GNSO Council Meeting.
 Cairo, Egypt. 
 05 November 2008.
 >>AVRI DORIA: We will start shortly.  We're trying to get all the people dialed in.  We'd like someone who would like to dial in but they can't, so we'll start shortly.  Okay.  Cyril, you can hear.  That's good.  But the transcription people still cannot hear.  Oh, you're already transcribing me.  Thank you.  Yes, there is also an echo.  Okay.  Can you hear.  You can hear now.
 Okay.  And we've got Cyril on the line, now?
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Cyril, can you hear us?
 >>CYRIL CHUA:  Yes, I can hear you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  In which case, we should start the meeting.  Okay.  Oh, one second.
 Okay.  We've done the first thing to start the meeting, which is the remote connectivity check, and I think we've got that.  As soon as Glen gets up here, we'll do roll call, formal roll call for the meeting.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Chuck Gomes.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Edmon Chung.
 >>EDMON CHUNG:  Here.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Olga Cavalli.
 >>OLGA CAVALLI:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Ute Decker.
 >>UTE DECKER:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Mike Rodenbaugh.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Present.  Happy to be an American.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Philip Sheppard.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  Good morning.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Tim Ruiz.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Adrian Kinderis.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Hello.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Great Ruth.
 >>GREG RUTH:  Here.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Tony Holmes.
 >>TONY HOLMES:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Tony Harris.
 >>TONY HARRIS:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Alan Greenberg.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:  Present.  
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Carlos Souza.
 >>CARLOS SOUZA:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Norbert Klein. 
 >>NORBERT KLEIN:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Robin Gross. 
 >>ROBIN GROSS:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Jon Bing. 
 >>JON BING:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Kristina Rosette. 
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Jordi Iparraguirre.
 >>JORDI IPARRAGUIRRE:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Tom Keller.
 >>TOM KELLER:  Yes.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Myself, and Avri Doria.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Present.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  And we have Cyril on the phone.  Cyril, are you there?  Can you hear us?
 >>CYRIL CHUA:  Yes, I'm here.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Do we have anyone else on the phone?  Okay.  Thank you.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  We have the full council present, Avri.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  Fantastic.
 Okay.  The next thing is to update any statement of interest.  Does anyone on the council wish to update their statement of interest at this time?
 Okay.  Seeing no one, reminder that anytime anyone does have a necessity to update their statement, they can send it in and then bring it up at the next meeting.
 The next thing is the agenda review.  The agenda is up on the screen.  Hopefully people can read it.  One change that I've made is after the agenda review, there will be a brief introduction of the SSAC review team who asked for a few minutes this morning.
 Are there any other issues or additions, questions, changes to the agenda?  Edmon, did you have any issues with the agenda?
 >>EDMON CHUNG:  Sorry.  Yes, I think what we just chatted about is the implementation plan for the fast track.  I think we have been pretty much preoccupied with the gTLD implementation plan, but I think maybe it's worthwhile taking a look at the fast track implementation plan as well, and --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  Would it be okay, since we don't have anything prepared for that today, that I basically ask people to comment on that among the things they comment on the general open discussion; that we basically remind people that that's one of the things, basically giving us ideas on what they think we should do about that, and that we put it on the agenda for our next meeting?  Would that be a reasonable path forward?
 >>EDMON CHUNG:  Yeah, I think that's a great way to go about it.  I did check the comment period for that implementation plan.  It closes December 8th.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  On December 8th?
 >>EDMON CHUNG:  December 8th.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  So we should have a meeting before that, but we'll cover that on Thursday.
 Okay.  Thank you.
 Any other comments on the agenda, or should we proceed with the agenda as posted, with that one note?  In which case, thank you.
 Can I now have the introduction to the SSAC review team, and I understand they have some slides.
 >> Good morning.  And not to worry.  Just one slide.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  Okay.  No, they have to -- yeah, they've got it.
 >>JEFF SCHMIDT:  My name is Jeff Schmidt and thanks for giving me 30 seconds this morning.  I just wanted to introduce myself and my other team member from JAS Communications, Billy Yang is also here in Cairo with me.  He's preparing our other meeting at this time.
 We were engaged to do the SSAC, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee review, and we will be reaching out to GNSO board members through your board leadership over the next 30 days.  Wanted to invite the rest of the attendees here, if you have any questions, comments, thoughts, concerns, experiences -- positive, negative or neutral -- with the SSAC, anything that you want to make us aware of as reviewers for the SSAC, please feel free to reach out to either myself or my two associates.  Bill Yang and I are both here.  You'll be very able to find us.  We're the consultants so we're in suits for the rest of the week, so...
 Thank you very much and I won't take up any more of your time.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Although there are lots of other people wearing suits.
 Okay.  To move to the next item on the agenda, it's the update on the AGP budget provision and consensus policy.  Craig.  Is Craig here to make that update?  He's on his way.
 Should we perhaps skip that item until he gets here and move on to Item 3, where we'll do that and then after Item 3 finishes, we can go back to Item 2.
 It is -- we are seven minutes earlier than I thought we would be on that one.  So we could start.
 Chuck, is that okay with you that we start that one?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Sure.  Okay.  We have a few slides on that.  I took advantage of the nice slide presentation that Denise used in the session two days ago, and just extracted a few of those and added a few comments, so if that slide -- that's not the right presentation.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  No, that's -- right, right.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  It's the GNSO improvements presentation.
 There we go.  That's it there.
 And go ahead and -- I don't have a box, do I, to signal you, so go ahead and move to the next slide.
 Thank you.
 This is going to be very brief because most everybody has -- is aware of these things, but for anybody who is not, the -- in the August-September time frame, the board made a decision -- thank you -- made a decision on the council structure.  I say August and September because there was a couple decisions that were made in that regard.
 Try that again.  There we go.  Okay.
 In September, the council approved the improvements planning team revised plan and structure and sent that to the board.  In that plan, it was proposed to establish a policy process steering committee, the PPSC, and an operations steering committee, the OSC, and then this week, this past Sunday actually, kickoff meetings were held for the two steering committees and I think both of those went very well.
 As far as a quick summary of the GNSO improvement recommendations, the four main areas of GNSO improvement recommendations were to adopt a working group model, enhance constituencies, improve communications with ICANN structures, and revise the policy development process.
 Now, on top of that -- and separate from the GNSO improvements effort -- is the GNSO Council restructure, and just want to make clear that the council will be handling implementation of that separate from the rest of the GNSO improvement recommendations.
 The -- as far as GNSO restructure, this slide gives a pretty good representation of that.  The recommendations go back to July 2008.  As you can see, the basic recommendation of the restructure was to create a bicameral voting structure in the council, having two houses -- a contracted parties house and a non-contracted parties house -- and that will be shown on another slide here, that would include one council-level nonvoting nominating committee appointee in each house, a voting -- excuse me, one voting nominating committee appointee in each house, and one nonvoting nominating committee appointee in the overall council.  Not in either house there.
 So there would be -- still be three nominating committee appointees.  Only two would be voting and two of the -- one of each of the two would be in each house.
 The GNSO Council chair would be elected by a 60% vote of both houses, and the recommendations also approve the thresholds that the committee recommended and that the council recommended.  I'm -- we're not going to -- I'm not going to go into those in this particular presentation because that gets into an awful lot of detail.
 There are two issues that the board has not approved that were part of the recommendations.  The first one has to do with the recommendation to elect each of the two board seats, one elected by the contracted parties house and one elected by the non-contracted party or users' house.
 That's out for public comment right now.  And the second issue was the role of individual users, whether those be commercial or noncommercial users, and whether or not they should be a part of the user side of the -- the users' house, and the appropriate stakeholder group there, or whether they should be exclusively involved in the at-large, and those -- that's also out for public comment.
 The organization, then -- here's a little better picture of that, with the council made up of 20 representatives, including one nonvoting noncommercial -- excuse me, nominating committee appointee.  And there you see the contracted party house and the non-contracted party house.  The contracted party house having six representatives from the two stakeholder groups, the registry stakeholder group having three, the registrar stakeholder group having three, and then it also includes one voting nominating committee appointee.
 The non-contracted party house would be made up of 12 representatives, six each from the commercial stakeholder group and the noncommercial stakeholder group, and the -- plus the voting noncom appointee.
 The implementation planning team proposal, as I said earlier, was -- suggested the formation of the two steering committees that you see there and that I already mentioned.  It was also suggested, although this is up to the steering committees to finalize, that the PPSC could have at least two working teams, one of them the PDP revision working team; the other one the working -- the working group team.
 So the -- to develop the model of the working group approach that's recommended by the board and that we've actually been experimenting with for the last few years.
 Under the OSC, it's recommended -- and the steering committees will decide this -- that there be three working teams:  A GNSO operations work team that would focus on things like the administrative rules of the council, bringing those up-to-date for the new model, quite a few other things that would come at a GNSO Council level; then there would be a constituency operation work team to work on the recommendations from the board that relate to constituency operations; and then a communications work team that would focus on the recommendations from the board with regard to the intercommunications between the SOs and the advisory committees, Web site communications, et cetera.
 There also could be some special focus teams that are created there for special, more technically focused needs like Web site improvement, project management tools, et cetera.
 Now, the important thing for our meeting today and for the council to discuss and begin to give some direction to are certain action items.
 Now, some of these will be action items that are further out, but the most immediate action item from the board action is for the council to develop, in cooperation with our constituencies, the -- a restructuring implementation plan, and that is due before the December 11th board meeting.  So this is a really very short time frame.  Basically a month, I guess, because we should get it to the board hopefully a week in advance of their meeting.
 So that's the most immediate action item.
 It will be the council's responsibility to oversee the steering committees.  One of the assignments from the board, in their motion, is that we figure out how the election of chair would be handled if we don't succeed in a first ballot.  Obviously, we will eventually have to elect a GNSO Council chair, and under the new model it's quite likely, I think, that we will have -- probably continue, in the interim, as we are now.  With that election, I would assume -- it's not for me to say, but I would assume that would happen in June, once we form the bicameral body.
 In the meantime obviously we have council officer terms ending here I think the end of January.  So we'll have to deal with that in the interim, as well.
 We'll have to recommend any voting thresholds that might need to be added.  We did actually recommend that any vote that was not covered by the thresholds we decided would be decided by a simple majority of each house, but they have asked us to take a look and see if there are any other specific thresholds that should be added to what we have there.
 This slide will talk about the implementation phases that the board recommended.  The first phase is -- of GNSO Council restructuring, as I just noted, needs to be in advance of the December 11th board meeting, and so I won't go over that any further.
 Phase 2, existing constituencies are asked to submit confirmation documents to the board in review of its February board meeting.  So that's a constituency action item that each of us who are members of constituencies need to communicate back to our organizations.
 Phase 3 is stakeholder groups need to submit formal plans for approval by the board for consideration at the April Mexico City ICANN board meeting.  So that goes a little bit beyond constituencies and the four stakeholder groups -- registrars, registries, noncommercial users and the commercial users stakeholder groups -- all need to submit those plans for board approval in advance of the Mexico City meeting.
 And then Phase 4, stakeholder groups with plans approved by the board would select their council representatives and the newly structured GNSO is to be seated at the Asia-Pacific ICANN meeting in June.
 Okay.  Now, I can go back to slides -- that's the end of the presentation.  Avri, I'll let you take it from there.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  What I'd like to do is ask if there's anybody on the council that would like to add any comments or discussion to that at this point.  Yes, Norbert.
 >>NORBERT KLEIN:  It's just a simple question.  I have the document which is on the agenda here, but is this slide also available?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I believe -- yes, the slides are available?  Okay.  The slides will be posted.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  And just a suggestion, Norbert.  A much more complete presentation was given by Denise a couple days ago in the GNSO improvements session.  I would suggest that it would be good if that was available as well.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  So not seeing any comments, is there anyone that would like to comment on that?  And one of the things I will do is, because we ended up jumping up the schedule, and I think it was a slight impatience on my part that I should have just waited a minute, I will also just ask if there are issues on this again after we've done the AGP, just in case there was somebody who was only coming to the meeting in time for that discussion.
 So I will bring up the question again.  But now I wanted to go out and ask people -- yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Yeah.  And I'm fine with waiting until we come back to this topic in a little bit, but it seems to me that with the short time frame, that today, if possible, we should map out how we're going to develop that implementation plan.  Whether that means forming a small drafting team or whatever.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  We can certainly talk about that, or we can put that on our agenda in terms of the Thursday meeting, but we can certainly discuss it now.
 But at this point I'm wondering if there's anyone in the community that wanted to comment on the GNSO restructuring plan work that's being done.  I don't see any numbers in the sky, so as I say, I'll come back to it later.
 Did anybody want to comment on what Chuck just mentioned?
 In terms of putting together this restructuring plan in terms of the bicamerals, I'm wondering to what extent -- and this is something I'm trying to understand -- to what extent is that a joint constituencies action more than, or in addition to, a council action, is a question I would ask.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Well, I think that certainly the involvement in constituent -- of constituencies, like everything we do, needs to be an important part of that, but it's the council that's been tasked with making sure that that plan is delivered.
 So I think it goes without saying that there needs to be full constituency involvement, and -- as well as our NomCom appointees and SO -- advisory committee liaisons.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Another question I would ask, then:  Does this, in any sense, fall under -- and I don't think it does but I want to make sure the OSC or the planning team's work?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  And my answer to that is no.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Because we made the conscious decision to separate the structure implementation from all of the other GNSO improvements.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.
 So in terms of putting together a drafting team, it would seem like any drafting team would need to have at least one person from each constituency, and perhaps other people.
 Would anybody like to comment on that at this point?  Do people think, in general, that it's a good idea that we put together such a team?  And we can talk about the details of it more at the Thursday meeting.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I would just suggest, especially since I'm going to be unable to make the Thursday meeting, that each of us appoint -- name representatives and communicate that to the list within, you know, a week or so, so that that group can get going.  Because it really is a very short window.  And I don't think it's going to be terribly complicated, but we've only got about a month.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes.
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:  I see that we've received a message from staff indicating that a notice of intent to form a new constituency has been received, and I was hoping that perhaps we could talk or refresh, for the purposes of those who may not have been following this issue as closely as we have, what our plans are for allowing participation in these drafting processes by representatives of such groups that have, in fact, started that constituency formation process.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  Yes, we certainly -- I mean, we talked about that some in terms of the OSC.  I know this is not an OSC activity, where I think there had been a decision not to allow constituencies in formation -- and certainly this one wouldn't be even a constituency in formation yet because it hasn't gotten that far in terms of having done any formal work -- but how would like to comment on that issue?  Anyone have a viewpoint on allowing -- or a view in terms of constituencies who have filed an intent to form and their level of participation in the planning process?  Does anyone else -- anyone in the community wish to comment on that?
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:  Avri, I would think that we would like to consider at least perhaps allowing them to observe, if not -- you know, to the extent that there's a decision made that in the drafting team, there will be a rough consensus decision-making standard that perhaps it would not be appropriate for them to participate in that, but I think at least to have the opportunity to observe how these things work.  Particularly as they're moving towards the process of forming a constituency I think may allow them to identify earlier on what type of resources they themselves will need as they go forward.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  That seems something that we should discuss.  Perhaps we could put like a motion together and discuss that at our next meeting, once we've had a motion and people have had a chance to talk about it in their constituencies.
 Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I support Kristina's suggestion there, and I -- and I'd like to ask this question:  I would assume that like we, I think, do pretty regularly, that observers could still participate in the discussions, if there were any votes they wouldn't be able to vote, and so I'd like to confirm that.  If that's the thinking of the council.
 And also, we may want to -- and I don't think this is an urgent item but we may want to take this a step further in the not-too-distant future and, in cases where new constituencies reach some particular level of formation where they could actually be involved -- now, that's something, I think, we can look at a little more further, but we're going to have to decide what is that level in which they might have fuller participation, but that's an issue for a later time.
 But I would like some clarification on whether there's -- you know, anybody opposes the observer status that Kristina asked -- suggested, and whether that would include participation in discussions, just not any voting, if there was any.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Is that something you are looking for now or something when we have a motion drafted and discuss it at our next meeting?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I would like to hear it now if people have comments.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Certainly -- Yes, Tim.  Certainly comments now but still we would not make any decisions on it until we had a motion and voted on it at a meeting.  Tim?
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Assuming most of the work would be open any way and transparent, accessible by the public, at least in an archived fashion, I wouldn't see a problem with that.  Just wanted to make one thing -- or clarify one thing in regard -- when we are talking about voting, that I think in most cases the intent on these processes going forward is to work by consensus in some form.  So it isn't so much voting but they would be included in the consensus process as observers.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes, thank you.  Anyone else wish to comment on this at this point?
 Anyone in the community want to?  No.
 As I said, just in case anybody was planning to come just for this discussion, looked at our schedule, didn't know that I was going to jump ahead when I really probably shouldn't have, I'll come back -- I'll do a quick reiteration of what went on and then go on.  But if there is no further comment on that at this point, I will put this item on hold and ask Craig to come up and talk about the AGP budget provision and consensus policy.  And they have your slides?  
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  I'm not going to use slides.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  It is probably good if you stand where you can easily be seen.  You don't want to stand up here, huh?  Come on, stand up here with us.
 >> (Speaker Off Microphone).
 >>AVRI DORIA:  You can leave the improvement slides up.  It doesn't really matter.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  Thank you.  Good morning.  I apologize for my tardiness today.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Actually, you weren't tardy.  I jumped the gun.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  Okay, well, on the AGP, both the budget provision and the AGP limits consensus policy, I will start with the latter first.  As the community knows, the board approved in June the GNSO's recommendations on the domain tasting consensus policy and staff has been working to develop the implementation plan for that.
 In August, staff reached out to the gTLD registries for input to the implementation plan and the input that was received has been incorporated and draft was produced in the early part of September for that.  Subsequent to that draft, a revised version was then recirculated again to the registries and the ICANN-accredited registrars and feedback from both of those constituencies incorporated into the draft.  And as the community can see, a draft of the implementation was posted on 20 October and the public comment period will run through 20 November, at which point we plan to -- staff has plans to announce the implementation.
 At this point, based upon the public comments that have been received, which are generally supportive, we envision that the plan will go forward and be posted by the end of November for implementation by the registries.  And it is our expectation that the registries that provide for an AGP in their agreements would have implemented this consensus policy probably by the early part of the second quarter of 2009.
 So if there are any questions about the policy, I'm pleased to take them.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Does anyone on the council -- Okay, yes.  Mike?
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Craig, as you know, this was a matter of significant urgency to the vast majority, if not all of us.  I'm wondering why it's taken four to five months to get the document that we got recently and why it's going to take nine months to get the policy implemented that was quite detailed.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  I do think there was some recognition as the process was going on that it would both take some time to develop the plan as well as for the registries to implement the policy, which I think is the reason why the ICANN board passed the AGP budget provision that assessed -- assesses registrar-level transaction fees on excessive AGP deletes and the threshold of those AGP deletes being the same both in the budget provision and the policy.  So there was some acknowledgment that the policy itself would take some time and, therefore, the budget provision as a stopgap measure.
 In terms of the staff's responsibility to prepare the implementation plan, it did take quite some time to solicit comments from the constituencies and to incorporate that and my understanding from the registries is that it will require some coding and programming and Q and A testing periods to ensure that the information they are preparing and supplying is accurate and perhaps if any of the registries -- if there is a registry in the room that's interested in commenting on that implementation period, that would be a welcomed addition.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Any other comment?  Any other questions?  Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I'll respond as a registry.  Certainly I can tell you, Mike, that we made fairly significant comments and raised questions with regard to the implementation plan.  That covers -- doesn't cover a lot of the time period that you're talking about, but I can assure you that we did give them a lot of feedback on that.
 We certainly are required to give registrars plenty of notice when this thing is going to change as well because they will have -- they will be impacted by this as well.  How that all translates into specific days and months and so forth I don't know because I'd have to consult with our implementation people once we know the final details.
 But that's just my comment from one registry.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Any comments from the community?  And at any time during this meeting that someone does have a comment on something, raise your -- you know, get someone to come to you with a number because I can fit those in any time.  I go back and forth.  
 Whether you are in front of the lectern or the lectern is in front of the thing, it really doesn't matter.  
 So I don't see anyone else.  Yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Sorry, I didn't realize -- Craig, you are done?  I thought you were going to talk about the budget proposal, perhaps the statistics.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  Sure, I can do that as well.  In addition to the consensus policy that was passed, the board also incorporated in part of its fiscal '09 budget a provision to assess the registrar-level transaction fee to transactions during the month that exceed a defined threshold for permissible AGP deletes.  And the budget provision went into effect on July 1 and statistics from the June-July period show that the number of AGP deletes has gone down by about 84% from a little over 17.5 million AGP deletes in June to just about 2.8 million AGP deletes in July.
 So clearly behavior is changing, and I think that's what the community was looking for in this AGP work.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Two more questions.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  Sure.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I understand also from the reports that there was one registrar who accounted for about 40% of those AGP deletes.  And I'm wondering if ICANN has spoken with that registrar and has any indication as to why they continue the behavior that we were trying to stop.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  There has been communication with this registrar from ICANN staff to them.  And if they wish to make a public statement about their behavior, I think they would be free to do that but I'm not going to at this point.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Okay.  Just one more question.  The statistics also show that the dot mobi registry AGP deletes went up exponentially, over 4,000%.  Wondering if there has been any outreach to them in explanation for that.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  I saw the spreadsheet that got sent around to the council, and I actually believe that there -- that that information was pulled incorrectly on that one particular figure.
 The AGP deletes for July for dot mobi, according to the spreadsheet that I pulled up, was actually 547, not the 18,000 and some odd number that was quoted.  So when I get a chance to verify that, I will supply it back to the council.  But I believe that was an error.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Thanks very much, Craig.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  Sure.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Anyone else have a question or a comment?  Anyone?  I see no numbers in the sky.  Thank you.
 >>CRAIG SCHWARTZ:  You're welcome.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  So strangely enough, we seem to be running slightly ahead of schedule which is actually somewhat rare.  Could you please -- actually, no, leave that slide up.  I said I would come back to that.
 Okay.  It is now close to 9:00 and the appointed time for this particular discussion.  So I want to, basically, ask again if going back to the discussion on GNSO improvements and implementation process, anyone attending had any questions or comments further on that at this point before I move on the schedule even more?  No?  Okay.
 If you could replace the slide and give back so I could put up -- actually, no, I guess the next thing will be the WHOIS so we might as well come up with the WHOIS slide.  And Liz is going to give a background update and then Chuck will give a status update and then we'll have open discussion and open microphone.
 >>LIZ GASSTER:  Good morning.  I'm Liz Gasster with the ICANN policy staff.  And just to give a quick background on WHOIS, back in October of 2007, in the L.A. ICANN meeting, the GNSO Council decided that a comprehensive objective and factual understanding of WHOIS would benefit future policy development and initiated steps to determine what studies might be done to inform those discussions.
 We developed a template to solicit public comments that asked the public to suggest studies in a rather specific and structured way.
 We asked each respondent to actually frame what study they recommended, what they thought the policy implications of the results of having that information might be and to actually craft a testable hypothesis and define some of the data elements that might be used for each study.  We got about 25 recommendations.  They're listed -- we categorized those recommendations into seven categories which are listed there on the slide.  There were several studies related to WHOIS misuse, several recommendations looking at compliance with data protection laws and the registrar accreditation agreement; studies related to the availability of privacy services and proxy services; studies related to the demand and motivation for use of privacy and proxy services; impact of WHOIS data protection and crime and abuse; study recommendations looking at proxy registrar compliance with law enforcement and dispute resolution requests; and some WHOIS data accuracy suggestions as well.
 In March 2008, the council formed a group to take a look at those study actions and options.  And during the time that this study group was deliberating, the Government Advisory Committee submitted to the board a lengthy recommendation that expounded on its earlier recommendations to conduct studies.  They essentially proposed about 15 additional studies, some of which were similar or comparable to other studies that had been proposed by the community but also some additional studies as well.
 This study group concluded in June.  Actually, while they concluded and agreed that studies should only be done if the information was useful in advancing public policy goals, the group was essentially split on whether studies, in fact, should be done.  So the next step in June, the council convened another group to take a further look at the studies and in particular to try to be sure that each of the studies had a proveable hypothesis, not all the studies were defined that crisply and, in particular, the Government Advisory Committee studies we wanted to make sure as a group that each one was defined as a proveable hypothesis so that the council would be able to compare all of the studies in a similar manner.
 So that group concluded at the end of August and since September, the constituencies and council have been discussing which studies, if any, should be assessed for cost and feasibility.  Once the council decides if studies should be assessed for cost and feasibility and which studies might be, they'll ask the staff to do that.  And once the staff completes that process, the council would then consider based on that what data gathering and studies should be conducted.
 My last slide is just simply some references and links to the key documents and reports that I just mentioned for your reference.  And these slides will be available online so that you can refer to them.  Thank you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  I would like to ask if there are any questions either from the council members or anyone else on this report before you go too far away.  Are there any questions on that?  Okay.  I see no questions.  Okay.  We may come back to some of that in the discussion.
 In which case, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Okay.  If you could load the -- I think it is a PDF document that has my name on it.  Yes, thank you.  And we will only refer to this if we need to.  It is a very long document, doesn't really lend itself too well to a brief PowerPoint presentation.
 Just depending on how we proceed this morning, it might be helpful for us to look at some of the hypotheses in the registry constituency recommendations.
 For the audience, let me explain that the registry constituency did a fairly detailed analysis of all of the hypotheses, including hypotheses that were developed from the GAC questions and came up with some recommendations in that regard.
 Let me go to the executive summary for the audience's benefit.  I don't know if that works.  Let's try that.  Okay.
 Did I go too far?  Maybe I went too far.  Okay.  So, basically, what we did is we categorized all of the hypotheses into three categories.  One of those categories was what we believed -- and we don't necessarily think that everybody else in the GNSO is going to have the same conclusions we have.  But we believe that 11 of those hypotheses or groups of hypotheses would require formal empirical studies that would need to be done by probably an expert in the field of performing those types of studies.
 And, of course, then we would -- if we decided to pursue those studies, we would need to determine their feasibility and their estimated cost.
 A second group of hypotheses, we thought, could be accomplished -- the hypotheses could be tested by gathering data that is already available and doing a fairly minimal analysis on that data.  So not requiring a full-blown study like the other group that I mentioned.
 And then last of all, we thought some of the studies could actually be done just by simply gathering data that's available and very little analysis would -- no analysis would be required.
 Last of all, we did identify a few studies where in our opinion we thought that they were really more of a compliance issue and should be done by ICANN compliance staff rather than going to the cost of performing a study on the hypotheses.
 Now, the rest of this recommendation -- and it is fairly lengthy, but it is available for public viewing -- does get into a lot of detail.  And so I think our goal this morning is to decide how we in the next month or so proceed as a council to decide.
 Now, like I said earlier, the registry constituency doesn't expect everybody on the council to agree with our analysis in every detail.  But hopefully this provides a format whereby we can tweak some of the things we did and maybe change priorities, maybe change some of the combination of hypotheses that we recommended and so forth and thereby come up with in the next month or so a recommendation for what studies we would like staff to go back and prepare cost estimates which would imply they also need to determine feasibility and maybe get a little information in terms of study design.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I would like to open it to discussion now, either among the council members or among those attending the meeting.  Anyone wish to comment on WHOIS studies, how we proceed on the studies themselves.  Okay.
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE:  I just had a question for Chuck and I apologize.  I wasn't here on Saturday when we reviewed this.
 In reading this, one of the things that occurred to me -- and I do think it is a very helpful format to have everything kind of grouped together and to have the methodology set out.
 But one thing that occurred to me is that if we take an approach of identifying initially only those studies that we think warrant further review in terms of feasibility and cost studies, that it may turn out that we've overlooked kind of the low-hanging fruit, so to speak.  I was wondering if that possibility had come up within your constituency as you were developing this methodology and what the conclusion -- what the reasoning was for the conclusion ultimately.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Well, actually we didn't make a conclusion as to exactly which studies should be pursued further.  We only assigned priorities in case we had to narrow down the studies like that.
 So literally in our view -- I don't know if the constituency would end up supporting this or not.  I would have to check.  But one possibility would be to say let's do them all and let's just phase them.  That would probably be okay.  Once we do come up with some draft recommendation, we're going to have to go back to our constituencies again.  Does that answer your question, Kristina?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Any other comments or questions or discussion?  Yes, Mike.
 >> (Speaker Off Microphone).
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I will go to Mike and then I will come to the --
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I would like to thank Chuck, first of all, and several other members of his constituency, I'm sure, for doing this work.  I'm sure it was difficult.  I really appreciate the turnaround also from the "if any" position of some to actually recommending studies.
 I'm wondering if we will have a motion before our next meeting in a few weeks.  And if so, I think there is simply one friendly amendment that our constituency is likely to want to make, although we would need to run any motion by our constituency and that takes a couple of weeks under our bylaws.  But I would love to have it happen at our next meeting.  That is simply to add one more study about proxy services into study B, which I think we spoke about and you may accept as a friendly amendment.  I just want to make sure that we get it on the agenda for next time.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Did you want to respond?  I mean, I wanted to point out one of the things I had mentioned, I do believe it may be time for people to craft motions.  I don't know if we would get to vote on them at the next meeting, which I hope is within three weeks, and how to -- getting a motion written within the next week or so and then taking it back for discussion.  So it may be meeting after next that I think would be the soonest.  But, you know, that's something to be looked at.
 Chuck, you wanted to answer and then I will get to Steve.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Sure.  By the way, as I indicated earlier, Mike, we didn't expect that there wouldn't be amendments.  In fact, I guess what I really envisioned was us taking some extensive time, not in a meeting like this, where we go through it and make lots of modifications, depending on where we can come to agreement.  In other words, I would expect there might be quite a few amendments.
 Plus, I don't think it is quite ready for a motion because we're going to have to decide how many or all or none or whatever of the studies based on whatever priorities we, as a council, would come up with would be done.  So I do expect lots of suggested amendments, and my own opinion is that it would probably be a good idea for all of us to kind of take a couple hours and go through it, maybe in a special meeting or something.  Let's go through it and discuss things like you're suggesting and seeing if there is general consensus among making that change and agree to those changes and then we can craft a final motion.
 I think I would be very happy if it was -- if we could do it in the next meeting, that would be great.  I wasn't quite that optimistic.  As Avri will tell you, she was a little more optimistic than I was.  So if we could do that, that would be great.
 >>STEVE DelBIANCO:  Thanks, Avri.  Steve Delbianco with NetChoice coalition, was a member of the working group that has been on the last three iterations of WHOIS.  So I, too, would like to thank staff for the working group report and Chuck for the leadership of the working group and also the registry constituency for sort of really taking a reasoned and analytical approach that I hope can move us all from the two camps of "study everything" or "study nothing" but, in fact, what can be a balanced group of studies.  Very helpful analysis.
 And, Chuck, I have one question and one question for staff to pursue before you do a motion because I do understand that some tweaks would be in order and those tweaks would be to the motion that you would develop over the next several weeks.  When the registry constituency methodology laid out multiple studies to which you assigned priorities, I got the sense that your priority was whether or not to pursue doing the study, not whether or not to pursue staff costing out the study.  In other words, it looked to me like you were hinting that you had high, medium or low priority on the study but were willing to have staff cost it out, determine what kind of a consultant approach would be required.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Well, not exactly correct because I don't believe we as a council can really decide which studies to actually do until we have that estimated cost and feasibility information.  So what I understood you to say, Steve, is that was the recommendation to actually do the studies as -- okay.  Would you please clarify.
 >>STEVE DelBIANCO:  Here is the clarification.  There is several in there for which you indicated a priority.  Agreed?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Ask that again, please.
 >>STEVE DelBIANCO:  There are several studies and hypotheses in here for which the registry constituency has indicated its priority level.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  We actually indicated a priority level in all of the proposed studies except for the ones we thought should be done by compliance staff.
 >>STEVE DelBIANCO:  Got it.  So with respect to that priority, here's the question:  Do we want staff to go ahead and cost out and determine the feasibility of what kind of a consultant they would use to do the study?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  For all of them?
 >>STEVE DelBIANCO:  Even if it has a low priority?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Not necessarily, okay.  What we assumed was -- is that the council would tweak our priorities and maybe even some of the groupings we suggested and then work together to come to a resolution of how to proceed.  There is a lot of different ways to go.  You can take one at a time of the high priorities.  You could take several.  We could actually ask staff to cost out quite a lot of the studies or all of the studies or whatever.  So I think there needs to be some joint work by the council before we're at that step.
 >>STEVE DelBIANCO:  Great.  I appreciate that clarification.
 And then I had just my second and final point.  Near the end of the registry analysis, there were a few studies with respect to the accuracy of WHOIS.  These are studies that came from the GAC and one from myself and one from Steve Metalitz.  And the other with respect to the quickness and accuracy with which proxy services or registrars would reply to a law enforcement or rights holders' request to reveal or relay on a proxy registration.  For those you guys have indicated that the registrar constituency believes that this is a compliance issue that should be handled by the ICANN compliance staff.  And as the author of one of the studies to be preferred on that is correct I would be happy with that as an answer but only if we can be relatively assured that the compliance staff and the audits that they do would get to the level of performance testing that we put into the proposals that were submitted several months ago.  I will give you one quick example.
 In the performance testing on "reveal," what I had suggested was that we would construct queries, properly formed queries of a proxy service asking them for the reveal of the proxy registrant based on a belief of unlawful practice -- so per the RAA, the proxy service would be required to reveal the identity of the underlying registrant.
 I don't have any confidence or knowledge yet that an ordinary staff compliance audit would test the performance with that degree of precision to know how quickly and accurately a proxy service replies.  That is one of the reasons we said it needed further study because we didn't think it was something that a compliance audit would turn up.  I would encourage us to get a report from staff perhaps that would indicate the precision of performance testing that, as you call it, ICANN compliance staff would come up with in the ordinary course of business because if they won't test that level of performance, it would say we ought to ask for a further study.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thank you.  And I'm going to ask to see if there's anything in the staff that can give us a first indication on at least how they'll follow up on it.  I do know that, you know, the staff yesterday reported to the GAC that they certainly were doing all kinds of additional work.  I certainly would not put myself up as knowing the extent of that and maybe there's someone from the staff, but I think it's a very good idea to get a full knowledge of what work the staff is doing as we consider this further.
 >>LIZ GASSTER: So I'm Liz Gasster, policy staff.  I don't see Stacey Burnett in the audience right now who's the chief of the compliance staff, but this is my understanding that -- oh, she's in another meeting.  
 The specific study that's being considered on proxy and privacy services has not actually been instituted, initiated, and the parameters may not be specifically defined yet. 
 So I think Steve makes an excellent point.  Stacey and I have been collaborating very closely on what we're doing in the GNSO Council versus what compliance is doing.  I think your point is well taken and I'd be glad to pursue that with her and come back to the community with further information about what's being considered there.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Also I might add to that.  I know that one of the things that was promised to the GAC yesterday was a letter in response to their request for further data collection, I think it was called, as opposed to studies, and I am sure that that letter being made public is something that we can include that information in our discussions and determinations, assuming that goes out in time for our discussions.
 Anyone else on -- yes, Tony, I'm sorry, you had your hand up before and I should have come back to you.
 >>TONY HOLMES: Thanks, Avri.  To start with, I'd like to thank the registry constituency for putting this together.  I think it's a really useful step forward, and it was a shame that we timed out when we were discussing this over the weekend.
 We then heard importance that the GAC also put on this issue.  And I'd like to offer support for the fact that council tackle this outside of the normal council meeting.  If we try and do it in the next meeting I'm sure we're going to time out yet again so I'd offer support for what I think Chuck was proposing, that maybe council have a special session where we can look at this and you would urge that we do that as quickly as possible.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Anyone else wish to comment on this topic?  Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  One of the things, I think we have to be very pragmatic about how we approach all this.  If we ask staff to go back and provide cost estimates for a large number of studies, it's going to be difficult for them to do all of them at once.  So one approach we could take -- and this might accommodate the urgency in a lot of people's minds to get this thing going -- would be to -- and I agree, Tony, I was suggesting that we probably need a special call for this.  One approach we could take is if we could agree on the studies that we deem to be the highest priority -- and that doesn't necessarily mean we'll pursue those, but if we could agree on that, then we could take those and ask staff to prepare cost estimates, feasibility, et cetera.  And then we could continue to work on the other ones that maybe we think, in rough consensus, that are a little bit lower priority.  Doesn't mean we have to throw those out, but we could get things moving so we get to a point where we have that cost data and feasibility, et cetera, sooner and people maybe will be a little bit less frustrated by how long this takes.
 That also spreads the workload out for staff and any consultants they use to do that work.  So that's just a suggestion that we can consider as we move forward on this.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Yes.  Thank you.  Zahid.
 >>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you.  Just wanted to make the short point that this study does cross-reference all the GAC recommendations and it would just sort of from the council send out the message to the GAC that their recommendations have been taken care of and we have looked at them, and just so they don't feel we've ignored them.  I think that needs to go to the GAC.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Well, we did -- I mean, we certainly did give them that response in person.  I think they've also acknowledged that.  Their bylaw directed conversation, and where they're requesting specific response is from the board in terms of their particular communication.  
 So we certainly will continue communicating with them in terms of what we've done.  I don't know that a formal letter from us on what we've done, at this point, more than what we've already told them, would be necessarily helpful.  They still want an answer from the board on what the board is going to do.  And I certainly do think that we should keep them informed, as we have been, certainly, all the way through, whenever we do something or take another step, I generally inform them by e-mail to send to -- and then I follow it up, you know, so at any point at which something formal might be helpful, certainly that's not a problem.
 Was there another hand in the council?  Yes, please, Ute.
 >>UTE DECKER: Thank you.  Just wanted to echo what Tony said earlier that this is an extremely useful paper, and we should take the time very soon to have a special council meeting to discuss further.  
 I think the main benefit of the registry approach here is that it's very structured and coherent and holistic in a way.  That's quite where you're at, in a sense, and I think we should decide after our special council meeting and further deliberations on whether we can fast track one or the other studies given that there may be more than staff can conduct at any given time. 
 So I don't think that's a decision we'd want to make now, that it's a decision we would make after.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Certainly I wasn't planning to try and make any decision at this meeting.  One of the things I do want to know, I mean, have other constituencies had a chance to discuss this particular methodology and paper and ranking, I've heard a couple comments from council members, but have other constituencies taken this up as a methodology and a review and something that they're interested in prioritizing from?  Is that something that has been done, is that something that will be done?  Is that something that should be done before our meeting to discuss these things?  I'd kind of like a clue on that.  Yes.
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I can tell you the IPC has not yet done so but intends to do so.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Any other comments along that question?
 >>CARLOS SOUZA:  Just from the NCUC, we intended to do so but we didn't have the time yesterday, constituency day, to discuss that.  So we'd probably go back to the constituency and report to the GNSO Council as soon as possible.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
 >>TONY HOLMES: Just a brief comment.  It was referred to in the ISP meeting yesterday, the methodology, and also the session we had at the weekend.  And there was certainly support to move that forward.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Any other comments?  Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES: Just a question, or maybe it's more of a comment.  It would be helpful if we had a feel for how long it would take for the constituencies to do their review so that we know when we could schedule -- if we decide to schedule -- a special conference call.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Yes.  That fits very nicely with what I was thinking.  Because if people are using this, then it really does make sense that -- at least it seems to me, but I wanted to make sure that it made sense to others that we not have this special meeting until such time as people have had a chance to review this as a working -- as a working model, as I say.  Until it's a motion, until it's approved, it's not sort of the decision, but we sort of had made a sort of an assumption in the last meeting that for the time being we would work with it as a working model, but I know that people haven't had a chance, in constituency, to do that so -- and so I'm trying to test the hypothesis -- I have Kristina and then I'll get to you, Chuck.  That if we're going to do that, the constituencies will have had to have had time to review it, Kristina.
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I can't tell you specifically right now, but I'll consult with the constituency leadership and post something to the list in the next day.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you very much.  Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah, and to the extent that it's possible, if, when you do this in your constituencies, you could also get any direction you need with regard to priorities and value, things like that, any other changes.  Like Mike's kind of already done, going into that meeting.  That would probably maximize our productivity in that special call.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Yes.  Thank you.  Yes, especially, I mean, and especially if the members of the council sort of accept the notion that prioritizing these things and getting a first study -- a first proposal for study framed while others are being talked about so that we can proceed in terms of seeing if that's something we want to request, that -- that may be worth sort of moving ahead with as opposed to everything.  Any other comments, questions, issues on this at the moment?
 Anybody else wish to comment on the WHOIS studies question?
 No?  Okay.  I think this is the first time in my experience chairing GNSO meetings we're actually ahead of schedule.  And one of the things I wanted to ask as we're doing that is I wanted to stop before moving on to the next item and ask if it's okay with the council, I saw that Mike sent a proposed motion to the council list during this meeting, and while, during the meeting, was trying to figure out how to handle it.
 And what I was thinking was that if we stopped at the moment and had Mike sort of just present, read what he's suggesting and then at the any-other-business part at the end of the meeting, where I put up motions for review, we could go back to that.  And that gives people a certain amount of time to think about it, look at it, decide if it's something we want to vote on, we're always sort of -- if there's an apprehension about voting on a last-minute motion, then it can get postponed, but to give it a chance to be considered today since we've run a little -- is there any objection to sort of taking this slight side in our agenda to cover Mike's motion?
 And I actually printed it out so I can -- if I'm given back the control of the slide, I could put this motion up and then you could read it and speak to it so that we'd know what was the issue.  
 So can I have the slide back, please, the screen back?
 Give me a second.  I'm trying to get the screen, but you can start talking and I'll get it up as soon as I can.  I got it up.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Thank you, Avri.  I assume there's no objection to talking about it.  I'm not sure how many people have even looked at it in their e-mail but it's a rather simple motion.
 Just came up in our constituency, which, like others, we have significant time frame on which to clear comments and take comments from our constituency members before we can adopt constituency positions.  And when we have to travel to these meetings and participate fully, there simply really isn't time for our councillors or our involved constituency members to really deal with other ongoing matters, including our own personal business, in many cases.
 So we had the idea that we would propose this motion that during ICANN meetings, public comment periods would essentially be suspended so that we can participate fully in the meetings without having to worry that the clock is ticking.
 So I don't know if you'd like me to read the text of the motion, I suppose I can do that.
 Okay.  It simply proposed with one comment that I'll -- or one change from the text here that Liz Gasster from staff recommended to make clear that we're not talking about suspension, but about extension of the public comment periods since, clearly, if anyone wishes to comment during the meetings, that's naturally perfectly great.
 So "Whereas, ICANN's meetings require the full attention of GNSO councillors and many other GNSO participants.
 "Whereas, ICANN has many ongoing public comment periods of significant interest to many GNSO councillors and participants.
 "Whereas, ICANN's typical comment periods are already difficult for many members of the ICANN community, particularly those that must consult with members of their constituency and/or member organizations.
 Resolved, the GNSO Council strongly urges ICANN staff to suspend -- I'm sorry -- to extend all public comment periods by seven days to account for each ICANN meeting, thereby extending the length of those pending comment periods by seven days each.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thank you, I'll make that change before we get around to voting on it at the end.  But I wanted to open it to discussion at this point both from council members and from anyone that would like to comment.  And, as I say, we'll come back to it at the end of the meeting to actually take a vote to give people time to consider it, assuming that there is no objection to taking a vote on it today.  Kristina.
 >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I'm in support of it, but I'd be particularly interested in hearing from the folks who are sitting out there.
 >>AVRI DORIA: I have to -- even listening to the microphone, I have to go and read this sometimes because the sound is fuzzy and I don't understand what people are saying, necessarily, so I very much appreciate the fact that it's getting typed.
 Is there anyone who would like to comment on this while we're talking about it?  Do people generally think it's a good idea?  Do people generally think it's a bad idea?  I see nodding.  Does anybody think it's a terrible idea?  Okay.  So, yes, Alan.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:  On behalf of at large, I strongly support.
 >>AVRI DORIA: I'm really having trouble understanding what you all are saying.  I don't know if you all are having trouble understanding what is coming out of my mouth but -- yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES: This is kind of a side comment for future reference, by the way, I'm supportive, especially with the suggested amendment, I didn't see any reason to suspend, so I think it's good justification.  For our future work in terms of redesigning the PDP, this particular principle is one that can be applied to just about everything.  
 We had one example in this meeting that we got an issues report while we're all here, and we'll have a motion on that later in that regard.  
 The reality is, is there's no way for us to have any time to deal with that.  So this particular principle that you're suggesting, Mike, is one that we should apply in our PDP revisions so that we properly address those kind of issues that we face right now, at least three times a year, and many more times in some other cases.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you, yes, very good consideration.  Anyone else?  Were there any hands I missed?  Is there any comment?  Okay.  As I say, I'll move that to later in the meeting, I'll bring that up with other motions that we've got.  
 And before moving on from WHOIS, give it one last question, of course, people can bring it up during the open question period, any of the topics can come up during the open discussion period, but is there any other comment on that before I move on?  I really love having this in the middle, it gives me a good blind spot.
 Okay, the next topic is discussion and feedback on new gTLD planning.  Now, the question here is not so much to go into the document in detail, that's been going on all week.  We, as a council, are still in the middle of our discussions on the implementation.  Basically, we were going through it module by module in our weekend meetings, spent a good -- was it five hours on it, I believe, four hours, five hours, something like that, and are about halfway through the modules, asking for questions, building a set of questions and such where we've asked staff to come back with more information in terms of what they're doing with the implementation and such.
 And we plan to have one meeting or more, if necessary, in the next couple weeks to basically finish our walk-through of the implementation proposal asking the questions that the council members and all the constituencies have been collecting.
 Now, beyond going through this process and asking questions and getting clarifications and making recommendations that things be reconsidered in -- or considered in the next draft, the question becomes, is that enough, is that all we should be doing on this?  Or is there some other action that the GNSO Council should be taking with regard to the new gTLD implementation plan?  So that's what I want to basically open to discussion among the councillors and among those sitting in the room with us.  So, Tony, I saw your hand first.
 >>TONY HARRIS: Yes, I'd just like to bring up a subject that I think concerns me somewhat both as a council member and as a prospective applicant.  And that is I -- what I recall, there was work done by the reserved names working group, I think it was called that, whereby the recommendation to -- that we eventually formulated on geographical TLDs was that they should be treated on an objection basis.
 And the RFP doesn't reflect that opinion at all.  On the contrary, I get the impression that we've sort of had a total surrender to the GAC's position and basically anybody applying for a geographic TLD is pretty much in their hands.  And there may be situations where this is justifiable and others perhaps not so much.
 But I'm wondering if, from an opinion which said there should be an objection proceeding and not a prior requirement, to a total prior requirement it seems rather like a surrender and should we not say anything or is that a done deal, that's my --
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  As far as I know, nothing is a done deal.  It's a draft, and they've been fairly clear about this being a draft.  
 On the other hand, I know they've done a fair amount of work with it, and so I don't know the answer to either of the questions.  I'd like to hear other people's answers.  If there's somebody from the staff that can tell us whether it's a done deal or not, that would be a good thing to know.  But in addition, what do others think about this particular issue?
 Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES: Well, first of all, I think staff's been quite clear that this is not a done deal and that the comments in this round of public comments are going to be significant in terms of developing a second version of the RFP.
 Now, to your question, Avri, I think it's really important for us to -- as a council, again, working within our constituencies, to identify the significant areas of divergent from the -- divergence from the GNSO recommendations and what is in the implementation plan.  You know, we know one already, in terms of geographic names, but we should make sure that we identify any -- where there is divergence and then we need to decide, number one, whether we want to actually submit a comment as a council in the comment period and what other action we might want to take.
 Because I think the issue of what will happen if the board approves things that go against our super majority recommendations, the bylaws clearly spell out what happens if they go, you know, vote contrary to what we've recommended so we definitely need to talk about that.
 Now, one particular issue that I strongly support that we reconsider in terms of our recommendations is our recommendation for -- it's an implementation guideline, that the four-month comment -- or communication period, minimum four-month communication period not be initiated until the final board-approved RFP is posted.
 We talked about this probably a year ago or so in the PDP process.  But now that we're pretty much assured that there will be a second public comment period, a second draft -- after a second draft RFP and so forth, if that all runs serially, then we would be talking about significant delays from what's being projected and I think it would be wise on our part to reconsider that requirement that the final approved RFP be out before that four-month period start and maybe modify it.  And I've heard a variety of suggestions as to how that can happen.
 My own view is, is that we should have at least two months of that communication period where the final RFP is available because I think it is good for people to know the final picture in total with a little bit of lead time before they have to start applying and finalizing their applications.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Adrian.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Adrian Kinderis.  Thanks, Chuck.  I believe the purpose of the four months was to -- for a global communications campaign.  Am I correct?
 So based on this, I certainly agree with your comments, but I'd like to defer, if we could, to potentially the marketing and communications team that ICANN will be engaging in order to do this, and get their expertise as to how long they anticipate the message -- is required to get the message out.
 I think it's -- we're in danger, just largely because I have a marketing/communications background, I think we're in danger of making comments on something we know little about.  And these are, you know, quite sophisticated mechanisms that go into play here, and perhaps ICANN can reach out to them and let them come and tell us exactly (a), you know, why, for once, or what is required over what times and maybe they can compress it, or see a staggered release of information as Chuck has suggested.
 But I think requesting some input from ICANN and/or the communications team that they're using -- because I assume they're not using internal communications -- may be beneficial.  Thank you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I saw Tony, you had your hand up?
 >>TONY HARRIS:  Yes.  Getting to Chuck's comment, I can appreciate, Chuck, your point on being cautious as we move forward and having the full information, but I do think we have to balance that against undue delays.  I mean, a lot of people have come to the microphone and in meetings expressed, over these last few days, the opinion that we seem to be -- I think one of our German friends said "with a constant pregnancy of nine months ahead" and -- funny comment, actually.  And we have -- we have an RFP.  There are comments on this RFP.  Perhaps once this comment period is finished, the important items can be adjusted within the RF -- within the current draft, and that could be a final draft with a shorter comment period.  Not another three or four months and an ICANN meeting to get through comments, which may be so -- so far off the initial draft that we're -- you know, we'll have to go to a third draft.  This could become something permanent.
 So I think that we should try and balance that -- both concerns and not just let this go on forever.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you.  Adrian.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Just a response to Tony and perhaps to clarify my comments.  I think ICANN could reach out to this communications company, not with the agenda just to say, "Tell us how long" but to say, "We need to hit this date.  You know, what is the best way to achieve that?  And if that's -- you know, if we needed to start now, would that be possible?"
 So, you know, if we have an end date in mind, how do we work towards that end date with respect to our communications?  And does that mean we can start that four-month window earlier.  Thank you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you. Chuck?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Just want to make sure that my suggestion was fully understood, because Tony, something you said made me wonder whether it was.
 I was trying to minimize any delays, okay?
 So I was not suggesting anything.  I was actually making a suggestion that we could hopefully erase any delays by a second comment period, and so forth, by adjusting our recommendation for implementation guideline that you have to have the final RFP right at the beginning.
 Now, I think it's important for all of us to understand what our intent was in that, and we -- one of the biggest reasons for that was to make sure that those who aren't part of the ICANN processes, like all of us are, and may want to bid have a reasonably fair amount of time to respond.  So that was the intent.
 But it's my opinion -- and I'm sure there are people that would disagree with me -- that after this round of comments and when he we get to a revised RFP, assuming that staff does a reasonably good job -- and I think that's fair to assume -- of accommodating the comments that are submitted, we'll probably -- the second draft will probably be in pretty good shape.  It won't be perfect, I'm sure, but it will probably be in pretty good shape.
 So the risk of considering what I'm suggesting probably would be less than if there was just one draft RFP that had to be changed.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  I have Olof and then I have Ray and -- Olof.
 >>OLOF NORDLING:  Thank you, Avri.  Olof Nordling, ICANN staff, and I really wanted to say exactly what Chuck just said.  That the purpose or overriding objective of this four-month communication period was to put the global Internet community and the nation's global Internet community on an equal footing.
 So that's the overall objective.
 Now, there are two pieces to that.  The knowledge that this round is coming about, is going to take place, and an idea of exactly when, and of course the detailed content in order to prepare or to enable the detailed planning and preparation by those interested, and I think there is perhaps -- I'm guessing here, because I'm not in the communications staff, but what I would suggest is that this is kept -- we have a dialogue with the presence of the communications staff for this particular matter how to craft a useful communications plan that com pose -- perhaps could be step-wise elements in it, in order to accommodate the need for getting to takeoff of this aircraft as soon as possible.  Thank you.
 >>RAY FASSETT:  Hello.  Ray Fassett with the registry constituency.  I just want to make the point that through a lot of hard work and effort from some very dedicated people, what we have going on are two processes bearing down at about the same time, and that has really been a coordinated effort as much as it can be, as much as these two processes are really very different.  And I'm talking, of course, about the ccTLD IDN submission process and then of course the gTLD application process.  And, you know, there are some very hard deadlines going on in the ccTLD aspect, and when we look at the recommendation that came from this PDP process, there's the letter of the law that we don't want to compromise.  We want to make sure there's a good communications plan.  That is the letter of it.  And we don't want to compromise the spirit of it as well.
 So -- but if there is the ability to not compromise the spirit of it, the recommendation can still hold while we still try and strive so that both of these processes can occur at the same time as it's trying to be coordinated.
 To put it simply, we don't want to hamstring staff over a recommendation that the spirit of it can still be upheld while necessarily the letter of it as it is written can be reviewed now, you know, by the council, understanding all of the things that are going on at the same time.  So that's my comment.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Alan.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:  As we were reviewing the public order and morality clause the last time around and it was clear that the bylaws say that the board has to take our entire policy as-is or send it back to us, as we rewrite the PDP processes and procedures, I think we want to factor in or take into account issues related to the board using other information to change policies, and certainly the current policy -- the current bylaws are completely silent on staff either changing things, because they feel it's better or because it's not implementable at all, and I think we ought to at least consider those issues as we rewrite the PDP process.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Yeah.  I think that's right.  And we should make a note of that.  But I also do think we need to consider what we want to do in this case beyond the PDP changes.  Okay.  Thank you.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:  Certainly.  But I was just trying to make the note for our formal records that as we're doing it, let's not forget those things.  It may be nice to say board isn't allowed to make any changes but we should think about the reality and maybe we should have some provision, or not, but we should think about it.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  Thank you.  Tim.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Also, if I remember correctly, the communication period wasn't included as part of one of -- one of the recommendations of the policy, per se, but was included as an implementation guideline.  So I think that does leave some flexibility with that, but I take Alan's point and I think that's a good one.  But just a reminder that this is just an implementation guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule that we set.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Okay.  While waiting for other comments, if there are going to be any.
 So so far, I've heard that at least on two topics, there's -- which is the geographic names and the four-month communication, that there's a possibility that as a council we would want to consider making a statement.  Not at all getting into what the content of that statement is yet, but that we would want to make a statement.
 And I don't want to get into the process details of how we go about this at the moment, but it does strike me that if we want to do something like that, we would ask that drafting teams form with proposals that we would consider, and these would be -- it's sort of not really a duplication of effort, because I'm assuming that the people that would draft these things would be interested in sending them in, in any case, as their statements and what we would do is look at any of the statements that came from people in the council as to whether they were something that the council itself wanted to endorse and make council statements.
 And I'm wondering whether that is, in general, a process that can work is that basically -- I mean, if there's a notion in the council that says -- and we quickly, as a council can sort of come to a consensus, "Yes, we want to comment on this thing," then we sort of put together a formal drafting team to sort of write this thing.
 But that otherwise, we take an approach where those who are -- have a comment that they believe is a consensus-type comment, basically self-form a drafting team and write it and then bring it to the council for endorsement.
 Is that a reasonable path?  Because I think there's many issues that various people in the council may think a comment is worth making, but that we haven't gotten to the point yet of sort of deciding as a council a priori let's make that.  So yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I'd just say maybe before we get to that step, we, first of all, memorialize the questions and answers that were asked.  And this is really following on and agreeing with Jordi's request to the list, that we get a writing that shows the questions and answers that were asked over the five-hour session over the weekend and that we then continue as quickly as possible with a Q&A session for the rest of Module 3, 4, 5, and 6.  And I think then it would make more sense to consider any other comments.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  No, I certainly had no intention of, you know, abridging that process and I think, in fact, staff has already started accumulating questions and answers from that, but I was also thinking that given the pressure of time, those that already know -- especially from the first 2 1/2 modules -- that there are things that they're going to want to comment, can start their wordsmithing effort that could take them time, and that's why I was basically thinking if we came up with a process that let people that wanted to draft something start before we finished the rest of the process, there was a way to deal with that content when it was done.  That's sort of what I was looking for.  But certainly, yes, getting the continuing through Module 3 and on to the end of 6, and then also, as I was recommending in that notice -- I mean, if that's okay with people -- then giving a chance to sort of go back and say, "Are there any follow-ups from what went before that it just took time for people to think of?"  Or for some of the people that may have missed one or another session, to have a chance to get a question that wasn't asked asked.  Of course with the caveat that people should have read what questions were asked, so that they're not re-asking a question that was asked and answered.
 I don't know, did someone want to comment on the collection of questions and answers?  Is that something that can be commented on?
 And of course I'm staring at one person, but...
 Is there a microphone?  Yes.  She's coming.
 >>OLOF NORDLING:  Yes.  Olof Nordling, ICANN staff again.  And of course there is a transcript, so every detail is on record and there is an MP3 recording.
 What I'm actually trying to do right now is to aggregate the questions which -- according to topics, and I hope to get that out to you pretty soon, indeed.
 And while encouraging for you perhaps is that we'd be able to reach a bit further than Module 3, because many of the questions under Module 1 covered modules 4, 5, and 6 as well.
 So there is already quite some substance and -- not only questions, by the way, but also comments, straightforward.
 So -- but it will be forthcoming, and I suggest to prepare -- what I've done right now is to compile the questions and comments, and I've tried to get that out to you as quickly as possible.  Thank you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  Yes.  And also, I think there was a comment, at least one on the list, about there being various action items, and while I don't remember exactly, I think some of them had to do with this information was based on a report from these people, and that this report would therefore be passed around -- I mean, would be made available.
 So I don't remember exactly the topics in the reports and know who they were from, but I know there was a number of those things, so thank you.
 Any other discussion on things that we should be doing in terms of the new -- yes.  There's a hand.
 >>JASER ELMORSY:  Thank you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  That was really good, giving a card to the -- excellent.
 >>JASER ELMORSY:  Dear Council, my name is Jaser Elmorsy.  I'm the CEO of BlueBridge Technologies, a software development company headquartered in Europe.  We're also doing business in the Arabic world, including an office actually here in Cairo with about 35 employees here.  So about your question, Avri, what else should the council consider, I'm a new participant, only attending the second ICANN meeting, but I'm still very concerned about the current disparities between gTLDs and ccTLDs.  From everything I've heard, ccTLDs will be offering IDN domains much sooner than gTLDs, and I consider this actually as a major threat for companies like mine.
 So I think doesn't it make sense that at least the current gTLDs are allowed to offer their IDN domains in the same exact time frame as the ccTLDs are going to offer them?  Or, in other words, I'm wondering why the council is not sharing my concern about that.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  Would anyone like to comment?  I mean, there's -- there's two things to comment on.
 One is the -- I don't know the necessary -- it's hard to say whether one is coming out before the other.  Certainly we've all heard rumors and suppositions that one may or may not, but I don't actually know that that is necessarily the case, so that's hard to know.
 So that's one thing, and I don't know whether there's anyone in the staff at the moment that can respond to that issue, but to the issue of what the council -- I saw Mike's hand and I saw Chuck's, and -- sorry, yeah.  I'll have to look around because this is the side I'm most likely to miss there being a hand on.
 So Mike, please.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Just very quickly, I'd say thank you to the gentleman for raising the issue.  It's certainly something that we are concerned about in the business constituency as well.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Well, I want to point out that the GNSO Council in its comments in response to the IDNC and the cc IDN TLD PDP process made it very clear that we shot -- that they should not either one precede the other, and that position has not changed.
 The -- I'd like to share something that was alarming in the registry constituency lunch meeting with board leadership, a few other board members, and some staff yesterday.
 If I understood it correctly, it sure sounded like ICANN leadership has promised a couple countries that have been very vocal in this area that their needs would be met by June.
 Now, putting aside the fact that that seems like a very inappropriate thing to do in a policy-making body that involves several supported organizations, not just one, and that government interests are just one part of that, that tells me that there's an intent to ignore our recommendation that they go at the same time.
 Now, I hope that's not true, but that's sure what it sounded like.  And I think that's very inappropriate, and that I would hope the ICANN board would take a look at something like that further.  Okay?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.
 >>JASER ELMORSY:  Mike and Chuck.  Thank you.  You exactly get my point.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  And any other comment on that, from other council members?
 Yes.  Denise, I see you with a microphone.
 >>DENISE MICHEL:  Denise Michel, with ICANN staff.
 Staff is very cognizant of the strong guidance we've gotten from both the GNSO and the ccNSO.  One of the reasons we have both the new gTLD proposed application plan as well as the initial proposed implementation of the fast track out for comment at the same time is we're certainly striving to ensure that there's a coordinated approach and that the introduction of these two efforts coincide.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  You know, one of the questions that I have -- and I guess it's just an understanding clarification -- is the introduction of the two efforts means that they hit the root at the same time or that the application procedures and processes start at the same time?  And then given that and given, perhaps, that one process might be longer than another, I'm not sure what it means.
 >>DENISE MICHEL:  Yeah.  That's an excellent question, and part of the feedback we're hoping to get on the initial proposed implementation plans are these types of -- input on these types of details.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Any other questions or comments on this issue?  On any other?  Yes, Adrian.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Can I just get a clarification on the steps from here with respect to picking up the other modules?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes.  The -- in terms of, you mean, the GNSO and the staff.
 At the moment, what we're going to try and do is set up a meeting where we proceed with the questions, starting from where we left off, in Module 3.  Taking Olof's statement at the face value that basically says, "In our asking of questions in Module 1, we may have hit on some module 3, 4, and 5 topics, so we may not be as far behind as I think we are," it's still a question that we need to move through 3, need to move through 4, 5, and 6.
 Now, if any of our 4, 5 and 6 questions were asked and answered during Module 1, then hopefully we're not repeating the question.  But I think any question that we didn't ask about the specifics of 3, 4, 5, and 6 and, as I say, then going back and for the people who weren't there day 1, day 2, or a question that is only understood in light of the other conversation, to just basically have -- and are there any other questions on the thing in general.
 So I'm hoping that we get these meetings set up, as I said, within the next couple weeks.  There is a matter of scheduling that we haven't done yet that I believe Glen has started working on, but hasn't had a whole lot of time yet to get scheduled.  But that's what I thought was coming next.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  So it's not an "if" but a "when" that we'll be having these meetings?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  That's my assumption, yes.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Okay.  If we --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  And that's certainly what I'll work to make the case.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Yeah.  And I certainly would support that.  I mean, I thought the two sessions on Saturday and Sunday were very valuable.  Part of what I thought was valuable about the sessions was the input of people from outside of the council.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Right.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  And their questions.  And if I understand some discussion correctly, it was that we were looking to have those -- conduct those follow-up potential phone calls with -- and invite others to join.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  Right.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  If that is the case, did I hear that there was a rule around they had to ask a question 48 hours in advance in order to participate?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Right.  Yes.  Okay.  What I was trying to do is, there's a certain limit to -- and I don't know what that limit is, but there's a certain limit to the number of people that can necessarily participate in a call.  And as I say, I don't know what it is.
 But also, basically we did discuss in the meeting that all of us were asked to submit our questions up front.  Not that we necessarily had to submit our follow-up questions up front, but that we should submit a hundred -- okay, a hundred people on a call is the maximum.
 So we -- that we had agreed -- first of all, I believe the meeting is a "when" because I believe that the staff folks in that meeting agreed to have it, so that's why it's a "when," not an "if."
 In terms of that, we also agreed among ourselves that we would try to submit questions up front.  It will be a recorded call.
 In terms of controlling the numbers of lines that we use, the notion was that any active observer -- an observer that had questions that they could submit up front -- would, you know, be able to part of that 100 people that can join a call.
 But since we couldn't go beyond 100 if we got there, and we had more than 100 people in the room at various points, that was a way of doing the cutoff.  Any passive observer who basically just wants to know what's said and follow through certainly has the phone call record to go to, still has the possibility of written comments and questions, because we want to get this done within the comment period.
 So it was a way to sort of accommodate as many people as possible to get the questions in in advance as possible, and that was the 48-hour cutoff is basically once we know when the call is, please get your questions in 48 hours before, so that the staff has time to look at these things and prepare themselves somewhat.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Yeah.  And I support the sentiment.  I guess I just want you to be conscious of the fact that, you know, people's questions are often in retort to statements and clarifications that are made, which is the purpose of the discussion.  When Kurt, you know, presents and speaks to certain items so unless you submit a question and get -- so I don't know if there's some other mechanism by which you could register to get on the call or something and then look at the numbers.  Maybe a hundred is going to be enough.  There may be something else.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  I don't know.  One person did bring this up to me and their quick answer was:  "Yeah, I can certainly get a question submitted."
 I had Chuck and then Tony and I don't know if there's anyone in -- outside.  Okay.  Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I think another thing that was suggested was that we transcribe that call.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Which isn't something we normally do.  But because the transcription occurred for the discussions so far in that, that it would be very helpful to do that, and that provides another means of people who can't participate doing that.
 Now, the second item is that -- I'll throw this out, anyway -- it would probably be a good idea to get a doodle going for council members, at a minimum, to make sure that we come up with a time as soon as possible that would maximize participation of councillors.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Right.  Yes.  No, I'm sure and we have to include the staff in that doodle as well.
 Okay.  Tony?
 >>TONY HARRIS:  Yes, I'm probably confused.  I didn't understand.  We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon, right, the GNSO.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon.
 >>TONY HARRIS:  But we're not going to continue with the --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Not in that one.  We will basically will have a two-hour meeting where we have a number of things to do to sort of organize ourselves.  It's very much a -- those Thursday meetings are very often to, first of all, go through any comments that we've gotten that sort of motivate further work that we have to do, and then basically to prepare ourselves for the ongoing work.  Those Thursday meetings are often mostly process-oriented, and we wouldn't be able to get, you know, the staff that we would need for further questions in for that meeting, you know.
 >>TONY HARRIS:  Yeah.  That's a pity, but --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Huh?
 >>TONY HARRIS:  I understand, but it's a pity.  We're all here.  It would have been a good idea.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes, I understand.  But that meeting is really -- we've got an immense amount of work to get ourselves organized for over the next, you know, several months and spending a lot of time on that process detail, you know, when we talk about when are we going to have our next meetings, what's our schedule for this, what's our schedule for that, who's going to be on this design, it's not stuff that we want to do in this meeting because it would be a -- pretty much a waste of people's time.  And so that's why we have the Thursday meeting, pretty much as a largely process and sort of "go through the feedback we've gotten through the week" so that we make sure that we don't lose anything of what's been said to us.
 Anyone have a further comment?
 Anyone on the council want to comment further on the new gTLDs and what we should be doing about them?  No?
 In which -- yes.
 >>ROBIN GROSS:  Yeah.  I just wanted to say that I'm a bit concerned about the new gTLD implementation plan that came out, largely because it diverges widely from what the council and the board had agreed upon and sort of goes in a whole new direction on some points.
 For example, not giving registrants an opportunity to challenge a dispute resolution proceeding in a national court, and this is a really important right that people currently enjoy under the UDRP and it's important that they could -- would be able to continue to have that right to exercise -- to be able to exercise their rights in their national courts.
 There's actually quite a long list of items that we have with the particular new implementation program and I'm not going to go into them all right now.  We'll be providing -- NCUC will be providing a more detailed analysis of that, but I just wanted to flag that there's a number of concerns with this new implementation plan that's come out in terms of how it diverges from what the council and the board agreed on, and how it sort of makes up entirely new proposals that were not things that council had agreed on.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  That strikes me as one of the excellent opportunities for self-formed teams of people to sort of draft statements and bring them to council as statements that you will be sending anyways perhaps.  But ones you can also bring to council and perhaps after some discussion, find a statement that's endorsable by the council assuming we can get to something.  So that strikes me that in this case one of the methods that can help us, is those who believe there's something that's worth commenting on certainly work on their comments.  And if we can get a council endorsement on that, then that becomes a council-endorsed comment as well.  Obviously, each one will take an individual vote and see if we have council support for any of those statements.
 Any other -- Yes, please.
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:  Hello?  Hello?  Okay.  Dirk Krischenowski from dotBERLIN.  I'm not sure if it is time to make any comments now?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Comments on the new gTLD -- we will have open comment period after.  But, basically, on the question of should GNSO as a council be taking any action beyond, you know -- and perhaps issues that you think we should be commenting on in that process.  Go ahead.
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:  Then I will go for the later period to comment.  Thanks.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Any other questions on this particular topic at the moment?  If not, I'm going to suggest, if I have the approval, our next item is scheduled to start at 10:30, that we take a 12-minute, quick, run, do what you need to do, grab a cup of coffee.  Be back at 10:30 to resume.  Is there any objection to doing that?  I see no objection to doing that.  So we will be back in, I guess it is, 11 minutes at the moment, and everyone else gets to run away, too.  But we will start again at 10:30.  Thank you.
 (Break)
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, it is 10:30.  We should get back to starting.  I have a lot of empty chairs.
 Okay.  We'll start.  I'm sure the other people will get back presently.  Wow, all of a sudden, you can hear me now.  All of a sudden you can now that I can hear myself booming.  I'm sure you can hear me now.
 Yes?  Yes.
 Okay.  So the next item on our agenda is discussion on single-character names in existing gTLDs.  That's what's on the agenda.  We also asked though -- and I passed the message on, just didn't change the agenda -- also for an update on the ICANN-IANA names list.  So basically ask Patrick Jones, who I believe I saw here.  So did you have any slides or you were just going to talk?  Did you want to come stand up here?  Did you want to do it from down there?
 >>PATRICK JONES:  How's that?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  We can hear you.
 >>PATRICK JONES:  Yes.  So Patrick Jones from ICANN staff.  I'll give the GNSO a brief update on the work done to date with single-character names and the status of the ICANN-IANA names.  There was a GNSO reserved names working group started in January 2007.  The working group produced a substantial final report in May 2007.  An update was given to the community during the San Juan meeting in summer 2007.  In that meeting, staff provided an update to the council that further work was -- would be conducted on single-character names at the second level in existing gTLDs and in ICANN-IANA names.
 Since then a substantial amount of work has been conducted on single-character names.  We've had two consultations, a public comment period on potential allocation methods and then a synthesis document and ICANN allocation framework document.  All that work has been done.  And I wanted to point everyone to this afternoon in this room, there will be an open working session on single-character names at the second level, the three gTLD registries that have requests pending to release single-character names.  We'll give a brief update on the status of their requests, and I will give a further update on the work done to date with single-character names.
 That session is from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. in this room.  On single-character names, I don't have much more to add other than what was given to the council back in the May 2008 meeting.
 On ICANN-IANA names, I don't know if everyone has had a chance to look at the schedule of reserved names that's included in Module 5 of the new gTLD materials.  In that schedule, you will note that the ICANN-IANA names that are currently reserved in the gTLD registry agreements, that category has been removed from the reserved names list and so it is open for discussion.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, thank you.  Start out with any questions from -- okay.  Start with Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Yeah, Patrick, just a little bit more on the process as to how -- if you would, please, as to how you came to the change in the reserved list.
 >>PATRICK JONES:  So staff took the input that we had received from the community from you and others on the council, you know, if there wasn't a need to reserve this category of names in the future agreements, to see if the reserved names list could be streamlined in some way.  And so it is a proposal in the draft materials.  You know, staff had a lot of debate about this and whether to continue the reservation in new agreements or take this category of names out and we opted to see about streamlining the list.  And the names have been removed from the list in the current version.
 They're still on the list of reserved names at the top level, but that's open to discussion as well.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Just wondering whether you went and asked those organizations their view on the matter as I think we suggested at the end of the reserved names group.
 >>PATRICK JONES:  I don't think that work has been done.  It was a suggestion, but it wasn't part of the specific recommendations from the GNSO that those groups be asked if they wanted to keep those names on reserve or justify their reservation, and that has not been done.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Any other -- yes, Alan.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:  There have been a number of estimates of how much money might be -- result from the sale, auction, whatever, of single-character second-level domains, especially on dot com, dot net.  What's the current thinking of where that money would go and how it would be used?
 >>PATRICK JONES:  So at this time, there are no proposals on how allocation of single-character names in any other gTLD other than the three that have requested allocation and release and those registries included dot coop, dot mobi and dot biz.  So any discussion of those proposals is limited to those registries and doesn't go to any other registries.  I don't think that answers your question, but there will be a session this afternoon and maybe that kind of discussion can be raised there.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I don't know that this is a question or a comment at this point.  We'll see if I end it with a question mark.
 I'm just -- I guess I'm struck with the concern or notion that these three registries that have made proposals, I don't understand why there would not be a consistent framework for -- particularly for the proceeds of any auctions, for example.  I guess I just don't understand why -- yeah, why they would have different proposals and why that would be acceptable to us all.  I don't think it's an issue that we've discussed.  I think it probably is one that we should discuss as a council.  But perhaps if you can tell us whether there has been any staff thinking on that point, that would be useful.
 >>PATRICK JONES:  Well, to clarify, the coop and mobi requests do not have any mention of an auction process.  They are both requesting an RFP process.  Dot biz has an auction element but it is not the only element, and it's not ICANN staff's position to argue one way or the other for any particular allocation method.
 On the two previous public comment periods, there is significant interest in the community for an allocation process.  An auction is one of the processes that's been suggested.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Tim.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Yeah, I think when -- at least my recollection from participating in the reserved names working group, we kind of left -- we didn't really get into the issue of allocation methods for these at all.  We kind of left that open as something that needed to be further discussed.
 And, honestly, myself I hadn't even contemplated the fact that there may be registries who don't want to auction these things or they may not collect any revenue at all.  They may have a completely different purpose in wanting to release the names, you know, getting into the hands of the highly visible, highly trafficked Web site or user might be of much more advantage to a particular registry than auctioning it off for a whole lot of money.
 And I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to consider.  So I don't think that perhaps there is a single method that's going to work for everyone and actually benefit the registry as well, and we can't completely discount the benefit to the registry.  We need to keep that in mind as well.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I see Mike.  I also want to find out if anyone in the room has a comment on this.  But, Mike, go ahead.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Well, all the registry contracts have the same reserved names list, basically.  And as far as I know -- certainly Patrick can correct me if I am wrong -- I think they all have the same provision essentially about the reserved name list.  So what would be the justification for allowing one -- I won't even say -- I won't use the word "allocation."  What would be the justification for wanting to use the proceeds from allocation any differently than another?  In other words, it seems to me they did not have an expectation to ever sell those names, given that they were on the reserved name lists at the time they executed their contract.  So proceeds from any allocation should go back to the community, and I just feel like that should be consistently done.
 >>PATRICK JONES:  Just to answer that briefly, there have already been a number of registry requests through the registry services evaluation process for the limited release of two-character names.  And the approach for release of two-character names has not been uniform across all the registries that have requested that.  There have been different approaches.  That is something that is acceptable through that process.  It was a consensus policy process that was approved by the board through the recommendation of the GNSO.
 So that's the process that's available for changes to registry agreements and that's the process that those -- the registries have followed to date.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Any other comments?  Yes, Edmon.
 >>EDMON CHUNG:  I just want to sort of respond a little bit to Mike's statement, I guess.  It seems to me that it's almost like you felt that those reserved names were reserved to be sold at a later date and then the ICANN community could share that proceeds.  I don't think that's the case.  I think at least the intent of the reserved names -- we need to go back to the intent, which is at that time I believe was more of a security, stability consideration for them to be reserved.  And then over a process, we realized that perhaps the security concern is -- could be relaxed.  And, you know, therefore, it becomes regular names.
 And I think in my view, it seems like -- I just want to make sure that it's not construed as something that ICANN has reserved and then even thought to be sold at a later date at that time.  That's just my --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I have a question which is if, indeed -- and since -- you know, if they're coming off the reserved name list, are they coming off a reserved name list for all existing gTLDs or is it only going to be an exceptional circumstance?  Because it seems to be consistent with what you're saying, that if they no longer need to be on it for stability and security purposes, then they no longer need to be on it.
 Now, if there was any other policy that the council wanted to make and somebody decided that this other policy was within the parameters of the council's prerogatives, you know, in terms of what one did with that -- and that would almost be a policy of creating a new type of reserved name or a new type of there are names, there are reserved names and then there are these other things.
 For me it is just questions at the moment.  I'm trying to understand where we are and what it is we need to do about it, if anything.  And I think we might have to do anything.
 I have Mike and I have got Chuck.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I agree.  I'm right with you on that, Avri.  I'm trying to figure out what we could or should do also.  I'm very concerned, basically, with Patrick's statement that says, in essence, while it's been done before with the two-character names and, therefore, why shouldn't we do it with the single-character names.  
 I just want to clarify, Edmon.  There was certainly no intent with respect to the reserved names other than to keep them reserved forever as far as I know when the contracts were executed.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Chuck?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Avri, I think you know the answer to your first question.  It is being done on an exceptional basis now.  If a registry submits a registry service proposal that is supposed to be handled via the contractual procedure, that was a consensus policy in that regard.
 Just like to point out that the registry constituency a couple weeks ago submitted a letter to the board of directors noting that we had serious concerns that that particular consensus policy and procedure was being applied arbitrarily and certainly not consistently.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah.  And, yes -- okay.  I will get -- yes.  And thank you.  I mean, that was part of my question.  I knew things were being submitted on an exceptional basis, and what I was trying to understand was whether the council and community felt that that was the right way for it to be dealt with or because reserved names were taking a certain direction in new gTLDs and such, whether there was a need for a policy process over the whole range.  Yes?
 >>PATRICK JONES:  I just want to call the attention to the council to my update from the May 29th council call.  And at that time, I provided an update on your specific question about what does the council need to do or not do with this category of names.  I don't think anything has changed from the staff perspective since that call.  So there really isn't, at least from a staff perspective, further work from the GNSO on this category of names.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  But -- and I appreciate the recommendation, but then, again, the council also needs to understand and think about that ourselves.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay.  But -- and I appreciate the recommendation, but then, again, the council also needs to understand and think about that ourselves.  And I don't know that we've done that yet.  And I think that that's why the question keeps coming up and such, whether it can all be taken care of in exceptional cases or should be taken care of as a general policy redefinition of reserved names.
 >>PATRICK JONES: One other piece of information is that the board does have on their agenda for Friday, discussion and possible consideration of the two requests from dot co-op and dot mobi and there will be further discussion by the board in Friday's discussion.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Other comments on this issue, on single-character at the second level and ICANN IANA names.  Mike, yes.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'd just ask you, Patrick, if you could just find that section of the May 29th call and maybe recirculate it to the list.  And also any discussion of the board, that the board has on Friday on this topic, and then perhaps we can just keep it on our agenda for the next meeting.
 >>AVRI DORIA: We could, and that seems like a very good idea.  And actually, it might be useful if you could repeat that recommendation of, you know, is there any detail you've left out at this point so that we have it in front of us at this point in terms of the -- what it was that we weren't supposed to do anything about and why.
 >>PATRICK JONES: So I should actually look back myself what I said during that call.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, so then I will put it on the agenda for our next meeting.
 Anyone else wish to comment at this point?  Anyone -- ahh, yes, I see Ray.  Someone give Ray a microphone.  Really do miss the microphone in the middle with the line.
 >> We have one.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Oh, you have one?  Fantastic, I don't see it.  Where?  Oh, anyway --
 >>RAY FASSETT: Hello, Ray Fassett, registry constituency. I would like to make a comment on this.  It seems like there was a policy development process done as part of the gTLD overall, the reserved names working group, and I recall that there was a recommendation out of that work that the single-character names at the second level for new gTLDs no longer need to be reserved for technical reasons or stability reasons or -- I thought that was a conclusion from a lot of hard work as part of that group.  So that's new gTLDs.
 Now, for existing gTLDs, there's a process already in place.  It's called the RSTEP process, the registry services evaluation.  And that's what we have working which is a consensus policy.  We've had three, now, top-level domains go through that process in a -- well, as Chuck has pointed out, has been a little inconsistent, but those are procedural issues that we need to work on.  It doesn't take away from the merit of why that consensus policy exists.
 So for existing gTLDs, we have a process.  For new gTLDs, a policy development process has already been worked on.  I'm not sure why this needs to be revisited.
 >>AVRI DORIA: I guess because, if I understand properly -- and well, I'll let Mike speak as opposed to my guessing.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Well, I think, Ray, that you're taking quite an expansive view of the appropriateness or propriety of the RSTEP process in this situation.  I think it's quite a stretch, although I acknowledge the precedence that we've gone through with two-character names -- I think it's quite a stretch to say that it's an additional registry service to release reserved names.
 >>RAY FASSETT:  Question.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Use the microphone, please, if you still have it.
 >>RAY FASSETT:  Mike, I think that's a different question now.  You know, the other questions that were being discussed have to do with the funds and is it right for the community and whatever, whatever.  Now you're asking a procedural question, okay.  And if that's the question you want to ask, then that's what needs to be discussed, if, you know, the allocation of two-character names or 63-character names or single-character names are for existing gTLDs belong in the RSTEP process, that's a different question.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Yes.  And I think that that was what I was trying to get to before with there are basically two questions here.  One is just a question of what is on the reserved name list, and then one is the other question of what does one do with names that used to be on a reserved name list and now no longer are.  If there is such a question.  But that they're separate.  Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES: Mike, I have a question for you.  You said it was a stretch.  A stretch of what?  What policy are you referring to?  What contractual conditions are you referring to?  I don't have a clue.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'll try to clarify.  It's a stretch of interpretation of the contractual provisions or of the -- I guess, of the definition of additional registry services.
 >>CHUCK GOMES: Those are defined in the registry agreements.  Again, we can talk about this offline, but I really don't have any idea what's being stretched.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Tim.
 >>TIM RUIZ: Just my personal view is that, you know, we want to be careful.  Because all the registries already have an approved registry service to registered domain names.  A single-character name is just another domain name.  So what is the need for the RSTEP process at all once the decision's been made that single-character names at the second level no longer need to be reserved.  Yet all the registries are submitting proposals.  Many of them, I think, seem to me to be well thought out.  So we shouldn't, you know, short-sell the RSTEP process, and I think in the long-run it can be of more benefit to the community than not.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Any other comments on this topic at this point?  I'm sure it will come up again in future conversations.  In which case, thank you.
 And now we'll move to the general open discussion.  As I -- basically any topic on today's agenda, if you either had a question that didn't come up then or wasn't answered satisfactorily or just a comment to make or because of the timing you weren't here at the point where we discussed it, please feel free.  The question that we added later, if someone wants to give an answer, similar to what we did about gTLDs, what, if anything, should council be doing in response to the IDN ccTLD implementation plan or any other topic related to gTLD policy, the microphone line is open such as it is.
 Do I have anyone that wishes to speak at open discussion on -- I know at least one person does because they deferred their question until later.  This is that later.
 >> Microphone.
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Okay.  Coming in front.  It's better.  Yeah, I'd like to make an announcement today to you, to the GNSO, that I think is one of the right target groups for it.  The announcement is that we as city top-level domain names, in particular, Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona, New York, and Paris, we share common interests, as you know, many common interests, and we have grouped together and spoke about these common interests regardless which individual governance backgrounds these TLDs have.  Some have -- will be operated more or less by the government.  Some others solely on a private basis.  And the announcement I'd like to make as a representative of this group of city top-level domain initiatives, we have founded a stakeholder group to -- which will participate in the framework and in the structure of ICANN in the future to represent the interests of these city top-level domain initiatives.
 I think this is interesting, especially when it comes to the GNSO reform and so on.  And on behalf of this group, I -- and as representative of the dot BERLIN initiative, I'd like to make some comments and address three areas of concern for the draft applicant guidebook.  
 We have discussed a lot of things in the last couple of days, but three areas are especially of concern to the city TLDs. 
 The first is the timing.  It's -- what Ray said, it's a consecutive pregnancy that ICANN has with the top-level domain names and that should come to an end and we think ICANN should really stick to the time lines which they published two weeks ago and not go -- not prolong this three months again as -- or three or six months again, as at every ICANN meeting I attended in the past.
 The second point is the annual fees of 75,000 Euros.  That's a special area of concern.  Especially when you compare this to the existing fees of ccTLDs and gTLDs and we find this is way too much, this 75,000.
 The third concern is about the community scoring measures which are in the draft applicant guidebook.  And as a group, we will make some comments on the draft applicant guidebook in the comment period which runs now and so it can expect from individual initiatives and from the group some comments on it.  Okay.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Can I ask you a question?
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Yes.
 >>AVRI DORIA: To try and at the beginning understand what you mean by "have founded a stakeholder group," when you use the "stakeholder group," are you using it in the sense that the board restructuring plan has identified four stakeholder groups and now you're announcing a fifth?  Is it a different way of saying a constituency in formation?  Is it something else completely?  I'm curious what you mean by "a stakeholder group," how you define that.
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: At the current stage, it's a stakeholder interest group and how we participate at ICANN and how our aims are -- have to be defined in the upcoming weeks, but we will surely address this at the latest in Mexico but I think a lot of months before.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thank you.  Are there any questions -- yes, okay, I see Philip and then I see Mike.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Actually, it's a question for Dirk.  Dirk, congratulations for this initiative.  Which house are you planning on applying to, the contracted parties' house or the users' house?
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: We are not sure about this at the moment.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Might I suggest the contracted parties' house may be a future home for you?
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Yeah, thank you for that advice.  Might -- might be the right direction.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: I believe that's been your aspiration for a while.
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Yes.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I just want to support your statement, personally, about the time lines.  I completely agree with you.  I guess, though, since you're announcing the formation of this separate group, shall we assume that you're also announcing your resignation from the business constituency?
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Not yet, since we are not a legal structure or a structure within the ICANN framework, not at the moment, but at the right time.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Any other questions for the -- thank you.  Any other comments?  Open discussion, open mic.  Werner.
 >>WERNER STAUB: My name is Werner Staub.  I come back to the related aspect of the time line, you know, what happens after "the round."  "The round," inappropriately called "the first round," is the third round.  In between the rounds we've had increasing time periods.  And the weight, the expected weight of each round, of course, increases.  The more we wait, the heavier it's going to be, just like a snow plow, it's snowing, at some point there's too much snow for the plow to plow away.
 So we need a safety valve, first of all, not to increase that weight that we have to carry for the upcoming round, where we say we'll have to reengineer our snow plow because there's too much snow to plow.
 And, of course, while we reengineer it, there's going to be more snow, there's going to be more to take out.  With all the pushing off the deadlines, we disrupt the plans of those people who are trying to do a serious proposal that need to work in their communities to get consensus.  All of us that have been doing that have been losing our credibility.  Because the credibility you can offer is not more than that of ICANN in terms of time line.  
 We've all committed, and that is one of the statements that the GNSO made when it defined its principles, that we wanted to provide applicants with certainty.  The most important certainty we can provide is time.  If we provide certainty about the color of the paper or the color the ink in which the agreement is going to be written, that is nice.  But it's probably not what they want.  We want to have time as the first and foremost certainty.
 This goes back to engineering aspects, and these engineering aspects have been taken into -- have been taken up by staff based on the -- what the GNSO PDP process has worded, and they have said, "Well, we're going to use rounds."  But if it is taken too literally, we're going to build so heavy rounds, we can't even call them rounds anymore.
 What we have to focus on, probably it goes back now to the attention of the GNSO Council is how can we design this so there's a safety valve so that the weight of the coming round and thereafter comes doesn't continue to increase, and therefore, continue to push the next round further and the follow-on round even further.  
 We have here already an announcement it's going to be one year after we have or two years after, we already know this cannot be kept if it's that way so we need to have a safety valve.  
 And I believe the one that is available are the noncontentious applications.  In many ways there are applications out there that would readily go before a panel, that would not bother if, even after they were announced, there would be people who say, look, I also want to do this, well, then let's do an evaluation, if they really want to do that, they would not have a problem with that because they would have a good case to make.  And if you don't build that in, they may be increasing the weight of the round simply because we prepare for the contention that we think we cannot resolve and we do not let those who are probably not contentious through when they could.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  I'll open it up to other comments in a second.  My first reaction is I've got -- I mean, it sounds almost like this would require us to do a new policy process that recommended a change to the current implementation plan.  And one of the things I've begun to notice is every time we start to do -- or even open our mouths about anything on the implementation plan, it moves out further.  So I'm not really sure what it is we could actually do to make things happen faster.  I know within the recommendations we certainly recommended, you know, predictability, certainties, second rounds that were assured.  But I don't know what we can do at this point other than slow it down.  But I -- because it's -- it's been among the things that's been said is too many things being reconsidered in terms of the implementation plan takes more time.
 So I don't know what an answer would be to your "how to speed it up" and how to guarantee that the next round comes quickly.  But I certainly, you know, open the question up to other council members.  Anyone?  Nope.  Thank you.
 Any other comments?  Opinions?  Issues?
 No?  That's very few.
 Any other discussion at all?  Nope.  Okay.  In which case, anyone on the council -- no.  Okay.
 So then I'll go to the -- I'll close the general open discussion at this point and move on to the motions.
 And the first motion I have up here is still the motion from Mike on a motion to -- on suspension of public comment periods.  
 Is there any discussion in the council on this motion at this point?  Yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Just to mention that I've sent around a couple of different amended versions pursuant to our discussion and some comments on the list.  Version three, which I believe and hope is -- it's at least supported by Chuck and Carlos so far, hopefully will be supported by all, would amend the wording of the resolution paragraph to say the following: Resolved, the GNSO Council strongly urges ICANN staff to extend for seven days any public comment periods which overlap with any of the seven days of an ICANN meeting.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, this is what always -- this wording is on the list?  This was your last e-mail, "The GNSO Council strongly urges ICANN staff to extend for seven days any public comment periods which overlap with any of the seven days of an ICANN meeting," that's the one you just read?
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Yes.
 >>AVRI DORIA: I will substitute that in.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I believe the title should also change from "suspension" to "extension."
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay.  So that's the motion as it stands now.  Motion on extension.  And I assume that you're making this motion, Mike?
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Yes.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Is there a second for this motion?  
 Okay, I have Kristina seconding the most.  Yes, Zahid, do you want to comment?  Oh, okay, we have two seconds, Kristina and Zahid.
 Okay, does anyone want to comment on this motion at this point?  Yes.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'd just move for a voice vote.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, any objection to a voice vote?  Okay, I'd like to ask all those in favor to please say aye.
 All those opposed, please say nay.
 Any abstentions?
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yes, here.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, we have one abstention.  Would you care to say why you're abstaining?  We have a practice, when one abstains, to say why.  
 Adrian, can you say why you're abstaining?  We have this practice of, one when abstains, to --
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: No.  Sorry, I haven't had a chance to take it back to my talk with my constituency yet.  How's that?
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thank you.  The motion passes with one abstention.
 The next motion is one that we talked about we had a period online where we asked for nominations.  One nomination was received verifiably; one nomination wasn't received but subsequently was graciously withdrawn.  So we have one nominee, and there have been no objections to the nominee.  
 So I'd like to put the motion forward as the GNSO and ccNSO have agreed to exchange liaisons, the GNSO approves the appointment of Olga Cavalli, a NomCom appointee as the GNSO liaison to the ccNSO until the end of the 2009 annual meeting or until she leaves the council, whichever comes first.  
 That last clause, as an explanation, not that I expect her to leave the council, but since people have brought up various issues about what happens to NomCom appointees during the restructuring, I didn't want to presuppose, in the writing of this, that would be the case, so therefore have just left that open.  But, of course, there's no presupposition in having made that statement.  
 I'll put the motion forward.  I'll move it.  
 Is there a second for it?  Okay, I have a second from Philip and from Robin.
 Is there any discussion on this motion?  Yes, Olga.
 >>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Avri.  It would be very helpful to know which is the expectation in relation with presence in face-to-face meeting during ICANN meetings and in relation with ccNSO, and also if there will be a scope of work for this position.
 >>AVRI DORIA: I don't believe there's a scope of work.  I believe, as we've discussed previously, that the presence at the face-to-face ccNSO meetings as one can.  You've seen the example of Alan, who is the ALAC liaison to this group, that he's here when he can be, he's there when it -- you know, he needs to be.  And the scope of work is basically to be a liaison.  Yes, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I think this can and should be a very important role.  So I thank Olga for taking it on.  And I think we should try to scope it out, and I think it's probably a task for both of our steering committees to consider how all of our liaisons actually should be scoped.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Actually, that's quite reasonable as a task.  That would probably fall into the PPSC, or it's hard to tell where, exactly, it would fall in terms of the steering committees.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Why not both?
 >>AVRI DORIA: Why not both?  It confuses me.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I guess the liaison has -- should have roles as to both, or could and should have roles that fall within the mandate of both of those committees.
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Yes, Tim.
 >>TIM RUIZ: I'd have no objection to that, but I was just going to point out that the communication aspect, it seems to kind of fall into that area of the recommendations and that part is actually under the operational or the OSC.  So if you look at it that way, it would fall under the OSC, but I'd have no objections if we can make it work out logistically to have it under both.  
 The only other question I have is -- and this is really a nitpick, but if we're going to put some definition around these kinds of roles, you know, should we perhaps capitalize "liaison" and just kind of indicate that it's a defined role?  
 >>AVRI DORIA:  So in other words, okay --
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Capitalize "liaison" in the motion.
 >>AVRI DORIA: In the motion, okay.  I had it capitalized in the title, but I certainly will capitalize it in the -- okay, I've amended it, accepted it as a friendly amendment.  
 Any other discussion at this point before I call for a vote?  Any objection to a voice vote?  Seeing no objection to a voice vote, all those in favor of accepting this proposal, please say aye.
 All opposed, please say nay.
 Any abstentions?
 Hearing no abstentions, thank you, Olga, as liaison.
 [ Applause ]
 >>AVRI DORIA: Okay.  The next motion is issues report on registration-abuse policies.  The GNSO acknowledges receipt of the issues report on registration-abuse policies and thanks the ICANN policy staff for the report and its timely delivery.  The GNSO resolves to begin discussions of the issues report and the possible initiation of a PDP at its next regular meeting.
 I'll put the motion forward.  Does anyone second this motion?  Chuck, thank you.  
 Any discussion on this?  As was mentioned earlier, it was received just before the meeting.  I doubt many of us have had time to read it, let alone digest it or discuss it in your constituencies.  But we have taken the intentional step of whenever we're not reacting within the number of days required by the PDP, to take the definitive action of saying when we will react.  So that's the purpose of the motion, to basically acknowledge and put us on record as when we will do it since we are not doing it within the bylaws' required maximum.
 Is there any discussion on this?
 Is there any objection to taking a voice vote on this motion?
 If not, all those in favor of this motion, please say aye.
 Any opposed to this motion, please say nay.
 Any abstentions to this motion?
 Hearing none, the motion passes, thank you.
 Okay.  Next motion is a bittersweet motion.  It's a thank you motion.
 In recognition of the service to the ICANN community the following council members have provided over the years.  In recognition of the many hours of meetings and preparation for meetings.  In recognition of the many miles and hours flown to attend a week's worth of meetings three times a year.  The council expresses its gratitude to the retiring GNSO Council members:  Jon Bing served two years; Robin Gross served four years; Tom Keller served five years; Norbert Klein, three years.
 I put this motion forward.
 Do I have a second?  Thank you, Adrian.  I have a second.
 Any discussion on this motion?
 No discussion on this motion.
 I ask for approval of this motion by acclamation.
 [Applause]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  And with that motion, I welcome the new members.
 I have one more thank you motion.
 This is a thank you Motion No. 2 for someone who isn't leaving.
 Whereas every year we thank retiring GNSO Council members for their service.  And in recognition of the fact that there is one person who rarely gets public thanks, but without whom we would not function as a council, the GNSO Council wishes to gratefully extend its continuing thanks to Glen de Saint Gery for being the spirit behind the GNSO and for the many, many, many things she does.  This thanks is extended with the hope that Glen will remain the force behind the council for many years to come.  Do I have a second to this?  I see everybody seconds it.  By acclamation...
 [Applause]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.
 [Standing Ovation]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  And I got you a small token to remember the motion by.
 >>GLEN de SAINT GERY:  Oh, thank you.
 >>TONY HARRIS:  Avri, could we add something to the congratulations?  Glen, your choice of food and -- is always excellent.  Thanks for that.  And please stay with us.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Adrian.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Can I also add to that motion that ICANN move quickly to secure your services for a long time to come, if they haven't already done so.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I'm assuming they already have.  I'm counting on it.
 [Laughter]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  As I said, it struck me that we didn't need to always wait for someone to leave to thank them formally, and -- but I had to underline and bold and italics the "isn't" so that no one would get the wrong idea.
 [Laughter]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  So thank you.  With that, is there any other business?  Yes, Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I think it would be good if we, as a council, just by acclamation, again, communicated our compliments and thanks to the excellent technical support, not only our scribes but the P.A. systems, the systems in the meetings.  In my opinion, this has been one of the best-ever, and of course to the ICANN staff that made all that happen.  It really makes a big difference in these meetings.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Yes, Adrian.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Can I add to Chuck's comment?  The only thing I'd like to see return, if possible, is a center mic rather than a roaming mic for these meetings.  I don't know whether that's a logistic problem for here or whether that's going to be an ongoing change, but I think it makes it easier to see who is asking questions, what line is coming, and, you know, how many people.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Yeah.  Just one response to that.  Actually, I think it -- I do think that there are situations where the center mic is very helpful, but there are also occurrences this week where I thought the roving mic was pretty good, too, so I wouldn't necessarily eliminate the roving mic, but I do see advantages of having a center mic in lots of situations.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Okay.  Thank you.  Any other comments?  But, yes, thank you to the technical staff.
 [Applause]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  And all those who help.
 [Applause]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Now, it seems before I adjourn the meeting, I neglected -- I remembered to give the present that I was giving to Glen, but Glen has -- there are gifts to those who are leaving.  And you're here.  Thank you.
 >>TOM KELLER:  Thank you.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Five years!  Jon.
 And with that, if there is no other business, any other business at all, I adjourn this meeting.  Thank you.