[taken from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/santiago/archive/dnso-082499.html]
Scribe's Notes - ICANN DNSO General Assembly
August 24, 1999
Santiago, Chile
Nii Quaynor, Chair
- DNSO Management/Administration
- Update from the ICANN Board – Mike Roberts, CEO
- Funding issues - $800,000 in debt after first year, $200,000
more than expected. Loans received from some corporations,
- Plan for these meetings – staff analysis posted (more than
100 pages), lots of discussion already. Will explain what the board is coming
from and take comment on all subjects.
- Q&A
- Anthony Van Couvering: Please elaborate re funding and
membership.
- Staff report identifies a series of actions required
to get membership working, expected to cost at least $100,000. This
figure anticipates a significant amount of volunteer assistance.
- Update from the Provisional Names Council
- No chair available to present.
- Report from Recognized and Emerging DNSO Constituency
meetings
- Business Constituency: Jon Englund
- Meeting today to discuss input from constituency
into the process, in particular to working groups.
- gTLD Constituency: Don Telage
- Six participants in this morning’s meeting, a 300%
increase from Berlin – a number of observers came and asked questions.
Hoping for more members of constituency soon.
- ISPCP Constituency: Michael Schneider
- Procedural questions – admitting new members.
- ccTLD Constituency:
- Used IANA database to make contacts. Database out
of date, but have managed to reach all but five ccTLDs.
- Voting: Announced, then conducted a week later. Independent
oversight of election process. Electronic voting with security based
on contact email address and confirmation email. Single transferable
vote. Selected: Jennings, Poblete, Roberts.
- Jennings: Consensus that concern should be expressed
re speed at which ICANN wanted directors chosen by DNSO because the
accelerated process might result in less representative directors.
Suggests term for these directors should be one year rather than three
for sooner review, if necessary. Agreed that there should be no tax
on domain names.
- Non-Commercial Constituency: (not audible near computers
perhaps due to interference?)
- Trying to organize more effective participation of members
in working group, especially Working Group A.
- Registrars:
- Increase in attendees.
- Adopted parliamentary rules to allow everyone to
participate.
- Voting: Public or private?
- Intend to have permanent representatives elected
before LA meeting.
- Need to harmonize WGA policies with the work of various
registrars along with WIPO and ICANN.
- IDNO Constituency: Joop Teernstra
- Began IDNO after Singapore when it seemed that the
seven chosen constituencies did not include individual domain name
holders. Want to represent the unrepresented.
- Those who will be regulated should be represented
in the decision-making process.
- History of petitions – have asked ICANN for recognition
three times but have not received recognition. Recently received notice
that ICANN will not accept this constituency.
- Open to hearing concerns of ICANN board in order
to address them. Think the structure will represent the interests
of all domain name holders. Since at-large membership not yet established,
individuals can’t get their voice heard through at-large directors.
Participation in working groups is not effective.
- Are trying to be fully and globally representative.
- Q&A
- Esther Dyson: Did not reject IDNO petition, rather
prioritized creation of the seven other constituencies. Personally
feel uncomfortable with this decision – think it’s important that
the voices of individual domain name holders be heard. At-large
membership will have nine board members and will represent all individuals
including those with domains. This is a "more powerful"
way to be heard than with a constituency in the DNSO.
- Online comments read (in their entirety): from
Dinesh Nair, Bret Fausett, Dennis Schaefer.
- Teernstra: Response to "good enough to participate
in working groups for now."
- Sola: Consider holding vote on GA support for IDNO
after all the constituency reports are in.
- IP Constituency: Jonathan Cohen
- Today’s meeting had attendees from South America
which was new.
- Suggested revised bylaws for constituency: Expanded
executive committee with regional vice presidents from around the
world to assure geographic diversity. Want structural policies to
create a pool of talent with wide range of experiences, geography.
- Constituency is healthy, moving forward, welcomes
additional participants to participate fully.
- Consensus that ICANN board consider the IDNO application?
- Strong support with strong opposition… is that
consensus? "Not quite there" – Nii. A second vote, about
the same. Declared rough consensus by Nii.
- Confusion about what was agreed.
- Nii: A request was made to ICANN board that they
consider IDNO, but they’re free to accept or reject the request?
- Cohen: What about other constituencies?
- Questions on presentations
- Chicoine: Hand vote indicates consensus?
- Heltzer: Formal determination of consensus needed?
- ?: Consensus is not about exact counts, rather
something like a 2/3 majority. So what we saw was consensus.
- Motions
- Motion for new constituencies to be considered
tomorrow on the.
- Motion to withdraw the request for the IDNO to
be included in tomorrow’s agenda, and to [propose that the NC] create
a working group to discuss these issues. Or perhaps take these two
clauses separately.
- Request to withdraw fails, by consensus.
- Request for a working group to go to NC, by consensus.
- Report from the Provisional Names Council: Swinehart
- Established working groups A through E. A had
a unique timetable. Constituency outreach efforts. Discussion
of how to handle co-chair issues – to have evenness between co-chairs
while still getting work done.
- Q&A
- Abril i Abril: Only feedback that Names Council
gets is "don’t do anything." Lacks a chair, structure,
etc. Archives of council mailing list
- ?: Concern that archives do not include some
list messages.
- Working Group Reports
- Working Group A: Cohen
- To consider WIPO recommendation re Dispute
Resolution.
- Despite short time and lack of formal process,
job done: Reached out in terms of geography, background.
- Questions posted for comments for three
weeks, then final report up for some time. And this comes
after WIPO report which
- Q&A
- Bush: Process not sufficiently open.
Emails document as much.
- Cohen: Little time to run the process.
I divided the people between the questions.
- Kleinman: Report didn’t come from consensus
of subgroups. Definition of cybersquatting in the report
is too broad. (US Senate agrees.) NSI’s policies allow
reverse domain name hijacking, and the report seems likely
to allow further worsening of the problem. Suggested policies:
Registrars and registries should not be liable for contributory
infringement for the mere act of registering. No forum-shopping
should be allowed.
- Cohen: Not my decision, rather for ICANN
board. Expect changes from the further comment period.
But note that drafting committee will have to be smaller
in order to do its job.
- ?: Understand logistical problem of getting
the job done during the American summer, the problem of
doing sufficient outreach. Hard to determine whether consensus
exists for a working group.
- ?: Concern that too few people from Latin
America were involved.
- Abril i Abril: Anyone who wanted to participate
could do so. But relatively few people came.
- ?: Concern that report is too hurried.
Some procedures missing. For example, no grievance procedure.
No need to hurry this process so much, for the Internet
works as it is.
- Dyson: Board wants to make the right
decisions on substance. Be specific re, for example, the
definition of cybersquatting. Agreed that process could
be improved, and we don’t want to be sloppy, but we do
want to get this work done. Let’s talk about the specifics,
not who was or wasn’t at a particular meeting.
- Remote comment from Srikanth Narra read
in its entirety
- Cohen: Called Froomkin and asked him
to participate. Wanted his participation because he is
experienced and has considerable respect in the academic
community. He participated, and his comments were considered
in the report.
- Bush: Propose a motion – urgent, these
issues to be resolved before LA. That the General Assembly
report that the overall process towards Uniform Dispute
Resolution is necessary and should be pursued. In particular,
should prevent forum shopping and to make registrars and
registries not liable for their acts as registrars and registries.
Specific issues of details such as reverse hijacking, cybersquatting
definition, and how and by whom disputes are arbitrated.
Need to resolve these issues before implementation.
- Zittrain (helping with legal language
as requested by Bush): needed, a second, then general
debate.
- ?, Register.com: Lots of attention focussed
on dispute resolution issues. Registrar community has
spent a significant amount of time & effort on same.
Spending too much time in search of perfect solution will
result in never getting any solution. Should continue
to discuss the subject, but need to move forward.
- Sola, business constituency: Problems
exist and need to be dealt with immediately.
- Bush: Want to move forward, except in
the specific areas specified by the motion. Need help
from lawyers re how to write language reflecting as much.
- Cohen: Said earlier that should make
improvements as possible. But don’t support the motion.
- Roberts: Where did the timeframe for
this report come from?
- Cohen: Timetable suggested by ICANN board
given the need for a policy soon with new registrars coming
online, requiring a uniform dispute resolution policy.
- Zittrain: Online comment from Froomkin
read in its entirety. Also, comments that perhaps GA should
allow Bush to refine his motion and to formalize wording.
- Cohen (responding to Froomkin’s comment):
Perhaps should amend motion. I’d support the motion if
it allowed the approval of a uniform dispute policy as
soon as one can be agreed on.
- Bush: Do not accept the amendment. Not
willing to accept a uniform policy in these areas.
- ?: If we don’t decide on a definition,
we can’t move forwards. This committee didn’t produce
a sufficiently precise document.
- ?: Recommend that Bush’s motion be tabled.
Much work already put into the document. Registrars have
to live with the rules agreed on, so if they’re happy
with it, that should be good enough.
- Working Group B: Famous Marks
- Meeting tomorrow morning at 8:00 in hotel
- Working Group C: Sola
- Addition to the root of new gTLDs.
- Created June 24-25 with ~30 people. Now
has more than 70. Discussion started with charter.
- Trying to divide the work to get consensus
on small issues
- Working Group D: Swinehart
- Business plan and internal procedures
of DNSO and working groups.
- Schedule: Charter posted on July 23.
Election of co-chair (Bret Fausett) on August 2-3.
- Responsibilities to be divided between
process & procedure, and business plan (website, translation,
outreach).
- Discussion has come to focus on procedural
aspects.
- Have to make sure that process is open
& transparent, but work must be done. These seem to
be in conflict.
- About twenty members on the list. Some
constituencies are still not represented.
- Working Group E:
- Have about ten people, need more. Hereby
request participation.
- Meeting tomorrow at lunch in the adjacent
cafeteria.
- McLaughlin: DNSO constituencies were given
provisional recognition with the understanding that they’d
get final recognition by November.
- May 27: Initial provisional recognition
of six of seven constituencies until November 4.
- August 26: Provisional recognition for
non-commercial constituency to be considered.
- September 15: Amended constituency proposals
to be submitted to board. Shortly thereafter, a special
meeting of board to approve & grant final recognition
to the constituency groups that meet September 16 deadline.
- October 8: Constituencies to elect permanent
(non-provisional) names council members.
- October 16: Fully-Constituted Names Council
to select ICANN board members.
- Q&A:
- Remote comments displayed on screen
and described by Zittrain from Narra, Langston.
- How can constituencies interact with
board? Agreed that improvement is possible.
- Jennings: Consensus among those present
in prior ccTLD meeting that ICANN’s accelerated timetable
was risky & dangerous. If board sticks with current
schedule, term of the newly-elected board members should
be only one year.
- There may be a six-month period during
which the Non-Commercial constituency does significant
outreach to get its final representatives to NC. But
sense of the board’s position on this is that election
of ICANN directors shouldn’t and won’t be held up by
this sort of delay.
- Proposed wording of motion: That the
general assembly recommend that ICANN should move forward
with a uniform dispute resolution policy for the gTLD
registrars to be adopted at the same time as a small committee
is created (extremely small, to be selected by ICANN staff)
to define how providers will be accredited; clarify the
definition of cybersquatting; prevent reverse domain name
hijacking; and establish fair rules to govern the details
of the mandatory arbitration process.
- Cohen: Motion is becoming more reasonable.
But realize that changing the dispute resolution process
means modifying literally millions of contracts.
- Stubbs: Need to act, need to show that
we’re capable of moving forward. The people responsible
for implementing a policy like this need to be involved,
also those who will be affected. This issue can’t be
deferred any longer.
- Gallup: Is this motion to apply to
gTLDs or all TLDs? Consensus is gTLDs only; amendment
made to text.
- Post-GAC session
- Jennings: Reiterate suggestion motion:
that we ask the board to consider the suggestion that
the DNSO’s, ASO’s, and PSO’s newly-elected board members
hold office for only one year.
- ?: Supports the proposal.
- Abril i Abril: What is the underlying
reason for this proposal? We are stuck in procedure.
- Schneider: Would this require amendment
of the bylaws? Would the board do so if necessary?
- Response from McLaughlin: Bylaws
would have to be amended.
- Cohen: Question of how long directors
will serve is a very serious matter. Requires significant
discussion.
- Jennings: Concern that process isn’t
as representative as it should be and needs to be. Don’t
want to make the mistake of seating board members for
long terms that the community later regrets.
- Schneider: Some constituencies are
far-along in the formation process. Others not making
such fast progress.
- Langenbach: If we delay the process
further, only those people who have enough money to
continue to follow get to be involved.
- Abril i Abril: If we accepted this
proposal, some weirdness might result – thinking the
board was "still" not permanent for another
year.
- Almato: What about membership? How
can we make substantive policy with the board not yet
elected?
- One online participant (fmenard) agrees
that Jennings’ proposal makes sense.
- Vote on the motion: More in favor than
against. Carried, says Nii.
- Zittrain: Should go to both board and
NC.
- Amendment proposed: That ICANN should
immediately adopt a uniform dispute resolution policy
for gTLD registrars; simultaneously a small drafting committee
will be created by the names council and ICANN staff.
[link in text of amendment in HTML]
- Bush: Objects to clauses re Names Council
and re reps from each constituency. Too big and slow
if done that way. Should be faster, and therefore smaller.
- Room agrees to vote. Consensus that
the amendment proposed is passed.
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