[announce] NC teleconf minutes 22 March 2002

["DNSO Secretariat" <DNSO.secretariat@dnso.org>]

[To: ga@dnso.org; council@dnso.org]
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DNSO Names Council Teleconference 22nd March 2002 -
minutes --------------------------------------------------------------------
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25 March 2002.

Proposed agenda and related documents
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020322.NCteleconf-agenda.html


List of attendees:

Peter de Blanc         ccTLD absent, apologies, proxy to Oscar Robles or
Elisabeth Porteneuve
Elisabeth Porteneuve   ccTLD
Oscar Robles Garay     ccTLD absent, apologies, proxy to Peter de Blanc or
Elisabeth Porteneuve

Philip Sheppard        Business
Marilyn Cade           Business
Grant Forsyth          Business

Greg Ruth              ISPCP  absent, apologies
Antonio Harris         ISPCP
Tony Holmes            ISPCP

Philipp Grabensee      Registrars absent, apologies
Ken Stubbs             Registrars
Bruce Tonkin           Registrars

Roger Cochetti         gTLD
Richard Tindal         gTLD  absent, apologies, proxy given to R.Cochetti
Cary Karp              gTLD  absent, apologies,
Ellen Shankman         IP
Laurence Djolakian     IP
J. Scott Evans         IP

Harold Feld            NCDNH
Chun Eung Hwi          NCDNH
Erick Iriate           NCDNH

14 Names Council Members

Jeff Neuman            invited to represent gTLDs in the absence of NC
members
Rita Rodin             invited to represent gTLDs in the absence of NC
members
Thomas Roessler        invited as GA Chair

Glen de Saint Géry     NC Secretary
Philippe Renaut        MP3 Recording Engineer/Secretariat


Due to a technical failure there was no MP3 recording

Quorum present at 15:10 (all times reported are CET, which is UTC +1:00
during the winter in the Northern hemisphere).

Philip Sheppard chaired this NC teleconference.

Approval of the Agenda

Approved.
Philip Sheppard said that the purpose of the meeting was a discussion but
that a vote might be needed to pass revisions to the Terms of Reference.


Agenda item 1. Agreement to revised Terms of Reference for DNSO response to
the case for Reform
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2002.NC-tor-DNSO-response-ICANN-reform.v3.htm
,

Suggested amendments on line that had been proposed for adoption by the
Chair prior to the meeting and circulated as version3:
Tony Holmes: Under section 2 Advisory Bodies, there should be a separation
of DNSO, ASO, and PSO.
Chun: Explicit mention of At-Large in the sub-title to section 5 (Board
composition). In addition it was agreed in the meeting to add At-large as a
bullet point under section 4 (Stakeholder participation).

The structure of the report was discussed and it was agreed that:
The report should list:

Common points of agreement
Individual Constituency opinion (where it differs).
Consensus input from GA
The frame work for the report should be:

Functions of ICANN, guiding principles of those functions.
Structure the report by subject area (see below)
Response to Lynn analysis and proposed solution
Alternative solutions
GA: Ken Stubbs: Important for the GA to give an idea of what their
propositions will be.
Thomas Roessler: Proposes to summarise the thinking and debates going on in
the GA. In turn he will comment on what has been said during NC the
discussions.


Ph. Sheppard proposed:
To accept the terms of reference as amended and agree that those terms of
reference specify the format of a DNSO report which will present
recommendations to the Board.
Ellen Shankman seconded.

Proposed motion passed unanimously by the NC members present.

Decision 1: Amended terms of Reference were adopted.


Agenda item 2. Discussion on functions and principles of ICANN.

Ph. Sheppard introduced the subject by saying that three questions
circulated in advance were based on work already done which can be found in
Stuart Lynn's statement on 10 March describing ICANN's functions in the
Mission Statement.


Q. 1. Do we agree with this posted list of ICANN's functions?

Oscar Robles had answered on line the question : "Do we agree with the
posted list of ICANN's functions?". He agreed in broad terms with the list
as a recollection of tasks ICANN conduct in a day to day basis, but not as
principles. He also believed there were specific areas where more resources
were needed such as root servers and ccTLDs.

Operational functions of ICANN
Jeff Neuman said that in the list of functions stated, not one is really
inherent to ICANN, there is nothing in the White Paper that gives ICANN
those functions, and there is nothing to prevent the functions being
contracted out to other entities.
- certain functions do not belong to ICANN such as issues pertaining to
transfers.
- ICANN is confined to technical functions, if it were not limited in scope
it would have to include consumer protection.
- it was felt that the contracts between Registrars and Registries specify
transfer policies so there is already the notion of some consumer protection
policy in these contracts.
- ICANN's role is to produce competition and as such regulate consumer
protection.
Elisabeth Porteneuve for the ccTLDs said that in 3 years only  two service
contracts were signed with ccTLDs and nothing has been done about the root
servers in terms of contracts or distribution which is inadequate.
Understand the reason and ask why nothing has been done. Bodies in place are
perhaps insufficient to deal with the problem.
General operational functions should be defined and how they relate to the
working of the ASO.
Bruce Tonkin insisted that the core mission is in management of names
hierarchy and IP addresses. Too much emphasis is put on something that is
not related.
There was the concern expressed that the discussion was getting caught up in
functions rather than looking for ways to find a creative environment that
would allow ICANN to operate more efficiently.
-Boundaries should be placed on where ICANN can go.

IP concerns
Ellen Shankman, J. Scott Evans and Laurence Djolakian said that IP is a core
function mentioned in the White Paper and has driven ICANN to be more
intrusive in policy goals. I  discussion the following points were made:
- Concern that supervising the administration of the UDRP policy is a too
thin version of IP.
- Opposition views that beyond the UDRP, ICANN would enter a jurisdiction
over which it did not possess the necessary expertise.
- IP implications in coordinating functions and processes within the
organisation where laws that exist can be applied by IP owners to protect
their rights.

Marilyn Cade recalled that the White Paper was the result of international
consultation, was a broad hammered out set of documents leading to the MOU
with ICANN. If ICANN was not there the contract would go back to the
Department of Commerce.

IANA
IANA database up date concerning ccTLDs needs to be done carefully as there
is no procedure and individual relationships of each ccTLD with ICANN is
impossible.


Q. 2 Do we want to delete anything from the list?
Rita Rodin: the gTLD constituency had been looking at a thinner management
model for ICANN.
To do this the following functions could be removed:
- certain administrative and policy functions relating to gTLD business
- consumer protection
- creation of infrastructure for at-large membership.
In response to this, concern was expressed by Tony Harris and Marilyn Cade
as to who would take on the tasks taken away from ICANN.
It was unclear what consumer protection could be taken away from ICANN's
existing functions unless this meant changing existing registry or registrar
contracts.


Priorities and a thinner ICANN
It was noticed that most constituencies prioritise functions for ICANN they
think are important. If there is any proposal for a thinner ICANN, then each
constituency will need to examine what it is prepared to see ICANN no longer
doing in order to maintain these priorities.

Conclusion
There were no universally agreed functions that should be deleted. There
were areas where the potential for mission creep was higher and the
following were suggested: security, consumer protection and the creation of
infrastructure for at-large membership.

Q. 3 Do we want to add anything to the list?
There were no proposals although there were supporters of some of the
existing functions being done better or having more resources given to
them: - ccTLD administrative functions - root server administration -
Registry and Registrar contract enforcement with respect to intellectual
property and other existing conditions.


Functional sub-divisions
Some NC members proposed that separation of technical and policy activities
would help increase ICANN efficiency and help with bottlenecks caused by the
existing staff hierarchy. If this happened there would need to be an
assessment if another entity or ICANN sub-division were capable of doing the
work and to ensure that there was legitimacy to the delegation.

Constituencies were encouraged to continue this discussion by e-mail to the
NC list. In the meantime the Chair will circulate the list with provisional
conclusions based on the above discussions.

The teleconference ended at 17:10

Next NC teleconference will be held on Thursday 4 April at 15:00 Paris time,
UTC 14:00 and focus on Financing ICANN.
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