List of attendees:

Peter de Blanc         ccTLD remote participation, *proxy given to Elisabeth Porteneuve 
Elisabeth Porteneuve   ccTLD
Oscar Robles Garay     ccTLD remote participation, *proxy given to Elisabeth Porteneuve
Philip Sheppard        Business 
Marilyn Cade           Business 
Grant Forsyth          Business remote participation, *proxy given to Marilyn Cade 
Greg Ruth              ISPCP remote participation, *proxy given to Tony Holmes
Antonio Harris         ISPCP    
Tony Holmes            ISPCP    
Philipp Grabensee      Registrars
Ken Stubbs             Registrars
Bruce Tonkin           Registrars
Roger Cochetti         gTLD  
Richard Tindal         gTLD  absent, apologies, *proxy given to R.Cochetti
Cary Karp              gTLD  
Ellen Shankman         IP    remote participation, *proxy given to Laurence Djolakian
Laurence Djolakian     IP   
J. Scott Evans         IP    remote participation,  *proxy given to Laurence Djolakian
Chun Eung Hwi          NCDNH 
Harold Feld            NCDNH remote participation,  *proxy given to Chun Eung Hwi
Erick Iriate           NCDNH 

Glen de Saint Géry     NC Secretary
Alix Guillard          MP3 Recording Engineer/Secretariat
* proxy votes were noted in case of connection failure

The following points were made in the discussion:
- The Registrars questioned whether the existing task force was the best place to discuss change.
- Concern was expressed about the delay if more people were to be added.
- The gTLD Registry constituency felt that the key issue was whether ICANN should continue or be changed. 
- The IP Constituency did not have enough time for member consultation, they were not against the draft resolution, but requested some changes.
- The Non Commercial Domain Name Holders said that users were shocked and they consider the Lynn report hostile. They urged for a new DNSO Working Group to be formed.
- The ccTLDs were concerned that the Lynn report lacked a clear process, moves away from the principle of self-regulation and ignores a unique approach for ccTLDs. 

It was agreed that the full Names Council would be the forum for discussion with input from the GA. The NC committed to participation in additional Names Council calls which would be scheduled to meet the work load in the next six weeks. The thrust of the NC response would be DNSO solutions, not merely criticism of the Lynn report solutions. 


Agenda Item 5: At- Large and TF Structure interim report
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020311.NC_strtf_report.html

The NC Structure Task Force has been working on a response to the ALSC proposals on At-Large. This is work in progress. Ph. Sheppard introduced saying that there were two options, one to be silent and the other to let the Board know the status of DNSO thinking to date. He said the draft TF report was modified at a meeting earlier in Accra and he proposed to forward the draft report to the Board as work in progress.

Discussion that followed brought up the issue of  minority reports. It was clarified that minority reports are required by the ICANN bylaws and that their inclusion in DNSO reports results from this requirement. 

The presence of Alejandro Pisanty, (Board member), in the audience was recognized. Pisanty said that the Board has an open ear to all proposals and that the Board would be interested to learn about the DNSO work in progress.

The gTLD constituency requested a change to paragraph 8 section 3 in the draft report which was accepted:  "The gTLD Constituency generally supports the notion that individual domain name holders should have some role in the ICANN decision-making process. However, the constituency believes that it is premature at the current time to present the ICANN Board with an evaluation of the ALSC report and any recommendations regarding the creation of an at-large supporting organization. Rather, the gTLD Constituency recommends that the ICANN Board consider the ALSC Report in conjunction with Stuart Lynn's proposal for ICANN's general restructuring. Accordingly, the gTLD Constituency does not endorse the recommendation contained in this report." This is clearly stated as being the opinion of the gTLD Constituency and there is no implication, whatsoever, that it is shared by any other constituency. We would like to have it included in the draft interim report without any judgmental labeling, notwithstanding the NC report template including a general heading for minority reports. "

Ph. Sheppard proposed the motion:
To pass the draft interim report of the Structure task force to the Board as work in progress.
The voting results: 13 in favour, 7 abstentions, 1 No. The proposal passes.

Distribution of votes:

In Favour: Peter de Blanc (ccTLD), Elisabeth Porteneuve (ccTLD), Oscar Robles Garay (ccTLD), Philip Sheppard (Business), Marilyn Cade (Business), Grant Forsyth (Business) Greg Ruth (ISPC), Antonio Harris (ISPC), Tony Holmes (ISPCP), Ellen Shankman (IP), Laurence Djolakian (IP), Ken Stubbs (Registrars), Bruce Tonkin (Registrars)

Abstentions: Roger Cochetti (gTLD), Richard Tindal (gTLD), Cary Karp (gTLD), Harold Feld (NCDNH), Erick Iriate (NCDNH), Chun Eung Hwi (NCDNH), Philipp Grabensee (Registrars)

No: J. Scott Evans (IPC)

Decision 2 D: The report will be sent to the Board.

Agenda Item 9: Status report - IDN Task Force
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/International-Domain-Names-EP.pdf

Elisabeth Porteneuve introduced the report saying that International Domain Names were becoming increasingly important with the growth of the Internet. Unicode is the only existing table of international character sets. There are a series of technically challenging issues including: traditional Chinese vs. Simplified Chinese, Chinese and Unicode, Latin - Cyrillic - Greek character overlap. The TF is still at the stage of understanding the technical and political issues.

Chun Eung Hwi added that ICANN should respect the demands of people who want to use their own names and solve their own problems. There is close cooperation and coordination among the different stakeholders and this should show how the community wants to work together.

Agenda Item 10: Status report - ICANN TLD evaluation group

Marilyn Cade reported in the place of YJ Park who is no longer a Names Council member.

The Task Force has concentrated on the kinds of questions to be asked, rather than an evaluation process.
in its draft report. Accra allowed for face to face consultation with the new gTLD registries ( .museum, .biz, .info, .pro, .name). The draft report makes possible a two-track evaluation process, bearing in mind that there are two kinds of gTLDs, sponsored and unsponsored. The Task Force is responding to the urgency to get out a report and plans its next call shortly.

Agenda Item 11: Status report - Transfers Task Force
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-transfer/Arc00/msg00149.html

This item was discussed at the beginning under the GA report and there were no further questions.

Agenda Item 12: Discussion high-layer issues

Roger Cochetti commented that Keywords should not be seen as an alternative to the root, but they are covers that go over a url.

AOB

Budget report
Excel file in
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020312.NCaccra-budget-DNSO.xls
A revised 2002 budget with updated allocations but an identical bottom-line was circulated for information.
Fees past. In 2001, the constituencies that failed to pay their dues came under the sanctions procedure.
Invoices were mailed out in April, 2001 and  in August 2001 the first reminder notices were sent out and then the clock started ticking. Two constituencies (non-commercial and ccTLD) have failed to pay their dues and fall under these sanctions. A 90 day "Show Cause" notice and a charge of 5% interest on outstanding fees was sent out on 31 January 2002. The non-commercial constituency has responded to the show cause request. The Budget committee will make a recommendation to the NC on the responses to the show cause notices at its next meeting.
Fees 2002. 2002 invoices have been sent out in January and one constituency has paid.

Questions from the Floor
On naming systems,
Keith Teare - Realnames:
Teare made the point that there is a difference between the theoretical framework and actual systems. There is a question whether naming systems should be fuzzy logic or specific names to specific destinations. The Internet Engineering Task Force appears to have reached consensus not to put multilingual names in the Domain Name Servers.
Peter de Blanc
Drew the attention to the fact that Keywords are market driven and that Microsoft and Realnames have 80 to 85% of the market. As such Keywords are outside the system and not part of what the Names Council should consider.
Marilyn Cade
From a Business Constituency stand point, there is support for International Domain Names which maintain the uniqueness and inter-operability of the DNS.

On deletes,
Jeff Neuman - Neulevel
A Grace Period of 30 days is reasonable. A Registrant can choose the Registrar if he wants to delete. The technical, commercial and business management needs to be worked out.

Norbert Klein - Open Forum Cambodia drew attention to an IDN problem in Cambodia which he believed has been ignored by Asian members of ISO 10646.

17. 45 the meeting ended.

Next NC teleconference will be held on Friday 22 March at 15:00 UTC