ICANN Public Forum Part 2 Thursday, 14 February 2008 ICANN Meeting New Delhi, India >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. If you'd take your seats please, we're just after 8:30, and we're going to start. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the public forum. And I'd like to begin by thanking personally the Indian hosts. We do, tomorrow, as part of our formal resolutions, pass corporate resolutions thanking lots of people. I'd just like to have a general thanks to the hosts. It's a wonderful setup, there's a huge amount of volunteer work that's gone on, and I'm particularly taken by the enormous volumes of fantastic free food made available for me every day. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Yeah. Some of you may notice, some of you who have been to an ICANN meeting before, and I see there are two or three of you in the room, are going to notice something slightly different about this forum. There isn't a whole row of directors for you to take aim at on stage. I want to try and make this more of a public forum than a board being shouted at forum. When the time comes, we're quite happy to stand and take the shots. But this isn't that session. This is a discussion about a number of issues and hearing from the community and from the staff and from directors, and from committee chairs, and from the SOs and from the advisory committees, and from the entire ICANN community. It's going to be a little bit less formal this time. One of the ways of doing that is, we've had community concern about listen to long reports. As much as possible, we have -- sorry, scribes, I forgot how enthusiastic I feel about this public forum being for the public issue. So what we try to do as much as possible is put reports that are required -- there's no question about the value of these reports. But I'm just not sure about the value of having people read them. So we've put them on the Web site as much as possible. As much as I can, looking down through the agenda of speakers, I have issued a chairman's edict that speakers are to have a one-slide rule. So there will be a number of speakers who will be speaking to you, but they'll only be allowed to use one slide. And I've already been teased by the chairman of the GNSO that I should have been far more specific in my instructions, because some of you are wily and will have one slide, but it will be in the tiniest font, and you'll have your entire report on the one slide. I'll admit defeat at that stage and just go ahead. We'll move on. Now, the first report, then, is going to be from the ombudsman, Frank Fowlie. Can you come up when you have your report, and take questions. Ladies and gentlemen, the ICANN ombudsman, Frank Fowlie. >>FRANK FOWLIE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, my comments have been posted online, and so I'd be happy to not reiterate exactly what's available for your information already, and to take any questions instead, should there be any. Going once, going twice. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I am established in the business center, should anybody have any matters that they would like to discuss with me concerning issues of fairness in the ICANN processes. I'll be there and also available online. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Questions of the ombudsman? Excellent. What we aim for, in fact, is to have the highest quality ombudsman who has nothing to do. And this is a case where perhaps we are starting to get towards that. Now, we just changed the order slightly. I don't want to catch Barbara Roseman out. Is Barbara here? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Yes. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Would I catch you out, Barbara, if I called you next? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: That's fine. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Oh, there goes that fun. Barbara is going to give us an update on what's happening at the IANA function. One of the most important pieces of work that ICANN does is manage ICANN. Barbara. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Kieren, do you have my slides? Okay. >>KIEREN McCARTHY: It's on. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Thank you. Okay. So we were asked to do a one-slide presentation. Kieren, if you could go to my slide. Everything is working. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: I do have a second slide. So if you could -- [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: What do you think, should we let her get away with it? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: This is all in the other presentation that's online. So feel free to read that. Our activities since the Los Angeles meeting, six of the 13 root name servers have added quad A addresses. This enables native IPv6 DNS resolution. It's quite a big step. We've renewed our SLA with the IETF and the IAB. We reached some agreement on shortening some performance times and keeping some exactly where they were, which was good for me. The root zone management system is in beta now. We encourage people to contact Kim Davies if you're interested in participating in that. This is for ccTLD and gTLD managers. We'd like to work out all the bugs before we have to go into production. This would be a good time to do this. And we're working on service-level targets for root zone management. We're going to be meeting with the community in various regional forums and hashing that out over the next few months. So that's it. Thank you. Questions? >>STEVE CROCKER: Steve Crocker, I think for this question, chair of SSAC is probably the right affiliation, and liaison to the board. So maybe I'll ask this from the board perspective. This root zone system is, as I understand it, customer-facing in the sense of facing the TLD operators primarily. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Yeah, there's two elements to it. We did a front end, which is for the TLD managers to communicate with IANA. It allows them to enter their changes, to see a history of changes that they've requested, and to do some of the confirmation process online. There's also a backend element that we've been working on with both NASK and VeriSign to allow for electronic verification of the changes into the root zone database directly so that we eliminate some of the manual processing. >>STEVE CROCKER: Great. The question that I have actually relates to the back side. VeriSign made an announcement this week that it's putting pieces in place which presumably are its side of that communication chain. Is there a plan for giving a unified description and schedule and issues and so forth, and progress reports, as that develops? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Yes. I think as we move into actual production use, we'll provide that information, as appropriate. We're not going to go into too many details, but I think the end-to-end process will be very clear for people. In this first instance of putting out the RCM for production, we are not changing any of the processing that currently exists except that we're automating certain steps of it. So the process stays the same at the moment, including all the authorization and who is responsible for implementing certain elements. However, we're in discussions about where we can optimize the system, but that that would be a second stage, not this first stage. >>STEVE CROCKER: Thank you. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: You're welcome. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Steve. Any further questions, comments, about IANA. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Peter, there's someone back here. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Good morning, I'm Bertrand De La Chapelle, the French GAC representative. I very much support the notion of one slide. It's great. I would also support the -- for the people who are not necessarily familiar with all the alphabet soup, just translation of a few of the words. Like, for instance, could we have the slide? Because if I don't even have the slide, I will have even more problems. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: The substance of one. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Basically, if you could, for people who don't necessarily know, explain each of the points, in particular, beyond the alphabet soup, exactly what is the problem that is being solved so that we can further discuss in other occasions. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Sure. There is a more detailed version of this information in the longer presentation that's on the Web site. But I'm happy to walk through this. Where I have the -- what we call the quad A addresses, that's an IPv6 record that goes into the root zone that allows the root servers to be reached via V6 native networks. SLA is a service-level agreement with the IETF is the Internet Engineering Task Force. They're the other half of the major group that we work with. We have the RIRs. We have the DNS community. And then we have the IETF. RZM is our root zone management system. And it's been in development for quite a while. And we're happy to be rolling it out finally. And that's -- those are the major parts. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: So this allows me to ask -- that's what I thought it would be. But I want to make sure before. First question: Does that mean that before the implementation of the AAAA addresses, the root system couldn't be reached by IPv6 requests? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: It doesn't quite mean that. There have been what we call quad A records in the root zone for individual TLDs for some time, since 2004. This was just addressing getting the root name servers, the top of the tree, into V6 connectivity. They were always reachable, but just not via native V6, for name resolution. And so this is -- it's just solving one part of that problem. Thomas. >>THOMAS NARTEN: Let me just expand on that, because I think what you're asking, the way I would answer that -- I'm sorry. I'm Thomas Narten. -- is, before this move was made, IPv6 was not properly supported in the DNS, which means that if you were doing native IPv6, you wouldn't necessarily be able to do name resolutions properly in all case. With this addition, IPv6 is now properly supported within the DNS at the root level. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: That was exactly the reason of my question. So do you think this is going to facilitate the adoption? Will it have a huge impact? Or was it only a sort of box that has to be ticked to move forward? In other words, is it a major step forward or just a useful incremental step? >>THOMAS NARTEN: It's somewhere in between. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Yeah. >>THOMAS NARTEN: It's -- >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: I'm sorry. Can I -- I would say that most of the community regards it as a major step forward, because it shows a shift in usability for V6 networks that was not crippling before, but certainly enhances their productivity at this point. The increase in traffic on the IPv6 -- See, the IPv6 addresses have always been there. They just weren't in the root zone. Or not always, but for quite a time have been there. The increase in traffic that they're seeing on the V6 addresses now is about tenfold. It still ends up being less than a rounding error on what they see on the V4 addresses. However, it is an increase. And they expect to see that improve over time. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Okay. So just one final comment. I think this has a great benefit in being advertised broadly, because we need messages somehow that support the notion that there's really something happening on V6, as understandable by layperson manner. And the second point, just this last confirmation, is root zone management what is usually -- of the system, what is usually referred to as EINL? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Yes, that's correct. Any -- Suzanne. >>SUZANNE WOOLF: Yeah, I'm Suzanne Woolf. I'm among other things the root server committee liaison to the board. Just a final observation for the V6 and the root servers. What it does -- one of the key things it does is that, since it's now possible to have a full referral chain from the root down that's only for V6 networks, there's now the ability to see where the chain is broken. There's an ability to see who hasn't yet implemented those capabilities and to go to them and say, "It would be helpful to me if I could resolve DNS and reach your services over V6." >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Eric, did you -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Eric. >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS: Thank you, Barbara. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Just use the handheld one. >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS: Hi. It's Eric Brunner-Williams, and I'm from CORE. Barbara, V4 is going to be turned off for an hour or so or maybe longer at the next IETF. Could we get onto the schedule for the next ICANN in Paris a report on the experience that we have at the IETF meeting with V4 turned off? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Yeah. They're actually doing this experiment in at least two locations that I know of, the NANOG meeting upcoming in San Jose, and then the IETF in Philadelphia. I fully plan to do some reporting on this, or have somebody from -- you know, who's participated in this report on it in Paris. We actually hope to do a little bit more on V6 in Paris than we were able to do at this meeting. And so I think we'll have more news to report at that time. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Barbara. Any more on the IANA function? Questions? Dennis. >>DENNIS JENNINGS: Dennis Jennings, ICANN board member. Suzanne, have any -- not Suzanne. I beg your pardon. Barbara, have any major information providers, service providers, committed to make their services available over IPv6? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: As part of the IETF experiment that's taking place in Philadelphia, a few content providers and service providers have committed to having services available. They themselves are a little unsure of what services will actually be turned up by that point. We're talking about something in the second week of March. So that's a very short time frame from now. I know that -- I really don't want to put any of the particular vendors on, you know -- on the spot. So -- but I do know that several of them have been discussing how to support this test so that they can find out how reachable things are, what looks broken, things like that. Louis. >> LOUIE LEE: Thanks, Barbara. Louie Lee, the chair of the ASO Address Council. I want to speak for my company, Equinix. We are a public exchange. We see this action by IANA has already driven more orders for V6 peering across our exchanges. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: That's good to hear. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Anybody else? Any ccTLD managers want to ask IANA a question? >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: Thank you. [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Anybody else? Okay. Thanks, Barbara. >>BARBARA ROSEMAN: All right. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: And next, is Kurt Pritz available? Kurt's going to take us through new gTLDs. Yet another update, Kurt. How many is this this week? So, again, we've actually been through this in a number of places. There's been presentations in lots of detail. That's why there's now one slide. >>KURT PRITZ: Can you switch the selector to this podium, please. I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sorry, what can I do? >>KURT PRITZ: I was giving some direction to the technical guys. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: This is not going to be another run-through of all of what we've been through a couple of times in a couple of fora. This is a high-level overview and, hopefully, some discussion. >>KURT PRITZ: I'm Kurt Pritz, from ICANN. According to -- >> Whoa! >>KURT PRITZ: The program's a little off. [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I hope that's tilted towards consumers, is it? [ Laughter ] >>KURT PRITZ: I'll do this quickly. According to the official memo, I get two slides. The first slide has to do with the amount of work staff is doing in implementation of the GNSO policy recommendations, in anticipation of launching the first round for new gTLDs. As the chair pointed out, there has been several presentations at this meeting. They're posted. There are presentations posted online that provide a lot more information than I am giving here. There's also a link in here where you can -- where updates will be posted to the ICANN Web site, and there's a comment forum there to receive comments, opinions, and information. So for each one of these bullets, there is a sum of work that's described on another slide in another presentation. So, for each of the policy recommendations, ICANN's broken that into a bit of work and is addressing it as a final product that is the implementation of the policy recommendations. So, for example, with regard to DNS stability standards, the policy recommendation that new gTLD strings shouldn't adversely affect DNS stability, staff has published a paper with the vision and the tools with -- the method with which we'll go about implementing that recommendation. It requests -- it describes some issues that are outstanding, and it requests public comment on those issues. As many of the cognizetti here know, the objection-based dispute resolution processes that are recommended by the GNSO recommendations are complex and possess some risk. Staff has done considerable work in devising standards to guide those dispute resolution processes. And much of that information is posted in other presentations. Staff has also, in cooperation with outside experts, crafted a procedure for an outside dispute resolution provider to hear these disputes when someone objects to a proposed TLD string. The work that's -- The important work, and the critical-path work, is on this second bullet, where the process for hearing these disputes and the final standards are to be devised. The risks to the process and the new gTLD process, and also to ICANN, are encompassed in these recommendations. And staff is doing implementation work to ameliorate those risks, or at least to describe them. And then other work that's been done has to do with the threshold technical and business criteria that an applicant must meet in order to become a TLD. Internally, we've posted a couple of versions of a base agreement. We think that most TLDs will all sign the same agreement. There's thought that perhaps, in dealing with treaty organizations or governments, there might be a different form of agreement necessary. That would be a perturbation of that agreement. All those things, all those little buckets, go into an RFP, a request for proposal that will be posted later this year, that will clearly define the entire process, including the dispute resolution processes and standards, so applicants before they embark on the new TLD adventure, have a clear picture of what's required. And then, finally, there's a large effort wrapped up in communications. If you went to the budget presentation yesterday by Doug, you saw there is considerable budget allocated to informing all regions of the world and all governments, and to the greatest extent we can, every interested party, that this opportunity exists in the DNS. So I have a secret middle slide that isn't really a slide. [ Laughter ] >>KURT PRITZ: It's a PDF. [ Laughter ] >>KURT PRITZ: I just want to briefly demonstrate how we're managing this. So this eye chart is a work breakdown structure. So each of the bits of work in the -- defined in the policy recommendations are defined as a bit of work. So in our project plan, we're managing each one of these bits separately as a separate project with a separate -- you know, separately sourced, and with a separate deliverable. So if you can see it, the yellow boxes on the -- the header is the RFP as a whole, which will include, as we said, the whole process. On the left-hand side, we see business and technical criteria. On the right-hand side, we see the DNS stability criteria and confusingly similar. And then for those applications that result in an objection, the development of these objection-based dispute resolution processes. Do not be discouraged by the relative area each process takes up on the chart. We think there's literally millions of TLD strings out there that are not controversial, that should not be objected to, that should pass through the initial part of the process in rather quick order. And then at the end, for those that make it through the whole process, but where there's bids for similar or identical strings, there has to be a contention. So I just show you that chart because the colors are really good and because we -- I wanted to demonstrate how we're managing each one of these deliverables a little bit separately. So you take a great big whole and you make it a less-complicated piece of work. So if I can get back in business here, and the last slide. So here's some pertinent details that I would describe in several slides ordinarily. The board is considering the policy recommendations and is continually reviewing information provided by staff regarding its work in implementation. And the goal, as I interpret it, anyway, is that this adventure that we're embarking on entails a good bit of risk. You know, there's financial risk to ICANN if we open our doors with a new business and 2 million customers would pour in, as sort of a metaphor, that would be troubling to ICANN. But there's also political risk and policy risk. And so my interpretation is that the board wants to know enough of the implementation to address those risk items so that we know we're not adversely affecting the DNS registrants or the ICANN organization. And so ICANN and the board -- ICANN staff and the ICANN board are working together to narrow down those issues and identify those deliverables from staff that can be used to resolve the remaining concerns and have the board consider the policy recommendations. This is the timetable. It's plus or minus a month or so from the timetable that was published in the Los Angeles meeting. I think in the Los Angeles meeting, we addressed the timetable by quarter, and we had more milestones in there, because I had more slides. And there's no fee structure yet. So don't ask questions about that. We are gauging demand. We've enlisted some outside help -- and community experts, many of whom are sitting in this room, will be part of that -- to gauge the demand for TLDs. And we're presently costing what we think will be the most expensive parts of the process out. So we want to be accurate before we do that. So that brings my presentation to a close. We'll continually post updates to this Web site, which is -- can be reached from the front page of the ICANN Web page. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Kurt. Question, Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay. I have a couple of questions for you and one for the board. So don't go too far, Peter, or the other members. You said that you don't want questions on the fees. Okay, you don't have a question, but you have a request, is that, please don't leave that for the last minute. Most of the applicants would appreciate to know perhaps not the fee, but the ranges of things you are thinking. It's closer something between 30,000 and 150,000, or it's between one million and one billion dollars, or something like that. Right? So knowing the ranges sometime in advance of the final RFP, certain time in advance of the final RFP, even if possible in advance of the draft RFP, would have a lot, I repeat, the ranges, even if they are very large, would help a lot, because today there is completely darkness on that. >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Amadeu, if you have to ask, you can't afford it. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay. That's good. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Do you want to deal with that one now? The range of fees? Or do you want -- >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Sorry? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Would you like an answer on that one now? >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: He said that they have not worked on that. So I assume they won't have any concrete answer. But I don't know. Let's have a try. Kurt, smile. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Let's see if Paul Twomey can help. Paul. >>PAUL TWOMEY: Thanks, Peter. Amadeu, Kurt's right that we haven't finalized on a number. We have been working with the finance committee, the board, and internally on the right structure for working through the costs of the applications. And part of that has -- will be -- you know, there are several layers of those costs. And that will be known very soon as to what are the layers of the makeup and the cost going into the applications. And we're in the process of then costing that out. We do have -- one of the things that will take a little time at the moment we have got people, outside people, helping us on, is there's an element in all these applications of the -- there's a series of costs, and we need to fully cost them. And then there's some unknown risk that has to be costed. And that's the thing that's going to take a bit of work to try to get an estimate. But I think we can fairly shortly, Kurt, release the structure of the parts of the cost that we're actually examining so that people have a sense of thinking behind it. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Maximums, minimums. >>PAUL TWOMEY: I think maximums, minimums, would be, at the moment, probably a little dangerous. Let's give you what the structure is. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: That's something that helps. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: But what about a policy discussion about costs, though, Paul and Kurt? What are we -- what's the philosophy? You've talked about costs, which is perfectly fair. I think that's the starting point. But should the principle be just cost recovery? Or should we be charging a million dollars to fund at-large outreach? What is the -- what should the policy be on cost -- on the price of these? >>PAUL TWOMEY: Frankly, Peter, I think we'll need to come to the board and give you some options. I think our incoming hypothesis would be that it would be hard to justify a fee that was not based in costs. But there may be a rationale which would. There was also the question of subsidization. And that's something we'd have to think about pretty carefully, too, because we're in a community that's, let's face it, it's expert at gaming the rules. So there's tradeoffs there about thinking about such things as applications in developing countries, do they have a different fee than applications from nondeveloping countries? You don't want to end up with every application coming from Sierra Leone, you know, the whether or not they're from Sierra Leone or not. Those things we put to the board for discussion. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: The only problem, Paul, with cost-based is that with ICANN with 100 staff members and lots of outsourcing parties working on this, costs could be anything. I hope that we don't count the cost of all the past meetings in which we were discussing new gTLDs into this process. Because it will be some nice figure. We should invent even a new currency, then, for the real cost in the last 12 years. Okay. The second question is about the implementation plan. I know that you are working in different pieces here, and the plan is to release this in April, so to speak. My question is whether you will, like, be releasing the whole thing or whether you plan to release some pieces if they are more or less ready for comment. >>KURT PRITZ: As we develop various pieces of the RFP, we can release those for comment. But when we release the draft RFP for public comment, it will be a complete document with the entire process described. So pieces of it as they become available. And if it makes sense to release them early, we'll release them early for comment. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay. The last question for you is regarding the timeline. Because in your prior explanation to the GNSO Council, I could not completely understand the last part of the timeline. So whether once the final RFP is completed we still have this famous four months, you know, vacation period in which we have to think about it, using that for outreach mainly, so people know and it's fair -- sorry, they can have a fair opportunity to prepare, or that the outreach will come perhaps between the draft and the final RFP, and therefore immediately after the RFP, the applications can be submitted. >>KURT PRITZ: Right. So staff is working with GNSO Council and others to make sure our implementation matches their vision when they wrote the policy recommendations. It's staff opinion that a complete draft RFP would have to be communicated worldwide to keep the world on a level playing field. And so that draft RFP would essentially kick off that four-months communication plan. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay. And the last question is for the board and Paul. It's been said that the board is still considering the GNSO Council recommendations to the board regarding new (inaudible) gTLDs. I would like knowing whether it is because there are serious problems or because of just procedure whether we should vote on all of them, individually for each resolution, we prefer to vote the resolutions with implementation plan, or what's the, you know, schedule now for formally considering those recommendations? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Yes. The GNSO delivered their recommendations in Los Angeles. And we had two choices. One was to -- perhaps the more standard track would have been just to vote to accept the policy and then go away and try and implement it. The other way is what we've decided to instead, which is looking at it. And knowing how big and complicated this is, we decided we would receive the policy and task the staff to start exploring implementation so that we didn't have a decision to adopt a policy which we then found to be, later on, unimplementable. What we have found, in fact, is that there are difficulties with, I think, you've identified four or five areas in the 20. >>KURT PRITZ: Right. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: And we have instructed the staff to go back and start discussing that implementation difficulty with the GNSO, so that what we get eventually is a resolution from the GNSO as to policy, knowing that it can be implemented. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay. Thanks. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Just to explain. I'm running a speaking order. So if you want to come and stand here, we have a long tradition of coming and standing at the microphone. And some people may want to do that. But if you want to just sit down and get on my speaking order, we will come to you with a mike. Jim, you're next. You're first. >> JIM BASKIN: I am Jim Baskin, from Verizon. And we are part of the business constituency. Because we have a one-slide rule, I am going to stick with a one-question rule. From what I've seen of the fee structure for new top-level domains -- I'm not going to ask specifically about what the fees are -- but I've seen from presentations over the week and yesterday with the operational report and some of the projections on budgets, that there does seem to be a definite assumption that the fees for registration of new top-level domains will be primarily cost-based. And, in fact, you have in the budget -- you have a line item on some of the slides that shows an offsetting number that represents the downward direction of the fees based on lower evaluation costs as time goes on. I believe that's probably the reason why it's going down. Is that the case? And do you project that application fees for new top-level domains could drop substantially? I mean, maybe get down to $6 apiece? >>KURT PRITZ: Well, they could. Just to make sure I understand your question, the slide to which you are referring in the budget presentation reflected the fact that ICANN expects to see within three years substantial revenue due to new gTLDs. And so rather than reflect increased substantial revenue in its three-year budget forecast, it has put in a line item for fee decreases in other areas of ICANN revenue in order to -- in order to match revenue with what we think, you know, revenue needs are. So that really didn't talk about application fees. But, to your second question, -- >> JIM BASKIN: There was only one, I think. >>KURT PRITZ: -- I don't know what the future -- what the future holds for fees. But I believe Paul has a follow-up. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: If it's about money, so the CEO has a view. >>PAUL TWOMEY: I think this is one of the areas -- thanks, Kurt. I think this is one of the areas of the greatest uncertainty we're facing. And if I can share from the CEO's perspective two areas of uncertainty. One thing that I'm concerned about is, if we were to get 4,000 applications on the 31st of December, please ignore that date. You know, if we were to get 4,000 applications at the end of this year, and we didn't properly think through the application fee process, we'll be bankrupt next year. Because gTLD applications, when you look at the history of them and how they work through, if you took it from the pure business sense from ICANN's perspective, when do you get the breakeven, the breakeven point varies, it has varied over the last period of time, but it's something like 12 to 18 months. And there's a fair amount of up-front cost. And then if you took the 4,000 and did the distribution, there's at least an 80/20, theirs there's probably a 90/10, distribution on costs versus numbers of applications. And so you get this problem where you get a lot of costs around some applications. And so this is part of the costing pour the applications we need to work through, because we don't -- this is the whole problem of not getting the whole organization literally, as I said, going bankrupt trying to process the first -- it's a growth question. Forget it's ICANN. It's any business. If you had a sudden spurt of growth and you can't manage the cash flow of that spurt of growth, it can cause problems. But the second related question is while we may expect to have gTLD growth, we have no idea what the domain name sales of those gTLDs will be. And that's often the variable part of the ICANN income that comes from that growth. So again, we can't forecast whether these are going to be successful or not. And the third item, I'm sorry, Chair, I just wanted to remind people, some of these TLDs are going to cost much more to process and manage than others. Particularly, frankly, in the Asia-Pacific. Because we will have a lot of educational costs and a lot of cultural issues we will have to address in cultural that have not been the case for the Atlantic-based community. So that is another additional cost we are having to plan in. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: While I am walking towards Elliot, next on the list, the reap we have one slide is not so we have only one question. It's the other way around. We have one slide so we may get lots of questions. Elliot. >>ELLIOT NOSS: Thanks, Peter. Elliot Noss from Tucows. Maybe we can have the chairs in sort of a semi-circle for a warmer feeling in the room. I want to put out a couple of observations as it relates to the economics of domain names and this round of new gTLDs because I think that, as with everything with ICANN, this round will be fundamentally unique from both anything that's preceded it and anything that will follow. I would urge staff, board, GNSO community, when we are thinking about cost-based applications, I think that is completely appropriate as it relates to the noncontended strings. I fundamentally believe that there will be, in this round uniquely, two or three, maybe as many as five strings where there will be significant contention, and where that resolution of the contention will generate, relative to the ICANN budget, huge excess revenues. Now, let me first identify, that from my perspective, that is not only appropriate, but desired. One of the unfortunate legacies of some of the orthodoxy or religion that we got in the start of domains when we didn't know what would happen, is that the excess economic rent is generated with the strings has been captured in the registries. More power to them. We can't undo history, and no suggestions around that. But it's always been my strong view that that excess economic rent is really something that belongs to the global Internet community. We have no better proxy for that than ICANN. And I can easily envision a scenario where that excess economic rent in this round of new gTLDs, around contended strings, could run well into the eight figures. And by the way, I am saying that from a good place. I am not saying that from a, boy, that's bad for ICANN. I think that can create a fantastic opportunity to reduce the fees that are now imposed on registrants, and, importance, for staff, board, community, reduce the reliance that ICANN now has or perceives to have on registrars and registries that I think is something that troubles a lot of people. So I really urge you to embrace that. And I think that one of the other fundamental elements of the economics of this industry that has been historical has been that -- and again, this is just observational. This is not judgmental -- that registries are able to capture significant excess economic profits, and registrars really do have to kind of scrap for the nickels and dimes at the edges. And I don't want you to hear me complaining there at all. I think that's just the economics of the industry. Every year now, the registries will make more money for doing the same job, the existing registries. Every year now, registrars will make, as we have always, less money for doing a little bit harder work in a more competitive environment. So that's the history. And it can very well be the case, and should be the case, that if we come at this next round appropriately, we can fundamentally alter the way that the landscape works. And I don't say that to say that, oh, registrars will make money and registries make less. But that their roles will fundamentally change, which brings me to my last point on this, which is that we all need to take explicit note of the fact that when we are making these policies and thinking about them, the past will guide us a very little amount. What we are doing is we are trying to come up with a framework for something that will take imagination and something that will take a view of the future. And the only thing that we can be sure of is that we will be wrong. So let's just try and not be too wrong. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Elliot. Quick one, Steve. >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Yes, please. I would like to respond to Elliot. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I will give you a quick intervention, because I have got a speaking order. >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: You don't want me to talk? I thought you would like the board's response. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I said I would give you a quick intervention but I have got a speaking order. Do you want a quick response? >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: No, forget it. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Next is Bertrand. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: (inaudible). >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Is there a role for the board to be here or not, sir? I mean if there isn't, there are other things to do. But I would like to respond to Elliot. Elliot, I have always appreciated your very supportive insights and interventions. They have always been very constructive. I would like to remind everybody that, in the past, what we have had is an operational plan that's out for comment. And then from the operational plan, a budget was derived, much later in the process, for comment. This year, the changes that the operational plan and trial budget, very first estimated budget, are being published at the same time for comment. So the numbers that you are seeing in the budget are very much open to comment. And we invite comment. And the kind of comment you are bringing up about what we are thinking about, the economics of the new TLDs and so forth, are very much open for comment. And we invite comment like yours. Now, I would just like to clarify one thing you said. You kept talking about excess rent for contentions. And, you know, in a quick consultation among my colleagues, it occurs to us that the only thing that could generate that would be that there would be auctions because there were contentions. Is that what you had in mind? >>ELLIOT NOSS: Yes. >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Okay. Thanks. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Can you do a yes or no to that? >>ELLIOT NOSS: Yes. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Bertrand, thank you for yielding. There is a mike there. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Thank you. Well, first of all, I think I want to congratulate and thank you for this format. I mean, this is exactly what I have always been hoping for, that the interaction goes on threads rather than questions and answers after long presentations. I am wondering whether the question of priorities or objectives in the introduction of new gTLDs between IDN gTLDs and Roman gTLDs have been taken into account as an objective. Personally, I am wondering whether the first objective is to have much, much, much, much, much, much, much, more Roman gTLDs if this ever happens. I am always very surprised at the numbers that float around, but anyway, or a little bit more non-Roman gTLDs. Just because the process of the IDN ccTLDs is likely to bring, at the special speed, country code domain names in IDNs, I don't exactly see whether there is some desire, either to promote IDN gTLDs, or if there is a demand in this domain. Is there any policy orientation, is the first thing. The second thing is, it's a direct question to Kurt's slide on the process. The four criteria that are mentioned -- like moral questions, contention by the community and all the others -- in your slide are separated. Does that imply that, actually, the analysis of the four criteria is going to be done somehow by separate panels? And in that respect, I would warn or caution against what I would call a reductionist approach that is slicing the problem in tinier, tinier, tinier bits. Whereas I am wondering whether the analysis of a string shouldn't be done by one panel, of sorts, taking into account the different bits. So that's the point. And the last thing is more a remark on something you said and a formulation that I would like to have some clarification. I quote. You said, we want to make sure that if ICANN is opening a new business, and we can face the fact that 2 million new customers pour in, I cannot help but confess that I am a little bit puzzled by this formulation. If your feeling is that the new gTLD process is about ICANN opening a new line of business of selling TLD strings, and that registry applicants are actually just customers, I think we need a debate on the philosophy of the new gTLD process. And I would like just some explanation of what your feeling is of this process. >>KURT PRITZ: So I will answer the questions in reverse order, since the last one is freshest in my mind. And then I might need a reminder by the time we get back to the end. So when I made that phrasing in my presentation, what I intended to convey was that ICANN is starting a new sort of business operation. Paul intimated in his discussion that there are operations within ICANN, each of whom identify customers or clients. You can term the relationship in a number of ways. But, for example, in the case of IANA, they process maybe one delegation per month. So to alter that operation to be ready to perhaps make a hundred delegations in a month, ICANN must consider how it's going to change its business operations in order to accommodate that. So maybe my phraseology and cultural choices were unfortunate. But I don't mean to convey that ICANN is selling domains for a certain price. What I intend to convey is that ICANN must be ready to accommodate the demand that is seen for new gTLDs, and in doing that, must revamp their operating processes. Did you want to reply to that? >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: I don't want to reply on that. I think it just shows that there is a discussion. And if we have more time later on, that is -- has to take place on the philosophy of this. Words are not -- they are meaningful. There is no such thing as an absolute right of any word to get into the root. It is a community debate to discuss how useful, how contentious, how good for the community it is. To make an example and an analogy that may explain a little bit better the way I feel when I hear the presentation and the way I have felt -- and I think a lot of other people might feel the same -- when we talk about new gTLDs, let's imagine that ICANN is a telecom regulator. The major difference between ICANN as a regulator and a telecom regulator is you imagine the telecom regulator waking up every morning and saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about creating a new spectrum?" Yeah, I can create a new spectrum. Great. And then how do I sell this new spectrum? This is not the natural function. These are scarce resources and are completely voluntarily scarce. And Steve Crocker in previous meeting made a very, very strong comment that everything we do here is 100% man-made. There is a major policy orientation, and I welcome the debate. I think you have a lot of arguments and there are business concerns and cost concerns. What I am just raising is that there are policy objectives. And the business concern should come after the policy objectives are correctly decided. And I welcome this forum because maybe I'm alone in having those concerns, and that's fine. >>PAUL TWOMEY: Peter, can I just respond? Bertrand, can I just respond quickly to be really very clear? If you want to use the analogy of the regulator? When ICANN was formed, it was given the task of introducing competition and choice. And what the community for the last ten years has been doing is working through the process of that. So if you want to say it's like interpreting the act. We're not in the business. We're not running a business. We are not here for profit. When we use the word "business," (inaudible) the staff, it's simply the processing part. But the philosophical questions you are asking inherently have been addressed by the GNSO process. So if you have got those philosophical questions, they are actually directed toward the GNSO policy process rather than the implementation issue. I think that's -- I want to constrain the discussion in that sense, because we don't make the policy. >>KIEREN McCARTHY: I have another question here. >>KURT PRITZ: To answer your other two questions very briefly, I think a combination of the panel's considering or the processes considering application where it's appropriate is absolutely spot on. And we are intending to do that. And with regard to the timing of the implementation of IDNs and gTLDs, for now we're taking the viewpoint that they will both be made available as soon as ready. So IDNs face a few more technical hurdles that are straightforward, but still hurdles. And perhaps some policy discussion before they are released. But -- So we are not going to constrain the release of IDNs on gTLDs or ASCII TLDs or vice versa, I don't think. >> (Inaudible.) >>KURT PRITZ: I think in a sense, yeah. That's the whole discussion about ccIDNs and gIDNs. Certainly the gIDNs are part of the gTLD process, so that's constrained. The fast-track approach in ccIDNs is a separate initiative and is not constrained by gTLDs, I don't think. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Kurt. I have got Eric, Ron and Marilyn. So if you want to be put on the list, let me know. >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS: Thank you. Eric Brunner-Williams from CORE. I really wish I followed immediately after Elliot. That was inspiring, Elliot. Elliot addressed the -- what we don't know about what lies in front of us about how this round will be different from the first round that Elliot and I and several of us here worked in, from working group C on to the six new gTLDs to the format and formalisms of the first round, the second round, the redelegation of net, the redelegation of org. And finally, the last new TLDs. The part of the unknown that I want to remind the board, I did this at the Rome meeting also, is that the cost of preparation of bids is driven, in part, by the degree of formalism that ICANN itself imposes on the applicants. So you have a mechanism for controlling cost, both your cost processing the applications and the costs to the applicants, in particular the smaller applicants or the applicants who are looking for something much smaller than a new dot com. And since that is in your control, I want to remind you of the same message I gave you in Rome. Thank you. >>RON ANDRUFF: Good morning. Ron Andruff, RNA partners, business constituency. I'm not sure where I should look. This is a new format. But I wanted to bring to the board's attention and staff's attention just an idea about running the -- what I will call the awareness program in serial as opposed to in parallel. Having brought a new TLD to the market, I know very well that it takes years of development, or certainly a year to develop in terms of developing the constituency, building the market and so forth. So I am wondering if we might want to make that awareness campaign sooner than later. In other words, bring the awareness campaign out within the next couple of months so that people are aware that this will be coming so they can get onto the same page and start to build the process and so forth. While it's very admirable that ICANN is doing an outreach program and spending money to make more people aware of this process. And I really congratulate that. I'm fearful that if you tell people four months from now this is going to happen, those individuals, entities, whoever they may be who would like to bring forward a new top-level domain that has great value to the Internet and the Internet community, they will never be able to pull all parts together to get their application together in the right time. And we may find that a better application -- let me say it the other way. A poorer application might get accepted for a string simply because another entity didn't have the time to get it together. So I am suggesting that we might do the awareness program now. Get it out there. Start letting people know. Get them encouraged to participate in ICANN and this process as we are in the development stage, as opposed to giving them a very short string to run. And I am aware, of course, this is a long, ongoing process. This is not just a four-month window but, rather, once we get to this period, anytime a new applicant comes forward, it goes into the pipeline, comes out the other end. But I am concerned only about having better operators and better ideas brought to the table at the same time in the first months, as it were. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Ron. I have got Marilyn next, and then we will come back to you, Werner. >>MARILYN CADE: Thanks, Peter. My name is Marilyn Cade, and I am going to wear two hats, sequentially, in making my comments. My first comments will be made as an individual, and then secondly I am going to read a short sentence or two from AT&T. Many of you know, and I will again state, that I advise AT&T and I spend roughly 85% of my time advising that single client. So when I read this particular sentence, I am reading a sentence that has come from AT&T. My first comments are offered as an individual. I welcome hearing the comments that Bertrand De La Chappelle offered to us about how important words are, because I think, in fact, that is very true. Our choice of words informs and misinforms. And so that's going to be really important for all of us to think about what we say, how we say it, and who we are saying it to. And I agree with you, Bertrand, we haven't thought that through well enough. And that will also apply to how we do outreach and where we do outreach, the languages we do outreach in, and what we say. I applaud the fact that there's over $3 million in the budget for early, consistent, and, I hope, overlapping forms of outreach into all regions of the world. I will just say that I now have a comment personally on something that Paul Twomey said. Paul is right that the board does not make policy. The GNSO policy council, on this particular topic, makes policy. And I was, until a year or so ago, a policy councillor, and I did participate in the development of this particular policy. However, although it is true that the policy council makes policy, we do send it to the board for acceptance and approval. And on its path to the board, it goes through an extremely important process called implementation, evaluation, assessment, development of the processes by which we will implement the policy that we, the policy community for gTLD names, has sent to the board. The board has the ability to assess a policy and determine that, for some reason or another, it is not implementable. And they have the ability to send the policy back for refinement. I want to now introduce the topic that ICANN is an ecosystem. We are an ecosystem composed of individual registrants, of business registrants, of ISPs, of gTLD registry and registrars and want-to-be gTLD registries, all of which I fully respect. That ecosystem includes individual registrants, governments, users of all kinds. That is a fragile ecosystem that needs time to adjust to major changes. And if we are introducing changes that destabilize the operational performance and stability of the very organization that is responsible for implementing that policy, we need to take a deep breath and take that into account. I describe what I see happening to us at ICANN -- not to ICANN, but to us at ICANN -- as a tsunami of operational demand. At the same time, I note that I personally believe we must prioritize our work on IDNs. That is a personal view. It is driven by my conversations and the travel and I work I do globally, not just in the developing countries but also in the developed countries. As I look at that and then I look at other challenges that ICANN faces, I think we have an overwhelming amount of work ahead of us. I would say personally that we must remain committed, even if we are interested in being the next registry operator. We must remain committed to the operational stability, first and foremost, of this organization and of its ability to deliver on what I consider its primary obligation: contributing to the security and the stability of the Internet. And I fully respect that everyone who wants to operate a business built on top of an awarded registry is, of course, thinking that I don't understand their problem. That's not true. I do. But I have a concern for all of us about how we get the process right so we can keep allocating strings. My comment now addresses a comment from AT&T. AT&T should ensure be operational stability throughout the upcoming introduction of IDNs and the increasing numbers of new gTLDs, including appropriate safeguards for registry failures, registrar failures, disputes between trademark holders in relation to the applications at the top level and the second level, concerns of the national governments about the registration by others of names that they feel have sovereign issues. ICANN should use a transparent, legally sustainable, and credible set of dispute mechanisms. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Marilyn. Norbert. >>NORBERT KLEIN: My name is Norbert Klein. I am here as a member of the GNSO council. But I would like to speak, remembering that I was a ccTLD creator and operator in Cambodia. Whatever we have done there over the years would not have been possible to be done as a business. And therefore, I would like to come back to this philosophical question whether ICANN is doing some of these operations as a business or some as a service to the international community. We could not have started an ISP in Cambodia, we could not have created the possibility to communicate in the Cambodian language on computers if this would have been done as a business. It was only possible by massive input and assistance from the outside. But it became business sustainable later. After nonprofits had done the pioneering work, then commercial ISPs came in. After nonprofits had done the pioneering work, the Ministry of Education has taken over to implementing the whole country what we have done as ground-breaking work in terms of Unicode and applications. In the same way, I think there will be no internationalized DNS in Cambodia if it has to start as a business. And therefore, I just would like to say this very clearly. If there is no possibility to support the initial stages of an IDN ccTLD in Cambodia, there will be none for a long time. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Norbert, I think Kurt has actually answered that already, but I am very happy to answer again, and that is that what Kurt is talking about is that these things have to be done in a businesslike way. We have to have business systems in-house to run things. That's the side Kurt is talking about. But ICANN doesn't approach this as a business. ICANN is doing this as a service. Now, that doesn't yet -- I agree -- answer the cost, because there is going to be a cost for the service, but I think we can get those issues separated. We are doing this as a service. We are doing it as part of the original mission, but it has to be done in a businesslike way. Marilyn, you, actually, started off by saying that AT&T should do all those things, and I wonder if you really meant someone should be doing those things. (laughing). >>MARILYN CADE: Thanks for this opportunity to apologize to the community. I, of course, meant that ICANN should ensure, and I do appreciate for the opportunity to correct the record. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: All right. So there is not going to be a coup that we weren't really aware of. That's a relief. Werner, it's your turn. >>WERNER STAUB: This is a very short comment. I often heard now the expression "this round," and it always makes me afraid that the thinking slips back into the -- we have a round and then we don't think for another couple of years and we don't know what happens. I would like to reiterate that it should always be in the process, not just the rounds, and ICANN should reinforce that by announcing from the beginning more than one round so that people know for sure that they can jump on the second, not necessarily the first, that is coming up. And that, in part, also addresses the ability for others to come up and join. Because if they know that it is clearly the second round that they might want to focus on, they can save quite a bit of money and, of course, uncertainty and risk, because they can see what the others do and go the safe way. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Kurt. Do you want to say something about how are we going to handle the influx? Is it all at once as Paul fears or some other process? >>KURT PRITZ: As I understand -- thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I understand the question, Werner, the direction of the council in its implementation guidelines was fairly clear. And that was that a second round was -- it's intended to announce a second round almost coincidentally with the first to give potential applicants, registrants the knowledge that if they don't apply in the first round, it's not the last chance for a long time. So that's incorporated as part of the strategy. Anyway, that's enough. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Thanks for that. That seems to be the end of questions. But, Kurt, while you're on your feet, can you move to your -- sorry, Kurt, can you get ready to move on to your next topic, your next single slide will be coming up on registrar protection. But, just, Dennis, the last word. >>DENNIS JENNINGS: Thank you. Dennis Jennings. There has been a lot of chat about what I call vanity gTLDs, for example, dot Jennings or dot IBM or dot Dengate Thrush, or dot Coca-Cola, or dot VeriSign, or whatever. What is the community's view on whether vanity gTLDs should be allowed or whether gTLDs should be only allowed for organizations that are serving third-party registrations? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Kurt? >>KURT PRITZ: This is Kurt talking as an individual. I think that the intent of new gTLDs is to encourage competition and choice and encourage new business models. So it's -- so in the implementation, staff is not considering certain business models as more appropriate than others, but is interested in any registration of a TLD for a good purpose, for what the registrant thinks is a good purpose, not ICANN. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sorry. Steve, I get to Steve Crocker and then if we can have Bertrand. Bertrand, you've had a few, so -- >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: I always have some. >>STEVE CROCKER: Thank you. With respect to the overarching phrase, "encourage new business models," I'm always struck when I hear that, that there is a very substantial cost to getting into the business, so that whatever the range of business models that one might think about, they have to be business models in a real sense. If we take analogies from other aspects of our daily life in allocating critical resources or scarce resources, in the city planning business, one allocates space for parks and schools and churches and so forth without imposing the very high cost that developers would have to.... So, nonetheless, despite saying that we're open to a wide variety of models, it still feels to me that the range of possibilities are restricted to, you can make money at this any way you want; we're not imposing that you have to sell it retail if you can make money by getting one large client who wants to pay a lot of money. But it still forecloses the possibility of new gTLDs that are for the public benefit in some fashion. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Steve. Bertrand. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Just a brief comment regarding the process and the cost. We need to look at all this in a systemic way. This is a dynamic system that has many connections. The way it is going -- and it is a very understandable way -- is understanding that processing applications might require some costs. That to make sure that we have covered all the different dangers, all the different possible objections, it will require a lot of dispute resolution mechanisms, which is another cost. And that in order also to limit the number of such applications, having a relatively high fee for submission is an appropriate solution. It's a very good market-based solution that corelates the amplitude of the process, the cost that it incurs, and the number of applications. The problem that has emerged is that this mechanism is very appropriate to select something that I would call for-profit TLDs as a business model -- entry costs, whatever. It's just like buying a license, to keep, again, this analogy. But it doesn't allow, really, the easy entry point for public-interest operators, community TLDs, or linguistic TLDs, for instance. And in that respect, two quick comments. First, I see the market evolving potentially in the distinction between the registry policy function and the registry service support activity. This is something that we might be interested in exploring, because there is a real evolution possible here. And the other thing, I will support what Werner was saying. Personally, I don't see why there should be rounds. Why not have one single process with stages? We can elaborate later. But, personally, the notion of rounds is making me a bit dizzy in terms of preparedness of some actors versus others, the first one who raises a separate fee before it is registered. For business activities, this is okay. But there are many other TLDs, and, personally, I think the other TLDs are more interesting for community-building than the only-business approach. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Thank you, it's Philip Sheppard from the business constituency. All I would say in opening, I think, is that one man's vanity is another man's business model. And I think one of the things we try to construct in this round is, as we heard from Elliot earlier, we're not clever enough right now to see where the future's going to be in terms of what makes sense at the other side of the dot. So we try to construct as open a process as possible, but with an objection-based process that would remove, perhaps, those things that might be deemed as confusing or unfair or lead to e-commerce being an undesirable place to do business as opposed to a desirable place to do business. So I think we're, hopefully, going for flexibility and imagination. And that seems to be the right way forward. >>NAOMASA MARUYAMA: My name is Naomasa Maruyama. Dennis used the word "vanity TLD." And I understood that that is a very similar notion that the word I used, the "proprietary TLD," at the last ICANN meeting. And my firm belief is that the gTLD or TLD should be used for the third-party registration. That is my firm belief. But it seems that there's no consensus on this topic. So I really appreciate Dennis for bringing this point to our attention. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Maruyama-San. Annette. >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: Annette Muehlberg, At-Large Advisory Committee, speaking in my own capacity. Dennis, thank you for the question, because I think that's a very important issue. I really don't like the idea to restrict those TLDs. I think those TLDs should be open to everyone to register. We avoid a lot of trouble if we have it free for everyone, because you never know in what language, you know, it always has a different meaning. Even, if I can take my own name, it contains trouble in itself, because it's my personal name, but it's also a city name. And maybe it has a different meaning in other languages. Maybe it is also a company. I don't know. And I really don't like the idea of having apples given to a company and not to just people. And so I think we avoid such a lot of trouble by just saying, by default, you know, generic top-level domains should be not restricted, and only if there is some really, like, public benefit to a certain restriction, then you have to prove there is a public benefit to it, and then we can discuss it, if that makes sense. For example, I thought of something like SOS or something like this, if you have a sort of help number for the global world and it makes life easier for everyone, that might be something. I don't -- I'm just coming up with ideas here, but just to make clear that I mean by saying "public benefit." So, in general, I think those top-level domains should not be restricted. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks. >>HARALD ALVESTRAND: I'm Harald Alvestrand. I'm a very simple-minded person, also on the board. My connection. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Any relation? [ Laughter ] >>HARALD ALVESTRAND: Well, you have asked the NomCom that. And I kind of think that there are two kinds of gTLDs, not more. There is the stuff that gets handled by a normal process: You pay us something that's cost recovery at least, and we go through the objection process and resolve conflicts and all that. But I think most registrations will be uncontroversial. And in that case, we shouldn't ask what you're going to do with it. If it's a vanity, business opportunity, just want to make sure nobody else takes it, that's none of my business. But if you want special treatment, like asserting sovereign rights, or don't want to pay for what it costs ICANN to process it, we need to have comments and arguments. But that is the only kind of distinction I would vote to make. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Harald. Now there's three in a row here, starting with Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay. Thanks. A couple of things, first regarding dot Jennings. By the way, could we please reserve a name there? It never exists. I think the problem is not whether it's closed or open or small or big. I think that the problem is the logic behind the exercise we are doing. And the exercise we are doing is not giving business opportunities or enabling anyone to print money or to feel important or provide a service. We are managing the public space of the domain names in the benefit of the public trust. So I would think that all the domain names should be -- I don't know whether open or closed, because that's a different question regarding registration policies, but should have some sense of benefiting to the public or any subset of the public space. So I will say that private spaces should go in the same way as the creation of new gTLDs at least for a time now. And also this drives the considerations of what we should do when creating a new gTLD. It's not -- we are not discussing here whether you have the right to open a restaurant or not. It isn't the question of, you know, giving business franchises. It's just delegating the management of a public resource to a given entity for the benefit of, you know, the whole community or a certain part of that community. So the criteria here is, do they create any harm to the name space, technical or any other? And the second question is, is there a certain demand for that? Is there a certain support for that solution? For the TLD and for that concrete operation of the TLD. And the third is, is there any significant opposition to that? These aren't the things we have to look, whether we are encouraging business models or not, or whether, you know, it would be nice to have dot Jennings or dot Abril for our own purposes or we can pay for that or not. Now, regarding -- there's something that still puzzles mere. We are always talking about we have hundreds of thousands of new TLDs. I think that ICANN should request to all the registries that were approved in 2000 and 2004 to publish their accounting regarding what they got from the operation of the TLD in the last years. And there will be some surprises. I think there are very few of them that were able to pay the expenses out of the operation of the TLD. And this is something, perhaps, we should explain, be that for profit or not for profit; right? Dot cat was one of those that was able to pay expenses because it pays very little. That's probably the reason. But I don't really think that you are in front of one million applications for TLDs being run as a business. And I think that the -- probably the most interesting things are those that will come here as a sense of a service for other things. >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS: Thank you. Eric Brunner-Williams again, from CORE. I -- the term "business" comes frequently from -- "business" is the language of ICANN staff, or at least the term we hear coming from the podium, things were run in a businesslike fashion. And that grates on the nerves of many here who are not here for -- well, let me start over and say that ICANN -- we didn't consent to the formation of ICANN for the purposes of advancing business. What we consented to was a change in a monopoly market, a monopoly commercial market. We didn't consent merely to the change to a competitive business market, simply, more general range of possibilities, including nonprofit, governmental, social justice broadly as an alternative to the accumulation of capital. So when the members of staff, in particular, the CEO and the chairman, say, "Run in a businesslike fashion," you're making -- you're alienating at least half of us here who would like to hear you also say something like, "And socially responsible" or some other word. So my point in rising is to urge you to find a rhetorical alternative to the word "business." And every time you say "business," find a way to say something immediately afterwards that indicates that that's not the only reason that we're here and that's not the only reason that ICANN staff sees itself -- the only role that the ICANN staff sees themselves in. If we did want a business, we would not have formed a nonprofit. We would have formed a for-profit, and we would have asked for shares. We would have insisted upon shares. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks. That's good advice. And we've already had comment about the importance and power of the words. I'm going to make Raimundo the last speaker, unless there's another one, because tea is ready. So, Raimundo, you get the final say. >>RAIMUNDO BECA: I will speak in Spanish. I don't know what I am going to -- what is going to be the last word, but I think I'm going to say things -- This is a problem, basically, economic problem. The roots for resources -- because we have scarce resources, and they're very, very precious from the economic point of view. And we want that everybody should be in the roots, that all the names should be in the root. Because once it ceases to be a scarce resource, then we don't bother about economic considerations. We don't know whether ccTLD will support this or not. A come from an industry of telecommunications, which is quite used to this economic crisis, which will not be able to support that all these numbers should be there. I want to explain two extremes. The first extreme is that when you see the budgetary exercise, as was said yesterday, that it is an exercise which is basically of presentation of models. And maybe the numbers don't have any value, but they just give us some idea. In this model, before the first application is presented, there would be $17 million in preparation one would have invested. For example, as a member of finance committee, we cannot talk about, in the beginning of this model, $17 million. Because if you were to do this, we would be leaving out many of these important actors. And this amount would be considered as an investment, and provided we made the right calculation and we do not lose this money. Second situation would be, which is also very extreme, I share the opinion expressed by earlier speakers about the resolution of disputes. I think that there would be various options in this regard. My experience with the options has been that in the sector of telecommunications, what one can obtain as a resource is that I share that we are speaking about figures which are quite huge. And we are speaking about a budget which is tremendously high. And I think this would be a very serious error on our part if we were to -- if we were to see that the current functioning of ICANN doesn't get financing from the persons involved or they are not asked to pay for these expenses. There's a concept in the economy that we have to follow the economic law which says that -- the law which is called the Dutch disease. And this Dutch disease consists -- shows us that all the incomes of petrol can destroy the economy. Because the incomes which come which is generated from this benefits us, but we have to reduce the costs, the fees. Therefore, my proposal in this regard is that if there are options, we have to create a foundation whose principles we would have to define, the structure, and we will have to see how this foundation can function in a manner which doesn't destroy the principles. I come from a country, which is Chile, which these days is enjoying the bonanza of recovery of copper income. But we don't know to what extent this is going to benefit us, because the economists have to give us suggestions so that we can enjoy the benefits for longer periods of time. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Raimundo. Fine. Thank you very much. I'm going to close it now for our tea, which is outside. (Break.) >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming back on time. There are long lines at the coffee machine so we are going to give them a chance to get back. In a slight change in order, we are going to hear from Sebastien about the next ICANN conference which is to be held in Paris, which seems to be attracting already a great deal of attention. So we will just give people a couple of minutes to come back. . >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience while we solve this technical problem. And thank you for coming back from the sunny day outside. Housekeeping announcement first. There are two cameras that have been handed in. If you have lost your camera and can identify some of the photographs in it to support [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: -- to sustain your claim, see Diane in the staff room which is in Rashana, which is down underneath the stairs. So some of you who were worried about some of those photos you were taking, you should have been. The ombudsman, who has a sense of procedural fairness and respect for the privacy and confidentiality, suggests that we broadcast the slides on the screen and then we see who.... No, perhaps. This would have the advantage of solving the problem quickly. All right. Well, I am just filling in time while we get slides ready to go. Are we ready to go? Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Sebastien Bachollet who is going to introduce the topic of the Paris convention. >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure for me to be here today to speak to you about the meeting in Paris. I would like to start by thanking our Indian friends for the organization of this meeting, which I am sure has allowed us to discuss and generate a lot of ideas. The next meeting will be conducted in Paris between the 21st and 27th of June. We have a team made up of several organizations which are listed on the screen. AFNIC, the Internet society of France, and many other organizations, many of whom are present here in the room today, as well as representatives of France telecom. I would like to, in advance, welcome you to Paris, and I hope that you will have the opportunity to come to Paris and to speak in the various languages of the world in this country. I am going to welcome you in all languages. I think it's important to tell you that you are welcome, whatever the language you may speak. I hope that you will come to Paris on an Air France flight. We are in the process of negotiating tariffs with Air France. So whether you arrive on Air France or on any other flight, you will arrive at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, and you have to take an Air France bus from the airport. It will come to the hotel, and when you see this large building, the Montparnasse Tower, you will see right next to it the Meridien Montparnasse Hotel which is the venue of the next conference. It is in a very lively district of Paris and I'm sure you will have lots of things to do in this area. And you will be able to participate in the ICANN meeting. A few images showing you the hotel. These are the different restaurants in the hotel and the conference room. I hope you will make the most of your trip to visit Paris. To go around Paris, you will have the metro, the tramways and the buses. And you can also rent bikes, every 200 meters you have a service where you can rent a bike. You can also take a boat ride down the Seine river. You can go and visit the various monuments in Paris, the Eiffel Tower. >> We will be working! [ Laughter ] >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: You are certainly going to come and work in Paris, but you can come with your family and you can spend some time before or after the conference. And I'm just trying to show you what you can do in Paris. So the Eiffel Tower and several other monuments which will be interesting to visit. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument in the world. We have to pay to visit it. Notre Dame Cathedral is free. There are various museums in Paris as well, the Louvre Museum, the new Museum as well. And you have the Museum of Information Technology. This is the new museum that is situated in the de France district of Paris. Some of you told me there is the music festival in Paris on the 21st of June. It is a great opportunity to do something at this time, and therefore, we propose to you to try -- I am not the organizer, we are not organizing this, but we suggest that you can try and organize a musical evening where you can come with your friends and you can come and sing, dance, you can play an instrument. Our friends from Quebec and many other countries have expressed a desire to participate in this music festival. So I think it will be a great opportunity. It would be something different from what you normally have at any conference, and I think there's also the festival of Quebec. And I think it's an important event. It is the 400th anniversary, I think, of Quebec. I need you and you need us, and I think together we can have a great event. And nothing can be done without some money. If you are a fan of Formula One, we will be having a Formula One event on the 22nd of June, just before the ICANN conference. Some information. You will find all of this online, as well, on the Web site. I would like to insist on something. All public places in France are nonsmoking zones now. There isn't a single restaurant where you can smoke in France, and I personally think that's a great idea, but I would like to let some of you know because I have seen you smoking on the premises. That will not be possible in France. And I'm sure all of you will be happy to spend a day without smoke. Another event which will be happening in Paris on the 20th of June, there is a festival called Egeni. It is the previous Friday. Three themes: the future of Internet, Internet in 2020, and what do users want. And you can have more information on this event on their Web site. We would also like to invite all the future candidates for the gTLDs to come and have a fashion show in Paris, come and present your projects so that we can have a global vision of the various projects that can be presented. Same thing in French. You see something written in all the languages. If you have the ability to sponsor an event, a meeting, or any of the side events, please do get in touch with me to see how we can take this forward. If you have any wishes, any desires, do let us know. And the future will be made of the tools that we create together. I wish you all success in your work, and I wait for you with impatience for your arrival in Paris. And I would like to thank all of you who are in this room and those who are listening to us externally, and all those who will be with us in Paris, do come to Paris and participate in the work of ICANN. It will be a great event, and I'm sure a great success. Have a great day, all of you [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Fantastic, Sebastien. Thank you very much. Anybody have any immediate questions for the French organizers after that presentation? While you are thinking of some, can I ask Kurt to come up and get wired for the registrar safety issue. And while we are waiting, I can just say how exciting the idea of the musical ICANN. It reminds me of a dinner a few of us had a few years ago where you play a game where you match life up to a movie so we were making ICANN the movie and we were going around the crowd seeing which actors and actresses would play different characters at ICANN. That was a lot of fun. And it turns out there is an awful lot of musical talent who comes to these meetings. Susan Crawford, who is on the board, is an expert viola player; Dennis Jennings confesses to playing the piano; and Rita Rodin, who is not here because she is injured, has played the horn. So we started talking about the "ICANN: The Opera," to follow. But in a cynical moment we realized it was probably going to become "ICANN: The soap opera." Ready to go, Kurt? >>KURT PRITZ: Yes, and we can consider this my audition, which will be a tap dance. [ Applause ] >>KURT PRITZ: So the protection of registrants is really a multi-disciplinary or multi-functional effort by ICANN which is undertaken by the company across functions. It's really not one department's job to work toward the protection of registrants, but really the job of the many. And so in getting to pick one slide, I'm going to pick the best news slide for a couple of reasons, which is slide five. And that is ICANN's data escrow program. I have selected this slide for a couple of reasons. One is to indicate that the data escrow program now implemented has been remarkably successful, probably because ICANN is offering a bona fide free service to registrars. Since the initiation of the program in December, 742 of the 900-some-odd registrars have indicated to ICANN that they are electing to escrow their data with the ICANN-provided escrow agent, Iron Mountain. 82% of all registrars by number. And a much higher number if you think about the percentage of registrants represented there. 276 registrars have actually signed agreements, and 8 registrars have actually deposited data. These events come at the close of a QA testing period. ICANN will be publishing the QA testing report shortly. Drafts are being iterated around. So that's the good news. The other reason I selected this slide is the impact this has on the other areas of registrant protection. One is that we escrow data in the event of registrar failover. And failover is also a significant effort by ICANN. Registrar failover, we had, I think, a really meaningful and cool workshop here yesterday where the participants broke into groups that participated in various registrar failover scenarios and provided guidance to ICANN as to how they would like to see ICANN work and the best way to protect registrants' name registrations. And registry failover, ICANN also conducted what I consider to be a meaningful exercise in that we conducted an off-site simulation of registry failover. And that really served to harden our procedures when we tested them in scenarios that were provided by an outside agency. The development of registry failover will continue as we now involve gTLD and ccTLD registries in developing mechanisms for actually porting over and saving data, so in the event that there's a registry failure, that names continue to resolve. This data escrow also is a metaphor for contractual compliance. All -- One of the slides that's not here is there is a fairly tight time frame for all registrars to become compliant with this program. And compliance activities and audits will start in October of this year. And finally, this slide also relates to changes we are make to go the registrar accreditation agreement in partnerships with the registrar working group. And that is that even with this escrow of data, we think that essentially will protect 70, 75% of registrants. Many registrants have privacy or proxy registrations. And one of the changes to the -- the proposed changes to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement is a requirement for registrars to escrow that underlying privacy data, too, for proxy services that they operate. So that process is well down the path. We expect to post, in concert with the registrars, and after taking many comments from the community, a set of proposed amendments sometime in the next 60 days. So that's a brief explanation of the Registrant Protection Program and why the successful data escrow program is really a metaphor for all the registrar/registrant protection. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Kurt. Just a reminder for anyone who has come in since we started this morning. This is an open forum. This is public consultation. If you want to speak, stand up or get my attention and I will put you on a speaking order. This is a demonstration of what I mean. Stand up like that. Stand up like that. And when you do speak, if you could introduce yourself and speak slowly, much more slowly than I do, for our scribes who are taking it all down. Steve. >>STEPHEN CROCKER: Thank you, Kurt. That's a very positive development there. Let me just ask on one very interesting detail that you alluded to here. Some people register under a proxy, and some of those proxies are maintained by the registrar. So that if a registrar failed, there would be a collateral failure of the proxy service because it's a sort of shared fate situation. And I think what you said is you want to expand the escrow process so that it includes that. >>KURT PRITZ: Yes. >>STEPHEN CROCKER: So a natural question, at least to the way my mind works, what about other guys who use the proxy service outside this. And I think the natural answer is that's outside and therefore it's not covered. But from the overall protection of users, it would seem to me, maybe, helpful to publicize that this is an aspect and users who use unaligned, I don't know what the right word is, but unaffiliated or not covered by this, might seek to understand what the failure scenarios are, if they use some third party. Not that we can enforce it, but we can at least bring it to visibility and make that part of what registrants ought to know. >>KURT PRITZ: Right. That was perfectly put. I have nothing to add to that. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Steve. Wendy. >>WENDY SELTZER: Thank you. Wendy Seltzer. I wanted to say, first, thank you for these efforts because, from the registrant perspective, we see this Web of contracts regulated only by the parties to the contract. And so it's critically important to the registrant of a domain name that ICANN be enforcing its part of that contract to protect the rights of registrants in the picture. And I think steps like the escrow provision help to protect those rights. Compliance enforcement, helps to protect registrants' rights. So I appreciate the progress on this. On the specific point of escrowing of private registration information, I have raised the concern before that some people use these proxy registrations specifically because they never want their personal information connected with a domain name. And I hope that's accounted for in whatever amendments are planned. >>KURT PRITZ: And, Wendy, if I could just respond, in the interim, that's a primary concern of registrars, too. Because they want to service their customer according to their wishes. And their wishes are for that information to be kept private. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Any other questions for Kurt? Comments on protection mechanisms? Okay. Okay; great. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you, Chairman. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: The next presentation is by Roberto Gaetano who is, amongst other things the chairman of the working group that has been doing GNSO improvements. And again, this is a topic that has been much discussed in several fora here. So Roberto is one of the speakers who has the one-slide rule, but I imagine there will be lots of discussion. >>ROBERTO GAETANO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since this discussion has been going on and has been quite intensive, I am not only reducing the number of slides but also reducing the verbal feedback. I think you all know what is going on, what has gone on since the last time. The working group has proposed the final report. This final report went to the Board Governance Committee. The Board Governance Committee did not discuss the contents of the report but had verified that the way of operating of the working group was correct. And that all the conditions have been fulfilled. That all the interested parties have been contacted. And so, therefore, the BGC has decided to pass the report to the board for discussion of the board and for approval. This was a simple process because, as I said, the chairman of the GNSO review working group had close contacts with the chairman of the Board Governance Committee. And as usual, when those two meet, they agree. I would like to just give, indeed, what the contents of the review is. What are the major points that are proposed. Because I think that this is where, on procedural issues, I think this is where we might have contributions from the community. Sorry, but the first part, the first thing is to adopt a working group model as our main way of operating. That is, the two implications of this are, first of all, to move from the logic of having task forces that were reflecting more or less the distribution of the council, and replicating in a different context the discussions that take place in the council; to have an open working group, where the representation is more oriented to different points of view. And the target is to ensure that every point of view is reflected in the working group and discussed, rather than ensuring a balance by the different formal constituencies. This is something that has been already experimented with good results by the GNSO. This is a model that we have not invented, we are copying. We are taking good ideas from other parts of the Internet community, like the IETF process. And I think that we can successfully implement that in the GNSO. The second implication of using the working group model, is that if the working group reaches consensus on certain a policy statement, then the work of the council is pretty much what the board governance committee has done, versus the work of the working group of the review working group. That means, just verify that the process has been fair, that everybody has been contacted, that the solution is complete and so on. So, rather look at the formal aspects, but then not enter into a debate and reopen the issues at the council level. And then propose this to the board for the final ratification. This, in our view, has an implication that -- a second implication that will come clear later on, which is that the voting balance in the GNSO, in terms of the policy-making process, is less important than it is now. Where the policy is made by the council or by task forces that reflect the balance that we have in the council. And, so, it's strictly related to the voting power of each component of the community. Whereas, this is going to be no longer the case in the new process. The second point is, the view of the PDP process in itself. There are some things, we have -- the experience that we have been reported from, who has more actively participated in the GNSO, and in the policy development process, is the fact that we have sort of a PDP, one-size-fits all when we have different issues that are put on the table for policy development. And that the policy development process has to be somehow adapted to different circumstances. And since the policy development process is now half quoted in the bylaws, it's very difficult to behave differently. And, so, that will give, again, more, what we propose is to give to the council a higher flexibility in adapting the policy process to the different circumstances. The implication of this, is that the council will acquire an additional role, which is an influence on the policy-making process, in the sense that the council, when on one side will lose, quote, unquote, the power of voting on a specific policy proposal, will have, on the other hand, the strategic view of coordinating the different PDP. And, so, able to focus more on the strategic lines and limit the direct involvement in one-by-one issues. From what I said before, it's obvious what changes this will have on an implication on the GNSO council. We believe that the GNSO council can be reorganized in order to be more functional to this new task that is given to it, and new procedures for the PDP. And we believe that the council, that is now structured, based on constituencies, has to be reorganized around broad stakeholder groups. The reason for this, is that as we have seen over the years, although the bylaws give the possibility to create and terminate constituencies. This has happened only once in ten years of history, and it was when the ccTLDs left the then DNSo council, which has become the GNSO council, to create their own supporting organization. Since the beginning, we had the question about introduction of different constituencies. Since the second ICANN meeting in Berlin, the proposal for the individual registrants constituency or the individual user constituency, has been made. But over more than nine years this has never happened. Because, simply, the structure, based on constituency, is very rigid. The moment that you introduce a new constituency it's kind of a black and white, a zero-one situation. Either you have nothing or you have a full-fledged constituency that has three representative in the council that alters the balance of votes in the council. And, so, it's a very complicated situation and there's lot of resistance in the introduction of new constituencies. This doesn't give the possibility to the model to be flexible and to adapt to the changes. If we think about how the situation was ten years ago, when ICANN was founded, the market has dramatically changed. Also, and most importantly, for the presence of ICANN that has deregulated the market in the sense that it has introduced the competition, has introduced more market dynamics. And, so, therefore, new elements are appearing in the market from the domainers to resellers, and so on. So, we have new groups of people, that it is not really very clear how they fit in the GNSO, in the currently rigid constituency structure. So, therefore, what we have proposed is to have, first of all, to make the distinction between the parties that are directly affected by the policy, because the policy is put in their contracts. And so they have a contractual obligation to respect the policy decisions. And those who are affected by the policy, but not with a contractual relationship. In the first group, we have identified the registries and registrars we believe that those will be distinct stakeholder groups. Although especially with the introduction of new gTLDs with the market becoming more dynamic, with the introduction of IDNS, there will some changes. Some organizations will be registries and registrars. To a certain extent this starts happening already. And, so, again, the current structure in constituencies, where you have a rigidly registrar constituency and a registry constituency, will be very little adaptable to cover the new situations. So, to have a basic group of entities that have a contractual relationship with ICANN, will provide a big container, in which we have for the time being registries and registrars. But we have introduced an element of possible evolution, when new subjects will come to the picture. On the other side, among the groups that are not directly involved in a contractual relationship, we have a first big split, I would say, distinction between commercial users, that is mostly covered by the business constituency, the I.P. constituency right now, and the noncommercial users. Where right now in the structure we have the noncommercial user constituency, but we have potentially a lot of different groups and organizations that are not represented in the NCUC, as it is now, from the individual registrants, to academic and research organizations. So, I think that a lot of work has to be done in this part of the new structure. And we need to give the flexibility. Again, to provide a container where it will be easy, or at least much easier than in the current situation, for new people. Whether it's individual registrants or academic institutions, or whatever you can think that has a noncommercial interest in the domain name system to come and participate. This is strictly linked with the idea of the working group, as opposed to the task force, because the participation in the life of the GNSO will mean also participation to the working group. And the main target that we are trying to achieve here, is to have all the points of view taken care of. And so not only in the structure of the working groups, but also giving a flexible structure of the GNSO to achieve this. That, what I said, covers, in fact, also the fourth point, which is to enhance the constituencies. Although I have to make one specific comment on this. Constituencies have been created by a bottom-up process, self organized efforts. And that was an extremely good thing. But at one point in time, especially now that we are all involved in a big effort to find -- to go beyond the JPA, and when one of the main comments that we had over time about ICANN is related to transparency, to inclusiveness. And I think that those are concepts that we have to adhere, where not only the board should be involved. In other words, the transparency and the accountability and inclusively does not apply only to the board, to the action of the board, doesn't mean that only the board has to publish minutes, that only the board has to be accountable to the community. But, I think that this is principle that has to be extended to every component of the ICANN family. That means that even the constituencies have to make an effort, and we have different cases and different constituencies, to be open and to be inclusive, and to demonstrate that they're inclusive. And to apply transparency and accountability principles to their internal life. This is not an imposition on the constituencies, but is only to show that we are all part of the ICANN family. And I think that if we -- ICANN is scrutinized versus its accountability and transparency, that means that all the components of the ICANN family will. So that means that we need to have some enhancement in the way, at least some constituencies, will have to modify their internal life. The last point is an obvious thing that, to improve the coordination and to improve the communication. Part of this point is also, although is not detailed in the slide, it also means that there's going to be more resources that ICANN has to put in the process, to help this change to take place. Especially, for instance, for training for the working group chairman who will have a key position. And the effort for supporting a better and more inclusive participation in the life of the GNSO. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Excellent, thanks, Roberto. Comments? Questions about GNSO reform for Roberto? Mr. Sheppard. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Thanks very much. Just a factual addition to what Roberto says. One of the significant things in the report, which is mostly about procedure, administrative changes, but also about, very well, significant structural change. Is it on the structural change is it does contain two minority reports. So the message going to the board is a little mixed. And I think it is particularly on that subject that I'd like to comment on behalf of the business constituency. We welcome, indeed, the majority of the administrative reforms, suggested in this report. But we have significant concerns -- please note the diplomacy of the language there -- significant concerns, structural proposal, which we believe frankly conflicts with the underlying inhibitions of those administrative reforms, particularly the working group model that Roberto has just described. We note the proposals and minority reports, and we respond favorably to the second of those minority reports, which is seeking alternative proposals. In that, we want to address the significant concerns that we see, and perhaps those are best characterized threefold. Firstly, the incentive. The current proposal is failing, we believe, to provide the incentive to make the working group model functional. In other words, the current impasse that we have in the voting structure on council is being replicated to a very broad degree in the new structure. What we need to do is to look at the impasse there, look at the way that that has led to delay sometimes (inaudible) to being, and to change that. Secondly, credibility. The current proposal is highly likely to drive away commercial interest participants in ICANN, and that will lead in the relatively medium term, I suspect, to undermining ICANN's credibility, and all sorts of things and ambitions that we were talking about earlier with the JPA. Third, oversight. ICANN's public interest in oversight responsibilities are, to large extent, we believe, compromised by that proposal. Anyway, BC is ever optimistic and full of alternatives and ideas and I'd like to end on a note. We're going to be working with our colleagues and other stakeholders, most broadly in the community as we can, in the short term, to provide the board with an alternative structural proposal, which we believe solves the last three issues that I just mentioned. In the meantime -- and we recommend that perhaps when you consider this tomorrow -- a public comment period may be something around 60 days could be about right in terms of this one. I understand the minimum is something like 20 days. We could even have 90 if we went quite close to Paris. But in talking to staff, it seemed that perhaps 60 days would be a good balance between being able to extend that to the community to allow a sense of preparation in the alternative, but also allowing a coherent voice in terms of what that proposal may look like in preparation in time for the board meeting in Paris. Thank you so much. >>ROBERTO GAETANO: Just one thing. Of course, I'm not going to answer it now, it's for the board to listen to the comment that came from the floor and to discuss within the board. But it's just on the first part of your comment that I want to add something, which is the working group model. I think that it is perfectly appropriate to present a result of a working group that whenever there's no full consensus, clearly shows the minority views, and bring them, then, intact to the board, because then the board is the deciding body. I don't think that we have -- I think that we have applied the spirit of the working group in which we have listened to everybody. And wherever a consensus was possible, we have applied the consensus. Whenever the consensus was not possible, we are not trying to impose the majority view, but we are presenting what is the rough consensus, but explicitly pointing out and presenting to the board for consideration the minority views. I think it's, in my opinion, the way a working group should work. >>CHUCK GOMES: First of all, I'd like -- I'm Chuck Gomes from VeriSign, and a member of the registry constituency. First of all, I'd like to just share two general points that the registry constituency shared in the GNSO Council open meeting yesterday. The first one is, is that we believe that the total package of recommendations really needs to be considered as a whole, because many of them are interdependent. They interrelate. And we need to be careful about isolating some of them that are actually very closely related to others. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't support looking at other things. And we will cooperate, just like the business constituency, in terms of other ideas that might be put forward in the very near term. But, for example, the restructuring that's recommended in the report calls for a balance between contracted and uncontracted parties, as Roberto referred to some. And that comes with it some voting allocation methods. It's very important to look at that in light of the new working group model, where voting is de-emphasized, and it's really a collaborative effort. So, in fact, if we're successful in doing this -- and that will take some time and a lot of work and cooperation -- we -- that whole issue of voting will hopefully become less over time. Now, I know we've got a ways to go. But if we change that balance, what's going to happen, it's going to take us back, we're going to regress back to the old DNSO. And I won't go into the details there, because I communicated some of those in Los Angeles. Be glad to discuss that with anybody offline. The second point is that we have to be careful not to evaluate these recommendations using old paradigms. We're looking at a quite different role for the council. And some view that as less important. That's okay. Maybe the working group is the more important place to be than the council. And that's okay. But if we keep looking at our old paradigms the way we've operated in the past, I think we're going to miss some of the value of what is being recommended here. And, again, I emphasize, the registry constituency is more than willing to work through this in the coming months and be a part of that process. But it is important that we do it, putting some old paradigms aside, and looking at the interdependencies of the recommendations, and make sure that we get the full benefit of them. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks. I have Cheryl next, and then Elliot, and then Marilyn. >> CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Thank you. Cheryl Langdon-Orr, chair of the ALAC. And it's not that I'm in any way going to repeat what was said by the speakers just before me, although I suspect we would be in violent agreement on a number of points. The ALAC is not being quiet on this matter. It is simply on our agenda for our business this afternoon. So I am not speaking with any complete ALAC consensus or supermajority view. But do not be in any way thinking we are not active and interested on this topic. We are. And I certainly wanted to pick up on the point made by the BC, and that is that, as part of what is the noncontracted parties group, the registrars, we would be very keen to be part of a short, sharp ongoing process with the other constituencies. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Cheryl. Just while I'm walking to Elliot, can I get some reaction about the 60-day thing from the audience at some stage? That's a question for the board tomorrow. Is that too much? Too little? Compromise seemed to be between 21 and 90. Elliot, your turn. >>ELLIOT NOSS: Thank you, Peter. Elliot Noss, Tucows. I was very heartened to hear Roberto call out two huge elements of the domain name and DNS community that, to date, have been sadly unrepresented inside of the formal ICANN community in domainers and resellers. I have spoken out, boy, for years now about some of what I would call the anachronisms specifically relating to resellers, even the term "resellers," and how that relates to the ISPC. I'm going to repeat those briefly for the record here. You know, somebody who was very much around and a part of the early days when the original DNSO was formed, you know, there was no concept of reseller. There was very, very little of a concept of Web hosting company. And at the time, the parties, you know, boy, ourselves being one of them that supplied domain names to registrants, were, rightly, ISPs. Today, the definition inside the ISPC formally relates to physical facilities and network provision, backbone, transit. What that has served to do, sadly, is to exclude the companies that represent, perhaps, 40 to 50% of the supply chain for registrants as it relates to domain name provisioning. You know, I have called for a formal reconstruction of the definition there to change from backbone and transit facilities provider to one that has a concept of companies that sit between registrants and the contracted parties. I think it's a very easy, formal, structural definition, and one that can be quite cleanly applied. The second point that I would like to make is, sadly, there has been a history on the part of some constituencies of exclusion rather than inclusion. And I think that as we move to a reformation or a re-look at the GNSO, it will be very, very important for staff to some extent, but especially the board, around leadership and "moralsuasion" to nurture the participation, in other words, to protect the ability to participate of those two very large groups, domainers and resellers, as they start to both understand this process and try and participate inside of it. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Elliot. Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Peter. I, too, want to express my thanks to the working group for all of the work that they've done and for the fact that they and the staff have done a terrific -- really made a terrific effort to document the discussions and dialogues that have gone on. I will close with a comment about how we might look ahead at increasing the relevant approach of transparency of the work of working groups of this nature for us to think about for future reviews. But for now, I just want to say thank you for all the work you've done, and for, also, making an effort to either add some new features into the latest version, or perhaps just elucidate further on concepts that were already on your minds. And let me point out one that I think is very important. There's a reference in the latest version that indicates a hopeful vision of returning to the broader vision of the noncommercial, noncontracted -- I'm working on language here -- parties that would be more broadly inclusive and enable the broader participation, perhaps at the council level, of different kinds of noncommercial, noncontracted entities. And I hope that others -- it is not for me to suggest how or who. But I hope that others from that broad and diverse set of communities will take the opportunity that on the commercial noncontracted party side we are all going to take, and that is to get together and talk about what a structural reform ought to look like and could work for this different kind of umbrella. So I hope that will happen in a parallel fashion. I have strong concern about some of the elements that are in the recommendation. I have strong support for many other elements. And I happen to be a strong supporter of the working group model. That may not be true across everyone from the commercial noncontracted parties, but I am very supportive of it. There are people here who are smiling, because they think that's just because I love a big party. I think, however, we have to prioritize some of the work. And I know that there's some resistance or concern about, oh, everything has to be a big package and it all has to stay together. I just will say to you that, for years, the council, when I was on it, and two previous evaluations or assessments, cried out for PDP reform and cried out for process and procedure documentation, and cried out for white paper analysis, supported by economic analysis that could neutrally inform the policy development process. So my plea with you would be, remember, regardless of whether you decide in the end that everything is a package, that this part of the work and the procedures for the working group must begin as soon as possible. And I hope that that will happen. I will now just say one final thing about a concern I have. And I think it is an unintended concern, but it is a concern. And it strongly concerns me. One of the things that I think is an unintended consequence is that by -- the policy council is there to approve policy. You've envisioned major changes in the role of the policy council. But please do not envision changing the role of the policy council which represents on policy issues the GNSO and the community about approving policy. We approve provides at the community level. We develop it and approve it, and we sit at the board for acceptance and ratification. Let's not elevate policy approval to the board. Right now, if we send you, pardon me, garbage policy, you can reject it and send it back and tell us to do our job again. And I think that's the right approach. Let's not put the board in the business of becoming SOLOMON. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks. Marilyn, just while I'm walking, I can give you a personal commitment that there's no intention to shift policy-making to the board. We think we've got enough to do. >>KHALED FATTAL: Khaled Fattal. I would like to pay contribute to all of the speakers who have made their cases. And I think they made a very solid case for the issues that they raised. But I will also take note from one of the notes that Roberto has referenced earlier on which talks about the JPA and transparency. And I would like to address this. And, please, may I indulge you in taking a step back so we can look at the big picture. The fast-tracking approach is perhaps a recognition that we've experienced a lot of delays, delays to the point where we're talking about frustrations have set in. I support the fast-tracking approach. But I think we also need to realize a couple of other things. This is perhaps also a challenge to the board to try and focus on the issues that are now priority for ICANN and its future for the next ten years. The details of what's been going on within different constituencies, different processes, are valid. But perhaps we're not focusing on the big picture enough. And you may call me. I'm talking about IDNs one more time. But the last five years, through many processes that we've all participated in, IDNs were very, very important. They were made very important by ICANN. But to the international community, ladies and gentlemen, they were number-one priority. Today, I pay tribute to you, Peter. I know you're busy doing something else, but I think the fact that you've gone out and taken at least a leadership role on an issue which I personally have called on for at least five years on record in regards to the JPA, in regards to bringing back the good faith or the belief in the good faith of ICANN -- in ICANN in the eyes of the international community. In my humble opinion, perhaps expert opinion to many, having been proven right over the years on many issues, in my humble opinion, I think there is nothing more important for the future of ICANN than reaching out and creating this validation in the eyes of the international community. And that starts with IDNs. And doing it right. So we go back to some of the issues. And I won't take much longer. I will address this in more detail at a different stage. Some of the processes that are going on need to actually reflect some new ways of thinking to address some greater challenges that the current ways of thinking have not addressed over the years. Please take that as a genuine attempt to try and do things and succeed. I also recognize that all who have participated and created all these processes did that in the best faith they could. But you know what? If I'm not a doctor, I really cannot render much advice on medicine. So that's not my expertise. I hope that ICANN will listen to this device, because much of the advice in the past had gone ignored or may it could not have been prioritized. And I leave that in your hands. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Just a note that the last speaker was actually talking about a different topic, IDNs, which is a passion. There will be a period at the end of this -- not a long period -- but there will be a period of open mike where you can come forward and talk about anything that we haven't covered. Chuck, you wanted another turn. >>CHUCK GOMES: Thanks, Peter. Chuck Gomes again. Peter, I wanted to respond to the specific question you asked about the 60-day comment period, 30-day, whatever. First of all, I'd like to say that, you know, we've been -- this has been out in front of us and a lot of work has been done over a very long period of time. So my first general comment is I think we need to get going. So stretching it out too long isn't a good idea. At the same time, the issues that are on the table really haven't changed too much since our L.A. meeting. So I think there's been a lot of time. There's some -- there are the minority positions and some refinement of the documents. So it's not as if this is something new. So that said, I think that a way to approach this is to establish a 30-day comment period, or -- 30 is okay. 21 may be okay. But 30 is probably a nice number. I think you need to judge that, too, in terms of timing of your board meetings so that you have it that way. And that may be a determining factor. But, you know, if there, indeed, is evidence that more time is needed, you know, we've been good about that. We extend it if it's needed. But let's make sure it's really needed before we stretch it out too far. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Chuck. Noted. And, Philip and Marilyn, I think, want to respond. And Bruce. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Had the draft reports that we seen earlier changed dramatically over time in the last few months as a result of community commentary, I would be absolutely 100% behind Chuck's suggestion that it's fine. But alas, the proposals we made throughout this process have not been reflected in the draft report. And that is precisely why we are now seeking a different structural change. I'm not sure if anybody from the IPC is here, I know they're thin on the ground in terms of representatives. But I believe that same comment was made by their representative online during our meeting yesterday, that they were highly concerned that almost nothing they had submitted in earlier proposals had been accommodated. I say 60 days was, we thought, a good compromise between allowing some more broad outreach, now that we have seen a final report, and allowing sufficient preparation time before decision time in Paris. >>MARILYN CADE: Rather than telling you the number of days I think is right for the comment period, I'm going to tell you what we want to do and then ask you to think about that. What we want to do is to have the opportunity to meet within individual constituencies and then to meet face to face with as many people from the constituencies who want to come. And we want to meet in a number of locations. And we want to work out a robust, documented, and acceptable and pragmatic plan that we can implement that we can also share with others from the business community who today are not yet fully engaged. We want to do that so we can come back to this board and to this community and restore the confidence that seems we all need to restore, that we all need each other in order to maintain balance. So you know what? Last time I looked, it takes time to set an agenda. It takes time to invite people. It takes time to hold a meeting. It takes time to disagree. And it takes time to agree. And my goal is, on delivering a proposal with many others from the community, I don't know what it's going to look like. I know some of the elements, I think, that people are beginning to talk about. But my goal is to deliver a report and a list of supporters and people who are interested in participating in time for the board to review this in June. And it takes time. >>BRUCE TONKIN: Sort of looking at this discussion, and it's been going on the last few meetings, but it reminds me very similar of the same activity around new gTLDs, in that new gTLDs recommends a lot of changes, I guess, to the way we do things. And there is a lot of work going on since the GNSO completed its report with the staff to look at implementing that. My concern around the GNSO improvements is, there's been a lot of discussion about the recommendations but very little work done on implementation. And I think you're basically going to get to your next three-year review point, and you haven't actually implemented any recommendations from the initial review that you had when it started. And I think that, you know, that's really my concern. You actually haven't implemented anything since the review. And if the GNSO is on a three-year cycle, we'll be getting to the next review point, and we still haven't made any changes. So I'd like to really suggest that both the GNSO itself, and working with staff, actually start to work on some of the implementation, at least of the bits that are not controversial. Much as we've been doing on new gTLDs, we've got 20 recommendations, probably 15 are pretty straightforward, and the staff have done a lot of work on those. And five are still a bit controversial and need some extra work. But I'm just concerned you're losing -- there's so much focus on restructuring the council when 80% of the work has actually got a lot of support. And why don't we start actually allocating some staff to work on the working group model, you know, actually fleshing out that detail, and getting the GNSO to actually use that model in its current work. Because I see debates happening now about, you know, whether we should use a working group or whether we should use the council as a whole. You know, the GNSO can already start implementing some of this stuff. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Good point. Bertrand, the last word. Can you keep it brief, because we're now out of time on this. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: I'll keep it brief. It may sound strange that somebody who is a GAC member is taking the floor in a public forum to make a comment on the GNSO reform. First of all, I want to say that what I'm going to say is on a purely personal basis. It's not an official position from France, and it's certainly not an official position from the GAC. But listening to the debate and having followed one particular experience of participating in one of the working groups that was set up for the WHOIS process, I would like to address one point of terminology regarding the evolution of the policy development process. Working groups draft proposals for whatever policy. I believe that the role of the council in a supporting organization is to adopt a recommended policy. It's not to adopt a policy; it's to adopt a formal recommendation to the board. Supporting organizations are supporting organizations. They are preparing. Then the board has the formal responsibility to validate in the end. What I want to insert here is that there's an intermediary layer that we are somehow experimenting this morning, which is the step involving the rest of the community when a proposed recommendation is made by the council. Before it gets directly to the board, where is the opportunity for other constituencies to informally interact and make specific comments? In the case of gTLDs, for instance, the little exercise that we did before, I am not sure that the way the issue was addressed within the GNSO on gTLDs was exactly the way we were having the discussion right now. So at any stage, all I want to say is, could we please take into account that the policy development process has drafting within supporting organizations recommendation by the councils and that there is at least something that comes between the recommendation and the board formal approval so that there is further certainty that there is no problem of overlap or real concern by the other constituencies. I think it's an important part of the fully trans-constituency policy development process. I hope that I said is clear, but it's emerging from what I hear around here. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Bertrand. Roberto, can I ask Hagen Hultzsch, who's our next speaker, to come up. Would you like to have a last word while he's arriving? >>ROBERTO GAETANO: Yes. There's -- well, just one attempt to make a conclusion. There's just one thing that I would like to say in response to Bertrand. The idea that we have of a working group that is open can -- is really because of having input earlier rather than later. I am very much biased, because I'm a software developer as background. And I have learned the hard way that if you have bugs, the earlier in the game you catch them, the most effective you are. So there is the possibility -- I'm not discounting the possibility of having some interactions later on. But I would encourage if we use the working group model to have people participating in the working group early in the process in order to sort these things out in the beginning and not to come with a conclusion that somebody has a serious objection. If I can close this discussion, I think that there's nothing to respond. We are here -- I think that the ball is now in the board's court to take into account the comments of the community. But just one observation. I am not only as a background a software developer, but I'm an optimist by nature. And I think that in spite of the fact that I've heard different opinions, I think that they only concentrate on one point. If I can take Bruce's example of the 80%, I think that we have, you know, 80% of the work is having basically consensus, also from the community. And the problem only lies in something that we in the working group consider a minor thing. But if the community thinks it's important, we can re-evaluate this at the board level. But the only comment that I have heard, the only disagreement that I have heard is about disagreement on the distribution on the seats on the council. And I think that this is very encouraging, because that will give the board the idea that the vast majority of what we have proposed in the working group matches the consensus of the community. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Thanks very much, Roberto. Good session. It gives me pleasure now to call on Hagen Hultzsch, who many will recall as a former board member and has now been appointed as the head of the Nominating Committee. Hagen has asked for some time to explain the very important work that the Nominating Committee is right now doing. Hagen. >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, while my five times one slides are rolling and you can be simultaneously reading, I would like to generate more enthusiasm in yourself to either contribute to this organization, which is a group of volunteers, as we have seen in this, let's say, most impressive dialogue in the public forum. And I like the new style. And I also like the comments, for example, of Norbert Klein, who, as an individual, is a most engaged innovator, brought our, let's say, Internet service into one country of this globe. So we need to have this enthusiasm of individuals, which is, as all of you know, the platform of ICANN. ICANN is built by volunteers who contribute the way as it's described here in the slides, by providing statement of interest that they are willing to serve on one of the councils of ICANN. Or, even more, not only on these councils, beyond. Bruce Tonkin has made a very good, a very wise statement, that we should encourage those who may not be elected or chosen for one of the positions should be encouraged to serve on other groups and other study items. So since, as you know, by this try to build something in the world which is independent of governments, which is independent of corporations, which is servicing the people of the Internet being the supreme of the Internet, some analogy of one constitution which really has changed the world. We try to find people who are willing to service to this organization. One of the things I have seen -- and it has been mentioned by somebody in a dialogue -- that you would provide a statement of interest only if you would be thinking that the chances to be chosen by the Nominating Committee would be high. That is wrong. You should provide your statement of interest if you think you would have the time, the capability, and the, let's say, efforts in yourself to contribute. So, please, provide your statement of interest. We should have for the six positions we should cover, we should at least have 100 people who indicate that they are willing, capable, and ready to serve. So, again, encourage yourself and many others in your countries so we can fill the positions with the best candidates, but even beyond, following Bruce Tonkin's suggestion of last night. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you providing the stuff. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Hagen, thanks very much. I managed to get this one working. Any questions for Hagen about Nominating Committee timetables, requirements, processes? Hagen will be here all week. And the Web site's got lots of information on it. Excellent. Thanks, Hagen. Is Paul Wilson in the house? Paul, it's your turn. We're going to now move to a set of reports from the support organizations and advisory committees of ICANN. And all of these except the GAC, which we'll always treat with a great deal of respect, but also has a slightly different formal requirement in reporting. All of the others are going to have a one-slide rule. >>PAUL WILSON: Thank you very much, Peter. I'm not planning to use any slide at all, so anyone who's following me can find my slide allocation on eBay. [ Laughter ] >>PAUL WILSON: But I don't really need any slides at all to -- in order to be able to take up half an hour of your time. So thanks. I'm Paul Wilson, the current chair of the NRO. And so I'm here to give you a report which is about NRO and ASO activities. The ASO, the Address Supporting Organization, is created by an MOU, an agreement between ICANN and the NRO, for the NRO to perform the function of the ASO within the ICANN structure. That's a much more simple structure in terms of the -- ICANN's bylaws and the agreements than in many of -- in the case of the other SOs. And that's because the NRO, the Number Resource Organization, is comprised of all of the RIRs, the five RIRs. And all five of those organizations have their own very well-established open policy structures. So we have, between us, nine meetings a year, at which address policy matters are raised and discussed in a great deal of detail and at a very high activity level, and where other business, such as training and education-related matters, get discussed. So anyone who has got a strong interest in this area, or any interest in this area, I would really encourage you to think about, if you don't already think about attending the RIR meetings, and you will find, by doing so, that I think you understand very well why we treat those meetings as our established forum for these open, bottom-up processes, and don't want to kind of create a parallel and possibly confusing system within the ICANN forum. That's a different situation, of course, with the other SOs that use the ICANN meeting itself for their own processes. Okay. So -- But by way of update, like the other Supporting Organizations, the ASO has got a council, the address council, and it's got 15 members which are appointed three from each of the RIR regions through community elect and appointment processes in those regions. The chair of the address council is Louie Lee from Equinix, and I think he is probably in the room. And like the other SOs, the ASO has got responsibility for appointing members to the ICANN board. So we have got the current appointments ASO appointments to the ICANN board are Dave Wodelet and Raimundo Beca, and both of them have been around and are probably well-known to you. Thanks a lot. The business of the address council is to process global policy proposals and to provide oversight over the global policy process as it's defined within the ASO MOU. Now, the address council has been looking at a number of issues this year. Apart from the ICANN board selection process, also the NomCom selection process, and so forth, they have been looking at address policy matters, the global address policy most recently related to IANA's allocation of autonomous system numbers to the RIRs, which has been formalized and approved as a global policy that. Autonomous system numbers are not I.P. addresses. They are related to IP addresses. They are the much lesser-known cousin of an I.P. address, but you can talk to any of us about that if you want to know more. The other global policy related activity of the address council has been to formalize -- not yet but to work on formalizing the global address policy process, which is well defined in the documentation in a formal sense, but it needs -- it seems to need more promotion, more friendly interface. So for someone who wants to put forward a global address policy, they can do so according to, hopefully, I think, supporting documentation and templates which will make that an easier process. I think that's about all I have got to report from the ASO in terms of address council and I.P. addressing policy matters. But from the NRO, there are a few other things to mention. The NRO just recently, after quite a long series of discussions with ICANN, and ultimately successful discussions, we just recently completed an exchange of letters with ICANN that defines the relationship between the NRO and ICANN. And that covers ICANN's support and recognition of the RIR system and the NRO itself, and it covers mutually, of course, the recognition of ICANN and the contributions, the financial contributions, which the NRO makes to ICANN. So that's been concluded and it's available on both the ICANN and the NRO Web sites. The NRO is a lightweight coordination body across the RIRs, but we do -- one of its functions is as a vehicle for people to better understand the RIR system as a whole. So I'll just mention a couple of things which are going on across the RIR system as a whole. They are not necessarily going to relate to global policy processes, but they have got to do with global trends. And one of them that we have been talking about quite a lot this week has been -- and in fact, not just this week, but it's increasingly on the minds of those who take an interest in I.P. address, these are the issues of the depletion and the ongoing consumption of the IPv4 remaining address pool and the consequent, subsequent necessary transition to IPv6. So throughout the entire RIR community, we have numerous policy proposals, numerous discussions that are going on on mailing lists and in the RIR regional open policy meetings. We have formal policy proposals. We also have a lot of educational and interactive sort of sessions, panel sessions, which go on at those regional meetings in which experts are looking at the scenarios and all of the issues around these two particular topics. And again, the place to find those discussions and to tap into them is to go along to the RIR regional policy meetings. We, actually, have five of those meetings coming up in the five different regions over the next three or four months, the first one coming up being in the APNIC meeting in Taipei in two weeks' time. But there is a schedule, which as I say, is quite full during the next two months. As I say, policy proposals, formal proposals are being discussed there, mostly in relation to the consumption and the response to the consumption and the eventual depletion of the IPv4 address pools. In the case of IPv6, the issues are not so much policy issues at all. And in fact, I don't believe anyone with any sense of this whole scene suggests in any way that address policies have got any real bearing on the uptake of IPv6. IPv6 addresses are very easy to obtain for anyone who can go through very small requirements to demonstrate a need for IPv6 addresses. The lack of uptake or the slowness -- slow speed of uptake has much more to do with business issues, the imperatives that exist or don't exist for businesses to actually make the investment into IPv6 and so forth. These are actually quite complex issues. We spent some time talking to the GAC this week. We also have been meeting with ICANN staff about ways that we can cover these issues, ways that we can coordinate better in terms of making sure these issues are -- not only that the issues are understood, but also that the feasible, practical steps that different stakeholders, in their own stakeholder groups, government and so forth, can possibly take. Okay. Now I have just been given a one-minute warning. We have quite a number of other NRO activities within the -- not only within ICANN meetings, within the WSIS process over the years. Most recently within the IGF meeting, which took place in Brazil. We produced a report that we called the NRO continuing cooperation report, which we have -- which we are circulating since this meeting. And that's our response, in fact, for the call through the WSIS for stakeholders in the Internet governance processes to report on their activities towards enhanced cooperation. So we called that continuing cooperation, and it's available on the NRO Web site. We have worked with the IANA on a few procedural matters lately and also on some matters in relation to the legacy historical address space, which is now being transferred fully into regionalized RIR management. On the issue of the JPA, the ICANN -- the call for contributions from the U.S. government, we are finalizing, right now, our response into that. And in that response we are going to be reiterating our support for the ICANN model, we are going to be stating that we believe the transition -- the full transition of responsibilities basically, as envisaged by the white paper, should be planned between ICANN and the D.O.C. and completed. We are reiterating, of course, our commitment to ongoing participation in the ICANN process and to supporting the ongoing evolution of ICANN. We are not going into details on the ten different points which are being raised in that discussion. We actually regard that as a matter, these days, for something between us as a stakeholder and ICANN itself. We don't regard those things as needing to go through that public comment process through the D.O.C. That's all that I would like to say, but I would like to remind you, for anyone who wants to look up information about the NRO, the ASO, or through those Web sites, the RIRs, the RIR policy processes, meetings and so forth, www.nro.net is the URL, and you can get to everywhere from there. So thanks very much, and I'm happy to answer any questions, I guess. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Paul. While any questions are coming -- yes, I will get Izumi. Cheryl, you will be next. >>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, Paul and Peter. On behalf of the At-Large Advisory Committee's working group on IPv4 -v6, we are sort of planning to rename from the transition to coexistence, because it's likely that the IPv4-based network will not go away, even after the v4 address -- new addresses pool will be gone. So maybe 10 or 20 years, or it could be more, that we will have before base network on the v6, base network on v4-v6 translation or v6-v4. It sounds like it's getting pretty complex. And not only the underlying transport protocols. Many service protocols or application protocols have to reside and make a very smooth sort of connectivity. And so, Paul, so far you have been addressing mostly the allocation side of the addresses. Not necessarily directly, at least, involved with the operational areas where many ISPs and service providers are more responsible for the transition or coexistence. ALAC discussed this and also participated in yesterday's workshop on IPv4-v6 and we got a very good knowledge, more learned. The picture is not as rosy as we want -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We don't have time for a speech. Is there a question in this? >>IZUMI AIZU: I'm sorry. So we would like to propose to have a workshop and also some kind of task force things for ICANN to work with the IETF or other bodies, as well as inside ICANN for the many stakeholders. And even though your position as ASO is not directly in what was the areas of operation, do you think that's a good idea to have push in this direction? Thank you. >>PAUL WILSON: I do agree that those who are stakeholders in this process should be working very actively within their stakeholder communities as appropriate for their stakeholder communities. You mentioned, for instance, your recent realization of the reality of the IPv6 transition. This is not a recent realization for most of us. For a long time now, the IETF's attention has not been on the development of the IPv6 protocols themselves, but they have been on all of the transitional issues -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Paul, the same answer to you. The question is do you think a workshop is a good idea? >>PAUL WILSON: Providing it is focused and we know who is responsible for what, I'll make the point as well, very quickly, that the operational issues that you raise, Izumi, I believe you are really talking about issues of implementation of technology. That needs to happen within the vendor community, software and hardware communities, in order to supply the operators with what they need. And that is currently missing. So let's just be very clear about who can do what and what our terminologies are. Whether you want to call it transitional or coexistence or something else, and just make sure that I think everyone should be mobilizing, but let's be clear about what we should be doing and what we can do. Thanks. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Paul. Thanks for a great report. I am going to call on Cheryl Langdon-Orr who is the chair of the at-large to give a report on their activities. >>CHERYL LANGDON ORR: Thank you. You all know who I am. I introduced myself earlier. If technology works, a button should be pushed and a URL will appear where you can see the complete three-page report which I will give a very brief synopsis of, but it is not only now wherever that URL puts it on our Wiki space but along with the other reports. And thank you, Kieren, for rectifying that. It probably wasn't easy. We have all noted it's up, and thank you, indeed. When you read the report, you will find details of the consequences of the finalization of our new ALAC, RALO and ALS structure for the at-large community, with its input into the work of ICANN. This includes the adoption of our ALAC internal rules of procedure in late 2007 and the consequences that that had on our offices structure, our working group structure, our leadership structure, and how our work gets done. There's also -- and this has been finalized in our one-day workshop here -- work being done, and now we have agreement on adoption, of a work-flow model which is looking at efficiencies and ensuring information flows from ALSs via RALOs, RALOs back to ALSs, and formulating what we're meant to be doing. And that's gaining public input and opinion into policy development processes. You will also find detailed reports from our working groups, the results of policy development activities, and associated statements that are relevant to each of those. And I trust you will take the time to read each of those. They include, but are not limited to, our hot topics, had are, unsurprisingly, domain tasting, new gTLDs, including IDNs and fast-track IDNs, RAA, IPv4 to IPv6 transition, and there is also a short report on RALO activities. Thank you for your time, and we will be available for any questions online. Our Wikis are public. I would rather not take questions now in the essence of time, but you can catch me or anyone who is an ALAC member or RALO member, we will be more than happy to answer your questions. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Cheryl. Op that note, then, let's move forward to the ccNSO, and if I could ask Chris Disspain, the chair of the ccNSO, to come and give a report on its activities. Chris. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everybody. I am Chris Disspain, the chair of the ccNSO. I am ignoring the one-slide rule, because to comply with that I would have had to increase my number of slides from normal, zero. So I have no slides. Very quickly, the ccNSO has met over -- well, basically three days, two days of formal meetings and the council spent a whole day on Sunday working out a work plan, which will soon be published. It's the first time we have ever done that. It's a sign of growing up, I think. We're also putting some processes in place to ensure that our activities are a little more standardized, that we are ready to respond to the fixed comments that ICANN asks for every year on strategic plans and so on. We have also -- we have a very successful participation working group, which is working very hard on methodologies for increasing participation in the ccNSO. We now have 73 members and welcomed six, seven new members -- have welcomed seven new members since the last meeting. And we did our usual stuff about IANA and met with the board and met with everyone else we can think of but the main focus was on IDNs. As you know, the IDNC working group ran an open workshop on Monday afternoon. That was incredibly useful to give the working group itself some feedback on the way that the fast-track mechanisms should be structured. And in fact, the working group itself is meeting after this meeting to discuss that further. The ccNSO itself spent half a day on IDNs working out its own responses to the initial report, coming up with some answers. I'm delighted to say that, at least for those in the room, on many issues, consent -- there was general consensus. So that's very encouraging. We will run another one of those open workshops in Paris. I would encourage everyone to come. It's incredibly important, and we do need feedback and input from the -- from across all of the constituencies in respect to the fast-track to make sure that we get it right. I'm happy to take questions, Peter, but I really don't have anything else to say. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: That's fine. If I could ask people to hold questions until we have got through all the reports and come back, that's excellent, Chris. Next in our batting order is Ambassador Karklins. Janis is the chair of the Governmental Advisory Committee. Janis, the traditional report from the GAC. >>JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you, Peter. Like others, I tried to comply with the one-slide requirement, and what I got is now displayed on the screen. [ Laughter ] >>JANIS KARKLINS: So here it is. That is GAC communiqué, which I will not read in the entirety in order to save time. I will read major parts. And I invite you to look at the whole communiqué on ICANN and GAC Web sites. So I will start by saying that 38 members and three observers participated in the meeting, and that Mr. Everton Lucero from Brazil and Bertrand de la Chappelle from France were elected as vice chairs for the GAC for 2008. And both of them are in the room, and I would like to ask them to stand up so that everybody can see them. We have two new chairs. [ Applause ] >>JANIS KARKLINS: So on substantive issues, on IDNs, in New Delhi, GAC members had a discussion on answers to ccNSO/GAC issue paper. Selection of IDN ccTLDs associated with ISO 3166 two-letter codes. GAC continues to work on the document with a few to finalizing it during its meeting in Paris. GAC members also discussed a draft initial report of the IDNC working group, the addition of a limited number of IDN ccTLDs under a fast-track mechanism. During these discussions, the GAC agreed that substantive public policy provisions set out by the GAC in the principles and guidelines for the delegation and administration of country code top-level domains are equally relevant to the introduction of IDN ccTLDs. In particular, the principle of delegation and redelegation. Secondly, the GAC believes that any ICANN policy needs to restrict its scope to the minimum required to ensure the global interoperability of DNS. Thirdly, given the different form that IDN ccTLDs will take, and the absence of an equivalent of the ISO 3166 list used for ASCII ccTLDs, the GAC notes the experience of relevant international organizations -- for instance, the United Nations conference on standardization of geographical names, ITU, UNESCO. The GAC underlines, however, that only government or relevant public authority of the territory, as listed in ISO 3166 list, concern, can provide authoritative advice to ICANN on the legitimacy of any application for an IDN ccTLD. Specifically, this requires that ICANN consult the government or relevant public authority on the receipt of any such application, and ascertain either that the proposal has the support of the government or relevant public authority or that the government or public authority raises no objections to the application. In the event that such confirmation is not obtainable, ICANN should desist from introduction of the proposed ccTLD until such confirmation is obtained. Fourthly, the GAC anticipates in most cases that the government or relevant public authority will decide that one IDN ccTLD per script will be sufficient. But it is also mindful that in some countries, different scripts are in use, and in some cases, the same script is used in a number of widely used languages. In these cases, the government or relevant public authority may determine that more than one IDN ccTLD is necessary. For these reasons, a strict one-per-country limit imposed by ICANN in the fast-track phase would be inappropriate. And this should be interpreted if there will be such a decision. The GAC appreciated the opportunity to share its initial comments on the report with stakeholders during the IDN workshop and considers that cross-constituency consultations on the subject should be continued. GAC will continue to contribute to the work of the IDNC working group. In respect to IDN gTLDs, the GAC feels that the substantive provision of the GAC principles regarding new gTLDs are equally relevant for the introduction of new IDN gTLDs. In particular, that ICANN should avoid country, territory, or place names, and country, territory, or regional language or people descriptions unless an agreement with the government or relevant public authority. The GAC also considers that in event that there is any doubt regarding the status of a particular application -- for example, whether it constitutes an IDN ccTLD or IDN gTLD, ICANN should consult with the government or relevant public authority of the territory concerned to determine whether there may be any potential infringement on their sovereign rights regarding their country or territory name. On WHOIS issues, as a follow-up to the GAC communiqué in Los Angeles in October 2007, which stressed the GAC support for a study of the use and abuse of WHOIS data, and in line with the GAC WHOIS principles, the GAC considered recommendations for the terms of reference for such study. The GAC reached consensus on this issue, and will forward explicit proposals to the ICANN board shortly after the conclusion of New Delhi meeting for the initiation of an independent, neutral, third-party study on WHOIS databases. The GAC strongly believes that multi-step data collection effort on all relevant issues is necessary to establish the factual evidence base for future discussions on the necessity and scope and impact of possible modifications to policies regarding WHOIS data. During this meeting -- during its meeting with the board, GAC raised the issue of the decision of the board to implement the procedure for handling WHOIS conflict with privacy law and noted complexity posed by competing jurisdictions. The board offered to reply to the GAC at some future date. And on institutional issues and in particular the Joint Project Agreement, we had a very extensive discussion, and we reached agreement on the following phraseology. The GAC acknowledges ICANN board's response to the United States government Notice of Inquiry regarding the Joint Project Agreement midterm review. Several GAC representatives indicated their intention to submit their own comments on the Notice of Inquiry. The ten responsibilities identified in the 2006 document are reformation for ICANN's private sector management, our fundamental ongoing objectives that ICANN must continue to meet in its management of the DNS. The GAC considers that the Paris meeting will provide the opportunity to assess the results of midterm review of the Joint Project Agreement. So that brings to end my report, Mr. Chairman. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Janis, keeping with the others, I'll just hold questions. You're going to be here if we get some. I just want to make sure we do get through all the reports. The next is from the GNSO, if I could call on chair of the GNSO, Avri Doria. To come and tell us what the GNSO has been doing. Avri, obviously we've had a lot of talk today on two of your items, GNSO reform and new gTLDs. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you, Peter. I was going to say good morning. Good afternoon. Okay, doesn't matter whether it's up. We basically, in terms of the work we did this week, we've nearly completed our comments in response to the ccNSO GAC issues report on IDN names. We essentially have one issue left, and that's regarding the recommendation of rules concerning confusing similarity. We began deliberation under the PDP for domain name tasting, those deliberations we have yet to figure out exactly how we're going to proceed with them. We discussed initial reactions to the GNSO improvements report, and I think you heard part of that earlier today. We participated in an informative, and could I say a very informative discussion with the ccNSO council on IDN TLDs. And hoping to continue such conversations between the SO's and other groups, the AC's in the future. We wanted to record that we had some difficulty with full participation this time, since several council members could not afford to attend, and the remote facilities did not work well. Despite the valiant efforts -- I want to thank the technical support staff for their valiant efforts. And also, you know, appreciate all the efforts that everyone made to try and get all these things to work. But we did have difficulties with it. And that's my report. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Excellent, thank you, Avri. Next, please from RSSAC, Suzanne Woolf. Thanks. >>SUZANNE WOOLF: We've always tried to make sure that the reports were very brief from RSSAC. This has been a welcome challenge to make it even shorter. I actually wish I had done what Barbara did this morning and just put up a slide that said, "It's all good." But I played it straight instead. As everybody knows, RSSAC is primarily a technical advisory body on issues around the operation of the DNS and root servers. A recent major work has been around working with IANA on IPv6 addresses in the root, and projected DNSsec for dot ARPA. And for anybody who's interested in IPv6 in the root or elsewhere, there is an archive of the IPv6 workshop yesterday that actually provided, I think, a good overview of a lot of the issues that we'll have to be looking at moving forward. So people should check that out. The agenda for our next meeting isn't finalized yet. That will be at the IETF in March. And I expect to see -- there's a routine set of updates we do on technology changes or major Anycast expansions, news of that kind. This time we'll also be talking about ICANN's independent review of RSSAC. We have a request from ccNSO for input on operational aspects of DNSsec. Various members of RSSAC are also consulting informally with staff on IDN, which also may end up a formal request or as an agenda item for this next meeting. And we do try to keep it brief, therefore, the final messages as Barbara said, "Everything's working." And thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Suzanne. And last, but by no means least, but paired with Suzanne -- that may be something else we can change -- Steve. Steve Crocker on behalf of the SSAC. >>STEVE CROCKER: I like being paired with Suzanne. I'm not sure that that should be changed. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Let me quietly ask Suzanne what she thinks about that. >>SUZANNE WOOLF: Always a delight for me. >>STEVE CROCKER: Some time ago we had been investing considerably in DNSsec within SSAC, and we discovered it was a much bigger agenda, so we essentially split it off and ran a parallel track. I'm going to take advantage and give one slide for each of those tracks. Let me have the next slide. We had the DNSsec session, as we usually do, this was Monday, late morning. And it was a pretty content-full session. SSAC issued a statement a posture statement with regard to DNSsec, urging ICANN to move forward aggressively, urging the constituencies to pay attention and make their own considerations, and identifying a series of issues that SSAC would come back and report on later about the maturity and rough edges and other open kinds of questions. VeriSign made an announcement from the floor, which perhaps you have heard, that they're putting the facilities in place to do their portion, or some portion of the root signing process, further details will be coming forth a quite distinguished group of local people from the Indian networking and registry facilities presented a broad range of the security improvements and mechanisms that they have. And I'm looking forward to a considerable amount of follow-up with them. Oh, yes, and not to be diminished at all by being last, the contingent from Sweden came and reported on a full year's of operation of DNSsec, let's see, I think Saturday is the actual official one-year anniversary, either tomorrow our Saturday. I was in Stockholm when they unveiled this last year. A very big deal. And quite a lot of experiences being gained and shared with the community with ICANN and with others. It is quite an important piece of leadership. Next slide, please. We had an SSAC session yesterday. We have issued a comment to GNSO that the underlying mechanisms for Whois are fundamentally broken, incomplete, insufficient, and that's really time to step back and put a different foundation underneath. We'll see whether that has any affect. But I think that there's a growing understanding that the whole system is kind of rickety. Of course, it's very, very large, you can't change it very rapidly, so I don't know how fast anything is likely to go. There's also other information that one would like to have in DNSSEC. I was in a conversation yesterday, I mean, in Whois -- I was in a conversation about DNSsec, the question came up: If I check Whois, can I tell whether a zone is signed? A really interesting question from a nontechnical person. And I thought, well, there's another element where one would want to expand. We looked at fast flux, we've been working with the anti-phishing working group, a very helpful and useful partnership there. We've also been trying to understand the situation with respect to domain name front running, and there the data is very mixed and inconclusive. All the anecdotes that we collected seemed to suggest that there's no hard evidence. And on the other hand, there's persistent rumors that it exists. And then, in a related, but somewhat distinct line of inquiry, we have had a high degree of cooperation from Network Solutions in trying to understand what their modifications to their registration process is. They reserve a name if you check it, and make it impossible to register that name through some other registrar, unless you come back explicitly to them. So there's a lot of heat and controversy about that. Underlying that -- I'll just set that aside. There's clearly some issues there. But, one of the things that they described driving that, was some clear evidence that they believe they have, that there is a front running taking place. And that they were trying to stop that. And I think there's a lot more to be understood there. I think that's the bulk of it. We are slowly, but deliberately, going forward with IDN studies. And we had the benefit of Patrick Jones giving us a short presentation on the registry failover exercise. Any questions? >> MARILYN CADE: Steve, I want to express my appreciation for the work that your group is doing, and note that several of the topics that you are dealing with are of increasing visibility. They were always of importance, but they're increasing visibility to the very broad set of businesses, both large and small. And I'll just point out, too, one of them is DNS fast flux. And the other one, is this issue that very much is viewed as being some kind of suspicious behavior, that is known as domain name front running to some. So, let me just say, I think we should be looking ahead at welcoming, perhaps, organizing some kind of an interaction between you and the broad business community that will be in June at Paris. Because I think there's just a growing amount of concern. And it will be important to get some facts in front of people in order to address those. >>STEVE CROCKER: I would welcome that. And perhaps you and I can have additional interaction on that. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions for any of the participants, including of course, Steve. But if you have a question for Chris or Avri or Cheryl, now is the time. I would prefer to hear from people -- I'm going to give priority, put it that way, to people who haven't spoken yet. >> BRUCE TONKIN: Just a question for Chris Disspain, actually, and that was, what the current view is on what fast-track means in terms of date. Because I think that would be helpful to understand the ccNSO's perspective. Is that a June '08, June '09. Roughly where the -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: The goal is to have a report from the working group going to the ccNSO and the GAC in time for Paris, for the Paris meeting. And the goal is to have -- assuming that everything works out. The goal is to have those recommendations go to the board in Paris. Whether the board has an opportunity to do anything about it in Paris, is an entirely a different issue. But from our side of things, we'd expect to have it pushed up to the board by Paris. >> NIGEL ROBERTS: Thank you. My name is Nigel Roberts from Guernsey. My question is, really, I suppose -- or my point is really both for SSAC and GNSO, whoever feels appropriate to want to comment. It concerns front running in particular, which was just mentioned a couple of moments ago. And I fail to see how, if it is happening, as it's suggested it's happening, it can be considered as anything other than unlawful. But, don't you think that ICANN has, by virtue of its good intention policies, with deletions, at no cost, actually provoked things, like front running and domain tasting, to happen. And perhaps registrants when they're registering domain names should just pay more attention. And if it costs them $5 because they have accidentally registered the wrong domain, that's just something that people should have to eat? >>STEVE CROCKER: A couple of very intriguing points from what you've said. I want to respond to the first point, because it was my first thought when we started to look at this, and I was caught by surprise when I realized that there is actually, so far as I can tell, no fundamental prohibition. We have no legal framework nor set of rules or contractual requirements or anything that actually says that this is blanketly inappropriate behavior across the industry. I view that as a kind of statement about the maturity level of our industry. But the assumption that this is blatantly illegal, I don't think actually stands up if you then ask, okay, which laws are being broken in which places. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I've got time for one more question, and I'd prefer from someone who hasn't spoken. If there isn't, okay, I'm going to close that. Thank you all for your reports. I don't mean to indicate by the shortness of time that you had that we don't regard all that as extremely important. We're going to have now just a short period of open microphone where other issues that you want to raise that haven't been covered can be. When you come forward, if you have one, please state your name and affiliation. And please keep it brief. I have an indication from the gentleman -- yes, you can come forward -- in relation to a contested delegation as opposed to redelegation of dot EH. If there is anybody else who wants to raise an issue, please, could you come and line up. >>KHADDAD EL MOUSSAOUI: Mr. President of ICANN, members of the board of ICANN, ladies and gentlemen that represent different organizations of ICANN, ladies and gentlemen, participants of this event in this wonderful and hospitable country, which is India, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Khaddad El Moussaoui. I am Saharawi, from the south of the Kingdom of Morocco. I was born in Aaiun. I'm here in my capacity as vice president of CORCAS (Royal Advisory Council for Sarahan Affairs), the entity that represents all the tribal components and the different political, socioeconomic, and cultural sensibilities of the population of the Sahara. In fact, I represent the majority of the Saharawi community. Today, I am here to get your total and unconditional support for CORCAS in its request from the ANRT for managing the domain EH, because this is the entity that has experience in this matter. This is why I invite you to open the corresponding ticket for the domain EH that will be managed by ANRT for the Saharawi community that lives in the real cities of Esapuia el Hamra, from where EH and the gold river comes. I would like to invite you to visit the most important cities of the Sahara, even if it is virtually, through the Internet, through our Web site sahara-online.net, that is available in eight languages. Our region is prosperous and the Internet is in full development, where the investment opportunities are high and very promising. Before I finish my intervention, I would like to suggest that you read the prospectus that we have provided during these days, where the history of the conflict in Western Sahara is presented. Therefore, I beg you -- and forgive my insistence -- to take into consideration the legitimacy of the request made by ANRT to manage the domain name EH to reinforce Internet access in the Saharan region. Let me congratulate you for the extraordinary organization of this event and the wonderful democratic environment in which all debates have been developed. Thank you very much for the attention given to my presentation, and I am always at your disposal for any information which you may need from me. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: There's a line forming. Please keep them brief. We have another function to perform very shortly. Susan. >>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Good afternoon. I'm Susan Crawford, a member of the ICANN board. We've had a number of interventions this morning speaking about concerns about front-running, other actions by registries and registrars. The board will be meeting here again tomorrow morning, and one of the items we'll be discussing on our agenda is a proposed resolution suggesting that the GNSO Council consider initiating an issues report, which is the first step in a policy development process, that would be discussing whether it might be appropriate for restrictions to exist on gTLD registries or registrars that relate to -- these are the words and their contract -- that relate to warehousing and speculation in domain names. So that's a subject for the board's discussion tomorrow. This item, warehousing and speculation in domain names, is specifically called out in the contracts that registries and registrars have with ICANN as an appropriate subject for the development of a consensus policy. So the board may be suggesting to the GNSO Council that such a policy process begin. Thank you very much. Oh, one more item. Meetings. We're clearly interested in restructuring, continuing to evolve how meetings work at ICANN. I'm very glad that the chair has suggested the change in today's public forum. I think it's been quite successful and lively. We are continuing to work on that for Paris and solicit your suggestions. Paul Levins is the man in charge of this. Paul.LEVINS@icann.org. >>GUANGHAO LI: This is Guanghao Li speaking in Chinese, if I may. First of all, I would like to thank the host for all the convenience and the facilities and all the fun they provide. And I personally think that's very fruitful and really fun meeting for the gala dinner event. And during the meeting, I have observed that some people have raised a concern about or the suggestions on planning ICANN meetings well ahead, just like the IETF and some other meetings, which is like a year or year and a half. And I would like to suggest that when we are choosing the days, the -- the daytimes of the meetings, the future meetings, we should really consider the timing of the meeting to make it a little more internationalized, or we call it culturally sensitive. I mean, as a Chinese, I'm standing here right in the middle of Chinese New Year, and we just have -- it's hardly to imagine that the ICANN meeting will hold on Christmas day. That's what I am believing. I have observed during the meeting some people -- [ Applause ] >> GUANGHAO LI: And I have also observed that some people in the meeting suggest that IDN is not culturally related, it has nothing to do with the culture. And I personally think that we have to be very careful about that IDN is not culturally related. I will say that's very culturally sensitive and we have to think about that in the -- in all our considerations. [ Applause ] thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Guanghoa. Just a quick response. I agree. I have put on the agenda timings of meetings. I want meetings to be given much more notice in advance. I share with you the difficulty. This meeting is right in the middle of the very best part of the summer holidays in New Zealand. I, too, am suffering in a slightly different way. But I understand the point. Thank you. Adrian. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: You mean there are summer holidays in New Zealand? Thank you, Peter. I'm up here on behalf of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the UAE. And I'd just like to read a brief invitation, if I will. I would like to encourage all interested parties to attend the upcoming ICANN regional meeting in Dubai from April 1st to 3rd, being hosted by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates. The meeting will be an important one, especially with respect to IDNs, which is of particular interest to the Middle East. Dubai, like the Internet itself, is going through vigorous change and growth and will provide an excellent venue to discuss these important topics. Dubai is a travel hub in a true sense of the word, and travelers will find the experience a pleasant one for not only attending a venue of world-class facilities, but also to see the many sights outside the venue that will quite simply take your breath away. The proposed venue, the Grand Hyatt, is one of the finest hotels in the region, with many alternate hotels catering for all budgets only minutes away. The infrastructure and logistics are also of highest standards. Finally, we encourage everyone to participate and attend and hope that you will enjoy every moment you spend in the UAE. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Thomas Narten. >>THOMAS NARTEN: It's Thomas Narten here. I just want to comment: Doug Brent ran a session day before yesterday on travel, travel costs, that I thought was extremely positive and I appreciate the way he reached out to the community to get feedback and try to talk on the subject. On related topic, meetings, where we're hosting meetings, cost, and things like that. I'd like to encourage a similar kind of outreach effort to kind of communicate what the thinking is and how to prioritize things and allow the community to somehow provide a little bit of feedback. I'm deeply troubled by some of the comments I've heard, for instance, like, such and such a person wasn't here because the meeting costs were too high. And it impacted our ability to do business. I think that's not something we want to be doing. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Absolutely. Yep. Rainbow. >> HONG XUE: Thanks. I want to remind you for the first time that Chinese translation is available in this room formally. Last time, in Los Angeles, it was only an experiment. I will remind you to use this service. It's right here. I am going to talk in Chinese. (No translation on headphones.) [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much for that. I will close the public comment and open the next session, and ask for Paul Twomey and Paul Levins to help set the stage for this important event. The other participants, (inaudible) organizing them. We actually have a second while we are taking care of some formalities. Let me open the public comment and invite you to identify yourself and give us your comment. >> I'm sorry. I will make it in French as my English is not as good as it should be. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: S'il vous plaît. >>I am consultant in I.T. and I am representing Moroccan -- this is my first meeting. The practice and the pronunciation of the English language, I need not remind you that there are many people who were not born Anglophones. Many people learn English, learn American English, or learn British English. And if it is very different for an Anglophone to know about all the expressions of the English language. There are some presentations which are done with the perfect pronunciation, where there are others that are not. For those who would have such a problem, I would like to have a consensus that, for instance, in Europe there is global English, there is a consensus on international English so that a greater number of people can understand, where one avoids typical expressions which could lead to misunderstandings. When one is translating, one loses a lot of the meaning of the words. So, therefore, we -- one must reinforce the English language in such a way that everybody understands. I have a small anecdote to tell you. I will invite an Anglophone Moroccan colleague to a seminar. If I went to the airport to pick him up, he could talk very well. And I realized he had a problem. I asked him, jokingly, "If you talk too quickly and too loudly, I will ask the Moroccan customs official to arrest you." It was just a joke. So he started talking very softly and articulating so that many clients started asking me, "Where did he actually come from?" Was his accent bad or maybe there was a behavior pattern which wasn't appropriate. So, in order to maintain the interests of people at large, I know many people who are very brilliant who have come for these meetings at ICANN and who have not come back to attend. The reason is because we cannot follow the English which is spoken there. We don't know all the expressions. We cannot understand the jokes. Do we really need to make these jokes while working? I -- this weekend, at GNSO, I attended this meeting. The people were very intelligent, but sometimes I could not follow. I have a technical background. I know that these meetings are very interesting, and one has to attend this. But I would like to push the idea of having a global English during our meetings of ICANN. Thank you so much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. You make a very good point. We need to improve our performance in many of these areas, and that's one of them. So thank you for reminding us of our obligations to the international community. >>NAOMASA MARUYAMA: Just a brief comment. My name is Naomasa Maruyama. I am very sorry that my English is not perfect. But please do not kick out from this meeting. English is not perfect. My French is not perfect. (Public Forum concluded.)