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Agenda for GNSO Council Meeting 10 June 2010

Last Updated:
Date

Proposed agenda and documents

The meeting started at 15:04UTC.

List of attendees:

Andrei Kolesnikov NCA – Non Voting

Contracted Parties House

Registrar Stakeholder Group: Stéphane van Gelder, Tim Ruiz,
Adrian Kinderis - absent

gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group: Chuck Gomes, Caroline Greer, Edmon Chung

Nominating Committee Appointee (NCA): Terry Davis - absent

Non-Contracted Parties House

Commercial Stakeholder Group (CSG): Wolf-Ulrich Knoben, Jaime Wagner, David Taylor, Kristina Rosette, Zahid Jamil, Mike Rodenbaugh

Non Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG): Rafik Dammak, William Drake, Debra Hughes; Rosemary Sinclair, Wendy Seltzer, Mary Wong

Nominating Committee Appointee (NCA): Olga Cavalli

GNSO Council Liaisons/Observers
Alan Greenberg – ALAC Liaison
Han Chuan Lee – ccNSO Observer - absent - apologies

ICANN Staff
David Olive - Vice President, Policy Development
Dan Halloran - Deputy General Counsel
Kurt Pritz - Senior Vice President, Services
Craig Schwartz - Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
Patrick Jones - Senior Manager of Continuity & Risk Management
Liz Gasster - Senior Policy Counselor, ICANN Policy Support
Margie Milam - Senior Policy Counselor
Marika Konings - Policy Director
Julie Hedlund - Policy Director
Scott Pinzon - Director, Policy Communications / Information Services
Rob Hoggarth - Senior Policy Director
Steve Sheng - Senior Technical Analyst, Policy
Glen de Saint Géry - GNSO Secretariat

Invited Guest:
Ken Bour - Consultant

For detailed information of the meeting, please refer to:

Item 1: Administrative Items

1.2 Update any Statements of Interest

Chuck Gomes provided a Disclosure of Interest regarding agenda Item 4: IDNG DT Recommendation re. New gTLD Process:

"VeriSign plans to apply for multiple IDN versions of its .com and .net gTLDs and as such has an interest in this agenda item. Because of that, I will ask Stéphane to assume the chair role for Item 4."

1 3 Review/amend the agenda

  • No changes

1.4. Note the status of minutes for the previous Council meeting per the GNSO Operating Procedures:

Item 2: Prioritization of GNSO work

Ken Bourprovided Council with a Progress Report and noted that 19 responses were received. The Council will meet in Brussels on Saturday, 19 June to conduct the Project Prioritization Exercise.

Item 3: GNSO Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) Drafting Team (DT) Endorsement Process

Bill Drake provided an overview of the proposed GNSO Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) Review Team RT Endorsement Process.

Council defered the motion to the next meeting on 23 June 2010 for 2 reasons:

  • lack of agreement on some suggested amendments
  • request from an ISPCP Councillor to defer the motion for additional constituency consultation.

Action Item:
Chuck Gomes will inform Janis Karklins and the ICANN staff responsible for the AoC Review Process of the outcome The process that applicants need to follow as described in the Draft Procedures will likely remain the same.

Stéphane van Gelderchaired the next part of the meeting Itel 4.

Item 4: Implementation of New gTLD Recommendation 2 (confusingly similar names)

Edmon Chung provided the Council with a brief overview of the amended motion.

Edmon Chung, seconded by Rafik Dammak proposed an amended motion (2 June 2010) on the New gTLD Recommendation, which was further amended by Kristina Rosette and Mary Wong

Note: The original motion was discussed in the Council meeting on 20 May and deferred to 10 June. In making the amended motion, Edmon submitted a redline version to the Council list on 2 June 2010
(http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg08962.html) and Rafik accepted the amendment as friendly on 4 June 2010
(http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg09000.html)

WHEREAS:

  • The Draft Applicant Guidebook, Version 4 does not include an Extended Review option for strings that fail the initial evaluation for confusing similarity and likelihood to confuse;
  • The GNSO Council recognizes that time is of the essence in sending feedback to ICANN staff on the Draft Applicant Guidebook;
  • The IDNG Drafting Team established by the GNSO Council has discussed various circumstances where applicants for strings that may be designated as confusingly similar in the initial evaluation may be able to present a case showing that the string is not detrimentally similar to another string;
  • The GNSO Council in Recommendation #2 on the GNSO Final Report on the Introduction of New gTLDs in September 2007 intended to prevent confusing and detrimental similarity and not similarity that could serve the users of the Internet;

RESOLVED:

  • A 21-day public comment period be opened not later than 11 June 2010 regarding a proposal to send the following letter to Kurt Pritz (with copy to the ICANN Board), requesting that Module 2 in the next version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook regarding "Outcomes of the String Similarity Review" be amended to allow applicants to request an Extended Review under applicable terms similar to those provided for other issues such as "DNS Stability: String Review Procedure".
  • ICANN Staff prepare a summary and analysis of the public comments not later than 6 July 2010.
  • The GNSO Council takes action in its meeting of 15 July 2010 regarding whether or not to send the letter.

FURTHER RESOLVED, that this motion shall not serve as a precedent requiring the GNSO Council to adhere to a public comment period requirement for any future GNSO Council letters.

PROPOSED LETTER:

To: Kurt Pritz and members of the ICANN New GTLD Implementation Team,
CC: ICANN Board

The GNSO Council requests a change to Module 2 of the Draft Applicant Guidebook. Specifically, we request that the section on "Outcomes of the String Similarity Review" be amended to allow applicants to request an Extended Review under applicable terms similar to those provided for other issues such as "DNS Stability: String Review Procedure". We further request that a section be added on ³String Similarity - Extended Review² that parallels other such sections in Module 2.

This request is seen as urgent because there are conditions under which it may be appropriate for applicants to request Extended Review for a string which has been denied further processing based on a finding of confusing similarity in the Initial Evaluation. This Extended Review would evaluate extenuating circumstances in the application that may result in a finding of no detrimental confusion notwithstanding the Initial Evaluation. This may occur, inter alia, in cases such as:

  • The same Registry Operator (for an existing gTLD or a proposed new gTLD) could apply for a string that, although similar to an existing or applied for string, is not detrimentally similar from a user point of view. For example, it is possible that an applicant could apply for both a gTLD with a conventional ASCII label and a corresponding internationalized gTLD (IDN gTLD) that could be found confusingly similar in the Initial Evaluation, but not result in the detrimental user confusion that the GNSO recommendation was trying to avoid.
  • A situation where there is an agreement between a new applicant Registry Operator and the Registry Operator of an existing gTLD that allows for better service for the users in the geographical area where the new gTLD will be offered. For example, MuseDoma, the Registry Operator for .museum could enter into an agreement with a new gTLD applicant to offer an IDN version of .museum for a specific language community. The two strings might be found confusingly similar in the Initial Evaluation even though the delegation of both would not cause detrimental confusion.

We thank you for your prompt attention to this GNSO Council request.

The motion passed with a majority of the Contracted Parties House and unanimously in the Non Contracted Parties House by roll call vote.

Contracted Parties House : 5 votes in favour
2 Councillors absent, Tim Ruiz, Adrian Kinderis
Non Contracted Parties House: 13 votes in favour

The chair was handed back to Chuck Gomes.

Item 5: Add Grace Period (AGP) Policy questions

Craig Schwartz provided the Council with an overview of the third status report which was provided to the GSNO on 1 June 2010 and posted to the ICANN website on 2 June 2010.

Highlights:

  • Data reflects that while the number of requests has increased, so have the number of partial or full approvals. Registries have been approving requests when the registrar provides documentation supporting their claim.
  • Total AGP deletes is holding steady at about 60,000 per month. It’s important to remember that the 60,000 includes AGP deletes below and above the threshold so they’re not all “excessive.”
  • Of the 23 requests processed since the Policy was implemented, there has been just one case of a registrar making more than one request…they made two, one each in different months.

Questions before the Council:

  • Should the Council consider modifying the AGP Limits Policy to no longer require semi-annual updates?
  • Should the Council consider modifying the AGP Limits Policy by defining the terms “extraordinary circumstances” or “reoccur regularly? For example:
    • Should instances of consumer fraud automatically be a legitimate use of AGP deletes?
    • If a registrar proactively takes down (i.e., deletes) domains that are known to propagate a fraudulent activity such as phishing, should the registrar bear the cost if the deletions cause the registrar to exceed the threshold defined in the Policy?

Outcome from the Council Discussion:

  • The Council will not consider modifying the AGP Limits Policy to no longer require semi-annual updates at this time. Semi-annual reporting will continue through April 2011 per the Policy.
  • Instances of consumer fraud will not automatically be a legitimate use of AGP deletes.
  • The Council will not at this time consider modifying the AGP Limits Policy to define the terms “extraordinary circumstances” or “reoccur regularly.” The Council may at some point in the future revisit these questions should they determine it’s necessary.

Item 6: Whois Studies

Deferred to next Council meeting on 23 June 2010.

Item 7: GNSO Improvements OSC Recommendations from the Coordination and Communications Work Team (CCT)

Additional stakeholder group and cross consultation with the Working Group Work Team is needed.
The motion was deferred to the next Council meeting on 23 June 2010.

Item 8: Any Other Business

8.1 Chuck Gomesnoted that a survey had been developed and distributed to the Board to provide input on possible topics for the Board/GNSO/Staff dinner on Sunday, 20 June 2010.

8.2 Chuck Gomes informed the Council that he sent a letter to Kurt Pritz regarding Geographic names requesting that the GNSO which approved the recommendations, be involved in the discussions.

Please note, that in the interest of time, questions or comments for the following should be made on the Council list:

There were no further comments or questions.

Chuck Gomes adjourned the GNSO Council meeting and thanked everyone for their participation.
The meeting was adjourned at 22:01 UTC.

Next GNSO Council meeting will be in Brussels on Wednesday, 23 June 2010 at 08:00 CET (Brussels) 06:00 UTC.
See: Calendar