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GNSO Council Meeting Minutes

Date: 
06/24/2003

1 July 2003

Proposed agenda and related documents

List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business users C.
Marilyn Cade - Commercial & Business users C.
Grant Forsyth - Commercial & Business users C.
Greg Ruth - ISCPC
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC -
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Ken Stubbs - Registrars
Bruce Tonkin - Registrars
Jeff Neuman - gTLD
Jordyn Buchanan - gTLD
Cary Karp - gTLD
Ellen Shankman - Intellectual Property Interests C. - absent, apologies, proxy to Laurence Djolakian
Laurence Djolakian - Intellectual Property Interests C.
Lynda Roesch - Intellectual Property Interests C. -absent, apologies, proxy to Laurence Djolakian
Milton Mueller - Non Commercial users C.
Chun Eung Hwi - Non Commercial users C. -absent, apologies, proxy to Milton Mueller
Gabriel Pineiro - Non Commercial users C. - absent
Alick Wilson - Nominating Committee
Demi Getschko - Nominating Committee
Amadeu Abril I Abril - Nominating Committee - not yet seated as still a Board member

16 Council Members
Louis Touton - ICANN General Counsel

Audri Mukhopadhyay - GAC Liaison
Thomas Roessler- ALAC Liaison

Young Eum Lee - ccTLD Liaison
Elisabeth Porteneuve - ccTLD Liaison

Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat

Web casting

Quorum present at 14:05 local time, Montreal,

Bruce Tonkin chaired this teleconference.

  • Item 1: Approval of the Agenda
    http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030624.GNSOmontreal-agenda.html

    Agenda approved
  • Item 2: Summary of last meeting
    http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030605.GNSOteleconf-minutes.html
    Ken Stubbs moved the adoption of the minutes seconded by Jeff Neuman.
    The motion was carried unanimously.

    Decision 1: Motion adopted.


  • Item 3: Welcome to the three new council members selected by the ICANN Nominating Committee

    Bruce Tonkin     welcomed:
    Demi Getschko from Brazil, Alick Wilson from New Zealand, and Amadeu Abril I Abril, currently seated on ICANN Board, who would join the GNSO Council following the Board meeting.
  • Item 4. Ratify e-mail vote on GNSO Council chair Bruce Tonkin handed the chair to Philip Sheppard for this agenda item.
    Philip Sheppard reported that the current chairman was renominated, accepted the nomination, duly stood for nomination and the results of the votes which were an electorate of 18 persons were:
    22 votes in favour of Bruce Tonkin, one abstention, (Bruce Tonkin, with 2 votes) total 24 votes.
    Philip Sheppard called for ratification of the vote therefore electing Bruce Tonkin as GNSO Council chair until the conclusion of the ICANN annual meeting in 2003.

    Vote: 23 votes in favour, Bruce Tonkin abstained, (with 2 votes).
    The motion carried.

    Decision 2: Bruce Tonkin elected as GNSO Council chair until the conclusion of the ICANN annual meeting in 2003.

    Philip Sheppard     handed the chair back to Bruce Tonkin who thanked Council for their support.
  • Item 5. Deletes Task Force recommendations
    - approve recommendations as consensus policy
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030617.DeletesTF-report.html
    Bruce Tonkin summarized as follows:
    A draft report was presented to Council at the teleconference on April 17
    http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030417.GNSOteleconf-minutes.html
    ICANN Staff provided input suggesting that the implementation issues of the recommendations needed to looked into further.
    Subsequently an implementation committee was formed with representation from registries, registrars as well as representation from the Deletes task force membership to deal with the concerns.
    The Deletes implementation committee completed its report, the Deletes Task Force, revised its recommendations.
    Jordyn Buchanan, chair of the Deletes Task Force, presented the Deletes task force recommendations, reminding Council of the 4 areas it was charted to discuss.

    1. Uniform delete practice, after domain name expiry by registrars. All recommendations were made with regard to this issue.
    2. The deletion following a complaint on WHOIS accuracy.
    3. Registry delete process.
    Interest was expressed by the task force for further exploration and it was recommended that Council pursue the issue in a new task force, as a result could not be produced in the time frame and scope of the present one.
    4. Reversal of renewal transactions
    While this was an issue of concern, it was proposed that it be dealt with in a technical fora to add the capability rather than in a policy fora.

    Recommendations:
    3.1 Uniform deletion practice after domain name expiry by registrars
    3.1.1 Domain names must be deleted if a paid renewal has not been received by the registrar from the registrant or someone acting on the registrant’s behalf by the end of the Auto-renew Grace Period (generally forty-five days after the domain's initial expiration). As a mechanism for enforcing this requirement, registries may elect to delete names for which an explicit renew command has not been received prior to the expiration of the grace period.

    3.1.2 Domain names must be deleted within 45 days of the expiration of the registration agreement between the registrar and registrant, unless the agreement is renewed.

    3.1.3 These requirements retroactively apply to all existing domain name registrations beginning 180 days after the adoption of the policy.

    3.1.4 Registrars must provide a summary of their deletion policy, as well as an indication of any auto-renewal policy that they may have, at the time of registration. This policy should include the expected time at which non-renewed domain name would be deleted relative to the domain's expiration date, or a date range not to exceed ten days in length.

    3.1.5 Registrars must provide their deletion and auto-renewal policies in a conspicuous place on their websites.

    3.1.6 Registrars should provide, both at the time of registration and in a conspicuous place on their website, the fee charged for the recovery of a domain name during the Redemption Grace Period.


    3.2 Registrar deletion practice after domain name expiry for domain names subject to a pending UDRP dispute
    3.2.1 In the event that a domain the subject of a UDRP dispute is likely to expire during the course of the dispute, the dispute resolution provider will notify both the complainant and respondent of the impending expiration either at the time the dispute is filed, or no later than 30 days prior to the expiration of the domain. In order to facilitate this process, registrars will provide the expiration date of the domain at the time it confirms the registration of the domain to the UDRP provider.

    3.2.2 In such an event, the complainant will have the option to pay for a one year renewal at the sponsoring registrar's current prevailing rate for renewals.

    3.2.3 In the event that the complainant paid the renewal fee prior to the domain name’s expiration, the original registrant will have up to thirty days after the end of the relevant registry’s Auto-renew Grace Period in which to pay for the renewal of the domain name. If neither the complainant or the original registrant pay for the renewal of domain name, it will be subject to deletion no later than the end of the Auto-renew Grace Period.

    3.2.4 In the event that both the registrant and the complainant pay for the renewal, the name will be renewed on behalf of the original registrant in accordance with the registrar's usual policy, and any renewal fee paid by the complainant will be refunded and shall not effect this provision.

    3.2.5 In the event that only the complainant pays for the renewal of the domain name, prior to the expiration of the Auto-renew Grace Period the registrar will:

    3.2.5.1 Place the name on REGISTRAR HOLD and REGISTRAR LOCK, with the result that the name will no longer resolve in the DNS.

    3.2.5.2 Modify the Whois entry for the domain name to indicate that the name is the subject to a UDRP dispute, and to remove all specific registration information for the Whois record.

    3.2.5.3 If the complaint is terminated prior to a panel decision being rendered, but after the domain name reaches this state, the domain name will be deleted.

    3.2.6 Where only the complainant paid the renewal fee for a domain name the subject of a UDRP action and the complainant’s UDRP case fails, if the relevant registry’s normal renewal grace period has expired, the domain name will be deleted.

    3.2.7 In all other cases, the registrar shall comply with the outcome of the UDRP dispute in accordance with its regular policies.

    3.3 Deletion following a complaint on WHOIS accuracy
    3.3.1 The Redemption Grace Period will apply to names deleted due to a complaint on WHOIS accuracy. However, prior to allowing the redemption in such a case, the registrar must update the registration with verified WHOIS data and provide a statement indicating that the data has been verified in conjunction with the request for the name’s redemption. The same rules that apply to verification of WHOIS data for regular domain names following a complaint will apply to deleted names.

    Jordyn Buchanan proposed adding the supermajority task force vote:
    In favour:
    Intellectual Properly Interests constituency, Internet service and Connectivity Providers constituency, Non commercial Users constituency, Commercial and Business Users constituency, Registrars and gTLD Registries constituencies.
    Vote Against:
    ccTLD representative
    No Vote registered:
    General Assembly representative did not vote

    to the Final Deletes report before sending it to the ICANN Board for approval.

    During discussion, Louis Touton remarked on the language of :

    3.2.1 In the event that a domain the subject of a UDRP dispute is likely to expire during the course of the dispute, the dispute resolution provider will notify both the complainant and respondent of the impending expiration either at the time the dispute is filed, or no later than 30 days prior to the expiration of the domain. In order to facilitate this process, registrars will provide the expiration date of the domain at the time it confirms the registration of the domain to the UDRP provider.

    and suggested it should read
    "In the event that a domain name which is the subject of a UDRP dispute is deleted or expires during the course of the dispute.... "

    Bruce Tonkin called for the policy recommendations to be put to the vote,
    ( According to the Policy Development Process, each person should vote individually.)

    Vote: All Council members present in favour; as well as the proxies carried by Milton Mueller for Chun Eung Hwi and Laurence Djolakian for Ellen Shankman and Lynda Roesch, 25 votes.

    Motion carried.

    Decision 3: The Deletes Task Force final report was recorded as a consensus recommendation to be forwarded to the ICANN Board with the appropriate changes in paragraph 3.2.1.

    Bruce Tonkin, joined by Jeff Neuman, thanked the Deletes Task Force and its chair, Jordyn Buchanan, for the good work done.

  • Item 6. Discussion of ICANN Staff Manager's Issue Report on UDRP
    - decide whether to implement policy development process on UDRP

    Bruce Tonkin     asked Louis Touton, as Staff Manager or General Counsel to comment.
    Louis Touton commented as General Counsel and apologised that the Issue report on UDRP which was requested by the Council in Rio de Janeiro was not complete due to pressure of work.

    Bruce Tonkin asked Louis Touton to provide an update on the status of the WHOIS and Transfers task force recommendations the Board accepted.
    Louis Touton reported that the WHOIS recommendations forwarded by the Council to the Board in February, were accepted by the Board at the ICANN Rio de Janeiro meeting at the end of March.
    1. The implementation process has begun and notification has been posted on the ICANN website setting forth the second consensus policy ever, called the WDRP, standing for the WHOIS Data Reminder Policy, regarding the first recommendation relating to registrars notifying their customers and reminding them to update the WHOIS data on record .
    (see: http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/wdrp.htm)
    It is planned is to phase the policy in from October 31,2003 to October 31, 2004, so that reminders would occur at the renewal or anniversary dates of registration creations.
    2. Circumstances or handling of names that are deleted due to inaccurate WHOIS data and if they go into the redemption grace period, they can be restored by the registrant but cannot become activated, taken off registrar hold until the data is rectified.
    This policy is due to be implemented and was held up waiting the outcome of the Deletes Task Force report.
    3 & 4. Relate to the prohibition of marketing Bulk WHOIS data and will be implemented within the next three to four weeks.
    Transfer recommendations, some aspects require further community or task force consultation such as the form of a standard notice for authorization of a transfer. This is being undertaken in consultation with a group of providers.
    A word of caution was given to Council and to staff, that when things are done, they should be done right which requires prioritization of the limited resources.

  • Item 7: Update on ICANN President's working group to consider WIPO recommendations

    Bruce Tonkin     stated that the Board asked the Council to provide advice. Council provided the advice that the recommendations needed further analysis and that the President consider creating a policy development process before voting or recommendations could be considered. Subsequently the Board did meet and stated that the President would contact the GNSO, ALAC, GAC chairs to form a working group.


  • Item 8: gTLDs committee report on new gTLDs
    - approve report associated with the GNSO Council resolution of 22 May 2003: (Expansion of the gTLD namespace should be a bottom-up approach with names proposed by the interested parties to ICANN. Expansion should be demand-driven. Furthermore, there should be a set of objective criteria to be met in any future expansion. The development of this set of objective criteria should be the subject of a new Policy Development Process (PDP). These ideas are expanded in a report together with the responses of the GNSO Constituencies and the ALAC which will be forwarded to the Board in June.) Document: http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030612.gTLDs-committee-conclusions-v7.html

     Bruce Tonkin     stated that that the ICANN board had requested the advice of the GNSO Council on whether the new gTLDs should be structured in such a way that perhaps there was a predefined list of names and that entities could potentially be proposed to operate one of those names or alternately, organizations that wished to create a new TLD could propose one of their own.
    The recommendation was that the namespace should be market driven and that organizations were free to propose names that they believed would be of use to DNS users.

    Philip Sheppard,     chair of the gTLD Council committee reported that the final report before Council divided up:
    - Objectives in expansion of the namespace which summarized previous statements of the then Names Council or the Board and what would be subject to a future policy development process
    - List of possible criteria
    - Statement with regard to continuity in the event of business failure
    - Criteria relating to technical and financial competence?
    Editorial changes and suggestions were made.
    The report was a complement to the resolution adopted:
    http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20030522.GNSOteleconf-minutes.html

    Louis Touton commented that the report was one of the many inputs to a process of evaluation on gTLDs and the alternatives for handling them in the future.
    Cary Karp asked what the relation was to the RFP that had been posted:
    http://www.icann.org/tlds/new-stld-rfp/new-stld-rfp-24jun03.htm

    Louis Touton responded that the document posted was further work on moving forward on the RFP based on the criteria that were discussed at the Rio de Janeiro meeting and in writing subsequently. The study of the various items that the new TLD evaluation process recommended would be supplemented by other inputs to reach consensus in the community about how best to deal with the introduction of new top level domains.

    Bruce Tonkin called for a vote to approve the report to be given to the ICANN Board by the GNSO Council.

    Vote: All Council members present in favour; as well as the proxies carried by Milton Mueller for Chun Eung Hwi and Laurence Djolakian for Ellen Shankman and Lynda Roesch, 25 votes.

    Motion carried.

    Decision 4: The GNSO council concludes: Expansion of the gTLD namespace should be a bottom-up approach with names proposed by the interested parties to ICANN. Expansion should be demand-driven. Furthermore, there should be a set of objective criteria to be met in any future expansion. The development of this set of objective criteria should be the subject of a new Policy Development Process (PDP). These ideas are expanded in a report together with the responses of the GNSO Constituencies and the ALAC which will be forwarded to the Board in June.


    Item 9: Discussion on improving communication between the ICANN Board and the GNSO.

    Bruce Tonkin,     referring to a Council communication by Jeff Neuman
    http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc13/msg00001.html
    reported that there was discussion on the Council list about ICANN Board members participating in GNSO Council discussions and suggested that Board members could be invited to speak to Council where a briefing on a topic of concern or the Council could seek clarification from the Board regarding its process or consideration or what advice it was seeking from the Council.
    Louis Touton responded to the message to Council stating that it started from a false premise that the Council had representatives on the Board. Two members were selected by the GNSO Council that sit in parallel with all other Board members that have a duty to the Internet community and ICANN.
    He was of the opinion that there would be no objection periodically requesting interactions with Board members.
    Jeff Neuman clarified that what he meant was a liaison function.

    Bruce Tonkin proposed the following motion:
    The GNSO Council requests the Chair to communicate with the ICANN President to seek some mechanisms for improving the communication between the Board and the GNSO Council.

    Vote: All Council members present in favour; as well as the proxies carried by Milton Mueller for Chun Eung Hwi and Laurence Djolakian for Ellen Shankman and Lynda Roesch, 25 votes.
    Motion carried.

    Decision 5: The GNSO Council Chair will communicate with the ICANN President to seek some mechanisms for improving the communication between the Board and the GNSO Council.

    Item 9: Any Other Business

    9. a. WHOIS privacy steering Group
    Bruce Tonkin     announced that two Nominating Committee appointees to the GNSO Council agreed to join the WHOIS Privacy steering group and that the group was scheduled to meet during the Montreal meeting.

    9. b. ccNSO
    Marilyn Cade reported on the Country Code Naming Supporting Organization (ccNSO) saying that many of the constituencies were supportive of the creation of the ccNSO. Open dialogue between the Government Advisory Committee and the Board was attended by several Council members as well open meetings between the ccNSO and the Evolution and Reform Committee (ERC). Many of the differences that were in existence between the ERC and the Country Codes were broadly and narrowly addressed which indicated broad support for the formation of a ccNSO with a large number of Country Code members who would be coming into the Supporting Organization. A Country Code Name Supporting Organization would probably be seated by the next ICANN meeting in Carthage.

    9.c. RFP relating to new gTLDs
    Jeff Neuman raised the topic of the RFP.
    http://www.icann.org/tlds/new-stld-rfp/new-stld-rfp-24jun03.htm
    saying that the comment period was short and asked whether the GNSO Council would want to make a joint comment, or whether individuals could respond.
    Louis Touton commented that comments should be made as soon as possible and that there would be a possibility for discussion during the Public Forum.

    Bruce Tonkin suggested that individual constituencies put forward coordinated comments.

    9. d. The filtering of new top-level domains by the ISPS.
    http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc13/msg00012.html

    Jeff Neuman     stated that the gTLD Registry constituency put forth a paper called;
    The filtering of new top-level domains by the ISPS which had been sent to Council:
    Subsequently notice was given that the paper had been included in the RPF. Response to the paper was encouraged.
    There had been response to the word "filtering" that would probably be substituted by "support" or "supporting of top-level domains.
    Further more it was believed that it was not only an ISP problem but an application problem that affected the businesses not just of the sponsored TLDs but also several of the unsponsored TLDs. A proposal for moving forward would be advantageous.

    Tony Holmes commented that the word "filtering" had been misleading and led the ISPs to investigate the problem. The issue was the way the new domain names are looked at within the resolves and the way that the action was taken.
    Mark Mc Fadden, the ISPCPC secretary commented from the floor that 15 ISPs in North America and 5 ISPs in Europe had been surveyed and no instances of filtering were found. It has been made an item for discussion in the ISPCPC.

    Louis Touton commented on process saying that the sTLD RPF
    http://www.icann.org/tlds/new-stld-rfp/new-stld-rfp-24jun03.htm
    had been posted in draft form, exhibit E was the paper provided by the gTLD registries constituency. The purpose for including it was to alert possible applicants to the reality that getting a TLD in the root does not necessarily work for end users, giving a measure of fairness to the applicants in assessing how to proceed.
    If the gTLD registry wished to amend the paper by removing the word "filtering" they should do so quickly.

    Bruce Tonkin said the action to be taken from the meeting was to mention during the Public Forum
    - that a technical issue had been identified. That there had been some problems with resolving some of the new TLDs, just as there would be problems in the rollout of IDNs as well. Consideration should be given to improving and increasing awareness among the different parties as technical changes at the core of the DNS which affects the viability of some of the new registries.
    - that something should be coming out of the evaluation of the new TLD process.
    - that it should be remembered that the seven new TLDs were created as an initial experiment, and that the issue is an example of a problem that has arisen in the process which could not be foreseen initially and should be taken into consideration when creating new TLDs.

    9. d. Resolution thanking Louis Touton

    Bruce Tonkin proposed a final resolution:
    To thank Louis Touton as General Counsel of ICANN, who had announced that he would be leaving ICANN, for the enormous support that he had provided both the Names Council and the GNSO Council. That he was available at 5:00 am for some of the GNSO teleconferences as well as available on Sundays. He made himself available to the Council well beyond the average call of duty for any individual and the GNSO Council formally thanked him for his dedication and the work that he put into ICANN.

    The GNSO Council unanimously supported the resolution with a standing ovation.

    Louis Touton reciprocated by thanking Council for the good healthy dialogue, engagement and working together to solve problems to help people on the Internet and felt gratified having been able to work with the DNSO/GNSO Council since 1999.


    Bruce Tonkin declared GNSO meeting closed, and thanked everybody for attending, at 3:45 local time.
    The meeting ended: 15:45     local time

    Next GNSO Council teleconference: Thursday July 17, 2003 at 12:00 UTC
    see: <http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/>