ICANN Public Forum
 President's Report and Comments
 Monday 11 February 2008
 New Delhi, India
 
 
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Good morning, everybody.
 Sorry for the slight delay.  Obviously, we've been trying to sort out some technology here.
 Can I repeat what Steve just said.  If there's anybody here who would like to have access to translation in several languages, there is -- there are translators and earphones, headphones available at the back.  French, Chinese, and Spanish.
 Well, good morning.  Welcome for the president's report for this meeting.
 And I'll remind people that the rationale for having this report at the beginning of the meeting is to basically make certain you don't get bored to death hearing me saying the same things each day for five days in different constituency meetings things.  We'll try and do a summary just for this meeting.
 This time it's going to be a Kieren and Paul show, because Kieren and I have been talking about how we want to try to give you more sense of where you can track yourselves, where the different issues are going to be discussed during this meeting.
 So Kieren and I are going to interact.  And he'll probably do as much talking, if not more, than I should -- and that's a good thing -- just to explain to you as we go through where in the public participation sites and where on the Web sites you can in-kind material and where you can interact specifically, because you may find yourself in meetings this week where it would be useful that you may want to online participate in another meeting during that time.  You may want to make notes during that session that you're involved in.
 This is important for about the 900 people who are attending the meeting in Delhi.  It's probably more important for people who are attending the meeting virtually.  And it will help to show them exactly how to interact using the new tools.
 ICANN has made a lot of investment into new tools and new ways of participation.  We want to make certain people understand how they work and how to make the best advantage of them.
 So let's go to the next page.
 There is quite a comprehensive agenda for this meeting.  And let me go through it in some detail.
 The strategic plan, obviously, the strategic plan and operating plan and budget discussion.  There's policy development activities.  There has been some new ccTLD accountability frameworks signed recently, just to quickly remind people of.
 Big topics for this week, obviously, are Internationalized Domain Names and new gTLDs.
 We have recently been doing testing and exercising on the registry failover plan.  I want to direct to you some information about that.
 Obviously, the Joint Project Agreement midterm review is a significant issue.  We will have more information about that this afternoon.  Related to that is the frameworks and principles for accountability and transparency.  You'll see there's actually a copy of that on everybody's seat.
 The regional fellowship program, global outreach with some intergovernmental organizations.  Talk about the IANA function.  Very importantly, we have a "F" root server agreement, which is a milestone of accountability framework between ourselves and the root server operator.
 Want to talk a bit more about IPv4 depletion and IPv6 implementation.
 Moving now to the strategic plan, the plan was approved by the board in December 2007, following our usual process of six months of consultation with the community, the executive, the board.  And there was a series of objectives identified by the community.
 Implement IDNs and new gTLDs.  Enhance security and stability of the Internet's unique identifiers.  Monitor the depletion of V4 address space, and provide leadership towards V6 adoption.  Maintain and advance confidence in the gTLD marketplace.  And then strive for excellence in cooperations, strengthen the multistakeholder model by managing increasing demands and changing needs, strengthen accountability and governance, and ensure financial stability and responsibility.
 Now, Kieren, you might want to talk more about where people can find this.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Sure.
 Well, -- can you hear me?
 >> No.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Is the mike live?  Good, thank you.
 With some of these, Paul, I've put up live links.  I've just put up a copy of the document.  It was translated into five different languages as well.  It's on the other screen, on your right-hand side, Paul.
 And so when we go through and we hit the IDNs and the meetings that are happening at this meeting, I've got live links and we can click through to the meeting site.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Okay.
 Obviously, icann.org/strategicplan, and it's in multiple -- I think it's five languages.  So I would recommend to people to -- you know, if you need reminding of the strategic plan, please go there.
 As the -- per the request of the community, we are in, 1st of February, working here on devoted operational plan and budget.  And there will be a session on that at the 13th of February at 4:30 p.m. in the Durbar Hall or Durbar Hall, sorry.
 There is a proposal on the table to eliminate the practice of domain tasting by charging the annual ICANN fee on registrar domain registrations.  That proposal has been -- people have discussed the proposal.  It's on the table.
 And this is part of the budget process for fiscal year coming through to 1st of July, 2008.
 The key point here is that the community's asked in the operational planning process if we can put the -- basically, some idea of the funding forward, and also if we can put a three-year -- more of a long-term proposal about what the funding may look like going forward.
 Doug and Kevin and Kurt and others in the board finance committee have done an enormous job on this.  And this is the beginning of a consultation which will take five months, through to the end of June, and in Paris.  And we are looking very much for feedback from all members of the community.  And it is a financial model.  I want to make it very clear, what's being put forward now is operational plan proposals and a financial -- and a financial model, a way of thinking about the way the finances would work for this period.
 So I exhort people to attend this session.
 And, Kieren, do you have more information for us?
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Sure.  So what we have here, there's an issue with the wireless connection at the moment.  But what we have here is the Delhi participation site, which is at del.icann.org.
 On that site, we have a separate Web page for each meeting.  And on each meeting, we have an introduction about what the meeting is, why it's important, who should attend.  We have lists of the -- we have the agenda that's up there, a list of the panelists that are there, and as and when we get the presentations, they will also be on that meeting page.
 If you register with the site, which is very easy -- you simply give your e-mail address and then confirm that's an e-mail address -- then you will be able to get into chat rooms.  And we'll be monitoring the chat rooms in each meeting.  So if people have questions either in the meeting or virtually during that meeting, then we will be able to raise them during the physical meeting itself.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Just to confirm, to get to the public participation site, you can either go from the front page to the ICANN Web site, there is a -- a link in the top right-hand corner which says "public participation," or you can go through the Delhi button -- Delhi meeting button on the left-hand side, which would also take to you the public participation site.  Will you need to register.  The reason for this is, obviously, we need to deal with spam and problems on the site.  It's pretty simple.  You just put in your e-mail address, you'll get sent back an e-mail straightaway on how to register.  And then please use that.  I would exhort everybody in the meeting, please, to register so that you can access this site and actually see the materials and the conversations that are taking place.
 Policy development activities at this meeting.  And there's a -- on the other side there, you can see the full meeting agenda up with the links from each page.  Policy development activities being discussed this week are very significant.
 The GNSO, the ccNSO, and the GAC are having -- talking about a series of related questions, which I think is very healthy, because it shows the interrelationships between the interests in those different -- in those different bodies, particularly on studies on WHOIS, domain tasting, the new gTLD environment, fast-track modalities potentially for IDN TLDs, inter-registry transfer policy, contractual conditions, also some discussions of ICANN regions, and GNSO improvements is another agenda item that's come through.
 And I've already gone through some of the other policy issues that are in front of us, including the Joint Program Agreement midterm review.
 Again, if you go to -- I think this is the page now, is it, Kieren?  This is del.icann.org/days.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Yes, this is just a screen grab of the schedule running down.  If you go to the site and click on schedule, for schedule, it will list every single meeting or meetings according to day.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Can I remind you, for those who have been using the site, if you -- if you want to see what was posted from yesterday or if you want the transcript of the GNSO Council meeting from Saturday, you go to the -- what's -- the button which says "full schedule."  Otherwise, the other button will just be today's schedule.  If you feel suddenly you can't find something from yesterday, go to "full schedule," click that, and you will get this screen, which will take to you the materials for each meeting.
 Just to report on ccTLD accountability frameworks.  These continue to prove to be, I think, a popular part of the -- of the CC community engagement with ICANN and a sense of accountability.  We have so far in December in 2007/2008 agreed at a further 12 accountability frameworks for exchanges of letters with large and small country code operators.
 More than 60% of the registrants in country codes are now covered by, if you like, the country codes representing more than 60% of registrants in country codes now have such agreements with ICANN.
 Internationalized domain names is a main topic.  And the timeline clearly is that in the December 2006, we completed laboratory testing of Punycode strings.  The IETF continues to lead efforts to finalize the IDNA protocols.  
 In October 2007, we inserted IDNs into the root zone, for example, test in 11 languages.
 And the Wiki page facilitation, evaluation feedback, I'll give you some information on this shortly.  We have two workshops this week.  There's a fast-track process for introducing limited IDN ccTLDs this afternoon, 3:00 to 6:00 in the Durbar Hall, and then there will be a workshop specifically on IDNs in Indian languages and scripts on Wednesday, between 11:00 and 1:00 in the Agra room.  Again, Kieren, you have some links there that you're just showing.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   I'm showing them, Paul.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Kieren's just showing them.  Okay.
 So I think we're making the point.  We really do want you to use this public participation site, 'cause it'll give you more information about each of these main sessions that are on.  And because -- one of the reasons we're so keen on this is because what we're seeing increasingly over the last several years is the communities increasingly coming together across constituencies and across organizations to deal about specific issues.
 Our meetings still tend to be a little silo-ish in the sense that the GAC has its meetings, the GNSO has its meetings.  So we're very keen to have people be able to have access, if you're in one meeting, you can actually see what's going on in another meeting, participate online in that meeting in the site at least.  And we think that's important.
 Just in terms of the feedback we've received so far on the IDN Wikis, there's been 500,000 page requests since October 2007 of people accessing the Wiki and being able to tell us what their experience has been in accessing the test strings.
 And I think the percentage numbers are very interesting.
 38% of the requests we've received are in Chinese or are in the Chinese strings.  Some 14% were Arabic, some 13% for Cyrillic.  And then the rest of the scripts and languages have gotten somewhere between 2 and 4%.
 I think that does say something at the moment about popular interest certainly very strong in the Chinese, Arabic, and Cyrillic communities.  I don't want to underestimate at all the interest in, say, the Indian languages, but I think at the moment, the testing has been quite interesting.
 And, again, you can find information on this at IDN.icann.org.
 Am I okay?
 The new gTLD and IDN TLD implementation.  The ccNSO, the GNSO, and the GAC have been working to complete two years of defining guidelines and recommendations for new TLDs and IDN TLDs.  Obviously, the recommendations on policy have come up through the GNSO to the board for consideration.
 The policy recommendations are before the ICANN board for approval, and the goal is to have IDN TLD presence available in 2008.
 The focus, the ccNSO focus, has been on some concept of fast track in place of regions that have a strong need for IDN TLDs.  And I've already shown you in the previous slide where you can see where that strong need is being exhibited, in the Chinese languages, the Arabic languages, the Cyrillic.
 Let's be quite clear here:  The idea of fast track is not that that's a limitation on access to IDN or IDN ccTLDs.  It is more about a concession before the full implementation.  So there is going to be a long-term policy put in place.  But considering that policy initiative could take 18 months or two years, the fast track is a discussion.  Obviously, there is a first way of making a first concessionary introduction for the areas where there is that strongest demand.
 The IDNC Working Group workshop is taking place the 11th of February.  Again, you can see on the screen here the links.  You can find more information specifically on that workshop in terms of new gTLD implementation.  I have to tell you that this is probably the area that has got the most absorption of ICANN staff at the moment.  The board has asked the ICANN staff to go away and come back with an analysis and plan for implementation of the proposed GNSO policy.  This, folks, is really, really, really hard.  I've got to tell you, it is really hard.  Some of the issues are relatively straightforward; some of the issues are not.  And we have been spending a lot of resources external and internal to look at some of this analysis.  One of the things we are doing is, we have a lot of independent advice on this process, including risk mapping and operational impact analysis.  We've started this group since -- actually, it says January here, but we started the work, I think, in November or October.
 And there is at the moment some interest about auction design experts being sought for three possible areas which are outlined.  I don't want to give you the wrong impression from the slide.  That's just one of the many sources of expertise that we're presently looking for.  But we are working through quite a range of issues.  They will be discussed further this week.
 Also there is the contractual conditions for existing gTLDs, which has been part of the -- I think this slide is a little confused, really.  This is actually recommendations for Registrar Accreditation Agreements.  So I think there will be further discussion around that in the Durbar Hall on 14th of February.  
 I managed to get my own slides confused there.
 The registry failover plan.  I think the key point here is to tell people that, A, there's been a plan put in place and, B, the plan has been tested.  And that's one of our themes for this year around all things that relate to security aspects for the DNS, is that planning is one thing and exercises are something completely different.  Actually testing and exercising actually tells you many things about whether your plan is right or not or related issues that you need to think through.  
 And so we are updating the plan after the test on the 13th of February, and we'll be producing an accompanying best-practice document.  One of the things that's quite interesting in these exercises, I'm going to point to this because it's also something that we have asked to work on with some of the CC managers as well on issues of security and exercises around security of DNS infrastructure.  A lot are not technical.  What they are is business and accountability and communication issues.  And that's the sort of things, again, I think we found specifically in this test, that what came out was the need to define ICANN, more clearly identify what to do in a potential failure and protect interests.  So a lot of the exercises -- this, as I said, is going to be a theme for ICANN discussion a lot around security issues with our community, is this word "exercises."  And the exercises are really pointing out a lot of the human aspects as opposed to some of the necessary technical aspects.
 The Joint Project Agreement midterm review, I'll talk briefly to this now.  There is a session this afternoon specifically with more detail on this.  The JPA and predecessors have made ICANN a stable organization.  
 At our Los Angeles meeting, you'll recall John Kneuer, the Secretary of Commerce, announced midterm review had taken place.  He talked about this is in terms of a joint process between the Department of Commerce and ICANN.  He asked the ICANN board specifically to do its own evaluation of its own resolution that was appropriate.  And the board believes ICANN met its obligations and responsibilities under the JPA and that is probably now that we actually start looking about completion of that.  We have actually produced an index of our agreements -- it's 41 pages long.  Full submission to the Department of Commerce is 1,900 pages long -- of all the -- everything related to the various action under that JPA.
 We think concluding the JPA is the next step in transition and coordination of the DNS to the private sector, which is the stated policy of the U.S. government.  
 There will be a session immediately after this forum. We'll talk about this in more detail and also talk and share with you what we're hearing in our consultations.  
 We've been doing extensive consultations as part of this partnership with the community here and with others, and we are here to hear more of your perception, part of what we want to do coming this week and through Friday, this is what we're hearing from the community, what things are sort of coming forward.
 This afternoon is very important on that topic, and look for more feedback throughout the week.  
 I should point out, there is a public consultation notice inquiry from the U.S. Department of Commerce which concludes on the 15th of February, which is this Friday.  And you can find ways of accessing that in various ways on that Web site.
 Very importantly, part of the whole work under the Joint Project Agreement after our whole discussion in September of 2006 was as the community said, we really want to have better clarity about, understanding about the transparency issues in ICANN and accountability in ICANN.  And the ICANN board and staff and community are going to take a 13-month consultation process, quite extensive consultation process, and on issues relating to accountability and transparency.  
 Sitting on the seats in front of you is a 38-page summation of ICANN's Accountability and Transparency Framework.  Please pick it up ... now.  If you've got one near you, open it up.  Because there's no point in all of us having done this work if we don't pay attention to what we've actually said.  
 There's several key parts, I think, in this document that's worth pointing out.  You will see in the front of the document that one of the interesting aspects about ICANN is that it has basically got to balance three forms of accountability.  It has to balance accountability, if you're an organization of public trust, operating a public trust function for coordinating a global technical function.  
 Secondly, it has a series of quite strict, quite open legal accountabilities that have had to undertake.  And third is a series of accountabilities that is built for itself about accountabilities as participatory organization and how your accountability is to the participatory community.  Those are a concern with each other.  They actually clash with each other.  
 To give you the -- sort of one example, the legal obligation of care or duty of loyalty for a board member, for instance, which is a requirement under the law may conflict with general sense that you should have full disclosure of all information in every possible circumstance, which, for instance, you may want to have under one of the provisions of the accountability for a participatory organization and at various stages to set off balances behind that.  
 So the document in front of you summarizes all of the information the community has had put into this, summarizes those three basic forms of accountability and how they operate.  
 I particularly want to thank the Canadian government and the GAC, who gave us a lot of advice in their last meeting about the sort of frameworks around thinking about this.
 There are some new things that quite clearly in that -- you'll see that the translation policy looks at that specifically in reference to languages.  Translation.  Specifically material in here, in that document, about behavior.  I'd like everybody to read that as well, because that's come through as also what standards of behavior do we owe each other as we operate in a multi-ethnic and multistakeholder international organization.  I think that's a very important document.
 There were two other issues, two other areas that arose in the consultation that did not develop consensus but which the board did think was sufficiently interesting and worthy of really further examination for the board to propose, that they be transmitted to the board review which we'll be undertaking this year. 
 They are caught in a document called the next steps document.  I'm not certain it's been distributed to you.  But those two areas were specifically related to a mechanism for the community to be able to ask the board to reconsider a decision, not on any other basis, just "We want you to reconsider that decision you have made."  And also potentially the mechanism whereby, in extreme circumstances of unethical behavior, for instance, that the board -- that the community could move to spell the board and reconstitute it. 
 But nevertheless, the next step is saying sufficiently interesting propositions should be reviewed in the context of the board review.  That's why I want to draw your attention to those pieces of work.
 I think we've talked about this public accountability.  One other thing in terms of public accountability which we have launched recently and I'll draw your attention to is the dashboard.  It's also, again, a link on the front page.  And that dashboard gives you realtime information on a number of areas of the moment, focuses a lot both on finance, but also on IANA performance.  But you can go at any one time, click on the dashboard, and see the same management data that I receive on a daily basis.  And on some aspects of what we do we look to expand that over time as we look to get other areas as we sort of expand our dashboard functionality.  
 Again, this is another way we want to make completely transparent to the community about operational performance inside the organization.
 The legal and corporate accountability I've talked a bit about.  I also talked about accountability to the community.  As I said, I really would like you to look at that document on your seats, take it away with you, live that document, because it's very important in the way in which we work as a community.
 There are many initiatives around transparency, Web site improvements and communications, and I just have a long list of them there.  But, again, I would remind people about that.  
 One of the things I think that we're finding increasingly popular, I would exhort people to take advantage of, is signing up for the electronic newsletters, the electronic magazine and electronic alerts.  
 Kieren, you might want to tell people how to do that, if you would.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   I was bringing up the next steps document there.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   There's the next steps document, yes.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Linked on the front page.  It's actually very easy.  I do wish people would sign up to these news alerts and these monthly magazines.  The news alerts -- effectively, every time there is an announcement which covers almost all ICANN's work, we put out a news alert which you can click through.  That's so you can find out exactly what's going on.  The monthly magazine is something that I produce once a month which informs you about what ICANN is doing as an organization.  We cover three policy parts each time, and then we cover what's been going on on the blog.  And the public participation page covers what's being discussed in the board meeting, what will happen in the next board meeting.  We do an interview with one of the main figures in the community.  So they get to talk about pretty much what they want.  So, pretty much, it's an idea that is what has happened to ICANN that month.  To get to it, you go to what is -- on the front page, it says, "subscribe," "news," and "news alerts."  There's one page, and you type in your e-mail address, you're subscribed.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   I'd ask you to look at that front page of the ICANN Web site.  There's several buttons where you can click on and subscribe to things, but, specifically, there's alerts.  I think they're very valuable, because we're conscious -- you may be aware of this.  The ICANN Web site has as much information as an average television Web site in the United States.  There's a huge amount of information on that Web site that has been developed by our community over the last ten years.  While we can go to certain degrees of making it simpler and easier to access, what have you, the realities are, even you have other things to do in your life than spend every day looking at the ICANN Web site. 
 So the alert process and the magazine process is a way to try to give you a heads up when something comes through that might be of interest to you in particular.
 So again, as well as trying to do a lot of work on transparency on the Web site and communications, we are also trying to do a lot more to be get you to be able to sort of pull the information you need.
 Regional fellowship program has been a program put in in this year's budget, in a trial stage.
 It provides financial grants to individuals from developing economies to help them participate in our meetings.
 Let me remind you what the priorities are.  They are low, middle income and upper income economies.  Governments, ccTLDs and nonprofit sector not associated with ALAC to participate, and the reap for that is ALAC has its own funding.  Participants from meeting region, participants from adjacent regions and then overseas participants.  That he the priority, sort of geographic priorities.
 There have been 256 applications submitted since the program started this financial year.  
 There are 89 received for this Delhi meeting.  There were 20 fellowships awarded for this meeting:  Ten from Asia-Pacific, four from West Asia/Arabic countries and three from African countries.  And 11 are attending an ICANN meeting for the first time.
 So we are monitoring this program very closely.  We are monitoring the performance of the evaluation process very closely but I have to say at the moment it is looking like it is proving to be quite successful.
 Global outreach continues.  And I will just report to you there has been a series of nonbinding partnership relationships with private intergovernmental organizations to aid in outreach to governments and local Internet communities.  In particular, these are memoradums of understanding which basically say we shall work together towards common objectives.  They are not binding things that make us do anything in relation to those organizations.  They don't make us members of those organizations.  But the Pacific Islands Telecommunications Authority, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission of West Asia, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, the African Telecommunications Organization, and CITEL, the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission of the Organization of American States.  And we are proceeding with two Memorandums of Understanding, I think this has already been approved, with the Institute of Information Security Issues at the Moscow State University and the Russian Association of Networks and Services.
 So this is part of our program of building linkages with other organizations where we have aligned interests.  It is not us moving beyond scope.  We are very careful not to go outside the scope of this organization or its mandate, but there are ways in which we can cooperate with other people because we are firm believers that we should not be duplicating functions done by others but one plus one can equal three, and that's the rationale.
 IANA operations continue to move quite smoothly.  You can get more detail on the IANA operations on the dashboard.  So if you want more accurate, more up-to-date data -- this is up-to-date data, but if you want to keep record of this at the time the dashboard gives access to this, and you will see the yellow line here is the outstanding root zone change requests.  The purple one I think is closed and the black one means open.  The trouble with these charts is I am colorblind so I have to try to guess what these colors are.
 But you see there's a sort of a steady state here.
 We are getting -- we got quite a peak in the middle of the year of applications.  And to give you an example what can cause a peak here, if we receive a request from someone who wishes to shift a particular secondary server, and they want to shift from that secondary server to this secondary server but there are ten country codes presently sitting on this server, that's ten sort of requests that we have received and we have to go out to each ten CCs and make sure we agree with it before we make a shift from one server to another.  So sometimes you can get various reasons for the peaking here.  And that's a recording of the processing time.
 And the meantime for closing tickets has recently gone up.  One of the reasons that has gone up is a combination of really two things.  One is we have received a number of redelegation requests where we have asked those communities, "Do you have consensus in your community?"  That's tended to produce a very long process domestically, which has either then resulted in redelegation or resulted in people wanting to keep the present arrangement.  We keep the ticket open throughout that process.  Then at some stage, we have to close it.  So I can tell you that's one of the reasons the average meantime has gone up.  The second reason is a little bit like I said before about certain requests we get for secondary servers where we have got to go out and approach every CC to make certain that they wish to be involved.
 In other words, some of the requests we are getting are more complex than some of the requests we have had in the past.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Paul, five minutes.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Five minutes.  We are finishing now.
 The last two things to talk about are the F-root server agreement.  This is a very important initiative.  My thanks specifically go to Suzanne Woolf who has played a major role in this and to other members of the RSSAC community.  This is a mutual responsibilities agreement between ICANN and ISC, the Internet Systems Consortium, that operates the F-root server signed in January 2008, and it aligns with several of our responsibilities.
 The root server system overall has 13 root server operators -- has 12 operators and 13 root servers.  That's right.  And answers well over 100,000 queries per second.  You can find more information in the announcements page.  And I think Kieren is referring to it on the Web site.
 V6 completion and v6 implementation, just remind people there are two memoradums of understanding between the Number Resource Organization and the Address Supporting Organization and ICANN relating to global Internet number resource policies for the remaining IPv4 address space.  And that was agreed in November 2007.
 And the same thing for autonomous number systems, and you can find references to those on the Web site.  And I think as was already said by the chairman in the opening session this morning, this issue of education around the uptake of IPv6 is a high priority for ICANN.
 So, Chairman, I will complete the submission there.  There's a lot of material underway.  And just to make the final point, it's all available on the Web site.  We want you to participate as much as possible.
 Thank you.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Paul.
 [ Applause ]
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I need a microphone.  Oh, I have a microphone.  Thanks.
 This is a public forum, and this is accountability in action.
 This is ICANN in the presence of the person of the CEO presenting himself on behalf of the corporation.  This is your opportunity to ask questions, so please do.
 When you do ask questions, for those of you who are new and a reminder for those of you who are not so new, can you come forward to a microphone and just briefly state your name and your affiliation, and then speak slowly.  Not all of you have wonderfully clear New Zealand accents like I have and the scribes, who struggle with mine, will do a better job and your comments will be better recorded if you can just keep the pace down.
 So the floor is open.  Questions of the CEO on his report.
 Can I just mention that we are having a specific session on the JPA, the Joint Project agreement, the very next item.  So don't ask questions about that.  You will get another opportunity as the public forum continues on that topic.
 Sebastien.
 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   Thank you very much.  I would like to say my first point is, everybody told you you have translation between English and the other language.  But I want just to show you that it's not true.  You have interpretation in the other way around.  Then everybody needs to take head phone if you don't understand Chinese, French, Spanish and English.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I'm not sure there's a question there, Sebastien.  Is there a question there?
 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   I would like to speak.
 I would like to thank you for all the work that has been done.  Kieren has shown us that it is extremely important and useful.  And I think that we have a lot of trouble with this mass of information to understand what are the themes which are the most important for us to work on.  And I think in this respect it would be interesting who see how each of us can work on each subject, which of us -- how can each constituency work on a particular subject which is of particular interest to them, how we can do some useful work for the community.
 And I would also like to thank Paul, who has, in a few minutes, shown us -- given us a very detailed overview.  And I think that -- hope that we will be able to work efficiently in all the areas that he has highlighted.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Can I respond to you, Sebastien, about your original point.  I think it's a very good one.  And for the next meeting we should do two things.  We should assure that ear pieces are distributed, headphones, although the translation does work quite well for those of who speak English.
 I think the other thing we need to put in planning, Kieren, when we do that we have a table up or something that is which channel, which language because that often causes confusion in these sorts of meetings.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Merci, Sebastien.  Is there further question on that range of activities that the company is reporting on?  
 Paul, can I ask you to elaborate slightly on the point made about the fast track process?  I think just draw out the fact that the process itself is being investigated.  There is no actual decision yet as to whether we can do that because it may take us out too far in front of ourselves.  
 And your use of the word "concession."  Let's develop those themes a little.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Right.  I have to say, I developed the word "concession" in less than a quarter of a second, so if it was the wrong word, I'll....
 The key point is this.  There needs to be a policy developed through for -- particularly as the ccNSO, and I think the GAC have indicated, a policy developed through for a long-term solution for IDN ccTLDs.  Because there are a set of complex questions that do need to be addressed.  And there is -- obviously the preferred outcome is to have, just as we presently have with the two-letter codes, having some independent objective group that ICANN and IANA can refer to who say this is a string that relates to a territory for IDNs.
 While we have it for the two-letter code through the ISO 3166 part 1 list, we do not have it for other scripts and languages.  So that piece of work needs to be done.  And when that is done, obviously that does not prohibit full expansion availability for countries and territories to access.
 But there is clearly a demand, we heard it this morning from secretary Singh, and we hear it from other parts of the world, there is clearly demand in parts of the world to have this piece of work done now because they have particular needs.
 Now, we should make the point, of course, that internationalized domain names, we are only talking about the script that appears to the right of the dot.  And that there is no limitation now for people to do internationalized domain names in the part of the URL to the left of the dot.  Of the domain name left of the dot.  That set of guidelines was established in 2003.
 The -- and probably more importantly, there is no limitations on the use of multiple scripts in content.  And what really drives usage is not domain names.  It's content.
 Actually, the secretary could have referred to an Indian program which is underway to help promote Indian language content online.
 So I think we should first of all make that point that IDNs is not a limitation on multilingual Internet.
 But the fast track process is actually -- it's not the final stage.  It's sort of a concession to that demand that there will be full availability after the policy has been completed.
 Chairman, I wonder if I can make another observation after where we are lunchtime on Monday.  We have three different communities talking at the moment -- three different organizations in ICANN this week talking about this issue.  And I have directly or indirectly read -- heard words being used for what people are trying to describe their positions.
 Can I exhort all members of the community to do the following, please.  Can I exhort you to please ask the other what did they mean by the words.  Okay?  Because I'm reading words that I can already see that somebody else is going to read them and interpret them in a certain way and it may cause "what do you mean by that" hostility.
 I really would exhort all members of these communities to ask the others what did you really mean by this.
 And I'm now talking purely personally, Chairman.  But to give an example, clearly in the GNSO there is a concern that this process not create de facto IDN gTLDs.
 I don't necessarily hear, when I listen to my colleagues from the ccNSO or the GAC, that they have any intention that's what should be created.
 So, you know, intents versus what people are writing I think is a very important thing at the moment, and I really hope people this week keep talking to each other about exactly what it is you intended.  Because while people are producing position papers, I think there will be a risk that if you just look at the paper and read it you might think how dare they say this or how dare they use this word or that word because that's what we human beings do.  I am repeating again, please talk to each other to find out what the intent was in that process.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Any further questions from the floor?  We are coming to the close of this part of the forum, so this is your last opportunity with the CEO in this mode with his report in front of you, to ask questions.
 There will be opportunities during the rest of the week, of course.
 No?  If not, thank you, Paul.  Excellent report.
 I think we can move now to the next part of the public form which is going to be a discussion on the Joint Project Agreement and steps taken to review it and life beyond.
 Paul Levins, is there a set of slides ready to go on that?
 >>PAUL LEVINS:   Chairman, if you just bear with me, I think they are being loaded.  It won't be long.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you very much.
 What we are going to do is take you through the slides which are intended to be scene setting and explanatory and factual.  And we would then want to ask you what do you think we should do next.  What do you think of what's going on?  Do you understand?  What are your conclusions and suggestions?
 Apologies for the delay.  We are just having trouble connecting the correct laptop.
 Feel free to take the time to read carefully the accountability frameworks.  There are only a couple dozen pages.  There will be a quiz as you leave and you won't be allowed to leave the room unless you get at least 80% of the quiz correct.
 I see a laptop approaching.
 There we go.
 Can I have this one live?  Can I have some sound here or more sound here?  That's lovely.
 Joint Project Agreement midterm review.  Let's go through what we are going to do.  A little bit of a background and introduction to this issue.
 Things that have been achieved under the Memorandum of Understanding that he preceded the current Joint Project Agreement.  Some more recent achievements under the Joint Project Agreement.  Issues about performance reporting.  Another reference to the accountability and transparency frameworks that you are now sitting on.  The position that the board has reached in terms of the history and where we are today, a discussion about decisions, and then a summary.  So let's begin.
 Right back in 1998, a Memorandum of Understanding, so the acronym for that is MOU, was signed between the U.S. government and ICANN.  Now, this was based on the white paper which led to the development of ICANN itself.  Those of you with really long memories will remember that there was no system of Internet governance.  Certainly nothing that was global and transparent and bottom-up.
 But the Internet community knew this was required, and there were some, in the end, abortive attempts to create a governance structure.  The U.S. government wanted this to be done better and also wanted to relinquish some of the roles it had played, and issued, after the green paper, a white paper which then the Internet community debated at meetings around the world, and in the end largely agreed with the conclusions of the white paper.  And the white paper said we need a global body to coordinate the Internet.  It should be geo-diverse.  People from all over the world should be involved.  It should operate by bottom-up and transparent processes.  It should introduce competition into the domain name space.  It should be private-sector led, and it should be largely government-free, but there should be a role for governments and specialist advisors, and the first ones of those to come on board were the WIPO, because of the problems at the time with cyber squatting, and the ITU.  So the community came together and said yes, we need this body and formed ICANN as a result, and in 1998 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Department of Commerce and ICANN.  And the memorandum said if you do these things, if you become a bottom-up transparent process, geodiverse, industry-led, private sector organization -- in other words, if you live up to the mission set out in the white paper, then we will effect the transition of control of those parts which the U.S. government was responsible for.  Because of its historic development and funding role, we will create this transition.
 So that's where we came from.  Where are we now?  We say that after seven reiterations and re-signings of extensions to the Memorandum of Understanding, under which ICANN filed 13 different report cards of its progress against those requirements set out on the memoranda, and a Joint Project Agreement later, we say -- and we have changed that from a shopping list of things that needed to be done to a much more ICANN-directed, ICANN-adopted set of affirmative responsibilities which the board came up with and the board signed.
 So rather than living up to a set of instructions created by the white paper and monitored by compliance with the MOU, the Joint Project Agreement now sets out things that the board says it will do to meet the requirements.
 Well, what are some of those things that have been achieved under the original Memorandum of Understanding and its extensions?
 Well, we have introduced competition in relation to domain name registration services.  Particularly for new top-level domains.  How many people remember that it used to cost $50 U.S. for a dot com domain name?  The price is now somewhat different.  The number of them that you can choose from are somewhat different.
 A very early step that ICANN took, partly mandated by the pressure at the time of cyber squatting, was to implement a uniform domain name dispute resolution policy.  This is the compulsory arbitration process that generic top-level domain registrants sign up to which has substantially resolved the issues of cyber squatting and intellectual property disputes that were rampant at the time.
 Another obligation that was required of this new body was to go and form formal relationships with an existing set of institutions.  The bodies that were allocating Internet addresses.  There were at the time three.  There are now five.
 And ICANN has done that.  There is now a formal structure in place in which the address bodies, acting through their NRO, contracted to provide a structure within ICANN.
 The Address Supporting Organization.  So that's been done.
 Another very difficult problem was to come to formal relationships with those country code managers.  And I see some of them in the room, and they will recall the years of disagreement about what that meant.  But -- And partly that was because of the wide range of the nature of the ccTLDs themselves, and the responsibilities that they exercised.  Partly it was due, I think, to a misunderstanding about the role that the country code managers played in relation to policy-making.
 But in the end, long negotiations, lots of meeting of minds, and as a result we now have a country code support organization in which a large number of country code managers are members.  And at the time the slide was created, 60% of ccTLD registrants now belong to -- they are either a ccTLD that's either a member of the ccNSO or they have signed one of those framework agreements that Paul reported 12 more of.
 What else has been achieved?  Well, at the time we started there really was only one gTLD registry.  We had a registries constituency with one member.  It was also only really one registrar.
 There is now a multiple system with multiple registries and now over 900 registrars.  And they form an important part of another structure which had to be started from scratch which is the generic name supporting organization.
 We developed a contingency plan.  We have established a community consultative processes for developing such things as our strategic plan, our operating plan and our budget.
 We have implemented the financial strategy that delivers predictable and sustainable sources of revenue.
 Some of you will remember that the corporation started on a credit card and a promise, and loans.  Those days are gone, and we are now, happy to say, in a stable financial position.
 What has happened since we changed from an MOU to the more mature joint project arrangement.  Well, as Paul reported, just documenting that has taken 1900 pages.
 More recently, a significant achievement, another one of the groups that ICANN has to establish and -- work relation with are the root servers.  We are now signed our first agreement with the root server and we are hopeful this will encourage the signing of more.
 And while we have been institution building, we have also been developing our core principles and practices, key ones of which are our accountability.  That's to whom are we responsible and how do people check what we are doing and what do they do if they have a question about that.
 That's the accountability side.  And then the transparency side.  For us to be accountable, for you to ask the questions that you need to ask, you need to know what's going on.  Our processes and our information have to be transparent.  
 What have we done in those areas?  Well, there's the composition itself of the board.  21 members coming from a large number of countries.
 The planning process is done in public and with the community.  We prepare draft of strategic plans after consultation with the components, and then we feed that back, and it is a reiterative process.
 Deriving from that consultative document is a further consultative document, our operating plan; and from that, our budget.  And you will hear later in the week that we are advancing the preparation cycle for the budget, so you will now be getting drafts much earlier of the budget coming out almost simultaneously with the operating plan instead of with a time lag.  Also, that you can see and understand and contribute better to the ICANN process.
 We also have built into the bylaws a constant review of the entities themselves within ICANN.  And I can tell you this is posing a considerable burden on staff and we will be looking at a change of the board committee structures and also a change in the staffing to help better meet this very important obligation.  That is to go into the GNSO or the ccNSO or the board itself every three years and say what is this organization, what does it contribute, how well is it working, do we need to change it to make it work better.  So there is this obligation of constant self-analysis, self-improvement.  We have our consultation principles by which we conduct our meetings, including what I am doing right now.  We have translation principles to make information available in as many languages as we can afford.  And we have expected standards of behavior from staff, officers, and the board.
 So what have we done in nine years?  13 status reports, each report detailing those and setting them out.  And as I have explained, over that time you and us, all of us, have built these institutions.  We have populated a GNSO, we have commitments from registrars to attend, to sit on councils, and from registries.  All the components have created in a bottom-up way these institutions that go together to form ICANN.
 So we are committed to transparency.  We are committed to disclosure.
 Correspondence that comes in is posted.  Correspondence that goes out is posted.  If you want to keep track of who is writing me letters as chairman and what my responses are, for example, or to the CEO, go in and have a look.  They are there.
 We've developed dispute resolution mechanisms as part of our accountability response.  What do you do if you have a problem with a decision or an action?  Well, there are a number of them.
 First of all, you can ask the board to reconsider a decision that it's made.  Or you can ask for independent review of a decision.  Or you can go to the ombudsman.  Now, I think I saw the ombudsman here.  Frank, are you --
 >>FRANK FOWLIE:   Over here.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   There is an almost unique institution in Internet governance, our own ombudsman, who is ready to receive your complains and work with them.  Frank has an office set up at each ICANN meeting.  If you have a problem, go and see him.
 Thank you, Frank.
 We take the obligation of accountability very seriously.  That itself gets reviewed, because there are suggestions that we may need to improve that.  And Paul mentioned the discussion that is taking place about how do you get rid of a board that has become difficult.  What is the accountability mechanism in relation to board members?  And the suggestion is that there ought to be a mechanism by which a board that the community has lost confidence in can be voted down.  And I encourage participation in that process.  That's something else we need to get right.
 Financial accountability.  Well, you get to approve all of the budget.  And, of course, we have what you'd expect by way of independent external and internal audits, some that we choose and, of course, those that we are required to have by operation of law.
 And then we have the kind of reporting that we have at meetings like this.
 Paul has shown you the dashboard.  I really recommend you go and have a look at this.  It's extraordinary.  There are very few corporations that you will be a part of that you can actually go in and look at data, the live running of the corporation.  As Paul said, this is the up-to-the-minute operational data being extracted and displayed that he, as the CEO, gets.  You can get the same data at the same time as the CEO of the corporation.
 There are other more mundane but important methods by which we are held accountable, and standards.  The fact is that we are registered as a nonprofit, public-benefit corporation based in California.  That itself carries a number of legal obligations.  We are required to comply with the law of the land, if only to maintain our current tax status.  So the U.S. is headquarters for the corporation.  And there is no intention to change that.  Let me just reiterate that.  I was late coming here because I was at a press conference, and some Indian journalists had heard that ICANN was moving to Switzerland.  I hope I squashed that sufficiently in that press conference.  Let me do the same here.  There is no plan to move headquarters anywhere, including Switzerland.
 And so we have requirements in our bylaws that we have to comply with.  We have obligations that arise out of the jurisdiction from being in the United States.  And we have the fiduciary duties that corporations owe by nature of corporate law.
 So the laws are California and U.S. federal.
 What have we done?  Well, we've prepared strategic and operating plans.  We have got a budget and plan process.  Most significantly, something that's met with considerable community approval is the much greater turnaround time for the board reporting.  We now get a summary of the discussion, who said what, out within 72 hours of a board meeting.  Those are not the formal minutes, but it's an indication to the community very quickly as to where the board -- what the board is thinking, they're surprisingly detailed.  There's a lot of information contained in them.  I recommend that you read them if you are interested in what the board is doing.
 We've appointed a general manager of public participation, the bylaws required it.  It took us a while.  But now we have what we believe is a very excellent one.  And you've seen him this morning in terms of Kieren and the performance and what is happening with developments on the blog, alerts, newsletters, and all the other means of encouraging public participation.
 A lot of time and effort has been spent reorganizing the Web site, which is now extremely better, much better in my view.  It's more navigable and a lot more features.  I mentioned correspondence.  And I'm not sure whether I can take it to maps.  No.
 Have a look at maps and see where staff and the board come from.  It's an interesting mix of a global corporation.  Great snapshot.
 Well, we covered the consultation principles.  We have public comment pages available on every issue.  We do an annual report, which is a substantial document.  We release magazines and inter-sessional newsletters.  And we've released our framework for accountability and transparency, which we are waiting for your comments this morning.
 Here are some of those transparency and accountability initiatives.
 The regular e-mail alerts, requiring people to keep checking on our Web site to find out what we've done was not acceptable.  Now you can subscribe to an alert system on your e-mail and when we do something in a certain area or in general, you will be told about it.  I've mentioned the improved site navigation.  There's now a community calendar.  All of the presentations that we give, including, for example, a speech that I gave to an I.T. conference on behalf of ICANN earlier in the week in Mumbai, all of these presentations are now available on virtual bookshelf.  There's a monthly magazine, we've got Web trends, we've got inter-sessional newsletters, the public participation site, and all the other things mentioned on the slide.
 We subjected ourselves to an analysis by independent outside experts of high standing, and here is some extracts from their conclusions, which were in the main, very favorable.  ICANN, they said, is in many ways a very transparent organization.  It discloses a large quantity of information, probably more than any other global organization.
 So coming now to the sort of questions and discussions that we want to have with you this morning.  We believe, as a board, supported by the staff, that the Joint Program Agreement should be concluded when it reaches its term, and that we should be now talking about transition and a final transition discussion should start.
 In other words, we are suggesting that we no longer need a memorandum that says ICANN needs to continue performing in the things that we're already doing.
 We certainly don't need a set of instructions to go and form relationships, as we had to in the beginning.  We don't need a list of contracts that we need to enter.  In other words, all the institution-building and relationship-building, we suspect, has been completed.  And we are left now with the affirmations that the board has given that it will continue to operate in a safe, stable, mature, responsible, accountable way in relation to each of those particular performances.  In other words, it must come from ICANN, the declaration of responsibility, and the accountability should be to you, the global Internet community, including governments, including all stakeholders, not to any one particular entity.
 So we say that we are meeting our responsibilities.  We say we need a next step now to transition.  And knowing that this is coming, we are in midterm review.  The end is 18 months away.  We think now is the appropriate time to start talking about post-JPA life.
 I'm not talking about stopping it now.  It's the review that's midterm.  It should conclude in September 2009.  We say we don't think there needs to be another one.  We think it served its purpose.  It has been responsible, in the main, for creating the ICANN -- defining the ICANN that we've all created.
 So we think we should spend the remainder of our term defining transition.  Where should we go?  What structures do we need?  What improvements should we make between now and then to ensure that if there is no JPA or MOU, that the community feels secure in the performance against all these measures.
 All right.  These are the questions that we really want to discuss with you today.  What should ICANN look like?  Well, there's a number of options.  One is that the IANA contract could stay the same.  Now, the IANA contract is different from the JPA.  That's the arrangement that ICANN has to manage the IANA databases.
 The U.S. government would continue to participate in the Governmental Advisory Committee.  There's no suggestion that there should be changes to any of the fundamental contracts that have been created.  So registries, registrars, et cetera, stays the same.
 And annual reporting should stay the same.
 The same budget process, strategic plan process, operating plan process would continue.
 But some may want more mechanisms to make sure that there's guarantees that the model that we have remains government or other-entity dominated.  Most of us believe that the future lies in an arrangement in which no one entity has a dominance or position of control.  We include in that individuals.  We don't think one individual should be in a position to exert greater influence.  We don't think any particular company, corporation, or state should do that.  For the good of the Internet, the obligation should be to the entire Internet community as a whole. 
 So we need that discussion with you to work out what post-JPA life would be like.  Are there additional safeguards that we need to build?  Are there additional structures that we might need to create?  Are there further relationships that we may need?
 And, in addition to new things, are there something -- are there things in the current arrangements and structures that we might need to look at?
 So we say, in summary, the MOUs and the JPA have been extraordinarily helpful in molding and defining the kind of ICANN that the community wanted.  We say we've executed under the terms.  We're meeting the responsibilities of the JPA.  It's no longer necessary, but what should we replace it with?
 Here's a quote from the government official with whom we had a number of negotiations in relation to the last MOU and the new JPA, John Kneuer, who at the end was assistant secretary of the Department of Commerce.
 He said, "As I said, the important measurements are the ten criteria that were adopted by the board resolution.  Those were commitments that ICANN made to its board, and the board will ultimately be the judge of whether or not ICANN is meeting those responsibilities."
 Finally, "It will assist in delivering on the white paper's original ideal" --  This is me now.
 I said in the submission to the JPA that, "If we take this step, it will assist in delivering on the white paper's original ideal that no single government should manage or be perceived to manage this function, but that a private organization where all the stakeholder representatives should.
 So thank you for that.  What I'd like to do now is have a discussion about any of the issues that have been raised, answer any questions, and then see if we can't get your ideas as to where we go from here and what steps, including institutional steps, contractual steps, legal steps, social, or anything else that we may need to do to ensure that this transition is a success.
 Paul, before we go, do you want to add anything to that?
 [ Applause ]
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   No?  Thank you.
 If I could have a microphone.
 I think we can do this quite informally.  This is supposed to be public forum and participatory.  I might wander around and pick on somebody if I don't get a volunteer.  Excellent, a volunteer.
 Could you follow the usual practice of just saying who you are and your affiliation.
 >> MOHAMMED SLAOUI:  Mohammed Slaoui, Embassy of Morocco in New Delhi.  
 I would like to know how many countries or states or governments are part of ICANN so far.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   How many countries or states are part of ICANN?
 You've got an exact answer?  I can give a --
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   I think it's about 120 countries have joined the GAC.  They don't all participate at the same time.  And some just participate online.  But I think it's roughly about 120 governments, and I think it's five or six intergovernmental organizations.  I need to check that as well.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks.
 The reason why we can't give an act answer is, we don't actually keep a register.  And we have a different attendance at each meeting.  When we have a meeting here in Asia, we get a lot of participants from the Asia-Pacific region, but we don't see so many from Latin America.  But when we go to North America, we see others.
 >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN:   I'm Steve Goldstein from the board of directors of ICANN.  And I just wanted to point out that, legally speaking, ICANN is not a membership organization.  So what you just heard was the participation in the Government Advisory Committee.  And then there are participants in a lot of our other organizations and advisory councils and supporting organizations and so forth.  But, legally speaking, it's not a membership organization.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Steve.  Mike.
 >>MICHAEL PALAGE:   Thank you, Peter.  Hello.
 The first thing I'd like to comment on is, on a positive note, the increased accountability with regard to the board minutes.  When we both served on the board, that was something that you and I championed.  And, again, I think that is a definite positive step in the right direction.
 The only one caveat, if I could, is, in a lot of the communications, you have been saying 72 hours, it's three business days.  For example, your most recent board meeting was on a Wednesday, and they didn't appear until Monday.  So it's three business days, not 72 hours.  It's nitpicking, but, again --
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I expect nothing less from you.
 >>MICHAEL PALAGE:   The -- one of the other things, on a positive note, I think ICANN has been entering into a number of MOUs with other organizations, which I think are important towards its legitimacy in more, if you will, recognition on a global basis.
 The one thing that, though, I have not been able to find have been these MOUs on the ICANN Web site.  So one of the positive things -- and I just discussed this with Paul Levins, and he said he would look into getting these posted -- the original MOU with UNESCO and then the two recent MOU that is the board approved at its last meeting.
 So if they could be on there, I don't think I've seen them on the Web site, or if they are, I've somehow missed them.  And that is a possibility.
 I guess --
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Can I respond to that.  There's absolutely no intention to hide them anywhere.  They're available.  If we can make them more visible, we will.  Thank you for indicating that perhaps they're a bit obscure.  But they're there.
 >>MICHAEL PALAGE:   This is more -- I don't want to appear as being nitpicking, but constructive comments, since nobody else was coming up to the mike.  You know how I like to talk.
 The one point -- and I had raised this with Paul -- when you had met in Washington a few weeks ago, and had you referenced it as well, is the IANA contract.
 I think, at least my opinion is, most of the global community really don't focus on the JPA.  It's more the IANA contract, the ability to make changes to the root A server as well as I.P. blocks.
 Now, my question, I guess, to, if you will, the ICANN staff and board is, the GAO, back in 2000, had issued a report in connection with the authoritative root server.  And it basically reads, it is unclear whether the department has the authority to transfer control of the authoritative root server to ICANN.
 So my question is, since 2000, has the U.S. government had a change of opinion or any more clarity on that issue?  Because I do think that that's something that is very important in, if you will, ICANN's legitimacy.
 So that's --
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   It's an excellent question, Mike.
 One of the things I was going to do a bit later on in this session was give us some sense of the summary of what we have been hearing in the consultation processes we've been undertaking.
 Clearly one of the things that's emerged both, as you pointed out, in some of those Washington conversations in the people we spoke to in industry groupings and others, clearly one of the things that's come through in some of the written submissions so far from some of the CC operators has been that, to summarize it, now is the time for you in the Department of Commerce to start talking about the transition, final transition.  And part of that needs to be, you need to talk about the IANA process, the IANA contract.
 So some members of the community have been raising this, just like you have.
 In terms of the specific legals, the present operation is under a procurement contract.  The -- I think -- rather than giving a specific answer, I think you've actually put your finger on potentially why we need to have a period now for consultation on how the transition actually works.  Because these are the sort of things that will probably have to be explored.  If it does go down this pathway, these are the sort of issues that will have to be explored.  It's one of the reasons why you'll see the board hasn't said when it talks about transition is not going to happen tomorrow.  There's no push by the board to say everything should just change tomorrow.  Because the sort of things you're raising -- if the -- the sort of feedback we're getting back from the community is that's the sort of steps -- what's the next stage, what's the final stage, then the sort of questions you're raising have to be addressed.
 >>MICHAEL PALAGE:   Exactly.  And I think you articulated that in Washington about President Kennedy with a ten-year mission of getting someone to the moon.
 And I think as has been reflected by some of the comments from the CC community, particularly Nominet's that was recently posted was very articulate on that point as well.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Mike.  
 I think I saw Tony, somebody down -- or, Kieren, is it you who wants to say something?
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Well, I'd like to say lots of things, but I won't.  
 In the chat rooms of this meeting, we've got Milton Mueller, who is accessing remotely.  I would encourage others to get in the chat room if they are accessing it remotely.
 He refers to his submission by the Internet Governance Project of the NTIA and says he has proposed five specific reforms.  One of them was to use the U.N.'s Internet Governance Forum as a new soft oversight mechanism that would provide a biennial review to ensure accountability of ICANN.  He wondered what you thought of that.  
 Also have a question here from Wolfgang Kleinwächter.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Well, I haven't actually read all of the submission that Milton refers to.  But what I do appreciate from some of the things that he said is support for the idea of transition away from the current arrangement.  He is a supporter of that.  And we agree.
 What I am not quite sure about is whether he -- his suggestion that we substitute a mechanism, there's some reporting to one government, to a system of reporting to, effectively, 180 governments.
 I'm not convinced at this stage that the U.N. is the appropriate body to exercise the kind of oversight that's required.
 One of the reasons for that is that one of the successes of ICANN has been the development of the multistakeholder model.  And the United Nations is obviously a governmental organization.  And we think the strength of ICANN and the success of ICANN has been building a largely industry-led, private sector, multistakeholder model in which governments have an advisory role.
 I wouldn't want to see any of that lost in a transition to handing over slight responsibility to all governments alone.  That's just my own thinking.  I don't know whether Paul wants to add to that.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   My only response is that the consultations we've had to date with a lot of industry associations, and also with, you know, as you've seen a lot of the feedback in -- has been Milton's suggestion is unique.  I've not heard that in any other consultation processes.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Tony, did you have your hand up.  I thought I saw you active.
 >> TONY HARRIS:  I just have a question on this.  Is the IGF an intergovernmental constituted body?  I think it is not.  So how could they oversee anything?
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I don't know.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   The second question on line.  And I'll be roving around.
 Wolfgang Kleinwächter asks about, with regard to the multistakeholder -- ICANN being a multistakeholder organization, one of the big questions in the early days, he says, was the at-large question.  You did not talk too much about it in your introduction.  What is the vision you have for the future of at-large?  How will the board move forward with the planned Paris users' summit?  And what will ICANN do to become more of a model of multistakeholder organization?
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Perhaps I can make a personal observation.
 Clearly the at-large process is one which has taken some time to establish and grow to some degree of maturity, institutionally.
 The -- all the regional at-large organizations are now formed and are playing their role in forming the At-Large Advisory Council.
 I think one of the great aspects of ICANN's constitutional structure is the provision that requires review of its supporting organizations every two years.
 And while that inevitably presents its own forms of internal discussion and controversy, it's a very important part of ensuring continuous evolution.  And that -- it's in continuous evolution accountable to the community.  I think that's a really key part of the process.
 The At-Large Advisory Committee process is going to go through one of those reviews this year.  So some of the aspects -- it's already been referred to, I think, in the NomCom, some of the NomCom review process, as well.  But I think in the At-Large Advisory Committee, it's going to have its own review process this year, where I think, again, there will be a chance for further evolution of what would be the responsibility of interlinking between the at-large and the board, at-large and other organizations.
 My apologies.  Every three years, the review.  I'm just a glutton for punishment.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   We know the importance of it.
 Question down here.
 >> AYESHA HASSAN:  Thank you.  Ayesha Hassan, from the International Chamber of Commerce.
 I just wanted to convey that ICC has contributed a set of views on the midterm review.  They should be on the NTIA Web site, and they certainly are on ICC's Web site at www.iccwbo.org.
 To highlight a couple of key points made in our contribution, the global business members of ICC have reiterated their support and the goal of an independent, stable, secure ICANN organization.
 To that end, they have also identified a few of the points that are most important to them.  The first and foremost being the commencement of an in-depth discussion on the transition towards the post JPA world and ICANN organization.
 They're also very interested in being a substantive contributor to those discussions.  And a key point in the discussions is a strengthened involvement for the broader business community, both geographically, as well as across sectors, in ensuring a strong business involvement in the organization in the long term.
 With that, I just wanted to also give the vice chair of our task force that has worked on this contribution and, in general, contributes to the ICANN work, David Appasamy, from Sippi Technologies, an opportunity to add to those comments.
 >> DAVID APPASAMY:  I just wanted to add that, first and foremost, I think a lot of work has been done in terms of, you know, transparency and governance, and what you have presented today is -- it really builds a lot of confidence.  And, you know, we've had this discussion before.  And I think a lot of ground has been covered.
 Going from here on to September 2009, I think it would be useful if you could evolve some sort of a time frame in terms of what kicks in where, and which will also help along the dialogue of transition.
 And in terms of interface on the Web site, a lot has been done.  There's a newsletter, all of that.
 It may be useful to have a blog where people can come and post comments and have a response from ICANN so it's absolutely transparent, everybody can see what's going on.  And there can be designated people who are involved with the process who may not be part of ICANN who also post what has been happening.
 I think -- and this is a discussion we've had before where, you know, we see ICANN being, like Wolfgang said, probably the precedence in terms of being a multistakeholder corporation.  And I think we need to constantly push the envelope.  And doing so at this stage will really help the transition happen.
 Thank you.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you both very much for that.
 Kieren.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Yeah.  With regard to that, can I just say, we have the ICANN blog.  We've put several -- in fact, I think the main story at the time is about the JPA.  So you can reply to comments to that.  And that is reviewed, if you have a look at it, by Paul Levins and myself.  Whenever there's a comment, we both see that.
 Also, with regard to expanding the authors, we have expanded it.  All ICANN staff are able to write on the blog.  Several board members are provided with -- if they want to, any of them want to, they can have it.  Also, I think, Avri, the GNSO chair, wrote a piece.  I know Jacqueline, when she was ALAC chair, wrote a piece.  We are also opening it up to trying to get some French on there, to Stefan (saying name), who is sort of well known in the community, and he writes occasional piece in French as well.
 So we are opening it up.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Kieren.  There's -- speaking of French, there's another question in the back.
 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Bonjour.
 >>PAUL LEVINS:   Testing.
 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   Thank you.  Sebastien Bachollet, representative of the European users.  My comments are personal.
 I would like to take up the question that was asked a little while ago to say that I'm really surprised that we are having a review of an organization that has not even been in existence for one year, because the ALAC has gone from this status of interim ALAC to a real organization after everybody was elected less than a year ago.
 So if it is every three years that a review needs to be done, let them work for three years before we have a review.
 And my second question is that I hope that the second part of the question of Wolfgang will be discussed in a more detailed manner with you the issue of the ILS summit.  Because I think it was -- been some time since the RALO was formed.  And I hope that in this constituency, we can all meet, and I hope that we can further this discussion so that we have a summit of the RALO and that we have it in Paris.
 Thank you.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   The answer to the timing of the review really is that it's not designed -- it's not a needs-based analysis.  We don't look at an organization and say are they ready for review.  There's a timetable prepared.  And when your time for review is up, you know, you get reviewed.
 That said, we don't have to have an overmechanical application of rules.  If there -- I'll have a look at that, Sebastien.  If there's any reason why that review should be delayed for any reason -- and if it's to allow an organization to get started, that's certainly a good potential reason.  I'm not sure what -- whether Paul might want to talk about the ILS Summit.  I'm not quite sure what the question there was.
 Do you want to repeat the question about the ILS Summit?
 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   I mainly repeat the second part of the question of Wolfgang, was, what about a possible summit of the ILSs in Paris.  It was just a repetition of what Wolfgang already asked.  And it was not answered.
 And I just wanted to hope that we will be able to discuss that.  That was my point.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Next.
 >> Good afternoon.  I'm (saying  name) from (saying name).  
 I have a question.  Can ICANN assert influence on the regional registrars, like Nominet and others, to have a uniform dispute resolution policy?  I'm referring to a case where Nominet has awarded myspace.co.uk to a company on certain issues or certain basis on which it would probably not have been done in the dot com case.  There's certainly a need for a more uniform policy about dispute resolution.
 Can anything like that be done by ICANN?
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Let's be clear.
 The decisions about matters like that are entirely within the power and control of the individual ccTLD.  And that's an area that ICANN does not have any ability, and that was one of the long-discussed issues about where responsibility for policy-making lay.
 Dispute resolution policy is entirely a national matter for an individual ccTLD.
 >> KIERNEN McCARTHY:  Peter, there's a neat confluence here.  Lesley Cowley would like to speak about the JPA.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   As long as it's about the JPA.  I don't want to get sidetracked into a UDRP dispute regarding a ccTLD.
 >>LESLEY COWLEY:   Neither would I.  But I think the whole UDRP is one area where there might be further developments based on practice --
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Can we get more sound in the back?  I can't really hear.
 Can you say that again.
 >>LESLEY COWLEY:  I was just going to say -- thank you.  My space is a particular example in the U.K. where our local policy is somewhat different from UDRP.  But I won't go into that in detail.  Happy to talk further with anyone interested.
 But I think -- I have two points on the JPA.  I thought the ICANN response was very thorough, and thank you.
 I think many people still feel there is more that can be done by ICANN, and I know you would agree with that.
 I don't think it was very clear in the response that you are also calling for discussions, which as you know was one of the main thrusts of the Nominet response.
 We have 18 months for those discussions, which sounds like a very long time.  But actually, those 18 months are a very short time for discussions on something where we will need to develop consensus and a clear way forward.
 And I really would like to encourage people to have a sense of urgency during that period because I suspect it will go very quickly.
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   I have another question here from the chat room.  Milton Mueller.  What exactly do you mean by concluding the JPA?  Does it mean the whole MOU JPA, including the additional amendments that transfer the contracts to the registries and the registrars to the D.O.C?  Or is it just the JPA addition?  What are you referring to when you say "conclude the JPA"?
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I think he is referring to a clause in one of the original MOUs which said if the D.O.C. was to terminate the agreement, then there would be a transfer.  We are not talking about terminating any of those old MOUs, because they expire as a result of time.
 So that's kind of a lawyer's answer.  I think there's a mistake as to the effect of those.  But the answer is yes, they will all terminate at the end of their natural life.
 I wonder why this side of the room is a bit quiet.  You have something better to do over here that you could be sharing with us.
 No?
 One of the mistakes in a session is to take silence as assent.  I wouldn't want to go away here thinking because you were quiet we could express total agreement from the New Delhi meeting, but there is a risk of that.
 Well, you have been warned.
 Paul.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Perhaps just to help fill the silence.  But maybe it's worth my giving some summation of the consultation processes you and I and Paul Levins and others have been doing outside this full meeting.
 Those have basically been of two types, one of which has been a lot of conversations with industry associations, international industry associations, particularly also industry associations in Washington or in the United States.  And we have also been having quite a lot of consultation with CC -- a lot of CC operators, and the regional liaisons have had a lot of people -- civil society, CC operators, and some governments -- approach them, asking them for more information about this and looking for responses.
 If I was to try to summarize some of the things that I, at least, have heard out of that process -- and I should, first of all, make a point, perhaps on behalf of Ayesha for the ICC.  My understanding of the ICC, international Chamber of Commerce's submission is it's not just a product of hers or David's committee but this is actually something, my understanding, Ayesha, that it's gone through your international process; is that right?  Which means each one of your chambers actually has to agree to that position.  Have I got -- sorry, perhaps we can get you the mike.  Because I think this is very important to understand the range of consultation that the ICC took.
 >>AYESHA HASSAN:   Thanks, Paul.  The ICC's consensus building process requires us to build the positions in the task force, have our commission members and national committees, which is about 300 member companies and associations plus national committees in 130 countries, review and comment the final product.
 Thanks.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Thanks for that because I don't think the ICC process is necessarily well understood outside, by non-business people.  That's a very extensive process and we appreciate the time which you and others help take that forward.
 I think what we have heard from the business community is generally what we have heard is a combination of the ICC position which says, yes, it's probably a good time.  You have done a good job, it's time to move forward, talking about the transition.
 Interestingly, I think some of the American associations sort of went "what?  What do you mean?"  And when you actually had a conversation with them about it, what was interesting is some of the American associations were imbuing to the JPA, or imbued to the JPA, a series of things which, if you read the document, were not in the document.  Most importantly, wanting to see a guarantee of private sector leadership in the process.
 So as we spoke to them several times in December and recently, people have said, and you see it a little bit in some of the submissions coming in, if you are going to talk about transition, it might be okay now to talk about transition but we want to know -- we want to see something about a guarantee of -- around private sector leadership.
 Others have said, well, we want to see a guarantee that no particular group can take control.
 So business is clearly concerned that they don't want to see government or intergovernmental organizations sort of taking over the operations of ICANN.  That's pretty clear.
 What's also been interesting, though, is others have said we don't want to see business or particular businesses or cartels or groups of businesses taking over ICANN either.
 And so this sort of ensuring that there is the balance of the stakeholders has become pretty important.
 Interesting, also, in some of the submissions that people have talked about more needs to be done on accountability.  And that's not been a majority of submissions but some of them there, when you actually read them carefully I would say that most of those things about accountability are not the sort of accountabilities that we just talked about.  You know, the board and what have you accountabilities.  They are actually guarantees.
 It's as you move to this transition, if you are looking for a 20 year or 30 year solution, we want to ensure that there are certain things in that 20 year or 30 year period or long term that are guarantees that things won't happen.  One has clearly been security and stability.  People say we want to make sure it's secure and stable.
 As we have talked to some government agencies in the United States, that's been really clear one of their main objectives, and we want to make certain it's secure and stable.
 Another one has been we want to ensure either private sector leadership or it's not captured by somebody.
 We want to ensure it remains multi-stakeholder.
 So there have been some of the things we have heard.
 We have heard quite a number of the CCs and people in Washington say if you want to talk about transition, you have to put the IANA question in the mix.  It's not just a question of the JPA.  It's also the IANA question of what actually happens in the IANA process.
 So that's to give you some flavor of what myself, I think Peter and a few others have heard so far in the processes we followed.
 It's obviously not yet complete, but that's just a summation.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Paul.  
 Just to pick up on two points. Think about two or three things Paul said.  We want a 20 to 30 year, if we can.  We are not trying to do something for two years or three years.  We want to want to try as much as one can and build something that's going to last. 
 And the other thing is guarantees.  What kind of guarantees would you want in relation to the kind of ICANN we are trying to create?
 Marilyn.
 >>MARILYN CADE:   Thanks, Peter.  I appreciate having Paul's summarization of the outreach that the senior staff have been doing in a number of meetings.  But I actually think that something that was said earlier is still the most important thing that has to happen.  And that is actually listening more to the broad community and not summarizing too soon.
 So I really appreciate the idea that you have organized the session today.  And I think some of the questions you are asking are the questions that hopefully we'll all have a chance to talk to each other about.
 I actually come from the business community and I have been in a number of those meetings, and I might have summarized just a little bit differently.
 I don't actually think business is asking for assurances.  I think that business is raising very legitimate concerns and expecting that all other stakeholders will have those very same kinds of questions, perhaps with their own frame to it.
 But when we work together -- and I use the term "we."  When we work together to create ICANN, because ICANN is not the board and ICANN is not the staff but ICANN is this community as it was then and as it evolves.  We did have a unique mission.  We also, however, have geo-political realities to deal with.
 And I think we have to talk about those geopolitical realities as we talk about what ICANN is going to look like in this next phase, and then for the very long term.
 So I agree with Leslie about the idea that we actually have a very short period of time.  And I also agree that we have a huge amount of work for the organization to do in its day job.  And maybe I might ask where, you know, we're benefiting, I think from, from the comments that are being submitted to the NOI, and we are hearing through that process some feedback.
 But I might ask Paul and Peter, as the co-chairs, I think, of the President's Strategy Committee to talk about how our conversation, among ourselves, can be enhanced and moved forward.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Marilyn, before I answer that, do you want to just take a second -- you mentioned the questions -- Marilyn, you mentioned the questions that you are asking, and you think other people should be asking the same questions.  Do you want to give us a highlight of what are those questions?  Let's get those out and see if we can start working on answers.
 >>MARILYN CADE:   Sure.  I think many people know because I have said this at the microphone before, I was very heavily involved with industry broadly and NGOs prior to the creation of ICANN in the dialogue, very broadly, not just domestically in the United States but globally, on what kind of body the community thought was suitable.
 And we made a number of decisions that I consider principles that underpin this organization, that this should be a technologically oriented and an organization with a narrow technological mission.  That it should stay within that mission.  It should be bottom-up consensus based.  It should not attempt to take over the work of the very organs that actually run the Internet and actually deliver the functions like the RIRs and the ccTLDs, et cetera, et cetera.  That it's a relatively thin organization in the sense that it's coordinating as opposed to operationalizing and doing.
 Those are principles that I think many people in the community bought into.
 But we also bought into the idea that this should be a big house, and that people should do their other work, but also work here on a particular set of things.  And work jointly, and solve really critical problems that didn't be solved elsewhere, such as IDNs.  Such as how we're going to do our part in educating business users and others about the importance of the transition between IPv6 and -- IPv4 and IPv6.
 So the questions I am asking myself is what are those critical functions that we should keep doing?  What are the things that actually others in the community need to do?  What specifically is the role of this organization to stay consistent with its narrow technologically-oriented mission, but also continue to broaden and deepen awareness on the broad community's part?  What else do we need to do to continually support increasing, deepening, and broadening participation?  And I would say and foreign participation.
 And those are questions I'm asking myself.  Because one big question I have is if people do not continue to believe in and work at ICANN, then we won't be stable.  Because we can't be.
 So I'm asking myself that question.  How do I ensure or contribute to ensuring that people, in the way that they self-organize, can contribute to and participate in ICANN?  Not in the short run, but the long run.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Thanks very much for that.
 I am going to defer answering the questions about the PSC because Stefano is standing and I think we have got somebody else in the back.
 Kieren, do you have something else?
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY: Can I say I am happy to wand around.  So you don't have to get around.  If you raise your hand, I will head over your way.
 >>STEFANO  TRUMPY:   Okay.  May I go?  Okay.
 So my point -- my question is how you see the process that we are -- this NOI and the next meeting.
 When the JPA, before, started, there was an NOI similar to this one and I remember we got some, like, 700-something answers by the public.
 Now, in the present NOI, the answers that were published until yesterday were 30.  So quite more lazy, let's say, response.
 And -- yeah.  My point is that that number four of these 30 was the answer by the board of ICANN saying that the JPA might not be more necessary.  And this maybe changed the kind of answers that came later, because the first question we had is if the board is saying something like that, maybe there is already some knowledge that the U.S. government could be in favor of this.
 And then all the answers that came later were more to say, okay, if, by chance, the JPA is terminated, what then we want ICANN to be?
 So this has been the sense of the following answers.  And then there would be this public meeting on the 28th of February.  And I would like to know the impression about this, let's say, change of focus, because the NOI was mainly asking ten points and saying how is your opinion about ICANN performance.
 But now we seriously are thinking on what will happen after the NOI will be terminated and is not so important if it's terminated today or in one year and a half from now.
 So, really, the focal point is how will be the shape of ICANN?  And how will be the shape especially referring to the public policy issues and to the question of role of governments without having any more the unique government controlling ICANN?
 Thank you.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Thanks, Stefano.
 When we discussed having the mid determine review with John Kneuer and when John Kneuer made the actual announcements in Los Angeles, you will recall that both he and Vint said that one of the things that ICANN -- this was sort of a joint process, and Vint said we would also do our own consultation process as sort of a joint contribution to the review.
 The board's response focused specifically on the questions that were posed in the NOI and specifically focus on the JPA.  And basically it's fundamentally concluded.  The tasks there are basically being done or it's concluded and the real question is what do we do next.
 What's been interesting in our consultation process is that people have gone very quickly in our community to, well, what's transition look like?
 So you are quite right.  What has actually changed, I have got to say frankly I was a little surprised at how quickly had happened across the full range I have spoken to, people saying what does transition actually look like?  And we think that's probably a valid question.
 So in some respects, it's, during the consultation process, the community itself has shifted its focus and asked a different set of questions.  And as a consequence, I think you are hearing Peter and others saying, well, we think that's actually a really valid question.  There clearly has to be some sort of process, there clearly has to be discussion, but we think it's clearly time to start having that discussion.
 As for the 28th of February, we are not hosting that.  The Department of Commerce is.  So I think specifics on the 28th of February initiative, you should probably direct to Suzanne, who is sitting in the corner of the room nodding at what I just said of consulting her.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   We have to close this down, we are out of time, but let's make that the last one -- do you have another one?
 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   I feel obliged, as general manager of public participation, to point out that all the information you need is on the ICANN front page.  There is a video of Paul expressing his views.  There is a link to the Notice of Inquiry from the NTIA which we have also translated into French and Spanish.  So if you are not a natural English speaker, you can understand.
 There's the NTIA e-mail address.  So I would like to encourage everyone to respond to the NTIA and say what you think.  And so please do that.  You can find it all on the front page and you can find it all on the NTIA Web site.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Kieren.  The honor of the last question or contribute.  Sir.
 >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Thank you, I am Bertrand De La Chapelle, I am the French representative.
 Actually, I wanted to say how pleased I am that there is a public forum on this issue.  Of course, the whole issue is not going to be addressed, and basically there are three questions that are emerging.
 One is transition or not and at what time.  The second is transition to what.  And the third one is how to prepare the transition.
 I won't get into too much detail fundamentally on the first and the second one.
 The first one, I see some emergence of a desire by the community that September 2009, which is the planned end of the Joint Project Agreement, becomes a natural target date for the transition.  That's a sense -- I don't know if it's shared, but at least that's the way we feel it.
 And we think it's a nice and natural target date, and that target dates have a benefit.  It's that it allows to retrofit and have a planning of the process in this perspective.
 The second question is, of course, more delicate, which is transition to what.  And of course we have 18 months, or a certain number of months, to discuss what the transition will be.  To be very honest, I don't think anybody in this room can, with absolute certainty, say we or I know what ICANN will be exactly after the transition, because this is precisely the purpose of the discussion that will take place.
 There are principles that are agreed, and I won't get into detail.  The key question is that the end of the JPA in itself is, as we all know, not enough to put ICANN on the long-term viability and accountability path that it needs to handle all the major issues that have to happen -- that have to be handled.  Sorry.
 So additional steps are needed.  And I won't get into those steps.
 I want to focus on the last point, which is the process to discuss this.
 It is obvious that there is a need for a discussion, but we have to remember there are already a certain number of discussions going on within ICANN that do, indeed, feed into that debate.  There's the President's Strategy Committee discussion and I understand there will be some reporting in Paris on that issue which I welcome very much.
 I also remind us that all the different reviews of the different bodies of ICANN are, indeed, part of this reflection.  And that if we look at all those different reviews in a more holistic manner, we might get a sense of how one structure and the other articulate together for the future.
 But I would like also to encourage -- or at least that's what I am trying to do on my personal behalf -- to have in mind in each of the processes we are involved in that there is a transition ahead, and that we must shape the processes so that they facilitate and become part of the transition.
 And I mean, in particular, this is true for the new gTLD, for the IPv4/IPv6 decisions that have to be made, and for the IDNs and the multiscript domain name system that we are preparing.
 There is no transition without taking into account, for instance, those three processes.
 And the last element is any process that is launched, and I think there should be a process launched within ICANN in the coming months on that issue, should, first of all, be as multistakeholder as possible in terms of allowing the different groups to interact together, rather than discussing this question of the transition in what I usually call the silos.
 Of course the GAC, of course the GNSO, of course all the different constituencies will discuss that.  But if we can foster a real interaction in a way that has to be determined, I think it's useful.
 And the last point is, in as much as we discussed this, and we will discuss this within ICANN and within the ICANN community, we have to take into account that there are actors outside that do not participate in ICANN, that are part of the global landscape, and that they have to be included or involved in one way or the other.  And we have to think about what are the places or the spaces where those actors can be spoken to or engaged.
 Thank you.
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks very much, Bertrand.  And thank you very much all other contributors.  That's been a very, very helpful start.  Some excellent ideas have come out of that, and we will listen.
 Thank you for -- to all of you for contributing.  Enjoy your lunch, and see you back here after lunch.
 [ Applause ]