GNSO Council Teleconference Minutes

28 July 2005

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 - absent - apologies - proxy to Tony Harris/Greg Ruth
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Ross Rader - Registrars
Bruce Tonkin - Registrars
Ken Stubbs - gTLD registries
Philip Colebrook - gTLD registries
Cary Karp - gTLD registries
Lucy Nichols - Intellectual Property Interests C
Niklas Lagergren - Intellectual Property Interests C
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C.
Robin Gross - Non Commercial Users C.- absent - apologies - proxy to Norbert Klein/Ross Rader
Norbert Klein - Non Commercial Users C. - absent - apologies - proxy to Bruce Tonkin
Alick Wilson - Nominating Committee appointee
Maureen Cubberley - Nominating Committee appointee
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

17 Council Members

ICANN Staff
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 G�ry - GNSO Secretariat

Kurt Pritz - Vice President, Business Operations - absent - apologies


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

Michael Palage - ICANN Board member (joined late in the call after an ICANN Board meeting)

MP 3 Recording

Quorum present at 14:05 CET.

Bruce Tonkin chaired this teleconference.

Item 1: Approval of the Agenda
Grant Forsyth proposed adding under Item 9: Any Other Business, the appointment of the Vice President for policy development support.
Marilyn Cade requested a list of topics
Lucy Nichols requested an item on WIPO II

Agenda approved

Item 2: Approval of the
Minutes of 12 July 2005

Deferred to the next Council meeting on 18 August 2005

Item 3: Staff report
- legal text for WHOIS recommendation
- policy status of new gTLDS (review Board and GNSO Council decisions)
- summary of public comments received during the GNSO Public Forum

- legal text for WHOIS recommendation
Maria Farrell reported that a response from the ICANN legal team was requested before 11 August 2005 on the legal text for the WHOIS recommendation as updated by Bruce Tonkin.
- policy status of new gTLDS (review Board and GNSO Council decisions)
Bruce Tonkin suggested updating Olof Nordling's paper on the new gTLDs with the full text of the resolutions.
Maureen Cubberley suggested adding a reference to Miriam Shapiro's report. Evaluation of New gTLDs: Policy and Legal issues.

Marilyn Cade drew attention to the ICANN public comment forum on the New gTLD questions which closes on August 1, 2005 and expressed concern how Council would provide input.
Bret Fausett commented that the ALAC was under the misconception that comments had to be made on the completeness of the questions rather than attempts at answering them.
Grant Forsyth commented that he understood from the discussions in Luxembourg that it was agreed that the questions were not an appropriate part of the process and the process was being correctly referred back to Council to determine the strategy and to move forward.

Bruce Tonkin proposed :
- update on staff paper of material gathered - 7 days
- examine the question paper and the staff paper, discuss the next steps and Council's role on the council list - 2 weeks
- a clear plan for the next 4 months stating what resources would be needed to implement that plan
- meet with the ICANN Board and the ccNSO council.

- summary of public comments received during the GNSO Public Forum
Bruce Tonkin proposed to defer to Item 5

Item 4: Actions arising from ICANN Board meeting
- domain name hijacking report
- GNSO review
Bruce Tonkin proposed drafting a resolution for the next meeting that the Council accept the Domain Name hijacking report and recommend that ICANN establishes a "best practice area" on the ICANN website as the report advised.
It was generally agreed that the terminology "best practices" should be refined as best practices implied that the industry already had generally accepted best practices and that some of the reports recommendations were not yet in widespread use, while there was a high level of agreement on providing guidance for industry participants to consider in improving security.
- GNSO review
Bruce Tonkin suggested a work schedule for the GNSO Review and requested volunteers for drafting.
Marilyn Cade proposed a specific work session to focus on the GNSO Review.
Philip Sheppard commented that the GNSO Review should also be looking at the implementation of the GNSO Council review recommendations

Item 5: Actions arising from IDN workshop
- Cary Karp to request any action required from the GNSO Council
Cary Karp reported that a number of actors had clear interests in International Domain Names (IDN), such as the Browser development community, Unicode consortium, ICANN, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). A means should be found for all these perspectives to converge on a genuinely useful revision of the protocol underpinnings of IDN and how they should be implemented in all registry policy. Currently the browser developer sub-community, among others, Mozilla and a number of individuals led the initiative. They were diligent and consciousness about IDNs but considered the needs of browser users and not the registries' needs. Mozilla issued a policy statement describing the restrictive mechanisms they had implemented in their browsers that were not standards-based but completely idiosyncratic and consequently it was difficult to implement the name space wide uniform IDNs. The IETF stated, regarding IDNs, that they were concerned with what happened on the wire, that which transmits the cable system, the fibre optic system that is the Internet, but not concerned with the applications of it, that is, what happened on the desk top or on the servers was not their concern. This approach has led to gaping loopholes in the implementation to the clear and obvious potential detriment of Internet users. The altercations taking place on how best to address the issue generally recognise that there is no single solution to the problem but that the registries need to modify their policy to be more stringent, the ICANN IDN guidelines need to be more clearly focused, the Unicode consortium needs to present a more restricted basic character repertoire for the use of the registries, the browser developers need to realise that it is not a turn on or off situation. In the current situation the various factions are seeking comfortable dialogue where traditionally there has been very little.
Cary Karp suggested establishing a liaison with the soft ware developers who were displaying responsibility towards their constituencies as it was important to view the process on a broad front. Everybody realised that there were several disciplines focused on points of action and greater trust should be cultivated among them for them to converge.
The aim was expand the scope and horizon of the Internet, and given that all the actors recognised their responsibility, the next steps were how to proceed working together.
The current scrutiny to which IDN was being subjected was triggered by discrepancy in gTLD policy which was in accordance with the guidelines and the community needed to be made aware that there was a process underway.
Cary Karp considered that Council had two roles:
- Council should be attuned to ICANN's responsibility in controlling its component of the process and since a significant matter of credibility was attached to this, it was important that the community should be made to feel confident that ICANN had control :
- The GNSO Council should be supportive and encouraging of the revision of the ICANN IDN Guidelines process.

Tina Dam reported that current work was underway to produce a draft position on the ICANN IDN guideline revision . The IAB IDN working group met in Luxembourg and after the IETF meeting in Paris scheduled during the week 1 to 5 August 2005, there should be more information.
Tina further commented that there was a need for work around the guidelines that is, how they were working for different registries, but revision of the guidelines should be done by a broad community. The President's committee for IDN's had been formed and would have representatives from different parts of the community who played a role in the policy development of IDNs.

Ross Rader stated that there should be clarity on whether there was a policy that governed the registries use of IDNs provided that they followed the guidelines.
Cary Karp responded that it was explicit in the registry contract with ICANN that names with an xn// could not be entered into the DNS unless they were signatory to the ICANN guidelines. The IEFT did have a normative package for binding statements and ultimately there should be an agreed upon statement from the IDN registries.
Cary Karp went on to comment that the sphere of immediate oversight were the people who registered in TLDs and it was necessary to spell out responsible behaviour as a reliable guide. Currently the protocol basis for IDNs was the issue and the foreseen discussions in Paris would be important in establishing the IDNa which is the protocols.

Bruce Tonkin commented on a possible option:
The key point was standards, and if the IDN guidelines were worked on by the registry community and others they could be looked on as standards. The GNSO may have a role in requiring that these standards be adopted by gtld registries as consensus policy.
Bruce Tonkin suggested making a resolution at the next Council meeting supporting the update of the IDN guidelines.

Item 6: Consideration of final report on process for use by ICANN in
considering requests for consent and related contractual amendments to
allow changes in the architecture operation of a gTLD registry.

Bruce Tonkin stated that it was Council's intention to vote on the report and opened the discussion.

Philip Colebrook commented on behalf of the Registry constituency:
"The Registry constituency is comprised of a diverse range of Registry
operators, both sponsored and unsponsored, located in differing jurisdictions
and with a variety of business models. The Registries all require a certain
flexibility to be able to work effectively with the local environment that they
operate in, and we are encouraged by developments at the GNSO council and
elsewhere that consider such matters. Our impending vote in favor of this
motion is not intended in any way to constrain individual registries from
receiving full consideration of circumstances particular to them when
establishing the contractual basis for their operation. Underpinning this,
however, is the need for Registries to be given parity, to be treated equitably
and to have the opportunity to operate on a level playing field. We note that
this principle is expressed in many Registry contracts, and believe that is of
great importance when formulating policy."

Marilyn Cade spoke in favour of approving the new registry services policy as a consensus policy.
"The issues which led to the need for a new registry services consensus policy are well known and remembered and a significant amount of work, research and commitment and participation throughout the process occurred, participation by all members who represent constituencies and changes and edits were made throughout that process. It is the responsibility, in my view, of the GNSO Council to develop consensus policy and it is consensus policy upon which the integrity of ICANN rests. Changing consensus policy through contractual terms is of great concern to me and I believe puts ICANN at risk. It is my view, and I hope that others will join me, that it is a well thought out, balanced documented and researched consensus policy that we have developed".

Marilyn Cade, seconded by Lucy Nichols proposed:

A motion to vote and approve the policy set out in the final report on process for use by ICANN in
considering requests for consent and related contractual amendments to allow changes in the architecture operation of a gTLD registry
as a consensus policy of the GNSO Council and forward the policy to the ICANN Board for their acceptance.

Ross Rader commented that there were "certain things within Philip's statement that I couldn't agree with more, the notion of fairness, flexibility and equality that speaks to the need to support Marilyn's motion in that it will provide us with a basis we can equitably apply policy to all of the registries and I would encourage the other constituencies to support the motion".

Formal nominative vote: 26 Votes in favour
- (proxy votes held for Tony Holmes, Robin Gross and Norbert Klein voted in favour).
- (Cary Karp, Philip Colebrook, Ken Stubbs voted in favour keeping in consideration the statement made on behalf of the Registry constituency )

The motion carried unanimously.

Decision To approve the policy set out in the final report on process for use by ICANN in
considering requests for consent and related contractual amendments to allow changes in the architecture operation of a gTLD registry
as a consensus policy of the GNSO Council and forward the policy to the ICANN Board for their acceptance.

Item 7: Actions arising from GNSO Public Forum in Luxembourg
Bruce Tonkin referred to the Summary of the GNSO Public Forum and proposed reviewing the main discussions after each public forum and identifying areas where action could be taken to address concerns that were raised.
Action should be taken on Ken Fockler's request regarding outreach on TLDs with more than 3 characters.
Suggestions were for a website page "preferred practices" as a repository reference for certain issues.
Bruce Tonkin suggested proposing a resolution for the next Council meeting on 18 August 2005.

Item 8: Creation of working group to review implementation of current
WHOIS policies related to Accuracy (e.g WHOIS data reminder policy, and
WHOIS problem reporting system)
- Niklas Lagergren proposed as chair
(note this would be a similar process to that used to review the
implementation/compliance with the transfers policy)

Niklas Lagergren reported on creating a working group under his chairmanship, that would report directly to the GNSO Council, as it would be assisting the GNSO Council to review the effectiveness of its recent new policies with respect to WHOIS. The output would be available for the Whois task force which would be working in parallel on the terms of reference.
The working group would not attempt to discuss new policies but would look at the WHOIS data problem reporting, how to make the implementation of the problem reporting system more effective, and how to collect more meaningful data on the effectiveness of the system in addressing WHOIS problems.
It would remain small, aiming to complete the work before the ICANN meeting in Vancouver.
Bruce Tonkin suggested that the creation of the working group with terms of reference, to be posted to the Council list, be confirmed at the next council meeting on 18 August 2005.

Jordyn Buchanan reported that the combined Whois task force work, met once since Luxembourg and issued a call for constituency statements on conflicts with National laws procedure and tasks 1 & 2 from the terms of reference.
Two constituencies provided statements on all 3 topics,
One constituency provided a statement on conflicts with National laws procedure.
The deadline was July 21 2005 and Bruce Tonkin suggested drafting reports and continuing with the information on task 1 and 2 at hand so as not to delay the process further.
The aim is to complete the policy development process on conflicts with National laws procedure by the September 22, 2005 Council meeting.

Item 9: Consideration of revised consensus recommendation with respect
to improving notification and consent for the use of contact data in the
Whois system
Updated consensus recommendation on improving notification to Registered Name Holders of the public access to contact data via the WHOIS service in response to comments received so far with the RAA Clause 3.7.7.5 as requested by Niklas Lagergren in the GNSO Council meeting in Luxembourg.
Deferred to the next Council meeting 18 August 2005.

- legal text required from ICANN legal team
Reported on under Item 2

Item 10: Any Other Business
a. The appointment of the Vice President for policy development support.

Grant Forsyth referred to his comment on the Council list on 28 June 2005 The Concern was noted because the announcement stated that the role of senior vice president of policy may not be filled for 9 or 12 months. The GNSO, as one of the policy Councils, should be involved with the President in defining the role of the Senior Vice President, in the appointment of that position and working with the President to have that role filled as soon as possible given its importance.
Grant suggested that Council appoint a small committee to work with a similar number of representatives from the ccNSO and ASO and senior ICANN staff members to fill that position.
Olof Nordling quoting from the announcement,
"ICANN is pleased to announce that Dr. Williams will be providing consultancy services in the area of policy development. In this regard, Dr. Williams will act as Senior Policy Advisor providing advice to Olof Nordling, Manager Policy Development Coordination ".
Dr Liz Williams briefly introduced herself to the Council.

The following points were highlighted in the Council discussions:
- Filling the position was considered a priority.
- Clarity on the position description and the requirement for that position.
- The position description for the role be developed.

Bruce Tonkin declared the GNSO meeting closed and thanked everybody for participating.
The meeting ended: 16: 26 CET.

• Next GNSO Council Teleconference will be held on August 18, 2005 at 12:00 UTC. 14:00 CET.
  see: Calendar