[council] Call for TOR change

[Grant Forsyth <Grant.Forsyth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Bruce ,  fellow Councillors and Barbara
RE: Terms of Reference for Task Force 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.
 
While we, the elected representatives of the Commercial and Business Users
Constituency (BC), recognise that the Draft TOR  were agreed by Council on 2
December 2003 and have been put out for public consideration and that
submissions closed on 28 December 2003, due to the holiday period the job of
developing the BC initial position on the matter has only now  brought to
light an undesirable "narrowness" of the TOR. 
 
Specifically we consider that two of of the three aspects recommended to be
considered "Out of Scope"  should be included in the PDP consideration,
namely:
A) Changes to the nature of the agreements between ICANN and the registry
operators
B) Additional obligations on registry operators or gTLD sponsors beyond what
is already specified in their existing agreements
 
We would note that the PDP under consideration is not focused on any
particular registry service, action, change in architecture or operation,
but rather on developing a procedure for consideration of any such change.
For such a procedure to have maximum usefulness it:
- should not embody any issue specific constraint (such as potential changes
that might also be considered in the future policy development associated
with the review of new gTLDs (out of scope A); and 
- must be flexible and forward looking such that the procedure can deal with
changes in circumstances, markets or technology innovation not previously
foreseen and explicitly captured in wording of existing contracts (out of
scope B)
 
We do not envisage the removal of these current "Out-of-scope" constraints
to have any great impact on the PDP process, the complexity of response to
the identified four main tasks  or the final overall policy recommendation.
In fact, seeking to embody the current out-of-scope constraints is likely to
lead to a more convoluted procedure.
 
Hence, we seek an amendment to the current draft of the TOR by the removal
of the first two "Out-of-scope" constraints.
AND 
We erquest that this matter be included on the agenda of the next GNSO call,
scheduled for 22 January.
 
Sincerely
Elected representatives of the BC
Grant Forsyth
Marilyn Cade
Philip Sheppard