[registrars] Washington Meeting - Draft Agenda

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

Listed below is the draft agenda of the Registrar/Registry meeting scheduled
for next Friday February 21st in Washington, DC. I have compiled this agenda
based upon various inputs from registrars over the past couple of weeks. If
there are any other suggestions please bring them to my attention. Any
issues that can not be addressed during this meeting will be followed up
during the Rio meeting scheduled for March.

Best regards,

Mike


8:15 - 8:30 (closed session Registrars only) State of the Constituency

This will be a brief introduction of registrars in attendance along with a
roll-call of currently paid members with full voting rights.


8:30 - 9:30 (closed session Registrars only) By-law Discussion

There will be a discussion of the new Registrar Constituency by-laws that
must be submitted and approved by ICANN. In light of the ICANN reform which
no longer requires the constituency to pay for its Names Council
representatives, the constituency is at a cross roads for where it would
like to go. Currently we have in excess of $20,000 on account with only
$10,000 of expensed committed so far ($2,500 DC meeting, $5,000 ICANN fees
(last payment), and $2,500 registrar software). To date the registrar
constituency has collected no dues for 2003.

Moving forward the registrar constituency needs to decide whether it would
like to continue to operate in a low cost environment or whether it would
like to become more like a professional trade association. In the past I
have personally opposed retaining paid staff, incorporating, etc. However,
there have been several registrars that have raised these possibilities with
me again and I think it would be beneficial to discuss the merits of these
options.

Also for discussion during this session will be the proposal made by Ross in
connection with membership participation and Tom in connection with a policy
framework for raising and advancing policy issues within the constituency.

9:30 - 9:55 Consideration for Registration Authorities Conducting Business
in the European Union (open registrars/registry)

I attended a workshop in Berlin, Germany last week and there were a number
of panels dealing with issues that directly impact all registrars conducting
business within the European Union. I will try to provide a brief summary of
these laws and how they potentially impact your business if you transact
business with individuals and/or businesses in the EU.

- Effective July 1, 2003 non-EU registrars must start charging Value Added
Tax (VAT) to all transactions with consumers in the EU. Current EU VAT rates
range from 13% to 25%. In addition registrars must register with a tax
authortity in one of the EU member states.
- EU Directive 95/46/EC: deals with data privacy laws that are currently in
effect.
- EU Directive 02/58/EC; This directive goes into effect October 2003 and
provides additional e-commerce regulation including among other things the
use of "cookies" on websites;


9:55 - 10:15 Review and Summary of FTC Workshop on Cross Border Fraud (open
registrars/registry)

This will provide a brief summary of the two day work shop on cross border
fraud. A number of registrars have stated that they will not be able to
attend the workshop. The key focus will be on credit card and whois issues.


10:15 - 11:00 Credit Card Charge Backs (open registrar/registry)

This will be a discussion among the participants to discuss the impact of
credit card fraud within the domain name registration industry and what if
any steps can be taken among registration authorities (registrars and
registries) to mitigate this problem.

11:00 - 12:00 Update on the Whois Task Force

This will be an update on the ICANN Whois Task Force final report, and how
it potentially impacts registrars. Bruce Tonkin's proposal will also be
discussed at this time and how it should be incorporated into any
implementation policy. I have also learned a rumor that Senator Burn's is
considering introducing a Spam bill that will have a provision providing
third parties a cause of action against people that provide false or
inaccurate whois information. I am trying to obtain a mark-up of this draft
legislation since it could potentially impacts all registrations
authorities.

12:30 - 1:30 Catered Lunch (Registrars and Registries)


1:30- 2:30 Transfers

Ross will provide the latest update on the transfer implementation work.

2:30 - 3:00 Auto Delete

Tim Ruiz will provide an update on the auto-delete task force, and we will
collectively try to identify any potential bugs to prevent the RGP billing
bug from reoccurring.

3:00 - 3:30 Redemption Grace Period

Registrars and registries will try to discuss the problems encountered by
registrars with the RGP, and see if there is a mutually acceptable framework
for modifying the current policy and reinstating the 5 day non-billable
grace period.

3:30 - 4:00 IDN Primer

Andrew McLaughlin gave an excellent non-technical primer on IDNs to
illustrate the potential complex policy issues surrounding IDNs. I am trying
to obtain a copy of these slides to use in during this time slot.

4:00 - 5:30 Registry Presentations

A number of registries that are co-sponsoring this event have various
technical updates that they want to provide to registrars, i.e. RegistryPro
is preparing for launch, PIR will be switching over to a thick EPP 7.0
version; NeuStar has some updates on .CN and .US; VeriSign has some new
market research that it would like to share.



To date I have had approximately 20 registrar participants confirm there
participation and approximately 10 registry participants. The hotel has
extended the time period to receive the discount room rate. I would
encourage all to take advantage of this rate which is around $100 a night
cheaper than other hotels.

Any questions let me know.

Best regards,

Mike