The latest GNSO meeting was held on Thursday, Sept.25. The full agenda can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/agenda-25sep08.shtml
and the MP3 recording is at http://audio.icann.org/gnso/gnso-council-20080925.mp3.
There were a number of issues discussed of particular interest to the ALAC and At-Large.
The meeting started with insufficient Councilors to make quorum.
Agenda
During the approval of the agenda, there was a concern expressed about potentially critical votes being placed at the end of the agenda, where they may be given insufficient or no time if the agenda runs over. But at the same time, it was understood that to change the agenda at the last moment when some Councilors may have arranged their agenda to be present for certain items would also be problematic. The issue was noted for consideration when future agendas were prepared. Both issues are relevant to ALAC meetings as well.
Fast-Flux PDP WG
During the Council meeting, it was reported that there would be no final report in time for Cairo, but the group was planning to issue an interim report prior to Cairo.
Two days later, the Chair of the working group resigned. The exact reason(s) was not clearly stated. Since that time, the GNSO Council Chair, in consultation with others, has offered to chair the working group until its report is delivered. A decision on this will be made at the next GNSO meeting on Oct. 16. A more complete history of events can be viewed in the WG mailing list archives at http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-ff-pdp-may08/ starting on September 27.
Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) - Part A PDP
The overall IRTP was broken up into a series of PDPs to keep the work manageable and allow some level of overlapped work (see http://gnso.icann.org/issues/transfers/transfer-issues-report-set-a-23may08.pdf).
The IRTP-Part-A WG looking at a number of previously unconsidered issues (section 1.3 of the issues report). The WG is currently waiting for Constituency Statements.
New gTLDs
The current plan is to publish the draft Request for Proposal (called the Applicant Guide Book) for public comment prior to Cairo. A base contract will be included. It will lay out the application and evaluation processes including the various potentially contentious aspects. Although there has been much discussion at many levels, this is the first time there will be a real document to focus on. For this reason, it is expected that there will be significant change and improvement following these consultations, with another draft issued following these changes. All of this probably means that the final RFP will be issued in early 2009.
There will also be a number of documents or discussion papers released at approximately the same time going into the further details and history. One of the more interesting areas will be geographic place names, where the current plan does not fully address the GAC requirement that place names not be delegated without the approval of the relevant government(s).
A report from CRA International (an International firm of economists (http://www.crai.com/) on pricing will be available shortly.
The Applicatant Guide book will be published in the six UN languages, and there will we workshops in Cairo given in a number of languages. The application itself must be completed in English.
IDN Fast-track
A Request for Information will be issued to get a more concrete measure of which and how many countries will likely be applying. Work is ongoing on many of the aspects of IDN Fast-track (IETF protocol revision, application process, IANA processing, string validation and contention, fees). Material will be released for Cairo, and a workshop is planned.
It is still expected that the timing for fast-track IDN ccTLDs and new IDN gTLDs will be similar.
Discussions continue on the form of agreement required, but the working term is a "Document of Responsibility" including stability and security aspects, consensus policies, enforcement options and recouping of expenses.
Add Grace Period (AGP)
An update (both public and to the GNSO) regarding progress on the implementation of the APG Consensus Policy and the AGP budget provision. The July data on the impact of the AGP budget provision (including that for .com and .net from VeriSign) will be released following the standard 3-month embargo and will be included in the reports. The draft Consensus Policy will be published prior to Cairo.
RAA Amendments
Although the current set of RAA amendments are considered by many to be insufficient, the question remains as to how to implement even these. It has recently been recognized that to implement them without waiting for the negotiation of new contracts, there may need to be a de facto consensus policy and that the GNSO Council may need to be involved in the process (this had not, to my knowledge, been discussed previously).
Since the words in the current RAA predates the formal process currently in place for developing consensus policies, the GNSO likely does not need to go through the Bylaw mandated (Annex A - http://www.icann.org/en/general/bylaws.htm procedures starting with an Issues Report). The applicable clause in the RAA can be found at http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm, clause 4.3.1.
This discussion took place during an update session, and a formal request to the GNSO has not been made, but it seems like they may be given the option of:
- adopting the current RAA revisions and declaring victory;
- adopting the current RAA revisions and starting a process to attack other open issues;
- scrapping the current revisions and start a process to do it right.
Staff are recommending that the proposed changes are important enough that the changes be finalized and implemented, a position that I presume ALAC supports. This will no doubt come back to Council.
Travel Funding
A drafting committee is being formed to discuss how the GNSO will use ICANN travel funsding during the remainder of this fiscal year. I do not plan on volunteering for this committee. However, there is a question of funding for Liaisons to the GNSO. The overall funding available to the GNSO is based on the number of Councilors plus the number of Liaisons to the Council. The only rationale I can come up with for the addition of the Liaisons as a basis for the total sum is that they are eligible for such funding.
However, a statement from ICANN to the GNSO said "Council’s liaisons should be considered for supported travel by the entities that send them. The entity that sends the liaison needs to decide whether or not to include the liaison on their funded travelers list for each ICANN meeting."
The same issue will apply to the ccNSO Liaison position.
I plan to ask for a clarification.
Registration Abuse Policies
Afilias recently proposed an Abusive Domain Use Policy for .info giving it explicit rights to take action against domains used for illegal acts, spam, phishing and a large range of similar activities, and the proposal has been approved by ICANN (see http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/, proposal 2008007).
A motion was made to request an Issues Report looking at the various provisions in ICANN contracts related to abusive registrations and report on options for further Council consideration (the full motion is in the agenda referenced at the beginning of this report). (Note that although the meeting started without quorum, quorum had been achieved by this time.)
A lively discussion ensued, partially with a focus on whether such an issues report should be undertaken if it is not known whether the follow-on actions will be deemed to be within the scope of the GNSO. The determination of scope is in fact part of the Issues Report process, but there was some feeling that an early determination of whether it was within scope could reduce the load on staff. An issue that is outside of scope can still be addressed in a PDP, but it requires a greater voting threshold.
There was also a discussion of the time it would take to do such a report (in light of the approaching Cairo meeting and the Bylaw mandated restriction that such a report be completed in 15 days). It was ultimately decided to proceed directly to the vote on the Issues Report, and that if staff had a time-constraint problem, they could request an extension. The motion carried unanimously.
Any Other Business
I announced the intention to have the ALAC request an Issues Report on the domain Redemption Grace Period and related issues.