[council] Draft GNSO Council minutes 11 October 2007

[GNSO.SECRETARIAT@GNSO.ICANN.ORG]

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

Dear Council Members,

Attached, and in plain text below, please find the draft minutes of the 
GNSO Council teleconference held on 11 October 2007.

Please let me know if you would like any changes made.

Thank you very much.

Kind regards,
Glen
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 October 2007
Proposed agenda and documents
List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business Users C
Mike Rodenbaugh - Commercial & Business Users C.
Bilal Beiram - Commercial & Business Users C - absent - apologies
Greg Ruth - ISCPC
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC - absent - apologies
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Ross Rader - Registrars
Adrian Kinderis - Registrars - absent - aplogies
Chuck Gomes - gTLD registries
Edmon Chung - gTLD registries
Cary Karp - gTLD registries
Kristina Rosette - Intellectual Property Interests C
Ute Decker - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent - aplogies
Cyril Chau - Intellectual Property Interests C
Robin Gross - NCUC
Norbert Klein - NCUC
Mawaki Chango - NCUC - absent
Sophia Bekele - Nominating Committee appointee - absent - apologies
Jon Bing - Nominating Committee appointee - absent - apologies
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee
15 Council Members
(20 Votes - quorum)

ICANN Staff

Denise Michel - Vice President, Policy Development
Dan Halloran - Deputy General Counsel
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination
Kurt Pritz - Senior Vice President, Services
Craig Schwartz - Chief gTLD Registry Liaison
Patrick Jones - Registry Liaison Manager
Karla Valente - gTLD Registry Liaison
Glen de Saint Géry - GNSO Secretariat
GNSO Council Liaisons
Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison - absent - apologies
Alan Greenberg - ALAC Liaison
Rita Rodin - ICANN Board member
Bruce Tonkin - ICANN Board member - absent - apologies
Invited Observers
Tim Ruiz - Registrar
Olga Cavalli - Nom Com appointee after AGM
Jon Nevett - Registrar Constituency chair
Ray Fasett - Registry
Liz Gasster - consultant

MP3 Recording
Avri Doria chaired the meeting.

Approval of the agenda
Avri Doria proposed changing the sequence of the agenda items:
- moving Item 5 to Item 3
- adding an Item 4: Discussion on PDP timing
Item 1: Update any Statements of Interest
Avri Doria noted that her statement of interest had been updated in 
accordance with General Counsel's request. Avri also commented that 
Sophia Bekele had updated her statement of interest.

Item 2:
Approval of the draft GNSO Council minutes of 30 August 2007
Approval of the draft GNSO Council minutes of 6 September 2007
Approval of the draft GNSO Council minutes of 20 September 2007
Avri Doria seconded by Chuck Gomes moved the adoption of the GNSO 
Council minutes of 30 August 2007.
Motion approved

Avri Doria seconded by Chuck Gomes moved the adoption of the GNSO 
Council minutes of 6 September 2007

Motion approved

Avri Doria seconded by Chuck Gomes moved the adoption of the GNSO 
Council minutes of 20 September 2007
Motion approved

Decision 1: The Council approved the
GNSO Council minutes of 30 August 2007
GNSO Council minutes of 6 September 2007
GNSO Council minutes of 20 September 2007


Item 3: LA gTLD Workshop planning
- New gTLD Workshop plans
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg03924.html
Chuck Gomes commented on key items in the new gTLD workshop plan that 
had been developed by a small group, led by himself, and which included 
Avri Doria, Kristina Rosette, Adrian Kinderis, Denise Michel, Kurt 
Pritz, Craig Schwartz, Karen Lentz and Karla Valente.

The goals of the workshop are twofold:
- community understanding of the recommendations, principles and 
implementation guidelines
- for the community to share comments for the Board's benefit as the 
Board will supposedly be taking action during the Los Angeles meeting.

Chuck drew attention to the following key items:
3. Try to achieve a good balance between panel and audience 
participation, while realizing that some items may involve more 
presentation than interaction

4. Avoid re-debate of the issues by panel and/or Council members

7. Councilors, New gTLD Committee members and ICANN Staff members who 
are not on the panel should be encouraged to participate with other 
audience participants during the interactive session using a special 
microphone set up for that purpose, but in doing so, they should:
a. Set good examples for being concise and to the point
b. Try to add additional clarity regarding how the committee arrived at 
the final positions
c. Aim to reinforce the decisions made by the committee and the Council
d. Avoid using this forum to re-attempt to make changes that were not 
accepted in the PDP work or by the Council.

8. All Council members should support the recommendations in a way that 
is constructive with the goal of increasing understanding of the thought 
processes that happened in the PDP process that led to the final 
recommendations.

9. Reading of lengthy portions of the report should be avoided; instead
a. Those with online access during the meeting should be encouraged to 
link to the report; hard copies at least for Part A of the report should 
be available for those who do not have on-line access.
b. Clear reference to well-identified sections of the report should be 
made when the need arises.
c. Participants should be encouraged to read relevant portions of the 
report on their own.
Session Breakdown
Chuck Gomes proposed modifying the session breakdown by moving all the 
items dealing with contractual conditions to session two, which was the 
shortest session, and all the non contractual issues to session one to 
allow for a more coherency and a better time balance.

The following assumptions were made in developing a list of panel members:
• Having people on panels who are topically prepared is more important 
than having every constituency represented.
• Panel size should be kept to a minimum to maximize time efficiency.
The primary criterion for panel member recommendations was significant 
participation in the New gTLD Committee, not just working groups of that 
committee.
Chris Disspain, chair of the ccNSO, was selected to be the Workshop 
moderator.
Several panel participants were changed round due to the proposed change 
in topics during the sessions.
In summary, session one would deal the selection process and 
introductory type information related to the report and the recommendations.
Session two would cover contractual conditions and Session three would 
cover recommendations, three, six, twelve, and twenty.
In each case, the related implementation guidelines would be discussed 
and all of the principles except for principal G, would be covered in 
Session one. Principal G would be covered in Session three, because it
related closely to the recommendations in that section.
The following comments arose from Chuck's overview:
Rita Rodin emphasised that the Board was interested in hearing comments 
from the different constituencies, the varying points of view, where 
consensus could be reached and which were the contentious issues, rather 
than revisiting and rediscussing the issues in order for the Board to 
have as complete a picture as possible, when it started its deliberations.

Denise Michel reported that all efforts had been made to minimise 
conflicts with other sessions during the workshop and the Board members 
would be present.

Rita Rodin suggested that the GNSO provide a schedule which stipulated 
where Board participation was important to encourage Board member's 
presence at such sessions.

Ray Fassett commenting on the recommendation "Application must be of a 
commercially reasonable length.” asked whether the committee had 
determined the length of time. Chuck Gomes noted that in the base 
contract, published some months ago, ten years had been mentioned.

The draft versions of the RFP and the base contract would be ready after 
the LA meetings and would be posted for public comments at that time.

It was suggested that the ALAC and the GAC liaisons to Council should be 
available in front of the audience along with Council members, not on 
the panel, to give supplementary information if required.

The group was thanked for all the efforts that had gone into the new 
gTLD workshop planning.
Avri Doria thanked the visitors for their participation on the call.

Item 4: Discussion on PDP timing

Avri Doria noted that the agenda item was prompted by two issue reports 
that Council had received, one on IGO Names and abbreviations and one on 
Domain Tasting which, following the strict timing set out in the ICANN 
bylaws policy development process (PDP), necessitated that the Council 
vote during the current meeting whether or not to initiate a policy 
development processes. If the vote for PDP would be successful another 
vote would follow on whether to form a task force or not.
There appeared to be two points of view.
- that the PDP processes and the appropriate timing should be followed, 
in which case, Avri pointed out the timing for 120 days that followed :
- that more time was needed in the constituencies to reflect on the 
Issue Reports and a vote should be taken at the Los Angeles meeting
Avri Doria suggested sending the following statement to the ICANN Board:
The GNSO considers the timings contained in the bylaws impossible for 
proper policy development process. This has been discussed in the LSE 
Report and reinforced in many constituency statements on the topic of 
GNSO Reform.
In order to continue its PDP deliberative process while waiting for the 
final report from the Board Governance working group, the GNSO requests 
that the Board vote to remove the timing requirement as currently 
defined in the bylaws.
Chuck Gomes was supportive of the motion. Until the GNSO improvements 
would be implemented and the PDP revised timing would continue to an issue.
Philip Sheppard commented that it behooved Council to adhere to the 
existing bylaw mandated deadlines, particularly in starting the process 
and then possibly make adjustments as the process progressed.
Ross Rader was supportive of the approach but emphasised that it was 
necessary to work within a more pragmatic and realistic set of timelines 
than those outlined in the bylaws.
Norbert Klein suggested recording timings so that the information could 
be used in adjusting the future regulations relating to the PDP.
Mike Rodenbaugh commented that not all the timelines needed adjustment. 
The length of time for public comment periods and collection of 
constituency statements were reasonable.
Kristina Rosette suggested going back to the constituencies and 
identifying what timelines could be agreed upon and why rather than 
leaving the issue open ended.
Avri Doria proposed removing the motion, which had not been seconded, 
based on the Council discussion which was not in favour of removing 
timelines but tended towards a case by case approach.

Item 5: Intergovernmental Organization Dispute Resolution Process (IGO-DRP)
Report and Decision on next steps
Olof Nordling reported on the staff draft Intergovernmental 
Organizations Domain Name Dispute Resolution Procedure which was 
intended to apply to dispute resolutions and procedures at the second 
level for new gTLDs. The object of the report was to mirror the WIPO 2 
recommendations, an integral part of the UDRP, in a separate text. The 
report set out how these mechanisms would function,how they would be 
referenced in the new gTLD registry agreement and then in the registrar 
agreements as they became accredited for the new TLD.
Olof drew attention to the key provisions in the report, section 4:

"a. Applicable Disputes. You are required to submit to a mandatory 
administrative proceeding in the event that an International 
Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) (a “complainant”) asserts to the 
applicable Provider, in compliance with the Rules of Procedure, that
(i) the registration or use, as a domain name, of the name or 
abbreviation of the complainant that has been communicated under Article 
6ter of the Paris Convention is of a nature:
(a) to suggest to the public that a connection exists between the domain 
name holder and the complainant; or
(b) to mislead the public as to the existence of a connection between 
the domain name holder and the complainant; or
(ii) on the ground that the registration or use, as a domain name, of a 
name or abbreviation of the complainant protected under an international 
treaty violates the terms of that treaty.
In the administrative proceeding, the complainant must prove that any of 
the elements (i)(a) or {i)(b) or (ii) - is present.

As background:
On 24 May 2007, the GNSO Council passed a resolution

"Whereas the GNSO Council requested at its meeting on 12 April 2006 that 
the Intellectual Property Interests constituency following consultations 
make a recommendation to the GNSO Council as to whether or not a policy 
development process is required.
Whereas, the GNSO Council recognizes the recommendation put forward by 
the IPC Constituency regarding possible measures in line with WIPO-2 to 
protect International Intergovernmental Organizations (IGO) names and 
abbreviations as domain names.
Whereas, the GNSO Council notes that measures to protect IGO names and 
abbreviations are requested in the GAC principles for New gTLDs.
Whereas, the GNSO Council notes that WIPO is the maintenance agency for 
the authoritative list of relevant IGO names and abbreviations protected 
under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention
(http://www.wipo.int/article6ter/en/ ).
The GNSO Council requests that the staff produce an issues report on the 
policy issues associated with adequately handling disputes relating to 
IGO names and abbreviations as domain names.

The GNSO Council also requests that the staff liaise with WIPO to 
utilize its knowledge and experience of WIPO-2."
Chuck Gomes questioned differentiating between new TLD’s and existing 
TLD’s with regard to the proposed policy as it was a significant policy 
issue that would apply to new and existing gTLDs.
The Government Advisory Committee had provided input that there should 
be such provisions, it was not included in the objection process nor in 
the Reserved Names discussions, nor at the second level where the issue 
would reside.

The fundamental question was whether Council was examining a proposal to 
apply to names in the past and the future or only in the future?
Avri Doria suggested further discussion during the GNSO working sessions 
in Los Angeles and proposed voting on whether or not to initiate a PDP 
at the current meeting.
Avri Doria, seconded by Norbert Klein proposed the following motion
The GNSO Council resolves to postpone the decision to initiate a policy 
development process (PDP) on the Intergovernmental Organization Dispute 
Resolution Process (IGO-DRP) until the open meeting on 31 October in Los 
Angeles.
The motion passed unanimously by voice vote.
Decision 2: The GNSO Council resolved to postpone the decision to 
initiate a policy development process (PDP) on the Intergovernmental 
Organization Dispute Resolution Process (IGO-DRP) until the open meeting 
on 31 October in Los Angeles

Item 4: Domain Tasting report and decision on next step (20)
http://www.gnso.icann.org/drafts/gnso-domain-tasting-adhoc-outcomes-report-final.pdf

Mike Rodenbaugh reported that the Domain Tasting ad hoc working group 
was tasked with accumulating factual information with regards to the 
issues outlined in staff issues report on domain tasting.
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-domain-tasting-report-14jun07.pdf
The group met almost every week for several months and gathered 
information particularly in the form of a questionnaire that went out to 
all of the constituencies.
Approximately 200 response were received, the vast majority indicating 
that there was an issue with domain tasting and wanted to see some sort 
of resolution to the issue.
In addition the Registrar’s constituency contributed information on 
various non-tasting uses that Registrars had for the Added Grace Period 
(AGP). The Registries provided information in the form of graphs, tables 
and statistics from Neustar and Afflias.

The group was asked to draft terms of reference (ToR) that could be 
considered by the Council in the event that a PDP would be initiated.
Draft Terms of Reference:
1. Review and assess all the effects of domain tasting activities that 
have been identified.
2. Judge whether the overall effects justify measures to be taken to 
impede domain tasting.
3. If the answer to 2 is affirmative, then consider the potential 
impacts of measures on the Constituencies, and recommend measures 
designed to impede domain tasting.
Ross Rader commented that in order to properly consider the forthcoming 
recommendations of the working group on tasting, he sought further data 
from staff as background information.
Specifically, Ross wished to understand staff experience in enforcing 
clause 3.74 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm
a) How many enforcement cases had been opened related to this clause in 
the last 5 years?
b) How were these cases resolved?
c) Did staff view 3.7.4 as an effective hedge against abuse of the AGP, 
if so, why? If not, why not?

Denise Michel mentioned that an Economic Research Assistant had been 
retained and would take the working group output and provide additional 
information on issues such as a performance analysis, add grace deletes 
and other data points that would be useful for the Council's 
deliberations. This data would, however, not be available before October 
31, 2007.
Alan Greenberg did not support delaying a PDP process beyond the Los 
Angeles meeting.
Chuck Gomes commented that he had currently no direction from the 
Registry constituency as to how to vote on the matter.
Ross Rader was not supportive of voting on the issue without having a 
response to his questions, and the Registrar constituency had not 
specifically been consulted on voting.
In addition, Ross recommended exploring practical steps that would 
remove the problem immediately. Furthermore, he did not believe that it 
was an issue for a policy development process.
Philip Sheppard commented that looking at the question from a higher 
level, public interest prospective the issue was trying to correct harm 
that was out in the community and it behooved Council to act, as swiftly 
as possible, force timelines and to encourage staff to obtain the 
necessary information.
Philip wished Council to take the attitude “Yes we recognize it’s a 
problem. Let’s go ahead with it, as quickly as possible."
Kristina Rosette, Tony Harris, Robin Gross and Alan Greenberg were 
supportive of waiting until Los Angeles to enlist further input from the 
community.

Avri Doria seconded by Chuck Gomes proposed the following motion
The GNSO Council resolves to postpone the decision to initiate a policy 
development process (PDP) on the Domain Name Tasting issue until the 
open meeting on 31 October in Los Angeles.

Avri Doria called for a roll call vote.
17 Votes in of favour of postponing the decision:
Kristina Rosette, Tony Harris (on condition that there would be a vote 
on 31 October 2007), Greg Ruth, Robin Gross, Norbert Klein, Mawaki 
Chango, Avri Doria (each one vote)
Chuck Gomes, Edmon Chung, Cary Karp, Tom Keller, Ross Rader (two votes each)
1 vote against
Philip Sheppard
1 abstention
Mike Rodenbaugh
The motion passed.

Decision 3: The GNSO Council resolved to postpone the decision to 
initiate a policy development process (PDP) on the Domain Name Tasting 
issue until the open meeting on 31 October in Los Angeles.

Item 6: Registrar Transfer Policy Plan
On 20 September, the GNSO Council resolved:
iii). That the GNSO Council form a short-term planning group to analyse 
and prioritize the policy issues raised in the report "Communication to 
GNSO on Policy Issues Arising from Transfer Review" before the Council 
further considers a PDP on any of the work discussed in the report."

Avri Doria called for a volunteers including a volunteer to lead the 
group, and added that the leader and the participants did not 
necessarily have to be Council members, though some Council 
participation was desirable.
Ross Rader was appointed as the lead for the short-term planning group, 
Tim Ruiz and Tom Keller from the Registrar constituency, and Barbara 
Steele, proposed by Chuck Gomes volunteered to join the group.
Olof Nordling and Karen Lentz were designated as the staff support for 
the group.
The NCUC, IPC and ALAC indicated that they would name volunteers from 
their respective groups.

The Issues paper would be published during the week beginning 15 October 
2007.

Item 7.
Kristina Rosette empasised the importance of receiving substantive long 
documents well in advance of the Los Angeles meetings so that 
Councillors would have the necessary time to prepare.

Item 8: Action Item review
http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/pending-action-list.pdf

WHOIS: Liz Gasster reported that the WHOIS staff implementation report 
and the staff overview, final report would be delivered to meet the 15 
October timeline.

New gTLDs had been discussed under Item 3.

The IGO names and abbreviations would be a subject for open Council 
discussion in Los Angeles.
Domain Tasting would be a subject for open Council discussion in Los 
Angeles.
Response to Board resolution regarding IDN ccTLDs would be a subject for 
open Council discussion in Los Angeles.

Registrar Transfer Policy Review: the volunteer group was in formation 
and the Staff Issues Report would be produced by 19 October 2007

Proxy voting: Avri Doria had received a response, but was awaiting 
permission from General Counsel to share it with the Council. The ICANN 
bylaws are explicit about councillors being able to communicate with 
each other at the time of voting and that has been interpreted to mean 
no proxy vote.

Motion on term limits 2006-nov-06: Avri Doria reported that the Board 
Governance group would be reporting on this in their report.

Question regarding WHOIS motion #2: Avri Doria reported that the 
response would be discussed at the Los Angeles meeting.
Avri Doria adjourned the GNSO Council meeting and thanked everyone for 
their participation.
The meeting ended at 16:10 UTC.
Next GNSO Council open meeting will be in Los Angeles on 31 October 2007 
at 8:30 local time UTC.
see: Calendar

Action Items arising from the minutes
Item 4:
Avri Doria undertook to obtain a response from ICANN staff on Ross 
Rader's questions:
- to understand staff experience in enforcing clause 3.74 of the 
Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm
a) How many enforcement cases had been opened related to this clause in 
the last 5 years?
b) How were these cases resolved?
c) Did staff view 3.7.4 as an effective hedge against abuse of the AGP, 
if so, why? If not, why not?

Item 6.
GNSO Secretariat to follow up and collect the names of volunteers from 
other constituencies before the LA meetings








Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 11 October 2007.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 64512 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/attachments/20071019/2e1b121f/11October2007.doc>