ICANN/DNSO

21 September 2001.

The DNSO Names Council meeting in Montevideo held on Saturday 8 September 2001, 14:00 - 17:00, [@ Ballroom] .

Agenda http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010908.NCmontevideo-agenda.html

List of attendees:

List of absentees:

Quorum (11) present at 14:00 Montevideo time (UTC 17:00)

Ph. Sheppard chaired the NC meeting.

1. ICANN Board elections:

   • The voting procedure for the ICANN board member for a 3 term of office was explained by Elisabeth Porteneuve. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/montevideo/archive/pres/electionrules.html
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010908.DNSO-vote-2001.ppt

     Voting starts on September 8 and ends on September 15 using convention style voting. Voting is by secret ballot but once the results are confirmed by ICANN Board after a NC meeting or teleconf., the full list with how people voted is public.

     Proxy votes are as stated above in the attendance list.

   • Update on GA session with candidates.

     Presentation by 4 candidates. Audio and video archives available. http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010908.GAmontevideo-scribe.html

2. Re-structuring and review process:

   At Large report and reactions received: Carl Bildt http://www.atlargestudy.org/draft_final.shtml

   Concern was expressed that decisions had to be made before November. It was generally agreed that the At Large involvement is important to underlie the legitimacy of ICANN decisions. There remains debate as to the optimal number of At Large directors on the board. The ALSC accepts that its current proposal for an SO is not intended to replicate the existing policy role of SOs but was chosen more as a symbol of equality. There are some problems in defining At Large members as domain name holders. People with multiple domain names could be considered having multiple votes. There has been a lot of outreach in the ALSC and the ALSC draws a distinction between those who should be able to vote and those who can participate. The report sets out ways of participation facilitating mailing lists, physical meetings, financial and structural independence in each region. The ALSC will now draft a final report based on comments received.

3. Future of Dot org (Item 5 on the agenda):

   Milton Mueller reported that the TF consisted of GA representatives plus all the constituencies except the ISPs.

   The basic points put forward were that dot Org should be sponsored but unrestricted, defining the community its seeks to serve, have focused, efficient and reliable marketing, with services in all feasible time zones and languages. No evictions should be made from dot Org because of this change. Administration must be consistent with ICANN process policies, including the UDRP and WHOIS. The technical functions have not been worked out yet and it has not been decided if these are technical or policy decisions. The main objective is to move dot Org away from Verisign to a new registry.

   A report will be ready in October and will be voted on at the Marina del Rey meeting in November.

   All documents are published on the dnso.org website.

4. UDRP Review (Item 6 b on the agenda):

   Milton Mueller reported that the UDRP review TF consisted of representatives of each dispute resolution provider ( panellists and administrators) as well as respondents, complainants and independent experts. The task force had discretion in the selection of nominees for respondents, complainants, and independent experts. The result was 14 North Americans and 4 people from other regions, which questions the geographic representation of TFs in the future.

   Decision 1. It was decided to add 2 non-North Americans - Erik Iriarte Ahon (LAC) and Ramesh Kumar Nadarajah (AP) - who are qualified and were previously nominated rather than redefine the TF. As the above names were not available at the meeting it was agreed to do a formal vote by e-mail. Action: Milton Mueller. Agreed: unanimously.

   There is a month and a half delay in getting out the report so it will not be ready for Marina del Rey meeting. Questions will be posted in October.

5. Equitable Allocation of SRS Resources (Item 3 on Agenda):

   The registrar constituency has been working to identify the problem and make sure that Verisign and Registrars agree on the nature of the problem. http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010908.GAmontevideo-scribe.html#verisign-srs

   Chuck Gomes reported that there had been an increase in the "rush" for deleted names since January 2001 resulting in restrictions on registrar bandwidth (max of 256kbps per registrar) and simultaneous connections (max of 250). Effects on registrar performance were enforced and small registrars were most affected.

   "The problem": A few registrars used many system resources to perform a few domain registrations. Some registrars execute the same command 1000 times per minute. Sometimes, 100000 check commands for each name successfully registered. Only a limited number of registrars did so. These are not just speculative registrations but also legitimate business activity and the small registrars are the most affected. There is a sincere desire to get the issues resolved. Agreement has been reached to return to the established system but with some additional safeguards for users. Chuck Gomes will present a report at the next NC teleconference.

6. Restructuring and Review Process Ð ccSO and implications for DNSO (Item 2b on Agenda):

   Presentation delivered by Peter de Blanc Ð Inter-relationship in matching policies is a key question. Cross SO work makes sense and is necessary. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/montevideo/archive/pres/cctld-nc.html

   At the moment all the other constituencies know too little to actually comment but it is noted that a proliferation of SOs is not supported and that the DNSO, as a forum for suppliers and users should remain. The ccTLD constituency is currently thinking to leave and so stop paying the DNSO at the end of the year. A formal proposal from the ccTLDs is forthcoming.

7. DNSO Review (Half Item 6 and half Item 2b on Agenda):

   Individual constituency and DNSO review.

   The existing Review task force will issue an interim report shortly after Montevideo. This will cover items relevant to the existing structure of the DNSO: guidelines for working groups, translations, alternatives to email, elections of GA chair, definition of consensus. After the TFÕs final report its work will be complete.

   There is also a need to have a task force considering matters which impact of the structure of ICANN and the DNSO such as At-Large and ccSO on DNSO.

   Decision 2: To establish a task force. Philip Sheppard will propose terms of reference and the TF will work to a tight timeline consistent with the ALSC and ccTLD proposals. Agreed: unanimously.

8. WhoIs survey:

   http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/montevideo/archive/pres/whois.html was presented by Paul Kane. An interim report will come out in April 2002 and there will be an updated report in Marina del Rey.

9. Budget Committee:

   Roger Cochetti reported that there had been both under-spending and under-collecting so the situation is satisfactory. Some constituencies had not paid dues for 2000 and/or 2001. The clock had started ticking for the NC sanctions procedure for 2001 defaulters.

   Voluntary fundraising remains low but there are pledges of $8000 (before Verisign matching).

10. Other business:

    There was a call for greater public transparency in the selection of secretariat but it was accepted that there are limits to what can be made public where issues of personnel and personal privacy are concerned. The search committee in now in discussion, with ICANN staff to draw up a contract and the relevant details of this will be made available to the NC.

11. Public comments:

    Jef Neuman of dot biz expressed concern that gTLDs had contracts with ICANN while some ccTLDs that were being marketed as gTLDs did not have the same contracts. The speaker felt that there should be consistency in contracts to assure consistency in end user experience. ccTLDs have similar contracts with their governments via consumer protection and related guidelines in various countries.

    In discussion individual NC members commented that:

    • 30 to 40% of registrations are in ccTLDs and that there is a faster rate of growth than in gTLDs.
    • It is a dangerous game to look at numbers in ccTLDs: Germany and the United Kingdom have a large number of registrations but do not use their ccTLDs as gTLDs.

The meeting ended at 17.45. Montevideo time