A significant part of GNSO focus leading up to Seoul was associated with the new GNSO structure which officially took effect on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at the one formal GNSO meeting in Seoul. New Bylaws and operating procedures have been put in place. In both cases, the changes were those necessary for the GNSO Council to function, and the process of completing these procedures (and potentially the Bylaws) continues. Minimal changes were made to the PDP procedures, to factor in the new Council voting structure. The major work of overhauling the entire PDP process is ongoing. The current target of the team developing the PDP procedures is to have a report ready for the end of April - a very aggressive schedule.
During the Seoul meeting, the GNSO Council elected its new Chair, Chuck Gomes, and two Vice Chairs (one from each House), Olga Cavalli and Stephane Van Gelder.
Pointers to the agenda, transcript, MP3s and reports can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/calendar/index.html#oct as 28 October. Of particular interest may be the report on WHOIS studies and a report on the WHOIS technical improvements study.
A major output of the Seoul meeting was the creation of the GNSO Special Trademark Issues (STI) Review Team to address a request from the Board for a GNSO consensus on how to implement a Trademark Clearinghouse and Uniform Rapid Suspension service for new gTLDs. The Board requested a formal reply from the GNSO by December 14, 2009. At-Large is represented on the STI-RT by Alan Greenberg with Olivier Crepin-Leblond as Alternate. The STI-RT held one meeting on Thursday in Seoul and has held six teleconferences in the three weeks since Seoul (three for the Clearinghouse and three for the URS). Our target it so report back to the GNSO Council by December 7 (or possibly 2 days later) allowing the GNSO to approve or reject the RT report at its December 17 meeting. We have been told that this slippage of three days in meeting the Board deadline will be acceptable. The RT is not convinced that it will have complete consensus by that time, and it is possible that if good progress is being made, we will request a month extension and have a face-to-face meeting in early January to come to complete closure.
The positions of At-Large that have been presented have been agreed to by the At-large Name-Issues working group.
To date, we have made far more progress than as originally expected. I am expecting that at the conclusion of this week's meetings, we will have draft proposals for both the Clearinghouse and the URS, with relatively clear statements of what has been agreed to by all parties at the table, and where the differences are. Assuming this comes to pass, I will distribute those documents to give a head-start to the approval (or not) that will be needed in time for the December 17 meeting.
The most recent GNSO Council meeting was held on November 23. The agenda and MP3 (and eventually the minutes) can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/calendar/index.html#nov. There was little policy work at this meeting, with much of the focus being on process associated with the new Council (revision of operating procedures, determining coming teleconference dates and times and reports on various policy and administrative issues (including the STI-RT).
