NZOC Monthly Report for April 2007

NZRS Report

NZRS have produced their monthly report for April 2007.  Main points NZOC would like to highlight with Council are:

§                System availability for April was 99.94% against the SLA standard of 99.9%

Total unscheduled outage time of 26 minutes 3 seconds was due to an issue which occurred four times and required the process to be restarted.  Maximum outage time was around 300 seconds

§                The scheduled maintenance window was utilised on 15 April 2007

§                A BCP Test was performed on 29 April 2007.  This tested the backup personnel and processes and went well with no major issues identified.

§                Performance times for key transactions for April are in the following table:

§                DNS SLA standards met

Server                           % Availability

Performance Stress Testing

The figures are derived from the 'stress testing' of the name servers. 1201 UDP and 121 TCP transactions are used.   Measurements are in milli-seconds.

The measurements for the Primary name servers and NS1, NS2 and NS3 are taken by running the programme on the individual servers.

SRS Zone Pushes

These figures show the average time taken from the point that the first Primary begins the zone push to the time that the last of the secondary’s acknowledges that it is up to date.

§              The total number of WHOIS queries decreased 1,895,000 to 1,848,000

§              The level of active .nz domain names increased from 272,752 to 276,273.  An increase of 3521.

.nz Policies and Procedures

2.1       Registrar Compliance

§                No major compliance issues arose in April

2.2              Policy Reviews

§                Work is progressing on the third consultation paper in respect of the Registering, Managing and Cancelling Domain Names Policy review.  A draft of this paper will be presented to the next NZOC meeting in May.

2.3              Applications 

§                NZOC held a teleconference to discuss the submissions received for the .bank.nz application.  It was agreed that the moderation policy in the proposal needed to be reworded to clarify what names would, or wouldn’t, be able to be registered in .bank.nz.  A letter was sent to the NZ Bankers’ Association setting out NZOC’s concerns and asking them to reword the moderation policy.

§                An application for access to the zone file has been declined as it was determined that the applicant had not demonstrated that the release of the information had a ‘public good’ benefit.

Registrar authorisation and connection

§                No new registrars were authorised in April.  One registrar, SimpleName, connected to the production system over the month.

Other .nz matters

§                Four members of NZOC have their terms expiring in July this year.  A panel has been set up by InternetNZ and they will be responsible for appointing one person for a one year term, one person for a two year term and two people for three year terms.  Following this appointment round, two members of NZOC will be up for selection each year.

Dispute Resolution Service (DRS)

For the month of April 2007, there were 4 new electronic complaints submitted.  The first 11 months of the DRS to 30 April 2007 has seen 89 complaints lodged with 32 (36%) ruled invalid.

Of the 57 valid complaints:

-                9 (15.8%) settled on initial notification, prior to mediation

-                21 disputes went to mediation, with 15 of those successfully settling.

-                13 went through to Expert decision with 9 ordered transferred, 1 ordered cancelled and 3 dismissed.

6.         DNC Office  

§                A report from Dr Frank March relating to his attendance at the ICANN meeting in Lisbon at the end of March 2007 is attached as Appendix 1.

7.         Financial

Financial information for April 2007

Frank March

Chair, NZOC

Appendix 1

Report from ICANN/GAC Meeting

Lisbon, Portugal, 24-28 March 2007

Frank March

The 27^th ICANN meeting was held from 24 to 30 March in Lisbon, Portugal.  I attended as a member of the InternetNZ delegation with full financial support from InternetNZ, and leave to attend from the Ministry of Economic Development.

I attended the meeting of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on the Saturday to Wednesday, 24-28 March, as well as part of the ICANN Open Forum on Thursday 29 March and the Council meeting on Friday 30 March. The GAC Communiqué is attached.

I  Governmental  Advisory Group (GAC)

GAC Principles on new gTLDs and WHOIS

The previous GAC meeting in Sao Paulo had spent many frustrating hours working through alternate texts on principles for WHOIS and new gTLDs, as details in my report from the 26^th GAC meeting.  Although there were continued detailed discussions over the two scheduled days, both documents were finalised at this meeting and adopted in the formal plenary sessions.

Discussion will continue between the GAC and the gNSO over implementation issues with both WHOIS and new gTLDs. 

Issues for New Zealand:  New Zealand has no particular concern over allocation of new gTLDs.  Reservation of geographic names is a matter of concern for many countries is but the New Zealand Government has consistently avoided involving itself in such issues.  Cultural values on the other hand  could be an issue for New Zealand so that allocation of new gTLDs will need to be monitored on a case by case basis.

As far as WHOIS is concerned, the GAC principles applicable to the gTLDs provide useful guidance about the appropriate balance to be achieved between the needs of law enforcement agencies, intellectual property concerns and privacy for .nz.  Current New Zealand policy for .nz is consistent with the GAC principles.

GAC Working Methods

The Wellington GAC meeting established a joint GAC - ICANN Board working group.  This has held intersessional meetings by teleconference and face to face meetings at both the Sao Paulo and Lisbon meetings.  Key outcomes have been moves towards early development of issues papers by the ICANN staff and the establishment of a long term ‘master calendar’ to assist in planning and to give early warning of upcoming issues.

One concern has been the stated need for ICANN to work in ‘Internet time’ which has been seen as clashing with the needs of governments for time to appropriately consult in capitals.  The reality is that it is not just the GAC that has problems over consultation; this is shared with a number of other constituencies as evidenced in Lisbon by a major internal differences within the gNSO over WHOIS.

Another issue which was discussed extensively in Wellington was secretariat support for the GAC.  One suggestion, effectively vetoed, was for ICANN to pick up the task.  In the event, an offer from India to replace the EU as secretariat was accepted.  This has had a mixed success and ICANN has now taken over a number of functions, including arrangements for intersessional teleconferences, the website and provision of transcripts of plenary sessions.  It is clear that in the longer term the GAC will be, as a matter of course, fully supported by ICANN staff.

Issues for New Zealand:  Continued support for Frank March as co-Vice Chair.

II Other GAC issues 

There were a number of issues explored in semi-formal and informal meetings with other delegates.  For the most part these were in connection with one or other of the GAC agenda items.

Taiwan has agreed to adopt the nomenclature used in other international fora such as APEC, and will in future be known in the GAC as ‘Chinese Taipei’.

III Niue TLD Registry (.nu)

I met with William (Bill) Semich, owner of the .nu Registry, Per Darnell manager of the .nu Nordic operations and Joseph Samuelson, Swedish GAC representative on Monday 25 March.  The meeting was to discuss the allegations being made about .nu status and management in the world-wide press and to explore options for the NZ government to assist in any mediation attempt.

A number of allegations have been in circulation for several years about the ways .nu has been managed.  The following points have been established:

1.      .nu is well managed.  In 2006, the Swedish regulator investigated .nu in parallel with .se and other TLDs of significance in Sweden including .com etc.  There were no concerns about .nu policies or management expressed as a result.

2.      .nu does not have unusual levels of pornography, nor does Bill Semich act as holder of pornographic websites.  This allegation was based on a misunderstanding of how registrations were managed in 2000, which has since been changed.  Present policy is to take down offensive sites if complaints are made and there is an active programme to find and take down illegal sites (eg child pornography).

3.      .nu does earn vast wealth.  Audited accounts show an income totaling some US$18M over eight years and expenditure on Niue projects of nearly US$3M over that period, US$350K to US$600K per year.

4.      The unpublished report of the Niue Commission of Inquiry into .nu (conducted by Mr Justice David Ongley) made no findings against .nu and generally refuted all of the more extreme allegations made from time to time over .nu management, the Internet Users Society of Niue and its personnel.

Suggested way forward:

5.      In discussion Semich has indicated willingness to enter negotiations.  He will not do so directly with the government of Niue because of his experience with individuals in the past who he alleges have negotiated in bad faith.  He is not prepared to give up .nu but is prepared to look at a new contractual relationship (note that there is an existing contractual relationship).

6.      It would be possible for a New Zealand official (possibly the .nz GAC representative) to assist in any negotiations.  Semich has indicated that he would welcome this.

IV  Next ICANN/GAC meeting

7.    The next GAC meeting will be held in Puerto Rico, in July in conjunction with the 28^th ICANN Meeting.  There will be at least one intersessional teleconference before then.