would just like to bring up an issue that I brought up at a number of the working team meetings across this week, and it relates to one of the comments that Chuck has just made, that there are certain aspects of these working teams that they need to consider what their priorities are, they need to look at what needs done by June. And there's a lot of dependency across these groups and an awful a lot of work and in some cases the people involved in these teams are replicated across the various groups. And I think with the current policy work that we're undertaking in council, we're asking an awful lot here. And we need to stand back, take a look at what is essential to be delivered, get some priorities around that, and see what the dependencies are across the various groups. And I would suggest that that is something that the council should discuss. Also, I think, staff have a role to play here in providing the capability to do that. But if we don't tackle it that way, then I think we are never going to complete this task in a way that takes us to the Sydney meeting in a mode that will enable to us progress on the time schedule. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? Please, come to the microphone. Form a line, if need be. Yes. >>WOLF-ULRICH KNOBEN: My name is Wolf-Ulrich Knoben from the ISPCP constituency, and as I am a member of one of this group, I fully acknowledge what Chuck has said. It covers all the aspects of the teams. But I think I should add that with regard to the resources available for the teams that are existing now, there is some lag still, and in terms of personal resources to some teams. And it this should be taken into consideration and maybe it should be communicated again to the community that there's some of the groups that are still waiting for additional membership and invite people to participate in the groups. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And I appreciate you saying that because we have put out several public announcements. We found out at the Monday session that even though we thought we had been fairly wide in our distribution by putting in on the ICANN Web site, by contacting the chairs of all the other organizations, that we hadn't quite reached as far as we hoped to reach with this. So, yeah, I think we do need to look at putting forward yet another. And I don't know if there is a way to send to all the registrants, but, yeah. >>PAUL FOODY: Well, you have the WHOIS information. But I think in order to determine whether or not your attempts to publicize your actions are being effective, you might want to have a look at your -- you had a thing up earlier about Spam, and you said that, you know, this was -- you have concerns about Spam being used, WHOIS information being used for Spam. You said that you had gone out seeking public comment, and you got 24 proposals back. You know, the world is not concerned about competition in the Internet. The world is concerned about Spam, about e-fraud, about pornography. And, you know, the fact that you get 24 responses back on Spam should be an indication that you are not hitting your target audience. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. >>STEVE METALITZ: Steve Metalitz from the intellectual property constituency. I would just support some of the last comments here and Tony Holmes's comments. The problem isn't that we haven't distributed this call widely enough. The problem is that it's an extremely difficult sell, and I have been trying to sell it within my constituency, to get people to volunteer for these overlapping and somewhat ill-defined tasks on the work teams that all have to do with process and a restructuring that has been forced upon us from top-down, not bottom-up, when instead, people can be engaged to work on the substantive issues, and they are going to spend their time working on the substantive issues. So I think we should just recognize realistically, it is an extremely hard sell to populate these -- all of these work teams. And while we are doing our best, most people feel, and I can't say that I disagree with them, that they have better, more important, and more productive ways to spend their very limited time. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Anything further on 6.1? I know I asked it before, and I asked it a bit prematurely, before we move on to 6.it, the update on constituency recertification. Yes, Mike. >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: So not to belabor the point too much, but I completely agree with Steve Metalitz. I mean, I -- I'm on the policy process Steering Committee because I think, ultimately, it's critical work, but it has been forced upon us. And it will always be secondary priority to me in comparison to the policy work that I joined this organization to perform. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. In which case I will -- oh, Zahid. Sorry. >>ZAHID JAMIL: I should know the answer to this, but are the work teams and work groups open to the public in general or just to constituency members? >>AVRI DORIA: Public in general. >>ZAHID JAMIL: I think if that is the case, the stuff that I'm reading right now doesn't really say that. That clearly. And I know there are a lot of people in the audience who are confused that I have spoken to as to whether they can join these groups or not. There are a lot of participants who are not necessarily part of the constituency here at ICANN in Mexico City, for instance. So if we did a document or made them aware of this fact, that this is open to public, anybody can join. I'm not saying we haven't said this in some documents. Not to belabor the point, but if we can do that, that will help. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. We have done it, but obviously we didn't do it in a complete nor understandable enough way. So yes, we need to try it again. Okay. I am going to move on to 6.2 at the moment. Rob, and thank you for your earlier point. Do you have any slides that go with this? >>ROB HOGGARTH: No, I don't. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Before I get started, just as a closing point on the discussion that you just had, and particularly for the benefit of those in the audience, on the GNSO page, there are links to the GNSO improvements information. On the ICANN main page, on the quick links section, if you go to GNSO improvements, that also provides you with links to all the background documentation, slides, and other information with respect to the GNSO improvements process. It's a significant collection of documentation from, as Chuck pointed out, two to three years worth of community work. So anyone who has a general interest in the topic can get some general information. Those of you who are much more interested in drilling down can also take advantage of that as well. And additionally, members of the GNSO Council, certainly members of the ICANN staff, are more than happy to answer your questions at any point in time. So please avail yourselves of that. With respect to the constituency recertification process, I'll take another quick step back to give you all a perspective. Back in October, the board determined that the best time frame for restructuring of the GNSO Council would be the June 2009 time frame. The board set up a four-phase approach to help segment, to break up the work, to give the community opportunities to reach that goal. The first phase was in early December, where the board asked the GNSO Council to provide a plan for how they would achieve the restructuring transition by 2009, and Avri provided a report to the board. The second phase was renewing existing constituencies. Board member discussions realized that as the community looked to maximize participation, to maximize the ability of new constituencies to form, that it was also important to look at the existing groups and to confirm what they with doing, how they were adhering to the board bylaw principles. And all six GNSO existing constituencies, by early February, submitted their showings of how they were maintaining adherence to the bylaws, particularly with respect to the principles of transparency, openness, representativeness, and fairness. Those filings came in the first week of February. Since that time, the staff has been reviewing them, and I guarantee everybody up top at the stage, line by line, will be getting back to members of the various constituencies with items that we have identified in terms of consistency or where there may be holes to follow-up with them, to help them improve the documents they already have. The board has an item on its agenda for this Friday in which they will be discussing the constituency renewal documents, but at least as far as the staff has observed, it doesn't appear that they will be making a specific decision with respect to the renewing of the constituencies. I'm happy to take any questions. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Any questions either from the stage or the house, the floor? I see no questions. Okay. Thank you. Oh, there is a question. Okay. Tony Holmes. >>TONY HOLMES: Just a supplementary question for Rob. You covered off the renewal of the existing constituency charters. Is there also going to be any discussion at this board meeting of the new applications? >>ROB HOGGARTH: No. As you all know, at the end of this meeting you are having presentations by proponents of three new constituencies that have filed notices of intent to form. Of those three, the cyber safety constituency is the first to have just submitted its formal petition to the board. The two-step process that the staff has set up at the board's question, essentially first asks for interested new groups to submit this notice of intent to form, an informal document which is basically an expression of interest. The second phase is the much more difficult hard bit of work of actually putting together the petition and the formal charter of the group. In that second step, the group formally petitions the board. Then there is a comment period where the community has an opportunity to review and react to that, and then subsequent to that the board would make a decision to recognize and welcome that new constituency or not. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Any other questions? I see two people. Yes, go ahead, please. >>PAUL FOODY: So if I wanted to form a new constituency on behalf of existing domain name owners, would I be able to get access to the WHOIS database to circulate my opinion of what is happening here and suggest that the domain name owners themselves take it into their own hands to really be far more proactive rather than trusting ICANN with something which, in my opinion, you are failing to do? Was that a yes? >>AVRI DORIA: I don't know. I don't know to what extent you can, obviously, get ahold of it all in one bulk. I really don't know the answer. I don't know if anyone that has that answer for you. >>MARILYN CADE: My name is Marilyn Cade. While I don't have an answer for that, I just want to be sure that I point out Ken Bour, which is probably what someone else wanted do, as an ICANN staff person, or Rob Hoggarth, as an ICANN staff person, to talk about the process. >>AVRI DORIA: And they can possibly figure out how to -- But you have to trust ICANN to have them help you. >>MARILYN CADE: My name is Marilyn Cade. I would like to speak to a concern I have about approving charters and making sure that charters actually, if we're going to devise -- notice I said "if" -- if we are going to devise stakeholder houses and we are going to devise charters for stakeholder houses and we are expecting incumbent organizations to be neutral and have the time to enable the process to be open to the full participation of emerging constituencies in the development of that charter, I just want to pause here and ask a question. I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that. If I were -- I'm not -- if I were starting a new constituency, it could be called "The fans of Marilyn"; right? [ Cheering and Applause ] >>AVRI DORIA: An extremely large constituency, I am sure. >>MARILYN CADE: If I were to be proposing a new constituency and I were looking at starting that last week or the week before or today, I would want very much to have the opportunity to be an equal player and participate in the development of the charter. So I'm going to just put on the agenda for all of us to think about, and it is the public comment process form, so I am not saying it's the council's job, but I would ask all of us to think about if there are emerging constituencies, how can the ICANN staff make sure that the process of developing the charter for a stakeholder house provides equal participation of representatives of those who want to create a new constituency so that they can help to build the house they may be living in? >>AVRI DORIA: And that's a very good question, and I can give you two parts of a sort of personal view of what's been happening. One, I think making sure that all those constituencies that had gotten as far as the Statement of Interest had an ability to present themselves today was the first thing to making sure they were included. The second part of it is, and I don't know what staff has decided or where that's going, but there has been discussion of, perhaps -- and this has occurred in various contexts, of once a constituency in formation got to a certain point in the application process, perhaps it was the formal, perhaps was after review of the formal, that, yes, they needed to be included in various discussions. I don't know how far that's gone, but I know that that topic, that sort of refrain of once you get to a certain part -- to a certain level of the application process, you need to be able to get more involved. So as I say, it's a personal viewpoint of what I see happening. >>MARILYN CADE: You know -- so I will make a response to that. Being allowed to be in a room is not the same thing as being afforded equal participation. And if people are brand-new and they now, all of a sudden, or recently understand that they can mobilize a constituency, and I do mean a constituency, it's going to take time. I think that I don't want to belabor this, but we are building a complex organization. I heard Steve comment earlier about how difficult it is for people to be able to participate in the entirety of the various mechanisms that are under way. I'm not advocating anything other than I notice we are perhaps doing too much on too fast a time track, and we really need to ask if we are breathing deeply as we do that and not becoming a little heady in racing ahead with decisions. So if we are not ensuring the process, enables the equal participation and the emergence of constituencies so they will be able to participate equally in the new houses, I think we need to think about that. And I see ICANN staff behind me. I will get out of the way. >>AVRI DORIA: Sorry, I didn't have my microphone on. >>RAY FASSETT: Okay. Hello, my name is Ray Fassett. This is just a personal observation. I did have the opportunity to read the cyber safety petition, and please don't take this comment to mean that I am against this petition whatsoever. In fact, just the opposite. But in reading their desire to form this constituency, it's stated in there that they wanted to be involved with Internet policy. And I think it would be better if we clarify to those who want to join into the ICANN process that ICANN is about DNS policy, which is different than Internet policy. So we don't want to have or encourage groups to join for reasons that may not be what they think they are joining for. So I think good, sharp communication that ICANN's role and mission has to do primarily with DNS policy versus Internet policy would be helpful to this cause. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Denise. >>DENISE MICHEL: Thank you. To address the questions raised by Marilyn, so we're expecting that one of the review criteria the board will use in reviewing the proposed new stakeholder group charters is the new stakeholder group's ability to be inclusive and accommodate future -- potentially future new constituencies. So that's one point. And the process for applying for new constituencies has been fleshed out by staff over the last six months. And the initial step is a notice of intent to form a new constituency, a very short form to alert the GNSO community and the broader public of a group's interest in applying to be a new constituency. And staff, of course, is ready and willing to work with any group that's interested in becoming involved in this process, either as a new constituency or in other ways. But all of this information is posted on the GNSO improvements Web site, and we're hoping that this notice of intent will give all those involved an early heads up and will help people become involved in this process that you are currently involved in. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Good morning. Oh, I'm sorry. Amadeu Abril i Abril, interim chair of Friends of Marilyn Cade constituency, but I am talking here personally. First of all, I would just offer my body as a target for you to throw tomatoes. I am the original proponent of this constituency mess back in '98. At that time, my vision was quite clear, but now I have a question for you of how the GNSO sees the final structure. I got the answers from the staff but I would like to know something about how you see that. Originally, we had the perspective we have the providers, now for some strange reason you call that the contractual house, and those using the registration services that the providers of registration services were providing, not only registering names but also using the DNS in general. And then, as this was too large and too diverse, registries and registrars were clear different functions in the DNS. And commercial and noncommercial users were not functions but at least very large objective types of different functional use of the DNS. IP was there because we had a problem with IP, so they had to have a seat at that time to resolve that. And ISPs were there simply because they were in the room. That's the historical reason, because they don't have a separate function. Now, I was always strongly against the idea of constituencies as political parties. That is, the constituency should not be paranoid threatened lawyers and reasonable threatened lawyers. Shell registrars and European small registrars and Chinese registrars as different constituencies. These are different approaches to the policies, probably they have different interest, but they have the same function here. Okay. Now we have the two houses with the perspectives, and apparently, if I understood it correctly, the stakeholders group are what you could call these functions within the DNS registration system. Then, what are the constituencies now? Because apparently we have registrars that they think they are the constituency and the stakeholder house -- at the stakeholder house -- stakeholder group, sorry, at the same time. Registries that probably think the same. So what are exactly the constituencies in your view? That is, the view of the GNSO is that constituencies should be functions, should be interest groups, should be political parties, should be the Friends of Marilyn Cade, the former and future and current friends of Marilyn Cade. Amadeu and his grandmother. What's the main description of what's the constitution -- sorry, the constituency, from your point of view? >>AVRI DORIA: I will open it up to members of the council, but since I pressed the microphone first, first of all, I think that that decision of what is a constituency, I have two answers for you. In some sense, it's all of the above, and it's going to be up to the board who is in the role of adjudicating what constituencies are which are the groups that basically have an affinity voice together, which ones they approve. So, actually, I don't actually think that is a question so much for the GNSO at this point. It is a question for those who form themselves in a constituency and those who have the ability to convince the board that they are, indeed, an appropriate constituency, a well-formed constituency, whatever that means. And I invite other people to provide their answers. That was pretty much my personal view of what it looks like. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Sorry, I know that. But I insist. This is the formal answer. The board has approved that. The people organize apply. The board decides they or not. We know that. But what's the expected result of all this, from your perspective? I'm really not advocating one solution or another. I'm not criticizing anything. I'm just knowing what the GNSO as a group thinks that this will end up being like. >>AVRI DORIA: I don't think the GNSO as a group thinks anything. I invite others to state their view. Yes, Stephane. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: A short answer that might help you, Amadeu. I think, to some extent, it might have been less confusing for us through the restructuring efforts to use different words and not to reuse constituency, which has a current meaning. And it might be difficult to identify the difference between the current meaning and what we're trying to do. So perhaps it would have been better to use interest groups and stakeholder groups instead of stakeholder groups and constituencies. >>AVRI DORIA: Anyone else wish to comment at this point? I've got Paul and -- >>PAUL FOODY: That's a great point on the language. Because out friend here is, obviously, not an English speaker. But I was at an ALAC meeting yesterday chaired by Evan Leibovitch, and I was at the meeting with Jeff Neuman. And, in both of those meetings, the term "gaming" was used. Have you a definition for the term "gaming"? >>AVRI DORIA: I'm sure we all have individual definitions, but I don't think we have a formal ICANN definition. >>PAUL FOODY: Well, I turned to someone and said what does that mean? And the guy said, "fraud." So, when we're talking about fraud, let's use the word "fraud" rather than -- or the risk of fraud. Because when you start using words like "gaming," you know, you're sort of turning fraud and theft into a bit of a game. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Anyone else -- yes, Alan. Sorry. >>ALAN GREENBERG: I think that we're using the term "constituency," nowadays in any case, as simply a group of like-minded individuals or organizations. And you're right in that currently they're -- the registry stakeholder group is roughly equivalent to the registry constituency. Tomorrow that may well be different. If we approve a bunch of city TLDs, we may find a separate constituency within the registrars -- registry stakeholder group because they have a different reason for existing and a different thought on some of these processes. So it's going to evolve, I think. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Philip? >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Thank you, Avri. I'd just like to say that I'm not using the word "constituency" in the way that Alan just described. I'm still think of constituency in the reserved ICANN definition. Until such time as my constituency disappears into thin air, we intend to continue to do so as taking it has a very specific meaning. I think it would help, however, that we recognize constituency has a specific meaning in the ICANN context as does now stakeholder group. And, if we wish to have any more generic general meaning, we use other words for clarity. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I've got Greg and then Chuck. >>GREG RUTH: I just wanted to say that, getting back to your original question, what's the -- what are new constituencies and why should they happen, the answer is that simply, if there is a stakeholder group or whatever you want to call these, a collection of people who have a common interest, that is not represented by a current constituency or whose voice is not really able to be heard in one of the current constituencies, then that's why they would form new constituencies. So that, in effect, everyone who has a legitimate interest in the name space can participate in the policy development process. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: My own personal view is that I like the term "interest group." The community that we're working in is global. It's huge. Very, very diverse. And, as has been said by several people, it's very important that any stakeholders in the community that are impacted by any policy that we consider have representation in that process. In my opinion, it's probably impossible -- I'm sure I could probably be more definite than that. It is impossible to get every individual stakeholder to be a part of this process. First of all, they probably wouldn't have the time and, in many cases, not the interest. But, if we can organize all of us interest groups that are impacted, that increases the efficiency of being able to represent those interests to the extent that they can organize themselves to do so. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. What I'm going to do now is move on to 6.3 and ask for status update on the stakeholder group charters, because we've drifted well into talking about stakeholder groups and not group charters. But one thing before we go on. And then what I'd actually like to do is before -- ask for any clarifying questions on that. Then move to 6.4, because we are already over time. And then we'll go into open comment period where people will be able to come back to this and any other topic. So, please, Rob. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Thank you, madam chairman. As I mentioned in the beginning of my remarks, the board in October sent out a four-phase process for seating the new GNSO restructured council. The second phase was the constituency renewals. The third phase, item 6.3 on the agenda, was the stakeholder group charters. The board had created this extra level referred to in the board governance committee recommendations approved by the board as a light structure of bureaucracy to initially be set up to choose the members of the council to submit their petitions, their ideas for how they would conduct their operations. Of the four new -- I'm sorry -- the four new stakeholder groups. As of today the board has received three new stakeholder group petitions, two for the noncommercial stakeholders group, one for the commercial stakeholder group, and we hope in very short order one from the registry's stakeholder group and one from the registrar's stakeholder group. The goal is -- at the beginning of this week, the goal was to have all of those charters in. They would be placed on public notice prior to the board meeting on Friday. We're setting up a 30-day public comment period in which members of the board and the public can review and comment on those submissions. The next board meeting is the 23rd of April. And, if we were to continue with the current time and process for the June goal, the board would make some decisions with respect to those charter submissions, those stakeholder group petitions at the 23rd April board meeting. And I'm happy to answer any questions. >>AVRI DORIA: Any clarifying questions on that before -- and when I was speaking before, I skipped over 6.4 where we have a motion still pending. Any questions on that? Yes, Tim? >>TIM RUIZ: Maybe more of a comment than a question, just kind related to other things we're talking about today, too. I hope that there's some flexibility, when we get below the stakeholder group level, that there's -- within those stakeholder group charters, there's some flexibility in how those stakeholder groups might function in regards to whether it's interest groups or constituencies. Because there are some fundamental differences in the various stakeholder groups. >>ROB HOGGARTH: If I can observe. The board asked the staff to, as Denise mentioned earlier, set up some steps and processes. Because in many respects, the recommendations didn't have detailed plans about how things would be implemented. As staff, we have proposed and shown to the board this 2-step constituency process and provided our recommendations with respect to the stakeholder group process. The goal there -- and we saw it clearly in the constituency renewal filings, and we'll undoubtedly see it in the stakeholder group filings, is that the different groups looked at the template, said that looks nice and proceeded to do things consistent with how they operate and how they flexibly work in their own groups. I think that's what the board envisions. So there is still some considerable flexibility. The work teams that we discussed earlier are going to be talking about how some of those processes will become permanent. But I think that's a very good point, Tim, that there are going to be areas where there does need to be more specificity about the relationships and how all these various groups interact. One of the items on the agenda for the council, as it decides the various transition issues needed for June, is what is the relationship of the council to the stakeholder groups? What is the relationship of the council to the constituencies? So these will be all issues that you'll all continue to discuss as a council and as a community for some time to come. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Did you have a question, Paul? >>PAUL FOODY: Yeah. I just wanted to make the comment that the ICANN board recognizes that you guys would get snowed under if every person with an interest were to send you their comments. And yet you expect every individual such as myself, I'm not a lawyer, not to get snowed under by the stuff on your Web site and to be able to find out what is important for ourselves. You know? We're even more snowed under than you guys are. I don't even know half the terms. Just on the -- you know, on the understanding that I may be committing myself to forming a new constituency, would somebody please clarify what the definition of a constituency is and how it differs from a stakeholder, please. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. I believe that can be found on the Web site. One of the things -- and I'm not going to get into doing it now because the time is too short for it. However, one of the things I point out -- one -- often we hear that there's too much information. The only way to give you less information is to have somebody synthesize and remove information. So I think that there needs to be a balance. There is -- the staff will help you with the definitions of what it means to apply for a constituency and what it means to define a stakeholder group. That information is out there and not something that we can repeat in this meeting if we're going to actually finish this meeting. >>CHUCK GOMES: Avri, can't we just give a one sentence response there? Constituencies, interest groups, whatever you want to call them, is the next level down from stakeholder group. You can imagine a stakeholder group being made up of various constituencies based on the particular stakeholder group. >>AVRI DORIA: I have J. Scott and then Mike. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: Yeah, I have a question for Robert. He first one is, with two competing stakeholder group charters, what's the way forward for -- I mean, is the board going to decide? What's going to happen with that particular instance? Second, out of all the identified existing constituencies, only -- we have some that have not even met the deadline. So I'd like to know how you're going to deal with that and where we are with that. Because the registries and registrars, it's my understanding, have not turned in their recertification. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Thank you. The third phase proposed by the board was -- there were -- the board was not specific in terms of particular deadlines. The board said they wanted to receive the stakeholder group petitions prior to their meeting in Mexico City so they'd have an opportunity to discuss it. The challenge there is then how do you enforce something that doesn't have a hard deadline? As staff we've been working to try to meet the goals. It might be useful to hear from the registrar and registry representatives on the council where they think the timing is and, specifically, where they are and maybe to explain some of the issues why it took a little bit extra time. I'm sorry. J. Scott pointed out in his response to the question of two submissions with respect to the noncommercial stakeholder group. Another aspect of this process that was not detailed is there was no restriction as to who could supply a stakeholder group charter. One of you could have come up with a registry stakeholder group charter, presumably. In the case of the noncommercial stakeholder group, more than one party got together and developed that charter. Presumably, the board will need to examine those, review the comments, and make a decision either about one or the other or some blending or some other instruction. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Chuck was going to respond to the question. But Philip -- yeah. Okay. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Rob, is it too late for the BC to submit a registry group charter? >>ROB HOGGARTH: No. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: Cool. First of all, let's make a clarification, because there's a little bit of confusion. There are two tasks that are involved right now. One of them is a constituency recertification, and one of them is a stakeholder group charter, okay? The registries have submitted their constituency recertification. I think the registrars have, too. They have. Okay. We have not submitted our stakeholder group charter because we're still grappling with a few issues. I know everybody looks at ours as really easy. There are a couple tougher issues. But we do anticipate doing that, if not later today, by tomorrow. >>AVRI DORIA: Did anyone wish to respond from -- yes, Tim. >>TIM RUIZ: Yes, this -- the registrar stakeholder group petition is very near completion. And, if we don't submit it completed today, it will probably be tomorrow. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. We can get back to more discussion of this when we have open discussion. I'd like to move to 6.4 now, which is endorsement of report of ALAC/GNSO working group on user involvement in GNSO. Alan has some slides. So, if you could shift the screen, please. Thank you. Alan? >>ALAN GREENBERG: Thank you. The -- in December the board passed a resolution which was based on the premise that they had received varying input on the concept of users in the GNSO and, in particular, potentially overlapping ones with the rest of ICANN and the at-large in particular. They made a motion that said the GNSO community at-large community and new noncommercial constituencies in formation, notice, not aimed at the committees themselves but at the community which they represent, to make a recommendation on the composition, organizational structure of the NCSG. That turned out to be very, very quickly problematic in that it wasn't at all clear why members of the other parts of the GNSO, the other stakeholder group, should be involved in making recommendations on the NCSG despite what we just previously heard about the business constituency telling the registries how to do it. Based on that, we got a clarification from staff that the intent really was not to look at the charter of the NCSG but at the more basic issue of users on the GNSO itself in its various forms. The working group agreed with this and took its marching orders, essentially, from the whereas of the motion. And we were looking at how do users get involved? How is it appropriate for users to get involved? And what are the issues of overlap with other parts of ICANN? I'm sorry. I haven't been keeping -- both the GNSO and ALAC felt that they could not respond in a timely manner -- in the time frame that the board asked by the end of January and asked for an extension. And we did receive a one-month extension. The working group ended up consisting of people from the ALAC, from at-large in general, from the GNSO, NCUC, business and registrar constituencies and participation of, initially, one and to be proven two constituency in formation. Despite the feelings of some of the people on the working group, we ended up with widespread consensus in the final report. There was one strong disagreement, and a minority report was issued. And there was a minor discomfort with one section, which was noted by one of the members. We probably could have resolved that if we had another day or two, but we didn't have another day or two. There was one person who did not have an opportunity to review the document at the time it was submitted. It has since been reviewed and agrees with it. There were a number of issues addressed in the original subject matter and in the report. Firstly, the issue of user versus registrant. The current bylaws talk about users, noncommercial and commercial. The board governance committee recommended that that be changed to the term "registrant." The working group reaffirmed the recommendation of the GNSO restructuring, the July GNSO restructuring group that the term indeed should be "user." It was noted that registrants are a subset of users. So we're not cutting out registrants. We're just using a wider term. And also noted that the existing bylaws, when referencing "user," use the term "entity users," which is not defined but, presumably, meant corporate or something like that. And we recommended a wider definition which could include individuals themselves. On the issue of, if we have users on the GNSO, does that mean we don't need an ALAC or some question like that -- there have been many statements similar to that -- the discussion went in the form of the ALAC's focus is on ICANN, in general, which includes gTLDs but is not limited to gTLDs. GNSO involvement by its very nature requires significant gTLD interest and resource commitment. There's a lot of time involved, if you're going to get involved in that discussion. So the difference is really not one of how do I -- you know, if I look at you, are you a ALAC person or a GNSO person? The issue really is one interest and focus. And the two are not necessarily in conflict. There was a lot of discussion on involvement. As I just previously said, working on the GNSO implies a major time commitment and a major learning curve. It's not easy to attract such committed players among those who don't have a financial stake in the game. Most of the other components in the GNSO have some business-related issues. And, if we're looking primarily at the noncommercial one, there really are none. And the question is: What do you have to do to get people to actually participate? The feeling was, to do that, you have to minimize overheads. So, in reflection of the previous discussion, we don't spend all of our time working on process but actually on policy. And to attract new people into the game, you're going to have to convince them that they are likely to be heard and effective. No one wants to put the time into it to be completely shut out of the process in the end. We had three recommendations. The first is that the board be receptive to users and those speaking on behalf of the users. And we clearly implied or said both commercial and noncommercial stakeholder groups. So the board was asking what do we have to do? And the answer really is you don't have to do anything special. But just don't forbid the participation. The second one is make new constituencies, make sure new constituencies can be effective. And it has to be presented in such a way they believe that or they're not going to come. And, last, to attract new players, you have to streamline the processes. And certainly a lot of that has been done already. And we need outreach and publicity. The original board governance committee report made a very clear statement that ICANN would have to put financial resources into helping to create constituencies and in helping them survive. And we're just reaffirming that statement that we believe it really is necessary. The report is posted. I couldn't find a concise URL, so I made one. There is a minor revision going out just changing the footnotes to reaffirm that the person who hadn't looked at the report at the time the report was issued has since looked at it and agrees and one or two things like that. That's it. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Could you shift back to the screen, please. Or shift back to mine? Thank you. There's a motion. There's a motion that I have made that has not been seconded yet. But I'll read it and then see if there's a seconder. "Whereas, on 11 December 2008 the ICANN board of directors requested a report on the future involvement of users in the GNSO and on 29 January 2009 the GNSO council resolved to identify user representatives, especially individual users, who would be willing to work with the ALAC and at-large community to develop a recommendation and on 20 February, 2009, Alan Greenberg on behalf of the working group convened by ALAC and the GNSO council sent a report on the board's request relating to user involvement in the GNSO. This report can be found at, long URL. "Resolved: The GNSO council endorses the report submitted on behalf of the working group convened by the ALAC and GNSO council on user involvement in the GNSO." Chuck, you second? >>CHUCK GOMES: I'll second that, and then I'd like to get in the queue. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Seconded. Okay. I'll take a queue. I've got Chuck. I've got Tony. I've got Paul. >>CHUCK GOMES: Just wanted to add to something that Alan referred to. In the GNSO improvements process, the constituency and stakeholder operations work team, one of the tasks it has is to come up with recommendations for tools that could be provided for all constituencies. And so, with regard to constituencies formation and new constituencies, existing constituencies, it doesn't matter, part of the improvements process will be to make some recommendations with regard to tools to help new constituencies as well as existing constituencies. And those would be available at the option of any constituencies and stakeholder groups. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Tony? >>TONY HOLMES: Yes, thanks, Avri. We had quite an extensive constituency meeting yesterday. But we haven't had a chance to discuss this. I'm not inherently against the motion at all. But I would request a delay to the next meeting so that we can discuss. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Yes, Paul. >>PAUL FOODY: Point on your motion, Avri. I tried to get a copy of this. And I -- because your reference that you've used uses letters and numbers, it was very -- I couldn't actually get hold of it. It's not clear to me whether or not it's F8A041mbv or F8A04lmbv. And I tried to click on it, and it said the page was not accessible. So I don't know if you want to try it now. >>AVRI DORIA: I think that's why Alan was trying to do a short URL. I just copied the URL where I found it at the time. I have no idea what the letters are. Because I was just copying the URL that I'd gotten it from. >>PAUL FOODY: But, if we're expected to know what these things mean -- >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, I understand. Thank you. Yes, Alan. >>ALAN GREENBERG: With respect to that. URLs for attachments on the GNSO mailing list change regularly. You can't capture them. All you can do is point to the e-mail. >>AVRI DORIA: Really? I didn't know that. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Yes. >>AVRI DORIA: Since we're delaying the motion, I will obviously fix it before the motion is there. Yes, Alan. >>ALAN GREENBERG: The report was sent out to council. But I do have a tiny URL, which I thought was on the screen but never made it. But, if you give me a second, I can tell you what it is. >>AVRI DORIA: Right. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Tiny url.comCEFE74. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. We will delay the vote. Because we have the general practice that, if any member of the constituency asks for a one-meeting delay on a vote, we take that one-meeting delay. So we've had one, possibly two constituencies. I saw one constituency asked, and one constituency nodded its head. Okay. I would like to now move on to having the perspective constituencies come and make their brief sort of introductory statements. And the first one is -- who was first on the list? Sure. Do you want to speak to us? Do you have slides or -- >>CHERYL PRESTON: I have slides. If you have slides, you need the slide thing. And it may be good for people to see you. He's got the slide. So please come up to the podium and do these. How about I go this direction? Sort of as a reasonable compromise. >>AVRI DORIA: I would appreciate you coming to the podium. But thank you. Okay. >>CHERYL PRESTON: Madam Chairman, council, I appreciate to have this opportunity to have a chance to introduce the proposed constituency. We have met together and I have a membership list of 15 organizations and individuals, and I have conducted broad outreach in various lists of which I participate, in other forums, at conventions and so on, and each day I continue to hear from some more people. The mission of this constituency -- >>AVRI DORIA: You have a slide changer on the. >>CHERYL PRESTON: Lovely. Next. Okay. The documents are filed and posted on the ICANN Web site, if you would like to read them in detail. A very short summary of the mission statement is to include individuals who represent large institutional Internet users and NGOs and other public interest groups to discuss and be aware of issues that come before the GNSO that effect security and safety, particularly with respect to the experiences of children and parents and families on the Internet. The target members, as it's drafted, would be law enforcement, people interested in WHOIS, the national center for missing and exploited children has expressed an interest, family groups, there's FOSSE, wired safety, I keep safe, several organizations just to mention the ones in my neighborhood that are interested in Internet safety and family interests. Educators, PTAs, other groupings of teachers who face Internet issues with respect to teaching and students and the new generation of Internet users. Women's organizations, cultural organizations and so on. Okay. This is just the preliminary list of the first however-many that applied for my organization. In the last two days I have heard from Ecuador, ISOC, the Arizona Family Council, and a number of other groups. My request would be that a decision on the way to structure the entire stakeholder group be postponed until there is an opportunity to form these constituencies, to schedule them a meeting, to bring them to a table on an equal basis with existing participants, and hear the voices that we aim to attract as new participants in deciding how to construct the house in which they will live. Without a formation so far, we don't have any official status or mechanism for joining that conversation on an equal basis. Thanks. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Okay. The next presentation will be on the city top-level domain constituency, and that's Dirk, and I believe -- do you have a presentation, Dirk? >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Yes. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Dirk. >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Okay. Dear GNSO Council, dear Avri, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present the future city top-level domain constituency at a broader audience here in Mexico and at ICANN. My name is Dirk Krischenowski, and I am founder and CEO of dot Berlin, the top-level domain initiative for Berlin string. I am acting here as a spokesperson of the future city top-level domain constituency and their interest group, which is present here in the Mexico meeting. Behind the city top-level domain constituency are people who are well- known to the ICANN community and have been involved partly for over a decade in top-level domains, even before ICANN was founded. For me, this can the 12th ICANN meeting in a row. Who are we is clearly visible on the next slide. It's a city top- level domain initiatives for Barcelona, Berlin, hamburg, New York and Paris. All our members are present here at the ICANN meeting in Mexico, and we say you are welcome to exchange with us and contact us. We would love to exchange with you. Each of our representatives -- we are representatives of a multi- faceted and multistakeholder interests which range, in the cases of city top-level domains, from governments and city authorities to businesses, individual users, and the general public interest. Our future members -- next slide -- will also incorporate approved city top-level domain operators as well as prospective candidates. More of these candidates you can here see on the slide from Boston to Tokyo, I call them. So city top-level domain constituency will be also open to those whose interests are in city top-level domain topics. We are here because city identity matters. It's one of the oldest, strongest, and most populous ways of man kind's identity and branding. Today, cities contain over 50% of the world's population and cities are global drivers of innovation, progress, as well as centers of social, economic, and political powers. City top-level domain will transform the digital face and digital identity of cities enduringly and in a sustainable manner. City top-level domains will also be a visible milestone of the development of the Domain Name System. We are aware of this responsibility, and, therefore, promote international cooperation, networking, knowledge sharing among members, stakeholders, and with ICANN. What do we want? We claim to be the advocate of city top-level domain stakeholders and their interest in the ICANN framework. Each of us is aiming to become a contracted party within ICANN, and our city top-level domain interest group plans to apply as constituency within the future registry stakeholder group. Since our members are not yet contracted parties, we seek, in consultation with ICANN staff and the registry constituency, a contractual solution on this intermediate status. With the city top-level domain constituency, the ICANN community will benefit from the broadened representation of important global, but also hyper-local players, the cities. The inclusion of the city top-level domain constituency will be also a helpful link to local governments, authorities, and economies. We are happy that ICANN has already defined geo names including city top-level domains as a category within the draft applicant guidebook. This is a very good way to cope with the requirements of city top-level domains which will be operated in the public interest and with support of non-objection of the relevant government and authorities. Thank you very much. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. And for the -- (Applause.) >>AVRI DORIA: And for the -- >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Questions for? Or questions after? >>AVRI DORIA: We will basically hold all questions until we go into the full open mic. For the consumer's constituency, do I have.... Yes, okay. Do you have slides? No, okay. >>BEAU BRENDLER: Hi, my name is Beau Brendler. I have been on the ALAC for some time, and you may be familiar with me from there. I have petitioned to create a consumer constituency. I'm waiting to -- waiting, actually, for this thing to boot up so I can just read from you the statement, but in essence, I think many people have had a chance to perhaps review the document, and what we're really trying to do here is create some sort of simplicity in this very complex environment where consumer groups can get a relatively quick understanding of the issues within ICANN that might be important to them. As you may know, consumer groups tend to be fairly short of money on a frequent basis, and also they have very specific metrics about how people spend their time. So we propose to create this constituency so that we can focus their efforts, and perhaps attract new members in the sense that they can have a clearer understanding of where consumers fit into the ICANN structure. And when I say "consumers," I am referring kind of to users. So the conversation that came up earlier about registrants versus consumers is very important to this. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like my computer is cooperating with me this morning, but in essence, that's really the statement. Right now, I think there are some consumer groups that are peripherally involved within the ICANN world, but in the ALAC, there are many, many issues that come up that require a fairly broad learning curve and aren't necessarily easy for consumers to grasp or to learn, and so it takes a while for them to understand that perhaps those things that most pertaining to consumer protection involve the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, for instance. So with this constituency, we would hope to encourage more consumer group participation within ICANN in a way that consumer groups can feel that they have some voice and also perhaps have a smaller scope of issues than what comes forth in the ALAC. So that's, in essence, really the explanation. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. At this point, we have reached the end of the agenda and move into open mic on any issue. So please, the mics are open, if you have any issue to bring up, please do so at this point. >>PAUL FOODY: I might as well get it going. I take my hat off to the lady about the safe cyber thing. I set up a Web site ten years ago, sickperv.com. I sponsored an RCMP guy $2,000 to take a T-shirt to the top of mount McKinley. The idea of that is you set up a Web site, dot XXX. Everything that wasn't appropriate for dot com be put on to dot XXX with an advert on dot com saying this is the smut you can see if you go to this site. I also put in proposals that we should have the right to determine what e-mails we receive, and that if we do receive Spam, we should have the right to say I will read Spam at the cost of ten cents a kilobit or whatever. The only response I got from that was about a thousand e-mails a week, phone calls threatening my life and the life of my children, and all in all -- and I had a Web site ABCsoccer.com which I had set up for the local football association with a guest book page. It was hacked, and it was an obscene picture put on this Web site. So I hope the safe incident lady knows what she is getting herself into. As for the dot Berlin, I think we have already got a constituency group for that. It's called city mayors. You know, what's wrong with that? Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, Bruce. >>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Avri. My name is Bruce Tonkin. I just wanted to make a couple of observations, I guess, on those three proposals. The first one on the city names constituency, there has been some discussion over the last few days that ICANN, sort of at a top level, should do further categorization of domain names and maybe create special roles for city names and special roles for country names and so on. I think now is too early for ICANN to really try and categorize the potential top-level domain space. And I think the right approach is the approach that Dirk is using, in that those that are proposing TLDs will naturally form groups of common interest. And over time, those groups of common interest may well be able to articulate roles that are specific to their needs and then take that through the policy development process. I see that being a more long term event, sort of a five to ten year event, rather than trying to squeeze special roles for special TLDs in the current new gTLD process. I just think we will never converge that process if we try and create a whole a lot of special roles at this stage. So I commend Dirk's approach there. With respect to the user group constituencies, I think one of the struggles with the current -- I guess more, let's call it, noncommercial areas is it is so diverse. The interests of people that would say that they are noncommercial are very diverse, and I think that groups need to form together to achieve some degree of focus and be able to clearly articulate their perspective, whether it's from the consumer protection perspective or whether it's from a freedom of speech perspective, et cetera. But I think the key is that those new groups have to have substantial size of scale. Otherwise, it's no real different to the current groups that might individually submit public comment. So the key for those constituencies to be credible is that they have broad membership, both internationally and a substantial membership of the order of hundreds of members, not of the order of ten members. So just a comment. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thank you. Olga, you had wanted to make a comment before to something? >>OLGA CAVALLI: Yes, should I move to the open mic or can I make it from here? >>AVRI DORIA: No, no. >>OLGA CAVALLI: It's a question from me as a citizen from a developing country, not as a GNSO Council member. To the three presenters, I think they were very interesting presentations, but I have a question. How do the three new constituencies plan to engage the communities from developing countries and from outside this ICANN community? How do you plan to bring consumers from Latin America, Africa, or associations from distant countries that don't participate so actively in this process, which is open but sometimes is difficult to follow when you don't speak English and when you are far away and don't participate frequently in the meetings? Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Jim. >>JIM BASKIN: Thank you, Jim Baskin from the business constituency. The question I have is really to the potential constituencies, the applicants. And it may be in the documentation, which I might not have read, but are they explicitly stating which house and which stakeholder group they are interested in joining? Because I think it's not -- There may be some assumptions being made by people that are not known to -- or may be different from what the constituencies -- potential constituencies actually think that they are looking to do. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah, I believe that they have to be definitive about which of the houses and stakeholder groups they are going to. Dirk. >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Dirk Krischenowski from dot Berlin. Yeah, we already said this in our presentation. We will aim to become a constituency within the stakeholder -- registry stakeholder group. So that's very clear, and it's very obvious to do that. Coming back to Olga, for sure we are seeking broad global representation of cities, and we have a lot of cities, some are already from developing countries and from Latin America, and we are talking to them already here in Mexico as well. So we are open to this. But on the other side, representation needs also communication tools. And when we get some funding for our city TLD constituency, we will be sure to seek much better tools to communicate to the community. And to the comment the first speaker made, for sure, ICANN is only one of many groups we are seeking to participate in. So the city mayors or there are some organizations like united cities and local governments, United Nations world open forum, city alliances, Euro cities, we already made some presentations and contacts with these organizations. And since city top-level domains is quite a difficult thing because you need to involve the city governments. And mayors, they often have their own ideas. So that's a very political thing, but we are working on this, and we already are there and known to a lot of these organizations of cities and city mayors. Thanks. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Adrian, you wanted to make a response to that? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: I don't want to get in the way of the other two respondents, if they want to answer Olga's question before that, but I have a question in regard to the city TLD constituency. >>AVRI DORIA: I couldn't hear you. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: I will just ask the question. This question to the city TLD constituency gentleman. What happens when you are not successful with your application? >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Yeah, having said this, the individual members, so the city TLD initiatives, they will for sure apply at ICANN as a top-level domain. Once they are approved, they are already in the contracted house then. And then we need to find a way how to incorporate them in the stakeholder groups which are there. And I hope that not only the registries stakeholder -- the current gTLD registry stakeholder group will be the only one in this constituency, in this stakeholder group, we will the only one. I hope that there are some reasonable new stakeholder groups within the registry constituency that might be company TLDs seeking one day also for a known constituency. Let's see how this works out. But anyway, we will be in the contracted house with our initiatives, individually. Does this answer your question? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yes, it does. Perhaps a few more, but I will take it off-line, thank you. >>CHUCK GOMES: And Avri, just a quick follow-up on that. I can tell you the registry constituency draft charter fully allows for as many new constituencies as possible and welcome them. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. I am going to go to the other mic now, Cheryl, and then I will go back and forth. >>CHERYL PRESTON: Thank you. I just want to answer Olga's question. Our proposed constituency has, at our own expense, conducted formal outreach where we have written fliers, descriptions, we have posted on lists, we have mailed to conferences, we have handed out at other organizations and requested participation in ICANN and clearly stated that one option was create another, whatever their own constituency. We already have brought in commitments from a large number of new participants. Obviously, one of the most serious problems is involving the developing countries in those interests. And one of the things that our constituency is committed to is increasing access and representing an interest that those communities be given the opportunity and the structure that allows them to effectively participate in the Information Society and on the Internet. And there are other groups that I have meetings set up with to talk to. And if you have any suggestions or you have anyone from your areas that would like to be involved, this would be a good home to focus on the interests of the digital divides in all their glory. >>AVRI DORIA: Stephane, did you want to comment on that? >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Thanks, Avri. I just wanted to get back to the earlier point about dot cities, which we are having a discussion about. Can I get that in now? >>AVRI DORIA: Sure. >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Thanks. Because Adrian being the shy, retiring person that he is asked me a question, and it's one I don't understand either. I wanted to put it to Rob, maybe. If some of these people don't get contracts, don't get their TLDs, then they drop out of the constituency; right? And if they do get their contracts then they move into the stakeholder group. Is that right? If they drop out, does this mean this is a constituency that then ceases to exist? >>ROB HOGGARTH: No, I don't think so. But I think that's a more appropriate answer from those folks. At this point, the process is there. The board will make a decision yes or no. At that point, they are a member of that stakeholder group. Their interests, they purport, will continue on. So that's really a more appropriate question, I think, for them to answer. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Okay. I will first say some things with my dot BCN hat as one of the representatives here, so the four member of the ccTLD applicant group for constituency. First, Olga, probably this is the only regular ICANN group I attend meetings for where the vast majority of the speakers are non-English native speakers. But contrary to others, it can do nothing to seek participation from developing countries or developed countries, because it's not seeking new registries. It's quite the contrary, helping those genuine initiatives for those parties through the ICANN process, but it's not trying to get anybody artificially on board, existing or non-existing. Also, regarding what Adrian said, it would happen exactly the same as when a registrar de-accredited. Probably it ceases to be a member of that constituency, the registrars constituency. And the third question regarding the future. Look, remember that this group has not submitted a formal petition. It is an expression of interest. Why? Because we want to make sure that we won't get a simple and stupid answer like, "Oh, you don't have a contract." This is not the question. The question we are talking here about the participation of interested groups. And we don't have a contract because we don't have a contract to sign. We are ready to sign a contract today with ICANN if they provide one, even a draft one. So the question here is to find a way and to find a place for these interest groups. Now, having said that, I have the same problem that Bruce had, and another one that probably should be brought to the board level here. The problem is about wide participation. City TLDs is open to anybody with a city TLD project. But we cannot artificially create more of that. You then will have probably something similar for language and cultural TLDs, lcTLDs, and other groups. But for those that represent interests, those like consumer, et cetera, yes, we would like to seeing certain broad participation from the very beginning. And then, perhaps, the problem is that ICANN board said the basic unit for world participation and vote in the GNSO will remain the constituency. But if we completely change the nature of constituencies, perhaps they meant or thought the stakeholders groups were more equivalent to the current constituencies, and perhaps we should pay attention to that when we start voting on these constituencies. Because if not, then we will have a different end result than the one we thought. Which stakeholder group, somebody asked? The registries. It doesn't mean that one day perhaps. I am not saying I am advocating that. It's one possibility. The registries will decide to form two stakeholder groups, one for the so-called "six dollar/zero policy" ones, however you want to call, one for, let's say, the community, sponsor it, restrictive -- restricted, whatever you want to call them, with city TLDs, language and cultural TLDs and some others that are really there or not. It might happen in the future, in the distant future. Today it's just intending to be an expression of interest for participating that, and not a petition yet because we, as we said, don't want the simplistic answer of, huh, where is the contract? >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Before moving on to the next, I do want to read one that came in online, and also to show that we can have other topics at the open mic now. And it was from George Kirkos asking, "Will the GNSO ever create a cross-constituency mailing list open only to constituency members?" I don't know the answer to that yet, but it was a question that was asked on the public forum. I suppose it is a possible thing. Go to Beau. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Avri? I can't speak, and won't purport to, on behalf of the entire cross constituency, but from the IPC perspective, I don't see why we couldn't, frankly. We have kind of a wish list of things we would like to do with additional staff resources once those become available to us. That could certainly be on it. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. >>BEAU BRENDLER: Yeah, I just wanted to respond to the questions that came up about the consumer constituency. We were, of course, wanting to align ourselves with the noncommercial stakeholders group and have begun having discussions with them, obviously as that forms. And the other question that was brought up about international representation. The organization I am with, Consumers Union, publishes magazines that reach 9 million people in the U.S. and Canada and it also formed Consumers International, which is in 149 countries. Hopefully, you know, those are the kinds of folks we can network with in order to make the constituency broader and viable and appeal to people in developing countries. And that's sort of the reason why we are trying to form it in the first place. So thanks. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Eric. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Avri. This is Eric Brunner Williams speaking as an individual. Is the mic on? Good. In 1999, for personal reasons I was taking a look at the allocation of who owns cities in the U.S. zone under the IANA's management, and I came to the surprising find that 40% of the major metro market in the United States was owned by six individuals. That was a considerable surprise to me. And of course they were cybersquatters, basically. A few years later, when the Iraq network infrastructure was being decremented by explosives and the Iraqi namespace was shut down completely, well, I monitored that also and documented it for the NANOG mailing list. And then finally, when the tsunami occurred just a few years ago, I happened to notice that all of Burma's name servers were dark and when I chased down where they were, they were all in London. The point I am making here is that cities are not necessarily -- excuse me, that the CC model is not uniformly well functioning, or it is not uniformly well executed. And so if the temptation from the GAC side of ICANN to prevent the use of city names is -- becomes policy, we'll have to try to work around the damage caused by some countries which are not executing their service model well and whose principal concentrations of human habitants are not being served well or at all. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Okay, Jeff. I was just looking whether to see if there was any comment before -- but yes, Jeff. >>JEFF NEUMAN: I thought you couldn't see me. Come on, guys, a little humor. Right, Avri Doria? I wanted to make a comment. I respectfully disagree with Amadeu. You know, look, there's a couple of ties that bind us in the registry stakeholder group. One of them is that there is a contract. And that's a vital element. The second element is that there's a contract in which we all agree to be bound by consensus policies. And that's a critical component. And I do want to report that during the registry constituency meeting that Dirk, on behalf of at least dot Berlin, I know he couldn't necessarily speak for the others, said that they would agree to abide by consensus policies, which was a question that I had, you know, given that ccTLDs have their own definition and it's not mandatory, but the cities have -- or at least Dirk has said that he -- that dot Berlin would agree to be bound by consensus policies. So, Amadeu, I know you don't want to hear an answer that it's as simple as not having a contract, but we're the contracted party's house. That's our interest. That's how our interests are aligned. We are a bunch of different competitors, but we all have that tie that binds us. And I will note that the cities have been allowed to participate in the registry constituency meetings, because they are open, and we do encourage that, and anytime there are issues, they can certainly raise them. At this point, I'm not quite sure why we need a new cities constituency, because -- and it could be just me, but I'm not sure how their interests, at this point, differ from ours. And the other point is the cities constituency has basically one issue at this point, and it's all around new gTLDs and getting approved. That's the focus, and that's been Dirk's focus for years, and I hope he gets it. And once he does get it, I hope he will sign the contract that agrees to be bound by consensus policies, and then obviously he will be a voting member of the registry stakeholders group. Until then, it's our view that he should be an observer, and that a cities constituency should not be approved until at least -- frankly, we don't even know that the new gTLD process will go forward. In theory, it may not. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Or registrars will disappear. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Registries may disappear. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Registrars. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Registrars. I'm not sure what your point is. Sorry. But again, just to the point is, we would urge the board not to accept a cities -- formally accept a cities registry until at least a time we know, A), that there is a new gTLD process, B), that cities actually have applied, and, C), that they are given a contract. Once they are given a contract and agree to be bound by consensus policies, then we would welcome them as voting members. Until then, we still welcome them, but just as observers that can participate in the meetings. >>AVRI DORIA: I just want to remind everyone that it is the board that will decide and you have to pass that message on to them. We have nothing to say about it. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: You have something to say, Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Always. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: The problem is if that's the solution that some constituencies or all constituencies have, which everything is formally it's uncontestable, this for contracted parties. This is a stretch of the idea, an interested stretch of the idea. The idea is the provider's house. And then you have registrar resellers who would have to say something, but that's a different debate. If that's not the solution, the question is not whether Dirk is invited to the registry constituency. That's very good. The question is where the city TLDs can have a voice and participate in the group in the policy formation process. Now, this is called the interest constituency group whatever. This is why we are going there. If this is not the answer, you as GNSO have to think about the answer, even if the decision is the board's. . >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. That's a very good point. Eric. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Avri. I just have a quick question for Jeff, if I may. Jeff, is dot name a member of the registry constituency? >>JEFF NEUMAN: It's a tough question because at this point, I'm not aware that the acquisition of dot name has been finalized by the ICANN staff. So until there is confirmation that the assignment of dot name to VeriSign is complete, they are a member. But once we do find out that the acquisition is complete and has gone through the appropriate channels with VeriSign, then dot name will not be a separate member. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Thank you. >>PAUL FOODY: Okay, Jeff, with regard to your point on contracts, I think everyone agrees that contracts are a great thing. The trouble is I've got contracts with Net Sole with Yahoo, with -- I think MySpace has the same one and all the rest of that. And the trouble is all these contracts include the provision whereby the contract can be amended at any time without notice being given. And the only thing that will happen is that the revised contract, which sometimes can amount to 60, 70 pages, will be posted to the Web site. No notice will be given to people who are supposedly parties to that contract. Quite honestly, I think that should be -- ICANN should eradicate that. I spoke to my solicitor. I asked him whether or not the Net Sole contract was legal. He looked at it. He printed off the 90 pages or whatever it ran to. He charged me a lot of money for it and told me, "I can't give you a view on this because it's from Virginia." >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. >>PAUL FOODY: So, while Jeff is there, can you give us a definition for "gaming"? >>AVRI DORIA: Actually, I had hands from Adrian and Tim, who would like to address you. You're welcome to address after that, if you would like. You don't have to, Adrian. I just saw your hand so -- Tim? >>TIM RUIZ: The -- you know, at this point, the -- if you look at the structure that the board has approved, it's the contracted party's house and the noncontracted party's house. So that's why we have -- and that's not going to change that. We'll go back to the drawing board. That's what we have to work with, and that's indisputable. That's what the board has approved, that's what we need to be working forward to. So I think Jeff has made a very practical and reasonable explanation of how that should work. Until there is a contract, those constituencies are invited to observe. And, once that contract exists, then they could become members. I don't see a problem with that. That's the structure that we've been given to work with. That's just the way it is. >>AVRI DORIA: Jeff, had you wanted to make another community? >>JEFF NEUMAN: Definition of "gaming"? >>AVRI DORIA: Only if you want. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Jeff, can you take it offline? >>JEFF NEUMAN: Yes. So, no, I don't want to comment. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Dirk? >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Jeff, thanks for bringing this on the table. The notion of the question whether there is a process for new gTLDs or not is quite interesting. The German Internet Association some four weeks ago asked the ICANN board in a letter if there's something that can stop the new TLD process or reboot this. And we haven't got an answer. And that's some uncertainty we have still on the market. If there's something going to stop it. And I was happy that you were bringing this on the table because, when they stopped the process, we can't become a contracted party and our constituency falls away. That's for sure. Maybe we get some more clarification the next days if we have a stable process for introducing new TLDs or not. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Bruce? >>BRUCE TONKIN: Hi, Avri. I thought I'd have a crack at defining "gaming." >>AVRI DORIA: Oh, you are brave. >>BRUCE TONKIN: Just to give a context on how it's use in the ICANN community. ICANN creates a set of rules. And those rules are generally intended to provide a consumer benefit. And registries\registrars, in turn, generally defined a set of rules that are intended to have a particular result. Gaming is when those rules are not used in a way that was not intended to the commercial benefit of the party that's making use of that. So I'll give you a specific example. Originally, when the dot com registries and others started to offer registrations more broadly through registrars, they identified that some registrants, when they entered a domain name to register a name, would make a mistake. They'd misspell it. And they introduced a rule where, if you cancel the name within the first five days of registration, you could cancel that name at the registry to full refund and then, you know, register the name that you're intending to register. So the gaming that occurred there was to say, because you can register a name for five days with -- and then cancel it at no cost, there were some industry participants that would register a million names in one day. Then they had five days to measure the traffic on those names. And then any names that seemed to have a lot of Internet traffic on it, they kept. And so that was an example of a rule that was designed for a specific purpose. And it was gamed in a way that was not intended. So that's really how we use the term "gaming." It's just a general term for using a set of rules in a way in which the rule makers did not envisage. >>PAUL FOODY: WelI, I think that goes against the transparency ethic of ICANN. And I think it's a practice you should put an immediate stop to. My previous life was in commercial property. I was a charter (inaudible) there. What my job was was to go up to guys who own property, chat them up, get a contract on their -- or get a deal on their property. I'd hand them on to the lawyers, and the lawyers would get them to sign a contract that had very little connection to what we'd agreed. It would include things called WOPS, walk away provisions. And it was a joke. You know, people were saying things because they're led to believe things. And transparency is about letting people know exactly what it is they're letting themselves in for. If ICANN is going to encourage and allow gaming, you've got to -- you've got to look at the opportunities it gives those on the inside who have drafted these agreements and who -- you know, such as this guy at dot city who is carving up the Internet before the gTLD things have even been agreed. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: I'll keep it brief. But, first of all, I don't think it's the transparency issue with the add/grace period. It was widely known. And, more importantly, the policy and practices with regard to ICANN billing registrars have dealt with that problem. And the policy actually goes into effect the end of March. So that has been dealt with. >>PAUL FOODY: My point was to the use of terms such as "gaming," which you're inventing to avoid using terms, existing terms such as misleading, cheating, fraud, those sorts of things. >>CHUCK GOMES: I'm sorry. But gaming does not necessarily imply fraud or illegal activities. It may in some cases. I don't know. I can't speak to that. But I would totally disagree with you that it's synonymous with fraud or illegal activity. That is just, frankly, wrong. >>PAUL FOODY: That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, if you are an organization purporting to be transparent, please use the existing language. >>CHUCK GOMES: If you would, please, give me another term for "gaming" that defines what Bruce describes it, maybe we can use it. I don't care. It's one in this community. And I know you're new, and I respect that. That's okay. It is fairly well understood for people who have been using it. If you want to suggest a different term, please do. And, if it works better, we'll use it. >>AVRI DORIA: I've got Alan, and I've got Adrian. >>ALAN GREENBERG: I take a fair amount of responsibility for helping ICANN get rid of that practice that Chuck described. But I think the closest word I know to gaming is entrepreneurial. People who look at existing rules and find innovative ways of making money from them which are completely legal. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Adrian. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: I'd just like to convey how chuffed I am that we were able to vote unanimously on the RAA. I just want to put that on the record. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: I see no one at the microphone. Does anyone on council wish to make a comment? No one on the microphone. No comments online? No one at the microphone. Thank you. The meeting is over. [Applause]