GNSO Council Teleconference Minutes

Proposed agenda and documents

List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business Users C
Mike Rodenbaugh - Commercial & Business Users C.
Bilal Beiram - Commercial & Business Users C
Greg Ruth - ISCPC
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Tim Ruiz - Registrars
Adrian Kinderis - Registrars
Chuck Gomes - gTLD registries
Edmon Chung - gTLD registries
Jordi Iparraguirre - gTLD registries
Kristina Rosette - Intellectual Property Interests C
Ute Decker - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent
Cyril Chau - Intellectual Property Interests C
Robin Gross - NCUC
Norbert Klein - NCUC - absent, excused
Carlos Souza - NCUC
Olga Cavalli- Nominating Committee appointee
Jon Bing - Nominating Committee appointee
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

19 Council Members
(25 Votes - quorum)

ICANN Staff

Denise Michel - Vice President, Policy Development
Dan Halloran - Deputy General Counsel
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination
Craig Schwartz - Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
Patrick Jones - Registry Liaison Manager
Karen Lentz - gTLD Registry Liaison
Liz Gasster - Senior Policy Officer
Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat

GNSO Council Liaisons
Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison - absent
Alan Greenberg - ALAC Liaison

Rita Rodin - ICANN Board member
Bruce Tonkin - ICANN Board member - absent apologies

MP3 Recording

Avri Doria and Chuck Gomes chaired the meeting.

Item 1: Update any Statements of Interest

No updates to record.

Item 2: Review/amend the agenda
Avri Doria suggested:
2.1 - changing the order of the agenda
Item 7: Status on Reserved Names – Single and two-character names at the 2nd level
to before Item 11: Action Item Review (5)
2.2 - Item 4 would include any Board reaction to the GNSO message with regard to IDNs
2.3 - Proposed items under AOB
- Saturday/Sunday schedule for the GNSO working sessions in New Delhi
- Liaison with ccNSO Council
- Joint ccNSO/GNSO Council meeting in New Delhi
- Collaborative Council tools

Item 3: Approve GNSO Council minutes of 20 December 2007.

Chuck Gomes moved the adoption of the GNSO Council minutes of 20 December 2007.

The Motion passed unanimously.

Decision 1: The Council approved the GNSO Council minutes of 20 December 2007.

Item 3: Ratify the result of the election for the GNSO Council chair
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg04408.html

Avri Doria asked the vice chair, Chuck Gomes, to preside for the GNSO Chair election.

The Secretariat noted that the chair must receive affirmative votes comprising a majority of the votes of all the members of the GNSO Council – i.e., at least 14 votes.

Weighted voting results:
25 FOR Avri Doria
2 ABSTAIN
27 Total

Without assigning ballot weights, there were 19 votes FOR, 2 votes ABSTAIN, 0 votes AGAINST.
21 Council members voted.

There were 27 votes in total accounting for 21 Council members.
http://gnso.icann.org/council/members.shtml

Kristina Rosette, seconded by Robin Gross, proposed a procedural motion to ratify the results of the GNSO Council Chair election and congratulate Avri Doria as the GNSO Council chair.

The motion passed by a voice vote.
One abstention: Avri Doria

Chuck Gomes passed the chair back to Avri Doria.

Decision 2: Avri Doria was elected as GNSO Council Chair for the period, 1 February 2008 to 31 January 2009.

Item 5: Update from Denise Michel on Board activities

Denise Michel reported that the next Board meeting is scheduled for 23 January 2008.
A number of issues are relevant to the GNSO including the result of PDP-Feb06 on contractual conditions, the GNSO's message to the Board on a new joint working group on IDN issues, Domain Name Tasting, and the GNSO recommendations on new gTLDs.
Rita Rodin added, that with regard to new gTLDs, there would be an update on the implementation issues as there was not yet an official management position and the issue would only be substantively discussed at the next Board meeting. Staff has divided new gTLD issues into individual papers, 5 of which have been delivered to the Board and discussions are expected at the New Delhi meeting.
Denise noted that as per email sent to the Council, the ccNSO Council met on 15 January 2008 and voted to send a letter to the Board regarding the GNSO's request for a joint working group to address additional IDN
issues. The ccNSO does not support the formation of a joint working group as suggested by the GNSO in its letter to the Board, but would like to discuss the issue at a joint ccNSO and GNSO meeting in New Delhi.

The Board Governance Committee (BGC) Working Group on the GNSO Review is in the process of finalising the GNSO Improvements Report and the staff is preparing implementation notes. The plan is to have the report submitted to the Board by New Delhi, however, considering the complexity of the issue, the Board would likely need more time for consideration.

The New Delhi Workshop topics will include the operating plan and budget and ICANN travel expense support funding.

Item 6: IDNC update - Edmon Chung
Edmon Chung reported that there had been little discussion on the IDNC mailing list. A topic list was sent out for comments; about five comments were received including one from the EU and these were used to craft the draft Initial Report, which is very similar to the topic list, and is open for comment on the ccNSO mailing list.

The topics are divided in two, the selection of the IDN TLD stream and the delegation of the registry operator.
In addition, discussion is underway on objection process criteria, technical requirements and policy enforcement requirements to ensure IDN TLD operators comply with standards and guidelines. Edmon raised the issue on the committee whether there should be an understanding between the registry operator and ICANN but the issue was punted.

Council members expressed concern regarding the contractual issue with registrar and registry operators and, a fair competitive playing field. The IDN Rework Group is in the process of preparing the GNSO Response to ccNSO/GAC Issues Paper on IDN ccTLDs.

Mike Rodenbaugh added that it was desirable to add a specific topic on the security and anti-phishing implications of IDNs, and whether IDN ccTLDs ought to adopt different practices, over and above the existing IANA protocol.

The goal is to have the first draft of the Issues report, with public comments, ready for New Delhi.

Edmon noted that the Issues Report referred to "a limited number of non-contentious IDN ccTLDs associated with the ISO-3166 two letter code", but that there had been no discussion around this point.

Item 8: Proxy vote proposal update

A small drafting group, led by Philip Sheppard, with Chuck Gomes, Robin Gross, and Liz Gasster as staff support, examined the issue of proxy voting and provided an alternative, the enfranchisement of the GNSO Council members voting rights through electronic voting.

In summary, the purpose is, to enfranchise absent Councillors who are unable to vote at a meeting. Given the electronic nature of the Council's communications, a system of electronic voting is proposed.

Philip Sheppard referred to the document sent to Council shortly before the meeting, "Enfranchisement of the GNSO's Council's Voting Responsibilities"
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg04461.html
and proposed that any formal decision be deferred.

The drafting group thought that both proxy and electronic voting together may be duplicative and potentially confusing.
A balance could possibly be obtained by giving an absent councillor the possibility of voting within 48 hours of a meeting in the case of roll call votes where a vote might change from 'yes' to 'no' or vice versa and with regard to consensus policy, where a majority could change to supermajority.

Forty eight hours was considered reasonable to accommodate the different time zones for sending out a standardised electronic vote form immediately after the meeting.

Issues that called for further discussion were:
Conflicts of interest. The electronic voting proposal contained a sufficient reference on conflicts. However, the group recommended that Council separately address the issue of conflicts as there were a number of aspects that could be usefully explored with respect to ordinary in-person voting and conflicts. Such a discussion need not delay a Council decision on electronic voting.

The option for a Council member present at a meeting to cast a vote electronically after the meeting, was not included in the proposal and should be considered separately if Council so desires.

An additional inclusion in the proposal is to have the electronic vote form affirm the voter's knowledge of the issue and awareness of the discussion at the meeting.

'Only Council Members may cast an E-Vote' raises the issue of authentication with an electronic vote, which does not exist on a voice call vote.

Jon Bing asked in connection with triggering off the E-Vote, under bullet points 4 and 5, whether other alternatives had been considered when explicit decisions were made at the meeting to move towards an E-Vote, such as requests from those members not on the call.
"4. Process
An e-vote must take place, and may only take place, after an in-person role-call vote when the circumstances described in article 5 occur.
5. Circumstances.
An e- vote must be used when the voting outcome of an in-person role-call vote might be affected by the use of absent votes either related to:
- the success of a motion; or,
- when the level of support might change from majority to supermajority and the attainment of supermajority is material to the subsequent impact of the vote under ICANN by-laws."

Philip Sheppard responded that it was assumed absent voters would wish to participate in the vote as they had stood for to election to the Council.

Avri Doria proposed:
1. Requesting Liz Gasster to discuss the report with the Deputy General Counsel and solicit feed back on the eventual bylaws changes that might be required.
2. Make a decision on the issue at the next Council meeting on 31 January 2008.

Item 9: First discussion - Domain Tasting Initial Report

The Initial report on Domain Tasting is posted for public comment until 28 January 2008.

Staff noted that a previous request to pursue the possibility of trying to curb domain tasting through the application of a fee to names deleted during the add-grace period either through the budgeting process or other means was included in the next fiscal year budget and would be discussed in New Delhi.

Kristina Rosette noted that feedback from the Trademark community indicated that many members had participated in the Request for Information (RFI) on Domain Tasting, thus there may not be the same volume of comments and this should not be viewed as a lack of interest in the topic.

Avri Doria proposed forming a small drafting team as a starting point for the deliberations on the Domain Tasting PDP, which will commence in New Delhi at the GNSO working sessions on Saturday 9 February 2008.

Volunteers to the group are:
Kristina Rosette (IPC), Alan Greenberg (ALAC), Mike Rodenbaugh (CBUC), Tim Ruiz (Registrar constituency) and Liz Gasster as staff support.

Item 10: Inter-Registrar Transfers Working Group Recommendations

Chuck Gomes noted that the Inter-Registrar Transfers Working Group, separate from the currently initiated Inter-Registrar Transfers policy development process (PDP), listed all the issues where improvements to the inter-registrar transfer policy could be made and prioritised a list of 19 items. The next step is to decide how to approach these remaining items, and whether or not more PDPs should be created.

The GNSO Council proposed forming a small group to prioritise / group for action, the long list of issues under the Inter-Registrar Transfers Working Group Recommendations.
(http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/irdx-policy-priorities-20dec07.pdf)

Volunteers to the group are:
Tom Keller, Tim Ruiz, (Registrar constituency) Chuck Gomes, (gTLD Registry constituency) Mike O'Connor, supported by Mike Rodenbaugh (CBUC) Olof Nordling as staff support.

Item 7: Status on Reserved Names – Single and two-character names at the 2nd level
Summary of Comments submitted during the comment period

Patrick Jones reported that the public comment period on potential allocation methods for single-letter and single-digit domain names at the second level ran from 16 October to 15 December 2007.
http://forum.icann.org/lists/allocation methods/.

36 comments were received representing a diverse range of views from individuals, companies, trade associations, organizations, registrars and the gTLD Registry Constituency. Comments were received from Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Tunisia, and the United States.

Comments covered technical issues, the process resulting in the RN-WG recommendation, auction models, allocation methods, use of proceeds from the allocation of single-letter names, resolution of legitimate rights, DNS and security issues. The majority of the comments supported the allocation of single-letter names, and suggested different allocation methods, from auctions to random lottery to first come, first served, to registry allocation through the existing Registry Services Evaluation Process.

Of those that supported auction for single-letter domain names, the comments stressed that ICANN work with qualified and trusted third parties to manage the auction process to avoid gaming and manipulation. Auction types suggested included English style auction, sealed bids, Dutch auction, qualified auction, auction for slots to select names, and monthly auction of names.

Comments also covered a range of uses of allocation proceeds, from funding for ICANN, standards development organizations, Internet community needs, reducing registration fees, improving Internet infrastructure, supporting ccTLDs, supporting capacity building and participation in ICANN and security and stability funding.

Patrick mentioned that, as the next steps, ICANN staff was developing a position paper on single-letter and single-digit domain names at the second level in existing gTLDs that would be provided to the GNSO Council for consideration in advance of the New Delhi meeting.

Patrick noted that there was no current update on IANA names which were lower in priority compared to some other items, but further information would be provided in New Delhi.

Item 11: Action Item Review
http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/pending-action-list.pdf

11.1 The Inter-registrar Transfer PDP
The Initial report will be delayed, 4 constituency statements are still outstanding; expected by 31 January 2008.

11.2 Domain Name Tasting PDP
The missing Registrar constituency statement is expected by the end of January, 2008. The Final report is expected by 7 or 8 February for discussion at the GNSO Council face to face meeting in New Delhi.

11.3 Whois
The deadline for submission of proposals has been moved to 15 February with the collation of the proposed studies done by 25 February and a discussion starting at the first Council meeting after New Delhi.

Item 12: AOB

12.1 New Delhi schedule, face to face meetings:
The Saturday 9 February 2008 meeting will focus on the Domain Name Tasting PDP, Inter-Registrar Transfers and the GNSO Improvements report.
The Sunday 10 February 2008 meeting will focus on IDN discussions and preparation for the joint ccNSO and GNSO Council meeting and IDN workshop on Monday.

Alan Greenberg requested that domain tasting be discussed on Saturday if possible.

Remote participation will be available

12.3 Robin Gross raised the issue of hotel accommodation and asked if there were any remaining funds from the budget for intercessional meetings that could be used to accommodate some of the New Delhi hotel expenses for councillors.
Denise Michel responded that support for hotel accommodation in New Delhi would not be provided to constituency council members. The issue was not the available funds, but the precedence and policy that was affected by the actions. The public workshop on ICANN Travel Expense Support Funding in New Delhi would provide the opportunity for community discussion.

12.4 Tom Keller commented on the need for collaborative meeting tools such as a Wiki and Jabber room which were non-controversial recommendations in the GNSO Improvements Review. Staff would enquire about these and report back to the Council.

Avri Doria adjourned the GNSO Council meeting and thanked everyone for their participation.

The meeting ended at 17:05 UTC.