Community Call on Vertical Integration 3 August 2010
Participants: Mikey O'Connor, Gordon Chillcott, Yaovi Atohoun, Darlene Thompson, Evan Leibovitch, Carlton Samuels, Alan Greenberg, Gareth Shearman, Baudouin Schombe, siva Muthusamy, Sebastien Bachollet
Apologies: Roberto Gaetano, Adam Peake
Staff: Seth Greene, Heidi Ullrich, Matthias Langenegger, Liz Gasster, Gisella Gruber-White
Mikey: Thanks everybody. To get started, we have very little time to get the report ready for the Board. We had 3 weeks to ready for the GNSO. The initial report is now open for comment. The comments will be incorporated into the final report which will be sent to the GNSO. the final report won't be ready before the Board retreat in September. Usually PDP take 15 to 30 months and we are only currently into the third months and have generated more than 3000 emails due to the fact that there are 75 members holding strong views. It's a very energetic group.
The first goal was to see whetehr we could get to an consensus and the answer was no. There are areas where there is a lot of agreement but not on the overall policy. We are not a normal report, there is not as much consensus as usual. our comments as individuals and ALAC are therefore especially important.
Executive summary:
One area of consensus is
the concern held by many that we make a change to the current model that cannot be undone. The RAK proposal highlights this concern. Part of the reason of this concern is historic due to a poor ICANN compliance record .
Another area of consensus is that ICANN's current seperation between registrars and registries
too restrictive and that there should be exceptions.
A third area of consensus is that not-for-profit organisatino and for-profit organisations which use names exclusively within the organisation should be able to be both the registry and the registrar.
Mikey: Any questions?
Evan: maybe the issue should be framed differently? As opposed to ownership, we should ask how are domains sold to registrants?
Mikey: we need to look at the timeline. People came in with pre-existing POVs and only slowly have people with differnt POV such as the one you mentioned. We are at an early point in the discussion but the discussion will improve with the sort of viewpoints which you offer. One of the requirements in our charter is that we do nothing to slow down the introductions of new gTLDs. This is a significnat requirement.
CLO: I'd like to come back to this later. I'd like to go to EURALO and to Adam Peake's question.
Christopher: I think you are far from a consensus and I think that it will be difficult to achieve. I will send an individual comments which will go around 4 points:
1) there is a subtle change in language with the introduction of seperation of registrars and registries. the original question was how to make small gTLDs viable to me operable quickly. However, the WG seems to be "off for glory".
2) One of the premises of ICANN was that it would ensure that competitionin the Internet is assured. if this is not ensured, ICAN's mandate is put in questions.
3) innovation: to abolish to current business model is asking for trouble
4) retro-activitiy: the bottle argument is valid. If we change it we will have many saying "me too"
In the EU all sites of the administration are controlled by a second-level registrar. Coming back to my first point, this was not the original question.
Mickey: the charter and the deadlines are out of our control, but with regards to consensus, I think it is limited. I stared in a radion station where consensus policy was adopted and I agree that often outcomes are shaped by the questions that are asked and that is dangerous. One way to defuse this situation would be by having more time. If we had more time, we had better chances to come to a consensus.
Cheryl: any LACRALO members not being a member of the VI WG?
none
Carlton: there was not much traction of this matter in the region. I only had one converstation on the issue.
CLO: one issue of particular interest to end-user is exceptions. Would it be possible to get a LACRALO view on this before the end of the deadline? Should we ask the community whether we should reject the report and ask for more time?
Mickey: there have to be reasonable expectations. we only have two more weeks. Another option is to submit a Statement directly to the Board. This has two advantages: more time (until Board retreat) and two, you could avoid the summarization filter and makes yourselves hear directly
CLO: thanks Mickey. Roberto joined the call, welcome Roberto!
CLO: Siva was a very active contributor from APRALO, Siva, did we miss something?
Siva: I don't think there is a specific regional perspective on this issue.
Roberto: in addition to the report, we are also currently working on a list with potential risks that could be introduced with the currently discussed policy changes
CLO: next steps, Evan as he Chair of the gTLD WG, do you think it would be useful to start a wiki workspace on what it means to end users and what potential harm might be inflicted on them?
Evan: we need to ask different questions to represnet the concerns of end users
CLO: final questions or comments?
Alan: what tactics do we use in short term? do we act pragmatically or do we adopt a more liberal approach which might risk delaying the introduction of community-based gTLDs?
CLO: we are listening and participating as a community and will send you the transcription of this call for distrbution to the VI list. Thanks to all of you!
