[council] RE: Call for TOR change

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Grant,

I will include discussion of this proposed change in the terms of
reference at the beginning of item 4 on the agenda for the meeting on 22
Jan 2004.

Regards,
Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Forsyth [mailto:Grant.Forsyth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, 9 January 2004 7:28 AM
To: Bruce Tonkin; GNSO SECRETARIAT; council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
'roseman@xxxxxxxxx'
Cc: 'Philip Sheppard'; 'Marilyn Cade AT&T'
Subject: Call for TOR change


Dear Bruce ,  fellow Councillors and Barbara
RE: Terms of Reference for Task Force on:
Procedure for use by ICANN in considering requests for consent and
related contractual amendments to allow changes in the architecture or
operation of a gTLD registry.

While we, the elected representatives of the Commercial and Business
Users Constituency (BC), recognise that the Draft TOR  were agreed by
Council on 2 December 2003 and have been put out for public
consideration and that submissions closed on 28 December 2003, due to
the holiday period the job of developing the BC initial position on the
matter has only now  brought to light an undesirable "narrowness" of the
TOR. 

Specifically we consider that two of of the three aspects recommended to
be considered "Out of Scope"  should be included in the PDP
consideration, namely:
A) Changes to the nature of the agreements between ICANN and the
registry operators
B) Additional obligations on registry operators or gTLD sponsors beyond
what is already specified in their existing agreements

We would note that the PDP under consideration is not focused on any
particular registry service, action, change in architecture or
operation, but rather on developing a procedure for consideration of any
such change. For such a procedure to have maximum usefulness it:
- should not embody any issue specific constraint (such as potential
changes that might also be considered in the future policy development
associated with the review of new gTLDs (out of scope A); and 
- must be flexible and forward looking such that the procedure can deal
with changes in circumstances, markets or technology innovation not
previously foreseen and explicitly captured in wording of existing
contracts (out of scope B)

We do not envisage the removal of these current "Out-of-scope"
constraints to have any great impact on the PDP process, the complexity
of response to the identified four main tasks  or the final overall
policy recommendation. In fact, seeking to embody the current
out-of-scope constraints is likely to lead to a more convoluted
procedure.

Hence, we seek an amendment to the current draft of the TOR by the
removal of the first two "Out-of-scope" constraints.
AND 
We erquest that this matter be included on the agenda of the next GNSO
call, scheduled for 22 January.

Sincerely
Elected representatives of the BC
Grant Forsyth
Marilyn Cade
Philip Sheppard