[registrars] Transcription: GNSO Interview Rita Rodin 20060530

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello All,

Below is a transcription of the GNSO Council interview with Rita Rodin.  Note this is an automated transcription, and the accuracy has not been verified - however it may be more useful than listening to the audio recording.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin


GNSO Interv Rodin 20060530


[incidental chatter]


Operator: Yes, the recording has started.


Bruce: Thank you. Just so that everyone is aware, it is normal practice 
with GNSO council meetings, they are open and we do record them. So, 
just bear in mind that anything you say may be recorded.


Rita, the format here is fairly informal, basically the process will 
simply be for you to make a few opening remarks on what you think the 
role of a board member is and how you feel that you meet a board member 
requirements. And other than that I'll just take a queue of people that 
might like to ask questions and then just played from their.


Rita: O.K. sure. Thank you everyone I know that people are making a 
separate call this morning to accommodate my schedule and they really 
appreciate that.


I think that in terms of my qualifications I think that having been 
around the ICANN community in some of the early days, I was fortunate to 
work with a number of different constituencies on a number of different 
projects, and I think that as I look at the role of a board member 
through the years I think that it has stayed somewhat consistent in that 
it is important to help organize the different constituencies and 
supporting organizations and try to help facilitate ICANN's role as a 
technical Internet coordinator.


And I think that you need to be articulate with the issues as a board 
member, and patient and willing to listen to lots of different points of 
view, and to try to help people reach consensus. I would like to think 
that I would try to do that as a member of the ICANN board.


Bruce: Thank you. Well at this point and I will take a cue for anyone 
that wishes to ask any questions at this point. And just a state your 
name if you want to be entered into the queue.


Marilyn: Bruce, it is Marilyn. You can put me in the queue.


Bruce: Anyone else?


Marie: Bruce, this is Marie. You can put me in the queue.


Bruce: Marie. Anyone else?


Steve: This is Steve, you can put me in the queue.


Bruce: O.K. Steve, you are in the queue. Anyone else?. O.K., go ahead 
Marilyn.


Marilyn: Thanks, Hi Rita.


Rita: Hi Marilyn, good morning.


Marilyn: I would like if you might, ask you to elaborate a little bit 
more are on your view about the role of a board member.


You have said that you think that one of the things that a board member 
can do is to help organize the different constituencies in the GNSO, and 
to help to reach consensus on I guess, you meant on policy perhaps? Can 
you elaborate a little bit more are on Europe view of the role of the 
board, versus the role of the supporting organizations and the community.


Rita: Sure, I think we talked about this a little bit on the BEC call as 
well, and I think that the way that the policy development process is 
meant to work is to have the supporting organization working closely 
with input from the community advisory committees, and the gag. I think 
that there are a number of different constituencies within ICANN, and it 
is important to have all those constituencies worked through different 
processes, and the board be reviewing the work of those constituencies 
to the extent that the board thinks that there needs to be additional 
areas that are inquired into, the more additional work needs to be done. 
I think the boards needs to take an overarching approach to ICANN policy 
making, and make sure that the right inquiries and discussions have been 
had.


Bruce: O.K., did you have any further questions Marilyn?


The


Marilyn: No. I may come back later with other questions, thank you.


Bruce: O.K., Marie. Go ahead.


Marie: Thank you Bruce.


Rita, I have a question from our constituency that comes in two parts: 
First, do you agree that the director has a fiduciary duty to make 
decisions in the best interests of the organization, as opposed to 
representing the particular point of view of her constituency? And that 
would be yes or no.


And the second part: Assuming that you agree, then what criteria which 
are used to determine what is in the best interests of ICANN?


Rita: The answer to the first question would be yes: I think the 
criteria to determine what is in the best interests of ICANN is probably 
a little bit complex. I think it comes number one from listening to the 
recommendations of the different supporting organizations, and is number 
two I think that it probably has to do with sticking close to ICANN's 
mission.


I know that three or four years ago I was involved in discussions with 
some folks thinking about ICANN's mission and how that should be 
expanded and sometimes you have individual constituencies or 
organizations that want ICANN to start legislating or regulating things 
like privacy at and spam, and I think that ICANN has been very careful 
of staying out of some of those roles because it is supposed to maintain 
its technical oversight position.


And I do think that if you take something like the UDRP, people worked 
really hard on that and I think there is something like 5000 cases. But 
it really just works because people allow it to work. There were no 
international treaties like with some other laws that came into place, 
so I think that if ICANN goes too far beyond its mission it just won't 
have legitimacy and the things that it does. I think that is a board 
member it is a combination of those two things.


Looking to the views of the community that are part of the board and 
then making sure that the board keeps ICANN close to its mission, 
responsible for the technical oversight role.


Marie: Thank you.


Bruce: O.K., did you have any further questions Marie?


Marie: I have a couple. But, the same as Marilyn, I think I would like 
to ask them later.


Bruce: O.K.. Stephen?


Steve: Yes, thank you Bruce. Hi Rita.


Rita: hi Steve.


Steve: Good morning. I want to ask about an issue that was very 
important to the intellectual property constituency in the last contest 
the election for board members, and that was the issue of conflicts. And 
I have seen your candidacy statements, and I just have a couple of 
questions about some of the things said they are regarding conflicts.


As I understand, you represent Telnic, which has got the contract to run 
dot-tel, but it appears that if a matter involving that contract came 
before the board, were you elected to the board, you would not think 
yourself disqualified from voting on it. So I just wanted to confirm, is 
that in fact or position, or would you think that you would be 
disqualified from voting on a matter involving dot-tel?


Rita: Yes, I would recuse myself when voting with dot-tel. I don't think 
it would be appropriate to vote on initiatives with respect to that 
entity because I have been working with them the last five years.


Steve: Are there other matters that you think you would be disqualified 
from voting on?


Rita: Probably not. The good thing about working in a large law firm is 
that I have individuals a lot smarter than I am just manage our conflict 
policy, and for everyone's benefit it require that every client that we 
enter into an engagement with signs an engagement letter. In that 
engagement letter is a very specific, and I think three paragraph long, 
conflicts waiver, and it basically has the client agree that we can do 
the adverts to them in any kind of matter other than a matter that we 
are directly working for them. So, as I said, we do have a very robust 
complex policy, and I am not concerned that will be implicated at all by 
my work on the ICANN board.


Steve: Well, that partially answers my next question, which is how you 
view -- from your perspective, assuming you're a member of the ICANN 
board -- how would you treat a matter in which another party in a 
contract or in a dispute with ICANN, which was represented by another 
member of your law firm. How would you act on that?


Rita: I just want to make sure I understand the question, Steve. So my 
firm is directly involved with a dispute against ICANN?


Steve: That, or perhaps one of your partners is representing, let's say, 
an other applicant for another registry or registrar. And that matter 
comes before the board, how would you deal with that?


Rita: I guess, in the first instance, I am the conduit for ICANN, for 
work opposite ICANN. Just so everyone knows, we have something called 
the "Black Box", and I have ICANN and various related entities in the 
industry in the Black Box.


So -- Any work that would be undertaken would have too come through me 
and get my approval. So I would consider that, in any type of scenario. 
if I were on the board, whether that would be appropriate for us to take 
on the engagement.


I guess I would have to see, Steve, whether I think it would be 
appropriate for me to take a vote or not, I think you would probably be 
a case-by-case basis, but as I said we do take position opposite to 
clients all the time. And as one board member, I am not sure that my 
vote would be able to significantly affect the process. That would 
really depend on the case-by-case basis. I would hope that I would work 
closely with the general counsel and others to make sure that I wasn't 
voting in a scenario that was inappropriate. But again, I don't 
anticipate or intend to recuse myself from votes unless it is absolutely 
necessary.


Steve: Excuse me, can I just follow up on that?


Bruce: O.K., Steve.


Steve: Is the test that you would be applying whether it would make a 
difference in the outcome, because you mentioned that, as a single board 
member your vote may not always make a difference. That is true, but is 
that the test you would apply?


Research: No. I think the test I would apply, Steve, is probably what is 
in the ICANN conflict statement which talks about having a direct and 
material financial interest. And I don't know how this would sound, but 
Skeddin is a huge company, so there is not really direct financial 
benefits that I would have for many client. In fact it would have to be 
a huge, multibillion-dollar engagement.


So I think that the test that the ICANN conflict policy asks that you 
apply is probably maybe to some extent a little bit lower than what I 
would apply, for example with respect to Telnic.


But again, I think what I have heard, and I haven't reviewed this, as 
perhaps in the past people applied the conflicts policy a little bit 
broadly, and as I said I would seek to apply as narrowly as possible, 
because I do not think that I would have a conflict in the majority of 
things that we would be voting on.


Steve: O.K., thank you.


Bruce: O.K., Marilyn? You had a follow-up to the same question, and did you?


Marilyn: I do. Given that Skeddin is such a large firm, it probably has 
clients today who are actually acted as ICANN -- Not necessarily in 
pursuing becoming a registry.: There are a number of ways, of course, 
that the company could have policy concerns before ICANN.


What I was most interested in was the reliance on the direct and 
financial interest. Because the company could, who is a present client, 
would they go through the black box as well, and would you have the 
opportunity to screen whether Skeddin represents them in that particular 
area, if they are existing clients?


Rita: Sure, I am not sure I understand the question exactly. Some 
existing client wants to do something within the ICANN community?


Marilyn: Within ICANN. They want to do something that would be affected 
by an ICANN policy.


Rita: Got it. Thank you. Yes, ICANN is in the black box, so what we have 
to do when we undertake an engagement is put all parties involved, both 
the parties that we would be representing, and the parties on the other 
side of the table, and so ICANN is in the black box.


So I am fairly confident, and 99% confident, that I would be asked if 
the representation would be appropriate. And I see this based on 
historical experience: It has only been once or twice where people have 
asked me if there is an issue with ICANN, and we have discussed that.


So I am really confident that would happen.


Ken: Bruce, put me in the queue if you would. This is Ken Stubbs.


Avrie: Could you put me in also?


Bruce: O.K., I have Ken, I have Avrie. Anyone else want to be in the queue.


Lucy: Bruce, this is Lucy. This is a follow-up question to this 
particular topic.


Bruce: Yeah, I think I will just take a queue is the easiest Lucy. I 
have Ken, Avrie, Lucy.


Marie: Bruce, this is Marie. You can push me in the queue.


Bruce: O.K. Anyone else?


Alistair: O.K., I will go in the queue. It is Alistair.


Bruce: O.K., I have Ken, Avrie, Lucy, Marie, Alistair. Anyone else?


Milwaukee: Yes -- Milwaukee, please.


Bruce: O.K. Milwaukee. Anyone else? Go ahead, Ken.


Ken: Yes. With your permission, Bruce, I will yield my place to Marie, 
and just switch places with her, because I know she had a couple of 
follow-ups she wanted to ask. So I will yield to Marie, and I will pop 
back in later.


Marie: O.K., thank you. I think that the question I have is somewhat 
related to the previous discussion, although it might be seen slightly 
from a different angle. And that is Rita.


In the early years you were very active in the ICANN world, but in the 
last several years you have not been active at all. Could you please 
explain how do you think this might impact your effectiveness as a director?


Rita: Sure. I think there are probably two ways that it would affect it: 
The first is that having been involved in the early years I was 
fortunate, or unfortunate enough to see some of the growing pains that 
ICANN experienced.


I think that especially in connection with the UDRP work, it was an eye 
opening experience to see how diametrically opposed some of the various 
constituencies could be, with there are prospective on certain issues.


And I think that what was a challenge to all of us working on things 
like the UDRP was to try to help and facilitate discussion and finding a 
common ground.


And I think that my work in the early days of ICANN gives me a 
prospective on some of the drivers, that the different constituencies have.


And I hope that that could be used now to look at some of the issues thrash.


I think that being away for a while, in my view I felt as though I had 
accomplished something with ICANN and there were other things that I was 
doing with my career and to some extent walking away a little bit and 
being able to come back and look at some of the issues with a fresh eye 
might also be beneficial to the process.


So it would kind of the a combination of taking that experience that I 
have, and is now after a bit of a break applying it in new to try and 
help people and help some of the issues move forwards.


Marie: Thank you. I have a short follow-up question: Could you help us 
to understand what constituencies you worked with and in what capacity 
is at that time?


Rita: I'm sorry, you want me to describe what I have done?


Marie: Yes, what constituencies you were involved with.


Rita: Sure. I don't know per se that I was involved with the 
constituency: I worked with some registrars.


Initially, the way that I started working with ICANN was that my firm 
was asked by both register.com and AOL to help them deal with a domain 
trademark dispute policy. And actually, just on the lines conflict, we 
set up what is called a Chinese wall and law firms where one team was 
working for register.com and one team was working for AOL.


So even within Skeddin we do things like set up ethical walls so that we 
can represent two different clients on issues. But we worked with the 
World Intellectual Property Organization, with Network Solutions, with 
the registrars, and with ICANN to create the initial draft of the UDRP, 
which was then after it was presented to the board, the board appointed 
a number of other individuals from the intellectual property and 
non-commercial constituencies.


At that point in time I had the fortune of working with Steve Metalis 
and Cathy Klein, and some other folks. J. Scott Evans, Michael Fumkin, 
to try to come together and finalized if you will this trademark and 
domain in dispute policy. And I can say now, in retrospect, it was 
certainly a challenge to have folks on two opposite ends of the 
spectrum, the non-commercial constituents and the intellectual property 
constituents that were trying to come to some sort of agreement and 
common ground with how we would deal with trademark and domain name 
disputes.


It was quite interesting a challenge, and I think that there are mixed 
reviews on the UDRP but I think that we tried our best to listen to 
everybody's issues and try to address them as best we could.


Through that, I was fortunate enough to meet some folks in the registrar 
constituency, and was asked to help roughly 18 registrars to regroup and 
organize into what became Afilias. And so I worked with registrars and 
helps them draft their bid for dot-info, and select the TLD dot-info, 
worked through the ICANN contract process and help them set up their 
operation.


As part of that, I met the folks at GNR, and helps them with Sarah ICANN 
contract for name, and then after that I was asked by ICANN to chair the 
committee to draft the policy development process, and work on that. And 
I think that was the last. Again, in the policy development process, 
there were a number of folks, Marilyn and others, who were on that 
committee in terms of drafting that and so again I wasn't particularly 
part of any of those constituencies, but worked with a broad 
cross-section of ICANN constituencies as part of that process.


Marie: Thank you Rita.


Bruce: O.K., Avrie?


Avrie: O.K. I have two questions. One is a clarification on the conflict.


One of things that I am curious about is, the consensus policy have a 
very wide effect on existing contracts, so that almost any GNSO policy 
recommendation to the board might have an effect on that contract. How 
would you feel with this sort of potential conflict on anything coming 
out of the GNSO policy recommendation?


Rita: Again, I think that's why Skeddin is so militant about its 
conflicts policy, that in some sense anything that any law firm does 
could have an effect if they are at all working in the policy arena.


That is why we make sure that our clients to sign these waiver letters 
that say that unless we are expressly working for them on a certain 
issue we are allowed to take positions at first to them.


But again, as I said, unless there is a specific matter that has to do 
with dot-tel only, if it were just a general consensus policy I would 
not recuse myself from voting on that.


Avrie: Even though that policy could have a direct effect on dot-tel?


Rita: Correct.


Avrie: O.K... Is it O.K. if I go onto my other question?


O.K., this has to do with the relationship between GAC and the board of 
the States: I am wondering how seriously you view the boards need to 
take their advice into consideration, and especially with reference to 
some of the issues that have come up lately where despite long lead 
times on issues and the comment periods. If a GAC can come back and say 
"We didn't have enough time, taking into account the reality of what it 
means for her governments to be a government". So I am wondering how you 
view this whole relationship between ICANN, GAC advice and board decisions?


Rita: That is a great question actually. Again, I had to address the GAC 
a few times with some of my work, and I do have two in other areas of my 
job deal with government and non-government organizations.


But it is amazing to me, having worked for the Federal government the 
first year out of law school, how inefficient some governments can be, 
and I think that the relationship between the ICANN board and the GAC 
has been contentious to say the least over the years.


I think the reality of the world is that governments do play a role in 
all aspects, unfortunately of life, and I guess that I can't really make 
a statement on the record of what I think of our present government in 
the United States, without being inflammatory.


But in any event, I think it is important to take into account what 
governments have to say and their point of view, obviously. Because 
again, ICANN gets legitimacy because people and government allow it to 
be legitimate.


And I think you need to maintain that delicate balance: I am not a big 
fan of endless time to consider and deliberate, and to the extent that 
the supporting organizations and the advisory committees are working 
towards creating policies, they are getting input from the 
constituencies and they are trying to move an issue forward and the GAC 
is dragging its feet or wanting to create endless other lines of 
increase, I do not think that is appropriate and I think is a board 
member I would try to control that as much as possible, and put some 
restrictions on how that would be allowed to happen.


Bruce: O.K., is that all Avrie?


Avrie: Yes, thank you.


Bruce: Lucy?


Lucy: Hi, Rita. I would like to go back to the conflict issue and just 
raise a question to you or present a question to you, and it is probably 
more of a perception issue that she might have, with respect to 
conflict. As Steve mentioned, the IPC, that was one of our biggest 
questions of concern with your candidacy, is the possibility or the 
potential for conflict.


I think again it goes back to a perception of conflict, because the IPC 
as you know consists of a large group of lawyers, we all realize the 
pressures that we have when we are in private practice. And I guess I 
concern me is that there might be a perception, or I guess I would like 
to clarify how perhaps Skeddin's use your candidacy, particularly if 
your partner and you are required to make certain billable hours, and 
because of the time commitments that sitting on the board of ICANN would 
actually take, how do you deal with the perception that in fact there is 
some type of conflict there or that some issues might be raised with 
respect to Skeddin benefiting from your sitting on the board?


Ken: Bruce, this is Ken. Would you please keep me in the queue.


Rita: Sure. There were a couple of things in that question. I guess the 
first thing I will say is that, as I said Skeddin has a policy that 
lawyers are not permitted to sit on for-profit board's. It is a fairly 
recent policy because of some conflicts that we have in the past. 
Severely boards that attorneys are permitted to sit on are not 
for-profit board. I happen to be fortunate in my firm to have a great 
relationship with the head of our firm, a managing partner, who was very 
supportive in the early years of my ICANN work, and notwithstanding that 
it wasn't sort of the traditional Skeddin client base. But I spoke to 
him when I was asked to consider a run for the board and told them do 
you see any issues with this, or potential conflicts, or anything of 
that nature? And he said absolutely not. He said to me, if you feel like 
you would like to do this and this is something that would be 
interesting to you then go for it. So he was incredibly perforce as and 
as I said he is the head of the firm. Skeddin is a huge organization, 
and I am fortunate to have a great relationship with our management, who 
has been quite supportive of my candidacy. In terms of the time 
commitments I think that that is the challenge of life in general is 
managing different commitments that one makes to different areas of 
one's life, and I would not be running in sitting here wasting your time 
or mind discussing this with you if I didn't feel that I was committed 
and qualified to do that.


Lucy: Did they consider this some type of pro bono work? As far as 
billable hours go. How does the firm view your time commitment to 
sitting on the board?


Rita: This will not be billed in any way or any kind of credit for 
billable hours. This will be my own personal time.


Lucy: O.K., thank you.


Bruce: O.K., Ken Stubbs you are up again.


Ken: I don't have a question for Rita per se, but I do have one comment, 
I think it is just a matter of establishing [Inaudible]. There have been 
discussions about perception, and I think is extremely important that we 
remember that in every constituency there are going to be perceptions 
about candidates based on either their employment, or their past 
histories and so forth. So I think it is important that as we move down 
the road of discussing perceptions we remember two things. Number one, 
let us remember that almost every member of the ICANN board today has 
some sort of a relationship with entities that are involved with the 
ICANN arena, and may very well be in a position in future decisions 
where they come before the ICANN board, that may very well impact the 
area that this person is actively involved in or tying through some way 
through financial relationships, i.e. the plot scratch that retired 
employees directors and so forth.


So I would like to please let us remember her that as we move down the 
road and discuss the issues with potential board members, but each one 
of them may very well have a situation in the future without her curves. 
Number two is, based on the previous history of some board members as 
well as potential board members, you are going to find these 
perceptions, and I commend people for drilling down on these perceptions 
but let us make it clear that those perceptions are not necessarily 
universal to the ICANN community, but may lie a specifically with the 
constituents. Thanks for giving me a chance, to comment on that.


Bruce: Thank you Ken. Alistair Dickson?


Alistair: Thank you Bruce. Good morning Rita. I just have a question 
that I think we have addressed previously when you met with the 
constituency, and perhaps a slight variation on that. What actions do 
you think the ICANN could take for the purpose of promoting competition, 
especially of registry services?


Research: O.K. Alistair, they didn't get the last thing that she said. 
Competition?


Alistair: What actions do you think of ICANN could take for the purpose 
of promoting competition, especially of registry services?


Rita: I think that is important for me to get back into the debate and 
hear what the different constituencies and supporting organizations are 
advocating. I have been a little bit out of that, I know what some in 
the past have advocated but I want to make sure that I listened to what 
the community, what was on the table at this point. But I do think that 
competition at the registry level is very important.


I think the dot-info has done really well, but I think it is really far 
behind.com, and so I think that anything that the community thinks can 
be done to try and promote competition would be a good thing for the 
board to consider.


Alistair: do you think there are a particular actions that I can could 
take to enhance or promote that competition?


Rita: I think, again, that the boards needs to listen to what the 
community thinks might be appropriate actions and then deliberate as to 
whether they think that is a good course of action, there is nothing 
that I personally think that I can should be doing at this point itself. 
I would need to hear what the community has to say, and decide whether 
that would be a prudent course of action.


Marilyn: Bruce, it is Marilyn. I have a follow-up, can I go in the queue?


Bruce: I will just put you in the queue, Marilyn. Next is Mawaki...


Milwaukee: Yes, thanks Bruce, and thanks Rita for organizing this 
election. I am sorry, I just received your statement this morning, a 
couple of hours ago, so I would have appreciated to have it earlier, but 
my questions may not be related to your specific experience in this regard.


So -- The first point is, I have three questions. The first one is about 
what I call diversifying the domain name space. These may include IDN's, 
but not only, but also about the new TLDs and increasing competition.


I would like to hear your view about this issue, what do you think ICANN 
my two to increase competition and to allow more inclusion and global 
participation in our work?


Rita: O.K., I think this is the same question Alistair had just asked 
about increasing competition. Is it not?


Milwaukee: I missed something along the way because I don't hear 
properly the conversation over the phone. So maybe you can remind me 
about the question. I will check may be the MP3.


Rita: Sure, I think what you're asking is how I view how ICANN can help 
increase competition in the domain name space?


Milwaukee: I call that diversification of the domain name space. It can 
include competition, it can include new TLDs, it can include IDN, and 
other items I don't have here maybe but you may know about.


Rita: O.K., assure. I think again diversification is a good thing, I 
think that history has proved time and time again that monopolies are 
not necessarily in the best interests of the community in general. I 
think ICANN as far back as the White Paper has had a mandate of trying 
to increase competition and I think that it has through the years tried 
to do that and to some extent been effective in doing that. I think that 
there is still a long way to go, as I said I think there is some 
competition at least at the registry level, but I think that they could 
stand to be a little bit more competition in that arena, and I think 
that's the community of ICANN has ideas on how that should be done, I 
think that is important for the board to try to listen and implement that.


I did happen to just see recently some of the staff comments on IDN and 
how there are a different technical test now which can be considered to 
figure out how to actually implement IDNs, I think that's a great 
development. I do think that having domain names in different languages 
is, again - I think that would be fantastic for the Internet in terms of 
diversification.


I think that having these kind of English-based characters, etc., is 
something that probably should have changed a while ago. I think that to 
the extent that we can try to rule out IDNs in a way that won't affect 
the stability of the infrastructure, I think that's a great development 
in terms of diversification. And, again, I think that I want to look a 
little bit at some of the other things and issues that are on the table. 
I think there's lots that I can do based on input from the community to 
try to diversify the space and I think that's [Inaudible] a good thing.


Milwaukee: I hope you understand that my concern here is about eventual 
global inclusion, people participating and being aware of the processes 
and being able to participate more in these processes.


So maybe I will move to the second question: We usually talk about the 
technical function of ICANN, but actually I'm new on the council and I 
still have to clarify, to be clear about how we can strike an 
equilibrium between policy-making issues and the technical function and 
responsibilities of ICANN, because I believe we are involved in picking 
crucial decisions that have policy features, and also probably due to 
the UN process with the world summit on information society. I think 
we'll have hard time being responsible of policy, if not politics, so 
how do you see the possibility to find some kind of equilibrium between 
those two aspects?


Rita: I think that's been one of things that has been at issue with 
ICANN since its inception is how do we articulate and what is the 
technical oversight function actually mean and I think that it has grown 
and evolved a bit over the years and I think it should probably continue 
to grow and evolve.


I think, as I said, that there are some things ICANN probably shouldn't 
be doing like legislating how spam should be dealt with but I think that 
since the community thinks there is a new issue that's come up that has 
to do with technical oversight and their need to be a policy around 
that, I think the policy-making process is meant to try to help ICANN 
back the policy that's part of this oversight function, but I don't 
think there's one clear answer as to here's the six things that 
constituted technical oversight that's appropriate for ICANN to engage 
and have a dialogue about and here are the six things that aren't.


I think it's about what the community sees as the mission of ICANN and 
whether that's appropriate. I think that's something the board has to 
consider. Again, look at the specifics as opposed to some generalities 
and figure out whether they should consult and consider some policies in 
those areas.


And I guess I want to go back to your other question in terms of 
diversity, if you're talking about people diversity. I personally have 
been impressed and amazed at ICANN's continued desire to have meetings 
all over the world and to try to have as much participation as possible.


I do travel a fair amount for other types of organizations and other 
types of work and I am always amazed at many of the other functions I go 
to there's much less of a diverse crowd than I see at ICANN meetings. I 
think it partly has to do with ICANN really sticking to its mandate of 
having meetings at different parts of the world to facilitate attendance 
for people that can travel for two days to get to a location.


I personally think it's very heartening that ICANN has stuck to that and 
has tried over the years to continue to do that. And I remember one of 
my early meetings attending a session where someone said, you know, some 
of the western world looks at the internet as something that's 
intellectual and something that, you know, is interesting to deal with. 
In other parts of the world the internet is the only way they can 
communicate and the only way they can get information.


That's one of the things I keep in mind with my work: It has nothing to 
do with ICANN, but it's about thinking about the technology that we are 
all fortunate enough to have in the world and how we make sure it's 
spread across the world and not only to those people who can afford to 
pay for it.


Milwaukee: Yes, you also say about my second question that we are here 
in generalities and I'll try to be more specific. Of course I'm talking 
about global policy, not, I mean, every corporation has a policy, but 
I'm talking about global policy. For example, to be specific, I'll take 
the policy-making debates we are having. That's a question on which we 
must make decision that will impact, that will have conflict with 
national, local provisions in some countries. So, is it the job of ICANN 
to make the decision at this level when the countries might have their 
own policy on some issues?


Rita: That's a great question and, actually, I have had first-hand 
experience with that as part of my work with the Global Name Registry 
which is dot-name: They were based in the United Kingdom, and there were 
certain requirements that ICANN had upon what type of information would 
be available in WHOIS, and this is, I guess, I'm trying to remember -- I 
think it's 2001, but at that point the data directive, we talked with 
the Personal Data Protection Commissioner, but there were issues because 
ICANN wanted the registry to make certain information available and the 
Data Protection Commissioner thought that this shouldn't be available...


So I worked Steve and some other folks to try to marry both of the 
issues. In other words, what ICANN wanted to do in terms of what 
information was available versus what the local government thought was 
appropriate, and we put sort of a second layer in place to accommodate 
both sides.


So I absolutely agree with you that, and this is back to a point I made 
before, ICANN is not an international government. ICANN cannot tell a 
government what it can and cannot do obviously. There's no legitimacy 
there. ICANN's a not-for-profit corporation. But ICANN works when 
policies are followed because individuals and governments and 
organizations allow it to work. And ICANN, I think, has to be constantly 
mindful of that and try to work within the parameters of the rest of the 
world legal framework. And that's why I think having significant 
interaction with the GAC is important, while at the same time not 
allowing governments to, in effect, hijack or, you know, potentially 
delay forever the process. So, again, it's an important balance that 
needs to be reached.

Mawaki: Thanks. My last, and very short, question: How, and I'm sorry if 
you have already addressed this, how do you see this council?


Rita: I'm sorry -- I didn't quite hear that.

Mawaki: How is your perception? How do you see your relationship with 
members of the council? How will you be communicating with members of 
the council?


Rita: I think, I guess I see my relationship with the council as, my 
relationship as every other board member, as the GNSO council making 
recommendations to the board. I don't think that it's appropriate to be 
having direct relationships with anyone or manipulating a process, but I 
think it's informational and it's for discussion and debate purposes, 
and the council provides the board with information about what types of 
inquiries have been made in the community and gives the board employee 
recommendations and information it needs to make a decision.

Mawaki: Thank you.


Bruce: O.K., thank you, Mawaki. Marilyn is next.


Marilyn: Can I take a break here before I ask my question? Just want to 
make sure...


Bruce: Take it after. Just a few minutes and then I'll see who else has 
got questions.


Marilyn: My question goes back, Rita, to a follow on to the question 
Alistair asked and it's...


I wanted to make an opening statement that the ICANN strongly supports 
IDN, so this question is actually about the GTLD. Given that we have a 
situation of dominance in registry services and registry infrastructure 
with over eighty percent of GTLD and character names managed by a single 
provider, what can the board and the GSNO do to ensure the emergence of 
competition in the upcoming GTLD stage?


Rita: I think that it's very difficult to ensure anything. I think that 
with the roll out of GTLDs in 2000, I think that came along way, and 
again that was back to the original mandate. One of the original 
mandates of ICANN was to create competition in the registry space. I 
think that as far back as the Net Magazine's White Paper, there was a 
clear inclination on the part of at least the U.S. Government that there 
needed to be some competition at, at least, the registry level.


I think that that is important and I think that ICANN needs to continue 
to strive to accomplish that objective. I think that to say to ensure 
something is where, you know, you need to be careful. I'm not sure you 
can ensure anything. I do appreciate that there is a contract with 
Verisign and, you know, that ICANN needs to be careful about having 
contracts and having businesses and then suddenly deciding that they 
don't like what has happened, so that they can just arbitrarily change a 
certain business or contractual deal. I think that ICANN has been 
fortunate in avoiding litigation and I think that's something ICANN 
needs to continue to do, while at the same time listening to the 
community, Marilyn, and try to promote competition at the registry level.


Marilyn: I have a follow up?


Bruce: O.K.


Marilyn: There's a concept called substitutability, Rita, and the 
definition of services is substitutability means that a company really, 
the practical definition would mean that a company really sees a service 
as a substitute for one that they are presently using. I don't think 
that from the ICANN's perspective we have yet seen effective 
substitutability in the GTLDs that we're introducing to the 2000 stage.


We're very enthusiastic about the possibility of particular sponsors 
providing substitutability. And, as I said, we're very positive about 
the introduction of IDN. But we don't see substitutability, that is, our 
members don't see substitutability, we don't see effective competition. 
So, we don't use the word ensure, but we use the words take steps or 
best efforts. Can I ask you to reconsider your answer about how IDN can 
deal with dominance in a space that is not yet competitive?


Rita: Sure, sure, and I think probably the answer to the question, 
Marilyn, comes from, maybe the best place to find the answer is from 
your constituency. I think that no matter what you call 
it--substitutability, ensuring, mandating--ultimately the adoption...


[song]


Rita: Hello?


Man 2: Can I make a suggestion, perhaps? It would be a good idea to have 
everyone mute except for Rita if this is what we're going to have.


[phone ring]


Rita: Hello?


Bruce: Hello.


Man 2: Hello, anyone? It's gone.


Rita: First I knew that the Names Council was kind of a "rockin'" 
organization -


[laughing]


Man 2: [Inaudible]


Rita: - I didn't know we had rock 'n' roll as part of our agenda.


Man 2: Somewhere in the world a disco just opened!


[laughing]


Rita: I could see them dancing in Barcelona, over there...


So, back to Marilyn's question, which I think was a very good one, I 
think Marilyn, frankly, I'd love to poll your constituency and see what 
they think because in the end ICANN is a not-for-profit organization of 
an international nature, and whether substitutability or competition 
exists is within the purview of businesses...


I have a number of clients, when I say to them, you know, "What do you 
think about GTLDs or would you guys adopt these? Why don't you go to 
something else? Dot-com is so old and boring." They don't want to!


This is where their customers and their business partners know to find 
them. So I don't think that ICANN can do anything to force people in 
business to do anything, Marilyn. I think it's important to try to do 
that, to give people options, but ultimately it becomes an question of 
adoption by users.


Bruce: O.K. Would anyone else like to ask any questions or just take 
another queue?


Sophia: Bruce, may I ask a question? Sophia here.


Bruce: O.K., Sophia. Anyone else? Ask a final question or two?


Woman 1: I might have one more, this is [Inaudible].


Bruce: O.K., anyone else?


Woman 2: This is [Inaudible], I'd like to ask one more.


Bruce: O.K., anyone else? O.K., go ahead, Sophia.


Sophia: O.K., this question [Inaudible] on the issue of competition and 
substitutability. Rita, how do you think that policy making can assist 
or enforce in terms of assisting this complex issue of competition 
versus, as you said, listening to the constituency or [Inaudible] 
automatically? That is the impression I got from what you were saying.


Rita: I think what I was saying, Sophia, was that, you know, 
substitutability in any kind of policy that ICANN would implement based 
on any recommendation from the [Inaudible], would be difficult to do 
anything other than give people options for substitutability and to 
promote competition because ultimately it's about what the users choose. 
And, just to take an issue, I personally am interested to see - there's 
two top level domains. There's [Inaudible] and there's [Inaudible]. I 
think ultimately the users will choose which one becomes more 
successful, if either of them. I think that, again, ICANN should be 
giving options to the community but it can't force people to adopt a 
domain name and I think that ultimately that's what will drive competition.


Sophia: Are you suggesting that the policy should allow for the 
competition, for free competition and let the users choose versus- Then 
how do you see the effectiveness of policy making in that sense? Or are 
you suggesting that the policy should maybe be a free policy for 
everyone? Because my concern would be something like Marilyn was saying, 
the dominant or the incumbent registry may be at an advantage just 
because of market forces for, even if we keep a free policy over the 
various issues. So, somebody, we would need to see somebody support a 
particular policy, so I just wanted to see the role of policy that we're 
developing perhaps influence the various issues that we have on the 
table. So, in that sense, I guess what I'm asking is how would we 
consider policy to be important in terms of defining and contributing to 
the complex issues that we have on our table?


Rita: I think that policy is very important to try to promote 
competition. I think that competition at the registry level and, in 
fact, all areas of any business, ICANN aside, are important because I 
don't think a monopoly benefits anyone except the monopolist. I think it 
is important that ICANN think about implementing policies that will 
promote competition, whether it's for ISPs, registrars, registries, 
businesses in the area, governments - I think the role of ICANN will be 
to make sure that it gets feedback from its community, what policies the 
community thinks would be effective in permitting and encouraging 
competition. And the board should consider those because that is a very 
important issue.


Sophia: Thank you.


Bruce: O.K., [Inaudible].


Marie: Thank you, Bruce. Given that I think we are nearing, if I 
understand correctly, to the end there's one question I would like to 
ask every candidate: What do you believe are the three most important 
strengths you would bring to the ICANN board?


Rita: Hmm. You know, this is the part I hate about being a lawyer, sell 
yourself, I think I'll probably - will I be the tallest person? Hmm, I 
don't know. I'd like to think that I try to bring some level of 
levelheadedness.


One of the things that was, again, as I said, a challenge on a number of 
levels was trying to work with some of the registrars in the early days 
when they were small businesses that were fiercely competitive and 
trying to talk to them about how can we reach a consensus on certain 
issues that were important to the community. When you have people that 
are fiercely competing with each other, it's hard to get them to have a 
calm and articulate dialogue and I'd like to think that that's one of 
the challenges of my job every day is to get people to sit at a table 
and talk civilly to each other and try to come up with smart solutions. 
I'd like to think that that's something I bring to the board. I think 
that the work I've done over the years has taken me to many different 
countries. We run our technology practice out of our New York office, 
even though Skeddin has offices all over the world.


So, I've been lucky enough to be fast on deals in Asia, Europe, North 
America, South America, so I've traveled quite a bit and worked with 
very diverse clients and I'd like to think that I have, over the years, 
have a bit of an understanding about differences in both negotiating 
style and in areas of interest and concern and used to, and in fact 
enjoy, trying to marry some of the cultural diversities, again, in terms 
of trying to find a solution. In terms of a third, I'm not sure thing I 
bring so much else. I'd like to try to be a good listener and try to 
encourage people to work toward achieving solutions in a civil and 
productive manner.


Bruce: O.K., [Inaudible].


Woman 2: O.K., hi. I'm told that I speak too sloppily, so I'll try to be 
a little louder. You've been involved with ICANN pretty much since the 
beginning, so one of the things I'd like your opinion is the degree of 
participation among registrants and individuals that are the user of the 
domain names at IP addressing. How do you feel ICANN would handle that 
and how do you think ICANN and the board should address that and bring 
it forward?


Rita: In terms of having users ICANN policy-making role...?


Woman 2: In terms of just the participation. We have the constituencies 
and the council, we had the ongoing experimentation with ALAC, and 
various degrees of wether that's successful or not, and basically 
there's just been a whole history from individual voting at the 
beginning to the ALAC of today. The board is very involved in that, and 
so I'm curious whether you have an opinion on that and where you think 
it would be going as a prospective board member.


Rita: I think, you know, it's been amazing to watch sort of the pioneers 
of ALAC and ICANN, those folks actually put something together. I think 
it's incredible to talk about the internet users as being part of the 
ICANN community and actually having a voice and sort of organizing 
individuals all over the world that come together and participate. I 
think that's incredible.


I think, again, if people want to participate, ICANN should absolutely 
be encouraging that and facilitating that because it's an amazing 
phenomenon that would be allowed to occur. If you think about it, it's 
governments and users in remote areas of the world trying to come 
together and work together and share ideas and I think that the more 
ICANN can do to encourage that, the better. But, again, I caution in 
terms of the same issues that I would say exist for meaningful and 
timely GACC participation, I would suggest exist also for the at-large 
community. I think it's, everybody needs to have a seat at the table, 
but everybody also needs to play by the same rules. So, I think we need 
to encourage that across the board.


Woman 2: Thank you.


Marilyn: I have a follow-up question, Bruce.


Bruce: O.K.

Mawaki: Mawaki.


Bruce: Sure. I've got Marilyn and then Mawaki. Go ahead, Marilyn.


Marilyn: My question relates to a statement that you made that I didn't 
quite understand. I think you just said that everyone needs to play by 
the same rules.


Rita: Mm-hmm.


Marilyn: I guess I would ask if you mind elaborating a little bit on 
that. Because I wouldn't - today I would say that participation from the 
developing economies, the emerging economies, and the developing 
countries [Inaudible] challenged by lack of resources or even lack of 
information. And we certainly, looking at the operational plan and the 
budget, see that ICANN is undertaking some efforts to try to find ways 
to increase participation. But they're, of course, not doing that in the 
developed countries. Could you just say more about what you meant about 
playing by the same --


Rita: Sure. I don't think that was meant to be any kind of profound 
statement. I think that there is a specific challenge with the at-large 
community given that it is trying to embrace people from all areas of 
the world. So, there are the obvious issues of how do these people need 
[Inaudible] to participate. They aren't sitting in my bedroom, as I am, 
hooked up to my high-speed internet computer. And, so anything ICANN can 
do to encourage their participation, I think, should be undertaken. But 
the reality is that ICANN does have a budget and there needs to be the 
reality check of how we implement that in a way that actually works. 
What I'm suggesting is that ICANN needs to be a [Inaudible] organization 
that has processes in place that allows it to get information and 
discuss the information and try to move towards resolution. I 
[Inaudible] caution that I think all these things need to be happening 
in tandem and so I say playing by the same rules, it's like saying if 
we're having a policy development process that's been moving forward, we 
need to get meaningful participation from everyone, from the GACC, from 
the at-large as best we can, but I don't suggest we hold up processes to 
try to implement other initiatives.


Bruce: O.K., [Inaudible].


Milwaukee: Yes, I have question on social cushion. Just to comment on 
what's been said, maybe it's not only ALAC, for ALAC to reach out to the 
people for participation, I would like to [Inaudible] in the business 
constituency to try to reach out to developing countries' businesses, as 
well. [Inaudible] is, of course, not always easy. My question is, you 
accepted the principle that there is a need of competition. Not 
competition, [Inaudible], including [Inaudible]. I would like to know 
how can you possibly create support ICANN's decisions and processes to 
increase competition at the registry level.


Rita: As I said, again, I think a couple of times, I think it's 
important to listen to what the community thinks about how they think 
competition can be effectively instituted. I think that we've had 
[Inaudible] top-level domains in 2000 and have had some success, but I 
think based on all the questions that I have heard today, there needs to 
be considerable improvement on that. I don't believe anybody on this 
phone feels as though competition is quite where it needs to be -- I 
don't think Chuck is on the phone. But maybe Verisign would. But I think 
that it's important to listen to what the community thinks in terms of 
increasing competition. I don't know if just having a ton more TLDs is 
the right answer, frankly. You know, I think that that will certainly 
continue to fragment the DNS. Is that the only way we can increase 
competition? I don't know. I'd love to be able to explore options and 
have ICANN explore options to think about other meaningful ways that we 
can promote competition because I don't sitting here right now have the 
answers to that question, but I think it'd be great to try to find out.

Mawaki: O.K.


Bruce: O.K., does anyone else who hasn't already asked a question want 
to ask a question? O.K., I've said a couple of short ones myself, Rita, 
but I just wanted to explore a little bit about, I guess, hey, how you'd 
allocate time and I've got a couple components of that, but the first 
component of that is you mentioned that your employer supported your 
involvement with ICANN. I was just wondering if you could elaborate on 
how far that goes because, you know, you [Inaudible] be attending 
ICANN's physical meetings, so [Inaudible] three a year, so that's three 
weeks out of the year. What kind of time commitment do your envisage 
yourself having to put into ICANN?


Rita: I think it really depends on what we're doing again. The beauty of 
being a partner at a law firm is you, to some extent, you control your 
own destiny. And I've been lucky. Big partner practice I did not think 
was quite my thing in the early days. I kind of looked at it as a place 
I would go to get some good experience and quite frankly, my experience 
that I did have working on the ICANN matters was fantastic. And, just 
for the record, all the work on the policy development process was paid 
for by my firm. We were not getting paid by anyone to do that and the 
firm, you know, paid it out of its own pocket because they were very 
supportive of me doing that, again, because it was an initiative that I 
thought was important. There was no business that came out of that. I 
worked with [Inaudible], I started working with him in 2001, so there 
were no clients or business that came out of doing the PDP, but it was 
something that I felt, for myself and for my own enjoyment, and frankly 
I wanted to do and the firm was incredibly supportive. So, you know, 
again, it's not really a firm issue. I will do what I think needs to be 
done to devote the time I need to devote to be on the board if I am elected.


Bruce: You mentioned a couple of times that you had listened to the 
different views were in the community and, I guess, trying to get as 
well informed possible on issues. Can you elaborate a little bit more on 
how you do that because, I guess from my perspective, one of the things 
I would like to see from a director that's elected by the GSNO is that 
the director doesn't entirely rely on, I guess, the board papers, but 
also take the time to talk to people in the GSNO community and I'd 
expect if a board member was from the ASO, for example, they would spend 
some time talking to people in the IP addressing community. But you are 
able to just sort of elaborate a little bit how you think it might go about?


Rita: Sure...


Bruce: [Inaudible]


Rita: Sure. Sure. Absolutely. And I'm glad to hear that that is 
something the community would want to have happen is to get a dialogue 
going. You know, I'm actually giving a presentation in LA, which is why 
I am going to be on the west coast, and I was speaking to someone and I 
said I have to write this speech still and they said I don't understand 
why you write your own speeches. You're a partner at [Inaudible]. And I 
said, well, I need to because I need to understand what I'm talking 
about. I can't just have somebody give me a piece of paper that has 
their biases and interpretations and methodologies [Inaudible] and 
expect to understand what I'm talking about. So, I have people do 
research for me and I get all this big stacks of paper and I pour 
through them and read them because I need to understand the different 
positions.


And one of the things, Bruce, that has served me well over the years, at 
least based on feedback I have from my clients, is that I actually try 
myself to do an inquiry to get to the bottom of an issue. And there's 
many occasions where I have been asked to come into a room with, you 
know, the principle from one side and the principle from another side 
and me, there's no other lawyers. It's just me being asked to listen to 
both sides, to ask my own questions, and to figure out what the best way 
is to come to a common ground. And so that is something I love to do and 
I think it's something that I've been training to do for the twelve 
years that I've been out of law school and it's something that I would 
love to be able to do with ICANN because, I think that, at least what I 
have seen in the past, I don't know, again, what's gone on recently, is 
that people get very entrenched in their own views and they have biases 
against others that don't share their views.


And I'd like to think that we can actually sit down and hear some views 
and maybe figure out, well, we weren't thinking about resolution of a 
problem this way, but maybe we can try to move a little bit more towards 
that. And to that end, I think it's important that the board have a 
dialogue in communication at a formal level, you know, the board itself 
allowing people to come in to voice their concerns in a way that goes 
beyond a piece of paper and a board briefing.


Bruce: O.K. That's all my questions. I think at that point I'd like to 
thank you for spending so much time with us. It's been about an hour and 
fifteen minutes. So, I think it's been very valuable to get your, I 
guess, comprehensive answers and, as you pointed out, rather than just 
reading your candid statement, I think we get a lot more out of being 
able to ask questions directly and hear your perspectives on each of 
those questions. I'd really like to thank you for the time with us that 
you've spent today.


Rita: Oh, absolutely. It was my pleasure. And you'll all be getting a 
prorated portion of my bill!


[Laughter]


Rita: Thank you everyone again for taking time out for this special 
session for me. I really appreciate it, as well, so thank you Bruce and 
everyone.


Bruce: O.K.


Man 2: Thank you, Rita. Thank you, everyone.


Rita: Bye.


[phone hangs up]


Bruce: Thanks, Rita.




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