[council] Revised draft minutes GNSO Council call 2 March 2006

Thu Mar 16 16:11:09 UTC 2006

[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org]

Dear Council Members,

Please find the revised draft minutes of the GNSO Council meeting held 
on 2 March 2006. Lucy Nichols's was present and her vote has been added.

Please let me know if there are other changes you would like made.

Thank you very much.
Kind regards,
Glen

2 March 2006

Proposed agenda and related documents

List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business Users C.
Marilyn Cade - Commercial & Business Users C.
Grant Forsyth - Commercial & Business Users C
Greg Ruth - ISCPC
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Ross Rader - Registrars
Bruce Tonkin - Registrars
Ken Stubbs - gTLD registries
June Seo - gTLD registries
Cary Karp - gTLD registries
Lucy Nichols - Intellectual Property Interests C
Ute Decker - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent - apologies
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C.
Robin Gross - NCUC. - absent
Norbert Klein - NCUC.
Mawaki Chango - NCUC
Sophia Bekele - Nominating Committee appointee
Maureen Cubberley - Nominating Committee appointee
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

19 Council Members

ICANN Staff
Dan Halloran - Deputy General Counsel
Kurt Pritz - Vice President, Business Operations
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination
Maria Farrell - ICANN GNSO Policy Support Officer
Liz Williams - Senior Policy Counselor
Tina Dam - Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
Glen de Saint Géry - GNSO Secretariat

GNSO Council Liaisons
Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison - absent - apologies
Bret Fausett - ALAC Liaison

Quorum present at 19:08 UTC.

MP3 Recording

Bruce Tonkin chaired this teleconference.

Approval of agenda
Marilyn Cade requested the an update on the Wellington schedule under 
Any Other Business

Item 1: Approval of the GNSO Council minutes 6 February 2006
Ross Rader moved the adoption of the minutes.

Motion approved.

Decision 1: The GNSO Council minutes of 6 February 2006 were adopted.

Update on GNSO Review and introduction of the reviewers

The London School of Economics (LSE) Public Policy Group has been 
appointed to undertake the GNSO Review, Prof. Patrick Dunleavy, Simon 
Bastow, and Oliver Pearce were invited to address the council.

The expenditure approved by the Board for the GNSO Review was $150000 
USD to be expended over the period of the review process.

The group is engaged in academic and research consultancy having worked 
for the United Kingdom Government, international bodies and foreign 
governments with a recent work focus on e-government.

The Review would consist of several components,

- the main one being a web site with a survey for each constituency, 
accessible in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian, 
with a user identity and password,
- a large outreach team at the LSE e-mailing and communicating directly 
with people,
- press advertising,
- a weblog and
- discussion group to interactively solicit views.

In addition there would be:

- a comprehensive series of interviews also taking place during the 
Wellington meetings,
- examination of documentation and other data focused on the areas of 
representativeness, transparency, effectiveness and compliance in the 
GNSO Review Terms of Reference.

The emphasis is on seeking a broad range of views.

To a question raised about the review examining the GNSO role in 
registry /registrar compliance, the clarification was that it was 
intended to contextualise comments on how the GNSO was viewed, rather 
than quantify how GNSO enforced compliance.

Item 2: Terms of reference for PDP-Feb06
- Decide the terms of reference for the PDP (Under the provisions of 
section 7(b) of Annex A of the ICANN bylaws)

Bruce Tonkin noted the gTLD Registry constituency statement concerning 
the PDP Feb06 posted to the Council mailing list.
The process to date was that an initial draft Terms of Reference (TOR) 
for PDP-Feb06 was produced on 8 February 2006, a conference call was 
scheduled on 16 February 2006, during which some constituencies 
expressed the need for more time to discuss the issue, after the call 
the ICANN staff produced a revised draft TOR . At an ad hoc working 
session of the GNSO council in Washington DC, on Friday 24 February 
2006, (present: Bruce Tonkin, Ross Rader Registrar constituency; Marilyn 
Cade CBUC; Mawaki Chango NCUC; Ken Stubbs, Cary Karp remote 
participation gTLD registries constituency; Tony Holmes remote 
participation ISPCPC, remote participation; Avri Doria and Maureen 
Cubberley, remote participation Nominating committee appointees),the 
Council members further edited the TOR. The current teleconference was 
scheduled with the intention to finalise and put the Terms of Reference 
to the vote.

Bruce Tonkin asked whether any councillor wished to make a statement of 
interest that had not been previously declared.
Ross Rader mentioned updating his statement of interest indicating that 
some of Tucows clients might be active in the GNSO or ICANN.

Bruce Tonkin clarified that pursuant to discussion with the General 
Counsel's office, while the issue topic area was within ICANN's mission 
and core values, any proposed policy should likewise relate to the 
mission and the core values of ICANN.

Marilyn Cade, seconded by Avri Doria proposed the motion,

That Council approves the Terms of Reference for the policy development 
process on GNSO policies for contractual conditions for existing gTLDs 
(PDP-Feb06) as drafted with the insertion of the words "and core values" 
in the paragraph on
"Goal" namely;
"The overall goal of this PDP therefore is to determine what policies 
are appropriate, for the long term future of gTLDs within the context of 
ICANN's mission "and core values," that relate to the issues identified 
in the specific terms of reference below.

Context

The GNSO initiated a policy development process in December 2005 
[PDP-Dec05] to develop policy around whether to introduce new gTLDs, and 
,if so, determine the selection criteria, allocation methods, and 
contractual conditions.

During 2005, ICANN commenced a process of revising the .net and .com 
agreements. There has been substantial discussion amongst members of the 
GNSO community around both the recently signed .net agreement (dated 29 
June 2005), and the proposed .com agreements (dated 24 October 2005 and 
29 January 2006).
As a result, the GNSO Council recognized that issues such as renewal 
could be considered as part of the broader issue of contractual 
conditions for existing gTLDs, and that it may be more appropriate to 
have policies that apply to gTLDs generally on some of the matters 
raised by GNSO members, rather than be treated as matters to negotiate 
on a contract by contract basis.

Subsequently on the 17 January 2006, GNSO Council requested that the 
ICANN staff produce an issues report "related to the dot COM proposed 
agreement in relation to the various views that have been expressed by
the constituencies." This issues report is available at:
http://www.gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg01951.html
.
Section D of this issues report provides a discussion of many of the 
issues that had been raised by the GNSO community in response to the 
proposed revisions to the .com agreement. In the issues report the ICANN 
General Counsel advised that it would not be appropriate to consider a 
policy development process that specifically targets the .com registry 
agreement.

At its meeting on 6 February 2006, members of the GNSO Council clarified 
that the intention of the request for the issues report was to seek an 
issues report on the topic of the broader policy issues that relate to
the contractual conditions of gTLD agreements, which have been 
identified from the various views expressed by the GNSO constituencies 
on the proposed .com agreement.

At its meeting on 6 February 2006 the GNSO Council recognised that while
the PDP initiated in December 2005 [PDP-Dec05] included within its terms 
of reference the topic of contractual conditions, a possible outcome of 
that PDP would be that there should be no additional gTLDs, and thus the
Council could not depend on this PDP to address the issues raised by the 
GNSO community.

Thus at its meeting on 6 February 2006, the GNSO Council, by a 
super-majority decision, decided to initiate a separate PDP [PDP-Feb06] 
to look at specific areas of contractual conditions of existing gTLDs.

The work of PDP-Feb06 will naturally be conducted within the context of 
the work on PDP-Dec05, and if it is decided that new gTLDS should be 
introduced, the policy work of PDP-Feb06 will be incorporated into a
single gTLD policy.

Goal

The overall goal of this PDP therefore is to determine what policies are 
appropriate, for the long term future of gTLDs within the context of 
ICANN's mission and core values, that relate to the issues identified in 
the specific terms of reference below.

Terms of Reference

1. Registry agreement renewal

1a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding renewal, and 
if so, what the elements of that policy should be.

1b. Recognizing that not all existing registry agreements share the same 
Rights of Renewal, use the findings from above to determine whether or 
not these conditions should be standardized across all future agreements.

2. Relationship between registry agreements and consensus policies

2a. Examine whether consensus policy limitations in registry agreements 
are appropriate and how these limitations should be determined.

2b. Examine whether the delegation of certain policy making 
responsibility to sponsored TLD operators is appropriate, and if so, 
what if any changes are needed.

3. Policy for price controls for registry services

3a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy regarding price 
controls, and if so, what the elements of that policy should be. (note 
examples of price controls include price caps, and the same
pricing for all registrars)

3b. Examine objective measures (cost calculation method, cost elements, 
reasonable profit margin) for approving an application for a price 
increase when a price cap exists.

4. ICANN fees

4a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding registry 
fees to ICANN, and if so, what the elements of that policy should be.

4b. Determine how ICANN's public budgeting process should relate to the 
negotiation of ICANN fees.

5. Uses of registry data

Registry data is available to the registry as a consequence of registry 
operation. Examples of registry data could include information on domain 
name registrants, information in domain name records, and traffic
data associated with providing the DNS resolution services associated 
with the registry.

5a Examine whether or not there should be a policy regarding the use of 
registry data for purposes other than for which it was collected, and if 
so, what the elements of that policy should be.

5b. Determine whether any policy is necessary to ensure 
non-discriminatory access to registry data that is made available to 
third parties.

6. Investments in development and infrastructure

6a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding investments 
in development and infrastructure, and if so, what the elements of that 
policy should be.

The motion carried by roll call vote with 18 votes in favour, 6 votes 
against.

Votes in favour: Philip Sheppard, Marilyn Cade, Grant Forsyth, (CBUC) 
Tony Holmes, Tony Harris, Greg Ruth, (ISPCPC) Norbert Klein, Mawaki 
Chango, (NCUC) Lucy Nichols (IPC) Maureen Cubberley, Sophia Bekele, Avri 
Doria, (Nominating committee appointees) Ross Rader, Tom Keller and 
Bruce Tonkin, (Registrar constituency each with a double vote)

Votes against: Cary karp, Ken Stubbs and June Seo, (gTLD registries 
constituency each with a double vote).

Absent: Robin Gross; absent with apologies: Ute Decker; Kiyoshi Tsuru 
had dropped off the call at the time of the vote.

Decision 2 :
That Council approves the Terms of Reference for the policy development 
process on GNSO policies for contractual conditions for existing gTLDs 
(PDP-Feb06) as drafted with the insertion of the words "and core values" 
in the paragraph on
"Goal" namely;
"The overall goal of this PDP therefore is to determine what policies 
are appropriate, for the long term future of gTLDs within the context of 
ICANN's mission "and core values," that relate to the issues identified 
in the specific terms of reference below.

Context

The GNSO initiated a policy development process in December 2005 
[PDP-Dec05] to develop policy around whether to introduce new gTLDs, and 
,if so, determine the selection criteria, allocation methods, and 
contractual conditions.

During 2005, ICANN commenced a process of revising the .net and .com 
agreements. There has been substantial discussion amongst members of the 
GNSO community around both the recently signed .net agreement (dated 29 
June 2005), and the proposed .com agreements (dated 24 October 2005 and 
29 January 2006).
As a result, the GNSO Council recognized that issues such as renewal 
could be considered as part of the broader issue of contractual 
conditions for existing gTLDs, and that it may be more appropriate to 
have policies that apply to gTLDs generally on some of the matters 
raised by GNSO members, rather than be treated as matters to negotiate 
on a contract by contract basis.

Subsequently on the 17 January 2006, GNSO Council requested that the 
ICANN staff produce an issues report "related to the dot COM proposed 
agreement in relation to the various views that have been expressed by
the constituencies." This issues report is available at:
http://www.gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg01951.html
.
Section D of this issues report provides a discussion of many of the 
issues that had been raised by the GNSO community in response to the 
proposed revisions to the .com agreement. In the issues report the ICANN 
General Counsel advised that it would not be appropriate to consider a 
policy development process that specifically targets the .com registry 
agreement.

At its meeting on 6 February 2006, members of the GNSO Council clarified 
that the intention of the request for the issues report was to seek an 
issues report on the topic of the broader policy issues that relate to
the contractual conditions of gTLD agreements, which have been 
identified from the various views expressed by the GNSO constituencies 
on the proposed .com agreement.

At its meeting on 6 February 2006 the GNSO Council recognised that while
the PDP initiated in December 2005 [PDP-Dec05] included within its terms 
of reference the topic of contractual conditions, a possible outcome of 
that PDP would be that there should be no additional gTLDs, and thus the
Council could not depend on this PDP to address the issues raised by the 
GNSO community.

Thus at its meeting on 6 February 2006, the GNSO Council, by a 
super-majority decision, decided to initiate a separate PDP [PDP-Feb06] 
to look at specific areas of contractual conditions of existing gTLDs.

The work of PDP-Feb06 will naturally be conducted within the context of 
the work on PDP-Dec05, and if it is decided that new gTLDS should be 
introduced, the policy work of PDP-Feb06 will be incorporated into a
single gTLD policy.

Goal

The overall goal of this PDP therefore is to determine what policies are 
appropriate, for the long term future of gTLDs within the context of 
ICANN's mission and core values, that relate to the issues identified in 
the specific terms of reference below.

Terms of Reference

1. Registry agreement renewal

1a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding renewal, and 
if so, what the elements of that policy should be.

1b. Recognizing that not all existing registry agreements share the same 
Rights of Renewal, use the findings from above to determine whether or 
not these conditions should be standardized across all future agreements.

2. Relationship between registry agreements and consensus policies

2a. Examine whether consensus policy limitations in registry agreements 
are appropriate and how these limitations should be determined.

2b. Examine whether the delegation of certain policy making 
responsibility to sponsored TLD operators is appropriate, and if so, 
what if any changes are needed.

3. Policy for price controls for registry services

3a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy regarding price 
controls, and if so, what the elements of that policy should be. (note 
examples of price controls include price caps, and the same
pricing for all registrars)

3b. Examine objective measures (cost calculation method, cost elements, 
reasonable profit margin) for approving an application for a price 
increase when a price cap exists.

4. ICANN fees

4a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding registry 
fees to ICANN, and if so, what the elements of that policy should be.

4b. Determine how ICANN's public budgeting process should relate to the 
negotiation of ICANN fees.

5. Uses of registry data

Registry data is available to the registry as a consequence of registry 
operation. Examples of registry data could include information on domain 
name registrants, information in domain name records, and traffic
data associated with providing the DNS resolution services associated 
with the registry.

5a Examine whether or not there should be a policy regarding the use of 
registry data for purposes other than for which it was collected, and if 
so, what the elements of that policy should be.

5b. Determine whether any policy is necessary to ensure 
non-discriminatory access to registry data that is made available to 
third parties.

6. Investments in development and infrastructure

6a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding investments 
in development and infrastructure, and if so, what the elements of that 
policy should be.

Item 3: Any other business

3.1 Update on Wellington

The Secretariat reported that following the proposed draft schedule 
there would be an administrative session for councillors present on 
Friday afternoon, 24 March 2006 in the InternetNZ's office. On Saturday 
25 and Sunday 26 March 2006, the new gTLD committee would work on policy 
issues related to new gTLDs.The GAC working group would meet with the 
GNSO for 2 hours on Sunday morning. There is a proposed working dinner 
involving the GNSO council and the ICANN board, not yet confirmed, on 
Sunday night, 25 March2006. Constituency day is scheduled for Monday 27 
March. The GNSO Council Public Forum is scheduled for Wednesday, 29 
March followed by the GNSO Council meeting on the same day.

Bruce Tonkin thanked the council members and the London School of 
Economics team undertaking the GNSO review for their participation.

The meeting ended: 21:10 UTC.

Next GNSO Council teleconference 14 March 2006 at 19:00 UTC
see: Calendar

-- 
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org