GNSO Council Teleconference Notes

Status Update Notes from the GNSO Council teleconference 25 September 2008

Item 4: Status Update

4.1 ICANN Board

Denise Michel noted some of the following agenda items on the next ICANN Board of Directors meeting on 30 September 2008 / 1 October 2008

Approval of the ICANN Board of Director’s Code of Conduct; De-accredited Registrar Transition Procedure; Financial Approval of Contractor Agreement for Multiple Language Algorithms– Relating to Aspect of New gTLD Implementation; Review of .COOP and .MOBI Contractual Amendments; GNSO Council Re-structuring; 8) President’s Strategy Committee Report and Approval of Associated Director’s Travel; 9) Approval of Board Governance Committee’s Recommendation for ICANN SSAC Review TOR, RFP, and Working Group Charter; Approval of Board Governance Committee’s Recommendation for ICANN’s RSSAC Review Independent Review Contractor; Approval of Finance Committee’s Recommendation for Approval of IT Equipment Purchase; Independent Reviews Status Report; 13) Board Finance Committee Report; Board Governance Committee Report; Update on Annual Audit

4.2 Fast Flux PDP WG

Mike Rodenbaugh reported that the Fast Flux working group was moving forward and an initial report was expected, 10 days before the Cairo meeting for distribution to the constituencies for comments. The plan is that the Council be given an overview of the Fast Flux work during the Sunday meeting and that the working group would meet face to face during the week to discuss the report.



4.3 Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) Part A PDP

Mike Rodenbaugh reported work was in progress on collecting constituency input following the template the group developed. This should be completed within about 10 days. There is a possibility of an open working group meeting on Sunday, but the group should confirm this to the GNSO chairs and staff after their next meeting on Tuesday, 30 September 2008.



4.4 New gTLDs

Kurt Pritz reported that ICANN plans to publish an initial draft version of the RfP for New gTLDs, an “Applicant Guidebook” prior to the ICANN Cairo meeting.

The applicant Guidebook will describe: how an applicant applies for a gTLD, the evaluation process. It will include: business & technical evaluation criteria; the TLD string criteria, the process for resolving formal objections to a string (in accordance with the four grounds enumerated in the policy recommendation), and resolution of contention in case of collision between identical strings or strings so confusingly similar that user confusion results. Importantly, this draft RFP is for public comment. There has been much consultation to date. Now, at this stage, there will be a document to mark-up.

Kurt asked the council’s help in getting the message out that this is not a final version, rather it’s the next step in collaboration for the launch of New gTLDs.



One area of considerable discussion is geographical place names. Since the Board approved the policy recommendations, staff has had consultations with the GAC, to discuss the GAC principles on new gTLDs. Those principles state that country and place names should not be delegated without he approval of the relevant government. This does not’t call for a reserve names list, but does call for an administrative process to release names. In consultations with the GAC, these types of protections for geographical names for governments were discussed.

At the Cairo meeting, ICANN will facilitate Advisory Committee (AC) - Supporting Organisation (SO) discussions, to normalize the requirements set out by policy recommendations and working group reports with the formal GAC advice to the Board.



Answers to questions:

In addition to the scheduled time on Saturday to talk about New gTLDs, and the joint meeting with the GAC on Sunday afternoon to discuss geographical place names, there will be a workshop “Understanding the RfP” and sessions in different languages that are more basic about the 'New gTLD program'.

ICANN is working very actively with CRA to publish a report regarding separation of registrars and registries: reviewing portions of report, (this version of the report is not yet concluded). The report is expected to be published before the Cairo meeting.The base agreement will be published as part of the applicant guidebook. The applicant guidebook will be published in the six UN languages; applications will be English. The entities that will provide dispute resolution services will probably be identified in that publication. The dispute resolution process published will be a general process agreed to by the dispute resolution providers who will later provide their own rules or detailed procedures.

4.5 Fast Track

Denise Michel reported that staff continues to work on the numerous implementation issues that arose out of the IDN Fast Track proposal accepted by the ICANN Board in Paris

Currently a meeting in Marina del Rey is addressing a number of implementation issues which include tracking the IETF work on protocol revision, issuing a request for information to Governments and ccTLDs to gauge which countries are interested in and ready to advance with their IDN fast track applications, developing various elements of a fast track IDN application process, work also includes IANA processing and string validation fees. In Cairo there are plans for an open workshop, as well as discussion during the SO-AC-GAC meeting on Monday. Staff will provide draft material for review in Cairo.

The IDN ccTLDs fast track is planned to coincide with the New IDN gTLDs applications.

A 'Document of Responsibility' is being developed to ensure that parties fulfill certain aspects of ICANN's mission. This will include security and stability aspects, enforcement measures to comply with consensus policy as well as recognition that there are considerable expenses being generated in the development of the IDN program.

4. 6 Add Grace Period (AGP)

Craig Schwartz in an Add Grace Period (AGP) update to the Council noted that ICANN staff will provide an update to the Council and the community (in a public forum) in Cairo.

AGP Limits Policy

Work on the draft AGP Limits Policy implementation plan continues and staff is committed to posting the draft for public comment prior to Cairo.

27 August outreach to gTLD registries and registrars around providing input to the draft Policy implementation plan has been incorporated to the draft notes.

AGP Budget Provision

With regard to the AGP budget provision, because registry transactional information in confidential for three months, staff cannot at this time provide specific numbers from these reports.

4.7 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) Amendments

Kurt Pritz noted that a set of 16 amendments have been developed through a process that began with solicitation of community input as to how the RAA might be amended. Significant input was received and synthesized into potential contract modifications. Wording on preliminary amendments was refined in discussion with registrars. The RAA requires a consensus process to implement the amendments. There has been some criticisms of amendments in the comment forum, that the amendments don’t go far enough.

There are a few options for proceeding: approve the set of; approve the set of amendments begin another round of discussion similar to the last round; or not to go ahead with set of amendments, start a discussion to create new amendments. It’s the staff’s position that these amendments provide some significant improvements in the way the relationship between ICANN and registrars, and the protection of registrants and should be implemented. (Examples were given.)

The mechanism for improving this set of amendments requires GNSO and Board approval.

In response to questions Kurt committed to get clarification regarding required approvals. That staff supported approving these amendments now even though there might be additional meaningful amendments in order to capture the work of the last two years and realize benefit in the near term. Negotiations between ICANN and registrars seem to be done and additional negotiation would not result in modification. In agreement with a comment, the RAA was adopted before the implementation of the PDP so that the RAA reference to a policy development requirement to amend the agreement does not refer to the current form of the PDP.

Kristina Rosette commented that there was significant frustration within both the user and the Intellectual Property constituency (IPC) about the amount of time and energy devoted to carefully drafting very specific and clear language.

"At this point, those hundreds of hours have essentially gone down “Alice’s rabbit hole.” These groups are having a hard time understanding why ICANN thinks there may be further incentive for those in community to spend more time on this when we have yet to see any explanation why original amendments were rejected. I think you’re dealing with an incentive issue here. "



Kurt responded that he would like to have a more detailed discussion on this issue after the meeting.

The redline agreement the IPC provided is evidenced in many of the amendments in a different form. The viewpoint expressed may be that the wording is not as effective as compared to what the IPC presented. From a checklist that identified the IPC areas of amendment, staff believed that many of them had been addressed.

Kristina Rosette commented that if there was a decision to move forward with the amendments in place, the staff report should include very specific suggestions and discussion as to why particular suggestions are not adopted. For example, what you see in the Federal Register when an agency publishes a final rule: at that point they have to identify the reason for not adopting recommendations/suggestions provided during the public comment period. "From a credibility perspective in view of my constituency, this has to happen."

Kurt acknowledged the comment and committed to get a greater understanding offline.