[council] Three years of the General Assembly of the DNSO

[Elisabeth Porteneuve <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr>]

         Three years of the General Assembly of the DNSO

24 May 2002

The DNSO GA is going to celebrate its 3rd Birthday on 25 May 2002.

Over three years the DNSO has been working in open and transparent way,
providing the place for essential public representation in debates on ICANN
policies, thanks to endless efforts of many individuals.

DNSO Background

  1. The DNSO has been formed as the result of long consultation process in
     1998 and 1999, cf. http://www.dnso.org/history/www.dnso.org/

          "There is no single organization that meets the exact
          requirements for the Domain Name Support Organization
          ("DNSO") specified in the Bylaws of the reconstituted
          Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), also known as the
          Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
          Therefore, such an organization must be formed."

  2. The structure of the Domain Name Supporting Organization of ICANN was
     determined in Singapore, on 4 March 1999, see "Domain Name Supporting
     Organization Formation Concepts at
     http://www.icann.org/dnso-formation.html

  3. The first General Assembly of the DNSO has been held on 25 May 1999, in
     Berlin, cf. http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/19990527.GAberlin.html

          The first www.dnso.org server was created on 23 September
          1998 on the initiative of Amadeu Abril i Abril. Until 8 June
          1999 the old www.dnso.org server was kindly hosted by the
          International Telecommunication Union at Geneva. Subsequent
          to the DNSO GA in Berlin, the new www.dnso.org server was set
          up on 1st June 1999 at AFNIC offices in Paris, and started
          operations immediately. More at
          http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/19990606.GAberlin-dnsoreport.html

DNSO Facts

  1. In August 1999 the DNSO (NC and GA) has been providing on time the WG-A
     report on UDRP policies for the gTLD space
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/19990804.NCwga-to-ICANN.html

  2. In September-October 1999 the DNSO (NC and GA) has been electing on
     time 3 ICANN Board Directors
     http://www.dnso.org/elections/1999.DNSO-ICANN-election-result.html.

     Since then every year the DNSO (NC and GA) elects 1 ICANN Board
     Director.
     http://www.dnso.org/elections/2000.DNSO-ICANN-election-result.html.
     http://www.dnso.org/elections/2001.DNSO-ICANN-election-result.html.

  3. In November-December 1999 the DNSO (NC and GA) has been developing the
     procedures for election of the GA Chair and hold the first election
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/1999.DNSO-GAchair.html

  4. In 2000 the DNSO GA has been developing its working rules and
     procedures, and come up with Fundamentals - Membership definition,
     Voting Registry and two Rules for votes by the GA:

       A. Voting Rules adopted by the GA on 6 July 2000:
          http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2000.GA-voting-rules.html

       B. Election Rules (Instant Runoff) adopted by the GA on 23 March
          2001:
          http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2001.GA-chair-election-rules-v0.2.html

  5. Between June 2000 and May 2002, 2 years time, the DNSO GA voted 12
     times.

     The summary of those votes (date, electorate, participation to vote,
     subject, URL to the full records of vote) are provided in:
     http://www.dnso.org/secretariat/gavotesummary.html

  6. The current status of the DNSO GA Voting Registry shows 583 persons,
     from 54 different countries.

          The GA Voting Registry includes members from various sectors
          of activity (gTLD Registries, Registrars, ccTLD Managers,
          Business, Universities, Telecommunication Industry,
          Law firms, Consumers organizations) as well as individuals.

          Some ICANN Board Directors, current or former, are on the
          Voting Registry records.

          The IETF Chair is on the Voting Registry records.

          One may note on the Voting Registry the participation of Ms
          Becky Burr, who was representing the US Government and
          signing the first MoU with ICANN on 25 November 1998, cf.
          http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/icann-memorandum.htm,
          and in the GA archives the participation of Joe Sims, who
          was signatory to the same MoU on behalf of ICANN newly
          created.

  7. The DNSO archives shows a 29 months record of participation to various
     DNSO GA mailing lists, week by week, at
     http://www.dnso.org/statistics/dnsostatistics.html 
     It starts with 526 different persons in January 2000. Currently 
     990 persons are subscribers, following debates on Domain Names 
     related issues in ICANN process.

  8. The DNSO publishes monthly statistics of www.dnso.org usage at
     http://www.dnso.org/webstats/

  9. The current DNSO Secretariat has been chosen by the Names Council in
     August 2001, subsequent to the determination by the NC of its needs,
     the selection process and the selection criterias. The RFP of this
     international bid is available at
     http://www.dnso.org/secretariat/2001.RFP-DNSO.html.

     The new DNSO Secretariat started to operate in October 2001, and is
     still awaiting the signature of contract for services with ICANN,
     acting as legal entity for the DNSO.

     The DNSO Secretariat operates with a budget of $60,000 per year, which
     is approximately 2 orders of magnitude smaller than ICANN budget. 
     All documents, agendas, minutes and Mpeg3 recordings of the NC
     meetings are available in archives. The comprehensive summary 
     of the NC meetings in 2002 is provided at 
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2002.NC-calendar.html



Elisabeth Porteneuve, the first DNSO Secretary