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Scribe's Notes ICANN Board Meeting November 16, 2000 – Los Angeles, California I. Introduction - Dyson II. Agenda - Roberts A. Audit Committee B. At-Large Study C. Staff Officers D. Report from GAC. E. Housekeeping F. Kraaijenbrink: Need report from Ad Hoc Committee. III. Audit Committee - Wilson A. Committee: Crew, Davidson, Wilson B. Closing the books for 2000. Engaged KPMG as auditors. C. KPMG engaged to audit ICANN. Financials posted on website. Found only one material misstatement. Concerned about ccTLD situation; need more evidence there. Statement of activities detailing revenue and expenses. Restrictions from donors are noted on financial report. Statement of cash flows. Required disclosures – accounting policies and procedures, footnotes re larger balances, property/plant/equipment, debt. 1. Work needs to be done to establish segregation of duties. Easier as more people added. D. Fockler: Statement of cash flows. Was there an error where one number purportedly from last year was actually this year? 1. One adjustment made to reflect liability that should have been in 1999 versus 2000. So we adjusted the beginning balance of net assets. E. Note: No disagreements with management. Management and auditors both determined to find the right answers. F. Wilson: Standard representations, from Board to auditors and vice versa all in order? 1. Right. Nothing unusual. G. Cerf: What if ccTLD revenue situation isn’t resolved promptly? Impact on our non-profit status? 1. Mainly impacts ability to fund operations, rather than any particular disclosures. H. Wilson: Committee was reviewing work of management in documenting financial control policies. Reviewed risk management and insurance coverage. Recommend use of KPMG for fiscal year 2001. I. Cerf: Directors and officers liability? What amounts? 1. Wilson: Evaluation considered these issues. Committee believes current insurance is appropriate. J. Roberts: Audit has been conducted and statements have been published in accordance with accounting policies. Our duties are fulfilled. No action required at this time. IV. At Large Membership Study A. [link: draft resolution presented] B. Abril i Abril: Not convinced that this procedure will bring us to the necessary point re study. But have no better approach. So this is best for now. C. Cerf: Begin a discussion of what steps to take next? D. Roberts: Staff expects further Board input. E. McLaughlin: Read resolution. F. Fitzsimmons: Establish timetable for next steps. Should try to accelerate this process G. Wilson: It’s important to do this. But first, need staff report on which to comment. Can’t set a deadline yet. H. Motion to adopt. Carries unanimously. V. Annual election of staff officers. A. Roberts: Month-to-month relationship with consulting committee resulted in the Board not reviewing performance on a month-to-month basis. 1. So normal procedure of CEO review has not occurred. B. Touton: President has recommended continuation of officers. 1. [link: resolution presented] 2. Note: Same resolution as last year. 3. Dyson: Looks like a formality, and to some extent it is. Board has not discussed this formally. But unanimous sentiment that staff is doing a great job under tough conditions. In that sense, this is more than a formality. 4. Cerf: Adopt all resolutions. 5. Carries unanimously. VI. New TLDs A. Recusals: 1. Crew - relationship with Melbourne IT, though not with their registrar or TLD activities, with which I have had no involvement, nor with any other applicant 2. Abril i Abril - have not participated in prior discussion re TLDs; serve as advisor to one applicant 3. Davidson - Company has expressed support for one applicant. 4. Blokzijl – firm was technical advisor to an applicant. 5. Cerf – Board members have fairly thin reasons for escaping. We’ll find some other way to get this done. B. Touton: Narrow question is selection of applications for negotiation between ICANN and applicants of contractual agreements. Agreements intended to be completed by end of year. Have heard from applicants. Proceed in order of groups and categories, as in comments yesterday. 1. General purpose TLDs. Staff recommendation that a few (“one or more”) such TLDs be responsibly selected for negotiation as part of proof of concept. Board should discuss pros and cons. Board can ask staff for information if wanted. C. Fockler: Have been preparing a basket of diverse applications to meet needs of Internet community. Rearranging some applicants within categories based on what I’ve learned. Thinking about size of basket in each category. Also have to think about diversity (geographic and other). What about that approach – making only tentative decisions initially. 1. Cerf: Endorse that basic strategy. Should find a set of proposals we consider strong, viable, likely to succeed. See what all those are, then make final choices for negotiation. 2. Dyson: To carry this forward, I’d like to suggest a few names to get the discussion going. • JVTeam is a strong candidate – international, strong technical / experience. Seems the clearest established player. • .biz and .inc would create something other than first-come-first-served. Competition based on some characteristic other than price; higher fees, perhaps other services. • Leaves .web out. But looking for compelling reasons to select applicants, rather than choosing anyone who can fit. 3. Cerf: Don’t disagree with those suggestions. • The .biz and .inc fees would create exclusivity. Interesting idea. • IOD’s .web is interesting because it has been in operation for some time. Is their operation compatible with registrar protocols? Not inclined to exclude them from list of potential candidates. 4. Touton: Image Online Design has been operating outside the standard root; has been pointed to by a number of alternate roots over the last few years. 18,000 registrations to date, a bit of a surge. System as currently operating is proprietary, single-registrar. IOD proposed to be the sole registrar for a year, dropping to 60% with implementation of a shared registration system. Don’t recall whether protocol perfectly matched the NSI Registry. Proposed to charge $35/year for each registration during the first year. Under competitive registrar model, would charge registry fee of $15 per registrant. 5. JD: Affinity was atypical. Did not move forward because this application did not provide much detail re future plans. And Affinity proposed to screen “is a business” but not “is a ‘good’ business” which might not be what we were hoping for. • Cerf: There are ways to figure out if someone is a business. Dun & Bradstreet listings. • Stuck in the middle. Affinity wasn’t completely open, nor did Affinity give a stamp of approval. Could be confusing. • Touton: What specifically does Affinity intend to screen? 6. Kyong: One TLD per proposal? • Dyson: No agreement there. • Kyong: Some proposals include large numbers of TLD strings. We approve a proposal, including all the proposed strings? Or we approve a TLD string, and most suitable proposal for that string is then selected. • Dyson: We should consider name.space. But having a couple TLDs in a single registry is part of the diverse business models we intend to facilitate. Discuss this in the context of a particular proposal. • Kyong: So we discuss all TLD strings from an applicant? • Kraaijenbrink: We asked applicants which string each would favor. Markings with asterisks in staff reports indicate this. • Kyong: Should consider how many strings is reasonable this time? • Kraaijenbrink: Would favor two strings in each category. In General, perhaps .biz and .web. Then look for applicant with best proposal for each. That’s how I approach this process. 7. Fitzsimmons: We’ll have to return to this time and time again. It’s easy to expand. But we committed as a Board to a limited proof of concept. Received specific advise on this from the Names Council. Multiple strings per applicant? No, because we committed to a limited proof of concept. Expect other rounds in the future. Also consider our capacity. Staff’s ability to negotiate and monitor contracts within the next 6-12 months. • Touton: Indicated in Yokohama that staff was concerned that large number of TLDs would threaten success of proof of concept. Learn to walk before trying to run. Current target date of Dec 31 for finalization of agreements. Might have to relax the schedule if many new TLDs approved. That might be inconsistent with “proof of concept” which means doing this in a few rounds. • Cerf: Trying to create competitive registries and registrars. Endorse a plan for no more than one TLD per applicant. Shouldn’t accept all of the applicants; need a sense of how many are viable. • Fockler: Suggest the basket approach. My basket started with a capacity of nine or ten, subject to change. And do need to be clear about specific TLD strings. • Dyson: We can argue forever about overall plans, but still have to make choices. Shouldn’t make too many decisions in advance. Notion of a single registry with a single registrar might not be out of hand in a world of competitive TLDs. • Cerf: Failure of either registrar or registry would put at risk the whole TLD at risk under a single-registrar/single-registry model. • Wilson: Iterative process. Shouldn’t lock ourselves in. • Kraaijenbrink: We’ll make a decision to delegate a TLD string, which yields a registry. But expansion of that registry to another string would require a further application to the Board. • Touton: Most applicants intend their string proposals to be alternatives. • Kraaijenbrink: We manage strings. We must indicate which specific strings to be added. Especially so in the proof-of-concept phase. 8. Roberts: Diversity encouraged in the applicants is intended partly to facilitate international competition, while others create new facilities. Want to decide whether or not to create such new spaces. 9. Fockler: Let’s be clear to staff in our directions about specific applications. 10. Kyong: Recommend one TLD string per accepted proposal. Must decide on size of basket, and number of proposals to be accepted in each category. Otherwise, we’ll be here all night. 11. Cerf: Categorization was a bit ad hoc. And don’t want to say “only x from this category” before we look carefully at specific proposals. Let’s decide which applicants seem to have the best proposals. 12. Cohen: Agree with Vint. Should decide which applications are strongest. Categorization was for organizational purposes, and Board understands the difficulty of this process. 13. Schink: Categorizations helpful in reviewing proposals (yesterday), but not for selecting proposals. Should select proposals that are technically sound. 14. Fockler: Hope we establish a principle that we’re just setting these proposals into a tentative basket. That we’ll stop and rethink our choices if we get to have ten or more. 15. Roberts: Go through the list. • Cerf: Yes, let’s press on with what we began before. For example, IOD proposal which lacked provision for multiple registrars at outset. • Touton: We only discussed these applications halfway. Need to finish Affinity and IOD. 16. Dyson: Avoidance of cybersquatting is of benefit to the Internet but maybe not directly to consumers. 17. Fitzsimmons: One of primary criteria is competition. Some other applications are more aggressive in providing competition with .com. I like restriction on price. But this .biz proposal seems unlikely to compete as well with .com. Also others have more aggressive marketing plans. JVTeam and Neustar have plans to aggressively compete with .COM on a short timeframe. 18. Fockler: Put JVTeam’s .biz in the basket? • Cerf: Let’s not make decisions. Just tentative. • Dyson: Agreed. 19. Cohen: This is clearly the right approach. 20. Schink: Let’s not be influenced by the categorizations. 21. Cerf: If two applicants want .biz, we’ll choose from them later. 22. Touton: OK, .biz is in the basket. (No opposition.) D. Touton: More on Image Online Design. Public and staff comments encouraged IODesign to accelerate timetable for making their multiple-registrar systems available sooner, perhaps in as little as 30 to 60 days. Question of whether such an amendment is in order after the application is submitted. NSI’s experience suggests this may be harder and more time consuming than IOD now suggests. Also, questions of financing levels – no commitment of using all available credit lines for this business, as principals also available in an auto dealership which may require credit. 1. Fitzsimmons: Affilias and Neustar seem more serious about opening the market and providing competition with .com. 2. Cerf: Impressed by Affilias, with shared registry and 19 registrars. Comfortable with Affilias in the tentative basket. 3. Roberts: Values of Affilias are consistent with my community. Tucows as a real-time registry is intriguing. 4. Dyson: NSI Registrar is a member of Affilias. Are NSI Registrar and Registry separate? Will they be? • Touton: NSI last year received a four-year registry agreement, renewable for another four years if they divested the registrar and registry businesses by May 2001. They seem to intend to comply with that to get the four year intention. Expect significant separation of ownership shortly. • Dyson: Even so, NSI registrar a big player. Affilias’s co-op status is appealing because it’s different. But it doesn’t foster competition in the sense that we’ve created a competitive market only to see cooperatives formed. Would need some strong and binding language to prevent, say, NSI from changing its charter to buy half or some such. Gives me a queasy feeling • Touton: Sympathize with much of what you say. This “Nominet cooperative model” is neutral, allows smaller companies to get involved in the registry business. Affilias was open to all accredited registrars, and it is ICANN which accredited NSI Registrar. Board could select Affilias contingent on certain changes to make Affilias more like Nominet. • Cerf: And Affilias continues to be open to additional participants. Reluctant to set arbitrary conditions; don’t want to micromanage. Should let business models play themselves out. This seems a pretty good arrangement. • Dyson: Affilias is open. Not sure that enhances Affilias’s quality. • Murai: Competing with .com requires technical ability. Need to emphasize this, or competition can’t exist. • Cerf: Can’t have competition among incompetents. A collection of registrars might well want to assure themselves that their registry works properly. Registrars will invent new features to attract registrants, but all registrars need a reliable registry. And this registry is separate from the one run by NSI. • Touton: Tucows to be the registry, based on experience as “sub-registry” for .com et al. • Cerf: Put this in the basket. • Fitzsimmons: Had Esther’s concerns when I read through the Executive Summary. But ownership structure seems appropriate. Have seem similar models work. Tucows is a strong choice. Can put this in the basket for now. • Touton: Affilias into basket. 5. Touton: IODesign a small company with limited resources. They anticipated a period of exclusivity, especially during land rush period, to collect $35/domain to fund growth of business. Performance numbers about the same. But Affilias and Neustar offer thicker higher-service registry that IOD doesn’t initially plan to implement. • Cerf: Internal oscillation. Have some sympathy for IODesign as pioneers. But concerned about viability of the proposition. Sounds like this only works for them if they’re combined registrar/registry. But we primarily want registry proposals. That they “might” be able to get a protocol developed is troubling; software can take longer to develop than anyone expects. Getting multiple registrars in place could be a significant hurdle. Causes me to hesitate. • Roberts: Ambler deserves credit for work done. But the economic model proposed is exactly what NSF did with NSI six years ago. The absence of competition in the proposal troubles me. • Pisanty: Separating IOD’s registry from registrar, size of technical team, finances – all being corrected on the fly. Trying to adjust to perceived needs rather than having a stable well-thought-out plan. • Touton: Evaluation team tried to focus on application. Board can place greater weight on revisions, or even request revisions. But some revisions may so fundamentally change the business model as to be of great concern. Proposal may become incoherent as a result of some kinds of changes. • Dyson: All else equal, favor the little guy. But IOD’s business model seems unrealistic to me. Has loyal customers, but how will that work at $35 a head if other options are available. • Kraaijenbrink: IOD goes against everything we’ve worked on the last two years – they join registrar and registry, and they have a high price. Amazed to see this application submitted. 6. Dyson: Discuss name.space. Some free speech strings. Those who want .sucks domains probably have good reasons. We do believe in providing namespace for a variety of purposes. • Cerf: What about the technical aspects of the proposal? Who runs the registry? What software? Assets and resources? Business model troubles me. • JD: Financial statement looked at all TLD strings jointly. Marketing plan was a paragraph. Too few details about rollout, human resources. Big picture comments only. • Kraaijenbrink: Problem is that they want to add 100 TLD strings. But we have to select a “limited number” of strings. • Touton: Name.space yesterday sent us a note, saying they’ll engage Andersen Consulting, have mirror and backup facilities, etc. • Dyson: We can negotiate with them. Their suggestion of cross-subsidizing makes some sense. • Touton: Name.space’s note doesn’t mention intellectual property protections. • Cerf: Reluctant to allocate more than one TLD to any applicant. • Dyson: .sucks is a good counterpoint to commercial sites like .biz, .shop, etc. • Cerf: Why do you need multiple strings to operate .sucks? Proposition remains uncertain. And we’ve been surprised to learn that strings seemingly of no value in fact have significant value. • Dyson: Proposals outsourcing to NSI or Tucows are stricken? • Cerf: One TLD string per applicant. Could conceivably assign multiple strings to a single registry (resulting from different applicants). • Fockler: When we have tentative selections, we’ll look at the matrix and see how this works out. • Dyson: But who will fund free speech? Not governments. Name.space is commercial but supports freedom of speech. See examples of pornography. Commerce and freedom of speech can go hand in hand. • Fockler: Sounds like a focused future proposal in this area would be well-received, and Esther could market it. • Fitzsimmons: Don’t associate .soup, .toys, etc. with freedom of speech. Our agenda shouldn’t be to specifically request or encourage free speech. If such an application comes along and it meets other criteria, then we’ll consider it. • Cerf: Proposal from name.space is to run a commercial operation with a variety of TLDs (.sucks being one of them). But shouldn’t judge the proposal based on indication of applicant to support freedom of speech. Determining factor is whether their operation is viable and will function. • Wilson: Create a parallel basket, and put name.space in it. • Dyson: Ask Name.Space what their preferred strings were? • Fockler: Tried to do that yesterday, but couldn’t get a concise answer from them. • Dyson: Could instruct staff to negotiate on those terms. • Cerf: Categorization is not dispositive for decisions today. • McLaughlin: Had hoped that applicants would respond to evaluations, and Name.space did. Advise taking a hard look at Name.space’s letter to Touton, which substantially changes the application. VII. GAC Report A. Roberts: Intro of Paul Twomey and GAC B. Twomey: [link: communiqué presented - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/la2000/archive/gac-communique.htm] C. [link: Communication re new TLDs presented - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/la2000/archive/gac-tlds.html] D. Questions 1. Cerf: GAC appreciates the technical side effects of introducing new character sets into DNS? Must be clear that ICANN is not responsible for technical standards; that’s IETF’s job. GAC would be misguided to look to ICANN on this subject, but GAC could participate in IETF process. • A number of member states have asked WIPO to study the question of protections for a range of names that do not currently receive protection (place names, personal names, etc.). Basic point is to clarify state of IP protection on these names. 2. Blokzijl: Focused on second-level domains. What about third-level domains? • Still thinking about it. 3. Fockler: Interesting to watch language evolve. 4. Roberts: Some ccTLDs have chosen an economic model that looks like “worldwide commercial.” • Serious jurisdictional issues here. • Cerf: Don’t want to repeat the US situation of congress passing laws that don’t apply to itself. VIII. Further Discussion of New TLDs – Personal Group of General Purpose TLDs A. Kraaijenbrink: .name is strong and has international support. 1. General agreement. B. Cerf: Recommend including JVC & Sarnoff 1. Dyson: Agree. 2. Fockler: Agree. We’re talking about .iii here. 3. Touton: Sense a feeling that it should go into basket. C. Dyson: Would like to discuss .pid. 1. Cerf: Numbers to the left of the .pid? 2. Had classified .pid as “message routing.” There’s a domain name server that provides an IP address. At that IP address, there’s a server that does something useful. DADA would serve only the registry function. “The final step” (server running at that IP) is left up to the registrars. 3. Dyson: Creates a nice competitive world for many kinds of forwarding services? • Would be done at registrar level. Hard to evaluate this from the proposals. • Dyson: But it will rely on competition. • Roberts: Proposes real-time indirect addressing, without any testbed. And none of existing accredited registrars have anything remotely like this. 4. Cerf: Could be tested in a SLD rather than being granted a TLD? • Dyson: Some such tests already done by others. 5. Cerf: Feels incomplete. 6. Neuhauser: Technical description was not one of the stronger statements. 7. JD: Hybrid business plan. But the other two personal applications you’ve already selected are stronger. • Dyson: Focus on Italy. Or world? Credible as a world player? • JD: Unclear. 8. Kraaijenbrink: Not developed enough yet. Consider it at some point in the future. These ideas are to be tested. 9. Cerf: This could be straightforward to implement, depending on how you envision it. Registry doesn’t have to care what service runs at the destination IP. 10. Murai: Concerned with adding new semantics to gTLD space. Should not overload the DNS. DNS is the only distributed global database on the Internet so far. So while we can think of many ways of using it, we shouldn’t overuse it. Shouldn’t try too much at once. 11. Pisanty: Agree with Murai. Did not feel that enough protection in place against hoarding. Dispute resolution procedures may be inadequate. Risk of registration of entire white pages is troubling. 12. $18 million of startup funding. D. Touton: Other entrants from Personal Group? 1. Touton: Telnic dedicated primarily to Voice Over IP applications, although not associated with telephone numbers. • Cerf: Helpful to be able to call someone via DNS even if no way to enter the alpha strings. • Kraaijenbrink: If we award .tel now, we’d block future uses of .tel. Letters from ITU and IETF suggest that we shouldn’t take a decision on .tel at this time. • Schink: .tel is premature at this time. 2. No Telnic in basket. IX. General Purpose TLDS – Restricted Content Group A. Touton: Present here are .kids and .xxx. B. Fockler: Looked at this category and the next together. These are the challenges of a restricted group. Would like to see one, but would end up with one in the next group (Restricted Commercial). C. Kraaijenbrink: Not convinced that .xxx would protect children. But impressed by .KIDS Domain. Would put that into basket, but with a proviso that their structure for registry policy must be both transparent and strict. D. Dyson: We shouldn’t promise this in the first place. And this would be more than we can deliver. Creating .kids domain sends a message that you can rely on DNS for content restrictions. Problematic if we then can’t deliver. E. Kraaijenbrink: Only facilitates, doesn’t promise. Worth considering. F. Cerf: Can’t oppose doing something for kids. But Parry Aftab speaks eloquently against this. And other ways to achieve the same objective – portals, with online use limited to sites linked by the portal. So end up disinclined to do this. G. Kyong: Agree with Dyson. H. Dyson: Rely on a filter? Questions of effectiveness. I. Kraaijenbrink: Browsers have integrated features to do this. But if we’re expanding the namespace, I believe this could be helpful. J. Roberts: These applications would be “roadmaps to content.” Content of this TLD involves social values difficult to take a position on. 1. Kraaijenbrink: Would form a trust among these information suppliers, and back it up with contracts between registrant, registrar, registry. Point to content but not regulate content. Responsibility of registrant to assure that content is appropriate. K. Cerf: Fiduciary responsibility to be careful here. L. Wilson: This is in my parallel basket. M. Fitzsimmons: .KIDS is best in class. This may make sense on a long-term basis. But can’t place it in a proof-of-concept batch for reasons already mentioned. N. Touton: GAC may be able to provide helpful advice here. X. General Purpose TLDs – Restricted Commercial Group A. Touton: Candidates in this group? B. Cerf: .fin sounds better after suggestion of forming a sponsoring organization. C. Dyson: Like .fin because it doesn’t seem too earth-shaking. Not sure where it fits in with central banks, etc. Who defines who’s a bank and who isn’t? Relevant national regulations. D. Fockler: RegistryPro proposal seemed able to test restricted TLD concept without much harm, etc. 1. Kraaijenbrink: Agree. 2. Fitzsimmons: Agree. 3. Dyson: Agree. E. Kraaijenbrink: Understood .fin to request “shelving” for later decision. F. Schink: Propose .travel. 1. Schink: Much online interest in travel. Need more trust in making reservations, etc. TLD could be a safe haven here. 2. McLaughlin: Staff struggled with how to evaluate these two (.travel and .fin). Hard to know how to interpret the opposition. Had hoped not to receive opposition. Concerned that perhaps not enough consensus-building done in advance. Understand that tight timeframe made this hard, and relevant communities are huge. But haven’t been able to give Board much information about representativeness of these two. Board could say “authorize negotiations with one or both of these, pending show of further support from community.” 3. Cerf: Certainly true for .fin. But understood the IATA representative to say that millions of people supported them. • McLaughlin: Convinced that IATA is serious about satisfying the relevant community. But these are difficult decisions, and we didn’t think we were well-equipped to decide here. 4. Dyson: Employees of organizations don’t always identify with their employers. Just as companies may not represent their workers, IATA is a trade association that may not share the interests of its members. Industry is in transition, and IATA may not represent the interests of all its members. We’re not here to do everything that might make sense if we fully investigate it; we’re choosing proof-of-concept domains that don’t have these kinds of problems. 5. Wilson: Turbulence in the industry makes it premature to assign .travel. 6. Schink: Does Dyson’s comment apply to all international organizations, or just IATA? • Dyson: Mostly concerned about IATA. 7. Cohen: Trying to identify the strong applications that have to do with proof of concept. Maybe we’ll be able to accept this at some point in the future, but it doesn’t fit the model for what we’re doing now. That should be the end of its consideration. G. Wilson: Look at .LAW? 1. Cohen: Yes, it fits the proof of concept model. Should look at it. 2. Kraaijenbrink: .LAW might be redundant with .PRO. And .LAW is US-oriented; things are different elsewhere. 3. Neuhauser: Modest technical plans to suit a modest scale of registration. No particular objections, but small starting point. Own software, not yet tested in a large way. Among the weaker applications from a technical perspective. But could take a risk with it – a weaker application doing more modest things, but probably an acceptable risk on balance. • Cerf: The .MD software? • Yes. 4. Not clear that any US or non-US bar association involved at all. If anyone will give out a .LAW address, these seem natural sources of support. • Touton: Similar criticism against RegistryPro. • But they’ll seek certification and work with bar associations. 5. Some challenges with .LAW are well-solved in .PRO’s application. RegistyPro application has a detailed plan for how to make determinations re who is a lawyer, etc. But .LAW application says only “have made a proposal to American Bar Association and have continuing discussions.” Presents some problems from a staff standpoint. At least RegistyPro’s plan is more detailed. • Cerf: Will not exclude anyone from future considerations. Should move on to next alternative. 6. Wilson: Understand reservations. But this is attractive to me because it creates immediate competition with .PRO. And .LAW would have educational institutions, court reporters, etc. An interesting vertical cut. 7. Cerf: Put this in your basket? XI. Special-Purpose TLDs A. .Museum 1. Touton: In the basket. B. Dyson: .AIR. 1. Kyong: How can we give out .AIR? (Seems like a public resource or something?) Too big. Give .AIRLINES or .AIRPLANES instead? 2. Cerf: If the string were more precise, less concern here? A reasonable proposal except for this concern that “AIR” is too generic a word. 3. Kraaijenbrink: A good proposal for a specific sector. 4. Kyong: Would go along with that if the staff negotiates for a more specific string. 5. Kraaijenbrink: We could think of a more generic term? “.AERO” 6. Pisanty: Fewer questions here about representativeness. C. Cerf: .CO-OP 1. Cerf: Term is international. Many members. Looks good. 2. Schink: Support this if properly administered by an international body. 3. Pisanty: Policy to be set internationally. That’s good. But does this proposal get us into tricky trademark problems? 4. Kraaijenbrink: Difference between .co-op and .coop? Which should we delegate? (Both requested.) Agree with Pisanty that Board of the TLD administrator should be international. Also, note that co-ops less and less important in Europe. 5. McLaughlin: Proposed registry operator located in UK – Poptel. 6. Touton: Into basket. D. Schink: .HEALTH 1. Kraaijenbrink: Oppose .HEALTH at this time. Its registry policy is not yet clear. Similar problem to .kids. Trying to control content through agreements with registrants. Support the idea, but further development necessary before we can delegate this. 2. Cerf: Respect WHO. But don’t understand how they’d achieve their objective (quality information about health) with mechanisms proposed. Pursue this idea at a later date. 3. Touton: No consensus to put it in the basket. E. Pisanty: Let’s discuss .UNION. 1. Kraaijenbrink: Same reservations as .HEALTH. 2. Dyson: Favor .UNION but want to make sure it works with others. 3. Fockler: Need international scope and further consultations and support. Should condition negotiations on this. 4. Kyong: Representativeness of this organization (or organizations) in question on international scope. 5. Schink: Understand concerns. Want to check whether we have opportunity to ask GAC for guidance here. 6. Cerf: Like the idea of going through our basket to request GAC comment. 7. McLaughlin: Note that ICFTU not a governmental organization. Not proposing to exclude unions that aren’t members of their federation. Questions of definition (is a company-owned union a union?). 8. Pisanty: This is an organization of union-confederations, not of unions themselves. 9. Touton: Put it in basket? Some no’s. Put it on Linda’s list? XII. New Services TLDs – Telephony-Related Group, Message Routing, and Other Group A. Cerf: Re phone numbers, ITU wants phone numbers only in certain portions of DNS space. Need to think carefully about this to avoid problems including potential hijacking. 1. Touton: Group One does not put a forward-facing telephone number in the DNS address. Lawyer said these domains could be used for telephone devices. And numbers coincidentally the same as telephone numbers could be registered, but that didn’t make these telephone numbers. B. Wilson: Look for strongest new-services related applicant, then decide? That might affect our approach to the ITU’s comments. 1. Cerf: Yes, we’ll definitely go back through the basket. C. Kraaijenbrink: SRI International (.GEO) 1. Cerf: Questions of protocols used by .GEO proposal. 2. Dyson: A heavyweight, specific way of organizing the world by geography. They’re asking for a public resource position to manage everything managed by geography. But is SRI the appropriate body to be doing this task, which perhaps should be worldwide? They’re trying to be the central repository. And any privacy issues? Only distributes data that is put in there, so maybe no concern? • McLaughlin: Clear to SRI is build a way of referencing geographic information. Other efforts possible. Don’t see this as a monopoly, and anticipate some additions. Re privacy, have some ideas and plans, and an advisory body. 3. Murai: Concept has been discussed in various contexts beyond DNS. Could be provided via DNS using other information within DNS. Still need to discuss this with IETF, IAB, GIS experts, others. Now is not the time to do this. 4. Cerf: Agreed that there are other ways to do this. But if this isn’t irrevocable, we could at least look at the experiment. Difficulty of building reverse-lookup table makes this proposal appealing. 5. Murai: Not confident that this should be done via the namespace as a gTLD. 6. Cerf: Other technologies might be more efficient for searching the database. But this won’t be damaging. And if this does pose a problem, we could readily tell SRI “don’t do that because it hurts the ‘net.” 7. McLaughlin: Does this interfere with other proposals? • Murai: No. • Cerf: Sufficient interest in this to let the experiment go forward? 8. Roberts: Proponents have invested technical effort, funds in this effort. 9. Fockler: Sounds like we could learn a lot from this, so I’d put this in my basket. 10. Fitzsimmons: One of most intriguing entries. Can understand concerns about scalability. Favor this only if acceptance is subsequent to technical reviews, perhaps even ongoing at a few designated points in the future. 11. Dyson: Put it in the basket last. Cool to have, but not inherently necessary. Could be accomplished just as well without its own TLD. 12. Fitzsimmons: May learn a lot from the resulting other uses as a result of .GEO. 13. Touton: In basket. D. Cohen: Group One 1. Cerf: Received conflicting information about the nature of the numbers. 2. Touton: “… the fact that a number may register a name coincidentally to a phone number has no more significance than in any other TLD.” Suggests no restrictions to prevent telephone numbers from being registered. • Wilson: If that’s our main concern, could we make this something to negotiate? (i.e. Group One to block phone number registrations?) 3. Cerf: Registration with intention of using the string like a phone number is what causes the problem. • Touton: Projected revenue of 80% from telephones is of some concern. • Dyson: They said that their domains are convenient to use from a telephone. 4. Cerf: In light of uncertainty here, shouldn’t approve a telephony-related TLD. E. Nokia 1. Kraaijenbrink: Need more substance in the proposal. Don’t favor this as yet. XIII. Moving forward A. Roberts: Comment on where we are. We’ve progressively promoted applications to subsequent rounds. This is the fourth round. Let’s call what we just finished the semi-final round. Now we need to promote the semifinalists to a final list for instructions to staff for limited, controlled introduction. • Wilson: Fine, so long as we preserve diversity. Must not have all finalists from the same country, of same size, etc. • Roberts: Agree. We’ve been keeping track of this. B. Review of List 1. Fockler and Dyson: Review .UNION? It was close. 2. Cerf: There are many that some of us might want to add. 3. Touton: Anything to remove? Remember, we can’t accept everyone in this first round. 4. Cerf: Want to assure that the applications we choose this time have a good possibility of being successful. C. Touton: What should go into final selection? 1. Cerf: Don’t want to take anything out of that list? 2. Dyson: It is a broad and diverse list. Have questions about one or two. Overall, it does what we intend. A good selection of a broad and wide-ranging applicants. Nothing that’s “other-centric” (i.e. non-US-centric). 3. Everyone comfortable with JVTeam’s position on the list? • Yes. • Cerf: JVTeam seems to have three. Not prepared to vote for all three. • Touton: Which to take out? D. Touton: Review of list 1. Confirmation that “everyone OK” with each? • Uncertainty on .AIR/.AERO. Change to .AERO only. • Murai: .GEO could be accommodated in any namespace. • Touton: Note that this is the third JVTeam proposal on the list. • Dyson: Replace it with Name.space! • Touton: Delete it for this proof-of-concept round? • Murai: They can continue to operate without a TLD. 2. Wilson: Geographic regions? • Additions of geog information to list. 3. Touton: Specify particular TLDs, or leave it up to staff for negotiations? • Kraaijenbrink: Must delegate strings. For Affilias, .web. For Global Name Registry, .name. Must be specific. • Cerf: Agree with ultimate goal of assigning only one string. Should review secondary lists too. • Fockler: Thought we chose .web and .name, respectively, already. Could have conflicts when we revisit others, though. 4. Wilson: Did not understand that putting items in the basket meant assigning .web to Affilias. 5. Roberts: Find .iii unacceptable as a string for TLD space. It’s unpronounceable. It has no mnemonic value. It’s confusing. It says nothing about meaning. • Kraaijenbrink: But it is a joint venture between Sarnoff and JVTeam. Maybe they’d be happy with .per instead? That was JVTeam’s request. • Touton: The three-letter abbreviation for Peru is PER. GAC has advised against delegating the three-character strings that correspond to country-codes. • Cerf: So where are we, if .per is untenable? • Roberts: Would delete .iii from the list. • Kraaijenbrink: Have eight viable proposals. Ready to make decisions. 6. Cerf: Still interested in Wilson’s list. 7. Dyson: How serious is the .per country-code problem? Lots of such problems? • Touton: Approximately 240 such problems. • Dyson: Other choices? • Touton: .idi, some others. • McLaughlin: Could resolve this with some back-and-forth? E. Dyson: .UNION? Name.Space? F. Wilson: .KIDS? .LAW? Name.Space? G. Schink: These are just private lists? Or a fallback solution? 1. Touton: Want to take a second look at these. H. Kraaijenbrink: Might buy .KIDS, but not Name.Space, not .LAW? There’s consensus to add little more. I. Cerf: Still interested in IOD. But if rest of Board disagrees, I’ll stop. They’re worked with .WEB for some time. To assign that to someone else given that they’re actually functioning makes me uneasy. 1. Wilson: Agree with Vint. 2. Could grant Afilias .info or .site instead? • From responses to questions to Afilias: “Afilias believes .web is most likely to succeed as a viable and immediate alternative to the current gTLDs, and thus would most successfully constitute a true proof-of-concept. … would strive to make its operation of either the .web, .info, or .site TLD a success.” 3. Cerf: Concerned about trademarks? • Touton: No US trademark right in .web. 4. Fitzsimmons: Appreciate risk taken. But have to be careful of preregistration. The wrong decision here might set up the wrong incentives and precedents, encouraging people to set up registries in advance of applying to ICANN. • Touton: This sometimes happens with port numbers, etc. It’s an activity to be discouraged. 5. Broad consensus with respect to any of the five additional TLDs? Name.Space, IODesign, .UNION, .KIDS, .LAW. • McLaughlin: Determination of who’s a union? An independent body. Reviewed comment forum, and there were no union organizations opposing the application. AFL-CIO favored this. Board must decide how representative the comments in favor were. • Cohen: This is a good proof-of-concept. Technically sound. Representative. • Kraaijenbrink: Don’t know if it’s representative. Don’t know registration policy. It might be delegated in the future, but not in this batch. • Touton: Board members who haven’t spoken on this subject? Show of hands? Five favor addition to main list. Five against. No consensus. J. Review of applications – straw polls 1. JVTeam (.biz): All in favor, but Murai abstains 2. Afilias (.web): Eight in favor. Three abstentions. 3. Global Name Registry (.name): Consensus. 4. Sarnoff/JVTeam (.iii): Six in favor. Dyson: Change string? 5. RegistryPro (.pro): Consensus. 6. MDMA (.museum): Consensus. 7. SITA (.aero): Consensus. 8. NCBA (.coop): Consensus, with two abstentions. K. Touton: Change the string for Sarnoff/JVTeam (.iii) to increase support? 1. Wilson: Yes. But not sure it’s our job to suggest the string. 2. Touton: Say “get one string, require approval of Board before execution of agreement.” • Wilson: Yes, but Board shouldn’t delegate approval. • Propose “.idi, .iii, .one, or some other string.” Section E2 of Sarnoff/JVTeam proposal. • Dyson: .ONE seems OK? • Sims: Application has changed dramatically since it was made. String is apparently not acceptable to a number of members of the Board. Application actually only requested “.i.” Accordingly, Board might postpone this application to a later date. 3. Touton: Support .iii proposal in basket? • Little support. Remove from basket. 4. Cerf: Why we changed our minds? Would love to find something else, but want the applicant to find it, not for us to do so. • Dyson: Sure. Let’s negotiate with them on the subject of the specific string. • Cerf: But proposal has not even been reported to us as a combined proposal. Take Sims’s comment to be a caution that we haven’t seen a proposal from the joint group. 5. Touton: A one-page sheet was distributed yesterday re how to combine the two extensive proposals. • Cerf: Would like to keep them on the list, but subsequent to negotiation that we approve. 6. Kraaijenbrink: How many votes to have? How many recounts? First time, six for it. Now, two for it. Isn’t it out of order now to have another vote? • Cerf: We didn’t vote on my specific proposal, to remand the string decision to negotiation. Should vote on that. 7. Touton: Straw poll on Sarnoff/JV Team, for negotiation of TLD string. • Wilson: Is this within our procedures? • Sims: This would raise at least some claims re sticking to process. • Touton: Agree. The joining of two applications may not be thought fair either. Other applicants may complain that they weren’t permitted to change their application after submitting it. • Straw poll: No one in favor. XIV. Resolution? A. Touton: Any director not prepared to vote for a resolution selecting these proposals with these strings? B. Sims: String before the board for the Afilias application is .web, not .info or .site or anything else. Let there be no confusion here. C. Roberts: As I recall it, discussion to get Afilias into the basket considered .web. 1. Cerf: Continue to be concerned about assigning .web to Afilias. Would be more comfortable if we assigned them a different string and reserved .web. 2. Kraaijenbrink: Have discussed and considered the Afilias proposal on .web. We should award them .web, knowing that IOD has been in operation as an alternative root with .web for some time. Fully aware of what we’re doing here. 3. Fockler: Would be comfortable with voting on the whole package. 4. Roberts: Support for changing the string restriction? 5. Touton: Straw poll for continuing to include Afilias with .web? 6. Sims: Board’s decision must be a consensus decision. Just want to be careful. 7. Cerf: Board support for reserving .web and awarding Afilias .info? 8. Sims: Afilias with the .web string is currently on the list. How many directors want to leave it on the list as it is? Six. How many are opposed to having Afilias awarded .web? Three. Rest abstain. Is that consensus? 9. Sims: Award .info to Afilias (instead of .web)? Eight in favor. Two opposed. More of a consensus. 10. Cerf: Recommend that Afilias be awarded .info. 11. Schink: Do this for every applicant? • Sims: No, this is the only one that was a close call. 12. Sims: Afilias on the list with .info? Nine in favor. Consensus. • Note that Afilias proposed this is an alternative – E2, paragraph 3. XV. Logistical notes: Please be quiet during and after the vote. Logistical meeting afterwards. XVI. Resolution A. [Resolution read and presented] [link: http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-16nov00.htm#SelectionofNewTLDProposals] B. Move to accept resolutions read. C. Unanimously accepted. XVII. Other Business A. Proposed resolution: Thanks to departing directors. [link] B. Crew: Thanks to stakeholders for never ignoring us. C. Dyson: Increasing diversity on Board is important and valuable. Sad to leave. Looking forward to staying in touch. D. Roberts: Vote? All in favor. Passes unanimously. XVIII. Motion to Adjourn XIX. Ad-Hoc Group - Kraaijenbrink A. Should keep Comment Forum up until March. Report to be prepared well in advance of next Board meeting so that public comments can be reported at the next Board Meeting. XX. Status of ccTLD Negotiations? - Abril A. Roberts: Working on it. Staff will have a report to Board via email within a week. XXI. Meetings - Roberts A. March 10-13 (Saturday through Tuesday) in Melbourne. B. Crew: Will start working on that shortly. Will be happy to welcome everyone. I’ll be on host committee. Other events nearby. C. Stockholm, Sweden – June 1-4, 2001 – prior to, same venue as INET 2001, Stockholm Conference Center. XXII. Other notes A. InfoDev fellows, please see McLaughlin. XXIII. Motion to Adjourn Board Meeting A. All in favor. CONTACT INFORMATION For additional technical information, please contact: Ben Edelman and Rebecca Nesson |