[council] Reminder: GNSO Council call 6 March at 19:00 UTC

Thu Mar 6 04:06:00 UTC 2008

Dear All,

Please find the agenda with relevant links for the Council call 
tomorrow, Thursday, 6 March at 19:00 UTC and Friday 7 March for 
Cambodia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Melbourne.

Let me know if you need the dial-in numbers resent.

Thanks
Glen

Item 0: Roll call of Council members (5 mins)

Item 1: Update any statements of interest (5 mins)

Item 2: Review/amend agenda (5 mins)
http://www.gnso.icann.org/meetings/agenda-06mar08.shtml

Item 3: Update from Denise Michel on Board activities (15 mins)

Item 4: IDNC update - Edmon Chung (10 mins)
http://www.gnso.icann.org/drafts/gnso-idnc-initial-report-feb08.pdf

Item 5: Report from Domain Name Tasting Design Team (20 mins)
Domain Tasting Design Team Motion
Revised - 26 February 2008

Whereas, the GNSO Council has discussed the Issues Report on Domain 
Tasting and the Final Outcomes Report of the ad hoc group on Domain Tasting;

Whereas, the GNSO Council resolved on 31 October 2007 to launch a PDP on 
Domain Tasting;

Whereas, the GNSO Council authorized on 17 January 2008 the formation of 
a small design team to develop a plan for the deliberations on the 
Domain Tasting PDP (the “Design Team”), the principal volunteers to 
which had been members of the Ad Hoc Group on Domain Tasting and were 
well-informed of both the Final Outcomes Report of the Ad Hoc Group on 
Domain Tasting and the GNSO Initial Report on Domain Tasting 
(collectively with the Issues Report, the “Reports on Domain Tasting”);

Whereas, the GNSO Council has received the Draft Final Report on Domain 
Tasting;

Whereas, PIR, the .org registry operator, has amended its Registry 
Agreement to charge an Excess Deletion Fee; and both NeuStar, the .biz 
registry operator, and Afilias, the .info registry operator, are seeking 
amendments to their respective Registry Agreements to modify the 
existing AGP;

The GNSO Council recommends to the ICANN Board of Directors that:

1.    The applicability of the Add Grace Period shall be restricted for 
any gTLD which has implemented an AGP (“Applicable gTLD Operator”). 
Specifically, for each Applicable gTLD Operator:

a.    During any given month, an Applicable gTLD Operator may not offer 
any refund for any domain names deleted during the AGP that exceed (i) 
10% of its net new registrations in that month (defined as total new 
registrations less domains deleted during AGP), or (ii) fifty (50) 
domain names, whichever is greater.

b.    A Registrar may seek an exemption from the application of such 
restriction in a specific month, upon the documented showing of 
extraordinary circumstances.  For any Registrar requesting such an 
exemption, the Registrar must confirm in writing to the Registry 
Operator how, at the time the names were deleted, these extraordinary 
circumstances were not known, reasonably could not have been known, and 
were outside of the Registrar’s control.  Acceptance of any exemption 
will be at the sole reasonable discretion of the Registry Operator, 
however "extraordinary circumstances" which reoccur regularly will not 
be deemed extraordinary.
c.    In addition to all other reporting requirements to ICANN, each 
Applicable gTLD Operator shall identify each Registrar that has sought 
an exemption, along with a brief descriptive identification of the type 
of extraordinary circumstance and the action (if any) that was taken by 
the Applicable gTLD Operator.

2.    The above restriction on use of the Add Grace Period shall be 
considered an “ICANN adopted specification or polic[y] prohibiting or 
restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars” 
in accordance with Section 3.7.9 of the Registrar Accreditation 
Agreement.  As such, a Registrar that engages in domain tasting, defined 
as using the AGP to register domain names in order to test their 
profitability, shall be deemed in material breach of the Registrar 
Accreditation Agreement.

3.    Implementation and execution of these recommendations shall be 
monitored by the GNSO.  Specifically;

a.    ICANN Staff shall analyze and report to the GNSO at six month 
intervals for two years after implementation, until such time as the 
GNSO resolves otherwise, with the goal of determining;

i.    How effectively and to what extent the policies have been 
implemented and followed by Registries and Registrars, and

ii.    Whether or not modifications to these policies should be 
considered by the GNSO as a result of the experiences gained during the 
implementation and monitoring stages,

b.     The purpose of these monitoring and reporting requirements are to 
allow the GNSO to determine when, if ever, these recommendations and any 
ensuing policy require additional clarification or attention based on 
the results of the reports prepared by ICANN Staff.

Item 6: Discuss Report on Public Suggestions on Further Studies of WHOIS 
(20 mins)

http://www.gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois-study-suggestion-report-25feb08.pdf

Item 7: Proposed motion requesting an Issues Report on "fast flux DNS" 
changes - Mike Rodenbaugh (10 mins)

Whereas, "fast flux" DNS changes are increasingly being used to commit 
crime and frustrate law enforcement efforts to combat crime, with 
criminals rapidly modifying IP addresses and/or nameservers in effort to 
evade
detection and shutdown of their criminal website;

Whereas, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee has reported on 
this trend in its Advisory SAC 025, dated January 2008:
http://www.icann.org/committees/security/sac025.pdf/

Whereas, the SSAC Advisory describes the technical aspects of fast flux 
hosting, explains how DNS is being exploited to abet criminal 
activities, discusses current and possible methods of mitigating this 
activity, and
recommends that appropriate bodies consider policies that would make 
practical mitigation methods universally available to all registrants, 
ISPs, registrars and registries,

Whereas, the GNSO is likely an appropriate party to consider such policies

The GNSO Council RESOLVES:

ICANN Staff shall prepare an Issues Report with respect to "fast flux" 
DNS changes, for deliberation by the GNSO Council. Specifically the 
Staff shall consider the SAC Advisory, and shall outline potential next 
steps for GNSO policy development designed to mitigate the current 
ability for criminals to exploit the DNS via "fast flux" IP or 
nameserver changes.

Item 8: Update on Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy PDP (5 mins)

Item 9: Update on Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy future PDPs (5 mins)

Item 10: Discuss status of draft Bylaws amendment on absentee voting (5 
mins) 
http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/absentee-voting-bylaw-amendment-15feb08.pdf

Item 11: Action Item Review (5 mins)
http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/pending-action-list.pdf

Item 12: AOB

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