[council] Role of council with respect to Agenda Item 4

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello All,

I would just like to remind the Council that GNSO is
"responsible for developing and recommending to the ICANN Board
substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains" 
(taken from the ICANN bylaws, Article X, section 1)

In discussed agenda item 4, it is not the GNSO's role to make a decision
with respect to whether the Verisign service complies with the existing
contracts or policy.  That is a role for the ICANN staff with advice
from the ICANN General Counsel.  It is also not the GNSO's role to make
decisions with respect to whether it affects the security and stability
of the Internet - that is the role of the Security and Stability
Advisory Committee.

Given advice from the ICANN General Counsel as to whether the issue is
covered by the existing contracts, and given the advice from the
Security and Stability Advisory Committee, the GNSO should consider
whether the issue being discussed in agenda item 4 highlights a "need"
for additional policy.

The possible areas of additional policy include:
- developing a policy for the introduction of new registry services
(e.g relating to what circumstance is approval required from ICANN, and
what sort of notice periods should be required)
- developing a policy around the introduction of wildcard entries to
gtlds
(note .museum already has a wildcard entry as part of their agreement
with ICANN)

My recommendation for agenda item 4 is that we keep the discussion
focused on the issues for which the GNSO is responsible for, and also
consider whether we need to formally support the actions already taken
by ICANN and the Security and Stability Committee.  I believe in the
past we have taken this approach with respect to the ccNSO, where we
have supported the creation of a ccNSO and the recent decisions made by
ICANN with respect to the ccNSO.

If we believe there is a need for new policy, then we should consider
formally commencing the policy development process at the next GNSO
Council meeting.

The GNSO should primarily be focussed on how to avoid problems in the
future.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin