[council] Way Forward on Unsponsored New TLD Agreements

[Louis Touton <touton@icann.org>]

To the Names Council:

At its meeting on 13 March 2001, the ICANN Board authorized ICANN
management to move forward with the completion and entry of Registry
Agreements for the unsponsored new TLDs (.biz, .info, .name, and .pro). 
The Board also urged me to give very high priority to completing the
agreements quickly.  The resolutions passed by the Board on this topic
are as follows:

   "New TLD Agreements

   Whereas, in resolution 00.89 the Board selected seven proposals to
   operate or sponsor top-level domains for negotiations toward 
   appropriate agreements between ICANN and the registry operator or 
   sponsoring organization;

   Whereas, in resolution 00.90 the Board authorized the President and
   General Counsel to conduct those negotiations on behalf of ICANN 
   and, subject to further Board approval or ratification, to enter 
   into appropriate agreements;

   Whereas, the base agreements have been negotiated with the four
   selected unsponsored top-level domain registry operators 
   (NeuLevel, Afilias, Global Name Registry, and RegistryPro);

   Whereas, the base agreements and many of the associated appendices,
   as completed and agreed by the negotiators, have been posted for 
   public comment;

   Whereas, the Board has received a presentation from the General
   Counsel and the proponents on the progress and results of their
   negotiations;

   Whereas, comments from the public have been received on a web-based
   public comment forum and at a Public Forum held on 12 March 2001;

   Whereas, the Board has considered the posted agreement and
   appendices, the presentations, and public comments and finds that
   approval of the agreements is necessary and appropriate to further
   ICANN's purposes;

   It is therefore

   RESOLVED [01.24] that the President and General Counsel are
   authorized and requested to complete negotiation of the remaining
   unsponsored top-level domain appendices as soon as feasible and to 
   post the resulting appendices on the ICANN web site, along with any 
   minor corrections or adjustments to the base agreement and 
   appendices as already posted;

   RESOLVED [01.25] that the Board shall be notified of the complete
   posting of the agreement and appendices for any of the four 
   unsponsored top-level domains (.biz, .info, .name, and .pro) and 
   after that notification seven days shall be allowed for Board 
   members to make any additional comments to the President and 
   General Counsel;

   RESOLVED [01.26] that in the absence of the request of any Board
   member to the contrary based on policy considerations, the President 
   is authorized to sign the posted agreements after the conclusion of 
   those seven days; and

   RESOLVED [01.27] that upon signature of the agreements the President
   is authorized to take such actions, including causing reports to be 
   made to the United States Department of Commerce, as appropriate to 
   implement the agreements."

In keeping with the Board's instructions, over the next several days I
will be moving very quickly to complete the remaining appendices and
post them.  (I will also be fixing various errors in the items already
posted that some of you have kindly pointed out.)  I expect that the
completion of all the appendices for one or more of the course of the
next week to ten days.  If you have any comments or corrections, I would
be pleased to receive them on the web-based public comment forum or by
e-mail to <mailto:touton@icann.org>.

Best regards,

Louis Touton