[council] Meeting on the creation of .EU TLD, Brussels, 28 March

[Fay Howard <fay@centr.org>]

Dear Names Council of the DNSO,

I write to request you assistance in passing the following invitation to 
those within your constituencies who may have an interest in the creation 
of a .EU TLD.

In an attempt to reach the wider Internet community, this notice will be 
posted to a number of mailing lists.  Apologies to those who subscribe to 
more than one of those lists for any multiple postings.


Fay Howard
CENTR General Manager


Invitation to attend an open Meeting on the Creation of .EU Top Level Domain
Brussels, 28 March 2000.

Introduction

On 2 February 2000, the European Commission published a Working Paper on 
the creation of a .EU Top Level Domain for public comment. CENTR, the 
Council of European National Top Level Domains formed a working group to 
consider the Commission's Working Paper. A press release followed 
indicating CENTR's intention to initiate wide consultation before 
responding to the Commission. In the course of these consultations, it 
became clear that a public meeting would enable CENTR members and other 
interested groups to benefit from expert opinion and take input from all 
areas of the European Internet Community.

CENTR will therefore host an open meeting in Brussels on  Tuesday, 28 March 
2000 at which interested parties may attend and give their views. 
Representatives of the European Commission, ICANN board and staff and all 
constituencies of the DNSO will be invited as well as legal and business 
experts in relevant fields.
Apologies for the short notice but we feel it is important to be able to 
give the Commission our report as quickly as possible.

With the benefit of input from the open meeting, CENTR proposes to address 
the six questions raised in the Commission working Paper and give 
additional input to the Commission. The report will be published before 31 
March 2000.
The agenda of the meeting will focus on some fundamental issues including 
the following:

Issues for the agenda:

1. The consequences of creating .EU from the perspective of the Internet 
end user, and the demand for such Domain Names throughout Europe

- Business initiatives and e-commerce developments
- Addressing consumer protection and consumer confusion
- Preventing the need for defensive registrations by current Domain name 
holders

2. The legal implications of creating .EU

- Competition issues
- law governing registration agreements with .eu TLD registrants and the 
jurisdiction of courts in member states;
- domain name dispute avoidance and online dispute resolution,
- Domain Name warehousing and cybersquatting issues

3. The registration policies appropriate to such a new Top Level Domain

- Neutral second level domains
- Appropriate registrants (EU institutions only, businesses in the EU, 
private
    persons...)
- Consequence of EU naming policies on ccTLD registries in the 15 member
    states

4.The role of the national Internet communities in the process of 
determining the  creation of such a new TLD.

- Clarification of the consultation and decision making process within the EU
- Clarification of the consultation and decision making process within ICANN
- Next Steps

Meeting Information:

There is no charge for attendance.
The meeting will commence at 9.30 and the open session will finish at 16.00 
after which a closed session will take place to review input and draft a 
report.
Lunch will be provided.

Venue:

La Maison de l'Europe a la Bibliotheque Solvay
137 Rue Belliard
1040 Brussels

Further information:

For further information about the meeting or CENTR :
Email:secretariat@centr.org
This invitation and the agenda will be posted to the CENTR Website:
URL: http://www.centr.org

Registration

In order to assess numbers for catering and provision of papers, you are 
requested to complete the registration form below and return to the CENTR 
Secretariat.

***************Registration form******************

To CENTR Secretariat <Michaela@centr.org>

Name(s):

Organisation:

Country:

E-mail Address:

****************************************************************************
CENTR
Council of European National Top level domain Registries

Sandford Gate
Sandy Lane West
Oxford OX 4 5LB

Tel: +44 (0)1865 332400
Fax: +44 (0)1865 332401

email <secretariat@centr.org>
URL: http://www.centr.org