GNSO Council Sao Paulo Meeting Minutes

6 December 2006

Proposed agenda and related documents

List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business Users C.
Marilyn Cade - Commercial & Business Users C.
Alistair Dixon - Commercial & Business Users C
Greg Ruth - ISCPC
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC
Thomas Keller- Registrars - absent - apologies
Ross Rader - Registrars
Bruce Tonkin - Registrars
Ken Stubbs - gTLD registries
June Seo - gTLD registries
Cary Karp - gTLD registries - remote participation
Kristina Rosette - Intellectual Property Interests C
Ute Decker - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent - apologies
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent
Robin Gross - NCUC.
Norbert Klein - NCUC.
Mawaki Chango - NCUC
Sophia Bekele - Nominating Committee appointee
Maureen Cubberley - Nominating Committee appointee - absent - apologies
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

15 Council Members
(18 Votes quorum)

ICANN Staff
Dan Halloran - Deputy General Counsel
Denise Michel - Vice President, Policy Development
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination
Liz Williams - Senior Policy Counselor
Maria Farrell - GNSO Policy Officer
Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat

GNSO Council Liaisons
Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison - absent - apologies
Bret Fausett - ALAC Liaison


Quorum present at 12:40 UTC.

Real time transcription

Bruce Tonkin chaired this meeting

Approval of the agenda

Philip Sheppard, seconded by Ken Stubbs proposed a procedural motion with an accepted friendly amendment from Marilyn Cade:
To elect Bruce Tonkin as GNSO Council chair until the conclusion of the current election period.

Motion carried by a unanimous vote of acclamation

Decision 1: Bruce Tonkin elected as GNSO Council chair until the conclusion of the current election period.

Item 1: Update any statements of interest
Marilyn Cade, member of the business constituency restated her interest statement: " I advise AT&T, I advise TTPC, which is the parent of one of the new registries and provide an external appeals process, and I advise Overstock.com that is interested in registering a single-letter second-letter name. Those are the three clients that I have that some people may think may have an interest in ICANN's policy work."

Item 2: Approval of the GNSO Council minutes of 16 November 2006.
Ken Stubbs , seconded by Ross Rader moved the adoption of the minutes.

Motion approved.

Decision 2: The GNSO Council minutes of 16 November 2006 were adopted.

Bruce Tonkin noted that the outcome of two decisions arising from the GNSO Council meeting on 16 November 2006 meeting http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/
would be conveyed to the ICANN board during the current ICANN Meetings.

Item 3: Correspondence
- From ICANN Board chair regarding biz, info, org agreements
- From GAC chair regarding new gTLD PDP
- Welcome letter for meeting in São Paulo

No discussion arose from the correspondence

Item 4: Next steps on new gTLDs work
- confirm current status
- update timeline

Liz Williams reported that prior to the Lisbon meeting, there would be a draft final report on the Introduction of New Generic Top-Level Domains ready for public comment, that would include all inputs received at the current meeting, formal correspondence between the supporting organizations and Advisory Committees. A timeline for the work would be published on the Calendar.

There was general support for a proposed face to face meeting in mid February in Los Angeles.

Item 5: Next steps on PDP-Feb06 with respect to existing gTLDs
- confirm current status
- update timeline

Avri Doria reported that the proposed timeline for constituency statements on the various proposals were expected by 20 December 2006, and the goal was to complete the proposed recommendations by the 1 of February 2007.
It was proposed that the task force would meet in mid-February to confirm the report for distribution to the GNSO council at its meeting on 22 February 2007.
A 21 day public comment period would follow ending 18 March 2007. Final comments would be incorporated and it was hoped that the Final Report would be presented at the Lisbon ICANN meetings. Meeting at the same time as the proposed new gTLDs face to face meeting would be advantageous.

Item 6: Next steps on WHOIS PDP
- confirm current status
- update timeline

Maria Farrell reported that the Preliminary WHOIS task force report,
published for public comment, mainly dealt with two proposals, the OPoC proposal and the Special Circumstances Proposal.
The public comments period, closing on January 15 2007 will be running consecutively with the gathering of constituency statements which will be included in the final task force report.
Approximately six more meetings were foreseen to complete the remaining work on the access to data.

Ross Rader suggested the Council create some incentive for that task force to finish its work and proposed that if their work was not completed by the Lisbon meeting that the task force be disbanded.
Marilyn Cade mentioned that a discussion with the Government Advisory Council on their WHOIS principles should be taken into account to make an informed decision on the eventual conclusion to the task force.
Ken Stubbs suggested the Council avoid disbanding a task force that had not completed its work.
Maria Farrell suggested that if the Lisbon meeting was an end point in the time line, the Council could encourage the task force to produce its final report by that date, recording whatever level of agreement there is at that point. This would help satisfy the requirements of the Policy development Process (PDP).

Bruce Tonkin commented that when looking at flexibility in time lines, there was a need to identify when returns were diminishing. "In other words, a particular task group on any policy matter isn't able to reach consensus, I think it should be closed down rather than using up staff and volunteer resources."

Item 7: Discussion on how to progress next steps for improving the GNSO
structure and processes
- consider whether to establish a separate GNSO Working Group

Bruce Tonkin commented that the GNSO constituencies would provide formal feedback to the ICANN Board.

Ken Stubbs made an informal proposal to extend the public comment period for two weeks following the conclusion of this meeting, December 22 2006, to give the constituencies adequate time and the board an opportunity to review the comments.

Bruce Tonkin proposed making the recommendation to the ICANN Board that the GNSO constituencies would commit to providing input by 22 December 2006.

Bruce Tonkin further commented that the Council was awaiting decisions from the ICANN Board on the next steps.

Item 8: Update on process for election of GNSO Council chair
The Secretariat reported that the nomination period closes on 11 December 2006. Bruce Tonkin has been nominated by Mawaki Chango, seconded by Ken Stubbs, and accepted his nomination.

If there were more nominations, the voting period would commence on 19 December and run to the 2 January 2007.

If there were only one nomination, then the voting and confirmation of the election would take place at the scheduled GNSO Council meeting on 21 December 2006.

Philip Sheppard pointed out that should, for any reason, there not be a quorum at the 21 December Council meeting the council resolution, to elect Bruce Tonkin as GNSO Council chair until the conclusion of the current election period, would carry over the chairmanship until such time as there was a quorum meeting.


Item 9: Any other business

Bruce Tonkin proposed a motion of thanks to the outgoing Council members whose terms concluded at the end of the Annual General Meeting 2006.

Ken Stubbs, who had been involved in the GNSO Council and, prior to that, the Names Council from the very beginning, for his devoted participation and invaluable contributions.

June Seo, the gTLD registries representative and Bret Fausett the ALAC liaison, and
those absent councillors, Maureen Cubbereley Nominating committee representative, and Lucy Nichols who recently resigned as a member of the Intellectual Property constituency for their participation and contributions.

The motion passed by unanimous acclamation.

Bruce Tonkin formally closed the meeting and thanked everybody for participating.

Next GNSO Council teleconference will be on December 21, 2006 at 19:00 UTC
see: Calendar