ICANN/DNSO
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DNSO Names Council meeting in Shanghai, 29 October 2002 - captioning |
29 October 2002
Proposed agenda and related documents
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20021029.NCshanghai-agenda.html
List of attendees:
Elisabeth Porteneuve ccTLD Oscar Robles Garay ccTLD Philip Sheppard Business Marilyn Cade Business Grant Forsyth Business, proxy to Marilyn Cade remote participation Greg Ruth ISPCP, proxy to Tony Holmes Antonio Harris ISPCP Tony Holmes ISPCP Philipp Grabensee Registrars Ken Stubbs Registrars Bruce Tonkin Registrars Roger Cochetti gTLD Jordyn Buchanan gTLD Cary Karp gTLD Ellen Shankman IP, par telephone, proxy to J. Scott Evans Laurence Djolakian IP J. Scott Evans IP Harold Feld NCDNH, par telephone, proxy to Chun Eung Hwi remote participation Chun Eung Hwi NCDNH Erick Iriate NCDNH, proxy to Chun Eung Hwi remote participation
we have the deletes task force in terms of reference and membership to approve. we have a discussion on the transfers task force, discussion on the whois task force. and that's all we have on the agenda so far.
if someone would like to propose that the agenda be accepted.
aye?
anyone against?
okay. i'll take the agenda as accepted.
the first item on the agenda is to approve the minutes of the last two meetings, if i can just have a proposal for that.
aye. all those against?
any abstentions?
okay. those minutes are approved.
the first issue is to ratify an e_mail vote that was held for four resolutions.
the __ i'll just briefly read a quick summary of which each one of those resolutions were and the results.
the first resolution was that the names council resolves that the proposed gnso council should have three representatives per constituency, but this situation be reviewed 12 months after the formation of the council, so that an intelligent judgment can be made. a further review may also be necessary should new constituencies be created.
that particular resolution was passed via e_mail with 16 agreeing, three disagreeing, and one abstention.
it's probably easiest if we just ratify each of those as we go through.
if i could just have someone to propose that we ratify that.
okay. the first resolution is now passed.
the second resolution was to do with stakeholder representation on the names council.
the resolution is that the names council resolves that any variation from the principle of equal stakeholder constituency representation in votes in the proposed gnso council is unacceptable. that resolution had 15 in favor, five against, and 0 abstentions.
if i can have a proposal to accept that e_mail vote.
okay. the second resolution is now passed.
the third resolution was __ is in response to concerns that the cctld constituency has raised regarding difficulties in performing name server changes. the names council resolves that icann properly processed the backlog of name server requests in the root zone and made the proper recommendations to the u.s. department of commerce which must approve these to the zone file, subject to external checks to check that the name servers are appropriate for the appropriate cctld. the names council also recommends that the cctld managers and the icann committee for security and stability, with input from the icann staff that perform the iana function jointly develop procedures at the interface between the iana function and the cctld managers that improve the quality of dns data at the top level of the dns. this resolution had 18 in favor, 0 disagreeing, and 2 people abstained.
if i can again get a proposal to ratify that decision.
okay. that third motion is passed.
the fourth resolution was in response to a letter from stuart lynn, the ceo of __ or president of icann, and vint cerf, the chairman of icann to the names council, seeking the opinion of the names council on the suggestion to ask the committee on security and stability to look at the sound technical practices.
the resolution from the names council is that the icann board should ask the committee on security and stability to work cooperatively with the icann staff responsible for performing the function, the tld managers and registrars, to develop a recommendation on the most sound technical practices to follow to improve the dns data quality at all levels of the dns hierarchy. that had 19 in favor, 0 disdisagreeing, and one abstention.
if i can again have a proposal for that.
okay. the fourth resolution has now passed.
i'd just like to comment that today, there was a public forum session during the general assembly where we did have a panel to discuss the issue with representatives from the icann staff, from the cctld managers, and from the chair of the security advisory committee, dr. steve crocker. that was a constructive session, and i'm expecting we will be able to move forward with those resolutions and to take action to approve the procedures.
the next item on the agenda, the next item on the agenda is a vote on a change in the current names council procedures that presently require a task force chairperson to be a member of the names council.
this __
okay. just to continue on the task force chair roll. we have a resolution that was proposed and discussed in the last teleconference, and it was placed on the agenda for voting at this tele_ __ at this meeting.
i'll just quickly read through that resolution
it states that whereas the names council rules and procedures currently provides that the chair of a committee or task force as appointed by the names council and the chair must be a names council member, the names council seeks to encourage diversity of participation from each of its constituencies as well as the general assembly on task forces. the names council recognize that is due to time, resources, and specialized fields of expertise, the most appropriate people to serve on the task forces may not include members who serve on the names council.
may not include members who serve on the names council.
the names council recognizes the amount of time and work that must be performed by the chair of the task force, and that such time and work may not be able to be performed by an existing names council member.
the names council also recognizes that it must maintain short lines of communication with any task force and also maintain control of the policy issues.
therefore, it's resolved that the section 3.2 of names council rules and procedures be amended to state under chair, the chair of an interim committee is appointed by the names council, in the case of a task force the names council typically chooses to ratify the election of a chair by the task force itself, and the chair need not be a names council member.
a new section is inserted to state, 3.2 liaison, the names council may appoint one or more liaisons to any task force for the purpose of ensuring that the task force is complying with the terms of reference and report back to the names council on the progress made in the task force.
so that's the resolution.
we did hear for and against that resolution at the last teleconference.
so i propose at this stage to just go around the table and formally record the vote from each constituency member on that topic.
so i'll start with ken.
yes, go ahead, marilyn.
so go ahead, jordyn.
as long as we're discussing this, i'll try to keep this brief because i do believe that each of these issues was addressed, both by myself and i think quite eloquently by other members of the names council during our last conference call.
but i think that requiring that the chair of a task force, while recognizing that it's incredibly important role, incredibly time consuming role as well, that is vital; that in order to increase our representation of various constituencies, in order to make sure that this is not actually a top_down process and we encourage bottom_up participation that we allow anyone from throughout the community, if they're suitably qualified and elected by their peers upon the task force in order to serve as the chair of the task force.
i think that we all recognize that as members of the names council here, we have incredible pressures placed upon our time, and it's simply not practical in many circumstances for a diverse group of names council members to serve as a __ the chair of this role.
so i recognize it's very important that the names council have input and stay apprised of the operation of the various task forces.
that's why we've introduced the liaison role within the resolution.
and i think that moving ahead that we can see that the chair is a very important role, and as such, it ought to be a role that is served by the best person regardless of whether or not that person happens to be a member of the names council.
thank you.
go ahead, marilyn.
my comments are going to address really the fact that we are in a changing situation.
we're evolving from a dnso to a gnso, and the __ in the near_term future, we will have additional resources in the form of staff support, which will be able to undertake many of the functions that are supportive to the chair role.
however, i do not believe that that replaces the significant importance of the __ having the chair be a names council member.
policy development is the work of this council and will be the work of the next council.
that is our job.
and using task forces and working groups is a way to augment and extend participation and input.
but the fact of the matter is our job as elected representatives is policy development.
i feel that that means that part of our job __ i believe that that means that part of our job is really to take on the responsibility, and it is a shared responsibility, at this level to provide the kind of leadership __ i don't consider it a top_down imposition at all.
and having been in a chair role, i can tell you that there's very little top_down about it.
and i think that the tight linkage between the people who are ultimately responsible for making sure that policy gets accepted is very, very important, as well as the broad participation of the constituencies, the ga, other experts, et cetera.
the participation is actually very different than taking the responsibility for guiding the process.
i have had two recent instances of individuals who are members of the task force, one of whom has publicly stated that he speaks as an individual.
i think that's something we have to better understand, task force members are representatives.
i have other instances of well_meaning participants who have accepted nomination and participation on task forces and find that they do not have the time to fulfill those obligations.
i don't think that's a risk that we can take.
would anyone else like to respond?
okay, i have ken and j. scott.
ken, go ahead.
the only difference is that marilyn defines policy development as the responsibility of the members of the council and new policy organizations in the future.
my definition is that we're talking about coordinating policy development.
i think that it's incumbent on the task force to evaluate the membership within the task force and elect someone as the leader of the task force who they feel can be the most effective person to manage whatever issue that task force is assigned.
if that person happens to be a names council member, that's fine.
if not, i believe the essential responsibility of the names council member on that task force is to liaise and help coordinate the policy development and the issue development that's generated through the task force and help to move that through the balance of the process.
thank you.
j. scott.
i don't think there's anything that makes an election to the names council __ creates in the members the ability to automatically be the best person to lead a task force.
i think that's a personality development.
you may be a member of this council because within your organization you have a certain expertise that you bring to the discussions and deliberations of this council, and that may not be one of leadership.
i think, also, it is important __ and i think it's in the pdp document that has been put out with the reform and was emphasized by ken, and i have heard on many occasions from several that in a bottom_up consensus policy development process, our role is of coordination and management of that process.
and if we have a chair that, by the peers on the task force, has been elected that is not a member, then it is incumbent upon us in managing that process to ensure that we have mechanisms, whether it be written reports submitted before meetings or memorandums circulated to those of us, there are mechanisms other than having a chair that as a names council member that we can create and work with a non_council task force chair to make sure that we can manage it, because we're well_informed of the progress.
and i think with those other mechanisms and realizing the realities that all of our time is valuable and taken up a great deal with the things we have to do both for the constituencies and in the names council, sometimes we need to tap into another person who, wherever they may be in their career or life, may be in a better position to donate more time to the particular efforts at hand within the task force.
i think, roger, did you have something to say?
first, as an all_volunteer body, i think we should be delighted to the extent that we can get others, nonname council members, to be included in our task force, including chairing them.
secondly, on the issue of representativeness, i see that issue as really unrelated to the motion before us.
you can be highly representative and not be a member of the names council and not the least bit representative and be a member of the names council.
these are not related issues.
and thirdly, i think that if we can, through the passage of a motion such as this one, improve the quality of our work by bringing other people into the process who might not otherwise be able to, it seems to me that this is a very, very useful thing for us to do.
thank you, roger.
anyone else want to speak for or against the motion?
okay.
i'll go ahead, then, with a vote on that motion.
and just do it around the table.
ken, your vote, please.
philip.
chun.
cary.
elisabeth.
go ahead when the red light comes on.
we __ i will abstain as cctld member.
i believe that being part to the names council is important, so it is my additional comment but i abstain on the vote.
oscar.
glen, can you just assist me with the tally of that because there are some proxies involved there as well.
i'm sure people are voting for their proxies.
i vote in favor of the motion.
the proxies, we have ellen __ j. scott, you're holding a proxy for ellen.
no.
.
we have a total of 12 in favor of the motion, 5 abstentions, and 3 against.
so the motion is carried.
okay.
the next topic on the agenda is the formation of the deletes task force this process was initiated in october at a teleconference, on the third of october, we need to decide on a process.
the terms of reference of the deletes task force derive from the issue paper and mention the four issues that have been identified so far, so the first is to determine whether a uniform delete process by registrars following expiry is desirable and if so, recommend an appropriate process.
secondly, determine whether a uniform delete process by registrars following a failure of a registrar to provide accurate whois information upon request is desirable, and if so, recommend a process.
thirdly, determine whether a uniform delete and reallocation process will i registries following receipt of a delete command from a registrar is desirable, and if so, recommend an appropriate process, and fourth, determine whether a uniform process for reversing errors in renewal commands without requiring a delete operation is desirable and if so, recommend an appropriate process.
those are the determines of reference.
the process suggested is derived from the process that the names policy assistance group provided to the erc.
and that begins with task force members being appointed from each constituency.
there's an initial public comment period on the topic and that's currently available in the icann web site.
constituency position statements are provided.
the preliminary report is then created.
there's a further public comment period of 20 days, then a final task force report is produced, and then that is reviewed by the names council in preparation for providing to the board.
the current membership of the task force is Jordyn Buchanan from the registry constituency, and i have him down as an interim chair until the task force has a chance to elect a chair formally.
adam peake from the commercial organization constituency bret fausett, tim ruiz from the registrars, everhard from the cctlds, and the intellectual property constituency.
and we have someone from the isps.
so at this point i'll open it for discussion that if appropriate to speak for or against that in terms of reference.
anyone like to speak?
i'll get a queue first.
anyone else want to speak?
go ahead, marilyn.
deletes as an issue has interdependency or perhaps influence on two adjacent issues, that being the issue of transfers and the issue of whois in the area of interdependency.
and we may just be assuming this, but i don't think it would hurt to just note the importance of cross communication with other task forces where those interdependencies lie.
so that there's feedback back and forth.
you don't get something forward and another task force goes "hold on, we don't think we were consulted, or we should have given you information."
and it may be the solution coming out of the whois task force is not to actually delete the name and put it on hold, for example.
so yes.
jordyn.
that's not there.
so i do think there should be maybe a liaison works.
we never considered that on whois.
so we can certainly invite a person from whois to act as liaison with the task force.
any other comments?
yes, laurence.
yeah.
yes, okay.
any other comments?
philip, yes.
okay.
any other comments?
okay.
would someone like to move that we accept that?
: yes.
oscar.
i also vote in favor.
we just want to check to see if someone has joined on the telephone bridge.
it's difficult to hear from down here.
: aye.
please acknowledge by saying yes.
i think we'll just accept that we've voted on behalf at this point so we'll take that as unanimous.
your speaker is at the other end of this auditorium so i can hear you as a faint __ you have to speak very loud for us to hear you, but yes, i can hear you, grant.
as far as i know, there are no further issues being voted on at this meeting, so i view __ if you listen and then add comments, if you wish, on the following discussions.
the next item on the agenda is one of the task forces which is the transfers task force.
and i would just perhaps invite perhaps the chairs of that task force or chair to give a very quick summary of __ i think really what's happened since the transfers task force report has been presented, and perhaps just a summary of the discussions over the last two or three days. so marilyn, go ahead.
i think it's particularly important, and of course all of the names council representatives were invited to participate in that, either because they were actually participating or they were invited to be in the audience.
for the record, we note that invitation was extended, so with the purpose of not having to repeat that full presentation, most of the audience here today was also in that session.
the transfers task force over the recent weeks has taken the draft set of recommendations, reviewed at our last presentation to the names council, taken it further, undertaken further comment, and posted it as the interim __ as part of the interim report of the task force.
it is open for comment until november the 8th, available at www.icann.org, click on announcements or www.dnso.org.
it is a very robust set of procedures and recommendations that rely on a determination of who has the authority to authorize a transfer and recommending a standard set of processes.
it relies on if there is an authorization code that is given to the registrant by the registrar, it relies on that code.
if there is, for some reason, an environment where often both codes are not available because they have not been implemented by everyone, then we identify who we recommend to be recognized as the authorized individual.
it also assumes that there is a standard set of days during which recovery or certain other things could __ or if there's an exception or a problem, there's a standard set of days that would be observed.
so we are recommending sort of a standard set of approaches that would be adopted and agreed to.
the community of registrars who originally contributed to the drafting of this document did take a vote within the registrar constituency and strongly supported the use of auth codes, auto nac, meaning the request for transfer would be automatically granted if they had one of these particular forms of identification.
it does presign areas where an auto nac, a denial of the automatic transfer could be legitimate and that could be because there's reasons to be suspicious or a concern.
it also prescribes those conditions under which a registrar legitimately can deny or could not deny.
it assumes there needs to be an appeals process and discusses that it's possible that the registry involved could provide an appeals process.
it assumes there could be a need for a third_party appeals process, and that there would need to be a cost recovery mechanism in either case.
in recent days __ let me make clear that from the beginning even though this was a process developed within the registrar community it was never a process although it was prodly supported. in recent days, a few of the registrars who have understood it was extremely important to document their objection and have submitted a letter to the task force calling the attention to the concerns that they have and supporting auto nac, which would be in complete contradiction to the recommendation __ the interim recommendation of the task force.
we did undertake an open discussion with the registrars and registries here in shanghai on sunday afternoon and had a very helpful and useful discussion and received, i believe from my notes, an agreement and pledge that the registrars are interested in continued close interaction with the task force.
we will be setting up further mechanisms, including requesting the six or so registrars who signed the letter to have an exchange via conference call with the task force so that we can make sure that we understand their concerns.
we've advised everyone that it is absolutely critical they document their support or objection, and they need to be specific about what their concerns are, submitting line_item changes or other recommendations.
the consensus policy process that was clarified by the general council of icann makes it very clear that for document consensus policy, the task force is charged with reasoned support and opposition.
failing to receive reasoned opposition, it would be impossible for the task force to so document.
i think that point has been well understood.
that's really significant progress.
we did have the public forum and got some additional comments underway today and received a support from several members of the registrars in the audience that they would welcome another chance to talk to the task force while we're here on ground.
would any of the constituencies like to comment on what they've heard from their members on transfers over the last couple of days?
roger, chun.
go ahead, roger.
and jordyn.
the gtld registry constituency has commented on the earlier transfer task force papers, and what i'm about to do today really reiterates comments that we made previously, but they are nonetheless important.
probably the most important commodity that the council has is its credibility.
and when the council acts in a manner that is arbitrary or goes beyond its competence, it undermines the credibility, which is the most important thing we have to offer.
the gtld registry constituency has attempted to point out to the task force that whereas the responsibility of the names council is to coordinate policy and to operate at the policy level, the task force has addressed quite a large number of questions which go well beyond the level of policy.
the icann general council has been helpful in documenting the 20 specific recommendations that the task force has put forward in its most current draft or its interim report.
and these range from such items as registrars would be obligated to issue auto info codes to registrants within 72 hours of a request, and subject __ and subject to no more authentication than required for contact or name server information changes.
if you read the list of 20 fairly detailed recommendations that the transfer task force has developed, it is, i believe, impossible to conclude that these are all policy recommendations.
that comment is irrelevant to whether the recommendations are good, bad or indifferent, whether they are helpful or unhelpful.
the issue is the competence of the names council and the task force and what their mission is.
so the gtld registry constituents, having looked at the current version of the task force report, continues to conclude that the task force has operated outside of its proper scope in putting forward a series of recommendations which may or may not be helpful or constructive in and of themselves, but really are beyond the policy mandate and authority of the names council and its task forces.
so we really reiterate the comments we've made to previous (inaudible) report.
thank you.
what's an example of policy recommendation and what's an example of something that shouldn't be a policy recommendation?
now, i gather the task force believes that the selection of three business days is a policy, not an administrative detail; that if two registrars felt that they could accomplish the same task in one business day that they are violating a policy or if they felt they could do it in five business days, they're violating a policy.
this is a detail, not a policy.
so that the mandate of the names council is to coordinate policy and the work of its task forces should be focused at the policy level, not at the level of administration details or specific practices of registries and registrars.
so if you'd like, i'd be happy to ask the constituency to examine this and identify all of the recommendations that sink below the level of policy down to the level of administrative detail.
but there are quite a few, and only glancing at the list of 20 recommendations outlined by the general counsel.
do you see the names council would generate a policy and then the icann staff would work on the detail?
there does need to be detail there somewhere.
so exactly what that limit is would be determined by negotiation.
is that __
the council should focus its attention on what it is competent to do, and that is address policy, not administrative details.
and this report is replete with administrative details, providing very specific definitions for registries and registrars on how they must change their detailed practices.
so i think the counsel's __ the general counsel's note on this of __ i think it's the 20th of october, says as much, that this would require massive renegotiations of registry and registrar contracts into very detailed new activities.
just one other comment on this, i guess, is perhaps, i guess, then, what you're suggesting is a task force should break down what it is considering to be policy recommendations from, perhaps, advice.
and i sort of say that, i guess, in the whois report as well.
but it's just a comment.
i've got chun and jordyn in the queue, but would people just like to respond to roger?
i've got j. scott and philip.
go ahead, j. scott.
secondly, and the last point, roger, is i understand the general counsel's letter.
he didn't make any indication that it would require, as i understood.
he said that your group and the registrar group felt like it did that and that was the reason that he was responding to that.
that wasn't his opinion; it was his reaction to your __ i think he said aghast or something to that extent.
he used very emotional language for louis.
one of the things i want to say is one of the things this task force has been challenged with is they have been faced with finding a solution, whether that solution be an overall broad principle or minutia, however you which to view it, in which constantly the problems are occurring because there are those that are participating in the system, that are gaining the system to the disadvantage of those players that wish to play by the business practices that we would all endorse openly and it is also frustrating the users because they feel like they're being taken advantage of.
and i think sometimes the level of detail you see is because when you have vague policies without any detail and it's left to some vagueness, the gaming continues to occur.
and we find ourselves with a broad set of principles that don't really solve the solution; they simply sort of give a nod to the solution.
so that's the point i wanted to make.
one, that these are not recommendations; they are possible recommendations that will hopefully bring more people to the table that do have experiences that they can bring so that then that can be crafted into final draft recommendations that would then be put out again for public comment before recommendations to the council, then to the board.
now, philip you had a comment on roger's comments?
i think first of all, on process, the process should be, i think, those comments that we just heard should be made in writing to the transfer task force.
they're very much part of the input.
indeed, this has been a process going on for some time.
feedback via the constituency should forewarn the constituency and not get to us now.
that is disappointing at the very least.
secondly, the board position is very clear one of practicality.
if not here, if not in the dnso, then where should those minutia, which are the essence of solving the problem, where should they be sorted out?
do we negotiate with every registrar on the planet or try to do it centrally?
practicality dictates we must do it centrally.
unless we come to some pattern as we have in a moment of these details and getting these things worked out at the grievance level.
in other words, i'd like to say we should underline the other aspect of this issue.
i think basically the urgency __ the (inaudible) for decision_making process, but simultaneously, i think our other concern, specifically for the interest of general users, should be (inaudible) focused up to now.
so my comment is very specific.
it is concerned with the language issue in this transfer process.
fortunately this morning in general assembly session, this point has already been raised up by registrar constituency.
although this is very significant for most users in asia_pacific region, as even in other regions, including non_english speaking countries, as you know, the confirmation of process of registry regarding the willingness of registrant for transfer is being done only in english.
so such a notification could make some troubles and make non_english speaking users be confused, and finally to losing their own registered names.
this is very headache.
so i think this concern should be underlined and hopefully to be documented in final report.
for, i think, possibly throughout task force discussions, and even in public comment process, this concern has not been legitimately taken up.
i don't know how and where this concern could be effectively reflected in this document, but this concern is not just a notification issue but also in appeal and dispute resolution process.
this language should be seriously taken into account.
that's it.
jordyn, you were next.
i think, first of all, this is going to sound, to a certain extent, like some more conversation on the topic that roger raised, but i think i want to express some of the thoughts slightly differently, and i want to thank both j. scott and philip for clarifying these are to encourage discussion.
because i think there are some circumstances in which we find they make a perfectly large amount of sense 80 or 90% of the time but as we try to map them onto specific registries or registrar interactions that they become difficult in certain limited circumstances.
let me toss out a couple of examples of that to demonstrate the point.
one is there's a requirement that transfers can be authorized by the admin contact or the registrant and i think most of the time that makes perfect sense and we understand the motivation behind that.
in the case of .pro, the registry i work for, our intent is to issue a digital credential to one of those two contacts, and to perhaps require that digital credential to be used in order to authorize it, but not necessarily both of them will have it.
so in that particular case, we might see only the registrant or the admin contact to authorize the transfer.
so i think as a general guideline the policy recommendation makes perfect sense but in terms of mapping it as a sort of internet_wide requirement, it's more difficult.
and i think the second point i would make is the requirement of the auth info code makes perfect sense.
i think three days is a good guideline except that the way that __ i actually worked quite closely with scott hollenbeck in the formation of auth info, and it's something we thought about at the time that it already has been changed significantly from the way it was originally conceived in that the idea was registrants were suppose to choose their own auth info code in the first place, not the registrar.
so in that case there would be no need to provide them the auth info code at all because they would have selected it themselves at the time they registered the domain name.
so does three days make sense in that context?
maybe, maybe not.
these are guidelines that make sense the vast majority of the time, but i think it's best for now at least to think about these as guidelines as opposed to specific policy requirements because they do, i think, in some circumstances potentially create some problems if mapped that way.
and i think that just by adopting them as guidelines they allow us as registries to go and perhaps start to have some basis to enforce our contract with registrars as opposed to the vague language that exists now.
and it seems like they're a very good starting point for that and i want to thank the task force for that work.
: can you hear me?
grant, go ahead.
and i (inaudible) talk about (inaudible) negotiated by icann staff and council that i think the registries and registrars (inaudible) there may be different implementation.
(inaudible) of a mind that (inaudible) registrars would end up with (inaudible) so that (inaudible) and no expectation with regards to dealing with (inaudible).
do you want to respond?
and let me answer it, because i think there are different levels in responding to grant's question.
first, i think we should all recognize that there is a broad category of administrative trivia where there is no benefit to uniform practice. it is quite possible that two registrars may have different practices for what holidays they give their employees. it is quite possible that two registrars or registries may point their buildings different colors. there is no benefit to regulating every aspect of the administrative practices of registrars. so there is a level of this in which it should simply be left to the administrative mechanisms of the individual registrar or registry.
above that, there may be an area where uniformity is useful or constructive, but that falls below the policy level.
and i guess that's where i would take issue with the terminology of grant's question.
his question was, well, how do you bring about uniform policy? would you just let the policy be developed in negotiation between registries and registrars and wouldn't that result in different policies?
and it may be that we're using the word "policy" differently here.
i would describe that as __ i would describe the broad category, by large part of the category, what i think was implicit in grant's question, as practice, as administrative practices where it may be useful for them to be uniform. but that's not a matter for the names council to address.
uniform administrative practices are not the competence of the names council, no matter how smart we think we are, no matter how much we think we can contribute, no matter how brilliant our ideas, we can't wish the competence for the mandate of the names council to be other than policy.
policy is that highest level which is the policy, the direction, the objective you're trying to accomplish. so i would say you may have uniformity at the middle layer of administrative practice or you may not have uniformity of administrative practice if it drops to the bottom layer where practices vary between operators.
so i don't know if that answers the question, but i certainly would not say that policy would be determined in negotiation by icann management and a registry operator. that's administrative practice.
yes.
and mostly the importance is reflected in the recommendation, particularly from a user's point of view, as consistency. and i think this is one of the main problems that we have identified in the current environment regarding (inaudible).
(inaudible) unscrupulous practices can be performed where had an understanding as to common practice, those practices can be more readily seen for what they are. and it would concern me if (inaudible) to be championed that policies should be left simply at the principal level and not to be able to be translated into consistent policies. i think that's what is reflected properly in the recommendations in the report.
but just as you might have a policy that cars must have brakes, you don't have to specify whether they're disk brakes or drum brakes. but you still have a policy that the cars have brakes because that protects the consumer.
so you get a balance there and identify the reason why this issue is being looked at at all is because there is a problem and because the current contracts are too general. and i think we need to take that perspective as well.
marilyn, you are next in the queue.
you might specify that the car, in fact, have brakes, but you might specify they have to be effective so you don't kill people.
i'm going to make an appeal here.
first of all, i'm going to say to the chair of the task force, i'm confused. and it's usually a bit hard to confuse me, but perhaps this is the time.
i believe, if my member serves me correctly, that there have been two members of the registry constituency on the task force since its beginning. recently, when an employee of register.com, who was the second (inaudible) the other representative is an employee of verisign registry, when the register.com employee changed positions, we were fortunate enough to get the chair of the registry constituency to join us and welcomed that, since that would be clear that we would have a broader input.
so we've had the benefit and contribution of two members of the registry constituency, which has been a terrific asset to the work of the task force.
the document that we're talking about has been published for some time and has gone through 50 iterations. we've killed a lot of trees.
we've taken up a lot of bandwidth. we've made this available very broadly.
on sunday, i heard, as the chair and the other members of the task force here heard, in detail expressions of significant concern about the delay and the harm that failing to address this problem is causing to their businesses and, through them, to their customers.
we have heard as a task force from registrants themselves the harm, the risk, and the disenchantment and anger that they feel.
the trust they're losing in the competitive registration process. the fact that they are writing letters of complaint to elected officials, the fact that they are appealing to regulatory agencies.
i think that this is all indicative of our need to take this seriously and to address if perhaps the registry constituency elected representatives have not had a chance to respond in detail or weren't able to attend the session this morning from 10:30 to 12:30 where we made an appeal for written comments on the document, i want to remind everybody this document is open. the purpose of having representation on the task force is to provide input and comment along the way. but there's an open comment process. written comments are not only welcome, but maybe we need to get a pledge here that we're going to get written comments. that's what we need.
and i think that that's one thing we should address and make a priority.
i would just make one other appeal. roger indicated that he was speaking for the gtld constituency.
jordyn gave, as he said, a slightly different perspective and some helpful suggestions.
i think if we __ if you're speaking for your constituency, that's fine. the task force welcomes knowing that. if you're speaking as an individual but from the constituency, that would be helpful to know as well.
in either case, the task force needs comments. those comments could be of the nature that roger expressed. but i would urge you to try to give detailed comments as well.
i just want to say that i believe it's incumbent to note in the public record that simply because there are representatives __ and i understand your frustration, marilyn __ from certain constituencies on task forces that look at issues, that should in no way inhibit or discourage members of constituencies or constituencies as a whole coming forward with critiques or criticisms or disagreements with any task force report, because when you serve __ and i have served as a member of a task force __ you are doing your best to craft a document that you're not sure whether, despite your group's disagreement, would still be accepted, because as we've talked with louis, consensus does not mean that there will not be disagreement within the community, and dissent. so you're trying to the best to craft a policy that would be palatable even if there is your dissent. but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't, if given the opportunity in a comment period, strongly dissent.
and the fact that you have members serving on the task force that positively contributed to the document, that shouldn't hold or be held against you or be shown as __ i just wanted to make that for the public record.
jordyn.
first of all, just with my oci hat on, i do want to note that the registry constituency representative to the transfers task force was actually an employee of registrypro, not register.com.
but the work still does have to go back to the constituency and be vetted by the constituency as a whole and looked at by the constituency as a whole.
and i think to that end, we as a constituency will be putting together a formal statement in writing that will, i think, represent the statement of the entire constituency. we have not done that yet.
and i think that it would be premature for me or anyone else to make a statement on behalf of the constituency today.
roger again.
and i thought i heard jordyn say that if that's the case, some of these are very useful illustrations of how a policy might be implemented.
so __ and i would agree with that. and i express no substantive view, and i don't think the constituencies expressed a substantive view on the examples cited in here other than the language should be clear that these are not statements of policy.
finally, i would just say again to the comments that were made by several people that the fact that we are bound and limited to coordinating policy does not mean that practice is unimportant, nor does it mean that we can, by will, wishful thinking, hopeful thinking, change our responsibility or mandate.
we are created to coordinate at the policy level. we are competent to coordinate at the policy level. we are not competent to address administrative practices, no matter how important and what brilliant ideas we may have as a names council on administrative practices, that's not our mandate, it's not our competence.
i think, as jordyn said, there are many constructive ideas for administrative practice in this report. thank you.
so i think that that is a false distinction that's made in order to not have to adhere to the requirements of the policy that the stakeholder community, my clients, who are frustrated when they try to transfer a domain name, have come to me begging for a solution for. and they want a clearly_defined solution that has teeth in it and clearly tells the participants that are involved in transferring this domain name what their responsibilities are, and then has in it some sort of __ some sort of punishment or consequence for a party that abuses the guidelines, the policy, the time limit that's been set forth by a reasoned group of stakeholders that have decided this is a problem that has to have a solution.
is there a __ we'll probably move on to the next topic. but if someone else that hasn't already spoken would like to comment?
ellen on the phone, did you have any comment on the transfers policy?
i think, from my perspective, just as chair and as a policy perspective, marilyn, i think the transfers task force does need to review the document it does have, because i have heard feedback from other parties as well that in some parts of the document it can be overly prescriptive. and we need to sort of get the balance between the policy side of it perhaps right out front, and particular examples, perhaps, of possible implementations of that policy. so i thought as an issue.
and the request came to him quite some time ago.
i ask him to clarify for the task force uses, generally task forces, what it would take to implement consensus policy that impacted contracts, and to make sure that besides just the registries and registrars, other participants who are involved in task forces would have a better understanding of that.
in the press of time, it took a bit longer to get that document out than he and i had both thought, but he did get it out.
he did include a list of items in __ from both the whois task force and the transfers task force of areas where consensus policy might be required.
again, i am sort of amazed that i am hearing an expression from my fellow names council members that they weren't aware that this is an interim report, because we made such a big deal of that within the task forces.
it's an interim report; it's not a final draft report. interim report means out for comment, needs a lot of change and comment before it can go to final draft report.
so let's take that all optimistically and get the comments in. and that may include, as we said today, in the open forum, that we spent so much time on, we could have a completely different set of recommendations based on the feedback we receive. but it's important we __ that we pursue an outcome. but i'd suggest it might be helpful to the names council to invest the time that both task forces invested by having louis come, the general counsel come, and speak with us in detail and let us ask questions about his memo and what it means.
but that change would require the agreement, as roger's pointed out, between the contracted parties involved, which is icann registries and registrars. so there is certainly that element there.
okay. i'd like to move on to the next topic, which is whois. and, again, invite the chairs of the whois task force, which i believe is marilyn and also tony.
so would either marilyn or tony like to talk to __
once again, we undertook a __ as we have done in the series of keeping the names council and the community informed, we held a briefing this morning as a part of the ga. and, of course, made sure through the participants in the task force that all of the names council representatives participating here today were aware of that and could participate.
and we did that.
i had promised bruce we wouldn't go in boring detail through the entire presentation before for the names council because that opportunity was provided.
the whois task force has issued an interim report that goes in detail into the four issue areas that we believe that policy recommendations may be needed in. it is an interim report, having just repeated that four times in the previous 30 minutes, perhaps i should say again, for clarity, it's an interim report. we'll have a quiz at the end to see if we all know what that means.
there are four areas. and they are __ that we are saying need to have policy __ need to be considered for possible policy recommendations. they are not all created equal in terms of time or in terms of detail.
of the four, the first is accuracy of the data. the second is consistency. the third is searchability. and the fourth deals with marketing, resell, and bulk access.
the report, which is posted at www.icann.org under announcements or www.dnso.org, is pretty rich in terms of explaining why we think certain things are a priority.
it's based on not just the survey work that the task force did and has reported on previously, but on other outreach that the task force has been doing. as we did with the transfers task force, we have held open calls with members of the community who have responded to a request.
we have had four discussions with cctlds that are just really a beginning placeholder for us in further understanding and dialogue with the cctlds.
we have held calls with particular constituent groups, and we will also again be open for comment through the 8th of november
our plan is to further prioritize based upon the comments we received these four areas.
we believe at this point that items 1 and 4 __ so that would be accuracy, that would be item 1, and item 4, marketing resale and bulk access __ are the two areas where we could expect to have some consensus_based recommendations in the short term.
there will be some areas in both item 1 and 4 where there are likely to be more mid_term recommendations where we believe we'll need to take more comment and more input and further refine the recommendations that we're thinking about.
items 2 and 3 are dependent on advances in the standards area and in understanding in more detail the implications of cost.
we held a public open session with registrars and registry attendees on sunday, had 36 people in the room.
6 of them were from the task force, and two were from the icann staff, so we can all do the math.
we had a pretty good turnout, and we had a very good dialogue.
it's clear that much more dialogue is needed in how to understand what changes __ what cost implications may exist in some of the changes that we are asking people to think about.
that's an area that has not been explored.
we received an excellent recommendation from one of the registrar attendees that we think about a short __ i hesitate to call it a survey because i think we're really thinking about a short series of questions by e_mail to seek some comments specifically on that topic from the registrars.
in the back of the powerpoint presentation that we went through this morning in detail and that the names council has in front of it, we've listed some of the further activities that we are planning to take to go to sort of the next step in continuing to flesh out our understanding.
whois is an issue that all of us on the names council and many people in this audience, whether you're here in shanghai or you're listening to us remotely, understand is going to be with us for some time in terms of trying to understand it and to address it.
it is a __ probably, i will say, it's even more complex than transfers because of the widespread interest of policymakers, of the average citizen, of the user, and of the suppliers in the wide range of issues related to whois
our hope is to have in the comment period a draft final report recommendation on items 1 and 4, and a recommendation for the names council of what further work may be needed to address other issues.
we are hearing considerable concern from the community about addressing the issue of privacy and understanding it in more detail.
tony.
perhaps some of the other people in the names council might want to comment or make some questions on this.
i would just emphasize that __ i won't repeat it again, it's an interim report but i'm encourage a representative of each constituency to approach their members to send comments.
since the beginning of the icann meeting, we received interesting feedback from the constituencies, for instance that we should provide more detailed definitions.
i think we are so __ i mean, we had a (inaudible) of time.
we had conference calls every week, and we really worked hard on this report, which is not always very easy to read.
i agree on that.
but some issues need to be emphasized.
some definitions certainly needs to be worked on, and we will work on that.
also, there are a large series of recommendations and i think the best way to be to prioritize these recommendations; however, some of them are already in the registrar accreditation agreement and they're really a matter of implementation of the existing policies.
and i think __ well, by speaking with the members of the constituencies, everybody recognized that.
so it's first a matter of enforcement.
and then it's true there are other recommendations on which we have worked, and on which we really would like feedback from the constituencies.
i know historically the board has felt that there was a dearth of participation from industry, recognized industry.
and so anecdotal evidence and anecdotal comments that would add great depth to the report should be sought by those of us here to go out and draw that back into the comment period so that it can be drawn upon by the task force and the board and the names council.
Ken Stubbs.
i think it's important when we __ if we're going to get involved in issues like this, that we, at some point in time, spend more energy assessing the potential financial impact on contracted parties in a situation like this.
i'll try to use as an example a very uneducated analysis of problems that we have in florida with unsolicited telephone calls.
you know, as an end user of the phone service in florida, i have my ideas as to what should be done.
the problem is that it's very difficult for the end user to be able to impact policy because at the end_user __ at the end_user level, there is nothing that is clearly defined beyond write a letter to the public utilities commission, if you know what i mean.
there's no organization that can deal effectively with issues like this.
so i guess the point i'm making is that we cannot just take it upon ourselves to impose business modifications on an industry without giving the industry the opportunity to assess a financial impact and try to develop a method for minimizing the financial impact on the industry.
i mean, i think if you all take a look, we've heard discussions before with various industries who are members of constituency see groups, the isps, the telecommunications industries, i think people have to realize that registries and registrars are not all driving 500 series mercedes or lexuses.
many of them are having a very difficult time.
the last 24 months has not been good to our industries as well.
thank you.
in this regard, i fully agree with Marilyn Cade that we should more effectively provide our inputs through our task force and public comments.
however, even after our task force members repeatedly emphasized the importance of specific concerns of our constituency, particularly privacy protection, and delivering these to the task force, then we feel just now that our concern has not been reflected in this interim report because the basic stream of this document is never dealing with this issue seriously.
additionally, usually most task force members could provide simply very specific words or notions rather than the whole structure of the document or the basic logic of that document.
so i hope to make some more general comments on this interim report.
and also, our constituency will provide an official response in a document form as soon as possible after this meeting.
i'd like to point out three important points, our viewpoint on this interim report.
it seems to be that this document acknowledged that survey outcome of a web site is statistically invalid because it is not using a sampling method, it's very, very arbitrarily answered.
however, this is frequently quoted and used in supporting and justifying recommendations.
this is one of the biggest and most important flaws in this report. i'd see the outcome is not fully reflecting the general users concerns particularly in privacy protection issues, because most of the respondents seem to be, most service providers or somebody who has specific relations with their commercial interests.
the second point is as a whole, this document seems to be reflecting those concerns of all commercial interest groups rather than consumers generally.
we as noncommercial constituency, this document could be written in more balanced way.
for example, this document doesn't state some recommendation together with its pros and cons.
all it is highlighting, only one aspect of that recommendation.
and also, somewhere in this interim report it is saying that uniformity of data format and elements in whois database is being desired by all people, all users.
but i think such an expression cannot be justified in any way because most of the users is saying in completely absolutely different opposite way.
so i think all recommendations should be in more balanced way from viewpoint of general users as well as service providers and information suppliers.
also, finally, in my view, this interim report is seeking some goals.
there are specifically two goals.
the first one is uniformity of each tld registries, each tld whois database.
the other one is the uniformity across gtld and the cctld whois database.
so ultimately, it is wanting to get, it is wanting to realize the uniformity of all whois databases.
but in public policy, to protect individual privacy, i would like to underline that the best way to protect the individual privacy is to further entice the whole databases into many segments, many subset segments.
then, nevertheless, this document is orienting towards uniformity.
i think it cannot be justified in any way.
and also, this report is acknowledging the necessity and importance of jurisdiction, because it should (inaudible) cctld is over national governments because they have their own different legal regulation system.
then, nevertheless, i think just now in this task force, of course the cctld has their own delegates, representatives.
but i think each cctld has their own policies for privacy protections.
so any one representative of a cctld constituency cannot effectively representing the whole cctld community members.
so if we want to get more effective policies, in that case, cctld should raise up this question as a whole community.
so it should become a major concern issue to be discussed within that community.
so i think such a process.
you know, even after this meeting, cctld community will try to build up their own communities.
it has __ they're all relatively independent from the icann structures.
then in that case, in any way in consultation with the cctld community, it should get __ it should converge the cctlds' concerns and their viewpoints in this final reports.
that's it.
we have jordyn next.
thanks a lot.
first of all, i just have something resembling a question, i guess, which is that the powerpoint presentation, at least, mentions that there's going to be exploration __ as a possible activities there's going to be exploration of other technical options.
does that include taking a look at the crisp protocol being mentioned right now?
we actually had a briefing on __ we had a partial briefing on crisp.
we intended to have 00 more robust briefing, and i think we had a good fundamental understanding for the more nontechnical members of the task force.
but we also have invited john clensen and patrick balstrom to brief us as well in other approaches to directory type services that aren't so much related to the whois but are sort of the problem of how whois is being used for other purposes.
which i think brings me to a second point which is that i think often there are synergies between some of these issues that are being explored, and as was discussed earlier, i think privacy is an incredibly important issue.
and i think actually it's the flip side of a coin with accuracy on the other side.
because i think a lot of the reason why there's so much inaccurate data out there today is because people are concerned about their privacy.
and until we can give them some reasonable assurance that their privacy is going to be protected, that they are going to continue to look for ways around it.
so we can put together whatever policies we want, but we're essentially encouraging an environment where people are going to be looking for ways to evade the policy.
and i think it would be much more effective if we were able to address the underlying concern.
obviously there are some people out there who are putting misleading information in for other reasons entirely, and hopefully we'll have different sorts of solutions for them.
but i think that there are some registries out there today, registries and registrars, doing some very interesting things with regard to privacy.
i know some registrars now are essentially offering a masking service where they'll give you a one_time e_mail that shows up in whois so your actual e_mail isn't there exposed to spam, so it meets the requirements.
there has been talk among registries about bringing into compliance with various privacy laws.
it's important that we allow that's sort of innovations to take place and we don't tie it up within the formal policy context necessarily.
it's important that the policy advances but it's important that innovation occurs, people are able to explore privacy in the context of their day_to_day business because increasingly that is something users are clamoring for and i think often we may not think of the best solution until someone has already done it and then we go aha, that's it and let's all model upon that great example out there.
so i want to encourage people to explore these options without necessarily waiting for the task force to come up with solutions because i think there's a lot of people doing very interesting things out there today.
and getting to some of chun's points on the report, which he seems to find unbalanced, i think, having read all 3,300 responses to the survey, i can safely say that the majority of the respondents were noncommercial, individual users, or even people in the commercial community who were responding as individuals and not as companies.
so it's not fair to allege that there is no balance in this report.
i'll go with laurence first.
secondly, chun mentioned that in our interim reports, we don't provide detailed information, detailed definitions. so i agree on that. and i referred to that when i spoke five minutes ago.
and i think that our priority was really to provide the objectives, what we're going to achieve in these recommendations on the basis of the 3,000 responses received to the survey.
regarding the comments on privacy, i feel a little bit frustrated, because we really discussed privacy issue. in the responses to the survey, most of the concerns referred to access to data for marketing purposes. and we really tried to take this into account in our recommendations.
i agree that there are also issues of jurisdiction to take into consideration.
i'm a european and i work with some data protection groups in europe. so i really agree on that.
but, again, we need to find a balance and preserve privacy on one hand and access to data for legitimate purposes on the other hand and respect the answers received in the survey.
we really read the 3,000 responses as well. just would like to stress that, on this survey. so we are not experts in statistics, but we really did so.
and regarding ken's comments on a balance to be reached, i agree that we need to be __ to have a realistic approach in order to be sure that the recommendations will be implemented, and we don't want to add specific burdens on any groups.
however, it's true that we saw the need for most of the communities to access data for specific purposes, and accurate data. and we really tried to take this into consideration in our recommendations.
i wanted to provide a word of reassurance to chun and others in the noncommercial world.
it is certainly the concern of my organization, aim, and the broader commercial community, that the privacy concerns we're hearing are very much our concerns as well in terms of this information. and they're our concerns for a very simple reason: spamming and unsolicited communications of all sorts are of great interest to regulators.
i spend a lot of my time knocking on the doors of the european parliament. they're all busy at the moment putting the final touches on legislation precisely aimed at stopping this problem that we have created ourselves in the world of the internet and e_commerce. we are passionately concerned to stop that. we believe in marketing to be responsible and to be targeted. and spamming is not. we do not seek any ways in which there can be more spamming. so our concerns of marketing and __ are the same concerns that you have as privacy protection.
as a matter of process, i won't repeat in detail the comments i made earlier on (inaudible) report, but i would highlight that it is critically important that the whois task force exercise the same discipline that the transfer task force needs to exercise, and that is distinguish between illustrations, examples, and discussions about useful practices and recommendations for mandatory policy.
policy should be confined to those things which are genuinely mandatory and at the policy level, and this is not to say that administrative practices are not important. they're interesting; they're fun; they're important. that doesn't make it fall within the competence of the names council to deal with them.
and secondly, as a matter of substance, i will in a sentence reiterate what i think most of the other speakers have said, and that is, there is no way to successfully address the question of accuracy without in some way effectively addressing the challenge of privacy. because privacy creates the incentive that drives a good part of the problem of inaccuracy. so that it's not a secondary tertiary issue, it's one the task force needs to look at.
i think the task force has done a good job to try and extract from those issues some high_order problems. and i think as marilyn was putting it, sort of four high_order problems related to accuracy and searchability and so forth.
but one of the things that perhaps __ and marilyn has also mentioned that the whois is going to be an ongoing process.
and as jordyn has pointed out with the standards process at the technical level, that actually takes a number of years. so we could make a policy decision that there should be some uniformity in data formats. but actually defining those data formats is probably something that would be done in the iatf as part of the protocol. and that might take a couple years. we can't necessarily solve everything up_front.
i guess what i'd like to see the task force perhaps do is to break out some of the high_order policy issues and see what level of support we have for those first before then trying to approve particular suggestions within those high_order issues.
i think as jordyn pointed out, if you take a high_order issue, you might see what the level of agreement is on whether we should have uniform data formats. i am hearing some differences there. we might find we have a consensus if i define it as two_thirds of the membership might accept uniformity of data formats. that might justify going to the next step. but i think we need to get some high_order policy decisions made first before we spend too much time, as roger has pointed out, in implementation and administrative suggestions and so on. so i think that's just a process input i would put into the task force.
i would just like to __
there is a recommendation which talks about a sanctions approach. and we talked too much to ourselves on this issue and not apparently to __ we thought it was understood that since today, if there is a serious enough violation in this area, the __ a registrar could lose its accreditation.
what we proposed was a process which would provide an option to that so that there could be a period of time by which registrars could work to fix the errors. and we assume that it was understood that the only reason __ the only reason you would go to a sanctions program was because a series of complaints had been received by the icann staff, a certain threshold was accomplished, and then there would be a referral into a sanctions program.
so we were actually trying to ameliorate there being a very harsh sanction as opposed to there being a step of sanctions.
but, again, that's in the area where we feel there needs to be a lot of comment. but i just wanted to be sure that was understood, because i know it's not clear enough in the report.
i think that's __ thank you for pointing out that issue, marilyn.
i just want to draw the meeting to a close. but before i do that, there's one item of business that is quite important, and that is the
cctld constituency has announced that the current names council members will be retiring at the end of their term as of today, and that will be the end of the direct participation of the cctld constituency in the names council.
and they are looking at options in terms of where to move forward, potentially a cc constituency of their own or maybe some other alternatives.
i'd like to note that the three members of the cc constituency, one of those members died recently, and that was peter le blanc. and we certainly, as a names council, thank peter for his participation over a long period of time to the names council.
we also have oscar, and i guess like myself, he's perhaps a newer member of the names council, but is certainly, as all of us, it is a big time commitment to being involved in the names council. and we've certainly appreciated the effort that he has put in.
and then, finally, elisabeth, who was involved in the history of icann, being involved with the names council from the very beginning. and although elisabeth would formally leave the names council as an elected member, i would hope she would still be involved just because her knowledge base is so vital. and the work she's done in really supporting the constituency and some of the initial web site and e_mail support tools and even voting tools have been very significant and have allowed the names council to gradually build and provide a web site that is very informative, provide mechanisms for supporting mailing lists and supporting voting procedures.
having said that, perhaps i'll let elisabeth or oscar respond.
indeed, it is the last names council we are assisting to. oscar and myself. peter is no more.
the names council mandate for two years, today is the birthday day of our election, exactly two years ago. so by this coincidence, we leave exactly two years after spending two years on the names council.
i wish to give you some numbers just to make everybody aware how much work the people do on the names council.
since the dnso inception in berlin may '99, which means 42 months ago, three years and a half, and i spent a little bit more time than anybody else on the names council because i was here secretary, we had 12 physical meetings, 48 names council calls, and each one of us has been participating in various task forces or committees, which makes additional calls.
for myself and for those from budget committee or search committee or dot org committee or internationalized dot name committee, you should add additional to those __ two dozen calls. on average, it makes one names council meeting or teleconference each 20 days. and if you add task forces and committees, it means once each 14 days. and it is just on average since three years and a half.
so it is really a lot, a lot of work, because you should add to that the work in constituency, of course, and the real job, the one you get paid for.
as you mentioned, bruce, the cctld managers decided to form a separate supporting organization. the decision happened more than one year ago, in 2001. initially, we have been trying to devise supporting organization with an icann one frame, icann we know about. and now we shall adapt our project to the icann two structure, and the name remains the same, but the structure is totally different, as we all know about it.
we have difficulties to define __ difficulties, but we are facing these difficulties, and we will certainly overcome, __ to define what are global policies for cc supporting organization and what are processes to develop those policies.
i used to say over time that we have two different worlds: cctld world and gtld world. cctld operate in their countries, on their country law and the policies for transferring rules are developed in countries and and they are responsibility to their __ the cctld challenge is to answer those local needs.
but in parallel, we have gtld space, which is extraterritorial, extra judiciary space not related to any country, where rules have to be developed. and by creating icann, we got that challenge to __ the challenge to private sector to develop rules without borders, knowing that these rules may be different to what we have in countries, that they will have impact to what we have in countries, and that we will change the world by proceeding this way.
so we have two tracks which may be converging, but maybe not. we will see.
gtld space and cctld space move forward on their own speed. and the contact point between both spaces are users. users are the same.
so that is for our common challenge, the challenge of icann.
i will be ending. my last item is related to finances.
i am pleased to announce to my names council colleagues that center cctld regional organization decided to make a payment of 4,500 euro to the dnso names council. and it is our contribution for past participation of cctld to the __ in the dnso up to the end of 2001.
thank you very much. i will be __ we will be working together. we will be working in a different way. it was enormous pleasure to myself to be part of this group, to see you every day, or listen to you every day. and we will continue. thank you.
(applause.)
oscar? no? you're fine?
okay. finally, to close the session, then, i'd just like to thank our hosts. they provided tea and coffee at a point when it was needed. and also just for the overall setup here and providing communication facilities and the venue. we certainly appreciate that as well.
and i'd also like to thank the people that have been struggling to follow the conversation and doing it, the scribes. i think it's been excellent. and also trying to support us with the telephone hookup to our remote participants.
philip, did you __
our next meeting, i note, is going to be a telephone conference in november. but i wonder if it's worth taking a roll call now to see what the interest would be in physical attendance in amsterdam.
can i elaborate a little bit on your request there?
if we're going to discuss the possibility of physical attendance in amsterdam, then i am also going to suggest that if we elect to have some sort of function in amsterdam, that it be done during one of the two days, preferably on saturday morning.
i don't think that it's worth it to come in and do something on __ and create a day for ourselves, because that would mean that people would have to leave on wednesday or thursday for this. there's no contemplated constituency activities at all.
so if we're looking at a names council meeting, i would say, you know, two to two and a half hours during one of the days that we're there would make the most sense. that's just my two cents' worth.
two, three, four, five, six, seven __ so not quite half. but i think that that gives you some level of sort of sevenish. but i think we'll look on the list and __ cary?
(laughter.)
at that point, i draw the meeting to a close and thank you all for participating.
(applause.)
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