[council] Comments regarding the strawman

[Mason Cole <mcole@xxxxxxxxxx>]

All --

I don't at all mean to pick on Brian personally, but I became aware earlier of 
a news article covering our most recent council meeting.  (A side note: we 
should remember that the media and others listen in on our call, and our 
conversations are public and could end up in news coverage.)

The article says:
Brian Winterfeldt, Steptoe & Johnson, an IPC representative on the GNSO 
Council, said that the IPC does not agree with all points of the draft 
response. The IPC understood the strawman proposal to be the product of 
negotiations that resulted in a consensus among the participants—including 
representatives from all ICANN constituencies, Winterfeldt said. “Stakeholders 
who now say that rights protections should not be revisited cast doubt on the 
good faith of negotiations.” 

For avoidance of doubt, I want to restate the RrSG's understandings.  Our 
representatives in the meeting were there at Fadi's request to discuss the 
trademark clearinghouse and to listen to staff's input on the strawman.  They 
would not at all characterize that (or any meeting on the strawman) as a 
negotiation, nor would they say consensus exists on the content of the 
proposals.  It was clear there would be an opportunity for comment following 
the meetings.  Our participation in those discussions can't be presumed to be 
acceptance of the proposals or the process by which they were considered.

I made that point on our 20 December call, I believe, but thank you for 
indulging my repeating it.

Mason