Open Forum with the ICANN Board 15/07/00

Introduction

Typically, the Board meets in public and receives reports and submission on matters concerning the Board's agenda at its meeting, usually scheduled for the following day. The meeting is web cast, with comments received from on-line participants. The archive is available from the ICANN website.

New gTLDs

1. Referring to the Names Council resolution, about the only item which was taken from it was the requirement to maintain stability, and the use of the words "measured" and "responsible". Ken Stubbs reported the recommendation from the Names Council.
2. Louis Touton took over, and referred to the staff documents posted on the website, particularly the extensive document with its questionnaire. (The comments of the real time scribe at the website at 071500html should be noted.)
3. Rebecca Nessan then presented her report on the 1307 responses, some people posting up to five times a day. At first issue was the utility of new gTLDs. People on all sides had similar comment. Some were concerned with the need to register in the new gTLDs to protect themselves. Others were worried about wholesale importation from .com which would prevent meaningful expansion. In general, most were in favour of new gTLDs. Most in favour did not choose between restricted and unrestricted, with proponents of both. Some said open many new gTLDs, and others said open a few as proof of concept. Very few said there should be none.
4. Trademark owners wanted a UDRP, a mechanism for enforcement of IP rights, a complete WHOIS, a sunrise proposal providing privileges to register for trademark owners. Some had difficulty with this, as it was not clear who would qualify: famous name holders, trademark holders or .com holders. Most said special privileges should not be granted to this group. A few had addressed the question of non-ASCII characters. Some addressed the opening date policy, concerned about the "gold rush" mentality. Others were concerned at the possible length of the domain name string - most wanted three letters only. Some proposals for actual names were for more than three letter words.
5. There was variance in the timeframe, some wanting it faster, and others wanting to take five years or so, others not wanting to go too fast and to provide for public comment etc.
6. As to registry criteria, there were a number of discussions about what was appropriate. Some dealt with things such as technical stability, and the business model. Most said that the criteria must be clear, and public.
7. Public comment began, with comment from the DNSO business constituency which wished to convey its decision (although not passed by a majority). A mere 22 votes were involved.
8. Similarly, the opinion of 28 registrars in attendance was presented (see report ot Council on the General Assembly meeting).
9. Hans Klein then spoke on behalf of the DNSO non-commercial constituency. It is concerned about a variety of rights, not just the IP rights which have received prominent protection under the ICANN regime. He was concerned, for example, about privacy, speech and the need to balance other competing rights.
10. Tony Holmes presented on behalf of the ISPs urging the Board to take time to consider, otherwise repeating the ISP constituency's position. (See report to Council on G.A. meeting)
11. There was a useful discussion concerning the opportunity to develop new business models. Mike Roberts said that new registries must be premised on knowledge, competence (in operations, technical expertise and maintenance) and the financial area must be stable. All of these would be carefully judged by staff.
12. Vint Cerf warned the audience that even the Board was not omniscient - risk must be a factor in the enterprise.
13. There was one lighter moment when Dr Wu from Taiwan reported that a company had already announced that it had been granted the right to run a new gTLD, and was already collecting the money. Esther suggested that they be sued for fraud and that they have probably disqualified themselves from actually achieving new gTLD registry status.
14. Barb Dooley (of CIX) disagreed with Vint Cerf concerning competition. Eventually Vint responded by objecting that domain names should be used for searching purposes. He said that people do not search that way. The proper way to search was by search engines. Searching by domain names only turns up a few famous brands. Much of the argument seemed futile.
15. Marcowski contended that adding six to 10 domain names represented only a very small increase in the TLDs (there are after all 243 ccTLDs) and wondered when the last one was introduced. The answer was Palestine earlier in the year. Carl Auerbach had made a similar point online - Peter Deutch has run trials involving several million TLDs.
16. We then heard from the non-commercial constituency, and the intellectual property constituency which repeated their submissions to the General Assembly.
17. Joop Teermstra made the philosophical point that one added value to the internet by increasing the number of gTLDs. The more of the internet there was, the more valuable it became.
18. We then heard again from the intellectual property constituency as before. Pindar Wong [Board (ASO)] asked WIPO to confirm that it (as one of the dispute resolution providers) could cope with a tenfold increase in the amount of work. He was assured by Chris Gibson of WIPO that it could.
19. There seemed to be some informal agreement that about six was an appropriate number for the new trial period.

CEO's Report

1. Mike Roberts presented a report and opened by acknowledging the hard work of the organising committee and his staff, noting this was ICANN's seventh public forum. He introduced an org chart showing the work of hundreds on a volunteer basis.
2. He then moved to the General Accounting Office report, noting that it was favourable.
3. He then moved to the fact that ICANN had been given nine tasks over a two year period in its Memorandum of Understanding, and believed that 5/9ths of that was on the agenda for Yokohama. He believed that 75 to 80% of the work would be handled. He then discussed the budget, referring to the taskforce of last November which the Board had adopted.
4. The Board has money that is resource constrained. It requires repayment of the loan of $1.2 million in 60 days and is concerned about the payment of overdue "invoices". Its goal is to have a financial reserve of one year's operating costs in the bank.
5. Linda Wilson, chair of Audit Committee, then presented an audit report.
6. At this stage PDT (.nz) asked about the significant lack of clarity in the General Accounting Office report concerning the legality of the transfer to ICANN and the statement from the Department of Commerce that it had no intention of transferring "ultimate policy control" over the root to ICANN.
7. Louis Touton's response was to refer to the second statement to the Department f Commerce from ICANN (dated June 30). This appears to be a reference to the final paragraphs including the following "immediate steps" facing ICANN.
8. "As ICANN reaches appropriate and stable agreements concerning ccTLDs with their managers, DOC and ICANN should agree on simplified procedures that enable ICANN to assure those ccTLD managers that the authoritative route will point to the ccTLD name servers they designate for so long as the agreements remain in effect."
9. Becky Burr (Department of Commerce) clarified that DoC had ultimate policy control and it would be transferred when ICANN had an operational management plan. However, Abrily Abril said that the GAO reports that the DOC has no present intention to transfer policy control to the route. Becky Burr further clarified that they do intent to have operational management transferred to ICANN when they get an operational management plan. They have not looked at any legal depth of the ability to transfer policy authority over the route. It is a legal question on which they have not yet done the work. (Note that this begs the question as to whether they intend to do it.)
10. Jun Murai then delivered his presentation of root server/service (see an excellent slide presentation in the archives).
11. Becky Burr said that the DOC thought that funding by the ccTLD is fundamental and hoped that we could work together to wrap up the outstanding funding issues.
12. Paul Twomey then reported on behalf of the GAC. He described their late and heated meeting of the night before as "an open and frank exchange of views" (Laughter). He referred to the communique, thanks to host Japan and noted the attendance of 31 governments and distinct economies. The GAC had consulted with Mike Roberts, the ccTLDs and the Board.
13. He then presented the communique which contained a number of statements of major concern. It noted with concern ICANN's budgetary position, and confirmed its previous view that ccTLD administrators (like .nz) should contribute towards the funding of ICANN in accordance with equitable principles.
14. Specifically, it recorded its view that ccTLDs should pay "the prescribed contribution contained in ICANN's 1999/2000 budget". It called for consensus in establishing future budgets (obviously aware of the rejection of the ccTLD delegates to the taskforce meeting in Cairo).
15. It had nothing to say (yet) about new gTLDs, but much to say about ccTLDs.
    • It repeated its "ultimate public policy authority" over the interests of the people for which a ccTLD has been delegated.
    • It called on ICANN not to enter into any contractual arrangements with ccTLD administrators of ccTLDs for which redelegation requests were pending.
    • It invited ICANN to write to relevant governments and public authorities to ascertain their views concerning current delegation for the ccTLDs that could correspond to their jurisdictions.
    • It advised ICANN not to enter into contracts with any ccTLD registry until they received the relevant "communication" from the relevant government or public authority.
16. These recommendations, in many people's view, strayed well past the GAC mandate. Talking to Board members afterwards, most were adamant that ICANN would not be writing to individual governments.
17. In answer to a question from Jamie Love, Paul Twomey confirmed that the GAC would not support an extension of ICANN's mission (beyond the narrow names and number function presently scheduled).
18. The Board then received a report from the Names Council/General Assembly. Ken Stubbs reported the formation of a working group to conduct the DNSO review.
19. There followed a long report and discussion led by Andrew McLauchlan (staff lawyer) on the Membership at Large proposal. The eventual decision of the Board is reflected in the minutes.

At Large Directors

1. There was considerable discussion on the bylaw changes proposed to reflect the number of at large directors to be elected by the at large members. Sue Leader objected to:
   • The use of colloquial Americanisms such as "from soup to nuts" as unintelligible to many, particularly non-English-speaking people.
   • The change from nine ALM directors intended to balance the nine SO directors.
2. Again, the Board resolution reflects the eventual outcome (i.e. nine seats preserved, but more crucially, a study of the at large membership on a "no holds barred" basis). Watch this space.
3. At 5.37 pm Louis Touton got to ccTLD issues. He reported the presentation (on 5 July) of a further ccTLD summary and referred to the "status quo" documents.
4. Chon as chair of the Yokohama ccTLD then invited Anthony van Couvering to present. Anthony commencing at 17.42pm and spoke until 17.51pm. Anthony presented the PowerPoint presentation he had prepared of the ccTLD drafting on best practices and redelegation.
5. There was almost no discussion. Peter de Blanc on the ccTLD funding group then said that we were hesitant to get into funding discussions when there was no contract. Markovski said there was a need to have a separate body to make rules for ccTLDs.
6. The good news that was announced was that generally either payment or commitments of up to $750,000 had been made, and that with additional pledges, $US1 million was expected.
7. There then followed a period of public comment on other issues. The representative of the Gambian ccTLD made a complaint that his request for redelegation, originally made in Cairo or earlier, had not yet been responded to by the staff. The usual excuses resulted (resources were limited).

© 2000 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated 2 August 2000