GNSO Council Teleconference Minutes
| 25 September 2008
Proposed agenda and documents List of attendees: 12 Council Members GNSO Council Liaisons Rita Rodin - ICANN Board member - absent, apologies Chuck Gomes chaired the meeting. Denise Michel introduced Ken Bour, a consultant working with the Policy staff on the GNSO Improvements project. Item 2: Review/amend the agenda The current plan differs from the previous version in that 'standing committees' are referred to as 'steering committees' with a coordinating role and to reflect their temporary nature they will have a sunset date corresponding to the 2009 annual meeting. The implementation and planning for the Council restructuring will be dealt with as a separate and parallel track in terms of implementing all the GNSO improvements. The plan recommends that the steering committees be kept small, 12 or less, which includes one representative per constituency who does not have to be a councilor, a Nominating Committee representative, and the opportunity for ALAC and GAC representation. Action Item Council representatives are asked to distribute the updated draft GNSO Improvements Implementation Plan right away, expedite discussions in their constituencies, and be prepared to vote on a motion at the GNSO Council meeting on 16 October 2008. In addition constituencies should be starting the process of selecting one representative each for the two steering committees so that the first Steering Committee meetings can be held in Cairo. Chuck Gomes reminded Council that Saturday, 1 November and Sunday 2 November 2008, were set aside as GNSO Council open working sessions, with New gTLDs, GNSO Improvements and working group meetings on the schedule. No votes will be taken at these meetings. On Sunday afternoon the GNSO Council and the GAC will meet and, among other topics, discuss issues regarding the geographic place names and country names and it is hoped that there will be a staff proposal, which may be different from what the Reserved Names working group recommended, to discuss with the GAC. Item 8: Whois Hypotheses Study Group Tim Ruiz proposed an amendment to the motion and explained that the purpose was to first get an opinion on what aspects may or may not be in scope of GNSO policy work (within registry picket fence, for example). Chuck Gomes proposed amending the motion to 30 days for Staff to deliver the Issues Report. Whereas: 1. ICANN's mission is to ensure the security and stability of the DNS, and to develop policy reasonably related to that mission. 2. Various forms of DNS abuse, in isolation and/or in the aggregate, cause a less secure and stable DNS. 3. Some of ICANN's gTLD registry agreements and appended registry-registrar agreements contain a provision such as Section 3.6.5 of the.info Registry Agreement, Appendix 8 : 3.6.5. (Registrars) acknowledge and agree that Afilias reserves the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold or similar status, that it deems necessary, in its discretion; (1) to protect the integrity and stability of the registry; (2) to comply with any applicable laws, government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement, or any dispute resolution process; (3) to avoid any liability, civil or criminal, on the part of Afilias, as well as its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors, and employees; (4) per the terms of the registration agreement or (5) to correct mistakes made by Afilias or any Registrar in connection with a domain name registration. Afilias also reserves the right to place upon registry lock, hold or similar status a domain name during resolution of a dispute. 4. Afilias, the dotInfo Registry Operator, per its recent RSTEP request, has sought to clarify and implement its specific abusive registration policy with respect to this provision. This request has been approved by ICANN. 5. Some of ICANN's gTLD registry agreements, notably the VeriSign contracts for .com and .net, have no such provision. Other gTLD registry agreements do contain such provision, but the registry operators have not developed or have inconsistently developed abusive registration policies. The GNSO Council resolves to request an Issues Report from ICANN Staff within 30 days with respect to the following: 1. To identify and describe the various provisions in existing and previous gTLD registry and registry-registrar agreements which relate to contracting parties' ability to take action in response to abuse. 2. To identify and describe various provisions in a representative sampling of gTLD registration agreements which relate to contracting parties' and/or registrants rights and obligations with respect to abuse. 3. To identify and describe any previous discussion in ICANN fora which substantively pertains to provisions of this nature in any of these agreements. 4. To request an opinion of ICANN Staff as to which aspects of registration abuse policies as discussed above may be within the scope of GNSO policy development. 11 votes in favour: The proposed timeline is that the ALAC will approve the request for an Issues Report at its meeting on October 14, 2008, and finalise the request during the ICANN meetings in Cairo in November 2008. Robin Gross stated that NCUC would be interested in cooperating on the proposal. 2. Council representatives are asked to distribute the updated draft GNSO Improvements Implementation Plan right away, expedite discussions in their constituencies, and be prepared to vote on a motion at the GNSO Council meeting on 16 October 2008. In addition constituencies should be starting the process of selecting one representative each for the two steering committees so that the first Steering Committee meetings can be held in Cairo. 3. Constituencies should call for volunteers for a drafting team to develop a proposal for consideration by the Council for ICANN subsidization of GNSO travel expenses. Volunteer's names should be sent to the Council mailing list. 4. Councilors should forward the WHOIS Hypotheses Study Group report to their respective constituencies ASAP for discussion and comment as applicable in preparation for beginning the process at the Council meeting on 16 October 2008 of deciding which, if any studies should be pursued further. see: Calendar |