[ga] GA summary 2002-13

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

This summary covers the DNSO GA mailing list's (and related) 
discussions and news between April 3, 2002, and April 9, 2002.

GA list archives are available online at 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/maillist.html>.

Please feel free to forward this summary as you believe to be 
appropriate.


				Topics

(i) RIR contracts.  Jefsey Morfin forwarded a message from Ray Plzak 
of ARIN in which the RIRs make an assuring statement on the state of 
contract negotiations with ICANN, and indicate that "as a sign of 
good faith [...] the RIRs will release one half of" the funds kept 
in escrow "to ICANN."
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00121.html>

As an update to this, Bret Fausett's icann.Blog points to a draft of
a "Relationship Agreement", which was posted on ICANN's web site. 
<http://www.lextext.com/icann/2002/04/09.html#a267>

(ii) Final statement of NAIS.  Rob Courtney posted the NAIS group's 
final statement to the GA list, which states that the group's work 
is "largely complete."
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00117.html>

(iii) Transfers.  The Transfer Task Force's work showed up in 
discussions at various points of time; I'll restrict the summary to 
those postings which consisted of something else than rhetorics.

Danny Younger forwarded a message Patrick Mevzeck had sent to 
the registrars' list.  The message suggests that investigation of a 
subject's "apparent authority" to initiate a domain transfer should 
be outsourced to some accredited provider - like what happens with 
UDRP as well.
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg02279.html>,
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg02281.html>, 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00137.html>.

Joanna Lane suggested that the "bankruptcy clause" should be removed 
 from the transfer policy, and that this should be an issue with 
which the transfer task force should deal.  In a follow-up, William 
Walsh noted that "this issue is not the reason why the transfer task 
force was created." He suggested that the bankruptcy clause "can 
wait." Marilyn Cade suggested that Joanna should draft questions 
related to that issue for the transfer task force's survey. 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00183.html>,  
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00184.html>, 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00187.html>.

(iv) NC teleconference on April 4.  The agenda and the MP3 recording 
were posted. 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00125.html>, 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00158.html>.

(v) Skeleton structure.  Alexander Svensson posted a skeleton 
structure.  The document consists of two parts: "The first part is a 
hopefully less controversial layered skeleton structure. 
Additionally, there is a proposal on splitting responsibilities into 
three recognizable parts which separate budgets. Be prepared to like 
the first and dislike the second part or vice versa," Alexander 
writes.
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00202.html>

(vi) Policy development.  I posted a rough outline of a moderately 
modified task force process for policy development, which assumes 
that (a) membership is restricted to stakeholder representatives, 
but not names council members, and (b) uses staff instead of 
(naturally biased) volunteers for the chair's and editor's jobs. 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00149.html>,
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00170.html>

Michael Froomkin responded that "the difficulty of doing this right 
is one of the most powerful arguments for decentralization and 
parallel processing.  ICANN's sole job would be to prevent 
inconsistent outcomes [...]."
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00150.html>

Danny Younger suggested not to use task forces, and rely on the work 
of WG-D instead. 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00157.html>,
<http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-d/Arc02/msg00000.html>

In order to bring more structure into that debate, I also posted a 
rough list of parameters for policy making.  Alexander Svensson and 
others added various comments, and pros and cons.  A summary of some 
of these is available as a large table 
(<http://does-not-exist.org/ga-structure/policy-making.html>). 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00211.html>, 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00212.html>.

Part of the discussion also covered the question what size a working 
group or task force can realistically have, while still working. 
Alexander argued that his "personal impression is that the maximum 
size for such a group is somewhere at 15 or 20 persons, regardless 
of the tools used." 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00220.html>.

(vii) Reseller/registrar (mis-)behavior and ICANN mission.  Danny 
Younger forwarded a message on a reseller causing massive SPAM.  He 
concludes that "if registrars take no action to police their own 
industry, and if they are not held accountable for the actions of 
their re-sellers, then this industry is surely begging for the same 
type of governmental intervention that impacted the 
telecommunications industry." Danny's suggestion is that ICANN 
should help to bring "resellers acting as loose cannons" "under 
control." 
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00228.html>

There were several posters who disagreed, and argued that
anticompetitive and illegal behavior of resellers and registrars
should be left to traditional authorities which are already
responsible for dealing with it.
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00229.html>,
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00232.html>,
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc10/msg00235.html>.


-- 
Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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