GNSO Working Session
      Saturday, 9 February 2008
      Delhi, India
      
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  We almost have the telephone, so I'm going to suggest that we start to start, 'cause we have a lot of stuff to do.
      So -- well, maybe we'll wait a few seconds.
      We've got microphones, and looks like we've got the phone.  But we've also got some lovely music.
      >>PHONE:   Thank you for calling.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   GNSO council.
      >>PHONE:   This is Glen de Saint Gery?
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   Yes.
      >>PHONE:   All right.  I'll put you back in.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Do we actually have a phone connection?
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   Kristina, are you still on the phone?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   (inaudible).
      Anyhow, while that's happening, I would actually like to start --
      >>PHONE:   Ms.--
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   Hello.  You are still connected to the call.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   Kristina is still connected to the call.  Thank you.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Good morning.  Welcome to this full week.  I want to first start by going around the room -- actually, no, I don't want to start with that.  Excuse me.  There's still a little bit of work being done in terms of getting headsets on the transcribers and such.
      So I first want to -- let me see -- want to go through the schedule quickly to know where we're at and what we've got ahead of us this week.  I put the schedule up, so we're starting out this morning.  And I don't know if people can see it.  It has been sent out to everyone.
      We're starting off this morning.  We're going to have two discussions this morning, one on domain tasting and one on interregister transfer policy.
      We have a break for lunch, and we need to break strictly at 12:00, because there is another meeting that some people need to go to at 12:00.  Then we meet again at 2:00, where we'll be having a visit from the board governance working group, or at least some of the members, to talk about the GNSO improvements, where they are in that, what the status is, what changes they're going to recommend.
      And then we have a staff update after that on new gTLD implementation plans.
      Tomorrow, the morning is dedicated completely to IDN ccTLD responses.  The drafting team that was reworking those has finished its work, has sent everything out to people, and we'll be going through that.
      In detail, making sure that we have something that people can agree to, hopefully something that can be voted on in the Wednesday meeting.
      We have a lunch break.  Then we have a preparatory meeting for our ccNSO meeting, which will be -- the meeting we will have with the ccNSO, which will be held Monday.  And then we'll have a prep for our open council meeting on Wednesday, making sure that any motions that we have are, indeed, ready or we know what state we're in at the time.
      Other things we've got going:  On Monday, we do have the ccNSO/GNSO joint council meeting that is an open meeting, however, only the council members and liaisons of the ccNSO and the GNSO will be involved in the dialogue.  It will be moderated by Patrick Sharry.  And it's a discussion to try and come to mutual understandings of at least our respective positions on some of these issues.
      Tuesday's constituency day, as always.
      Wednesday morning is our open meeting.  The way we have the agenda, other than the normal agenda items, is to basically go through the IDN issues and take a vote on our statement, our response, if we are ready.  And we'll discover that on Sunday discussion.
      Then we also have the domain tasting discussion, which will be part of what comes out of this morning and either we'll be ready for a decision at that point in this meeting or it will start to give us the indication of whether we're ready to make a decision at that point or we'll make a decision of one thing or another, either how we proceed or on the motion itself.
      Then we basically have quick reports on other things that are going on.  Then we have the open microphone on general issues.
      And on Thursday, we have two things:  We have lunch with -- oh, yeah, we also have -- what was it? -- it was -- oh, okay -- on Thursday, we have a lunch with NomCom, who want to talk to us about requirements and such.
      And then we have a meeting to basically talk about the input that we've gotten from the meetings that we've had this week and also to start planning for future meetings.
      And we have -- Glen -- we also have -- in addition to the dinner with the board on Sunday, where the topic will be IDN TLDs, we also have a cocktail hour and ALAC.  And I forget where it is.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   On Wednesday.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   On Wednesday.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   On Wednesday from 6:30 to 7:00.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   There's lots of other on the schedule that Glen sent out.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   After the travel workshop, which, given some of the letters that we've sent on to CEOs and COOs, a lot of us may be interested in.
      It's a full schedule.  Glen has sent the list, a very complete synopsis of the schedule.
      The other thing I want to do before we start is a couple more reminders.  We do have a jabber room that's set up.  Glen has sent out on the notify list the details and the password for that.  It's a GNSO council only jabber room so I'm not going to announce the password at this point.
      Glen, I don't know if it's necessary to send that reminder out again.  I'm not sure everybody still has their notify mail on the jabber room.  You can get to it either from Gmail -- and Gmail is essentially jabber.  Or you can get to it from other jabber servers.
      I also want to remind people -- we're going to go around the room shortly.
      I want to remind people that when you speak, we are being transcribed.  It's important to give your name first at the beginning.  You know, sometimes after some of us have spoken a lot, a lot, they do begin to recognize us.  But especially at the beginning of the meeting, we won't necessarily all be recognized by voice, and it's hard for them to see.
      So please remember to give your name when you start speaking.
      Also, Denise, before I went around the room, is Denise -- yeah, I wanted to give Denise a chance to introduce someone.
      >>DENISE MICHEL:   I sent an e-mail to the council and the GNSO constituencies this morning.  We'd like to introduce a new policy staff member, Rob Hoggarth, sitting here at the table.  He is joining ICANN staff as a senior policy director.  He'll be responsible for managing a number of cross-functional initiatives, including the improvements of the supporting organizations and advisory committees.
      He's splitting his time between Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Marina Del Rey office.  And he comes to us with a distinguished career in technology and communications policy and law, including serving as a senior vice president with NTT, Nippon Telegraph and Telecom, in the U.S., and also as senior vice president with the Personal Communications Industry Association.
      I'd like to welcome Rob.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  And welcome.
      Okay the next thing is, this is an open meeting and I'm going to ask everybody to go around, introduce yourselves -- 
      Introduce yourself --
      >>PHONE:   Can you hear me?  Her line is connected.  I don't know, she just joined a couple of minutes ago.  The only thing I can say is to stay online.  She may have her line on mute.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  So to continue, so I'm going to ask the people around the table to introduce themselves and then the people not around the table and in the seats.
      I saw that there's at least one handheld microphone.  So we'll pass that around the edges.  And also, when people speak, they do need to speak into a microphone.  So if someone who is not at the table wants to speak --
      >>PHONE:   (saying name) joins.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   It's Kristina.
      We're not really in the meeting.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Can you hear me?
      >>PHONE:   Ms. De Saint Gery, hello?  Sorry, I cannot hear you.
      >> Avri, I just got an e-mail from Kristina and she said she can barely hear us.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   She can barely hear.  So there's --
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   To the council list, I don't know if you're online, but I don't know whether e-mail is getting through.  I have no idea.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Kristina --
      >>PHONE:   Her line is connected.  I don't think they're at the podium or the phone.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yes --
      >>PHONE:   But I hear some noise in the background.  It sounds like they're setting up.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   They haven't started yet?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Actually, we have --
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Okay.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Actually, we have.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   Can you hear me through this microphone?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Yes.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   But you can not hear me now; right?  Right.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY:   Yes Kristina?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Yes. 
      >>DENISE MICHEL:  We'll use a handheld microphone until they fix this problem.  Sorry about that.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Hello, Kristina? 
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:  Hi, Avri.  Tim is here, too.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   We're actually still having technical difficulties.  We did start the meeting.
      Unfortunately, only the handheld microphone can you -- can -- you can only hear us when we're speaking through the handheld and not when we're speaking through the room microphone.
      So far, all we've done is gone through the schedule and talked about some of the mechanics.  I'm just about to go through having everybody in the room introduce themselves.
      We hear you quite well.  So what I'm going to ask is to ask the two of you to say who you are and on, and then you may not hear much until -- while we're still getting things settled.  Hopefully, you'll get settled quickly or we'll hold the microphone next to a speaker or something.
      Okay.  So who's on the phone line, please?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Kristina Rosette, IPC.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   And --
      >>TIM RUIZ:  Tim Ruiz, registrars constituency.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Is anyone else on the line?  And thank you for bearing with this.
      Okay.  Now, I guess starting with Adrienne, would you start with yourself, introductions or can you just hold that near a speaker?
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   I -- Adrian Kinderis, registrar constituency.
      >>PATRICK JONES:   Patrick Jones, ICANN staff.
      >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:   Dirk Krischenowski dot Berlin.
      >>JIM BASKIN:   Jim Baskin very nice business constituency.
      >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:   Craig Schwartz ICANN staff.
      >>ROB HOGGARTH:   Rob Hoggarth, ICANN staff.
      >>LIZ GASSTER:   Liz Gasster ICANN staff.
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   Alan Greenberg ALAC liaison.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Kurt Pritz, ICANN staff.
      >>DAN HALLORAN:   Dan Halloran, ICANN staff.
      >> Palmer Hamilton, business constituency.
      >> Philip Corwin, counsel to the Internet Commerce Association.
      >> Michael Collins, Internet Commerce Association.
      >> Ahi Bavallou, dot MA staff regulatory -- I have some problem with English, sorry.  
      >>DENISE MICHEL:   Denise Michel, ICANN staff.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Chuck Gomes, registry constituency.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Avri Doria, NomCom appointee.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   Bruce Tonkin, with Melbourne I.T. and also on the ICANN board.
      >>OLGA CAVALLI:   Olga Cavalli, NomCom appointee.
      >>EDMON CHUNG:   Edmon Chung, GNSO -- I mean, gTLD constituency.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Olof Nordling, ICANN staff.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Philip Sheppard, with the business constituency.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Mike Rodenbaugh, with the business constituency.
      >>MARGIE MILLAM:  Margie Millam, with the registrars constituency.
      >>JON BING:   Jon Bing here, NomCom appointee.
      >> Claudio Di Gangi, IPC.
      >>NORBERT KLEIN:   Norbert Klein, noncommercial constituency and member of the council.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   Robin Gross, also a member of the council, representing the noncommercial users constituency.
      >> Hi.  Dotty Sparks De Blanc, dot VI registry and council member from North America on the ccNSO.
      >> Hello, Annalisa Roger.  I'm here as an individual.
      >> Hello.  Yishan Fan from registrar constituency.
      >>KAREN LENTZ:   Karen Lentz, ICANN staff.
      >> Paul Stahura, registrar constituency.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  And welcome to the meeting.  And apologies for the late start.  Hopefully, we'll get the technical stuff ironed out.
      What I wanted to ask first is to go into the agenda item on domain name tasting.
      First of all, to give a quick status where we were, and then I'll bring the microphone over to you, Mike.  We -- the final report has gone out on the 8th as scheduled, even the 8th Delhi time, I was told.
      And it is out.
      Now, we are in a process now of, within the next ten days, we need to start deliberations.
      Today is within the next ten days.
      Now, what we did, just to give a background, is we formed a small drafting team to basically look at the almost-final report and make recommendations to the council of how we could proceed.  They had a fairly open view as to either come up with -- decide that we needed a working group and come up with a charter, et cetera, for a working group, or all the way to producing a motion that we could deliberate and vote on.  And it was really up to this drafting team that was composed of any council member who wished to be on this drafting team to basically come up with a proposal for the group.
      As people have seen, they did send out a motion in time by last Wednesday that can be voted on at this Wednesday's meeting if the council believes that we are ready for such a vote.  Basically, we have our deliberations today, we continue them in the open meeting, and then we go on from there.
      And so that is one possibility.  That is the possibility that has been put on the table by the drafting team.  And I'll ask them to explain how they got to the decision they got to and why.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Chuck Gomes.  Avri, I understand the first part of your explanation of what that group's task wag in terms of making a recommendation for next steps forward.
      I didn't recall the broadening of that agenda to actually come up with a solution.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I think that, basically, at least my understanding always is that among the next steps, one of the possibilities is a motion to be discussed and voted on.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   My concern is there is, I certainly didn't communicate the latter part to the registry constituency, because we had someone who wanted to be on any working group that was formed on that, but understanding that this was just a next steps forward process, that didn't seem to be essential.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Well, that's something that we'll then need to discuss here.  I'll bring the microphone down to Robin.
      Actually, Robin had her hand up before we got to that.
      But, basically, putting a motion out is a possible next step, I had thought.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   I just wanted to concur with Chuck.  I was also a little bit surprised that we were going to -- that the group was going to come back with a recommendation for a solution.  So -- I mean, I'm not saying I disagree with the solution.  I just didn't realize that's what they were doing.  And so I'm a little apprehensive about it.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      So we will have to make a decision before we vote on whether we believe we're ready to vote.  And the decision may come down to we're not ready to vote; we need to do something more.
      But we can talk about that after we discuss this in the meeting today.
      Now, I have a quick announcement.  From what I understand, the people on the phone are going to be dropped and then brought back in so that maybe we'll be ready to start up again.
      So can you do the phone dropping now?
      Let's give it one minute and see whether we're back online or back on phone in a second.  And when we start up again, I'll ask Mike to take us through the reasoning of the -- of --
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   (inaudible).
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   I can hear you, Avri.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Oh, you can hear me now?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Faintly.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   In which case, let's continue -- Olof.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Talk close to the Mike.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Thank you, Avri.  Is this audible for those on the phone?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Yes, for me.  Tim?
      >>TIM RUIZ:  yes, I can hear.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Great.
      Well, the final report has been sent to the council list.  And it contains updates in relation to the initial report in three respects.  First of all, we had the final constituency statement submitted after the publication of the initial report from the registrars.  And that has been included.
      Also, 67, in all, public comments were received.  They have been incorporated and summarized.  And also incorporated in (inaudible).  So don't be overly impressed by the 120 pages of the report coming -- a lot of that are the full extent of the public comments.
      And, thirdly, updates of other nature, most notably, just a glimpse of information about the recent proposal from -- proposals from NeuStar and Afilias to introduce similar measures to what the IR did last year.
      So in a little more substance, well, the registrars constituency basically, if I may abbreviate it completely, get corrected -- if I think I'm stretching this too far -- but it basically states an objection to discontinuing the ADP, the add grace period, as a measure to curb tasting, if there could be a measure to curb tasting, the preferred measure would be the imposition of the ICANN transactional fee, given that leeway is allowed -- an allowance is given to the registrars for a reasonable other use of the ADP.  So a percentage would be free and still be considered to be refundable if there are (inaudible).
      Acceptable (inaudible) would be a registry restocking charge of the PIR nature, although it's not the preferred one.
      Now, when we get to the public comments, well, there are two groups, or, actually, three groups.  First of all, there are comments which briefly, from individuals, that state in the vast majority support for introducing some curbing measure.  And they're curbing giving certain success to other measures that could be used, like introducing a waiting time and such.
      There are also, due to the -- that service that was launched by Network Solutions came about at the same time as this public comment period was introduced, was launched, there are some 20 comments which basically relate to that particular service, slightly off topic in relation to pure domain tasting, but nevertheless -- well, registered as public comments in this context.
      Also, there are five organizations that have supplied a little more elaborate comments in documents.  And those are the AIPLA, the APWG, the INTA, the ICA, here present, and basically also the registrar constituency was put on that list in order for it to be visible as early as possible to the general public.
      They all have, well, expressed support for curbing measures and also have various preferences on what should be such curbing measures.
      I think -- I don't know if that would do for a brief summary, but -- so, in conclusion, there are three differences to the initial report:  Basically, the missing link when it comes to the constituency statements, the registrars constituency, the public comments of various three different groups, I should say, and some ancillary information that has surfaced in the meantime.
      So would that do to start?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I'll ask, does anyone have any clarifying questions at this point, not going into discussion, but are there any clarifying questions before moving on to Mike?
      Okay, yes, Philip.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Olof, your experience of public comments, how would you characterize the vacuum and consistency of these compared to other PDPs we've had?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   In my comparatively short experience, it is, well, quite a substantial volume.  And the spam filter seems to be working pretty well.  It must be noted, though, that a lot of the comments come from e-mail threads on the general assembly list.  There were something around 20 or more than 20 such comments, which are part of threads on the GA list.  They are not off topic, but they're copied parts of conversations on the GA list.
      So while that should perhaps be discounted for when we take stock of the total number of contributions.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Adrienne.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Adrian Kinderis.  
      Philip, are you inferring that the volume of comments is relative to something or what was the basis of your question?
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   No.  In the past, we -- public comments have not always been useful or coherent.  We've had a lot of spam on the lists, and just scanning through the public comments that I see here, I see a much greater consistency of particular more of the users' voices in the direction of doing something about domain tasting.  And I was struck by that, for the first time being struck, I think, by the value of public comments more so than in the past.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   I just wanted to clarify that you weren't necessarily inferring that because there were a lot of comments that there was, you know, from one side or the other, that -- more so, that it was good -- this was a good mechanism by which gauging public participation?
      Thank you.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Are there any other clarifying questions on the report?  And that was -- okay.
      >>DENISE MICHEL:   I just wanted to also remind the council members -- this is related to the PDP -- that at the same time the council voted to launch this policy development process, they also voted to direct ICANN staff to pursue, through the budget and other processes, the -- a review and change of the -- of the way ICANN handles the (inaudible) during the add/grace period.  Since that's so closely linked to the PDP, I just wanted to mention that point, too.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  Any other clarifying questions or comments?
      Okay, Mike, please talk about the drafting team and the task, how you approached it, the discussions, and where you ended up with the recommendation.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Okay.  Thanks, Avri.  It's Mike Rodenbaugh.
      So we clearly had access, we, the design team consisted of myself, Kristina Rosette from the IPC, Alan Greenberg from ALAC, and Tim Ruiz from the registrar constituency along with the help of Liz Gasster from staff.  And we certainly had access to all of the information that Olof just mentioned and that Denise mentioned.  Particularly the ICANN fee proposal was then the subject of an ICANN board motion recently that actually directed staff to implement the nonrefundability of the ICANN portion of the fee in the budget, beginning in June -- subject, of course, to approval.  Not only subsequent approval by the board but also in the meanwhile, approval of the registrars constituency, which is in some doubt whether that approval will happen or not.
      The design team felt very strongly, and unanimously, that action needs to be taken on this now.  It's been going on unchecked for three years.  With the NSI maneuver a couple of weeks ago, it got a lot of press, kind of took it to another level.
      And the fact is that while NeuStar and Afilias have been in discussions with the design team and others for a long time about these funnel requests that they just made, VeriSign is not participating in those discussions and has shown not interest in doing anything to curb tasting, and that is where the problem lies.  We do feel very strongly that a policy needs to be implemented that applies to all registries and not rely on each registry to come forward on its own.
      So the group also felt very strongly, and Tim or Kristina or Alan feel free if I am mischaracterizing anything, but we feel that enough work has been done on this issue to make a decision.  Council is ready to deliberate this and make a decision now rather than form another working group that could take another year or whatever.
      So the motion that we came up with essentially tracks the proposal made by NeuStar and Afilias, and seeks to make that a consensus policy across all registries.
      Specifically, and I'll summarize because everybody in the room -- Go ahead, Alan.
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   One comment.  We had made -- the working group had made the decision to come up with a resolution to council to address the issue of domain tasting.  When the NeuStar proposal was made, we made the decision to realign what we were doing in line with the terms of the NeuStar proposal.  But it wasn't driven by the NeuStar proposal.  That just caused us to change some of the detail terms just so it was more compatible with it.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   That's a very fair characterization.
      Essentially we knew that the NeuStar proposal was coming.  We have known that.  They have been telling us for many months.
      When it did come, we were able to use the details in our proposal.  Specifically, they proposed the restriction of 50 deletes per registrar per month as a maximum in the event that there were not adds.
      So many registrars don't have adds.  They are new, they would get up to 50 free deletes per month, essentially, was one issue that we struggled with.
      The other issue that we struggled with is the percentage of net new adds that would be deleted in order to trigger a restocking fee.  NeuStar and Afilias have proposed 10%.  Certainly Kristina Rosette and I feel that that should be a lower number.  Kristina has done some research indicating that Go Daddy's percentage is actually 2%, and then some of the other registrars were up at 9, 10, 12%.
      So we'd love to hear from any members of the registrar constituency in the room, their thoughts on that particular issue, but -- (feedback noise).  Hello.  Kristina and Tim, are you guys still there?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Yes, I can hear you much more clearly than I could a couple of seconds ago.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Yes, they have definitely cleared up some static.  I will stay back from the microphone now.  Can you turn it down a little bit, please.
      Okay.
      So I'm not sure how much more talking I need to do on this.  I would definitely like to open it up for discussion and hear other's thoughts on the motion that we put forward.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Thank you.
      As I pressed the button I heard the feedback.
      Okay, I would like to, I guess, first start out with are there any questions of Mike as we move into a discussion of this?
      I see no questions.
      So who would like to start the discussion?
      Excuse me, it's nice that you want to take pictures but it's hard to see.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   This is Tim.  Can he I get in the queue?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay, I have Chuck and then Tim.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   One of the concerns I have is process here.
      The outcomes report specifically recommended some terms of reference if we did a PDP.
      We decided to do a PDP, but we're ignoring the terms of reference that were recommended, so I'm curious about that.
      It recommended three things:  review and assess all the effects of domain tasting activities that have been identified.  Two, judge whether the overall affects justify measures to be taken to impede domain tasting.
      Three, if the answer to two is affirmative, then consider the potential impacts of various measures on the constituencies and recommend measures designed to impede domain tasting.
      What happened to that recommendation with regard to terms of reference?
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   A short answer, Chuck, is I believe we did all three of those things.  As a council and as a design team.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Can you tell me where I can find that?
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I think that we have discussed this issue several times on council calls and in person in council meetings.  We obviously have two, three, now four reports on this issue from staff, including a very exhaustive factual report that I led the drafting on.
      Bottom line, the three things that you just read from the terms of reference I just believe you can check each of them off that they have been done as a council.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   So you can point me somewhere where the effects of your motion have been identified and that the costs of those justify the measures to be taken.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I think that it is set out in the reports to some extent.  I think it's certainly something we, as a council now, can deliberate.  But I don't feel it's something that we need a working group to form and discuss.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Okay.  I'll just have to disagree with you on whether those are done or not.
      But there's another point that has to do with process and that is with regard to the Board Governance Committee working group, one of the things that they have recommended that I think is right on target is that the GNSO council should not be a legislative body.  And what I see happening here is exactly that.
      Regardless of the issue that's at stake, that's not our role, to be a legislative body, and that's what is happening here.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Chuck -- can I get in the queue, Avri, please?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yeah, I have got Tim and then I have got Kristina.
      Tim.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   I will make a different comment than I was going to and we will wait on discussing the motion, I guess.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   We can't hear you.  Hold on a second.  Can you try again, because none of us could really hear.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   Okay.  Is this better?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yes.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   I just have a question, I guess, at this point, is what -- why -- how would Chuck see things progressing differently as regards to his question about us being a legislative body?  I guess that's not clear to me.
      In other words, are we as council, then, no longer to recommend policy or just what would the process be?
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   No, Tim.  It's supposed to be a bottom-up process.  I have no with forming drafting teams of small groups like this.  As I said previously, I didn't understand the full scope of where this group was going, but that's okay.
      In fact, we have used that very effectively.  And I supported this particular effort to decide on next steps.  I thought that was a good thing to do.
      But ultimately, there needs to be opportunity for full community participation, and developing recommended policy with that full community participation.  That's why we're going in a direction of more working group involvement and so forth.
      Fully recognize that that can take a lot more time.  That's the environment that we're in.  And that's the only way we can have full community involvement.
      The three task that were in the terms of reference here, that should be done by an open working group where there is full participation and where you really have some data to rely on as a result of that.
      Otherwise, we are going to make decisions based on emotional feelings or things that may not be based in fact.  And granted, there's a lot of impact here.  Nobody has done any analysis of what impact it's going to have on this motion or on other things.
      That takes a lot of time.  And I know some people would like this to happen very quickly.  But if that's the way we operate as a council, that's not bottom-up.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I have got Kristina next.
      I want to add one thing, though, to this.  Is that we need to deal with the fact that we're not quite in the new world that's being defined by the board working group.
      Basically, we're still under the old PDP rules that basically is us going through a process, reaching a final report, going into deliberations, which is where we are now.
      Now, we have always sort of left that fuzzy that if our deliberations drive us to the point where we think a working group or something else is necessary to complete the work, we can certainly do that.
      But I don't believe that we are yet in the situation where our bylaw-mandated working manner requires the working group.
      I think if we do a working group, obviously we want to do one that's open.  But I don't believe -- I think we are still upped the old bylaws which sort of say we're at the deliberations point.
      Now, if while we're in this deliberations point we feel a working group is necessary, then certainly we should do that.  But I don't know that we have done anything against our current bylaws nor do I think we are bound yet by new working principles that we actually haven't even seen yet other than in various draft forms.
      So I just wanted to sort of make that process point.
      I have Kristina and then I have -- okay.  First I have Kristina, then I have Jon, then I have Mike, then I have Paul. Kristina, go ahead, please.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Sure.  Chuck, just to respond to you a few of the concerns you raised.  It may be the case that the drafting team did not specifically put in the recitation of the motion or distributed document that --
      >>AVRI DORIA:   We can't hear you.  Hold on a sec.
      Can somebody do something with the volume?
      Try again, Kristina.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Okay.
      Did we do a formal analysis in terms of something that was written or something that was posted to the council list of the draft of the reference?  No.  But I do agree with Mike that we did, in fact, talk about that.  And in fact, some of the options in terms of policy recommendations that we initially kind of put on the table, we realized could not be implemented in a way that would result in an even cost/benefit analysis.
      In other words, we talked excessively about certain members of the drafting team's desire to eliminate the AGP in its entirety.  We also talked about the fact that there had been very strong sentiments put forth by the registrar community that there were legitimate non-abusive purposes for which they used the AGP and we recognized that.  And did we do an economic cost/benefit analysis?  No.
      I don't think, frankly, that that was what was suggested in those terms of reference.
      As to your other points, I frankly don't see the value in a working group.
      I have never been involved in a PDP that had more input from the community than this one.  I mean, you had hundreds of people responding to the RFI, and the supplemental RFI and posting public comments.
      You had much more information, as far as I could see, going into this policy development process leading up to this motion than any of the other ones that I have worked on so far.
      And frankly, if -- personally, I believe that if you are advocating that we can't go forward until we formally go through the working group process, not only do I have grave concerns about the length of time that's going to take but I also have real concerns about what additional value we are going to get out of that.
      That's why, for example, you didn't see a whole lot of trademark owners submitting public comments because they said their peace in the supplemental RFI responses and the RFI responses.  Everybody in my community, at least, feels that they have done and said everything that they can, and there's really nothing else that they can do at this point.
      And I don't think that that part of the community is alone.  I think you saw that a lot through the responses to the RFI more broadly and in the public comments.
      And I strongly feel that we need to move forward with policy recommendations.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Thank you.
      Jon.
      >>JON BING:   Thank you.
      I'm enjoying this turning into a legal discussion, because it seems to me that Chuck is forwarding two rather formal arguments.
      One is that the terms of reference of the group has not formally been fulfilled.  That is, of course, a question which has to be decided.  And it seems to me that the council has to decide that and make the final decision on it.
      The second is rather more vague, but perhaps of a more far-reaching nature and that's the process by which this decision should be made.  Characterizing this as it's negative, this group should not be turned into a legislative body, whatever that may be understood as.
      It seems, however, that if this group was unanimously -- all members of the council agreed something, but the proceed which Chuck refers to had not been followed, we would not be able to make that decision until the procedure was fulfilled.
      And I may add that if that is the case, it may taste a bit of formalism and bureaucracy.  Because if we agree upon the substantive issues, the substantive issues are decided.
      And only by believing that we will change a view by going through a more elaborate process would that be just fade.
      And it seems to me that this perhaps may be back or behind our agreement -- or disagreement.  We should not perhaps chain ourselves with the procedures that in some circumstances clearly would not be appropriate.
      So I'd recommend that one turn one's attention to the substantive issues rather than being distracted too much by the formal ones.
      Thank you.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Thank you.  Mike.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I certainly agree with Professor Bing on that point.  And substantively, to respond to Chuck's comment about what have we done to analyze the potential effects of this motion, it's a fair question.  We certainly discussed it, I think, a lot in the design team.  I think it has also been discussed a lot in the registry constituency itself.
      We saw with the dot org proposal last summer that that was implemented, and according to David Maher, had a very dramatic effect to eliminate tasting which is effectively the effect we are looking for with this motion.
      We also had NeuStar coming to the same conclusion and Afilias coming to the same conclusion recently.
      VeriSign has had ample opportunity participate in these deliberations to date and has made no comments.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Just a correction, Mike.  There have been no registry constituency discussions with regard to these things.  Those were private meetings, private meetings that I was not even aware of.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  Paul.
      Oh, the microphone.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   Tim would like to get back in the queue, too.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  I got you on the queue, Tim.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   It's Paul Stahura.  I had a couple of comments about the wording of it, specifically the "restrict applicability" wording.
      Mike, you said that you were talking about charging the up-front fee, the ICANN per-name fee up front.  Is that what you mean by this?  Restrict applicability of the AGP?
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Yes.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   Why don't you just say that?  This is more general.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   So restricting applicability to AGP meaning that it can only be used to a maximum of 50 per month or the threshold that we decide.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   How would you restrict it?
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   It simply would not be -- well, I'm fine playing with the wording, believe me, no problem there.  But what we're trying to say is the fee would be nonfundable in these situations.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   I would just say that, though.
      The second comment I had was on the parenthetical -- well, I guess the brackets mean up for debate?
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Correct.  That means it was not unanimous in the design team.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   The 10%, I understand that that's a hard one to figure out.  You said that, you know, -- I don't know what my rate is, but --
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   I do.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   What is it?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   You are with eNOM Paul?
      >>CARY KARP:   Yes.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Your six month average was 11.33, and this was from May --
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   Can we make it higher than that, then?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Your low end -- you were pretty kind of -- I think the highest, you were really in that range from like a 9.36 --
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   She said 11.3, I believe.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   She said 9 to 11 depending on which eNOM registrar of the hundreds we are talking about.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   Also, the other parenthetical, I have a bigger problem with that one, because it kind of goes to the use of a domain name.  It's really saying -- I think it's a slippery slope, speculative registrations.  What's speculative?
      You know, is it today it's tasting, tomorrow it's -- whatever.  Some kind of use of the domain name is speculative?
      So I would get rid of the whole -- that second parenthetical.
      That's my comments.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Robin.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   Thanks.  Can you hear me okay?  Okay.
      So I just -- I also wanted to talk about this issue of process, and my concern about the process.  And again, I don't want to speak to the substance of this proposal because we just got it 12 hours ago and won't have an opportunity to discuss it with the constituency until later this week.  So whether or not this is the right solution, I don't know yet.  But I am a little concerned about this process.  Particularly, at least in my own constituency, there's a lot of split between how do we address domain name tasting.
      Some would say eliminate it, cancel it all together.  Others would say do nothing.  Others would say limit it in this way or limit it in that way.  So there's a lot of disagreement about what to do about domain name tasting, at least in our own constituency.
      So the working group is supposed to be where we sort through these issues, where we work through these issues.  So I'm a little concerned about four or five people getting together and making the recommendation about the solution for the whole group.
      And actually I want to disagree with Jon about the issue of process.  I do believe process counts.  That's the means by which we ensure fairness, that we make sure everyone's views get taken into account.
      We don't all agree on the substance of this issue, as I just explained my own constituency has a lot of disagreements.
      So I think process is very important.  And we don't discount it.
      Again, I don't want to speak to this specific proposal.  It might be the right approach.  But I think we need to have a little bit more of an open and transparent process and at least a better understanding in the future that a design team is going to come back with the final recommendation.
      We had no idea that that was what was going to come from this.
      We expected a working group as was called for in the PDP, and that this would be the group that sort of helped us figure out how to get started, not where we would finish.
      Thanks.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Robin, I am going to give it to Mike a second.
      One thing I wanted to point out, I don't believe that the PDP actually calls for a working group.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   It certainly does not call for a working group.
      And I also take issue with the suggestion that we're putting this forward as a final solution.
      We're putting this forward for deliberation by the council, which is what we were tasked to do.
      It can be modified, it can be changed at any point.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yeah.  And, indeed, we could come out of this and make a decision that we wand to, you know, not -- to have a working group and to make deliberating this proposal and other things part of it.
      Okay.  I have Olof next and then I have Tim and Alan.  I have the list up there.  
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Thank you, Avri.  Very briefly -- and I have feedback here.  While the council may elect to put forward recommendations and advice to the board on matters of their choice, there are two words in this particular motion which calls for a bit of particular care.  And that is consensus policy.
      Now, consensus policies are defined as those emanating from a PDP, so we actually, if you want to have this, the substance as a consensus policy, we need to proceed all the way with the steps within the PDP.  That means including whatever the outcome is in a final report which is then put up for public comment before being finally adopted.
      So just a matter of caution on what the decided outcome is.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  Tim, you are next.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   Thank you.  Sorry, I had to get off mute here.
      I guess some of what I was going to be say has been commend on.  First that I guess looking at the bylaws, I department understand that we were really out of process in the bylaws.  I think we are still within process in the bylaws, and I realize there is some question about a previous motion by the council and the terms of reference.  I think those have been -- that's sort of been commented on.
      But one thing about the way the group proceeded, I don't think we intended to undermine the council in any way, but that simply that as we begin to discuss the whole situation, it just seemed that the best next step to us was to formulate a motion such that we did.
      So I guess that's the next step.  We feel that we need to just have a solution that we can begin to deliberate.  And as Kristina said and Mike, getting into all the other discussions on the terms of reference, just things that have been done, so we are kind of stuck on what the next steps would be otherwise.  That's why we came down to that.
      But as far as process within the bylaws, I don't see where a working group is required or where we're out of process as far as the bylaws are concerned.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Yeah, no, I want to emphasize that we -- putting up a motion to be deliberated at the moment is definitely not outside the bylaws.
      We have a lot of leeway.  We have taken a lot of leeway in terms of what "deliberations" means, and we are in this very fuzzy period where we know that certain recommendations may or may not be coming down the road in terms of process changes.  So as much as possible we have been trying to meet the intent of some of those.
      But you are absolutely correct.  In terms of process as it is currently delineated, we have a final report.  Within ten days we need to deliberate, start deliberation.
      There is no definition of what deliberation means.  It can mean a working group.  It can mean we just sit and talk and say, yep, we're ready to decide.  Let's vote.
      You know, it will be Wednesday before we decide whether we're at the point that we can vote or whether we need to ask the design team to go back and come up with a charter for a working group to discuss this further or what have you.
      But we are certainly within the bounds of the bylaws as we stand now.
      Alan, I had you next.
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   Two different things.  You just said a fair amount of what I was going to say.  Once the council decided not to do a task force, the process is pretty flexible in terms of how we come up with a recommendation.
      It's not clear to me whether we can simply adopt this kind of policy or whether we have to come up with some draft wording and go it for public comment again on that.  I'm just not sure about how that works.
      But our understanding was it was certainly within our reasonable position if we thought things were clear enough, or certainly there was no mechanism by which they could get clearer, that we could come up with something.
      That's one point.
      Number two is a few minutes ago we slipped into a mode that I felt very uncomfortable about.  My understanding, and I'd like confirmation, is that Chuck was making his comments as a councillor talking about process, not defending VeriSign.
      And bringing what VeriSign might or might not do or might or might not want to do in as justification for Chuck's comments I thought was quite inappropriate.
      I would like to make sure that we were talking about process and council process, and not about individual organizations here.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you for that.
      Okay, I will add you to the list.  I think you are right.  I think when you asked the question what comes next in the process, as I said we could do a working group.  If we were to decide to vote on this on Wednesday, then what would happen would be that there is a report to the board that the staff makes that includes a record of all of this deliberation and of any deliberation that comes.
      That goes out for further public comment before the board then makes its decision on the recommendation.  And whether we have a majority or a supermajority determines under what conditions they are making that.
      Okay.  I have Margie and then I have Bruce.
      >>MARGIE MILAM:  I have a couple of comments.  I did have a question about the resolution and the 25 cent fee or the ICANN fee.
      When you are making a recommendation in your resolution, are you saying to the board that they should also do the fee, pursue that in addition or as a separate -- a little bit of confusion there as to what you would be recommending to the board.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   So the council already made that recommendation to the board last Halloween in Los Angeles.  The board then acted on it a few weeks ago, directing staff to implement it in the next budget process.  So my sense is we didn't feel it was necessary to address it again in this motion.
      >>AVRI DORIA: Denise, you had a clarification?
      >>DENISE MICHEL:   Just a quick clarification.  So the council asked staff to pursue this option in October, which staff has done, and included it in the draft, initial draft budget for discussion here in Delhi and onwards.  The resolution passed by the board reinforced that action noting that it is included in the budget for public discussion.
      Just to clarify that.  Not passed, but it is a point of discussion now in the budget.
      >>MARGIE MILAM:  So I guess what you are really saying is this is an additional thing in addition to the fee.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Correct.
      >>MARGIE MILAM:  Okay.  My other comments relate really to the resolution and the 10% consideration, or whatever the threshold is.
      As a registrar that relates, thinks domain tasting is a bad thing, whatever the threshold is, I still think there is the opportunity for gaming.  10% is quite high.  And knowing how creative some registrars can be, it would be my recommendation to have some other mechanism beyond just the percentage.  Something that maybe either drops the percentage or allows for exceptional circumstances so that if there is a true fraud situation, a registrar can get protection, but that this rule wouldn't somehow open up more gaming and more domain tasting.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Bruce.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   Just an observation, I guess, because I am hearing kind of two sets of discussions going on in the room.
      One is about the substance of the report and on items such as whether it should be 10% and other things, and then the other conversation is initiated by Chuck with respect to process.
      I think it's really about the process choices, not whether the process is right or not.  And as Avri has pointed out, the council is following the bylaws.  It can complete a final report and send it through the board if that's what it wishes to do.  But I am also hearing some council members saying that they would feel more comfortable if there was a -- I guess a more deliberative process with perhaps a wider group of people.
      So maybe you need to separate those two decisions out and decide whether or not you want to actually have that wider group of people working on the report and you have to be considering a choice there between the more people look at something, presumably the better the outcome versus the speed.
      And the board was having to consider this as well.  Do you make a temporary policy because there's a security and stability issue at stake or do you allow a more thorough analysis of a situation.
      So that's the sort of things you would want to consider on whether you would want to go into a more deliberative step with more people involved or whether you feel you want to move it forward quickly, in which case, you know, you can use the process you are doing.
      So just suggest you separate that discussion maybe as a discussion point and have the for and against whether or not to have the extended process, and then have a discussion about if you are deciding to move forward in the detail, whether you actually want this week to move towards refining this to get an outcome.  And if you are, I think it's a matter, as others have said, communicating that very clearly to constituencies to say the GNSO is going to make a decision on it in its meeting on Wednesday.  Your input needs to happen Tuesday, essentially.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you, yeah.
      I mean, that is essentially the way I have been looking at it in terms of certainly when it comes to Wednesday, I was going to look for whether we were ready to make such a decision, and if we weren't ready, then we went into what sort of process, what sort of working group do we need to create to go further, or do we -- are we ready, and therefore, we vote.
      And I think what the -- and this one on today's agenda is just about over.  I've got one more person and I'll see if there are more people who wanted to comment.
      I think at this point, people need to go to the constituencies with the two issues, one, as you put it, do we need to do more work?  Two, if not, are we ready?  And what amendments do we need in this text?  And since the text still has some bracketed text, I'm not sure whether that text is even ready to be voted on, especially with the final report having only been out three days by the time we get to vote.
      So there's a bunch of issues there.  But certainly those were things that I was going to explore on Wednesday.
      I have Alan.  Does anyone else want to be in a final pass?  Okay, Philip -- before we sort of go into the break.
      We started a little late, so I have cheated on the break.  But we're just about at the breaking point.
      Our first breaking point.
      [ Laughter ]
      Alan.
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   The working group wasn't at all clear whether we'd be in a position to vote in the middle of this week, either.
      But given that the Delhi meeting was happening and we couldn't push it back a week, there would be opportunities for most of the constituencies to have an in-person, face-to-face discussion about this, we felt it was very important to get it on the agenda and get some words on the agenda.
      Recognize the NeuStar/Afilias proposals, which we can't ignore only came out a few days ago.  We only found out about the proposed board budget action that it might be happening very recently.  And even that one is a bit unclear.
      We're talking about a 25-cent fee, which this currently is 20 cents.  Based on the need for revenue and other registrar fees, that could go down to seven cents in two years and not be a particularly effective mechanism for fighting domain tasting.
      It's not in our control at all.  So it's not something that we can simply defer to and see how that one works.  We felt it was important to get something on the table that could be discussed.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  I must admit, I had -- my original expectation had been that we wouldn't be ready for a motion and a vote.  And then when I said that, people said, "No, no, no, we might be."  And so you put one on the table.
      So, Philip.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Thank you, Avri.
      I'd like to pick up from something that we heard from Bruce earlier, which is do any of us consider that there was an element of urgency here?
      I'm very concerned that, more recently, when council has addressed issues of public harm, we have failed to act.  We have taken things rather slowly.  We have formed study groups, et cetera.
      This issue was raised to us by the ALAC, the voice of individuals, and we've seen, I think, very interesting comments on the public information list.  I was reading words like "abuse," "breach of public trust," "Please stop this practice.  Is this an ethical practice?"  "These grace periods were never the result of a considered deliberation by the ICANN board.  It was something that fell through the cracks."
      And I would appeal to all of us as we talk with our constituencies, to consider not just a narrow view, but our view as custodians of public trust here, are doing something where we have been told, I think, loud and clear that there was a significant issue.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Thank you, Philip.  Did I have anyone else now?  Did I see a hand over -- no, I didn't.  Okay.  In which case, I think I'll bring this discussion to a halt for now.  We'll -- I suggest that -- I probably don't need to suggest this -- but that people speak about it in the constituencies.  It is on the agenda for Wednesday.  I will certainly check with -- by vote or just sort of the consensus of the group whether we are ready to vote on a motion.  But I do think that before we vote on a motion, certainly we need to have gotten rid of bracketed text, and we do have to have people who moved it and seconded it.
      We have a suggested motion.  Yes, Chuck.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   I just want to make sure we're real clear.
      What I'm understanding -- and I'm perfectly supportive of this -- is that each of us should take back of motion, as well as the process issue, to our constituencies on Tuesday so that we're prepared to act however that might mean.
      Is that correct?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yes.
      Okay.  In which case, it's break.  Take about a 15-minute break as opposed to the half-hour break.  And we will be back at 11:10.
      (Break) 
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Do we still have people on the phone?
      Hello, is anybody still on the phone?
      Is anybody planning to sit down?  No.
      It was too short a coffee break?  Well, that's okay.  I can live with that.
      Okay.  As we start now, the -- the next issue, I did want to make one point about the previous issue that will affect our ability to vote on Wednesday, and it really is a technicality.  While there has been a motion for a week, and the final report has been sent to all the council members, it is not posted yet.
      So I'm not sure that, procedurally, voting before the final report is fully posted is the right thing to do, but we definitely should continue to discuss it and discuss how we continue.  And at the very least, we would table the vote on the motion for a week.
      As I say, the final report isn't published yet.  We got it in e-mail, but it's not published yet.
      The report is not published.  We've had the motion for a week, but the final report is not publicly published yet.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   (inaudible).
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Right.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   But why does that impact whether or not we vote on Wednesday?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Just, basically, we're going to have an open discussion on it in the Wednesday meeting.  And without the report having been published for very long, it is difficult for everyone to come to -- to have a certainty that everyone is coming fully prepared.  So that would be the reason for pushing off the vote for one meeting.  In other words, I'm not saying, "We therefore must do the working group."  That's a decision that needs to be taken.
      It's just, basically, discuss this motion for another week.  We still have variable wording that needs to be resolved.  And, basically, allow the report to have been published for at least seven days before closing it down.
      And have people talk about the motion.  So that's my concern with sort of just allowing full-timing for everything.  But I'm not saying that, therefore, we will do a working group.  That's a decision we need to make, you know.
      Okay.  Moving on to this one.  Now, there's two parts to this topic.  The first --  This is the interregister transfers.
      Adrienne.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Sorry, Avri, do we still have somebody on the call?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Do we still have somebody on the call?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Yeah, but I can barely hear you.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   Tim is here, too, but I can barely hear you as well.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      Okay.  Yeah, we'll ask the -- the technical folks, 'cause you could hear news the previous session; correct?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Yes.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   So I guess they just have to get it back to what it was.
      Okay.  So moving into the interregister transfers, we have two things.  One, we have an ongoing PDP where constituency statements are still being collected, and Olof will speak to that somewhat.  And then we also have the working group report that basically -- there is a drafting team that's looking at how we organize further work.  And was it Olof or Chuck that was going to do the talk on that?
      Okay.  We'll let Olof do that.  Do the first one, then we'll do any clarifying questions and issues.  And then we'll go into the second one.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Thank you, Avri.  And I think there is the need for clarification here, because it appears understandable that there's been some confusion between the two steps that have been launched.
      First, the launch of a policy development process on four particular issues that were selected out of the laundry list of some 19 that the working group originally presented.  So there is a PDP launched on that, for which constituency statements were due by the 31st of January.
      And -- well, actually, the deadline for submission on the constituency statements was extended to the 31st of January.  That has had precious little effect on the delivery of any constituency statements.  And we're still lacking three of them.
      And I must say, when it comes to the -- those we have received, it's quite apparent that there has been a confusion, because those relate, rather, to the priority list and the original work of the working group.  So they are very useful for the drafting group, which I'll address in a second.  But they don't address the actual issues that were brought up specifically in the PDP.
      So we're a little bit at a loss from the starting side, because we can't really draft an initial report from just these constituency statements.  So this is a reminder that -- to provide us with the necessary material for doing our work.
      And that said, the second activity, which now is occurring in parallel, is the drafting group that are looking to group the other issues, which are not covered by the current PDP, in some logical way, and using the priorities that Ross Rader's extended working group has assigned to these issues.  And that work, while it's developing, and I would say that we're almost halfway through it.  We got some kind of all our grouping proposed by Tom Keller, and we've been -- Chuck has been leading this work.  And we're getting -- we've had two teleconferences about it.  And these three groups, well, we are taking each issue, and some of them we try to combine, some of them we try to separate into standalone piece.  And, well, that's the way the work is proceeding.
      And, well, my guesstimate on when we will be ready with that would be, well, in something like two, three weeks' time.  We need at least another teleconference to come up with a proposal for the council.  But, well, that, in short, is where I think we stand.  And I trust Chuck will correct me if I was too perfunctory about this drafting group.
      But, well, to conclude, please send in the constituency statements, and please also, if possible, augment those constituency statements that have already been sent in so that they relate clearly to the issues in the PDP.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      I want to do two things.  One is, I want to see if there's anyone that has any clarifying questions or comments on the ongoing PDP constituency reports, whether people who are either the responsible ones or constituency members can tell us where they're at in that process, because we put it off a couple of times.  You know, we've tried to take on an attitude of trying to make these things happen in the scheduled time.  We're obviously not making it on this one at the moment.
      So does anyone have any questions on the constituency reports or comments on when they're going to have them?
      How many do we have at the moment, again, Olof?  And how many are due?
      So we have three.  And there are three due.  Of the three that are due, do we have an idea when we're going to get them?
      Okay.  Which constituencies do we still need them from?  Olof, please.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   ISPs, registrars, and IPC.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Olof, another question.
      Of the ones we have, how many of them actually responded to the four items in the PDP, not the priorities group?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   As I mentioned, two clearly also explicitly relate to the original list of the 19 issues.  Where one is to the point when it comes to responding to the PDP issues.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   So if I understand, we have one that's on target, two that need some reconsideration, and three that need to be resubmitted yet?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Reconsideration would be welcome.  Or augmenting them would be welcome.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Because, well, they do cover the brief topic, but they're very, very brief.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   And the reason I raised that is not to be critical of anybody, because this has been very confusing in terms of what's going on.  And very few of us spend very much time except registrars and registries to a lesser extent in the dispute resolution process, working with interregistrar transfers.  So that's perfectly understandable.
      But the final report that needs to be done for the PDP needs to have statements from each constituency regarding the terms of reference for that PDP.  And there's four items in there that relate to reasons for disallowing a transfer.  That's all that that involves.
      And some of the statements did not address those.  So it's very hard for Liz and Olof to, you know, do the final report unless the constituency statements address that.
      So does anybody not understand that?
      Avri, do you want me to talk about the --
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Right.  In one second, once we get to that.
      So what I guess I'd like to ask is that everyone that needs to, basically, talk about that with the constituencies on constituency day.  And I guess I'll be asking the question again after -- after that to find out from people when they will be able to deliver this, so that we can reorient our schedule.  It's probably one of the things that I will check on during the Wednesday meeting, because the Wednesday meeting includes one section where we go through, quickly, a report on the other open activities.  And so I'll ask the question at the Wednesday meeting again.  So, hopefully, people can give some feedback at that point on when they will have these things ready.
      Okay.  If there are no questions or comments on that, Chuck, could you go through on the -- the second issue, the drafting team's work, and give us some sort of indication of how the groupings are being looked at and get in some more depth so that perhaps the group can understand where the work is at and perhaps contribute with questions or issues.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Sure.  The people working on this group is -- are Tim Ruiz and Tom Keller from the registrars constituency.  They're really valuable members of this group, because they understand the issues much better than the rest of us.
      Olof, of course, is supporting us.  Mike O'Connor from the business constituency.  And -- did I leave anybody out?  Does that cover it, the small group?  Those are the ones who have been active, huh?
      And, basically, what we're doing, Tom Keller made a first stab at grouping the 19 remaining recommendations from the transfer policy review into three categories.  One of them is kind of operationally related, one of them is more to kind of dispute the dispute process, and I forget what the third one is called.
      But what we're doing now, we've gone through the first category and made some adjustments, isolated some.  We're continuing to do that.  And that's why Olof said it's probably going to take us at least two or three more meetings, teleconference meetings.  But it's going very well.
      And then at the end, what we want to do is go back and look at the total picture, because some of the decisions that you make on one, when you back up and look at the total picture, you may adjust them.
      But then the goal would be to come up with a recommendation for the council to consider in terms of how we proceed with regard to these remaining 19 issues.
      And probably what that will look like, we're going to have two or three groups of recommendations that we recommend be handled in separate PDPs.  There may be some, as Olof mentioned, that because of their complexity, that we may recommend an isolated PDP on that.  And we'll try and talk a little bit about how those might be prioritized or done in parallel or what.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  I'd like to open up the floor to discussion on that.
      Is there anyone that has questions, comments on this at all?
      So we have no discussion on it.  I guess that's why we're having such an easy time getting constituency reports out.
      Okay, Olof.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Well, just to add that the third group, actually, was called new issues related to the current transfer policy.  This is just to keep us talking a bit while you're thinking what to say about all this.
      So -- serve as a bit of an ice breaker.  Okay.  Thank you.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I have a question.  This -- I'm thoroughly excused.  I have no problem admitting it.  I've been trying to track what's been going on with all of this to back up Mike O'Connor.  And both of us are just lost with what's going on.
      I'm trying to find right now, where are the four issues that we're even talking about?  I've searched on my computer for everything in the trans working group and I don't find such a document.
      So I'm wondering, is there two mail lists for this that I'm -- no?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   There is no mailing list for the PDP as yet.  But the issues report which is the basis for the PDP, well, it's clearly posted on the GNSO Web site, and I can send it around again if you like.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Basically --
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   And there you have the four issues delineated.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   As I understand it, with the PDP, basically each constituency nominated a person who was the contact person for that PDP to work -- to basically submit the constituency report on that one.
      And that was a fairly -- it was a fairly clear issues report on that PDP.  And the questions within that.
      The rest of the work related to the working group that Ross, you know, chaired and give us an extensive report on, and there's a report on.  But they are very separate.
      The issues report that started out the PDP, that we voted to start, and there is supposed to be a constituency member who is responsible for collecting the constituency statement on that particular issue.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   We did that.  We just did it incorrectly using the wrong report as a basis.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Mike what you did, and I reviewed it, is you went through the 19 recommendations that we don't have a PDP on, that we're still going to decide how to proceed with those.
      The PDP had a very narrow scope.
      There were four reasons that the current transfer policy allows a registrar to use to deny a transfer.  And there was some ambiguity in each of these cases.  And one of the things that the transfer review group did, they came back and said these four things, definitely you should go ahead and proceed with the PDP.  We agreed as a council.
      That's where the constituency statements are needed, on those four items.
      Olof wants to add something to that.  Go ahead.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Yeah.  Why not spell them out.
      Those four are denial of nonpayment, denial for lost status, denial for 60 days of initial registration period, and denial for 60 days of the previous transfer.
      So that's what the narrow scope of the PDP as it runs today.
      Thank you.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Did we vote, then to forgo a working group and move to --
      (poor audio).
      >>AVRI DORIA:   We voted to forgo a task force and go into constituency statement to final report.
      We're not at the point yet of having a final report where we decide whether -- or, rather, how to do our deliberations.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   We didn't decide on a task force, though.  We decided on a council as a whole.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Right.  We did that decision.  The decision is always to not do a task force.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Deliberation, how we are going to deliberate once the final report comes out, we haven't made that decision yet.  That's why there is no list yet.
      If we decide to do a working group on that, whatever.  Sound familiar?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   And before we get there, we need to produce an initial report.  And for that we need the constituency statement.
      Okay?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   So do we have any other questions on this one?
      So basically there is a mailing list on the -- and it is for the constituency representatives?
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   The mailing list that has been established is available.  If you go to mailing list on the home site and then pick the one that's on inter-registrar transfer policy.  Now, keep in mind, this is a mailing list for the little group that's still working on grouping of those 19 recommendations.  This is not a PDP mailing list.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Wrong.  That's the PDP list.
      >>CHUCK GOMES: Oh, so there is a PDP mailing list.
      Okay.  Olof, you were wrong.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   It's the first time it's happened
      [ Laughter ]
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Let's not let it happen again.
      There are two mailing lists.  Okay?  Does everyone understand why we are all confused?
      And again, part of the problem here is that this is not really a pressing issue for many of us.  And I fully appreciate that.
      But hopefully -- If you have questions, talk to Olof and I and we will try to confuse you more.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      So it seems like we have no more discussion on either of the two IRT -- either on the PDP or on the ongoing work.  Let's speak of it that way.
      So we -- So that would be the end of the agenda.
      Now, we did cut a little bit short on the other one.  There were some issues about the domain name tasting and the process that we would be following.
      And so perhaps if people think it's a good idea, we could spend the next 20 minutes just trying to clarify how we're going to follow this in terms of process, and staying away from the issue of the motion at the moment, but if there needed any clarifications on how to deal with the process, we could talk about those now so we can have those clarified.
      As I said, I wasn't sure we would be ready for a vote.  I believe that because the final report hasn't actually been posted yet, it was delivered to us in our mailing list but it hasn't actually been posted yet, that actually taking a vote on a motion this Wednesday wouldn't necessarily be appropriate.
      Now, that doesn't mean that we have taken on doing more work on it.  It means that we have moved it to the following meeting's agenda.
      But I would like to -- yes, please.
      >>DAN HALLORAN:   Can I just ask to maybe clarify.  I just looked at the note Olof sent and it was marked draft report.  Is that what we are talking about?  The draft final report?  So it hasn't been posted and it was marked as draft, what you sent to the council?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   But what will be posted is the final; correct?
      There's the initial report, there's the final, and there's the board.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Avri?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yes, Kristina.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Just kind of following up on that earlier question, why is it a draft and when is it going to be posted?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Posting of the final report is normally done.  And needs to be done.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Indeed.  I called it draft final report for the sheer reason that there is no proposed measure in it.
      So that was -- well, rather have it full and complete with the proposed measure and all of that, to call it the final report and post it like that.
      But -- well, if preferred by the council, I can, of course, post this final report as a final report.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Right, as a final report, which is different, though, than the board report that includes the final report, the record of deliberations, and the record of any decisions, expert opinion or whatever that comes in after a final report.
      Final report as I need the bylaws, and of course you can correct me, please do, is that it includes the constituency statements plus all information that's been collected up to that point plus a summary, synopsis, of public comment.  Correct?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   And not to forget, an analysis of the -- of how this would affect each constituency.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Which is supposed to be in the constituency reports.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Yeah, right.
      And -- But now when we have -- I would say that we may need another iteration to have the analysis on how the measure that we are proposing, if we are proposing it, will affect the constituencies, if it's not covered already in the constituency report.
      Some have gone to a certain length in taking up, since there were three different proposed measures or discussed measures, well, some constituencies have done a bit of analysis on the three and leading them to prefer one over the other.
      But if we propose a specific measure, well, there is a requirement that we have an analysis of how that affects the constituencies as well.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  And since this measure wasn't specifically mentioned before the constituency reports, it's not included in those constituency reports, is the point?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Well, I would say there is additional work to fulfill the requirements of the PDP in order to have -- well, all the foundations for consensus policy to be established.
      And I think that's -- Well, it's not for bureaucratic reasons.  Whatever reasons that it would work better, primarily for transparency to the community, when we then post the final note, the board report which includes the final report, for public comment.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Robin, I saw you with your hand up.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   A quick question.  I am on the GNSO drafts and working documents Web site and I can't find anything remotely like what we are talking about.  So I am hoping you can send me a link or send the document around again.  Olof, could you, please?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   But it was also in the e-mail that was sent out I guess last night; correct?
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   The draft final report was sent, well, one minute to 12:00 yesterday night.
      So I'm still confused because of that.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Right.
      And it hasn't been posted -- And it will be posted shortly on the Web site.  So that's....
      Okay.
      Any more discussion on this?  Because there's sort of this -- as I read the bylaws, what would be coming out now would be the final report.  However, as I'm understanding it from Olof's perspective and perhaps from other perspectives, perhaps from things that Chuck said, because it doesn't, or it doesn't seem to, necessarily have a full analysis in it of the impact of what is being recommended, that the final report cannot be considered final.  And --
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Avri, the bylaws don't say anything about how the outcome or how the recommendation.  It's talking about how the analysis of how the issue would affect the constituency and I think everybody has done that.
      I am just having a hard time understanding why we are not at the point where we have a final report.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Me, too.  That's what I am trying to understand and I think that's a lot of what this discussion is, is I guess I'm not clear on why it's not a final report.
      And from what Olof explained, he didn't believe it was a final report because it doesn't -- and I think you're right, there's nothing in the bylaws that says that all issues need to go back to the constituency for further consideration of the impact, and yet what Olof says in terms of transparency of how we deal with an issue and that the issue has been reviewed by all constituencies and we have had an indication that at least two constituencies, or at least the representatives of at least two constituencies believe that their constituencies need to do some more work on considering these issues, we fall in sort of a gray space on this in terms of formally I believe it is a final -- yes, please, Dan.
      >>DAN HALLORAN:   Kristina wanted to go ahead.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   The issue was domain tasting.  That was the issue that the whole PDP was about, not the issue what have do we recommend as a policy recommendation.
      I don't know.  I just am -- I don't get why we don't have a final report.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Dan hopefully can clarify something.
      >>DAN HALLORAN:   I think the root of the problem is domain tasting was the subject of the PDP.  It wasn't exactly the proposed rule.  It wasn't the solution.
      The proposed rule is, all right, now you can say shall we cap the leads at 10%.  That could be an issue, and then you could run through the PDP pretty quickly and each constituency could see how would that affect them.
      I am just assuming we were starting from scratch, which we are not.  But just talk and collect statements about a subject, domain tasting, do you like it, not like it, is it good or bad, what are the a bad effects.  But no one has gone back and gotten public comments or constituency statements as far as I know on this proposal to cap the leads at 10%.  How would this affect small registrars, large registrars, how would it affect the public, how long would it take the registries to implement.  Which I am not making that up.  That's all stuff that's in the PDP in the bylaws, that you are supposed to have in the reports.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Well, I guess it -- I am going to have to agree to disagree as to what exactly the word "issue" means because I think it means broader and it sounds like you are taking a narrow interpretation.
      Anyway.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I have Chuck and does anyone else want to -- Okay.  Chuck.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   In the registry constituency statement for this PDP, we specifically stated that we felt like more work was needed.  With regard to impacts on registries, we couldn't even answer the question because we department have anything specific to answer to.
      And so you can look at our constituency statement.  That's what we said.  Because until we know.
      Now, an idea has been put on the table right now with regard to the motion where something fairly substantial that we could respond to what the impact is.  But we couldn't do that before because there were no specific recommendations for solutions that were provided.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  I have Bruce, and then I have Mike.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   Okay.  This is Bruce Tonkin.
      Just as an idea or piece of history, if you like, where we have encountered this scenario before has been several times.  One of the times was in relation to the transfers policy.  So we had a -- did actually use a task force that did produce some recommendations about the transfers policy, but there were quite a few concerns about the implementation of those recommendations.  And what the council decided to do was form an implementation working group.
      That working group was recently opened.  It had quite a number of registries, registrars in it.  It also had representatives from some of the business constituencies, but that was kind of doing what I think Dan was suggesting there where now you have some concrete recommendations.  We need to flesh out the final report in terms of how implementable some of the issues are.  Are there tweaks to the policy that, indeed, to be made.  And a classic example that I am hearing in the room is around the percentage level.  That's an implementation issue.
      The policy just says that -- you could say the policy is that there should be some percentage of registrations allowed for purposes such as fraud.  That might be a policy decision.
      The implementation decision is should that be 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, and that implementation is where you would need to get more advice from probably a wider range of people.  And the way we did that in the past was by forming an implementation working group.
      So it wasn't a working group to come up with a policy.  It was a working group to consider the implementation of the policy recommendation.
      So just some history there.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  And that actually brings us up to having, at the moment, three possibilities -- actually, four possibilities if we consider that there's a motion that has been suggested, though it's not been actually made yet, that there's a working group to consider this, there's a recycling through the constituencies to basically say there's a proposal now, do a recycling with the proposal to get the implications, and there is the notion of an implementation working group to look through it.
      So at the moment we have four different possible ways in which we follow through with this.
      And as I say, from a motion all the way spanning to a full policy working group with two intermediate steps of recycling through the constituencies, or implementation working group.
      Any comments on these possible ways of going forward?  Okay.  So I have Chuck.  Anyone else?
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   If you could put me in the queue, Avri, please.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Chuck and then Kristina.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   It seems from my point of view and I think from the registry's point of view, because we talked about it this past Wednesday, that there is some more work needed.
      I think it would be good if the group that -- the drafting group, now that we understand they are going further than what we thought at first, be expanded.
      Now, I am not suggesting that that has to take a long period of time.
      Mike, you suggested that the three terms of reference that were recommended in the outcomes report have been met.  Maybe it just means that that needs to be documented to show how that's been met.
      But it seems to me that it would be helpful, and the quicker we do it, the quicker we can reach resolution on this, to expand the group and open it up so that it is participation by anybody who has an interest in this area and may be impacted by it, and get going on it right away so that we can kind of combine all the things that you are talking about to resolve the questions that, in my mind, aren't resolved right now.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  To me, that actually sounded like the implementation working group in a sense, but --
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   We don't have a -- The implementation working group starts once you have specific recommendations and how you implement them.
      So I think that's a step afterwards.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Thanks.
      Kristina.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   I guess my concern about, just following up on Bruce's point, and it was helpful to look at it that way, I guess my concern is that we're going to run into something that came up in the ad hoc group in the sense that in that group, there were circumstances under which people would advocate for a particular position or point, but when asked to elaborate or provide a reason or substantiation for it, would then claim that they couldn't because it was proprietary business information.
      And I really don't want to see us go down a road where we're creating an implementation group with the goal of saying, for example, okay, do we, indeed, to have a higher percentage.  And having the folks that might be in favor of having a higher percentage -- just assuming for purposes of discussion that we are going to go down that road, say we have to have a higher one because of fraud prevention.
      Well, for something like that, you need to have a little bit more to it than just that.  And I can understand why registrars and registries aren't going to want to get into the details of the scope of the fraud problem that they have or the mechanics of what they do to detect and prevent fraud.  I fully understand that.
      But I am very reluctant to see us go down a road where in order to actually come up with implementable goals, people are going to be put in a position of disclosing information that they can't or won't disclose.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Mike.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I guess I will just reiterate, and so I will do it briefly.  I feel like we have gone down this road already.  We have got -- we did this in the ad hoc group report, and with constituency impact statements.
      This proposal was specifically mentioned in the ad hoc working group report as a potential solution and was then again addressed by the constituencies in their statements.
      So I just don't understand why we would need to do that again.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Any other comments at this point?
      Okay.  We'll be coming back to this on Wednesday.  It is one of the open topics that we'll be discussing with community at the mike, discussion.
      I would ask people to also discuss it in the constituency meetings before that so that we have a clearer view of what the constituencies want us to do.
      As I say, I see a range of four possibilities, from voting on this motion with clear language, without bracketed text, at our first meeting after here, or any of the other possibilities.
      And I think we need to determine that, at the very least, on Wednesday.  We need to know how we are continuing on this process.
      So does anyone else have anything to add to that?  If not, I'll close this morning's session.  Thank everybody.
      We meet back here at 2:00, when we will be meeting with the board governance working group on GNSO improvements.
      Thank you.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Avri, what time is it there now?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   It is now noon here, or a couple of minutes before noon.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   In two hours.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   It's in two hours, yes.  Thank you.
      >>TIM RUIZ:   Avri, I won't be joining for the afternoon one.  I apologize, but I won't be able to make that one.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you for being here this morning.  And I know how rough it is to do these remotely.  So thank you.
      Thank you both.
      >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:   Bye.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      Have a good lunch.
      (11:55 a.m.)
      >>AVRI DORIA:   -- is to discuss the GNSO improvements.
      The report from the working group has been released and can be found.  I think it's been sent to various lists.  It made it to everybody, but can also be found on the Web site.
      I --  (No audio).
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   So we have been working on this the last couple of years.  So I'm start to know this working group by heart.
      What I wanted to -- now it's off?
      Shall I --
      Now I have my hands free.
      Okay.  So this....
      Okay.  Well, this is a bit of history and why this was all done.  And if you notice, by now, it's going to be -- okay.
      So, first of all, remind the members of the working group (No audio).
      So we have been working to prepare this comprehensive proposal based on the initial report of the London School of Economics.  And we are now at the end draft.
      We are now at the -- I don't know how many drafts, but hopefully the last.  And at 3:30 -- so in slightly more than one hour -- the BGC will discuss this and hopefully approve it and move it to the board for taking action.
      So we had also in the past meetings, a couple of times we met, we met on this with the council, and also in public forum.  So we have acted based on the comments that we have received.  The problem is that at one point -- yeah, that's the status again.  The problem is that we are fully aware that the final document that we came up with is not going to make everybody 100% happy.  But we thought that even in spending another couple of years, that would not have been possible.
      So we came up with a set of recommendations that is the best, according to our opinions.  If you have seen the report, there are also some minority views that have been added to the report so that we can make sure that we have covered all the discussion that we had in the working group.  And then we came up with a text.  I will get this -- whoops -- out of the way.
      So the objectives.  The objectives, we are -- first of all, the objectives were drawn very much from the criticism that has appeared in the London School of Economics report about the functioning of the GNSO.  So we thought that we need to maximize the participation of the stakeholder.  We have to make sure that we do step forward towards building consensus policies.  And that will appear later on in the discussion about the PDP and about the working group versus voting in the council as being the preferred method to advance policy.
      And then there's also the need of improving communication, and especially now that the budget of ICANN has grown, I think that we have to look at more important, in quantity, support from ICANN for the GNSO.
      So the key recommendations are -- and we are going to see this in detail in the next slides -- is adopting a working group model that has -- already is partly adopted.  We were drawing also example from the recent experience in the for a successful working group.  Then revising the PDP in order to make it more efficient, but also more effective.
      And without that -- and I fear that this is going to be the point on which most of the discussion will open, as usual.  On the -- some restructuring of the council.
      And then to enhance constituencies to make them more, I would say, effective, but also more representative and inclusive of all points of view of the different stakeholders.
      And then improving communication and coordination with ICANN structures, which is sort of a motherhood statement.  But I think important is not to make this statement in principle, but to be able to identify exactly what we can do in order to improve this communication and coordination.
      So working group model.  So the working group model is, in our opinion, the key element for the policy development process.  And I think it's -- we have identified a lot of points in the working group.  We have identified also the fact that in order to be effective, the working group needs to have chairs that are capable to look for the consensus.  And I think that this is not at all a criticism to whoever has been chair of the working group up to now, but, rather, the recognition of the fact that we need to proactively do something in order to provide the tools to the chair, but also some sort of training in order to be more effective in managing the working group.
      So why the working group and not the task forces?
      Because we think that it is essential that the group that works on policy doesn't necessarily reflect the balancing of power of the constituencies.  But the main concern is the inclusiveness of all points of view.  And so to have an open working group where even points of view that are, I would say, minority views can be brought and discussed in the working group.
      Then we need to formalize a little bit more this -- the way we are working on this, which leads us to the next point, which is to revise the policy development process to make it more effective.  And I think that we need to -- we had one issue that is that the bylaws will spell out all the procedures for developing consensus policies.  But we need to have -- to introduce some flexibility on this management so that we don't have too rigid a structure that will apply for all cases, whereas I think that we have seen in the past years that we have different types of policy development processes, depending on the subject that is under discussion, maybe different procedures, or slightly different procedures could apply.
      The GNSO Council.  Up to now, the council -- I would say the council was built on the constituencies.  We have a certain number of constituencies that, according to the ICANN bylaws, is variable.  But, in fact, except for the fact that the ccNSO has -- the ccTLD constituency moved out and created an independent supporting organization has not seen any changes over the years, and, specifically, we have not seen the creation, the introduction of new constituencies.  Even if the marketplace and also the different interests that are around the domain name system would indicate that there are stakeholders, there are groups of people, groups of organizations that are now not part of any constituency and that have severe difficulties in being able to have their voice heard.
      So instead of using the constituencies as a building block, also for the balance of power in the council, we thought that we had to identify stakeholder groups, and those stakeholder groups, to identify them in a very broad way, so that, internally, the stakeholder groups can have different components, if you want, they can have different constituencies.  But that's not necessarily -- the constituency is not necessarily a subdivision of the stakeholder group, although, in an initial phase, I would say that the transition could be done in this way.
      So the stakeholder group that we have identified, first of all, I think that we have two wide groups.  The first group that is made up of organizations that are under contract with ICANN, that are registries, registrars, and maybe in the future other groups.  But, anyway, people who are affected directly by the policies in the sense that the policies will be enforced by contracts.
      And then we have another half, I would say, that we have identified initially as users or customers.  But, you know, it's very difficult to identify with a name that evokes different things.  But it's basically the set of individuals and organizations that are also affected by the policies, but those policies are not enforced by a contract with them.
      So we think that this is a better way to get structured on the stakeholders that are affected by contracts that we have identified just for the sake of using a shorthand name as suppliers.  We have the registries and the registrars.  And on the other sides, on the consumer sides, or I would say the set of people and organizations that are not directly involved with contracts, we have commercial and noncommercial users of the domain name system.
      So this is where we are right now.
      The council, what we have proposed is not very different from what has been proposed last time, with one exception that will appear in the last slide.  So our proposal is to have 19 members of the council, with four stakeholder groups holding four seats each, plus the three NomCom-appointed councillors, pending, obviously, the NomCom review that is ongoing right now and that might alter the picture.  But for the time being, we have to assume that this is -- will remain unchanged.
      So on this composition of the name council, we have minority views.  The first is a proposal to have five seats on the noncontracted parties, what I call sometimes, inappropriately, the users' side.  We have the noncommercial registrants and the commercial registrants.  And we have initially assumed that an equitable split would be to have four seats each.  There are considerations that probably we can get into more detail during the discussion that would indicate to mandate a different split, like, have five seats for commercial registrants and three seats for noncommercial registrants.
      And the other proposal is to leave this five versus three or four versus four, to leave this to the current GNSO Council for decision and for making a proposal to the board.
      However, we have indicated a clear time limit.  The reason why there is consensus about having a time limit is because we are all aware that this discussion can go on forever.  And at one point in time, we need to come to a closure.  So if the GNSO Council will come to a consensus in a fairly short time over -- on a different distribution of the seats for the future council, let there be the proposal.  Otherwise, we'll go with the default proposal from the working group.
      Another point is to enhance the constituencies.  Constituencies have been constituted -- sorry for the pun -- with a bottom-up process.  This bottom-up process is essential in the formation period.  However, at one point in time, I think that we have to have a global look at the constituencies, and we have to have some sort of uniform way, some sort of, I would say, general applicable principles, ICANN principles, that should apply to all the constituencies in terms of transparency of the procedures and the internal life of the constituencies.  The accountability and the inclusiveness of the constituencies, the openness to new members, I think that this is a key issue for ICANN as a whole.
      You know that especially with the JPA now on the table, the accountability and transparency is one of the key issues, is one of the things that ICANN, as a whole, assumed to make progress, so is really scrutinized.  And it would be odd if transparency and accountability would be applied only for the board and not all through the organization in all the components of the organization, where it is even more important that we have procedures that can guarantee participation on an equitable basis for whoever is entitled to.
      So this is, in short, summarizing our proposal for the constituencies.
      Of course, also in this case, I think that there has to be a commitment from ICANN's side, from the staff side, to provide more support to the constituencies, because we cannot expect is volunteers, basically, to work by themselves without support.
      Now, as I said, the ICANN has grown.  The budget has become more important, the number of staff has grown.  And I think that one of the things that we should do is support, really, the GNSO council and the constituencies and the stakeholder group.
      Improving communication and coordination.  This is an obvious point to improve -- yes, well, it's what it says, improve communication and coordination, basically.  Can't come up with a better explanation.
      So, balancing interests to benefit ICANN.
      So the report is quite a lengthy report but I would encourage everybody to read it if you have not done so and not just limit yourself to the executive summary.
      I think that there's a lot of indication in the report itself of many things that have to -- that can be done.  And they are not only mandated in terms of -- I think it is not sufficient that this report goes through the BGC, is presented to the board and is approved by the board in order to make magically things happen.
      I would encourage everybody, once the report is approved by the board and once specific decisions are taken by the board, to work all together in order to make the new structure work better.
      There's going to be an implementation phase.  Now, there have been discussions about how long the implementation has to be.  The indicative length of 120 days has been proposed.
      I think we have to use these 120 days in order to put this model into practice and to make it work at the best for ICANN.
      There is a risk.  The risk is that we spend this 120 days in trying to jockey for power or to attempt to go back to the previous system or to do all sorts of things.
      I think that this is not the spirit in which we, in the working group, see the development of the review.
      We have different -- and in the working group, we have still different points of view.  The BGC will have different points of view.  The board will have different points of view, and it's not only the GNSO council that will have different points of view on this review and on the new structure and the new way of working of the GNSO.  But I think that it is important that the moment that this is approved by the board, then we turn the page; that we put all together our best effort to make this work in practice.  And to make the adjustments that are necessary along the way.
      But for sure, start by pushing this thing forward, by supporting the change, and to create the conditions by which the revised GNSO can work even better than the current one.
      I think that this is the last slide.  It is.
      And, okay.  Well, that is the URL.
      I don't know, how do you want to conduct?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I would actually like to start taking a queue of people who would like to comment or ask questions.
      I see Chuck.  Anyone else want to be on an initial list?
      Anyone else on an initial list.
      (no audio.)
      (no audio).
      >>AVRI DORIA:   That's a good beginning list.
      >> Can we use these?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   We definitely can use these.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   You mentioned there's some groups that have no voice in ICANN.  Can you elaborate a little bit on that, what you are talking about?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   One that comes to mind is we are supposed to be the seventh constituency of the GNSO, -- at that time, the BNSO -- that has never materialized.
      I don't know -- also, the market has brought up a different type of people.  I don't know if it is appropriate for domainers to be an organized part of this policy development process or not, but I can think of an (inaudible) situation where we have to have a more flexible approach, whereas the fact that here we have a sort of a binary participation.  Either you set up a constituency, and in that case you have all the same rights and the same number of votes that each and every constituency has, or there's nothing.
      And I think that we should get out of this, because of these groups.
      But to answer your question, the (inaudible) is the first that comes to my mind.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I just feel like maybe an easier situation is to run or reform the constituencies a little bit.  Domainers are in the business constituency already.  ALAC seems fit to be in the NCUC.  Why not make that happen?  But I will move on to my second question.
      Can you move back, Avri, to the slides on the structural reform issue.
      My point here, and I made it before, but the point is everything that you guys are proposing, every single point on all these slides on all of your reports are not controversial and will be accepted literally by everybody except two on this slide.
      Not this slide, the other one, the up with that has elimination of weighted voting and restructuring the stakeholder groups.
      Those two points are the two that obviously are causing a lot of consternation, frustration, anger -- getting to anger, maybe, amongst some groups.
      And I don't understand why not implement every other thing that's noncontroversial first, and then examine structural reform later, if it still is necessary.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   How do we do?  Should I answer directly?
      Yes.  The reason is very simple.  I think I understand the point of view of who is opposing the new structure.  But there is also a lot of people who are in favor of the new structure, and that oppose this structure.
      So I think that there is -- here there is a balance where every time we go through a change -- how can I say this?  Change is painful by itself, and I think the consideration of some specific interest, if they are going to be favored or not, if you have one vote more or one vote less, I don't think that -- I think it's an important issue.  I don't want to disregard it.  But I think that it cannot be the only element that we have to put on the table in order to evaluate whether the transition is a good one or is a bad one.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Okay.  Specifically, who are the proponents of the structural reform?  What groups?  Not on the Board Governance Committee, but who has been proposing that?  Where did the idea come from?  Who is not satisfied with the situation now?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Well, now --
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   (hand raised).
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   The constituencies are not satisfied with the way things are now with the weighted voting?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Let's go back to the person asking a question for clarification and getting an answer.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   That was the question.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Right.  Yeah, it was written up in LSE report and other things like that, also, was it not?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Yeah, well, there's -- I had comments from -- not as a constituency, but I had comments from registries and registrars.  I had comments from noncommercial.  I had comments on different mailing lists outside the GNSO that are related to individuals, for instance, that would like to participate in the GNSO with a constituency.
      So there are certain things.  There are groups that are pushing on this.
      Now, the point is that we needed to introduce, a while ago, the weighted voting in order to go towards -- I would say to correct certain situations that we put the parts that are under conflict with ICANN in a difficult situation, in order to allow them to have more influence.
      But one of the requests was -- and that was coming, in fact, from the business constituency, was to abolish the weighted voting.
      Now, if we abolish the weighted voting, there are some other mechanisms that we need to put in place in order to ensure a balance.
      That was the point of view of the GNSO working group.
      Now, I cannot anticipate whether this will be the point of view of the board or not, but, you know, that's what the working group is proposing.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Philip.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Thank you, Avri.
      My question follows directly on from what Roberto's comments were saying.  Roberto, looking at the new broad commercial interest constituency, you say in your report, and you list the various people you expect to be in there.  It's a long list.  It's small enterprises, medium enterprises, large enterprises, intellectual property interests, Internet service providers, financial interests, e-Commerce and other economic interests as part of the commercial registrants group.  You recognize there are a substantial number of interests to be recognized in that group, and yet nevertheless, when we look at the figures you propose, you are downgrading the level of influence that that new group have.  At the moment, if we add up the three constituencies and compare it to the weighted votes, the contract parties is nine to 12.
      You are suggesting of taking that to four to eight.  In other words, we are going down from an interest quotient of 75% to 50%.
      Everyone I have spoken to in the commercial constituencies finds this proposal extraordinary, and the angry words that you heard from my colleague on the right is precisely about this idea.
      We do not understand why you believe it is important to reduce the influence of commercial users in your proposals.  Please tell us.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   I don't think that the thing is in exactly these terms.  But, first of all, if there is a widespread feeling that the balance has to be done in a different way within the GNSO council, as you have seen, we allow for the possibility of the GNSO council to come, within a very short period of time, a reasonably short period of time, with a different proposal, to override the proposal.
      And the reason why we have put this as a possibility is because we have heard that there are a large part of the community that are against the number -- the scheme that we have.
      In my opinion is there is enough support for this to continue and to present it.  But if I am proven wrong, there's not going to be any problem in accepting a different scheme.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   You are describing process.  My question was why did you decide --
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Yes, I am coming to this.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   -- that it was a good idea to down play the current scheme.  You made the decision to go from one status to another.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Absolutely.  But the decision was not to have a certain number of votes and then to alter the percentage the way you perceive it.
      In other words, the review of the GNSO is not about adjusting the voting power, because all through the report we say that the voting power has to lose importance versus the consensus-building process that is in the working groups.
      And so this is the first element.
      But the point is that if we create a situation by which we have stakeholder groups that are not grouped in monolithic constituencies, where you have a lot of different interests put together, I think that we have a more flexible situation.
      I think that -- I have tried to explain this, but obviously I have not been very clear in the previous meeting in Los Angeles and also in San Juan.  And I made an example, and Tony Holmes probably remembers that example.
      I am talking about somebody who -- an organization who is an ISP that, at that time, like BT -- I'm sorry to pick again on Tony, but it's just an example.  An organization like BT has a lot of different interests in the domain -- in the -- related to domain name system.
      Now, BT is an ISP, a service provider, but it is also a commercial organization that has -- is an owner of domain names, has intellectual property to defend within the system.  It's a lot of things.
      And it's also, in a certain sense, also a vehicle by which users of the telephone system can interact with ICANN.
      The other example that I did was Microsoft.  Microsoft is also in a similar situation.  Microsoft is not only a commercial organization that is on the side that is noncontractually bound, so in what we, in short, we call the user side, but Microsoft develops part of the infrastructure -- I mean the Internet Explorer for instance is something that is very much related to the domain name system.  When we introduce the IDNs, we will have to have a tight communication with whoever is developing pieces of the infrastructure.
      Now, in the current situation, Microsoft has to choose where to be represented, and it's going to come to the business constituency.  For instance.  I don't know if they are or not, but I am just imagining that would be the natural place.  Like BT goes in the ISPs.
      But what we want in terms of the internal dynamics of the GNSO is not to have one representative of one organization that has to make the synthesis in one constituency of all the different stakeholder groups' interests that can be represented by that organization.  I can clearly think about a situation in which Microsoft or BT or whoever else is participating in different stakeholder groups in a different way, where you have the people that are representing those specific interests.  You have the developers in the -- in the stakeholder groups that is building the infrastructure, and the lawyers in the group that represents intellectual property, the business people in the business constituency or the group that is representing the business.  But give the possibility to those organizations that are -- that have different types of interests in the domain name system to discuss in the appropriate place.
      And if Microsoft tomorrow becomes a registrar or registry for the new TLDs.  So now, we have already this situation.  I can think of multiple cases.  Sorry.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   If I can understand what you are saying, is that for you, the users of (poor audio) may be registrars and registries and whatever, and the users who are less important are the humble users or commercial users of the Internet, and you are down playing their votes because you think the bigger players, the multiple-interest guys, have influence elsewhere.  Is that the rationale?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   No, and I am not saying this.
      And again, the balance is something that is not the key issue.  And I think, whatever I am saying, I am a little bit upset that the only -- that the bottom line is always, oh, I make the total of votes and I have one vote more or one vote less.
      I think that we are -- we have to go to a cultural change in order to build a structure that is different.
      I'm not thinking that there are some interests that are more humble or some interests that are more important.  I am just trying to figure out a situation in which we can have a GNSO that is representing points of views, rather than a GNSO that is representing a balance of power.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I would like to get some other people in the queue.  At the moment I have Chuck and Marilyn and Amadeu and Robin.
      And Tony after Robin.
      Go ahead, Chuck.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Thank you, Robin.  Thank you.  Roberto and the working group has apparently been spending a lot of hours on this.  Something is not clear to me is how these minority positions may be dealt with.
      Now, if I understand it correctly, this has gone to the full BGC.  I mean, that's the step that's going on now.
      Assuming -- Is it correct to assume that the BGC will make a decision whether to consider the minority positions or not?  And if so, whichever way they go, then what would follow?  If they, for example, accepted the minority positions, then there's going to be this period of time probably leading up to May or so where the GNSO would have to produce an alternative for consideration, but ultimately then the board would act in June in Paris.
      On the other hand, if they reject the minority positions, is it fair to assume that after a public comment period that the board then, maybe within a month from now, would act on the recommendations?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   I personally would, as a chairman of the working group, I would recommend to the BGC and to the chairman of the BGC, who would listen to me, that the report be either rejected -- in that case we have to go back to square one -- or forwarded to the board, including the minority position.
      I don't think that it would be appropriate for the BGC to make a decision.  And I would bring it to the board.
      I see the BGC here more -- but, of course, if you ask me the same question in a couple of hours, I might have a different answer.  But I see the BGC more as a notary here which says that the working group has done a good job or has done a bad job, has done whatever was in its power, but not go into the merit of the recommendation.
      I think that it is more appropriate that the full board discuss it.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   So then a public comment period would be open --
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Absolutely.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   -- and then the board would make a decision at that point.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   And in fact, I am not a lawyer.  I would like to have the support of general counsel, but I think that the procedure is when the BGC presents that to the board, the first action of the board is to initiative the public comment period.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   And if the -- Let's assume the board, then, was able to make a decision in March.  I don't know if that's enough time or not, but assuming it was.  Now the window is getting pretty small, if they go, for example, with minority positions for some work to be done on that.  And if it went beyond mar March, (inaudible).
      I am pointing out the longer time it takes to make a decision, the less time there is for the council to come up with an alternative scheme.  I guess that's more informational than arguing one way or another.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Can I just -- But I would assume that if this is really the situation that the council is really convinced that this four, four, four, four split is not the right one, I would assume that the council will start tomorrow to discuss a different split, not wait for the board.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thursday.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Thursday, whenever.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Marilyn.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   (inaudible).
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Can't hear you.
      >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   We know what you said but we can't hear you.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Go ahead Marilyn, please.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   You know, actually, I welcomed the comment made by my fellow observer because I think perhaps that is one of the problems that we all face here.
      My name is Marilyn Cade, I am an observer, and like everyone here I expect to be listened to and understood and not have people prejudge what I am going to say.
      So maybe we could all start over with that as an attitude.
      I have a couple of questions but I want to preface them by saying, Roberto, that I, too, take note of the amount of work and dialogue that has gone on, not only within the working group but by the community of interested and affected people in the GNSO.
      And I would ask you guys to be really careful about understanding that it is a Supporting Organization and not only a council.
      The council, in fact, is the policy organization, the policy council, but it does not in fact fully represent nor undertake all of the work that is done within the Supporting Organization.
      Most of the constituencies have executive leadership organizations of their own and they have elected policy councils.  And I say that to address the question of whether a council that has weighted voting and isn't itself going to be directly impacted in terms of the organizational structure can put forward the alternative structure.
      I think you should invite the GNSO constituencies and other parties to work together to put forward that alternative structure.
      And I would say to you that I suspect anyone who is interested will put the energy and the time into it.  And as long as we maintain the open attitude of we are going to listen and respect each other's points of view, we can probably come up with something.
      So that's one point.
      The other point that I would make is, you know, I do think that there is a set of parties who may have felt that they are not represented up to now, and I think one of them is probably sitting right here next to me.  And I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but I am going to refer to the registry, the future registry applicants.  Those parties who have entered into participation in ICANN because they have a vision of contributing to the community by applying for, taking their chances and potentially operating a competitive gTLD registry.
      Those parties, by the way, have been welcomed into one of the very constituencies that some parties are so critical of, and that's the business constituency.
      But the fact is, they don't today have a place that is necessarily addressing their interests.  But I haven't heard them talked about at all.
      So I think, if we go back to my earlier point about needing to examine what a balanced approach to change might be, we could then also listen to the interests of this group of parties on how they might effectively participate more directly as well.
      My second point, then, goes to the suggested idea in the document that we could reconstitute the early vision of a noncommercial users organization that would be welcoming to a broad group of philanthropic organizations, individual users, academic universities, et cetera.
      I think that there's a lot of merit to thinking about revising and reforming that particular group, constituency.  But I'm not sure that you have allowed enough time to think through how a potential merger between the ALAC, other NGOs who aren't presently involved, and the present NCUC might work.  So I would say that group probably needs some time to be able to reach out to the ALAC and to other parties like that and figure out how the noncommercial sectors might be better represented.
      Finally, I'm going to just say one thing about what I hope the BMG will come to grips with.
      There are a number of reviews that are ahead of us or presently under way, and a lot on the plate of the members of the board who need to participate in that.  I was startled to see that there's an idea of appointing ourselves (no audio).
      I think that, actually, what we like to see in a bottom-up organization is laying out the objective, figuring out who's going to work on it, and letting those folks get to work on implementing whatever it is, as opposed to continue to manage in a top-down way.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Well, those were really not questions to me.  And as a statement, I don't have anything to add, except for the last one, where I think that the -- what we have seen in the GNSO working group was the need of following up with an implementation phase.  Because if we just pump the ball to the board and then the board mandates some changes, then that's going to be a mess, because there is a need for adjustment, there is a need for intervention, for staff support, and all these kinds of things.
      So what we have proposed is to provide some resources to support the implementation.  But if there's any other proposal that comes from the GNSO as a pool or from the council specifically, I don't see why this could not be a better way.
      I think that there is one think that we have to make sure, and that is that all the work that has been put in the GNSO working group is not lost, in the sense that not all the work is in the report.
      So I think that it is important that the moment that we have an implementation, we have at least a couple of people that have worked through the whole thing that know why certain things have been phrased in a certain way and not in a different way.
      So I think that whatever the structure that we give ourselves in terms of the implementation, that there is the need, in my opinion, to have at least a couple of people of the GNSO working group, there is the need to have staff support.  But then I think we are open to proposals.
      And I think that before the board takes a decision, which is not going to happen at least before the BGC forward that to the board, we have the 21 days of public comment, and so on, so there is a reasonable window in which whoever is interested in making alternative proposals is very, very welcome to do so.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   I want to be sure that I do understand you, because I read every document very thoroughly.  And that is a statement that I welcome, Roberto, and did not find in the document.  So I do welcome that statement.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   As I said, not all the work of the GNSO working group is in the document.  There are things that we have discussed and that are not reflected in specific sentences.
      But this -- the discussion about the implementation is something that we have discussed seriously and thoroughly, because we came to the conclusion that if we leave things as is and then we are happy because our task is over, we go home, then....
      >>MARILYN CADE:   I understand.  But you made two statements.  You said that you would welcome proposals that were put forward by anyone, and that you were open to other approaches to being able to ensure complete understanding of the discussions that have gone on in the working group.  Right?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Yeah.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   Thank you.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Eric.
      >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS:  Thank you, Avri.  Roberto -- I'm Eric Brunner-Williams.  I'm also an observer.
      Roberto, could you compare and contrast the differences between the task force and the working group, the -- I'm interested in the composition of each, the differences in the composition of each, the difference in the process of each, and the difference in the reporting outcomes of each.
      Thank you.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Very briefly, the --  Oops.  Thank you.
      -- the task force is composed with people that are representing the different constituencies.  And the working group is an open structure.  That's the essence.
      >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS:   That's correct.  That's what I understood.  That speaks to the composition.  Is there any difference in their process and their reporting?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Well, actually, I think -- yeah, I'm sticking with this one.
      Well, the issue is a different one in the sense that what we do propose is to have a different role of the council.
      Right now, the council -- when the proposal comes back to the council, is discussing and taking a vote and so on.  What we propose is that if we have an open working group, so with this structure that is open, where all the points of view are reflected in the working group, and if we have a consensus in that working group, the council will not vote on that, but will forward that, because it's a consensus.
      >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS:   Thank you.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   The --
      >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS:   Well, that answers me, yes.  Thank you.  Thank you, Roberto.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Amadeu, I am Amadeu, Robin, and then Tony.
      >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL:   Does it work now?
      Yes.
      Amadeu Abril i Abril, observer.
      I will refrain from commenting on, you know, splits and numbers and merits and why it should be (no audio).
      I would like to say that in the goal of making the process more efficient, there is a very bad decision you have taken, is having a 19-member council.
      The council is the managing area of things that happen, the interest group, constituency, assembly, and working group level.  Having a council of 19 people, it's a setup for failure.  It's very easy to cull down the numbers, except if the only goal is to make sure that everybody will keep their current seat.
      So I would advise that you try to reduce that to three for each.  I will refrain from saying what each means; right?
      Now, the second question, and this one is as a formal GNSO Council member and a former board member.  The problem with this system, regarding all that we have here, is that there are too much political mediation, that is, too much this interest has to be outweighed to this other.  And at the end, at the board, it appears something like we all think that, which is not true.  We think we should limit the deviation of the minimum level among all the positions to be represented to make sure there are some decisions taken with taking all the positions into account.  And I completely agree with Marilyn regarding the problem with all the (inaudible) that don't fit in one concrete hole.  But the solution is not in encouraging them create new constituencies or political practice, but to have a place for all of them to work.  And you know more than anybody else how difficult it is to have something like a general assembly to work.  But we should try once again, I think.
      One small last comment.  I hope that the prospective TLD applicants will be not a long-standing interest group, because one day or another, ICANN will have a process or dissolve.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  Robin.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   Thank you.
      I just wanted to provide a suggested responses to the question of why commercial users should be given equal weight to noncommercial users.  And it's very simple.  Fairness.
      I'll elaborate.
      I think there's a widely shared view that the current balance of power on the council is unfair.  I think that Philip is right that there's a broad specter of companies and interests that are in the business constituency.  But I think it's also equally true that there is an equally broad specter of interests that are in the noncommercial users' constituency.  Think of all the noncommercial users out there.  There's academics and NGOs and civil liberties groups, and students and families and religious groups equally as broad.  So I think there's a sense that the current system is unfair, and we're trying to fix it.  It's unfair that one out of six of the constituencies are concerned with the rights of noncommercial users.
      And when you consider how many noncommercial users there actually are out there, that's not fair.  And so in terms of providing equality of interest, in terms of trying to instill some sense of fairness in this council, that's why we're restructuring it in this fashion, in my view.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Did you want to -- no.  Okay.
      Tony.  Yeah.
      >>TONY HOLMES:   Thanks, Avri.  
      I just want to go back very briefly to a remark you made, Roberto, about involvement in multiple constituencies, although that isn't my main point.  It's true what you say, that there are a number of organizations that could become involved in a number of different constituencies.  But it's never been a problem.  Most people prioritize, focus on one, and there's never been any abuse, there's never been any attempts at capture.  So, really, that's a nonissue.
      What was good about your statement -- and it dovetailed in with the remarks Philip made -- is that from the business side, you listed a whole range of different stakeholders.  And their importance varies, but they're all important in their own right.  And then we come back to the proposals that are being put on the table now.  And we're told that voting is no longer an issue.
      Well, if that's the case, then I just wonder what is the rationale behind the current structure.  Because, really, there are only three basic stakeholders.  There are those with contracts, there are business, and there are the noncommercials.  And at the broadest basis, that's all you have.
      What we have is an artificial arrangement that does away with weighted voting but maintains that balance through the structure, which is a full structure, of the breakdown of those elements in the new organization.
      So I just wonder why you're doing that when, if voting isn't going to be the issue, why do you have to maintain that unequal issue through another means and do away with the weighted voting?
      The other point I'd like to make is that you've said that the chance to maybe put something new on the table is from the GNSO.  And that has to be done so that the board can vote at the next ICANN meeting.
      Do you really think that's feasible when, at the council level, you must have, through that dialogue, what is effectively winners and losers?  To you think that can be achieved through council?  It's far better to get the comments back through constituencies, because if it's that easy to do that in council and come back with a revised proposal, then I would suggest that we can also solve world peace by the end of this year.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Well, I think, to the first question, how we came on this is because we have spent the first few months exactly in trying to figure out who is doing what and what are the elements and what are the different types of interaction in terms of different points of views that are brought to the debate.
      And we have found -- and that's the opinion of the working group.  You can be -- you can agree or disagree, but that's how the debate went, that there is a contribution that is substantially different in terms of the point of view that those parties have in the issues between registries and registrars.
      So that is -- was the element.  Because, basically, what you are proposing is, why don't we lump together registries and registrars, and we make one-third, one-third, one-third.
      Because in terms -- you know, and in the first part, we didn't really think about the balance in voting power.  We thought only exclusively in terms of different approaches to the things.
      And we have found that while there were substantial similarities in the terms of the approach between, for instance, business constituency and intellectual property constituencies, there is no such similarity of point of view between the registries and the registrars.  That is the evaluation of the working group.  I mean, we can discuss forever this, and it has been discussed for quite a long time right now.  But that's the explanation to your -- on why we have adopted this model.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   You had a quick --
      >>TONY HOLMES:   If I could just come back on one point.
      I think if you look back at history of the council, you will see that on all of the major issues, where there's been a split across council on things, that the registries and registrars have exactly the same view, and business falls into the same category.  So I don't think that argument holds up.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  I have Claudio, I think the name, and Philip, and Mike also.  And that's probably all we'll have time for, as we have 11 more minutes before you have to disappear.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   (inaudible).
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Oh, okay.  So Claudio.
      >>CLAUDIO DI GANGI:   I'm Claudio Di Gangi with the IPC.
      I just had a couple of questions.  Some of our members from the constituency couldn't make it today.  So I'm just going to read them out.
      One is, other than creating procedural rules and sending status inquiries to working groups, what exactly will a councillor do as a councillor under the proposed system?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Well, one of the things is, we'll decide the overall strategy, what are the areas in which a process development policy is appropriate, where are we going in terms of the strategy.  I mean, there are plenty of other things.
      Or what we have tried to reduce is the accent on and the focus on the voting.  But all the rest will remain.
      I think that the council has a very important role to play in terms of deciding what the overall view is, what the overall strategy is, what are the areas that need intervention in terms of specific policy development.  There's -- I see it as a very rich set of things that the council will have.
      >>CLAUDIO DI GANGI:   Second question was, some statements in the report could be read to suggest that it is necessary for each stakeholder participant to align himself or herself with only one of the four stakeholder groups.
      Is this the intent?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Sorry.  I couldn't hear.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Could you repeat that.  I had trouble following also.
      >>CLAUDIO DI GANGI:   Sure.  Some statements in the report could be read to suggest that it is necessary for each stakeholder participant to align himself or herself with only one of the four stakeholder groups.  Is this the intent?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   If I understood the question, is that every -- is -- if an organization has to be in one only of the four -- no, I don't think so.
      >>CLAUDIO DI GANGI:   Okay.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   In fact, your examples were quite to the contrary.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Yeah.
      >>CLAUDIO DI GANGI:   Okay.
      And the last question is, the following sentence appears on page 32 of the report.
      We want to emphasize that a new noncommercial stakeholders group must go far beyond the membership of the current noncommercial users constituency.  What will happen if it doesn't?  What does the BGC working group believe should happen?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:  Well, that's first of all is a tough question, and then it's unfair that you ask that to the working group.
      But, anyway, I'll try to answer it.
      I think that we have to put in place the mechanism by which this happens.  And I think that this has to do with what I've said in my presentation, that we need to have some general criteria for transparency, for inclusiveness, for -- that ICANN is judged as a whole also, but not only because of the JPA and -- but I think that the same criteria of inclusiveness, transparency have to apply to each and every of their components, including, for instance, in the constituencies, and including, therefore, the noncommercial constituency.
      I think that there's an objective --  I don't want to defend the noncommercial constituency now, but I think that there's an objective difficulty in organizing the noncommercial constituencies versus, I don't know, the constituencies of registries.  That's very obvious who has to participate and how it gets organized and why people participate.  They participate because they are dealing with their own business.
      The noncommercial has difficulties.
      And so we understand that it's incomplete now in terms of coverage because of some objective difficulties in recruiting new members, in doing outreach, and so on.
      So one of the answers will be to provide staff support, to provide resources in order to enlarge the basis that -- of that constituency.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Philip.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Thank you, Avri.
      Just one clarification and one question to Roberto.
      The clarification is a comment made by Robin in terms of balance.  The figures I was quoting earlier were to do with the relative influence of commercial users to the contract parties.  I have no issue with a balancing act that is improving genuine input from the noncommercial users' constituency.  And I think we should be aware of the differences there.
      And leading on from that point, Roberto, I have heard an unfortunate characterization of a move they see in ICANN from a number of parties outside of my constituency -- I've heard it mix board members, I've heard it from members of the Government Advisory Committee -- and that is a drift towards ICANN becoming a trade association for the registries and registrars.  And they read some of the suggested changes here as facilitating that move, a move they clearly regret.
      Has there been discussion about that concern, that sort of concern, in terms of relative influence there and the governance oversight role of ICANN as a whole in your discussions of restructuring?
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Actually, no, there hasn't been a specific discussion on this.  And, actually, I'm hearing this for the first time from you, the fact that ICANN is moving towards being a trade association.
      Personally, not being involved in the domain name business, I don't have any -- I hope you believe me that I don't have any interest in pushing towards that direction.
      I will think about it and will come up with a more -- with a better answer.  But I'm taken a bit by surprise.
      And I think that it's -- the fact that --  I don't know from where you can draw this impression.
      The fact --
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yeah.
      >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   The fact that --
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   We can take that outside of this procedure.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I was going to say that's a good -- in fact, what I wanted to do now is ask whether -- in closing off this session, Susan and Trish had something they would like to say in closing, or to any of the specific points.
      >>SUSAN CRAWFORD:   Thank you very much.  My name is Susan Crawford, I'm a member of the board and a member of this working group.
      And we are listening very hard to your comments here.
      In response to Philip's remark here, I just want to bring us back to what the enterprise is for the GNSO.  These parties under contract, registries and registrars, have agreed to a remarkable thing.  They've agreed to be bound by the consensus policies that this group creates in advance.  Now, very few other private businesses do this, say, you know, whatever this group comes up with and forwards to the board with enough support will in fact be binding on them if it's within the picket fence of consensus policies.  That's quite a model.  So to the contrary of a trade association, what you've got here are, in effect, promises to abide, a whole group of people that have made promises to abide to these policies, sitting on a council with groups that might like to impose policies on them.
      And so the reason for the initial balance between registries and registrars and others was to make that a fair conversation.  And that split remains a reason, in my mind, for the division between contracted parties and others on the council.
      And then when it comes to the others, the four-four, the commercial registrants and noncommercial registrants, I'm happy to hear Philip say that that balance isn't considered unseemly to the commercial parties.
      It has struck me very strongly that equity, as a principle, has greater force than status quo as a principle.  And that we have long wanted more participation from individual domain name registrants in the GNSO process.
      Going forward, as Roberto said at the outset, we all hope to work together in the ICANN spirit of volunteerism to make this work.  And we hope that the shift towards working groups will reduce the temperature of these discussions of voting power on the council.  And it is our earnest hope that this is in the best interests of ICANN, and we have worked very hard to take everybody's interests into account.  And this is an evolving process.  Last point here, we'll go through this again in another couple of years.  Let's see how this works.  Thanks.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Thank you.
      Would you like to add something?
      >>TRICIA DRAKES:   Hello.  My name is Tricia Drakes, and I'm a past board member serving on the group, and the report is now with BGC.
      Just really was going to emphasize Susan's point of an evolving process.  At the same time, picking up with Philip's on the JPA and the current, shall we say, underground words, whatever they may be, I can say that at no point during our discussions did that actually enter into it.  The working group themselves were looking to put a placeholder and a marker down.  And as you know, there was quite a lot of consultation, or there was a lot of consultation to make this almost your report.  You're always going to have a situation where people are not going to be happy.  But it's actually a report that, hopefully, you can take and grasp the nettle and move forward.
      And on the noncommercial side, there, I think there's a big commitment from staff and from the ICANN organization in terms of the outreach for foundation, some of the educational establishments, and really to build on that.
      And I think in many ways, the battle once this is approved in the evolutionary process, will go over to you to pick up that report and move it forward yourselves.
      And I think we certainly, and the working group's finished its bit of the work, and I'm sure BGC will feel the same -- want you to take it with faults and all and move forward with it to make it happen.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.  And I'd like to thank Roberto, Susan, and Tricia for having come in and discuss this with us, and for the work they did.  Thank you.
      And now we're on break for a half hour.
      (break.)
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Everyone please find their seats again.  It's time to start our next session.
      A very interesting session we've got, I'm sure, on new gTLD program status.
      Kurt will be talking us through the work that's being done and we'll have a chance to ask questions and such.
      Just to let you know, we have got this one -- we have got this one planned for an hour.  After that, we have got an hour in the schedule that was listed as "any other business."  I don't have any items for that, and I just wanted to leave it open to bring up any other issues, any other items other people might have that we should talk about.
      So at the beginning of that session, I'll ask people to give me an idea of things they would like to see on that agenda and then we will walk through those items.
      But meantime, Kurt, please, it's yours.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Thank you, Avri.  Can everybody hear me?
      >> No.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   How about now?  Maybe it needs to warm up.  How about now?  Better, huh?  Okay.
      So there's quite a bit of material to go through, 18 slides, so that gives us about three minutes per slide.  I will try to talk for one minute and everybody else can talk for two minutes on the slide.
      It's basically meant to describe all the work that's been done in the implementation of the GNSO recommendations and highlight some key issues for everyone.
      So more specifically it discusses briefly what's the staff implementation plan.  That is how did staff go about -- and I will walk around a little bit.  I'm sorry for blocking some people's view.
      How did staff organize the work of the 19 policy recommends, how did we organize it to go, prosecute it and finish each one off.
      And then there's a description pretty much against each one of those deliverables in the implementation plan about what's accomplished to date.
      And that's where there's a description of how -- what the staff vision is of the GNSO recommendations.
      So in each case you will see where staff tried to match the implementation to the GNSO recommendations, and I will specifically bring up where I think it might be a little different or something like that or where we have tailored.  But by and large, if I had to answer whether staff is implementing the vision of the recommendations, I would say yes.
      That's the meat of the discussion, and then towards the end there's the issue of board approval.  The board has discussed GNSO recommendations a lot.  As you know, and it's getting closer to having this vote on the recommendations, I am going to describe briefly the process they have gone through.  And at least from my perspective, what the staff has to deliver to the board for them to go ahead and make that vote, for them to find that the recommendations are, in fact, implementable so that they should be approved.
      And then finally, there's a slide on time line.
      So this is the only place where I'll try to be clever.
      I'll blow this up in a minute.
      This is essentially sort of a modified work breakdown structure of the different policy recommendations and how staff is implementing them.
      As it gets bigger, you will see it sort of maps, too, to the evaluation process itself so you can probably see on the side, there's the steps in the preliminary evaluation of a gTLD application, and then the extended evaluation.
      So I will make this bigger.
      So each box is a bit of work, and each bit of work goes into the staff implementation plan.
      Let me turn this off so it doesn't make my microphone buzz.
      So you can see the different bits of work.
      The great big bit of work is to write the RFP, because as you directed in the policy recommendations, everything is going to be in the RFP:  The evaluation process, the technical criteria, the business criteria, the dispute resolution processes are to be laid out ahead of time for the applicant so that's clear.
      And then everything underneath that RFP are all the chapters in the RFP.  The formulation of business criteria, the formulation of technical criteria, the fact that there's a base contract defined in the RFP, how we handle reserved names, how we ensure we're not going to affect the NS stability or security, whether a name is confusingly similar to another name.
      And then if I'm allowed to scroll down, then the objection-based process.  So there's TBD, but there's three or four reasons for objecting to a TLD application.  The morality or public order objection, the community-based objection, the infringement of rights protection, potentially a confusingly similar objection.
      For each one of those, an applicant -- an objector has to have standing.  He has to be an injured party.  It depends on the objection.
      That ICANN validates that's an appropriate and valid objection.  And then there's this whole dispute resolution process and that's broken into two things.  You need standards and you need a procedure for managing that process.
      And then at the end of that, you would probably have an appeal.
      So each one of these is a product that staff is developing, so they are each being managed to that.
      The color coding has to do with how the work is farmed out or assigned to ICANN staff.  So essentially, each color has a different owner.
      And there's some commonalities with colors up above, but largely, you see how the colors are.
      Oh, wait, let's just -- Then at the bottom there's a contention process for strings in contention.  We're selling a comparative evaluation scheme for some adjudication for that.  And as you've seen on the ICANN Web site, there's whether or not we use auctions at the end of the day or not to make a final determination as to who gets a string is not determined yet, but there are several uses for auction in the ICANN world.  To let the market drive how decision are made.  Because that's probably how the most effective decisions are made.
      So that's a separate product.
      So I'm getting into a section now where we're talking about the work that's been accomplished so far.
      And many of you know a lot of this.  Excuse me while I spill some coffee on Adrian's lap.
      ICANN released a statement of work some time ago and got applications to work on the RFP from all regions of the world and we settled on two providers to help us write the big RFP.
      So this task is two things.  One is it's meant to do some of those boxes like write the technical criteria, write the business criteria, write a comparative evaluation process.  And the other part of this job is to integrate other aspects that we're developing.  So where staff is writing a base contract or we have another contractor writing the dispute resolution standards for morality or public order, those are being included into the RFP.
      So these RFP -- the RFP writer has the job of this integration task.
      And that work was awarded to two companies, Deloitte & Touche, is that what it is called now?  And also Interisle.  We thought those were good choices for a couple reasons.  One is one is a technically oriented firm and one is a business oriented firm so it gave us a richness of experience there.  And one, it was the Brussels office of Deloitte, so it gives us a European center to do business with and that viewpoint, and also Interisle is from North America so it gave us integration and richness there.  So we thought those were two good choices from among some really good people who provided applications.
      So other work staff has done in formulating the RFP is we have completed this 150 some-odd step process map for -- I don't know.  Is this working out with me standing up here?
      Process map for how we're going to evaluate the application step by step that will be outsourced.
      We are also doing this operational risk assessment.  That is, is ICANN ready for this?  What if we get 100 applications?  How will we configure the organization to handle this?  What if we get 4,000?  Do we lock the doors and throw up our hands and walk away?
      And that is to both handle the applications, process the applications, and also to do the business of ICANN after the TLDs are introduced.
      So that process is underway.
      We have configured a communications plan.  Part of that communications plan is really to draw a matrix of all the countries and territories of the world on that side and how we're going to communicate them on, say, the Y axis.  And so to ensure -- it's not going to ensure, but to hopefully take away the complaint that people were uninformed about the opportunities for new gTLDs.  So a very important part of this in communicating is to make sure we are communicated with every region and somehow every country.
      So finally, we expect some really rough, not ready for prime time RFP to be studied in March.  And that will be some iteration with staff and other companies after that before we post it for public comment.
      And a lot more to go into it.
      Now I'm going to you talk about each square and the work breakdown structure.  One of the more straightforward ones is strings should not cause any instability.  This is fairly straightforward and the staff just published a paper concerning this.  And the recommendations about the criteria for strings not causing any instability, like I said, I think are clear.
      The LDH rules are there.  They talk about no hyphens in the second and third position.  I think the reserved names group talked about that, too.
      At the end of the day the prohibition will be about all numbers, that TLDs should not be all numbers.  So your computer, your browser doesn't get confused with I.P. addresses and try to send it to the wrong place.
      The technical paper also says that the number of -- the root zone is really not constrained to handle a certain number of TLDs.  I think the com zone has taught us that.  Many millions of TLDs can be handled.
      And so the constraint is really on the process, the ICANN process, making sure that's ready, the IANA process is set, and the process for administering new TLDs is set.
      So technically there is not a constraint there.
      There is a question posted in the paper, and that is should there be some reservation about commonly used file extensions?  There is no technical reason why dot exe or dot pdf should be reserved or avoided.  Your computer will work just fine with a TLD called that.
      There is a great possibility that people will say, you know, what are you stupid, giving away dot pdf?  That's going to really mess things up.  So ICANN doesn't want to say there's a technical prohibition about this but we do want to say there should be some community discussion about whether commonly-used file extensions should be reserved somehow, some sort of ongoing list with some outside source of authority, and then reserved.
      So that's the big question in that paper.
      So I think that one is essentially done.
      Applicants must be able to demonstrate their technical capability.  There has been some talk about having qualified or certified, but let's say qualified registry operators.
      I think that the technical criteria that are being developed for the application are pretty much the same as what's required for a qualified registry operator.
      So at the time of application, an applicant would, in fairly short terms, demonstrate how they are going to become qualified or how they are going to use a qualified operator.  And then just before they are delegated in the root zone, which is an IANA operation, the check would be that, in fact, a qualified registry operator would be contracted with or that the applicant themselves has passed that qualification test.
      In the sTLD round, I think some applicants satisfied the technical criteria by saying, "I'm going to contract with that guy," and we would say okay, we checked the box because that guy is certainly qualified.  But then at the end when the TLD was delegated, the new sTLD said, "Well, that's way too expensive.  I am going to figure out some other way to do it" which really did not satisfy the technical criteria.  So I think the I, we, staff, recommend that the best time to satisfy that technical criteria is sort of the IANA tech check just before the TLD is delegated.  So there will be an application evaluation, but then a technical evaluation right at the time of delegation.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Can I ask you a question?
      The question I wanted to ask you is do you want to hold questions until the end?  Turning on my mike doesn't work.  Do you want to hold questions until the end or do you want to take questions as you go along?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I think I'll take questions as I go along.  I think that's fine.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   We have a question.
      >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS:   The all-number label, I know that both Steve (saying name) and I made comments on the inet underscore addr routine and that was, in the context only of single character numeric labels.
      So I'm wondering why the much larger prohibition is present here than simply against a single character numerical labels in the root.  Thank you.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I'll try -- can you hear me?  I will try to get this straight.
      When the DNS was first developed, as I understand it, application writers would look at the first character in a TLD and say, is it a number?  If so, it's an I.P. address, the first character to the right of the last dot.  And if not, it's a domain name.
      After a time, that was fixed, but many applications still tested for is everything to the right of the last dot a number?  If so, it's an I.P. address.  And so my understanding is many of those applications still exist, and so many TLDs would be interpreted, if they were all numeric, they would be interpreted as I.P. addresses.
      And I think that's why it's memorialized that way in the RFCs, and I don't have the RFCs in front of me, but they are quoted in the paper that's posted.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Adrian.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Kurt, Adrian Kinderis.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   It takes a second for them to adjust the....
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Hello?  Okay.
      Kurt, just a point of clarification on the technical criteria.
      Did I -- Am I understanding you correctly, when you said that from staff's point of view, at least at this point in time, that you would essentially be evaluating the technical criteria just prior to the IANA delegation?  Is that what you meant?  So there would be -- You would be given the name as such, your application would be successful but the technical component of your application would not be given the go-ahead -- or you wouldn't be given the go-ahead to use your name until the tick that was right at the end of the process.  Is that right?  Is my understanding correct?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yeah, I am waiting for this to warm up again.  So yes, that's correct, that prior to delegation, there would be the equivalent of an IANA tech check which happens routinely during IANA root zone management changes.
      And so there would be an application review during the evaluation, but there's really no hook in there; right?  You can say anything during the -- in your application that says "I'm going to comply with these technical criteria when I'm ready to be launched," but this -- is that better?  All right.  Okay, sorry.
      So the hook is, then, that you are going to live up to what your promise was in the application and say, yes, I am going to contract with a qualified registry operator, or I'm going to satisfy the requirements of a registry operator.  You don't want to require someone to make an investment of that nature or sign a contract of that type at the application stage.  But you can require it as a prerequisite, I think, to delegation.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   I just found it might be problematic because if I am an applicant and I might, as you say, during the process say I am going to do everything of dot net standard, for example, and what you are saying is that could be all just fictitious and then I get through, couldn't I then be holding on -- I mean if my application is therefore pending and out in limbo until such time as I meet the technical criteria, couldn't I use that as a blocking technique, as such?  I have reserved the name, I have now been said yes to the application but I really don't have to go live to it.  I can hold it in this limbo status.  It's taking one name out of the pool.
      Whereas potentially, is there not a process by which you can -- your technical, and certainly as being a registry provider as I have been, you are bound by your tender response, your RFP.  That's your contract.
      If you don't adhere to that, then that contract is void and you give up your application.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I think you could -- we could talk about this for a long time and there's a lot of 51/49 decisions to be made.
      I think you want to incent somebody to get their implementation done and get delegated.  I think there could be safeguards about somebody just blockading a name.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I wanted to ask one question, also, if I could.
      On the qualified operator, one of the things that had been discussed was that there wasn't a one-size-fit-all technical capability.  So I was just wondering how the qualified operator mechanism would take that into account?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I think that it's not certain yet.  And one of the things we want to splish accomplish at this meeting for those of you in the registry constituency and we also want to enlist ccTLDs is to help ICANN derive these qualifies, but I certainly think they are performance driven and not that you have so many gold plated servers or how you do your job.  It's more results oriented.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   Could I just ask you to clarify something which you just said which I think must probably have been just a code word?
      You said you might ask the existing registry constituency and the CCs or did you mean for broadly a group of parties who have expertise in this area which might include participants from both of those communities?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yes, of course I meant that.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Strings must not be confusingly similar to a top-level domain.
      This is difficult.  There are two approaches to this, both of which are being pursued.
      One is an algorithmic approach where two strings would be compared.  One might be a spell-check kind of program or an optical character recognition program.
      The similarity between the two strings would be given a score and then empirically,  in consultation with the community, we would set a score and say if you are above this score, if you achieve above this score, the two names are deemed confusingly similar.
      There's a lot of attractiveness about this scheme, especially if you think about a large number of applications and the different number of combinations and evaluations you have to make between and among pairs and more of names.
      We envision an algorithm that would be published, so depending on the source of it, it could be open source and published before the round so people could use the algorithm to test whether names are confusingly similar. It would also be published before the application route occurred to get feedback on uses.
      The other approach to this -- So we published a statement of work for this, and received several statements of interest and are currently working with three different companies on the first round in pursuit of this technical goal.
      The other is an objection-based process where a number of people review -- I will get his as soon as I finish this sentence -- review the applications and we develop standards for what is confusingly similar.  One interesting standard we just read was the person reviewing it should be a moron in a hurry, and leave it at that.  But I think the standards that are being developed by outside legal counsel are more precise than that.
      Michael.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   How are you going to account for extremely high scores that already exist, between dot cn, dot ch, for example, dot com, dot co, that sort of thing.  How are you going to explain that to the rest of the world that they can't have other TLDs that are obviously going to have lower scores than those would have?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I don't want to be glib.  I think what's done is done.  And there are TLDs out there that are probably confusingly similar already.
      But the goal of the policy recommendation, which I think is a good one, is to avoid user confusion.  So the explanation is we don't want to create more user confusion than might already exist.
      I don't know if that's the best answer or not just standing here.
      >>KHALED FATTAL: Thank you, Kurt.  I think the question just asked was very relevant, especially when you factor it in in the future with IDNs.
      The issue of confusingly similar may pertain to the local language that a gTLD in IDNs would relate to but it would not necessarily be of relevance to ASCII.  For example, if you are doing it in Arabic, perhaps the measure of whether it is confusingly similar or not would pertain to the language it's being deployed in, not necessarily to the ASCII, which in that case is of little relevance.  Although we know that in English, in ASCII, you may have something that's similar, but people know it, it's not really a big function.
      So this is perhaps a way that the issue can be distinguished and perhaps the legal counsel that you are asking to help you out will address this issue.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   It points out part of the expense and time associated with this is we're working with legal counsel right now in the United States and Europe.  On other recommendations we consulted with counsel in many countries, and this is another case where maybe not legal experts but experts in many countries need to be consulted.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   We can help you with that.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Bruce.  
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:  I was just going to comment further -- Thanks for saving that Avri -- that one of the discussions that happened during the new gTLD committee process with respect to objections was you also need to define, and I think some of the terminology is relevant, "public."  In other words, it's not everybody in the world.   It's the people that would be affected or would be using that particular TLD.
      So for me, as an English speaker comfortable with ASCII, I might look at two Chinese characters and they look pretty much the same to me, but for a Chinese speaker they may look very different.
      So you need to -- so that's kind of a difference between an algorithm that might say these look the same versus someone who is a native speaker using those character think they look completely different.  So it's the relevant public, not just the public in general.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   That's right, who has standing to object.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   Yes.
      >>WERNER STAUB:   I am actually very concerned when I hear an algorithmic approach is supposed to be used to judge something.  I am happy to see an algorithmic approach or any of them used as indicators of candidates that must be judged by humans but not put algorithm in the position of a judge.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   This is a very rich topic that we could spend a long time on.  Some of the balancing is using a standard that's judged by eight people sitting in a room around a table versus the more objective approach of an algorithm.
      So your concerns are voiced every day in the staff discussions about this, and without -- we develop an algorithm and then measure its efficacy in trying to determine if it's confusingly similar or if it's just a first step to understand whether another evaluation has to take place.
      >> (inaudible).
      >>KURT PRITZ:   That's the staff understanding in reading.  We kind of went back to the legislative record in creating the policy recommendations and the discussion around that.
      One of the points was about dot aero and dot arrow, a-r-r-o, versus the TLD dot aero, and that seemed to crystalize the issue for the council at that phase of -- it wasn't the council, it was the committee of the whole discussion at that point that it should be limited to visually or typographically confusing.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Did I understand you correctly right there?  Did you say that you were limiting the confusingly similar to visual confusingly similar?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Visual and typographically.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   I think if you go back to the detail of our recommendations that it included much more than that.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Do you think that's in the final report or do you think --
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Yes, I do.  Actually, there are several pages of it where we cited some different international conventions where they talked about the term "confusingly similar."  Yes, absolutely.
      By the way, we were at a point at one time, Kurt, in that process where it was just visually confusingly similar, and at the very end there was still one person in the group that was still pushing for that.  But that's not where we ended up.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So let me take that back and we will look at that.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Please do.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Kurt, on the same point for clarification.  I concur with what Chuck is saying.  And basically we started off looking at international norms, which are the three criteria for confusion.  We went right round discussing those to see if it could, indeed, be reduced, and our conclusion was no difference to international norms.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Can you clarify that?  I didn't quite get it, Philip.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   The international norms have three basic categories for confusing similarity.  And we finally adopted all three.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   It's confusing similarity in sight, in meaning, or in sound.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So dot arrow, A-R-R-O-W, is not an allowed TLD.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Under that standard, that's right, because they are phonetically identical.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Depending on your algorithm and your objection.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Right.  Because part of the council discussion we captured was, it was about just this and how different words were pronounced in different regions, different regions of one country.  And so that might serve to disqualify words.
      And so I'm concerned that trying to build a process around that is going to be difficult.  But I'm not going to say that with finality here.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   But you need to find a mike.
      I don't want to let this get too far into rediscussing, but making the points.  But I think you need to be in front of a mike.
      >> PAUL STAHURA:  Sight, meaning, and sound were the three?  Meaning is tough.  I mean, meaning.  Dot net and Dot Web, you know, they kind of mean a similar thing, or dot com and dot biz.  You know, if we -- you know, there's -- I guess there would be a fine line between, you know, confusingly similar meanings and competition.
      If we want competition for the dot net TLD, maybe we come out with Dot Web.  But it means the same thing, so we can't come out with Dot Web.  If I had dot net, I would not want Dot Web to come out.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I do want to avoid getting into these discussions --
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Okay.  I'm going to move ahead, then.  Thanks.
      But, Chuck, staff will do a paper on that.  Not a big paper.  Short paper.
      Then there's -- I want to talk about the big three, the objection-based dispute resolutions processes.  Those are the objections based on protection of rights, morality, public order, or a community-based objection.
      So for each one of these, there's really two products.  There's a procedure or process that the dispute resolution provider will follow.  On day 15, the objector will say this, on day 30, the applicant will answer, that sort of thing.  These fees will be paid by the applicant and the objector to the dispute resolution provider.
      And then there's a set of standards for each one of these.
      And so there's been -- we'll describe the staff work that's gone around formulating the standards in this case.
      If you think about the work, the process itself is probably largely applicable to each of the -- each of the objections.
      So there's some savings there in the work that has to be done.
      So regarding infringing the rights of others, the process we went through, essentially was that we had outside staff attorneys in the United States and Europe analyze the standards, exchange the standards from both of those regions, and standards that could not clearly be adopted in both the United States and Europe were not adopted for the test here.
      There was some examination in -- of laws outside of those two regions, but they didn't add a lot to that.  So we wound up confining our analysis to that.
      We only considered infringement of trademark rights.  You know, I'm trying to spin up why, for example, defamation as an infringement of rights wasn't considered.  And I understood at the time, but I can't remember now.  But those other sorts of rights were not pursued, just this one area.
      And so what was developed was a set of factors to be balanced in determining whether there was an infringement of rights by a certain TLD.
      If you're familiar with a UDRP, you know that it's sort of a three-step test to win a UDRP case.  In this instance, because there's no TLD that's actually practicing yet, the people that developed the standards thought that this -- these -- more factors for balancing were appropriate.
      So I'm going to describe the factors themselves.  But, Robin, if you want to ask your question first, that's okay.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   Yeah, I just -- I wanted to make -- I have a question on this first point about the standards that were evaluated.  And I'm wondering why only the U.S. and E.U. standards were evaluated and not other jurisdictions' laws taken into account.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, there was a less in-depth analysis of the laws in those regions.  And after -- you want to spend your money where it's going to pay off.  So after that analysis, it was determined just to use the laws in those jurisdictions.
      So we received legal memos from those jurisdictions, we looked at laws briefly in Australia to see if that would add any.  And then experts in other regions who are familiar with intellectual property laws in South America and Europe decided that that wouldn't add to the mix.
      So these are the factors that will be incorporated into the RFP that will be balanced in a TLD application to determine if there is an infringement of rights.
      So I'm just going to use one example.
      A TLD application, it's just a string; right?  So it's difficult to discern something from that string.  One of these factors, the intent of the user's bad faith.  It's very difficult to divine that intent from a TLD application.  It could be in the purpose of the TLD, if they were going to put that in there, which would be shortsighted by the applicant user's bad faith.
      It might be also a very notorious mark.  So why would somebody use a very notorious mark that's not usable in another instance?
      So, for example, it's difficult to envision using Microsoft for any purpose other than that company's name.  It's not so difficult to visualize using dot apple.  There's plenty of applications for dot apple that would not signal any bad intent.
      Also, there's a signal here in this -- what I want to describe here in this implementation that there's going to be proposed protections for IGOs, probably well-known marks, and then previously disqualified names.  So if a name is disqualified once, it might be automatically disqualified again.  And -- what else do I want to add to this?  The suggestion on IGOs came from two different areas.  One was the GAC comments on -- the GAC principles on new gTLD implementation, and also from outside counsel that's familiar with treaty organizations.  So this is sort of these set of standards.  And I just wanted to stop.
      Go ahead, Robin.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   My question was on this IGO issue.  And I'm wondering why staff decided to create rights for IGOs when the council voted against that.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, so my understanding is that the council voted not to reserve IGO names.
      Excuse me?
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   Or, more specifically, the PDP to create the IGO DRP.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So there's a balancing going on here.  And the GAC has written us specifically.  And I think that was in their -- the GAC principles on gTLDs.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   So the GAC letter has more weight than the GNSO's recommendation?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   You know, I'm not sure how to answer that question.  But I know that there's a strong interest in protecting those rights.
      I don't think the end of it is a reserved -- reserved names list of IGOs.  But I think it's -- there's an opportunity for IGOs to protect their rights in some way.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   Actually, Kurt, it's Marilyn Cade, and let me make sure I can be heard.
      Glen, am I okay now?
      Okay.
      I wanted to just -- could you -- do you mind taking two steps to your right so I can --
      I just wanted to compliment you and the staff on a number of the work initiatives that I see reflected here, because I have been very concerned as someone who was involved in the development of this policy from the beginning, and then moved into an observer status when I left the council.  But I've been very concerned about the pragmatic aspect of the implementation of some of the policy -- some of the elements of the policy proposal.  And I guess one of the concerns I've had has been what I consider the tsunami of potential work -- potential work that's headed ICANN's way and the need to make sure that we're implementing this in a way that will allow some names to make it through the implementation process.
      So what I'm seeing here is some ideas about implementation that I think offer some improvements or some streamlining.
      Could you just say something about what happens now -- before you go on through this, what happens now in terms of the timing of comments related to this set of implementation -- whatever we're calling them -- articles, activities.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Right.  There will be a specific timeline discussed later.  But certainly aspects as they're ready -- not finalized, but ready for comment, such as the base contract, and such as the dispute resolution process, will be posted for public comment.
      In the worst case, it will be posted as part of the RFP.  But if it's more appropriate to post it earlier and if it's ready to be posted earlier, we would post it then.
      Did that answer your question?
      >>MARILYN CADE:   It did partly.
      And then the second part of my question -- and I may have missed it -- we were talking about infringements of rights.  But I think we're also, I hope, talking about being very practical.  So where did we address, if we did, the idea that, as I understand the discussion at the GAC, there's also a concern on the part of many governments about efforts by some parties to reserve names that the governments believe are subject to the sovereign national right of the government to determine who uses the name?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, I'm not to that section yet.
      I think, though, that protections have to be awarded somehow to country names.
      So the Reserved Names Working Group chose not to reserve those names.  And there is an objection-based process and a community-based objection to handle that.
      I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.  So I think that -- I don't think we can get to a reserved names list of countries.  But I think that -- I think that use of country names probably has to be approved in some way by that country or government.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   We did get to such a list in two previous gTLDs, however.  But I don't -- why don't we just wait until we get to that.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Wait.  I want to comment.  Whenever you hear the funny little noise, it's because somebody has got the microphone on near their cell phone.  So it's just --
      >>KURT PRITZ:   My cell phone is off.
      Olof.
      >>OLOF NORDLING:   Just before we proceed, I wanted to respond to Robin concerning a slight degree of confusion here between the IGO DRP discussions we have had during the autumn and concluding with a vote on the 20th of December not to launch a PDP on that.
      The IGO dispute resolution procedure was solely intended for the second level, and here we're talking about the top level and the reaction process for that.  And that was covered in the discussions during the PDP for the new gTLDs.
      So they are two separate things, actually.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   But I --  Olof, I would agree with Robin that nowhere in the new gTLD process did we ever recommend any special coverage for IGOs.  I know that some people made that assumption, but I don't think it was ever specifically decided by the GNSO.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Right.  I don't think it's in there that they should be provided.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Just for clarification, I think there was a difference between the existing legal rights of others, which is, I think, the objective you're pursuing, and like it or not, existing legal rights of IGOs are there in the outside world, and a process that council decided not to pursue, which was -- is actually extending the rights of IGOs.  And, for me, that's where the difference lies.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   One more comment on that.  I don't have any problem at all -- in fact, the IGO issue really isn't a personal issue with me -- but the -- an IGO can use the objection process that we're talking about right here anytime they want.  I think the concern is that they're singled out as having some special rights, which is something I don't believe that we ever suggested.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Go ahead, Werner.
      >>WERNER STAUB:   Maybe people are all writing on both sides about the IGO discussion.
      Indeed, people confuse -- the second level and first level are not quite the same thing.  But, overall, there are strings where IGOs, because of their very nature, do not enjoy the same kind of protective mechanisms as trademarks do.  I've seen the case for cities, they're just rights that actually aren't even rights as an individual or an organization, that is just a cause that must somehow be protected, and there are very few cases of that.  So I don't think we should be -- let's see what comes out and then just judge it by what we see.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So I'm going to move on to recommendation number 6, although I'm trying to get out of calling them by number, because everybody else in the world outside of this room doesn't know what I'm talking about.  And that is the objection based on morality or public order.
      And so the staff approach here was to look at freedom of expression and then look at limits on freedom to -- with that as a starting point, what are the limits to freedom of expression in different countries around the world.  And so we chose jurisdictions in each region of the world and solicited essentially legal memos on how freedom of expression was curtailed in each of those regions, each of those countries.
      And you can see the countries up there.
      And then from there, we drew this core set.  You know, it's not the intersection, because they're all different.  And it's not the -- what's the opposite of intersection? -- the union of all of those sets, which would be huge.  And it's very interesting to read some of these laws.  But, rather, it's this core set of values.
      So what I'm going to show next is not a proposed set of standards, but it's a list of possible standards.  In staff, we've sort of drawn a line in those set of standards.  But there's a very large number of political ramifications and understandings as to the effect of having these standards in place.
      The staff position on all these recommendations is that these recommendations are the logical conclusion of any discussion on this issue.  And we thought the council was, in the end, driven to the most reasonable set of recommendations there could be.  We think that, you know, absent this potential objection would result in a lot more criticism of the process.  But, similarly, trying to draw a line in where the standards might be is equally difficult.
      So you can see at the top there's some pretty bright-line rules that are easier to define for a dispute resolution provider in adjudicating a dispute.  As you go through the list, some of the rules might be less bright line or broader and more difficult to adjudicate.
      Another way of looking at some of these is, you know, hated concentric circle.  So some of these are pretty tight limits on what might be denied as an application, where some of them are broader and are actually a larger set around the smaller one.
      So the next step for staff as to make a recommendation based on what we think the effects of these standards would have on the whole DNS ecosystem to the board and say, "These would be the recommendations we would choose."
      So this is, you know, very controversial and certainly not to be repeated as ICANN's set of recommendations.  But a subset of these were recommended as a set of rules ICANN should use.  And the others were suggested as candidates, but maybe should not be included.
      Robin.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   I have a question about this.  Do all of these expectations apply to each and every applicant?  Or, for example, in the United States, where you're allowed to criticize religion, are U.S. new gTLD applicants not going to be allowed to criticize religion because other countries don't allow that?  I mean, how are you going to work that on an international level?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So, certainly, Robin, what you've done very well is identify one of the potential example exceptions is problematic to implement, makes it more difficult.  I don't think in the DNS there's really country boundaries that can be used.  So the same set of standards would essentially have to be applied across the board.  Although there could be some regional aspects to the evaluation.
      And I think that's --  Anyway, it gets very difficult.  I think that's part of the method for selecting which ones we use, is which of these potential candidates could it be applied across all regions.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   So are you saying that when this analysis is done, if it's determined that some of these recommendations could not be applied universally, they won't be part of the policy?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, what I'm saying is that incitement to violent lawless action is easier to apply everywhere, compared to the bottom one, incitement to any lawless action, because laws are different in all the regions.
      So it's that sort of analysis.  So I've included the -- essentially, the laundry list of potential exceptions.  But the final list, I think, will be smaller than this.
      So in the community-based objection, we did quite a bit of analysis inside ICANN and also with outside legal staff and consultants.  And the --  So you're looking at standards that are a little bit different than what the policy recommendation is.  And so the discussion -- I don't know if we can have it in this room -- but the discussion is to understand why it's different, and if we think that's an acceptable interpretation of the recommendation.  Specifically, an application will be rejected if there's substantial opposition from a community where the string may be implicitly or explicitly targeted.
      So I hate these example things, but we're thinking of dot apple by the Washington apple growers' association.  And Apple Computer said that implicitly  targets Apple Corporation.  We're the only ones that can really have Apple.  Or the community of apple users are the only community that can really use that.
      So we were concerned --  So we think the goal of this recommendation is that somebody is purporting to represent a community when they don't appropriately represent it.  You can have multiple representatives of a community.  A small library group could represent dot library, and that would be fine.  But somebody that doesn't really represent dot -- some religion might not be the appropriate applicant for that string.
      So staff was looking to just avoid applications where somebody was inappropriately representing that they are related to the community that should represent that string.
      Is that sort of clear?
      So, then, specifically, the staff is focusing on the intent of the -- of the TLD applicant, saying, you know, I want this string because I represent that community there, and an established institution in that very same community says, "No, you are an inappropriate representative of that community," which is, I think, a little different.
      Yes, Michael.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I find the last part really interesting.  It's something that we did talk about a lot on the task force.
      What happens to TLDs that change their intent later, as we've seen with a bunch of ccTLDs to date?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   That say they're going to do one thing and then another?
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Yeah.  Is it going to be subject to an opposition later?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, what you have to -- so what you have to focus on is the string itself.  So someone who purports to represent, you know, dot a religion is a member of that religious group.
      And then so you're saying, well, that group changes their --
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   Let's use your example of dot apple.  It's applied for by the Washington Apple Growers and then they decide to sell it to somebody else or they decide to just morph and use it for Mac users.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Right.  So I think that's -- that could happen in any case.  What we're trying to develop here is a scheme where less applicants would be rejected for that reason.  But I don't see ICANN --  If I understand your question the right way, I don't see ICANN really becoming the police of every TLD that they're pursuing their community-based goals.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I'm not suggesting that, either.  But I am suggesting that there needs to be a process to object not just at the time of the application, but later, in the event that circumstances materially change.
      >> ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Mike, if I get your point, it's like dot Berlin starting out saying we're giving our name exclusively to -- and this may not be the case -- exclusively to the people living in Berlin, and then realizing that doesn't make them any money, and winning their application based on that, then realizing subsequently that doesn't make them any money and deciding that dot per Lynn should be for the fan club of a 1980s band that had a song on the sound track of "top gun."  So the guys that agreed on the application of dot Berlin, which had a different name at the time, like dot in German whatever Berlin is, they could feel a little disgruntled because now there is no representation for the people of Berlin.
      Did that make any sense?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So another -- it's another rich subject; right?
      So the citizens of Berlin, New Hampshire, also feel badly because Berlin, Germany, receives that.  So the goal here is to make sure who applies for that string is an appropriate representative of the community that they purport to represent.
      I don't know about the staying part.  I know Michael is saying that.  But I don't know about the process for taking a TLD away.
      Hi, Dotty.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   If I may, it's not that you would be taking it away.  You'd be ensuring compliance with the contractual obligation.  You'd build this into their contract.
      >> (inaudible).
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Right.  So the -- so, then, ICANN becomes the police of whether you're appropriately representing a community or not.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I think all you're doing is making them promise that what they say today they're going to continue in the future.  And if they don't, then there needs to be a reevaluation.
      >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL:   Sorry.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I'm going to take Dotty's question.
      >>DOTTY SPARKS DE BLANC:   It seems to me that this whole discussion is stepping over the border into the subject of content which ICANN has no jurisdiction over whatsoever.  And the whole proposal that ICANN is going to take away some TLD over them not living up to some contract of content, it seems to me really way off the mark.
      I think you just can't even go there.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   I think ICANN is now looking at ccTLDs, especially with IDNs, that they must be meaningful.  As soon as you look at meaningful, you are looking at content, the way the name is going to be used.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Wait.  Marilyn.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   You know, we debated this and debated this.  I will just say that my personal point of view is when you talk about when you file an application to operate a string and you say it's going to fulfill this function, this function, that is not about content.  That is a function.  The purpose of this string is to do X, Y, Z and it is in my contract bid.
      And that's what I think Mike was pointing to.
      In my contract, I say the purpose of the string is X, Y, Z.  I then decide I am not going to comply with the terms of my contract.  What do I do in the real world when I want to change a contract?  I go to the party that holds the contract and I attempt to renegotiate the contract.
      Come from the commercial world, have a lot of experience in this, think that's how it works.
      So I think that's what Mike is saying.
      Now, by the way, we have had experience in ICANN receiving a request from a TLD that has been awarded and modifying the contract and allowing changes.  I think that's what we ought to be looking at.
      And I don't think, Dotty, for all -- really, I don't think that's about content.  I think that is about my saying this is the purpose in my application for which I am going to offer this registration.
      >>PAUL STAHURA:   Just a quick comment.  I think there's a difference between application and the contract.  I mean, as we could see in a lot of applications in the round, like dot info, dot biz, they said in their application they were going to hit certain number goals, like how many names were under registration and so on.  That wasn't in the contract.
      So all I am saying is I agree with you if it's in the contract, it's in the contract, but there's a difference between in the application, what you say in the application, what you propose, and what you negotiate with ICANN when it comes to the contract.
      I assume all the contracts are going to be the same.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   I am concerned about this idea that businesses are going to be locked into their business plan 1.0.  I think we have got to leave room for innovation, we have got to leave room for businesses, companies, individuals, whoever, to say I could do this other thing with my gTLD, and as long as it's not violating any laws, why should they be prevented?  Why should ICANN say no, you are not allowed to do that?
      If there is legitimate harm in the sense of fraud, misrepresentation, infringement, these kinds of things, there are legal remedies available to prevent that.
      So I'm a little bit confused about why we would want to lock down innovation in this way.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Robin, in response to that, I think, if I understand what Kurt was saying properly before, is my concern is in the application process.  If it gets to the point where you have two conflicting bids and ICANN chooses someone's bid over someone else's, forgetting auctions or however the process may be, if someone is making a representation and they get awarded their TLD based on what they are going to do with it, I would feel really disgruntled as the person that lost if they then turned around and did something different.  And I think that's where my concern is.  And I agree with you with yours.  Maybe it does restrict innovation, but how do you protect the guy that lost?  Because his idea or his -- at the time, was judged not to be as good as the guy who won.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Avri, can we take Philip's comment?
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Take Philip's and then we are getting pack into one of those discussions we could carry on for a very long time.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   I certainly support Robin's goal of not suppressing innovation, but I think also there is a difference between innovation and deception.  And I think that's the goal we are trying to pursue here.
      If we take the dot apple example at the moment, if I submitted dot apple in -- with little other information, I would get an objection based on the trademark route.  If I submitted on apple, however, with a representation about apple growers, that may allow me to get the domain.
      If I then decide to change use and extend that to other fruit growers and the other fruit growers are happy, that seems fine, that seems like innovation.  If I then change it next week and target Mac users, that strikes me as deception.
      And I think if that's the goal we are pursuing, that seems reasonable.
      >>ROBIN GROSS:   I agree with you, that's deception.  And there are legal remedies for deception.
      So I'm not sure why we need to prevent companies from doing things that are not deceptive, things that are perfectly legal, in order to prevent those things which are deceptive.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So Avri, Dotty really wants to make one comment.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      >>DOTTY SPARKS DE BLANC:   Sorry.  It is the experience of the Internet that dot com, dot org and dot net are not being used for their stated, intended groups, and so I don't see how we just stand up now and decide that they suddenly got to, when everything else is a hodgepodge.
      We are talking about bits and bytes, you know?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Okay.  I am going to get on to the more controversial stuff.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Dispute resolution process development.  Remember I said there's commonality that a dispute resolution process can be applied to, perhaps all the dispute resolutions.  If I can do this -- you can't read this, but this presentation is posted somewhere, I hope.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>KURT PRITZ:   And this essentially lays out, and this is in prose, to a fairly well-defined dispute resolution process to be followed.
      There are holes in it, though, there are blanks in it.  And probably the critical path to the whole implementation of the policy recommendations is to enlist a dispute resolution provider and have a firm time line and cost associated with implementing a new set of standards and a dispute resolution process.  And so where ICANN has used outside legal counsel to develop the process so far, it's important that we quickly agree with some dispute resolution providers and flesh out the process and the time line.
      We think there's probably going to be two dispute resolution providers, one for the infringement of rights sort of issues, if you think of like the WIPO kind of issues, and one for NAF and one like UDRP.  That's what I was more appropriately looking for.
      And the other would apply to morality or public order or the community-based objections, those that are more arbitration oriented.
      The base agreement will include all the terms that were in the policy recommendations.  There are some issues we're working through.  The use of ICANN accredited registrars will be included in the contract terms.  We know registrars are working towards some sort of methodology to accommodate small registries to ensure they have an opportunity to grow and also understanding different business models.
      So we're looking for the registrar constituency for leadership there so that ICANN accredited registrars continue to be used in ways that still support small registries.
      We are also studying the effects of cross ownership, cross ownership of registrars and registries.  What was discussed in some constituencies during the meeting in Los Angeles, I think, was that ICANN was going to undertake some independent analysis of the market with separation between registrars and registries and how that would be affected if there was combination of those or whether you could effectively maintain that separation.  And so ICANN's commissioned the firm that's doing economic analysis for ICANN and they are undertaking that analysis now.  They are supposed to get some report back around the middle of April about that.
      Whether or not there should be different agreements with businesses versus governments or treaty organizations.  ICANN is negotiating a contract with a treaty organization right now.  They are limited in what they can actually do by their nature.  And so that might call for a different kind of agreement.
      And then I don't think fee structure is that problematic, but there are very different business models for registries.  Some are transaction oriented, some might be held by a company wholly and just give second-level names out to its employees or business units or something like that.
      So working on a common fee structure as requested by the council can be done.  I think it just requires some thought.  So the ICANN board -- I am going to choke for a second.  Hang on.
      The ICANN board, as you can imagine, discusses new gTLDs in every conference call, and also on the mailing list.  And board papers have been furnished for the various conference calls.
      Just as the council wanted to know, what the board wants to know is are these recommendations implementable.  And staff provided guidance to the council when the council deliberated.  The board recognizes that -- I don't know if profound is the right word, but certainly this work is very important and very complex and wants to understand the implications and risks associated with the implementation of the policy recommendations.
      And so they have asked for some additional scrutiny, some additional implementation steps to be taken as a prerequisite to voting on the policy recommendations.
      And so staff is working to really narrow these issues for the board and simplify what are a complex series of issues.
      So one issue is are the policy recommendations implementable?  And we don't think that's a black or white, you know, it can be implemented at any cost, but rather there is some reasonable test there that these recommendations can be implemented in a reasonable way without an onerous process, without undue restriction on names and so on.
      If you were to ask anybody on staff today can these recommendations be implemented, I think the answer is yes.  I think at the end, you know, the objection-based process will provide an avenue with those unhappy with certain aspects of the process a way to get their unhappiness or their issues heard without resorting to legal means first.
      So I think the answer to the board is, yes, these recommendations are implementable.  But in addition to saying yes, there is some additional data that staff wants to provide the board members so we think they are fully informed to make that decision.
      And we think that -- some of this is repetitious, but we think that's a narrow set of issues.  If you look across all 19 policy recommendations, many, many of them are very straightforward.  And so we think the issue really is narrowed down to having a dispute resolution process that is implementable in a short period of time at a reasonable cost.
      We have engaged with several well-known dispute resolution providers to get to a definitive answer on that and are getting to that.
      We think that -- And you saw some of the other issues there, one on the community-based objection and clarifying the recommendation and to standards for that, and you saw what staff's recommendation is going to be.  You saw morality and public order where there's some weigh-in still left to be done.
      So we think there are four or so weeks of work left for staff in order to make a final recommendation for the board, and then the board to essentially vote on whether they agree with the recommendations or not.
      Okay.  Philip.
      >>PHILIP CORWIN:   Phil Corwin for ICA.
      Kurt, on the dispute resolution process, for the current gTLDs we have something called UDRP, which is supposed to be uniform.  A lot of members feel it is becoming less and less uniform in both substance and procedure over the years, but at least there is an attempt to have uniformity and to confine the basis for dispute to within the bounds of trademark law.
      Now with these new gTLDs there is going to be a new dispute resolution process where it seems it will be easier to challenge a name.
      So I guess the questions are why do we need a new dispute resolution process for these new gTLDs rather than at least the UDRP, we have a decade of experience with and some precedence and all that.
      Is it still contemplated that eventually the new UDRP will be applied retroactively to the existing gTLDs, which our members find very scary?
      And last, is there a recognition that to the extent that it's easier to challenge a name, that the commercial prospects of these new TLDs goes down because people who might otherwise buy a name, if they feel that its challenge goes way beyond trademark and it's easier for complainants to win a challenge will be less willing to buy names?
      So why do we need a new DRP rather than the old UDRP?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So clearly not my area of expertise.
      I think a new process is required because the existing process -- the test and the standards in the existing process applies to a second-level name that's already in use.
      So it's not only the second-level name, but also the use to which that second-level name is put.
      I think this is a harder test to win an objection on, the new TLD test, because it's the string itself that is being tested and really not so much the use, because that issue doesn't exist yet.
      I see an existing UDRP, there is a richness there and a set of decisions that's going to inform this process and has, in fact, informed the standards.  The standards that we looked at were developed essentially from the case law of UDRP.
      So I don't see it as an easier process to win an objection on.  And it relies heavily on the UDRP.  And I see potentially at the end of the day using the same provider of services, but, you know, that's not settled.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Kurt, could I jump in there just to give a little bit of history in the new TLD committee process.
      One of the concerns when we dealt with this particular issue was we're anticipating that probably it's a quite involved and fairly expensive process for somebody to apply for a new TLD.  And to go all the way through that, to be accepted and then allow a UDRP-type dispute at that point in time we didn't think was really fair or desirable.  And so that's why we really wanted a process that was built into the application process so that a dispute could be filed earlier, a challenge could be filed earlier in the process.  And hopefully, if there is a legitimate claim, it could be identified earlier and, therefore, lessen the cost for the applicant and others who are involved.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Although, I don't know if I want to say this, but although, after a -- I agree with you.  And then, after a TLD is delegated, if there's that same the deception we were talking about before, where a TLD applicant then put the TLD to use that actually violated a party's rights, there needs to be an avenue for that party.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      It looks like we have -- did you have more slides or was this --
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Heck yeah, I do.  I have the worst slide yet.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So one thing that was in one of the bullets that I didn't say out loud was that staff implementation work is proceeding without delay while we furnish the board with additional information to inform their vote on the TLD process.  So that is ongoing.
      We'll publish the draft RFP in the late second quarter of this year, and launch the communications phase as specified by the GNSO council.
      And then have a public comment period on the RFP.
      And then the board, in some way, will approve the implementation as they approve the recommendations.
      >>WERNER STAUB:   Just a question about the 90 days.  Does that mean that after 90 days only or the beginning of the 90 days the four-month period will start?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   You know, I was just looking at that and saying I didn't know why I -- I guess I -- 90 days isn't a requirement.  I don't know how long it would be open for, but I think it would be open at -- once -- certainly once you post the RFP, people are going to be writing applications.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Somebody help me on that one but I thought it was four months.  Am I -- It's probably just my memory.  Was it four months?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I thought it was the period to -- There was a communications period that ICANN was going to announce that there's going to be this TLD round, and that period was four months.  So --
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Now, when you say RFP posted and open for 90 days -- because what we had was we had that initial period, because there was concern about fairness for those who maybe aren't tuned in to what's going on in ICANN, and we wanted to give full opportunity.  And so to allow plenty of time, not only for communication but also preparation.  And then at the end of that, you have an application period that I think was shorter.  I thought it was, like, 30 days or something, but that could vary.
      But I'm just trying to get clarity here.  I don't remember the 90-day figure.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yeah, and I don't think that's specified in the recommendation.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   So what you are saying, when you say it's open for 90 days, applications could be submitted over a 90-day period.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yeah.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   If you look, Chuck, in the middle of the slide, on the 15th of June, that's when the communication effort is launched.  So the widespread communication is launched on the 15th of June, which is four months before the actual implementation starts.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   But Bruce, as I recall, and maybe you shouldn't trust my memory, but it was a final RFP at the beginning of that communication period, not a draft RFP.
      The board had already approved it.  This is my recollection.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   I think that's probably right.
      What I am just saying is I think that you might get the same effect by what they have suggested there.  Because they are saying on the 15th, they are saying here is a draft RFP.  We are going to launch new gTLD process.  Everyone is aware of that.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Yeah.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   And have an equal amount of time to prepare for that.
      So I think if you started the time frame the 15th of June you kind of get --
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Thanks.  I missed that.  So that's helpful.
      But one of our intents was to make sure that everything was up front -- you said this yourself at the beginning of your presentation -- right at the beginning.  And if you do a draft RFP on the 15th of June and changes are made to that, by the time you do the final RFP, we have just gone against that.
      Now, maybe we need to talk because we're all concerned about time, too.  So I'm not trying to be too rigid here.  But I am just raising that as an issue so we all look at it and see whether we need to do some adjustments there.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I agree, and I think as a minimum, when an initial or a draft RFP is posted, we have that same broad communication requirement imposed.  Because you want to communicate fully to all regions that this is the extent of information that's available now.
      So there's at least that requirement to have that broad communications.  And then we can talk about at what -- if an additional round of communications is launched or not.  We could even condition it on the difference between the initial and draft -- the draft and final RFP.
      >>JIM BASKIN:   I am Jim Baskin.  Just a couple of questions about the -- this process and the time line.
      Is there going to be any relevance to the order that applications are received?  And related to that, will applications be sealed and secret until the closing date of the RFP, the application period?
      And will there be public disclosure at that point of the full contents of the responses?
      I know that in the earlier rounds, there was quite a substantial portion of applications which were kept secret, or out of the public eye.  And in some cases, it was very difficult to determine what those applications really were about because so much of them were held back from the public.
      And not to ask so many questions that you can't remember what I asked, but has there been any final discussion about the fees to be charged to applicants?  I heard some rumors.  $15 million -- no.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>KURT PRITZ:   There will be one.
      So it's proposed that -- well, one of the recommendations was that applications be received in rounds until demand is assessed so that all the -- it's very problematic, I think, to order the -- time stamp the applications.  It would be like registrars hitting the batch pool.
      So all the applications in a round would be considered in that round.
      >>JIM BASKIN:   (inaudible).
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Right, and so not disclosed until the closing date.  Processing, depending on how many there are, might be done in batches.
      In the recent round, I think the only information that was redacted was financial information.  There wasn't any information having to do with the purpose of a TLD string.
      >>JIM BASKIN:   Maybe I am thinking back to the first round.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   That was before us.
      And so if you have -- As far as the fees go, I'm not going to talk about any numbers, but the ICANN budget assumes that fees and costs balance out.  But there's also considerable startup costs in the ICANN budget that will be recovered in one way or the other.
      There's going to be a fee structure in stages so that there will be an initial fee, and then if an extended evaluation is required, applicants, I think, will probably pay a dispute resolution provider directly for dispute resolution services for their fee.  And then if there's an extended -- some sort of a comparative evaluation after that, there would be a fee.
      So --
      >>JIM BASKIN:   So let's say if an application is totally noncontroversial and has no objections, that could have a total fee that's less than some other proposal that has objections or has to go through some other processes.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yes.
      >>JIM BASKIN:   And not everyone would end up paying the same amount.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   That's correct.
      >>JIM BASKIN:   Thank you.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Kurt, do you and the staff envisage that new TLDs, this process that you have just laid out, will coincide with IDNs?  Will IDNs be inclusive of the new TLD process?  In your opinion.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Let me answer a different question.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Okay.
      >> Why are you ducking the question?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I think it's a good answer.  I think if the IDN fast track is implemented, that would essentially take away any reason for not having IDNs be part of the gTLD round.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   (inaudible).
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I think the scribes need the microphone.  I know you don't.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   Assuming that the fast tracking does actually fast track it, would that imply that the recommendations that are being sought to be implemented would apply for IDNs as well?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Can you ask that question again, exactly the same.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   You didn't hear it?  I'm sorry.
      One more time.
      Assuming these recommendations are accepted and based on the question that was asked just now, and assuming also that the fast tracking does deliver the promised land so fast -- you can quote me on that in the teleprompting -- would that imply that the current recommendations would apply to IDNs, yes or no?
      >> (Inaudible).
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   To future IDN applications.  Assuming we can fast-track them.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I think it would apply to all gTLD applications, you know, whether they're ASCII or IDN.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   You can go on the record for that one?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   No.  Adrienne asked my opinion.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   I'm asking.  Is this -- would you say this is a position from ICANN, our official position from ICANN one thing being recommended will be applied on IDN gTLDs as well.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yes.
      >>KHALED FATTAL:   That's a "yes."  That answers the question.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Sorry, Kurt.
      >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:   I'm a little bit excused.  Could you exactly say when the time point is when applicants can drop their application?  That was the last meeting in Los Angeles much clearer than today.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, it's still contingent on some things happening.  But I think this says --
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   Kurt, could you move to the left so we can see the dates.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   If I move to the left, somebody else can't see the date.
      >> Move to the right.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Excuse me.  The presentation is available on the Web under the GNSO page within correspondence and presentations.  So feel free to pull it up and be able to see it as clearly as possible.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Contingent on developing a dispute resolution process, which should be able to happen, and board approval, and some of the other issues we've discussed here, this timeline indicates that applications can start to be submitted after the October RFP is posted.
      >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:   Directly after or was -- three, four, or whatever months?  Or --
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Well, I think an applicant just needs to take enough time to do a good job.
      >>WERNER STAUB:   Again, the question is about the deadlines and their relationship.
      We first had this question about the four months and then it started.  Of course, what I'd like to hear is it starts the 15th of June, because that's the obvious way of communicating.
      But the other thing is about follow-on rounds.  There was a lot of the discussions on the fact that if we don't allow a follow-on round, people will take the next round to be possibly last.  So there must be an announcement of that, when the first round is announced, the second round should also be announced so people can --
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Is that in -- I think that's in the implementation guidelines, or it, yeah, was explicitly stated by the council.
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   When we were originally talking about fees, there was some discussion of a different or a lower fee structure for developing countries or disadvantaged groups.
      Is there any discussion of this happening in the first round.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Probably not.  But if we can work through to that, yes.  But I think that couple that question with the question just previous to yours, and the announcement of a second round and how fees might be different in the second round.
      All right?  So --
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So --
      [ Applause ]
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Yes.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   So I didn't take notes, but we have transcription and staff members taking notes.  And we've taken away a couple of actions from this.  And we also -- we also owe the council and the public more writings on the implementation work that's being done.  And between now and the culmination of this process, there will be more frequent writings about it.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  So that was one of the things I was going to check on, was there had been some talk about getting copies of some version of these papers that had been written.  So that's still in the works?
      >>KURT PRITZ:   Yes.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      So, yes, thank you very much for that.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   Just one parting comment, if I can, please.
      You know, we -- for those that haven't been involved in this very long, we gave staff a humongous task in working this.  And I, for one, Kurt, and to all of your team, am very impressed with the thoroughness of what you've done and what you're doing.  So I want to communicate that.
      [ Applause ]
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  We've got on the agenda now, basically, the "any other business" part.  And what I really wanted to put in there is, since these two days have been very programmatic about the things we were doing this morning and tomorrow and such, I wanted to basically find out if there were other issues that people felt that we should be spending a little bit of time on this weekend.
      Now, no one has sent in anything saying, "This should be another topic that we should take up and give a little bit more time to while we're here," and we still do have the Thursday.
      So I'm looking, is there another topic that people would like to put some time into right now before we call the day over?
      Yes, Adrian.
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   I was -- just had a quick suggestion.  It's not necessarily a different topic, but a logistic thing I think can help out the GNSO council members.
      I had a good chat with Bruce Tonkin earlier, and I noticed that he had been preregistered as an ICANN board member.  Especially when we have meetings all day, would it be possible, potentially Glen maybe can answer this question, if us council members can be preregistered and we can simply be handed our badges when we arrived, like royalty.
      [ Laughter ]
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY:   That's (inaudible).
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   Thank you.
      >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:   Glen, what's the penalty for people who say they're coming and then don't turn up?
      >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:   This is how we'll know, see.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY:   They have to pay for their hotel rooms.
      >> That sounds good!
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  So that was one good issue.
      >>GLEN DE SAINT GÉRY:   I agree with Sebastien.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   So were there any other issues that people would like to open up at this point?  Or is everybody really sort of content to call it a day?
      Ah, we've got one issue, we've got two issues.
      >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:   I'm certainly content to call it a day.  I wanted to flag it for Thursday's meeting and get these two issues on council's radar for discussion, that's domain front-running and fast-buck hosting, both of which have been the subject of SSAC reports but have not been the subject of council discussing to date.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   Quite some time ago, I proposed to ICANN -- and there was a long time ago -- I proposed to ICANN in a public meeting that it needed to form a program committee.  And I am not talking about a meetings committee of the board, but a program committee.  One of the things that continues to be a significant challenge to be able to help people justify getting travel approval to attend ICANN meetings is the lack of a thoroughly prepared agenda and program that is published sufficiently in time to even send it to your management in order to get approval.  That's true for governments, it's true for many NGOs, it's true for business.
      A program is different than a meeting schedule.  And I also think that for those of us who work in international settings, we're very aware that programs are often defined and established months in advance, and then fine-tuned.
      So I'd like to ask for a little more discussion broadly -- and I don't think this should come from the council, I think this is an SO thing -- but I really think that a program committee that draws from the advisory groups and from the SOs could contribute to developing programs that might actually allow us to ensure we have bottom-up input into the design and development of the content and structure of the meetings going forward.  And it probably might support the idea that maybe we could get annotated agendas done and programs done more quickly so that people could actually use those to try to get funding support to attend.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Well, I know that we're already getting agendas and lists of what topics will be discussed much further in advance than we had.
      Part of --  I don't know personally see -- I'd be interested in to hear other people -- I don't see a problem so much with a program committee, but it's as we're working our way through the issues that we discover what's going to be ready for what level discussion at a particular point.
      So it's when we're going through the schedules and we know that there will have been a final report done, and we know that that issue is ripe for the discussion.  So to define that three months in advance is -- it's like defining the weather three months in advance.  You can get close and say, "Well, we'll be talking about these kinds of topics."  But it's really only in the certain month before then or month and a half before then that we start to close in.
      And we have been keeping a rolling list of what topics are coming before us in the next meeting, in the meeting after that, in three meetings after that.  So we're trying to define that.  But to define -- unless I totally don't know what you mean by a program committee.
      >>MARILYN CADE:   Yeah, I'm not talking about the GNSO; right?  I'm talking about ICANN.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   So ICANN in general?
      >>MARILYN CADE:   Yes.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   So the GNSO should ask for this program committee?
      >>MARILYN CADE:   No.  I'm sorry, you asked if there were other topics.  And I suggested it would be helpful to discuss the importance of a program committee for ICANN that the GNSO might contribute to.
      >>AVRI DORIA: Okay.  It would be important within the GNSO to discuss that is what you were suggesting?
      >>MARILYN CADE:   I raised it as a possible topic.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Okay.  Does anyone want to discuss a program committee at this point?  I mean, this was the "any other topics" discussion time.  So is there any discussion on that?
      Okay.  And if people do think of such, bring it up again with something to add.
      Are there any other especially GNSO topics that people would like to bring up and have us spend some time on at this point?
      Yes, Bruce.
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   I don't want to extend this meeting, but, really, just something for people to think about, particularly of the constituency meetings.  But I am an observer on the ICANN board finance committee, and the staff, I think, have been working hard to try and get something out as early this year as possible so people can consider it.
      But you will notice in the budget there are some big implications of the initiatives around new gTLDs and IDNs.  And I think the GNSO and constituencies should at least review that and provide their coms at this meeting, if they can, to help guide the staff in refining that budget.  So it's really just something to consider in the constituency meetings.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   And that actually seems a good thing for us to spend some time also on Thursday, where that won't be something that we can contribute into the discussion I guess it's on Wednesday, it's certainly something that we can contribute as a follow-up to this meeting.
      But I would encourage people to attend the meetings.  I guess it's Wednesday?  Do I --
      >>BRUCE TONKIN:   I'm happy to answer if any constituencies want to talk to me about it in more detail.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Great.  Would anybody like to add something to that particular topic on the financial?  Has everybody had a chance to really read it attentively yet?
      It's a good chance to do it, especially if we do bring it up as a topic on our Thursday meeting, for people to have read it, you know, to start marking down things that should be pursued, should be asked for, should be talked about further.
      >>CHUCK GOMES:   And, Avri, I think probably everybody saw it, but Doug or Denise or somebody sent out a notice to us that they are available, Doug and his team are available, for meeting with constituencies on that topic this week.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   And available to meet with us on a phone call if we are ready to do that later.
      Any other topics we should put on our list to talk about some more, either today or on upcoming meetings.
      Yes, yes Alan.
      >>ALAN GREENBERG:   (inaudible).
      >>AVRI DORIA:   I don't know if there is a document on the --
      >> I'm sorry, we missed that question entirely.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   There is a whop on travel expenses, I guess it's also a Wednesday workshop or I don't remember when it is.  But Alan asked if there was a document that was published on that beforehand that we could talk about before that meeting, which would mean we would have to fit it in somewhere tomorrow if there is such a document.
      >>KURT PRITZ:   I will write back to the council list about when that -- you know, that probably PowerPoint presentation will be available.  Make sure you can get an advance copy of it.
      >>AVRI DORIA:   Thank you.
      Any other topics?  Any other issues that should be brought up at this point?
      Do I see an almost hand at the end there?  No.  It's a head being scratched.
      Okay.  In which case it was a wonderful day.  See you all tomorrow morning when we will talk about the proposed responses from the GNSO to the board's request on responses to the ccNSO and GAC questions.
      Thank you.
      (5:45 p.m.)