Evan Leibovitch: Welcome. Okay, so without further ado I want to first of all welcome you to this. This AGAT thing is something a little unusual. I’ve been told it’s actually slightly subversive and if it succeeds it has a good potential to prove what we can do.
The intention here as everyone’s been told before is to try to come up with some explicit wording on the applicant guidebook as an alternative to what the staff has proposed. Our experience with the Rec 6 and JAS Group has sort of indicated that even when the community seems to make a clear indication of something that either staff or others will put a different spin on it; and by the time it gets to the Board it doesn’t really resemble what we wanted. So this is our way of trying to be as clear as we possibly can of telling the Board and anyone who will listen exactly what the user-based community of ICANN wants to do.
So we have extended invitations to people from the Rec 6 Group who were involved in the Rec 6 Group, people from the JAS Group; and we’ve also made some attempts to try to ensure that there is some participation from the GAC as observers if not as sole participants with the intention that post-Brussels they will be able to get involved. I totally understand how before Brussels GAC members’ views are shall we say taken up by other things. Olivier, go ahead.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thanks, Evan. Also to mention people from the STI Special Trademark Interest Working Group as well that were there. It probably is all the same people from each one of the groups, but just to mention. Thanks.
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah, I think the term “the usual suspects” is probably appropriate. Olivier, Eric just asked from the people who are on STI who from At-Large and NCUC was on the STI? I think if I remember it was you and Alan who were there, and that was-
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes, Alan and I for At-Large; and on the NCUC it was Kathy Kleiman, Konstantinos Komaitis, and I think Robin Gross as well was on there, several people.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Robin so far is not involved in this group but I mean if there’s interest then we could easily bring her in. Konstantinos has sent his regrets and has said that he can’t make the call, and there’s a number of people who are also on the mailing list who can’t be on this call. We did a Doodle; it was impossible to find a single time that everyone could, so we’ll just move ahead, post the results from this on the mailing list to the AGAT and I guess do as much as we can here and take the rest to email.
So what I wanted to do first was go through those areas of focus. Essentially that was done from my own recollection based on the experiences from the STI Group, from the Rec 6 Group, from the JAS Group as the areas that we’ve had the most frustration with in getting our views passed to staff. Does anybody want to have any comments about those particular items that are there? They are on the agenda; they should be in your middle window as the very first issue on the agenda.
Can you please have a look at this and just confirm that this is a reasonably complete list? If there are things that shouldn’t be there or if there are things that should be there but are not this is the time to say so. Eric, go ahead.
Eric Brunner-Williams: Thank you, Evan. There are two or perhaps three issues I’d like to see on the agenda. There is text that’s in the Guidebook that is specific to community-based application types for which improvements can be made. That’s one.
Related, there’s text in the proposed contracts which may not yet be sufficiently specific to address the needs of community-based applicants, looking at the two types that we have – standard and community-based. And then a third area is implicit and explicit assumptions of scaling or the size of the registry from our very point in time.
These are distinct issues from the independent objector, dispute resolution, the use of experts, trademarks – but nevertheless, these are of profound interest to the non-commercial applicants or the public policy applicants which hopefully have not yet been starved out of the process.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. How would you modify the last two of the points of the issues that I’ve got there, in terms of one issue is possibly explicit categorization of applications to denote those which meet a criteria of community and financial need; and the last point is provisions for enabling within the DAG extra facilities for applicants that meet those criteria?
Eric Brunner-Williams: Yeah, the issue or the- Let me tell you what the limitation is that’s in the language there. It really addresses the JAS need, which is a good need to address and one which I’m happy to work on. But the JAS need is not universal to all community-based application types, and really the weakness of the Guidebook at present is really the presumption that all applications are standard with a few exceptions.
So that’s why I wouldn’t just look at it through the lens of the JAS or through the issue of need or even explicit costs, because there are other areas of the Guidebook which are of significant interest to community-based applicants.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Jean-Jacques, go ahead.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Thanks, Evan. I have two points or questions. One is the expert panel – at this stage I am sorry for posing this question now, maybe you’ve already discussed all this before I arrived in the AGAT. But in any case how are the members of the expert panel chosen? And then I have another question after that.
Evan Leibovitch: To be honest with you, the Rec 6 Group got involved in how the expert panel is chosen, did not go into a lot of detail. I believe they achieved a certain level of consensus that the Board would be responsible for either through staff or itself populating the expert panel but that the process was going to be something different from what is currently envisioned by the DRSP.
The experts could be recruited as individuals as opposed to having to have a specific organization with specific corporate bias, which was explicitly- There were fears about the ICC involved in this. And so that particular issue was dealt with but not in a huge level of detail by the Rec 6 Group. This is the kind of thing I think we’re going to need to deal with here.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Thank you, Evan. In that case may I just suggest that ALAC keeps a very attentive eye on this? Because if you look at the experience of the past two or three years, there’s one instance where the way in which one committee was populated – the IRT in fact – gave rise to many objections. So I think that before it all happens and then it’s too late to react I think that maybe we should keep an eye on this and state our principles when we have an opportunity.
My second point if I may is about the applicant process, and I think that the idea of defending the requirements, the possibilities, the financial I mention also of those who do not have many means is a good one, and with the sentence “especially from developing economies.” So my question is could you point me to any specific wording on which I could perhaps make myself a judgment and perhaps bring something to you? That’s the last bullet point.
Evan Leibovitch: The only wording I can think of that would even start as a frame of reference would be the last snapshot report of the JAS. The JAS was chartered by both the GNSO and by ALAC to try and deal with this issue. It came up with a milestone report that was released before Brussels, it was presented at Brussels, but GNSO did not even vote to accept it let alone approve it. ALAC endorsed it and moved it forward and wanted to go ahead with it, but GNSO did not even accept it.
And in fact there has been some politics about the condition under which GNSO would re-charter the group to move on. There’s been a significant amount of effort and time just spent in the process of GNSO in fact trying to re-charter the JAS Group, and that’s caused some friction especially when you have two chartering groups. ALAC was happy with the charter and GNSO wanted to revise it. So that’s been the cause of a lot of process-based grief since then.
But the snapshot that was taken was a snapshot report that was done before Brussels, so I mean that’s a document I can point you to. But there is definitely an issue that the needs and wants of what the JAS Group came up with certainly has not been addressed by the Applicant Guidebook and so far has not even been accepted by the GNSO. So this is possibly something that this group and ALAC themselves may be pushing forward.
What I was hoping to do with the bottom two points in the areas of focus was to go through an explicit allowance for a new kind of categorization to take place. As Eric correctly states there’s essentially only two kinds of applications that can come in now – standard and community. One of the possibilities that we can put forward in our wording is to allow for extra categorization of either subcategorizing the community applications to those that meet financial need and those that don’t; or to otherwise change the categorization system.
There was a meeting held in the Nairobi ICANN meeting that Bertrand was trying to organize specifically on the issue of categorization, and it basically- I don’t know how many of you were in that meeting – it was so crowded I can’t even remember who else was there. You had a very small room that was packed and essentially you had contracted parties that sidetracked the entire issue by getting into Clinton-esque “Can you please define what you mean by ‘category’?” kind of issues that essentially meant almost nothing could be done.
The issue was still important but that meeting ended with absolutely zero resolution. So what I’m hoping to do through this group is to address issues of categorization as well as the things, Jean-Jacques, that you and Eric have addressed.
Okay, Jean-Jacques I have you back in the queue and then Olivier.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Alright, thank you Evan. My last point about these bullet points was a question on obscenity-based objections, and you probably discussed this among yourselves already but I wanted to find out if this particular formulation had been vetted, perhaps even approved by General Counsel’s office. At least in California law it probably has one meaning, and then in international law and various European laws it may have a completely different meaning.
Evan Leibovitch: As far as I understand the work of the Rec 6 Group has never gone through any kind of legal analysis. Essentially the Rec 6 Group was in my mind a very, very useful way to try and get a certain level of consensus through the community. There were certain things on which we could reach consensus and certain things that we could not. There was a consensus that the DRSP model was not necessarily the best one so there was a number of consensus points came out; and then the staff took a look at that and said “Well, if you bend it like a pretzel you’re still affirming what we wanted to do with the DRSP.”
So again, another purpose behind what we’re trying to do here is to be very explicit in what we want to do with the determination of whether or not a particular string is judged to be obscene by very specific criteria, by very specific standards of law. And I have to defer to lawyers in the group about the details of how that’s done.
But the Rec 6 Group came to a phenomenal amount of consensus, was not able to agree on much at the detail level and staff took the at opportunity to take the concepts that were agreed to in the Rec 6 Group, mangle them, mangle the ones that they were okay with and reject the ones they weren’t okay with; and essentially say that the morality and public order under a new name is essentially the same thing and still fits with the Rec 6 recommendations. Olivier, go ahead.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Evan. I wanted to touch on three things: one, the choice of panelists which Jean-Jacques has touched on. That as far as I can remember was something that was discussed in the STI and it was seen as being something, well just implementation. So new decision was found on that as to how to make the choice of panelists. Some people objected that it was going into too much detail and too much implementation.
The second thing was regarding categorization. Yes, Bertrand de la Chappelle started the birds of a feather meeting in Sydney if I can recall correctly, and then there was a follow-up on mailing lists. I must say that the debate went on and suddenly it frizzled away and I’m not quite sure why, and I wonder whether anyone here has followed this closely enough to know why the debate didn’t go on.
That was the second thing, and the third thing was to do with the database- Well, one of the issues in the Trademark Interest and in identical property, the trademark clearing house database, just as an example of what the staff did it was totally a select few of the points that were in the Special Trademark Interest final report and completely forget about some others.
One important point, for example, is the fact that the trademark database, trademark clearing house database is able to contain ancillary information from other organizations. And you will find one of the discussions that will take place in Brussels will be what type of trademarks should be included in that database, whether it’s only trademarks that have gone through a significant review process or registered trademarks, or a wider scope of trademarks.
At the time during the discussions the idea of having wider-scope trademarks was not welcome by most of the participants and one of the ways to find a middle ground was to find that there could be ancillary services which could hold these wider-ranging trademarks but they would not be binding as in the type of information that the database is primarily used for. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Eric, go ahead.
Eric Brunner-Williams: Thanks, Evan. Actually I’m following up to your reference to the Nairobi meeting which I attended from the VeriSign and Afilias and Neustar venue in Washington, well Reston. But I have talked to Bertrand on many occasions about multiple categories and types so though I wasn’t present at this meeting I think I have a sense of what you’re referring to.
Additional types would not change subtle policy. The GNSO didn’t make a specific limitation and the Board at Paris didn’t create a specific limitation. But it would change subtle, or to use a less favorable term – “fixated” implementation details of (inaudible) types; and to put it somewhat cynically nothing happens before VeriSign manages to capture it as in .com markets and various IDN scripts.
So looking at the last two items and what you said about types of categories coming from Nairobi, that is possible in theory because it doesn’t change subtle policy. It will of course be difficult in facts because I can imagine nothing other than Peter Dengate Thrush saying “No, no, no.” Nevertheless it’s worth doing.
There are a large number of potential applicants who are governmental yet not 31-66 allocated, which is the city of Paris. So that’s a category or a type. And there are also applicants which will be requesting a plurality of labels, that is two or more labels, in possibly the same script, possibly in multiple scripts, to reach a single user community - a language community that possesses multiple writing systems or a cultural community that uses multiple languages. So I’m happy to go in that direction as well, and I think that concludes my comments.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Jean-Jacques, you’re next in the queue. Go ahead.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Thank you. Two remarks: one about the point just raised by Eric, and then the other one will be coming back to “obscenity based objections.” But for the first point I would, if there’s still time for ALAC to have any interest on the wording, I would suggest that we be very careful about the use of “category,” “categorize,” or anything like that, because that is one of the reasons for which those who are opposed to, let’s call it diversification of applications will find it very convenient to combat or to repulse those requests on the grounds that you either fit neatly into a category – and of course we would make sure that those categories would not be too detrimental to let’s say, large trademarks – or you simply do not qualify.
So rather than the word “categories” I think that it would be ALAC’s job to put forward and to defend the notion of criteria, meaning there are a certain number of general criteria – for instance community-based, language-based, culture-based, etc. – which can be put forward. And then it’s up to others, not necessarily only to ALAC, to find the correct wording to make that workable. That’s my first point about categories.
My second point is about “obscenity-based objections.” Here again I think we should not hide ourselves from the fact that the counterpoint is not the wording. Whether we call it “public morality” etc. or whether we call it “obscenity-based objections,” the real question here is whether we consider that in all circumstances states or governments will have the final word because it will be in application of national law and not international law.
So I just wanted to bring your attention to this and say that we have to keep this in mind in any wording we craft or support because that is really what is at stake. It is the overarching control of states. Thanks.
Evan Leibovitch: Jean-Jacques, let me ask you a follow-up to this. I mean everything that we’re doing and everything that ICANN does essentially works on the premise that no matter what ICANN does every sovereign country has the ability to impose its own regulations on top. You still have certain countries that are blocking things not only at the TLD level but the second level; you have certain countries that are blocking the .il CC. So this is already going on.
To what extent do we need to be scared of that as we move forward? I mean the policy paper that I think came out of the US that suggested that countries want a veto is something that has gotten many people’s backs up justifiably so. And so how do we work within ICANN trying to come up with something sane but with the knowledge that any country, should they not like what we’re doing, can decide to impose its own blockage itself anyway?
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Yes, Evan, I’ll try to answer that maybe by underlining two points. The first is that in the diversity, in the multi-stakeholder reality of ICANN, each community or part of the community has its own specific role. The GAC has its own, we have our own. So I think it is quite reasonable and constructive that each part of the community defend those ideas and those areas which it is well-equipped to defend.
And as ALAC with its RALOs is represented worldwide and represents the general user, I think that we should continuing underlining our view if that is the case that we want something which is as far as possible protective of individuals and groups; but that actually local laws apply.
The second point is you’re quite right – in the end, as national law applies in each country, it is that country which will decide what is objectionable and what is not. But at least in the preparatory stage, we’re not obliged to take sides and to condone or to approve automatically and in advance what the GAC or members of the GAC may impose.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. So one of the things I was hoping that we would be able to do here within this group is to propose something that recognizes that and still is able to apply a multi-stakeholder criteria to it. So for instance, there were two examples that were bandied around in the Rec 6 Group. The obvious one that everyone goes to is “Well, if someone proposed .nazi you know, is that something that should be allowed?” On one hand it was an interesting hypothetical and rhetorical debate, but on the other hand it wasn’t something that was going to be likely to be submitted by anyone any time soon.
On the other hand there was a very real consideration that there is at least one application for .gay, and a fear that if any country was allowed to object that there’s certainly a number of countries where homosexuality is illegal according to domestic national laws – would an objection by that country, if it were not opposed going through the GAC, actually turn into a GAC recommendation? And the fears that I’ve heard would enable this to be a lowest common denominator, that only those strings who were not objectionable to anyone in the world would be able to pass this process. Could you comment on that?
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Yes. First, I agree with your analysis and your reminder of what has been already discussed. I completely agree. But on the other hand, I think that although we have to keep track of reality and know that in the end some applications may not succeed because of that, I think as I said earlier it is our duty to push forward the extension of the realm of human rights, of human dignity as far as we possibly can.
Now whether in the end the Board votes or GAC does something which does not support that view, that’s something else because things evolve. Look at Kaddafi. And we may be right in the end, so I think the important point is not winning at this stage. It is being the proponents, the strong and vocal proponents of a certain number of principles which work in favor of human dignity, of economic development and of social development.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Olivier, you’re in the queue. Go ahead.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Evan. And I’ve just listened to Jean-Jacques and I think that’s particularly interesting. It seems that- I mean one of the first problems I have with this whole morality or limited public order objection and so on is the idea of the actual content that needs to be looked at. And for this I actually look at the two examples which are often quoted: the first one is .nazi. I think that .nazi is a very bad example because it’s actually content-based.
I would have, and I’m sure a lot of governments would have no objections whatsoever to the Simon Wiesenthal Center applying for .nazi and having a website showing Nazi atrocities and reminding everyone of such atrocities. And it’s something which I think therefore would mean having to look at the content of what would be behind .nazi.
On the other hand, .gay is something that also is used for either for happy people or homosexuals, and at that point there is a really serious political problem there because some countries do not accept such a thing. And therefore that would definitely fall under what Jean-Jacques has mentioned. I think .gay is a very interesting example for that, and it might be something that we wish to focus on especially since we do know that there will be some applications for that new gTLD. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. There’s nobody in the queue. Cheryl, Kathy, we haven’t heard from either of you on this. Do either of you have something that you’d like to add or a particular area that hasn’t been discussed yet? Well, Eric’s in the queue but-
Eric Brunner-Williams: I’ll wait.
Evan Leibovitch: Cheryl, Kathy? Do either of you have something to add into this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What I wanted to add I added in the chat, which was I agree with what Jean-Jacques was saying earlier; but I also stand on what I’ve said almost ad nauseum that it’s impractical, impossible, and imprudent for ICANN to get involved in content. And I think moving away from, as we suggested in the original discussions very early on about I think DAG 1, from this would be a very good idea.
While I have the microphone, however Olivier, it might be useful as you’ve done with the twelve points for the Board/GAC meeting and have staff do a cross reference point of previous ALAC statements on various things, to have links to this AGAT resource page and any of our previous statements on things, going all the way back to whether it was Los Angeles or probably pre-Los Angeles. It would have been the San Juan statements that ALAC has certainly come out with and various of our ALSes and RALOs have put into normal public commentary on which the versions of the DAG have been reviewed, because there may be wording in there that could be fodder for our iterations.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. I have Eric and Kathy in the queue. Kathy hasn’t gone yet so Kathy, you go first and then Eric.
Kathy Kleiman: Actually this is Kathy, I’m (inaudible) with a cold so apologies for the deep voice. And I’m still catching up on the conversation here; obviously I joined late with apologies.
What strikes me here, and I’ll just share my two cents, is what we learned from Suzanne Sene about sovereignty, and I don’t know if you’ve talked about how entrenched the governments now are in this idea that an entire TLD with which they do not agree with the content – and that’s a top-level itself, forget the string – for which they do not agree fundamentally with the content is something they don’t want, that this is fundamental sovereignty. But also watching the Department of Commerce link this in and distort arguments actually that we’re making in another sphere, where the Department of Commerce is saying “Look, you can’t force the world to block an entire TLD because blocking’s not good for the internet.”
And I don’t know if you’ve talked about this, but what’s really strange and distorted about that is that’s exactly the argument we’re making against the (inaudible). As we’re trying to fight the rapid takedowns in the DNS world and takedowns without due process in these bills that are popping up in the US Congress, what we’re saying is blocking at the DNS level is not a good thing. It breaks the internet; it has technical ramifications.
So as I watched Suzanne Sene bring this up at the top level to say you don’t want entire countries blocking entire strings, I find- I’m pausing because that’s exactly the argument we’re making in other places. So I see that you’re into more of the substance and the ways that the strings will be looked at, but is there a position kind of on this fundamental idea of what a government should do if it really doesn’t want an entire string coming into its “national borders?” Sorry, just raising the issue that’s very much on my mind.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Eric, you’re in the queue. Please go ahead.
Eric Brunner-Williams: Thank you, Evan. I’m following up on Jean-Jacques reference to our purpose in the extension of human rights and dignity. We did not know, Amadeu and I when we conspired to create .cat what would happen. We did not anticipate in the slightest the explosion in Catalan writing that would occur in the next almost seven years now since we first met at Rome and thought of this.
So the Catalan language has experienced enormous growth as a body of text online, and this appears to be driving a growth in Catalan text in print as well. Not that there’s been an explosion in that area as well but it came after the growth of Catalan in online texts. Waiting are [Cre], [Denai] or Navajo, Arabic not restricted by its nationalisms and not filtered by local elites; and also languages and subnational minorities and cultural identities.
What concerns me about the pursuit of hypothetical blocks, yes – it’s likely that .gay will be objected to by some cretinous religious-obsessed government. But these are still hypothetical blocks yet we have the complete block of everything now except Catalan where we’re looking to extend literacy or the exercise of literacy as a human right and as a condition of human dignity.
So I’d like to not overlook literacy and the use of literacy as one of those human rights and dignities that we are attempting to advance. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Since there’s nobody in the queue I’m going to cut the discussion part of this call off and spend the last ten minutes figuring out how we go forward, especially given the fact that there’s so many people in the AGAT Group that have not been able to participate in this call.
What I’d like to do is to try and find out if at least we can start to take some of the issues that we have identified, give ownership of them to specific individuals – at least amongst the ones on this call – and then to start moving with this in a way that allows us to act quickly and have something ready at least before San Francisco; and possibly even some unified principles that we can agree with around the time of Brussels.
Eric? Okay, go head Eric.
Eric Brunner-Williams: I’m sorry to interrupt, Evan. This is simply to correct the discussion notes. It’s not the “explosion of domain names.” It’s really the explosion of Catalan writing underneath the domain name. So there are 40,000 and some domain names; that’s actually unimportant. What’s important is that there are now millions of lines of Catalan associated with those 40,000 domain names. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. So what I’m hoping to do is now having heard from everybody on the call, it seems like while everybody has an interest in all of the issues that we’re dealing with, it seems like a number of you have some specific expertise and some specific interest in particular corners of this.
So for instance, Eric, on the things that are JAS-related – so for instance, the last two points of those areas of focus. If you don’t agree with the wording of that please feel free to change it. Is it possible that you can…I’ll use the term “own” in terms of the applicant support or the provisioning of a certain criteria for applicants. Can you possibly take ownership of that part of it?
Let’s identify the parts of the Applicant Guidebook, the specific clauses that need to be redone; agree on the approach we want to take and then start word crafting. Are you okay with that? And I see a yes in the chat room so I will assume a yes to that.
Jean-Jacques, could I possibly impose on you to assign on you the issues to deal with the objectionable string issues? That is the whole Rec 6 thing, and again to identify the components – I think they’re all in Module 3 – that need to be addressed; and to go back to the specific approach that ALAC and NCUC and maybe a handful of others had toward this and try to make our intentions clear through wording in a way that the intentions were not made clear as they were interpreted by staff from Rec 6.
Jean-Jacques, are you okay with taking that particular corner of it?
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Yes.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Kathy, it sounds like you have an interest in dealing with the trademark issues. Cheryl, Olivier, Kathy – are there particular parts of this that you would like to take ownership of this in terms of the specific corners? If we can chop this up into individuals that can then go off, analyze it and come back, it makes it probably easier for the rest of the group to get involved in the wordsmithing.
Kathy Kleiman: What are we analyzing in terms of the IP? Sorry to miss that section of the discussion. We have the US GAC position – are there other materials out there yet?
Evan Leibovitch: Well, essentially the ALAC position on the last version of the Applicant Guidebook was to say “Okay, the STI Group essentially did a reasonable job in backing off from the worst things in the IRT.” It looks like the GAC wants to reopen some of this; what we want to do is essentially keep some sanity. On one hand we want to be supportive of the work that the STI Group did and making sure that that isn’t rolled back.
The ALAC had a couple of provisions saying that certain parts of the takedown notices were just a little too abrupt, a little too English and a little too fast to give due process on the takedown, even for the URS. And so the ALAC position I think was that the trademark negotiations and the results of the STI was generally okay but there were a couple of components of the takedown that was just a little too onerous.
Since then, because of the GAC essentially appears to have wanted to reopen the situation and so it’s just a matter of trying to see what position we have on that.
Kathy Kleiman: Have you guys talked about a position on the loser pays proposal of the US government?
Evan Leibovitch: In this call we haven’t done anything specific at that level. At this point we’ve talked about generalities on the issues; now we need to start drilling down into detail.
Kathy Kleiman: Just to note that if it goes to loser pays at least with my attorney hat on I would tell no one from a developing country, no one who speaks English as a second language, no entrepreneur, no small businesses, no small organization to go into new gTLDs. They’re facing a $500 fee without even knowing about the process.
Evan Leibovitch: Good. Kathy, the one thing though, without us getting too far-reaching the intention of what this group is going to try to do is to use the existing Applicant Guidebook as its basis of operations. Right now, what the GAC want is still all hypothetical. They may want to make changes but right now our frame of reference is the existing Applicant Guidebook and the existing work of the JAS and Rec 6 and STI Groups.
Kathy Kleiman: In that case then let me play maybe a backup, kind of someone delves way into the details because I don’t know the ALAC positions as well and the nuances of those positions. Let me play a supporting role on the writing. Thanks.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Kathy, can I ask you to take ownership of some of those issues?
Kathy Kleiman: No, in part because I’m swamped with the WHOIS Review Team and in part because again, I don’t know the starting points as well. I know the NC starting points, I know the Registry Stakeholder Group’s starting points which you just so eloquently pointed out. I don’t know of the ALAC’s starting points. I know what Alan sent and Olivier so eloquently shared with the STI, but there’s been some movement since then. Can I play expert backup on some of these things and provide whatever the writer or the drafter needs in the wings?
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Olivier or Cheryl, would either of you like to take on that-
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan, I posted a comment on the page regarding this part of the agenda about seven hours ago, so my answer was already “No.” But again, like Kathy I’m more than happy, willing and able to act in a whole lot of assistance and editorial mechanisms.
Going back to what I said earlier, though – can we, particularly since there’s a much smaller group on the call than there is interested in involvement on the list, can we actually table up just as the (inaudible) had staff do today the links to the easy-to-find, established, and published opinions on each of these exceptions? I was saying earlier in this call that we should be able to do the ones from ALAC statements without too great a difficulty, but I would also think finding them from other registrant and end user interest groups throughout ICANN wouldn’t be all that much of a difficult task either.
With these words in previously submitted public commentaries and other documentations such as (inaudible) from the ALAC have already gone through in many cases considerable consensus building, I just think they’re not bad places to start.
Evan Leibovitch: Cheryl, I’m not disagreeing with you; I’m just thinking of the very compressed timeframe that we’re working under which is why I’m trying to get individuals to take ownership of specific subject areas.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: See, actually could I- As I said about seven hours ago, no – that hasn’t changed.
Evan Leibovitch: Forgive me, I’ve got to go back to your comment. Can you remind me? Okay, sorry. I’m okay, got it. Okay.
So Jean-Jacques, are there parts of this that you would be interested and able to take on in either for instance, the areas of the obscenity issues or elsewhere? The only reason I’m trying to get individuals to take ownership is simply because we don’t have a lot of time and it’s going to help move things along if we have certain people acting as focal points for this.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Yes. I hesitate to agree because I’m a newcomer in all this, and I think I cannot start all alone, for instance without having a preliminary conversation exchange with staff in order to prepare for this. So I would hesitate to take on more duties.
If the morality and public order or obscenity-based objections is part of the previous subject I was assigned maybe we can fit it in; otherwise I think not.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, so alright. So right now we have Eric assigned to the issues of shall we say, for lack of a better description the JAS-related things. I’ll go under the assumption that everyone here is interested in helping but has difficulty in leading individual points. We’ll put this to the mailing list. If nobody steps forward I will volunteer to take over the objectionable string issue but I’d like to see if anybody else steps forward from the mailing list. But I will do it in the absence of any volunteerism from the mailing list.
And then so I believe I saw Jean-Jacques, you asked about a specific Skype chat? Sorry Olivier, your hand is up. We’re four minutes into the hour so we’ll try and wrap this up but I think we’ve got some things to move on. Olivier, go ahead.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Evan, I’ll just make this quick. I’m ready to give my full support to things moving here, but as you know my plate is already extremely full with a lot of other things to juggle. And I don’t wish to take specific ownership of points or drive any of these points due to the fact that I might not be able to devote enough time on them, having to juggle with so many other things at the same time. But certainly this is extremely important so I’ll spend a serious amount of time on maybe all of the points that are there. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. So right now we have Eric working on the applicant support-related issues, I will take ownership of the objectionable string issues if nobody shows interest in this in the mailing list. We still need somebody to take ownership of the trademark-related issues which I have absolutely zero legal expertise to deal with, so we’ll work with this.
And you know, as much as we have a lot here I would rather do a small number of things very well than a large number of things badly. So if there are certain things that we can’t do because we simply don’t have the human resources to do it so be it, but we’ll just do the best that we can.
Jean-Jacques and then Eric. Jean-Jacques, go ahead.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Yes, thanks Evan. So I’m afraid I was misunderstood. I was not suggesting that I would drop out from what you asked me to do, but rather to simply ask staff and perhaps yourself if you’re available for us to join in a Skype conversation let’s say tomorrow in order to prepare for this. I was not wiggling away from the objectionable strings; I was simply saying I need support. I can’t start off this thing on my own because I’m a latecomer in the whole thing.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Then I’ll tell you what, Jean-Jacques – I will work with your personally and bring you up to speed as much as I’m personally capable of doing. And so if you’re interested in doing this you have my full absolutely wholehearted support in doing this.
Jean-Jacques Subrenat: Alright. Thanks very much. So we’ll have a first exchange of emails in a few hours so sort of I can see where we stand, if I have read what is necessary; and from there on I’ll try to draft a few lines as a first initial discussion piece in view of reporting to the full AGAT.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, perfect. Okay, so we have something else. Eric, go ahead.
Eric Brunner-Williams: Thank you. Because we’re almost out of time or past time I’ll make this quick. The trademark issue is well, I want to suggest that we ask someone to deal with this and the person I have in mind is Amadeu Abril. Both he and I tried to get into the IRT back in the Mexico City timeframe and were not able to for whatever reason. But Amadeu has spent a lot of time thinking on this issue, so that’s the person I would assign to it if I were running the universe.
Evan Leibovitch: I was personally going to try drafting Konstantinos but if Amadeu is interested in joining this group I’m happy to have him here.
Kathy Kleiman: I’ll second the Konstantinos, Evan, just because I know he’s been doing a lot of thinking on this exact issue and he’s already a member.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. So I’ll tell you what – I don’t know Amadeu. Eric and Jean-Jacques, you both know him so-
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep, so do I.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. So could one or more of you talk to him, find out if he’s interested in participating with us? And we’d be more than happy to have him here. Obviously having two heads, having him and Konstantinos working on this is going to give us some phenomenal expertise in this field.
Okay, Cheryl, thanks a lot. We’ll see you on the mailing list and Skype chat.
So would it be possible then to have maybe one or more people here talk to Amadeu, find out if he’s interested in joining with us? In the meantime we’re still going to try and draft Konstantinos into getting involved with this with the hope that two heads are better than one. If we can have them both involved that’s great but we have to start somewhere.
So is that reasonable? Okay. So who here knows Amadeu enough to try and contact him?
Eric Brunner-Williams: I do.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Eric, can I ask you to make that introduction?
Eric Brunner-Williams: Yep.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, wonderful. Feel free to either cc me or others and if he needs some extra background on this we can do as much as we can. In the meantime, okay, we’ve got some things done. We’ve got a couple of things to move forward from this and I guess we will take this to the mailing list. And Matthias, can you open a Skype room?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan, for some reason you really have to wind this call up. My line is totally locked into this call, my other call can’t get through to me and I can’t even dial out to it and that’s ten minutes into their call now that I’m late.
Evan Leibovitch: Hey, I apologize. Okay, then if that’s the case then let’s wrap this up right now. We’ll see you all on the email list and we will open up a Skype room so that we can do some more conversations in real time. Thanks very much, okay. Thank you and we’ll see you on the mailing list.
[End of Transcript]
