[council] Status report - Vertical Integration Working Group

[Stéphane Van Gelder <stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>]

Councillors,

Please find below my status report on the VI WG for the upcoming GNSO Council 
teleconference.

Stéphane

Vertical Integration Policy Development Process (VI PDP) - Chairs Roberto 
Gaetano and Mikey O'Connor - Council Liaison - Stéphane van Gelder – July 8, 
2010

The working group met face-to-face several times in Brussels, during the 38th 
International ICANN meeting. A presentation on the group's progress so far was 
given by the 2 co-chairs during the GNSO Council Open meeting on Wednesday June 
23rd.

Based on the revised deadlines driven by the September Board retreat referenced 
in the Brussels meeting Board Resolutions as a "new gTLD retreat only", the WG 
has developed an extremely short-interval schedule.

A process has been launched to summarize the major proposals, including 2 new 
proposals stemming from Brussels. 

The WG is discussing areas of possible consensus and also looking at possible 
exceptions such as Single Registrant Single User TLDs and other niche TLDs.

Full consensus may be difficult to reach, but the group remains hopeful of 
reaching partial consensus.