GNSO Council Teleconference Minutes

18 November 2004

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

Ross Rader - Registrars

Bruce Tonkin - Registrars

Ken Stubbs - gTLD registries

Philip Colebrook - gTLD registries

Cary Karp - gTLD registries

Lucy Nichols - Intellectual Property Interests C

Niklas Lagergren - Intellectual Property Interests C

Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C. - absent - apologies - proxy to Lucy Nichols

Jisuk Woo - Non Commercial users C. - absent - proxy to Marc Schneiders

Marc Schneiders - Non Commercial users C.

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

Alick Wilson - absent - apologies - proxy to Amadeu Abril l Abril/Demi Getschko/Bruce Tonkin(directed vote for chair)

Demi Getschko- absent - apologies - proxy to Amadeu Abril l Abril

Amadeu Abril I Abril

15 Council Members



Paul Verhoef - Vice President, Policy Development Support

John Jeffrey - ICANN General Counsel

Kurt Pritz - Vice President, Business Operations

Barbara Roseman - ICANN Staff Manager



Thomas Roessler - acting ALAC Liaison

Christopher Wilkinson - GAC Secretary

Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison



Michael Palage - ICANN Board (GNSO seat 14) - observer

Patrick Sharry - External Consultant engaged for GNSO Review



Glen de Saint G�ry - GNSO Secretariat



MP3 Recording

Quorum present at 20:05



Bruce Tonkin and Philip Sheppard chaired this teleconference.



Item 1: Approval of the Agenda





Bruce Tonkin proposed adding the WIPO ll discussion between Item 3 and Item 4.

Marilyn Cade proposed an update on the Staff support recruitment situation.



Agenda approved

Item 2: Approval of the Minutes of 21 October 2004



Ken Stubbs seconded by Marc Schneiders moved the adoption of the Minutes of 21 October 2004



The motion carried with two abstentions: Niklas Lagergren and Amadeu Abril I Abril



Decision 1: The Minutes of 21 October 2004 were adopted



Item 3: Election of GNSO Council chair for 12 month term.

Bruce Tonkin handed the chair to Philip Sheppard as he was a candidate for the GNSO Chair elections.



The GNSO Secretary reported that there had been one nomination, Bruce Tonkin, seconded by Ross Rader and Demi Getschko.

Philip Sheppard, seconded by Marilyn Cade and Ken Stubbs, proposed a motion of clarification:



Whereas there had been a question raised as to whether or not the GNSO Chair could have a renewed term of office .

Whereas the question related to the old Rules of Procedure of the Names Council and those rules no longer applied under the new ICANN Bylaws,

the vote for the GNSO chair would be solely under the grounds of the current ICANN bylaws as they apply to the GNSO Council.

The motion carried unanimously with a voice vote, quorum was confirmed before the vote was taken.

Decision 2:

Whereas there had been a question raised as to whether or not the GNSO Chair could have a renewed term of office .

Whereas the question related to the old Rules of Procedure of the Names Council and those rules no longer applied under the new ICANN Bylaws,

the vote for the GNSO chair would be solely under the grounds of the current ICANN bylaws as they apply to the GNSO Council.



Philip Sheppard proceeded with a nominated vote:

Yes, for Bruce Tonkin as GNSO Chair for the term of one year, until 18 November 2005, no or abstain.

All members present with proxies voted yes, one abstention, Bruce Tonkin.

The vote was confirmed.



Decision 3: Bruce Tonkin is elected GNSO Council chair for one year, November 18 , 2004 to November 18, 2005.



Philip Sheppard, on behalf of the GNSO Council congratulated Bruce Tonkin and handed the chair back to him.



Bruce Tonkin proposed a discussion on the WIPO ll issue.

Lucy Nichols requested that prior to the Board receiving ICANN Staff's WIPO ll recommendation, the GNSO Council be informed of the substance.

The Intellectual Property Constituency's primary concern was that the ICANN Staff and President would be making a recommendation regarding WIPO II and that the Board could make a decision based upon that recommendation prior to the GNSO Council's knowledge and discussion of the recommendation.

John Jeffrey and Paul Verhoef stated that the WIPO staff had provided a commentary on the work of the WIPO-II committee which would be published for comment on the ICANN website.



Bruce Tonkin encouraged ICANN to give the Council adequate prior notice so that there would be an opportunity to comment on the recommendation before going to the ICANN Board, particularly given that there was no consensus from the Council, and that the issue was related to gTLDs.


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.

Kurt Pritz reported that the document had been reviewed by the ICANN President and Senior Staff and that concerns hovered around ICANN's ability to provide timely service for registry requests. The flow chart was compared with 18/20 case studies of registry requests for changes over the past year and the vast majority of them fell into a straight forward category which did not require all the steps set out in the flow charts. The document is being revised so as to take into account simple and more complex cases and will be available before the Cape Town meetings.



Update on Process for appointing staff

Paul Verhoef reported that 2 short lists had been established for the two GNSO related positions and interviews were taking place with the aim of engaging shortly the successful candidate for the policy support position soon while the senior role would likely be filled at the beginning of 2005.



Item 5: Update on process for review of GNSO Council Item

Patrick Sharry, a Master of Science in Decision Sciences from the London School of Economics, Master of Education in mathematics education, a Graduate Diploma of Teaching and a Bachelor of Arts comes from a teaching background and has worked with ICANN over the last 12 months. Currently he is undertaking the GNSO review process, interviews have been conducted and the draft report is expected to be complete by mid week, 24 November 2004.



Item 6: ICANN strategic plan
Bruce Tonkin suggested that the Strategic Plan should be an agenda item for the GNSO Council committee discussion in Cape Town.



Item 7: Update on WHOIS

Marilyn Cade reporting for the Whois combined task force 1 and 2, said that there would be draft recommendations to put forward at the GNSO public forum relating to a draft procedure for conflicts, step by step, and Conspicuous notice, while tiered access was at a developmental and exploratory stage and work was progressing on identifying expert categories and possible experts to address the issue. The task force was also working on questions which could be addressed by the public to be included in the report as guided comments.

Barbara Roseman reported that Whois task force 3 intended to have a physical meeting in Cape Town.

Challenges revolved around the ways in which the Intellectual Property Constituency and other Constituencies saw the usefulness of data accuracy and the Registrars application of a cost benefit ratio for taking on additional burdens of verifying accuracy. There appeared to be no disagreement about the actual issues but about who would bear the costs.

Thomas Roessler commented that there appeared to be no consensus on whether to optimize for increasing data quality on large scale or to optimize for going after a small number of bad actors. Sanctions tied to inaccurate data if there were few cases could be harsher than sanctions applied on a large scale. Care should be exercised in sanctions as they could destabilize legitimate domain names on a large scale.



Bruce Tonkin suggested that the task forces meet on Wednesday with the whole GNSO Council to get additional perspectives and Ken Stubbs suggested that Barbara Roseman prepare a summary of the fundamental issues involved in task force 3.





Item 8: Update on planning for ICANN meeting in Cape Town

Suggestions for discussion were as follows:

Tuesday 30 November 2004, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm


GNSO Council external review

GNSO Council self-review

ICANN Strategic plan

Priority policy issues for 2005



Wednesday 1 December 2004 all day



10:30 to 12:30 Whois

GAC working group /GNSO Council and task force members lunch

4:00 to 6:00 Whois

Friday 3 December 2004 8:30 to 10:30 Public Forum

Whois task force recommendations

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

Summary of workshop solutions to the contention for domain names made available by a gTLD registry

GNSO Council review

Open microphone for the community to raise issues the GNSO should examine

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

The meeting ended: 20:15 UTC.

• Next GNSO Council meeting will be held on Friday 3 December 2004 at 10:30 local time, 8:30 UTC in Auditorium 1 in the Cape Town International Convention Center
  
  see: Calendar