[council] RE: New gTLD Recommendation 6 Community Working Group

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would like to understand your position better Adrian and also explain
mine.

 

Do you not think that the GNSO should try to work together with the GAC
on their concerns regarding the implementation of new gTLD
Recommendation 6?

 

The GAC has an important advisory role to the ICANN community regarding
issues of public policy and it seems to me that this issue involves
public policy, albeit public policy that may vary from government to
government.  The ICANN Bylaws require the Board to not only listen to
GAC advice on public policy matters but also respond to it and in recent
years they have shown that they have tried to do that.  So it seems
reasonable in my opinion that at some point the Board will respond to
the GAC's request to form a community working group.  They could reject
the request or they could honor it and ask community members to
participate; if the latter happens, the GNSO would be asked to
participate.

 

My concern as Council Chair is that this is occurring extremely late in
the game and I have communicated that to Heather.  But the reality is
that the GAC has made a request.  I could have waited until the Board
responds, but if recent history is any indication, that could take weeks
or even months.  Then if they decide to form a community WG, the chances
of further delays in the introduction of new gTLDs could be further
delayed, a possibility that I think the GNSO should try to minimize.
Therefore, I decided that I would try to take steps to respond to the
GAC request in cooperation with the ALAC who also had concerns on this
topic and see if we could get the process moving as quickly as possible
to hopefully avoid further delays or at least minimize them.

 

You did not miss anything.  There was not a vote by the Council saying
we would assist the GAC in doing this.  The only thing that happened in
the Council happened in our Wrap-Up meeting in Brussels when Bill Drake
raised the issue and requested that interested GNSO participants should
participate in the discussions that were going on in the GAC and ALAC.
In that meeting several people volunteered and after that meeting others
from the GNSO volunteered to participate as well.  There was no
opposition expressed at that time or since then until your message was
received.

 

Do you oppose members of the GNSO community participating in this group?

 

I believe it was made clear in our Wrap-Up meeting that any volunteers
would be participating in their individual capacity.  Of course, to the
extent that their SGs or Constituencies, want them to represent their
groups' views, nothing would prevent them from doing that.  But the
intent has never been that anyone would be representing the GNSO or
Council as a whole.

 

If the Council does not want to work cooperatively with the GAC and the
ALAC and other ICANN organizations on this topic, I suppose it could
decide to do that, but I don't think there would be any basis for
preventing individual GNSO members from participating or even SGs or
Constituencies if they so desired.  My question to you in that regard is
this:  what message would that send to the community as a whole and more
particularly to the GAC and to governments in general?

 

Regarding process, the ideal way for this to come about would have first
of all been for the GAC to raise their concerns much earlier in the
process.  Heather says that they did but someone I was not aware of it
until fairly recently.  The reality is that the concerns have been
raised now.  Should we ignore them because it is so late or should we
make a best effort to cooperate and see what can be done in a timely
manner?  

 

I made the latter choice.  If the timing was different, the ideal
approach would have been for me to wait until the GNSO received a
request from the Board and then present the request to the Council to
decide how to respond, and only then start to work on a formal charter
with the other groups involved if the Council so decided.  If I took
that approach in the current circumstances, we probably would have had
to wait at least until after the Board retreat the end of September to
receive a request from the Board and maybe until after the October Board
meeting.  Then we would have had to decide how to respond in our October
or November meetings whether to participate.  The we would have had to
work with the other organizations to develop and ultimately approve the
joint charter.  So maybe we could have started the work group by the end
of the year.

 

One more thought:  I personally believe that it is important for the
GNSO to work cooperatively with all ICANN organizations that are
impacted by issues of common concern and I also believe that this
situation provides an opportunity for us to try doing that with the GAC,
one of the organizations with whom we have not had much success in doing
that in the past.  Whether we like it or not, ICANN processes are
supposed to bottom-up and inclusive of all stakeholders.  Unfortunately,
bottom-up, inclusive processes are slow.  At the same time, where
possible, I would like to speed them up if we can and that is what I
tried to do in this case because I sincerely believe that we have a
responsibility to try and bring closure to the new gTLD process in an
effective manner but also in a timely manner.

 

Chuck

 

From: Adrian Kinderis [mailto:adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 8:48 PM
To: Gomes, Chuck; Council GNSO
Subject: RE: New gTLD Recommendation 6 Community Working Group

 

I reject the notion of a WG at all. IMO it is unnecessary and will not
provide any useful, tactile benefits.

 

Did I miss something here Chuck. Was there a vote by the Council saying
we would assist the GAC in doing this?

 

Is there a mechanism by which we could stop GNSO participation and
support?

 

Adrian Kinderis

 

From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Gomes, Chuck
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 12:32 AM
To: Council GNSO
Subject: [council] New gTLD Recommendation 6 Community Working Group
Importance: High

 

Hopefully all of you are aware that the GAC requested a community
working group to discuss the implementation of the GNSO New gTLD
Recommendation 6.  To accommodate that request, the list that the GNSO
established in follow-up to Bill Drake's request in our Brussels Wrap-Up
session to participate in the discussions on this topic going on within
the GAC an ALAC will be used for the community working group
discussions.

Considering how late this is happening relative to the new gTLD process,
Cheryl Langdon-Orr, chair of the ALAC, and Heather Dryden, Chair of the
GAC, and I have been discussing how to go about accommodating the GAC
request in a timely manner.  To expedite discussions, we decided to
prepare an initial draft Terms of Reference (ToR) for discussion by
those who have volunteered to participate in the group.  The hope is to
very quickly finalize the ToR so that discussion of the issues may begin
and thereby have a chance of developing recommendations for improving
the implementation plan for Recommendation 6 in the Draft Application
Guidebook, version 4.

As you can see in the draft ToR, this is not a PDP.  The GNSO Council
already approved Recommendation 6 by a super-majority vote.  There is no
intent to undo the intent of that recommendation; to do that would
require a PDP because it would be materially changing an already
approved policy recommendation.  Rather, the intent is to explore
whether the implementation process in version 4 of the Guidebook could
be improved in a way that addresses any of the GAC and ALAC concerns.

As all of you know, there is no established process for community
working groups.  In drafting the initial ToR for discussion, we tried to
accommodate the needs of all three organizations especially in terms of
how they operate, which are different in certain respects.  Please note
that the group is open to all community participants from all SOs and
ACs and for that matter any who are not SO or AC participants.

I believe that this could be the first significant effort of the GNSO
and GAC working together in a WG and I am hopeful that it will provide
some lessons for how we can to that better on other issues in the
future, just like the GNSO Council discussed with the GAC in Brussels.
The GAC has an important advisory role in ICANN policy processes as they
relate to public policy issues and we all know that the Board will
listen intently to the GAC advice on the implementation of
Recommendation 6.  Therefore, it seemed wise to try to do that sooner
rather than later to minimize any further delays.

I will add this topic to the agenda for 26 August but would really
appreciate it if we can discuss it on the list in advance.

Thanks for your cooperation,

Chuck

 

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