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 - absent
Greg Ruth - ISCPC - absent, apologies
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
Cyril Chau - Intellectual Property Interests
Robin Gross - NCUC
Norbert Klein - NCUC - absent, apologies
Carlos Souza - NCUC - absent, apologies
Olga Cavalli- Nominating Committee appointee
Jon Bing - Nominating Committee appointee - absent - apologies
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

16 Council Members
(22 Votes - quorum)

ICANN Staff

Denise Michel - Vice President, Policy Development
Robert Hoggarth - Senior Policy Director
Liz Gasster - Senior Policy Officer
Olof Nordling - Director Services Relations
Kurt Pritz - Senior Vice President Services
Marika Konings - Policy Director
Craig Schwartz - Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat

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

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

MP3 Recording

Avri Doria chaired the meeting.

Item 1: Update any Statements of Interest
No statements of interest were updated.

Item 2: Review/amend the agenda

Added other business item: Introductory discussion on Geographic Regions in ICANN
Moved Item 5.1 Fast Flux Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group(WG) report to before Item 4
Added Items 5.6 and 5.7 updates on Reserved Names and Absentee voting

Item 3: Approve GNSO Council minutes 29 May 2008.

Chuck Gomes seconded by Adrian Kinderis moved the adoption of the GNSO Council minutes of 29 May 2008.

The motion passed.
Mike Rodenbaugh abstained because he had not yet read the minutes

Decision 1: The Council approved the GNSO Council minutes of 29 May 2008.

Item 5.1 Fast Flux PDP WG Update

Mike Rodenbaugh reported that the Fast Flux PDP WG, under the chairmanship of Mike O'Connor, was progressing with addressing the questions set out in the Issues Report and a series of regular weekly meetings have been scheduled. Mailing list discussion was active and productive, meeting attendance was good and included participants that had never before taken part in a working group, as well as several security experts.

Item 4: Update from Denise Michel on Board activities

Denise Michel reported that the Board was scheduled to meet on July 31, 2008 and the executive committee would meet during the week of 21 July to set the agenda. Possible topics would include the GNSO Council restructuring group deliberations, implementation work updates, and an Address Supporting Organisation (ASO) Global Policy proposal regarding autonomous system numbers.

Kristina Rosette requested that the Board discussion on the GNSO Council restructuring be made publicly accessible.

5.2 Whois Hypotheses Group update

Chuck Gomes reported that the group was making progress but may need an extension to complete the work. A member of the GAC, Bertrand de la Chapelle has joined the group. Once the group produces an hypotheses formulation, the study proposers will be given one week to comment on the proposals.
Council agreed to extend the deadline to August 7, 2008.

5.3 IRTP Denial Reasons PDP - Comment Period (ends July 18, 2008)

Olof Nordling reported that to date there had been no public comments, but if comments were submitted, the summary would be prepared for the next Council meeting on 7 August 2008

5.4 Domain Tasting Consensus Policy recommendation
5.5 AGP Budget Fee implementation

Rob Hoggarth reported that at the ICANN Board meeting in Paris, the Board adopted the Fiscal Year 2008-2009 Operating Plan and Budget
which included (at the encouragement of the GNSO Council) a proposal to expand the applicability of the ICANN transaction fee in order to limit domain tasting adopted the GNSO policy recommendation on domain tasting, and directed staff to implement the policy following appropriate comment and notice periods on the implementation documents.

Internally, a number of cross functional departments,under the leadership of Craig Schwartz, have started drafting the implementation consensus policy which will be submitted for community input.

Craig Schwartz informed the Council that NeuStar's Add Grace Period (AGP) modification, similar to the Council recommendation had already indicated a 95% decrease in the number of deletes made during the AGP period in 30 days.

Staff was requested to keep Council formally apprised of the developments and it was suggested that the cross-functional team should explore unexpected results.

Avri Doria proposed that staff provide further updates on these items for the next Council meeting on 7 August 2008.

5.6 Update on Reserved Names
Liz Gasster reported that the reserved names were being dealt with by the service department and the Council would be informed of their progress.

5.7 Update on absentee voting
Liz Gasster reported that staff was consulting with legal Counsel and the technical department on the implementation of absentee voting .

Item 6: Discussion of IDNC Report and GNSO Response

Edmon Chung reported that the IDNC working group had not met since the ICANN Paris meetings in June 2008, but reiterated previous concerns and suggested areas where comments from the GNSO on the IDNC report would be useful:

- the definition of Non-Contentious Only within the Corresponding Territory which departs from current ccTLD practices
- the lack of process for Determining Non-Contentiousness and the lack of dispute resolution mechanisms
- the lack of mechanisms to Enforce Compliance with the IDNA standards and the ICANN IDN Guidelines
- the lack of mechanisms to ensure a smooth transition from the fast track to the policies that would be in place when the ccNSO policy development process on introducing IDN gTLDs was in place.
- the lack of clarity on language experts.

Edmon mentioned certain positive points in the report, such as the request for information (RFI), the requirement for a Fast Track IDN ccTLD to be in an Official Language of the territory, the adherence to the ISO 3166 standard and the use of internationally accepted documents such as the UNGEGN manual.

Chuck Gomes reminded Council that a previous document responding to the IDNC report could be used as a base for the responses.

Avri Doria reminded Council of a specific request about reconsidering the one name, one script motion which may have to be revisited in the response.

ACTION:

The GNSO Council agreed that a small drafting team be formed to compose a response by 31 July 2008 for the Council to discuss and decide on at its meeting on 7 August 2008.

Tim Ruiz and Olga Cavalli volunteered to join the group in addition to those members already subscribed to the IDNC initial list.

Item 7: Review charter for the Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group (WG) on Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) issues Report - Part A

Avri Doria seconded by Chuck Gomes proposed:

Whereas

On 25 June 2008 the GNSO Council initiated PDP IRTP Part A to be referred to as IRTP PDP Jun08 and, decided to create an PDP WG for the purposes of fulfilling the requirements of the PDP

and, has reviewed the charter found at IRTP PDP-A WG Charter http://gnso.icann.org/issues/transfers/irtp-working-group-charter-jun08.htm

Resolved

The GNSO Council approves the charter and associated time lines and appoints Mike Rodenbaugh as the GNSO Council Liaison to the IRTP PDP Jun08 WG. The GNSO council further directs that the work of the IRTP PDP Jun08 WG be initiated no later then 14 days after the approval of this motion. Until such time as the WG can select a chair and that chair can be confirmed by the GNSO Council, the GNSO council Liaison shall act as interim chair.

The motion passed unanimously by voice vote.

Action: Form a working group within two weeks. Encourage constituencies to volunteer participants to the working group. The working group is open and non constituency candidates will have their contact information verified by the Secretariat and their participation approved by the Council.

Item 8: GNSO Improvements

8.1 Update from GNSO Structure Consensus WG

Rob Hoggarth, moderator of the GNSO restructuring consensus working group, reported that immediately after the ICANN Board meeting in Paris, a group was formed, email traffic and communication was initiated, and during the four meetings to date, a concerted effort was being made to develop a consensus solution while at the same time, valiantly representing the interests of their various groups and organizations.

8.2 Review comments on Top Level Plan (comment period ends July 18, 2008)

Rob Hoggarth reported that to date, there had been no comments submitted on the GNSO Improvements Top Level Plan. Two submissions indicated that there had been a confusion with top level domain names.

Tim Ruiz commented that the Registrar constituency intended to submit a comment, the key points being:

- that until the GNSO Council restructuring issue was resolved the top level plan framework should not be approved.
- various members raised concern that there were no registrars involved in the planning team

Avri Doria stated that the planning team, including a registrar representative, would meet to discuss the outcome of the public comments before the Council voted on the GNSO Improvements Top Level Plan.

8.3 Next Steps/Decision

Avri Doria proposed:

- that the GNSO Improvements planning team review and revise the Top Level Plan taking into account the public comments and the final results.

- that the Registrar constituency appoints a constituency representative to the planning team

- that the revised Top Level Plan be submitted two weeks after the final Board decision on the Council restructuring.

- that the GNSO Council vote on the GNSO Improvements Top Level Plan at its next meeting which is at least two weeks after the revised report is released.

Item 9 Introductory discussion on Geographic Regions in ICANN

ccNSO Proposal to review Definition of ICANN Geographic Regions

Robert Hoggarth referring to the communication from Denise Michel, noted that the fundamental issue arose late in 2007, when the ccNSO approached the ICANN Board with concerns about the existing construct of the geographic regions within ICANN that involved representational issues, that ccTLDs had concerning the regions to which they were assigned. The ccNSO Council passed a resolution recommending that the ICANN Board appoint a community wide working group to examine the issue. The Board resolution requested input to the Board from Supporting Organisations and Advisory Committees. Staff had the obligation of reporting back to the Board and summarizing the community input. To date this has not been done. The communication from Denise Michel was an invitation to the GNSO Council, the GAC, ALAC, other bodies in ICANN and the community to provide input on the concept of forming a working group to ascertain the community's views and concerns relating to ICANN geographic regions and to report to the ICANN Board before the Cairo meetings.
The issue has particular relevance to the ccNSO but it could have broad implications for the entire organization.

Action:

The Council agreed to form a drafting team in response to the ICANN Board request on ICANN Geographic Regions as set out below.
- The drafting group is open to Councillors, constituency members and interested community participants.
- Chuck Gomes and Olga Cavalli volunteered to be on the drafting team.
- Rob Hoggarth is the staff support.
- The Cairo meetings in November 2008 have been proposed as the time line for the report .

Avri Doria proposed that the Councilors comment on the action items on the Council list.

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

The meeting ended at 13:36 UTC.