GNSO Council Teleconference Minutes

21 November 2003.

Proposed agenda and related documents

List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business users C.
Marilyn Cade - Commercial & Business users C. absent, apologies
Grant Forsyth - Commercial & Business users C.
Greg Ruth - ISCPC - absent
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC - absent, apologies, proxy to Tony Harris
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Ross Rader - Registrars
Bruce Tonkin - Registrars
Ken Stubbs - gTLD
Jordyn Buchanan - gTLD
Cary Karp - gTLD - absent, apologies, proxy to Jordyn Buchanan
Ellen Shankman - Intellectual Property Interests C. absent, apologies, proxy to Niklas Lagergren
Niklas Lagergren - Intellectual Property Interests C.
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C. - absent
Marc Schneiders - Non Commercial users C
Jisuk Woo - Non Commercial users C. - absent, apologies, proxy to Marc Schneiders
Carlos Afonso- Non Commercial users C. - absent
Alick Wilson - absent, apologies
Demi Getschko
Amadeu Abril I Abril

12 Council Members

John Jeffrey - ICANN General Counsel and Secretary
Kurt Pritz - ICANN Vice President of Business Operations
Barbara Roseman - ICANN Consultant, Issues Report author

Christopher Wilkinson - Acting GAC Liaison
Thomas Roessler - ALAC Liaison
Young-Eum Lee - ccTLD liaison

Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat
MP3 recording

Quorum present at 19 :10 UTC

Bruce Tonkin chaired this teleconference.

Item 1: Confirmation of current members
- report from GNSO Secretariat

The GNSO Secretariat confirmed that all 6 constituencies had held elections and appointed 3 representatives each to the GNSO Council. Two constituencies, Non Commercial and Commercial and Business Users constituencies had not yet specified the terms of office for the appointed representatives.

Item 2: Election of GNSO Chair

Bruce Tonkin handed the chair to Philip Sheppard as he was a candidate for the GNSO Chair elections.

Philip Sheppard called upon the GNSO Secretary for the list of nominations who reported that Bruce Tonkin was the only person nominated.
Philip Sheppard, seconded by Jordyn Buchanan and Ken Stubbs, proposed the motion:
to elect Bruce Tonkin as Chair of the GNSO Council for the next one year.

The motion carried. All members present with proxies in favour , one abstention, Bruce Tonkin

Decision 1: Bruce Tonkin is elected GNSO Council chair for one year, November 20, 2003 to November 20, 2004.

Philip Sheppard on behalf of the GNSO Council congratulated Bruce Tonkin on his splendid work and handed the chair back to him.


Item 3: Approval of minutes of last meeting

Ken Stubbs proposed deferring the minutes to the next meeting as they had only been published recently.

Decision 2: Defer approval of minutes to next meeting.

Item 4: Update on appointment of representatives to the 3 WHOIS task forces
- discuss next steps

Bruce Tonkin drew the attention to a request by Niklas Lagergren, the Intellectual Property Interests constituency representative,
"The IP constituency is currently looking at appropriate ways to contribute to the work of the 3 Whois task forces in an efficient manner. In this context, it is our view that nominating only one representative to each task force (TF) would result in excessive work-load for each chosen person. Therefore, I would like to invoke the last sentence in the policy development process (PDP) sec. 5(1) (i.e. "The Council may increase the number of Representatives per constituency that may sit on a task force in its discretion in circumstances that it deems necessary or appropriate.")"
Bruce stated that there were two options open:
- Council could formally request that there be more than one representative per constituency on each task force, or
- Council could decide on one representative at any one time as spokesman for the constituency on the task force, but the constituency could appoint other people as members of the mailing list and who could listen in to teleconferences.

Addressing the issue, Niklas Lagergren said that the Intellectual Property Interests constituency had selected more than one representative, the key issue being flexibility.
Jordyn Buchanan was supportive of no formal change to the task force structure, but supported appointing additional members without changing the voting structure.
Philip Sheppard proposed that the WHOIS task forces serve as a testbed for multiple representatives and that each task force chair report back on problems experienced.
Marc Schneiders reported that the Non Commercial Users constituency was opposed to the proposal as extra people on the task force would have an influence on the outcome. The NCUC, who could only send one representative, felt they were most affected and would be marginalized if other constituencies could have multiple representation.
Thomas Roessler argued that the workload would be more evenly spread with more than one person.

Bruce Tonkin, seconded by Philip Sheppard, proposed:
That for the purpose of the WHOIS task forces, constituencies be allowed to appoint more than one person to listen in on teleconferences and to participate in the mailing list, but in any single teleconference or physical meeting, there is only one person from the constituency to represent the constituency's views.

All Council members present with proxies voted in favour (22 votes)
The motion was carried.

Decision 3: That for the purpose of the WHOIS task forces, constituencies be allowed to appoint more than one person to listen in on teleconferences and to participate in the mailing list, but in any single teleconference or physical meeting, there is only one person from the constituency to represent the constituency's views.

Bruce Tonkin continued with the next issues:
- Holding of the first meeting and for each task force to select a chair
- At the GNSO Council meeting in Tunisia
it was decided that each task force should identify a timeline for the work and if more than the prescribed 90 days was required, the task force should come back to Council for an extension.
- The ICANN bylaws state that a staff manager will assist the policy development in each area.

Kurt Pritz informed Council that Barbara Roseman would fill the role of ICANN staff manager.

Action: The GNSO Secretariat would set up mailing lists, archives, call for nominations for task force chairs and set up first meeting.
It was clarified that a task force chair did not necessarily have to be a member of a constituency.

Bruce Tonkin, seconded by Thomas Keller, proposed that:
Amadeu Abril I Abril, as an independent Council member, be appointed to task force 2, on WHOIS Review of Data Collected and Displayed.

The motion was carried unanimously

Decision 4: Amadeu Abril I Abril, as an independent Council member, be appointed to task force 2, on WHOIS Review of Data Collected and Displayed.

Philip Sheppard's concern about scheduling time conflicts that may arise with ICANN staff support was addressed by Kurt Pritz who stated that the Staff Manager would bring in other forms of ICANN support as skill and expertise were needed.
As a point of clarification addressing a concern expressed by Niklas Lagergren, Bruce Tonkin stated that task force voting was not the formal voting required by the GNSO Council procedure and that with multiple representation on the task force, if the primary representative of a constituency was absent, the constituency could identify a person to fill that role.

Item 5: Issues report on Registry services

Bruce Tonkin proposed the following procedural process:
That Council accept the Staff Manager summarizing the report, and a teleconference be scheduled in 7 days to vote on the initiation of a policy development process.

Procedural proposal accepted unanimously by Council.

Decision 5: That Council accept the Staff Manager summarizing the report, and a teleconference be scheduled in 7 days to vote on the initiation of a policy development process.

Barbara Roseman summarized saying that the Issues report provided an overview of the issue raised by Council, how approving changes worked in the past and inconsistencies in the current process that could be addressed by elaborating a process, creating documentation, allowing for transparency, examining technical and competition harm and building in timelines to make a predictable process.

Christopher Wilkinson, standing in for the GAC liaison, asked how the intellectual property sensitivity of commercial services would be handled?
Barbara Roseman stated that confidentiality had been raised and there were ways to assure it up to a certain point. In addition, the party appling for a change would have the option of not going further with the evaluation which would also cover competition issues.
Christopher Wilkinson noted that these were not new problems; there were standardization fora that existed and proposed reviewing how organizations like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) dealt with the problem of intellectual property issues
Philip Sheppard asked why the report recommended the second mechanism for the policy development process, proceeding without a task force, in which case each constituency appointed a representative to gather constituency views and provided them to the Staff Manager for inclusion, along with other information, in a report, which would be submitted to the Council.
Barbara Roseman stated that there was no strong thinking on the point, however it was felt it would facilitate meeting the time line and be easier to coordinate outside input.
Bruce Tonkin drew attention to the fact that under the second model it was incumbent on Council to set terms of reference and be in charge of the process.
Jordyn Buchanan expressed some of the gTLD Registry constituency concerns.
Instead of raising issues, the Issues report appeared to be prescriptive, setting down a blueprint how Council ought to be proceeding rather than opening the door to look at what the process should be.
A number of issues considered important in the first report have been left out in the second report, such as the concept of whether it was better, to consider registry services on their merits or to alter the registry service contracts and assure that certain services were not offered that did not meet the community interests.
The assumption that ICANN was a regulatory body rather than an equal participant in the gTLD contractual relationship was disturbing.
It was felt that the report did not make a distinction between unsponsored registries which need price approval from ICANN for services they wished to offer and sponsored registries that have a community they serve. The report implied that ICANN should be the arbiter regardless of the impact on the community.
It was considered that the definition of a registry service and how it was determined was missing. In addition it appeared that non registry services a registry operator might offer, might be subject to this process.
The registry constituency expressed that they would not support moving forward on the report.
Jordyn Buchanan asked specifically what had happened to the question raised by the GNSO Council regarding an appropriate process to look at modifying registry contracts so as to exclude undesirable registry behaviour, as opposed to having what now appeared to be a convoluted approval process before introducing a service.
John Jeffrey commented that in the approach taken, it was considered that a Registry could take actions that could have a contractual, security and stability impact that may not constitute Registry service changes. Thus the specific issue up front was whether the scope of the proposed policy development process only concerned Registry services under contract or whether it addressed, in a broader sense, significant changes.
Bruce Tonkin clarified Jordyn Buchanan's concern that a Registry could take two courses of action as an organization with an approval process for change. If the change was seen as minor there was a fast track process, but if the change was seen as having an impact on other parties, further work would be required.
John Jeffrey replied that the intent was to create a decision stream that allowed different issues to be treated and separated in different ways depending on how the impact might be seen.
Bruce Tonkin said that the alternative was to have a code of conduct model, so that an issue could be dealt with as a breach of rule.
Barbara Roseman added that feedback on the report indicated it was preferable to evaluate the harm before introducing the service than take actions after the fact which could lead to instability in the system.
The intent was to facilitate new service introduction and create a predictable process for the Registry to reach quick conclusions.
Thomas Roessler drew attention to recommendations to the GNSO Council:
"A Policy development process should be initiated to develop a policy to guide the establishment of a predictable procedure for ICANN's consideration of proposals by registry operators and sponsors for changes in the architecture and operation of a gTLD registry."
The latter statement and the letter from Paul Twomey would imply a process to review any changes. The report further mentions new proposals from registries to change contracts.
He specifically asked:
- what was meant by policy?
- was the proposal to focus on a process for whenever ICANN was in the position to make an agreement on a change?
Barbara Roseman replied that the intent was aimed at certain types of registry operation changes to the Domain Name System (DNS) functions, not changes in any internal registry management functions. The emerging process was focussed on what concerns the process had to address, while the detailed process itself should be left to the ICANN President to establish. Thus the GNSO should develop policy describing the essential characteristics of the process, rather than the detailed administrative process.
Bruce Tonkin clarified the core issue quoting from the Issues report:
"a. The issue raised for consideration is the development of a policy to guide the establishment of a predictable procedure for ICANN's consideration of proposals by registry operators and sponsors for contractual approvals or amendments to allow changes in the architecture or operation of a TLD registry. Sub-issues to be considered are discussed under "Issues to be addressed by the PDP" above."
Given that ICANN does require approval for changes in the registry contracts, a predictable procedure was needed and the policy would be more binding on ICANN than the registry operators.
Marc Schneiders expressed concern about the over bureaucratic structure of the report.
Ken Stubbs proposed further consultation with constituencies and a FAQ format on the ICANN/GNSO website to assure interaction with the ICANN staff.
Christopher Wilkinson encouraged the GNSO to avoid ideological terminology. A substantial number of governments needed to know where the regulatory authority in the Internet lay. Currently it lay in the ICANN /Government Advisory Committee (GAC) public private partnership and it was not productive to deny that ICANN held any regulatory role.
Ross Rader asked where the constituency comments and submissions could be found.
Barbara Roseman would check with constituencies whether these could be published and make them available.
Amadeu Abril I Abril noted that registries were managing resources on behalf of the community and the core issue was if and whether registry services that arose were needed and how the services demanded by the community through ICANN would be accommodated in the registry contracts.

Christopher Wilkinson leaves the teleconference.

Philip Sheppard proposed that the GNSO Council as a whole should proceed with the policy development process.
Philip Sheppard, seconded by Antonio Harris proposed:
that the GNSO Council as a whole go ahead with the policy development process.

Bruce Tonkin proposed that the motion be voted on at the next GNSO Council meeting


Bruce Tonkin proposed using a similar procedure to the WHOIS task forces:
- identifying terms of reference from the Issues report
- determining how to conduct the policy development (task force or otherwise).

Bruce Tonkin noted that both a task force or the GNSO Council as a whole group proceeding on the issue were within the ICANN bylaws.
Barbara Roseman asked for questions to be sent as early as possible.

Bruce Tonkin proposed scheduling the next GNSO Council meeting within 7 days

Bruce Tonkin declared GNSO teleconference closed, and thanked everybody for attending.
The meeting ended: 20:45 UTC

• Next GNSO Council teleconference: Tuesday December 2, 2003 at 19:00 UTC
  see: http://gnso.icann.org/calendar/