NARALO DAKAR MEETING
Oct. 24, 2011
Dakar, Senegal
- Roll call: Beau Brendler, Evan Leibovitch, Darlene Thompson, Ganesh Kumar, Garth Bruen, Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Dev Anand Teeluksingh, Carlton Samuels, Eduardo Diaz, Joly MacFie, Gordon Chillcott, Gareth Shearman, Allan Skuce, Martin Levi, Tijani Ben Jamaa, Charles Mok, Glenn Riker, Karina Cortez (.pr), Oscar Moreno de Ayala Diaz (.pr), Cheryl Langdon Orr, Cintra Sooknanan, Elise Garrik (VP IANA)
Staff: Matt Ashtiani, Samantha Eisner, Heidi Ulrich
- Review of action items
Evan: Joint Applicant Support Group – They gave their report and it is the culmination of a lot of work by joint communities. The lowering of the application fee from $185K to $47K was discussed for qualified applicants. There are distinct qualifications that must be met for this to happen.
Evan: The Future Challenges Working Group will also be meeting this week. This group was made up in order to change the ALAC from being in a “reactive” mode to being in a “proactive” mode.
Evan: We also have various meetings with other stakeholder groups, like the GAC, in order to encourage cross-constituency collaboration.
Beau: One of the action items from our last meeting was to talk about the NARALO survey. We just spent the last hour talking about that.
Joly: People should be ready to be interviewed by Glenn who will be doing interviews on Wednesday.
- ICANN policy issues: Open public consultations
- Priorities for coming months
- Any other business
a) Findings of NARALO Task Force on Puerto Rico’s ccTLD Controversy
Beau: We have some people here from .pr, perhaps we can open a dialogue with them to see if there is a way that we can engage in a discussion to get a side of the story that isn’t covered in the law suit.
Karina: At this moment they do not think it appropriate to discuss the details of the case. They strongly believe that what is being discussed is being taken from allegations that the University of Puerto Rico has made. Perhaps when the case comes out, a better discussion can be had.
Olivier: NARALO has a draft or proposed statement on its Wiki pages which appears to show a one-sided view of the .pr court case. He doesn’t know if it is appropriate to discuss a court case in this case, especially since the other side will not discuss it.
Cheryl: Supports what Olivier has said.
Evan: What he is hoping to do with this is to see if there are any lessons learned on an on-going basis. If there are loopholes, they need to be closed, if there are issues, they need to be dealt with.
Eduardo: He agrees with Evan that this should be referred to the FOI.
Cheryl: She will be describing what the FOI is. The moment that this topic came up, she pointed people to the ccNSO site. FOI = Framework of Interpretation (It is an attempt to get a uniform understanding of the relationships between ccTLDs and the countries they are allocated to). Its a very challenging issue to understand what a work or meaning is so they have gone through all of the uses of terms. They are proposing in this work group report on an interpretation of terms. So, if we believe there is some kind of systemic issue, this would be the place to start.
Carlton: The issue is this, there is a question that the terms that are used in the communications between the requester and those filling the request might be confusing between the parties. The FOI harmonizes a list of terms that all can use dealing with the redelegation issue. Sometimes redelegation can even involve third parties because they are held in trust. So, the obvious place to start is an agreement on terms so that the conversation can then go forward.
Beau: Today we were hoping to get a clearer picture of what is happening in Puerto Rico and then get a better idea of the situation of ccTLDs.
Garth: He has been researching issues around ccTLDs for quite some time. There are all kinds of ccTLDs that have no sign of anybody running them. There are those like .su for Soviet Union – the country no longer exists but it is still active.
Beau: Do some of these potentially questionable ccTLDs pose a possibility for abuse?
Evan: Garth has collected a lot of data over the years. Perhaps we could make a chart on them that identifies who is operating them, etc. Some ccTLDs are being used as generic TLDs (.nu, .co, .tv, .fm). A chart should help clear up this.
Carlton: That information is available but it isn’t discretely laid out in this way so this would be a good thing to have.
Olivier: That information is readily available on the IANA website. Some countries have been upset by the ISO1366 list because of how they were assigned.
Beau: Its fine to say that such and such a bit of information is available on a website, it is still difficult for the average person to find who is not familiar with all of the kinks in the system.
Elise Garrick, VP IANA: ICANN is the corporation is the entity that has the contract with the Department of Commerce to run the IANA functions. One of the functions is protocol parameters. These are parameters that people who build computers use to make them inter-operable. IANA has a contract with the IETF to look after all of these registries and management in regards the protocol parameters.
Garth: He has tried to verify some of the information on the IANA database. Some of the phone numbers go to unused numbers and much of the data is inaccurate. How do we go about reporting inaccurate information?
Elise: You can send in an e-mail. They do not make this information up, they simply publish what they are provided from the ccTLD. If said ccTLD moves, the information will stay the same until the ccTLD sends in updated information. Their process for checking on contact information is that they send out holiday cards. Those that are returned are checked on for accuracy.
Elise: ccTLDs were created before IANA so a lot of what is there are legacies.
Cheryl: As we frequently change people in the regions and new people join, perhaps we need a podcast about this.
Evan: If the service provider of a ccTLD is not in that particular country, that should be shown on the list of ccTLDs. The IANA database is nowhere near the level of completeness that we need.
Eduardo: Are ccTLDs required to have their data escrowed like gTLDs?
Elise: She doesn’t think so but isn’t totally sure.
Samantha: One difference between gTLDs and ccTLDs is that ccTLDs can voluntarily take on some of these items. There are two different worlds of documentation that is needed between the two.
Garth: There is a serious concern of domain disclosure. If people are buying a ccTLD thinking that it is a gTLD, they are making an agreement with a foreign government. That government can change its policy and decide that they no longer want that agreement. Hijacking is also possible. The citizens of the country that holds the ccTLD need to be better informed, too.
Samantha: We cannot assume that all ccTLDs are held by foreign governments – they can be held by corporations or individuals.
Garth: Many ccTLDs are managed by corporations and individuals that are in the US.
Elise: There is a definition of what could be a ccTLD. One of the mandatory requirements is that the manager or sponsoring organization must be in-country. The operator and technical people do not need to be in country.
