GNSO Council Teleconference Minutes | Generic Names Supporting Organization

Date

13 January 2005

List of attendees:

Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business Users C.

Marilyn Cade - Commercial & Business Users C.

Grant Forsyth - Commercial & Business Users C

Greg Ruth - ISCPC - proxy to Tony Holmes

Antonio Harris - ISCPC - absent - apologies - proxy to Tony Holmes/Greg Ruth

Tony Holmes - ISCPC

Thomas Keller- Registrars - absent - apologies - proxy to Ross Rader/Bruce Tonkin/Alick Wilson

Ross Rader - Registrars

Bruce Tonkin - Registrars

Ken Stubbs - gTLD registries

Philip Colebrook - gTLD registries - absent - apologies - proxy to Ken Stubbs

Cary Karp - gTLD registries

Lucy Nichols - Intellectual Property Interests C

Niklas Lagergren - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent - apologies - proxy to Lucy Nichols

Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C.

Robin Gross - Non Commercial Users C.

Marc Schneiders - Non Commercial Users C.

Carlos Afonso - Non Commercial Users C. - absent - apologies - proxy to Marc Schneiders

Alick Wilson

Demi Getschko - absent - apologies - proxy to Alick Wilson

Maureen Cubberley

15 Council Members

ICANN Staff

Paul Verhoef - Vice President, Policy Development Support

John Jeffrey - ICANN General Counsel

Dan Halloran - ICANN Deputy General Counsel

Kurt Pritz - Vice President, Business Operations

Barbara Roseman - ICANN Staff Manager

Tina Dam - Chief gTLD Registry Liaison

Tim Cole - Chief Registrar Liaison

GNSO Council Liaisons

Thomas Roessler - acting ALAC Liaison - apologies

Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison

Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat

MP3 Recording:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Quorum present at 20:07

Bruce Tonkin chaired this teleconference.

Item 1: Approval of Agenda

Bruce Tonkin stated that an updated agenda had been sent to Council.

Agenda approved

Item 2: Approval of the

Minutes of 18 November 2004
Minutes of 3 December 2004

Ken Stubbs moved the adoption of the Minutes of 18 November 2004 and Minutes of 3 December 2004

The motion carried with three abstentions: Maureen Cubberley, Lucy Nichols, Alick Wilson

Decision 1: The minutes of 18 November and 3 December 2004 were adopted

Item 3: Response to GNSO Council external review

Bruce Tonkin referred to the draft response from the GNSO Council to the recommendations of the external review.

In discussion, it was felt that the appointment of liaisons could not be fully realized without the reciprocity of liaisons, the role of liaisons should be defined and that the process for the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) liaisons should be formalized. It was suggested that in a cover note the recommendations that called for Board action should be noted.

Bruce Tonkin, seconded by Philip Sheppard, proposed:

Whereas the public comment period was due to be completed on January 24, 2005.

The GNSO Councilors review the comments in 7 days and if there are no significant problems, the draft response from the GNSO Council be submitted on 24 January 2005.

The motion was unanimously accepted by voice vote.

Decision 2:

Whereas the public comment period was due to be completed on January 24
The GNSO Councilors review the comments in 7 days and if there are no significant problems, the draft response from the GNSO Council be submitted on 24 January 2005.

Item 4: Draft Initial Report on procedure for use by ICANN in considering requests for consent and related contractual amendments to allow changes in the architecture or operation of a gTLD registry.

Bruce Tonkin reported that he was in the process of updating the report with comments received from staff.

Item 5: Update on WHOIS

Marilyn Cade reported that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group, Cross Registry Internet Service Protocol (CRISP) gave a presentation on the Internet Registry Information Service (IRIS) on an open outreach call focussing on data gathering related to tiered access to the Whois combined task force 1 and 2. The call was well attended by the ICANN staff and the community. It was the task force's first effort to take input from outside experts.

It was noted that there was no consensus in the task force to pursue tiered access but only to explore tiered access, such as its implications and costs.

January 31, 2005 was the closing date for constituency statements on the recommendations relating to improving notification and consent for the use of contact data in the Whois system.

On the procedure for conflicts when there are conflicts between a registrar's of registry's legal obligations under local privacy laws and their contractual obligations to ICANN, further dialogue was being scheduled between Senior ICANN staff and the Whois task force 1 & 2.

Bruce Tonkin reported that the Whois task force 3 chair, Brian Darville, had resigned and that he would be calling a meeting to progress further with the task force as discussed in Cape Town.

Item 6: ICANN strategic plan

- Marilyn Cade to present proposal for consultative workshop on 7-8 February 2005

- budget for workshop from GNSO Council funds

- ICANN staff to present current plans for outreach

Paul Verhoef and Kurt Pritz commented on the broad outline for outreach which was that Paul Twomey, senior staff and other staff were currently scheduling a series of teleconferences with all constituencies to receive input on which parts of the strategic plan they considered good, where there might be room for improvements and where the approach could be changed. Written submissions to the plan were sought both to get the final plan out and to address the notions behind comments.

Paul Verhoef felt that there would be granularity at the group levels which would provide detailed comments on the document and saw consultation with constituencies separate from consultation with Council as the higher up in hierarchy the more abstract the findings might be.

Council members expressed concern about an initiative that did not allow members of the ICANN community to learn from the views expressed by other ICANN community members and hence refine their own views. The benefit of working through the GNSO Council was that the various views of constituency members were taken account of and consolidated, rather than fragmenting the process, so allowing the ICANN staff a better view of the important issues from a broader spread of interests. The outreach work being undertaken by ICANN staff via constituency teleconferences would be an important first step before commencing a joint consultation with ICANN staff on the strategic plan amongst people from different stakeholder groups. As the strategic plan is a rolling plan, it should be possible in future to incorporate future face-to-face dialogue on the strategic plan into the normal schedule of physical ICANN meetings.

Marilyn Cade presented the proposal, drafted in consultation with fellow councillors, for the consultative workshop on 7-8 February 2005.

"The ICANN Strategic Plan is a complex, broad and important document which outlines ICANN's directions for a three year period. It is tied to, and should guide the budget of ICANN. In a bottom up organization like ICANN, consultation is critical to ensure support and acceptance, as well as to take input on needed changes in a Strategic Plan to assure attainability. The scope of changes and scale of changes proposed in the Strategic Plan are as extensive as those changes undertaken with the ERC process and deserve a similar examination and understanding by the Supporting Organizations. Having an interactive discussion with the Supporting Organizations/their members is a critical element of a bottom up consultation. The consultation will supplement the comment process via the public website.

Proposed meeting agenda

Monday 7 February 2005

o 1:00 p.m. Meeting starts with overview of purpose

o 1:20 p.m. Presentation on Strategic Plan/ICANN Senior Staff

3:00 p.m. Coffee Break

o 3:15 p.m. Open moderated discussion of Strategic Plan, with questions/answers by ICANN staff.

o 3:30 p.m. Open floor to prepared presentations [per scheduling with Planning Team]

o 4:10 Comments from participants/further discussion

o 5:30 p.m Meeting ends

o 6:00 p.m. Informal Social Hour/funding to be agreed to/or sponsors developed

o Working Session of those who agree to undertake synthesis and drafting of comments

Tuesday 8 February 2005

o Reconvene at 8:30 and work through 12:30 p.m.

o Complete draft comments on site for participants to then take back into their respective communities/constituencies for agreement and edits. o Hold comments open from February 8 - February 20, 2005

Participants are responsible for getting agreement from others in their community/constituency during that time.

o Conduct final conference week of February. 21 to reach agreement on edits/changes to be accepted into final comments.

o Post comments to ICANN public site on February 28, 2005."

Cost elements: the meeting rooms, 2 coffee breaks, the conference bridge, an ISDN line, polycom phones with microphones estimated at between 4000 and 5000 Euros.

Marilyn Cade proposed that Council should authorize the funding [in a not to exceed amount (5000 Euros)] for the organization/hosting of the meeting from the Council's reserve funds - left from previous assessments.

Bruce Tonkin proposed taking a roll call on support for the event and those who would be able to attend.

All the Councillors on the call (15) supported the event.

Amsterdam was chosen as a preference for the 8 or 9 Councillors who stated that they would probably be able to attend in person.

Bruce Tonkin summarised commenting that an extensive discussion in the constituencies was an important precursor to Council dialogue. ICANN setting up forums to talk to individuals allowed for some of the depth, but the benefit in terms of common messages and objectives that were developed through a common meeting event woud provide more depth.

Paul Verhoef expressed concerned that the event would set a precedent in the future.

Bruce Tonkin clarified that such consultation could be scheduled to coincide with ICANN meetings in future.

Target budget of 5000 Euros

Lucy Nichols, seconded by Ross Rader moved that:

A budget of 5000 Euros for the consultative workshop project be approved and authorization granted that the amount would be taken from the remaining DNSO/GNSO funds.

Bruce Tonkin proceeded with a nominated vote.

20 votes in favour, 6 proxy votes in favour.

The motion passed.

Decision 3:

A budget of 5000 Euros for the consultative workshop project be approved and authorization granted that the amount would be taken from the remaining DNSO/GNSO funds.

Item 7: Contention for domain names at gtld registries

- motion to initiate an issues report

Draft resolution Whereas the high demand amongst registrars on behalf of their registrants to register specific domain names that become available for re-registration at the registry has lead to unforeseen strains on the ability of registries and registrars to manage their business efficiently, Whereas this affects the service level that registrars can provide to their customers and the meaning of ICANN accredited as it applies to registrars, Council resolves, to request the ICANN staff manager to write an issues report (as specified in annex A to the ICANN by-laws) on the "Problems caused by contention for domain names made available by a gTLD registry ", so that Council can subsequently decide if a policy development process would be appropriate.

Philip Sheppard spoke to the resolution which arose out of a discussion in Cape Town regarding the problem of of the volume of automated requests for expiring domain names from registrar to registry and requested further study through an issues report from the ICANN Staff Manager so that Council could then decide whether a policy development process should be initiated.

Ken Stubbs commented that the issues report should clarify the reason for the demand.

Barbara Roseman reported that the staff recognized that the issue would require effort from several ICNAN staff members with specific areas of expertise

Kurt Pritz commented that in order to respond to the resolution, ICANN would like to go back and look at the complaints received, and solicit input from the registries and registrars on the topic, then provide a briefing to the Council based on an analysis of various data bases to ascertain whether there should be an issues report.

Bruce Tonkin clarified that an Issues Report asked General Counsel to decide whether there were any policy issues but it did not go as far as saying what specific agreements and contractual issues were affected and proposed that thereshould be further clarification on contents and expectations of issues report in general.

Philip Sheppard, seconded by Maureen Cubberley proposed the amended draft resolution:

Whereas the high demand amongst registrars to register specific domain names that become available for re-registration at the registry has lead to unforeseen impact and strains on the registration infrastructure of gTLD registries and registrars.

Whereas this affects the service level that registrars can provide to their customers and the meaning of ICANN accredited as it applies to registrars,

Bruce Tonkin called for a nominated vote.

19 votes in favour, 5 proxy votes in favour, 3 no votes. (Kiyoshi Tsuru and Alick Wilson with the proxy for Demi Getschko had dropped off the call and did not vote)

The motion carried.

Decision 4:

Whereas the high demand amongst registrars to register specific domain names that become available for re-registration at the registry has lead to unforeseen impact and strains on the registration infrastructure of gTLD registries and registrars.

Whereas this affects the service level that registrars can provide to their customers and the meaning of ICANN accredited as it applies to registrars,

Council resolves, to request the ICANN staff manager to write an issues report (as specified in annex A to the ICANN by-laws) on the "Problems caused by contention for domain names made available by a gTLD registry ", so that Council can subsequently decide if a policy development process would be appropriate

Item 8: Transfer of domain name agreements between registrants (secondary market issues)

- see http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-21sep04-1.htm

- seek information from ICANN staff on complaints raised by registrars or registrants, and other Internet users, and determine if appropriate to request an issues report

ICANN staff had not received much more information since the announcement on 21 September 2004 on the issues that had been raised by the registrars, registrants or others in community.

Bruce Tonkin suggested that it would be useful for next council meeting if ICANN staff could produce a report by sampling the complaints in the last couple of months and those a year ago to ascertain the main complaint areas and put them in context.

Council members were encouraged to consider the kind of input from ICANN staff that would be useful in its consideration of the Transfers Policy.

The issue was deferred to the next meeting.

Item 9: ICANN staff update

- update on appointment of new policy support staff Item 9: ICANN staff update

- update on appointment of new policy support staff

Paul Verhoef reported that the Human Resource Manager was concluding negotiations for the junior policy support position while the senior policy support person would probably commence early in March 2005.

Bruce Tonkin reminded the group that the external review recommended that the Council should work with the Vice President for Supporting Organizations to establish clear expectations regarding staff support.

Bruce Tonkin declared the GNSO meeting closed and thanked everybody for participating.

The meeting ended: 21:00 UTC.

Next GNSO Council

see: Calendar