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[announce] NC Teleconference minutes June 6, 2002



[To: council@dnso.org ]
[ To: ga@dnso.org, announce@dnso.org ]


[ http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020606.NCteleconf-minutes.html ]

ICANN/DNSO

         DNSO Names Council Teleconference on 6 June 2002 - minutes

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

10 June 2002.

Proposed agenda and related documents
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020502.NCteleconf-agenda.html

List of attendees:

Peter de Blanc         ccTLD absent, apologies, proxy to Oscar Robles/
Elisabeth Porteneuve
Elisabeth Porteneuve   ccTLD
Oscar Robles Garay     ccTLD

Philip Sheppard        Business
Marilyn Cade           Business
Grant Forsyth          Business
Greg Ruth              ISPCP
Antonio Harris         ISPCP
Tony Holmes            ISPCP absent, apologies proxy to Tony Harris
Philipp Grabensee      Registrars absent,
Ken Stubbs             Registrars
Bruce Tonkin           Registrars
Roger Cochetti         gTLD
Richard Tindal         gTLD  absent,
Cary Karp              gTLD  absent, apologies, proxy to Roger Cochetti,
Richard Tindall
Ellen Shankman         IP
Laurence Djolakian     IP
J. Scott Evans         IP
Harold Feld            NCDNH absent,
Chun Eung Hwi          NCDNH absent,
Erick Iriate           NCDNH absent,

13 Names Council Members

Thomas Roessler        GA Chair
Alexander Svensson     GA Alternate Chair

Glen de Saint Géry     NC Secretary
Alix Guillard          MP3 Recording Engineer/Secretariat

MP3 recording of the meeting by the Secretariat:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/mp3/20020606.NCteleconf.mp3

Quorum present at 15:10 (all times reported are CET which is UTC + 2 during
summer time in the northern hemisphere).

Philip Sheppard chaired this NC teleconference.

Approval of the Agenda
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020606.NCteleconf-agenda.html



An additional item was added to the agenda:
Status report regarding Deletions, Solutions, and WLS.
Prepared by Marilyn Cade, Chair
Transfer Task Force

The agenda was approved.

Item 1. Summary of last meeting:

http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020529.NCteleconf-minutes.html

J. Scott Evans moved the adoption of the summaries, seconded by Ken Stubbs
The motion was carried. There were two abstentions: Elisabeth Porteneuve and
Peter de Blanc for whom Elisabeth Porteneuve was holding a proxy vote.

Decision 1: Motion adopted.

Item 1: Transfer Task Force status report.

Council was asked by the Board in a resolution to transfer to the Transfer
Task Force a request for assessment on deletions, solutions and wait listing
service. The Status report gives the background and the summary of documents
gathered so far. Comments were submitted by the Intellectual Property
Constituency, the Business Constituency, the General Assembly, individuals
and two open conference calls and a public forum published by ICANN. On June
10 a version will be set up for public comment and Council members should
send the report to their constituencies for comment. The Names Council
should vote on it in Bucharest. The actual recommendations will be put
forward to the Board at the Bucharest meeting on Thursday 27 June, 2002.

Item 2 - Discussion on Nominating Committee proposals from ICANN evolution
committee and others.

Philip Sheppard set out the process to be followed: He proposed the Chair
draft  a formal response to the last paper from the ICANN evolution and
reform committee. The Names Council's work to date allows a response to many
issues in the document . It was agreed the Chair will write a draft for
e-mail comment and subsequent approval during the next teleconference on
June 17.

In comparing the NC recommendations to the Committee's paper, Philip
Sheppard said that the fundamental difference was a top-down approach
recommended by the evolution committee and the continuation of a bottom-up
approach  in the Names Council recommendations.  The main categories in
which the top down approach is happening are threefold:

     1. The composition of the Board
     1.1 Today the policy development bodies (like the old DNSO) elect 9
     board seats. In the proposal they elect none. Instead a nominating
     committee (nomcomm) choose 3 board representatives to represent the
     policy development bodies.
     1.2 In addition the nominating committee appoints some or all other
     Board members.
     1.3 There maybe some board seats available for advisory bodies such as
     the Security Advisory Body (SAC). But the SAC rep on the Board will be
     a Board appointee.

     2. Composition of the nominating committee (a circular endorsement
     process)
     2.1 There is a suggestion that the Board "ratify" the people proposed
     to form the nominating committee who in turn appoint the Board.

     3. Control of the policy development organisations
     3.1. The Board appoints the chair of each of the policy development
     organisations who is then also a Board member.
     3.2 The steering committee of the policy development organisations
     (such as the old Names Council) will also have "an appropriate number"
     of nomcomm appointed members.

Discussion followed on the concept, scope and composition of a nominating
committee.

J. Scott Evans addressed the issue of the steering committee chair
appointment who would also be on the Board of Directors and felt that it was
an overload for one person on a volunteer basis to act effectively even with
staff assistance.

Roger Cochetti compared a top-down versus a bottom-up process. The benefits
of a top-down process are
efficiency and speed but the drawbacks are lack of accountability and
legitimacy. A bottom-up process can be messy and time consuming, but it
forces accountability and legitimacy. He preferred the latter approach.

Bruce Tonkin said that the Registrars community support a nominating
committee but in fact it should be called a selection committee. The
Constituency wanted the generic supporting organisation to be able to select
voting members of the Board. The Registrars want an elected nominating
committee. They believe it would be acceptable for the nominating committee
to select some members of the new Names Council.

Grant Forsyth echoed what Roger Cochetti said, and was in favour of a
nominating committee for some board seats only.

Ken Stubbs felt that the persons delegated to represent the Generic Name
Supporting Organisation (GNSO) should be elected by that body.

J. Scott Evans's concern was with control, circular appointments and
funding. He understood that the reason behind the proposal was to divorce
policy development from  Board seats. He thought that a nominating committee
should not be electing the steering committee chairs or members but that the
SOs should elect their own board members.

Philip Sheppard questioned the reasoning behind an objective to divorce
policy development from Board seats. This maybe a theory that the Names
Council had an incentive to resist new NC constituencies because this would
dilute the 1 in 7 influence the Constituencies have in electing three board
seats. He said this seemed absurd. Conversely, if this was the incentive,
constituencies should be actively seeking allies to join as new
constituencies and so expand their slim chance of a  board seat.

Marilyn Cade noted that there was no evidence of a learning process
reflected in the committee documents. Most of the people who built ICANN are
not involved in the reform process. She stressed the importance of an
evolutionary approach that was focused. The right approach was more staff,
better procedures and tight timelines. She added that the At-Large effort
meets the public interest concerns of governments.

Elisabeth Porteneuve agreed with Marilyn Cade and added that ICANN had never
given any help to the DNSO. ICANN was set up for gTLD issues. Although the
ccTLDs never had a strong voice, they contributed expertise at national
level. They are in favour of evolution, and at the moment are working on
ICANN's mission and looking at the common denominators in the various
regions. They are seeking to identify those functions that cannot be
replaced by another structure (such as the IANA functions).

Thomas Roessler agreed with the previous viewpoints but added that precision
was lacking in the reform proposals. The areas that were particularly vague
or problematic were:
- ICANN mission statement
- Steering group members, what kind, their role?
- Volunteers with special backgrounds were heavily relied on but not funded.
- Advisory committees with a chair with a vote on the board is not a good
idea.
- Advisory bodies with ex officio board seats would be a disincentive to
create future advisory bodies and so deprive the board of expertise.

Ken Stubbs echoed a concern expressed by Joe Sims that from the consumer's
perspective there was a blurring with regard to websites which were
geographic ccTLDs and those that acted as generic TLDs. He called for a
methodology in bringing about uniformity. Elisabeth Porteneuve responded
adding that concern was expressed about registrars' resellers who were
anonymous.

Philip Sheppard proposed the following recommendations:

1. There should be consistent criteria for participation in ICANN policy
development bodies. Among such criteria there should be the obligation to
abide by ICANN policies.

This proposal was not acceptable to the ccTLDs except on a technical level.
It was decided to defer debate for the time being.

2. Board members for Policy development bodies
The four policy development bodies, ccTLD, gTLD, addressing and protocol
should elect an equal number of board members.

Recommendation accepted by all.

3. A nominating committee should select a quota of board seats which will be
less than or equal to that number elected from the policy development
bodies.

Voting was as follows:7 In favour, 4 Against, 2 Abstentions.

The recommendation was carried.

The ISPCPC wishes their derogation to be recorded, the ccTLDs are not in
favour of a nominating committee.

The council then discussed the possible composition of a nominating
committee. Bruce Tonkin addressed the Registrars proposal. There should be
15 Members of the nominating committee made up as follows:
5 from the At-Large group
5 from the User groups
5 from the suppliers

Thomas Roessler raised the concern that it would be a duplication of the
board and an extension of the Names Council structure. He stated that there
should be different mechanisms for board election, and no mechanism
determining more than half of the board seats. Asked by Philip Sheppard what
the constructive role of the nominating committee would be, he replied that
the DNSO/GNSO would not have strong user, consumer and public interest and
it would be the task of the nominating committee to balance this.

In answer to the question: "Would the GA be happy with a number of seats
that could at a future point be taken away and eventually be given to the
At-Large?" Thomas replied that the GA would want elections now and later
clarified his view by e-mail.

Laurence commented that the IP consistency was in favour of the nominating
committee but that there should be a charter detailing criteria for
membership and its selections.

Ken Stubbs reminded Council that ICANN will only work in the future if there
is supporting personnel. All problems up to now are related to resources.
Council agreed and the chair agreed to emphasise this point in future
communications.

Philip Sheppard agreed to enquire of the ICANN Budget Committee why the $170
000 proposed by ICANN staff had not gone forward in the budget recommended
for Board adoption in Bucharest.

Thomas Roessler commented on the committee's proposed arbitration process,
saying that although he supported this, a mechanism was needed to ensure
low-funded groups could use arbitration. Council agreed. Bruce Tonkin
proposed  that the office of the ombudsman should have a budget for this.
Council agreed to revisit Recommendation 15 in light of the preferred
proposals for arbitration and an expanded role for the ombudsman.

Philip Sheppard concluded by saying that he would draft a reply to the ICANN
committee  that should be commented on by e-mail and be adopted during the
next teleconference to which he would invite the evaluation committee.

The teleconference ended at 16:50

Next NC teleconference June 17 at 15:00 Paris time, 13:00 UTC.

     See all past agendas and minutes at
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/2002calendardnso.html
     and calendar of the NC meetings at
     http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2002.NC-calendar.html

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 Information from:  © DNSO Names Council




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