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<p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>GNSO Council Teleconference<br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Dot Net discussion </b> <br>
<strong>12 May 2005<br>
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Excerpt from the draft minutes of the GNSO Council meeting held on May 12, 2005<br>
</strong>(Final minutes will be posted to the Council list shortly ) </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></font><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">At
the GNSO Council teleconference held on 12 May 2005, it was agreed to post the Council discussion on dot Net to the<a href="http://www.icann.org/tlds/net-rfp/net-rfp-public-comments.htm"> ICANN public comment forum.<br>
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Marilyn Cade</strong> emphasized that it was a council discussion and not a decision, and encouraged all council members to make comments, regardless of a relationship with any of the bidders, stating that when regulatory agencies engage in anti-trust investigations in general, at times of mergers or acquisitions, they invited the opinion of affected parties including competitors to the companies planning to merge. <br>
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In disclosure statements <strong>Ross Rader </strong>stated that Tucows had a contracting relationship with one of the bidders and <strong>Ken Stubbs</strong> stated that he was a director of Afilias, one of bidders on the .net re delegation.<br>
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<strong>Grant Forsyth</strong> spoke to Philip Sheppard's <a href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/net-rfp-general/msg00054.html">posting </a>to the dot net re-delegation public comments.<br>
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" The previous recommendation of council was that the major term of relative difference between bidding parties was competition. The Telcordia report appears to have interpreted it as competition between registrars in the registrar market as opposed to competition in the registry market. It should be noted that there is a major disconnect between the recommendations in Council's report and its implementation in the evaluation of the RFP and suggest this has led to the outcome that has resulted. Note that Telcordia in its report states that while it was left to determine the specific evaluation criteria, the criteria that it developed was signed off by ICANN. The Business constituency representatives feel that because of this disconnect between the intent of the GNSO Council's recommendation and its interpretation in the evaluation of the bid, if the ICANN Board is not of a mind to revert to the original policy intent, then Phillip Sheppard has made useful suggestions in his <a href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/net-rfp-general/msg00054.html">posting </a>as to how the policy intent of competition can be remediated to a certain extent through suggestions that would have to be applied to the successful bidder. " </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Ken Stubbs</strong> in an individual capacity, not representing the views of the registry constituency, commented that a significant majority of the proposals presented to ICANN reflected concerns consistent with <a href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/net-rfp-general/msg00054.html">Philip Sheppard's comments.</a></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Alick Wilson</strong> agreed with the concerns raised by <a href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/net-rfp-general/msg00054.html">Philip Sheppard </a> and took the position that ICANN should foster competition. Clearly the criteria that had been applied in theTelcordia report had discounted the competitive aspect to an unacceptable level. Philip Sheppard had proposed a mitigation should the Board go ahead and re-award dot net to Verisign. Alick Wilson questioned whether the mitigation Philip Sheppard proposed was sufficient and suggested that there should be a review of the criteria applied against the GNSO Council report as it appeared that the Telecordia assessment of did not address the issue of the weightings which should themselves should be looked into. <br>
Alick Wilson further suggested that the Council develop a resolution to the ICANN Board and that no action be taken on the approval until the resolution was received by the Board. Marilyn Cade disagreed with that recommendation, noting that the proper area to post concerns is to the <a href="http://www.icann.org/tlds/net-rfp/net-rfp-public-comments.htm">.net public comment process</a>. She noted that the process of developing such a resolution within the Council was not practical, since many would have to recuse themselves from a vote. She stated that the Board needs to take a decision on .net more quickly, taking into account any proper transition impact. Therefore, she suggested that Council have an informational discussion and provide the information about the discussion to the public process. Everyone can post and that is more appropriate than a resolution.<br>
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<em>The above is a summary of the relevant discussion at the gNSO Council meeting, held on May 12, 2005. The <a href="http://gnso-audio.icann.org/GNSO-Council-20050512.mp3%20">MP3 recording</a> is available with the verbatim text. The summary was prepared by the gNSO Secretariat, as requested and agreed by Council. </em><br>
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