ICANN PUBLIC FORUM: Reports of Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees to the Board ICANN - Paris Thursday, 26 June 2008 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we are one minute from starting, so if you will take your places. [ Pause. ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to begin, so welcome to this public forum. And consistent with advice that we have received previously, we are not going to go through a process of reading reports. Reports have been published. And let me tell you what they are. First of all, there is a series of board committees, and those board committee reports have been posted. And the first one is the report of the audit committee. And I could just ask Njeri Rionge to stand. Njeri is the director chairing the audit committee. Thank you, Njeri. And there are any questions -- I'm going to go through them all and if you have got any questions at the end for any of these, come to the microphones. The next board committee is the Board Finance Committee, that's chaired by Raimundo Beca. Raimundo, if you would stand. Raimundo is here to answer any questions relating to the Board Finance Committee's report. Roberto Gaetano, Roberto is the vice-chairman of the board and chairman of the Board Governance Committee, the Board Governance Committee's report is available on the Web site. Roberto will be happy to answer any questions of that Roberto. And Demi Getschko, my country code manager colleague from Brazil, is the chairman of the conflicts-of-interest committee. If you have any questions relate to go the report of Demi's committee, please get ready to ask them. We move next to reports of Supporting Organizations and advisory committees. Is Cheryl Langdon-Orr here, the chair of the ALAC? She had some personal -- Cheryl. Your report is published on the Web site? Yes? And you are available to answer any questions relating to that report. The ASO report is by Adiel Akplogan. Is Adiel here? Could you stand? There you are. Thank you. ccNSO is ably chaired by Chris Disspain. Is Chris here? Your report has been published as well, I think? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: It's about. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: It's about to be. Oh, yeah. Janis Karklins who is the chairman of the GAC and is the GAC advisory liaison to the board, will answer any questions about the GAC -- Your report takes the form of the communiqué and has been published and is available. Janis is available. Avri, is Avri Doria -- >>AVRI DORIA: Yes. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Avri. The GNSO has published a report. RSSAC, Suzanne Woolf is able to answer any questions about the root servers. Security and Stability Advisory Committee is chaired by Steve Crocker who is that committee's liaison to the board, and Steve is available to answer any questions arising from those reports. So open microphone time. Are there any questions of any of those officers, chairs, et cetera, about the contents of any of their reports? Chris, are you going to ask a question of the ccNSO? Good. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: We do things slightly differently in the ccNSO. What we normally publish is actually a members' report, which we will do shortly. But I thought, if I take advantage of the open microphone to read one resolution that was actually passed by the council yesterday. It says, following the meeting of members today, at which clear consensus was reached on the draft final report of the Internationalized Domain Name country code working group, the council resolves, 1, we thank the IDNC working group for its hard work in producing the final report. 2, to welcome the report and endorse the recommendations contained therein. 3, to ask the IDNC working group to submit the report to the ICANN board with endorsement of the recommendations by the ccNSO. And 4, to request the board to request the ICANN staff to prepare an implementation plan based on the recommendations contained in the report. The council believes that the model of the IDNC working group has demonstrated the ability of the ICANN Supporting Organizations, advisory committees, and its technical community to work together in an efficient and effective manner. And it's my understanding that that -- that the IDNC working group final report endorsed, has, in fact, been sent to the board. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Chris. Are there any other questions of Chris while he is there? All right. Then the next report is by the ombudsman. I wonder if, Frank, you could stand up and identify yourself to the crowd. One of the things that ICANN is proud of is the office of the ombudsman, available to deal with complaints about administrative action. Frank is our ombudsman and has posted a report. Any questions of the ombudsman? All right. Thank you, Frank. And we now come to some updates on yesterday's activities, and we're waiting for an update on IDN status. And I'm just checking with Paul as to whether Tina is available to do that or whether it's.... I'm not sure who -- Ah, Tina. Thank you. And while Tina is coming, Jean-Jacques. >>JEAN-JACQUES SUBRENAT: Chairman, I just wanted to indicate that when here on the podium, the translation cannot be heard. There is some background noise which is too loud to hear the interpretation. If that could be fixed. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Jean-Jacques. Paul Levins, there is a problem with hearing the translation on stage, there's a loud noise going on, if that could be -- Thank you. Tina, an IDN status update, just for the first time. >>TINA DAM: Yes, so actually I have to admit, Peter, that I am completely unprepared for that because I did give the status update yesterday in the public forum so I didn't know you were going to have it at this public forum as well. But we have had a lot of good progress on IDNs. As you may have heard, the fast-track report for introduction of IDN ccTLDs or a methodology for that has been passed for board consideration. And that's on the ccTLD front. On the gTLD front, staff is working on implementation issues that will allow for IDN gTLDs, along with the ASCII TLDs as well on the gTLD side. The policy for gTLDs is also in front of the board for consideration. Then there is the technical parts. And on the technical front, we had a three-hour workshop this morning on the protocol revision. And the protocol revision has been going on for a couple of years, but is anticipated to be finished in this calendar year. We do like to see this protocol being finished before we introduce IDN TLDs in the root because it does give a more stable foundation for those TLDs. However, we're also aware of the fact that the allocation processes may be done earlier, so we may need to put some additional measures in place in order to make everything available when the allocation processes are done. I think those three are pretty much like the main highlights, so unless there are any questions, then that will be it from me. Thanks, Peter. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Tina. Are there any questions in relation to, I guess, the report from the ccNSO which has only come out yesterday, it's making it a little bit tight. Yes, sir. Use the microphone, please, and would you state your name and affiliation. Thank you. >>GERARD LANG: My name is Gerard Lang, and I am the chairman of the ISO 3166 Standard Updating Committee, which serves as a basis for the top-level domains. ccTLDs, that is. Now, when it comes to internationalization, someone spoke about ASCII. I would like to know whether we are speaking here of ASCII or whether we are speaking of scripts which cannot be written from an alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet, because they are not the same things technically speaking. When we speak of internationalization, in fact we are speaking of what is not Romanized. That is what cannot be written with a variant of the Latin alphabet, adding diacritical signs to it. It's a problem of de-Romanization which doesn't have much to do with whether or not, technically, it can be written in ASCII or not. So I would like that ambiguity to be removed. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Any other comments or questions in relation to IDNs? >>TINA DAM: I can make a clarification on that topic, if you like. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Yes, if you can. Thank you, Tina. >>TINA DAM: Sure. So on the CC fast-track, the report that came out was a recommendation that it would be based on non-Latin scripts. So not on any of the extended Latin scripts. I think some of the reasons for it has to do with the fact that the fast track is supposed to be like a limited process for a limited number of IDN ccTLDs in those regions where there is an express need for it. Whereas, they are in parallel with the fast-track as an ongoing full policy development process under the ccNSO, which is supposed to address issues around a full global introduction of IDN TLDs on the country code side of things. So in the first round, which is going to be the fast-track if it's approved and implemented and everything, it will be a limited set of scripts that can be used in that. And Latin will not be one of them, if it goes in the way that the report is recommending. That does not mean that we don't think, or that the community who developed the report does not think that that is not important. It just means that there is additional complications around it that need to be solved first. Did that help a little bit on your question? On the gTLD front, things are different because it's for everything. >>GERARD LANG: Absolutely. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Any other questions or comments about IDNs and the work that has been going on this week? If not, thank you, Tina -- I'm sorry, Dennis. A question from the board. >>DENNIS JENNINGS: I have a question coming in from people online asking why, in relation to ccIDNs, the GAC discussions on this topic are not open to the public. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Well, I can perhaps refer that one to the chairman of the GAC to explain the GAC working practices. Janis, are you happy to respond to that? >>JANIS KARKLINS: I tend to disagree with that statement. We had a joint session with the ccNSO on IDN ccTLDs. GAC participated in an open fashion in the working group, and so freely expressed opinions on the question. And during this session, we devoted some time discussing future working methods of the GAC. And though I cannot say which sessions, but it may happen that during our next meeting, not all GAC sessions will be closed. And everybody who will be interested to listen to GAC deliberations on several subjects -- or certain subjects, may be able to do so. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Janis. Ken, a question from the floor. >>KEN STUBBS: Well, it ties into what you have been talking about, Peter. I have a concern, it's more a question for the board, and it may fit in. First of all, I noted in the recommendations that the GAC made with respect to the IDN to the CC IDN process, they have recommended that there be no contracts between the proposed new operators and ICANN in this area. I am concerned about a couple of things. First of all, without contracts, there is no provision provided for cost recovery or for an ongoing maintenance program to manage this process, number one. Number two is I would like to find out if the board has a methodology in place to recover the significant costs that have been incurred in this IDN CC process. The amount of resources that have been expanded are difficult to specifically identify, but it's quite clear to many people that this process has consumed a significant amount of resources. And I know there have been discussions from members of the board, and also with respect to the operating budget, about ICANN's desire to recover costs for new gTLDs. And I do think that we need to at least get your thoughts on how you propose to do that. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Ken. I can give some preliminary answers and then other members of the board may wish to add. The first point to make is that the IDN working group has regarded the issue of contracts as outside the scope of its work. It's been looking at the policy necessary to define and enter the IDN CC's, and those processes, not the ICANN processes. So it's not that they have neglected to do something. It's always been outside the scope of theirs. It is, obviously, a matter for the board. Secondly, in relation to the money, the Board Finance Committee has been working on separating the budget so that the issue of new TLDs is dealt with separately. And I will ask the chairman of the Board Finance Committee to comment as well. But separate budgets are coming in discussions in Cairo in relation to TLD budgets. So Raimundo, would you like to comment on the budgeting methodology for capturing costs and charging for the new TLDs? >>RAIMUNDO BECA: In fact, the Board Finance Committee decided to have two budgets, the regular budget we have been discussing this week here and a separate budget for the IDNs and the gTLDs. It is not a definite decision, but at least my personal opinion is that the separate budget on IDNs and gTLDs should be divided in two separate budgets, one on ccTLDs and the other for -- in gTLDs. The costs are not the same, the risks are not the same. The cover of the history is not the same. On the covering of the cost of the history, the range of what will be recovered by the applicant goes from the 8 million will be expended on the preparation of the RFP or whatever during this fiscal year, fiscal year '09, which begins on Tuesday, and what was expended in previous years. And this is -- What is budgeted is about $8 million, and the opinion of the finance committee, those $8 million of this year should be recovered by the applicant. On the -- what happens before that, there's no decision. It has to be decided what to do. My personal opinion is that the -- what was expended before should not be recovered. But that's my personal opinion. The fiscal year will be ended on Monday. It's over. It's history. >>KEN STUBBS: Thank you for your clarification. I would like point out that there was no indication that the budgeting part in the process cost recovery acknowledged that that was not a function of the IDN work group, but it was just tied into this whole process. That's why I made the question here. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Janis. >>JANIS KARKLINS: Since the question relates to GAC, maybe I wanted to give some flavor of discussion on this subject in the GAC. We had, during this meeting, exchange of the views on two issues, whether there should be contractual relations between potential IDN ccTLD operator and the GAC, and also the part of the discussion was whether there should be some kind of financial arrangement between new ccTLD operator -- IDN ccTLD operator and the GAC. And the majority of the GAC members were of the view that the most of expenses in preparation of the new IDN ccTLD string, including selection of the operator and making sure that operator is technically capable to run the business, are borne by the territory. And the cost of ICANN in putting a new string in the root is relatively low. Not to say marginal. And this is one element. Another element is that current arrangements with ccTLD does not provide any compulsory financial arrangements. And therefore, GAC members are of the view that there should not be any kind of discrimination against new IDN ccTLD operators vis-a-vis the existing situation. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Janis. I think Susan wants to contribute. >>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Thank you, Peter, and thank you Janis and Ken for raising the question. The issue of the relationship between ICANN and these new animals, and what kinds of contracts or agreements or undertakings should exist, is a key issue for the board. And we have had quite a bit of discussion of this issue already. The ccTLDs, the existing ccTLDs, were created before the creation of ICANN. Their existence predates ICANN's creation. And each one of them is found on a list maintained by the gentleman who spoke earlier, the ISO 3166 list. The gTLDs, by contrast, the new ones, were only entered into the root on the condition of signing a contract with ICANN, and the key element of that contract is that they have agreed in advance to global policies called consensus policies which focus particularly on the security and stability of the Internet. And ICANN itself is a forum for the discussion of the nature of those policies. So now we have these new animals arising. IDN TLDs that are associated with the ISO 3166 list. How should we treat them? What kind of undertakings should be involved? Like the new gTLDs, their existence will be conditioned on ICANN's involvement, ICANN's activity. So these are very serious questions. It may be that we end up, somewhere down the road, with a level playing field for all TLDs with the exception of those ccTLDs that predate ICANN's existence, with a very simple agreement, again, that is conditioned on maintaining the security and stability of the Internet, and only those provisions required for that. But as I say, we have a long way to go with this discussion, and I'm very glad it's being aired openly. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Any other comment from board members about the agreements with the ccTLD IDN operators? Dennis. >>DENNIS JENNINGS: If I may, Chairman, it's not really on this topic but I don't think we are going to cover the morality issue under the gTLDs, and there is a question online. You might want to take it at a different time. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Well, Dennis, if you have that, could you read that into the record and -- >>DENNIS JENNINGS: It scrolled up so I will try to paraphrase. There's concern that the morality criteria in the new gTLDs will basically lower the -- lower or, if you like, raise the standards to the most strict regime on the globe. And this is considered inappropriate. I'm paraphrasing because it scrolled well beyond -- beyond me. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Can we just check to see if there's any more discussion from the floor or from the board concerning the relationship, the undertakings -- let's not call them contracts, if we can -- between the ccTLD IDN operators and ICANN. Janis. >>JANIS KARKLINS: Just another precision and another element in the response. I was talking about fast track, because the GAC so far has spoken and considered only fast track arrangements. And the missing element in my response was also that any contractual arrangements with ICANN could significantly delay the implementation process of the fast track. We think that the fast track should be fast, and negotiating contracts, whatever kind they be, may take a lot of time. Especially, we project that there won't be only one application of IDN ccTLD. There might be several dozen of them. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Janis. Paul, you have a response? >>PAUL TWOMEY: Well, I have a further observation, Chairman. I think I appreciate -- or I certainly, as the president, appreciate this desire that we not cause delays. And I also echo your words that we not use the word "contracts" for this discussion in the sense of it has a loaded meaning for -- particularly for CC operators who have got a memory of some events at the early days of ICANN. So that's just to clarify that we don't re-open the ghosts of the past too much. But if I may channel the man who is about to talk at the microphone, yesterday, made an interesting observation, which if at any stage in the future somebody operating one of these TLDs expects that the ghost of Jon Postel, long dead, is going to suddenly turn up and tell whoever needs to be told that they were given this gTLD at that time for this purpose, that's not happening, is it? And that might be a bit of a joke, but it's an issue we face now with the existing ccTLDs where we, in certain instances, have people coming to us who are operators desperately trying to find evidence of the first delegation process. And so at a very, very minimum, there is going to need -- if we are thinking about this in terms of a long term, literally the phone call from Jon or the e-mail from Jon, which was the basis of many of the ccTLDs, I would say probably overwhelmingly a number of ccTLDs, it was a question of an e-mail from Jon at some stage that got them started. In a world where 2 or 3 billion people use the Internet and will carry 6 or $8 trillion of e-Commerce and will last for how many decades or years, that's probably not a smart way of having a paper trail of how this process took place. So there will need to be some initial paper trail. And I think the question really is what is that paper trail. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Paul. Chris, you were being channeled there. Do you want to correct anything or add? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I have a couple of points I would like to add, if I may. It's interesting that the GAC -- It's often about words. It's interesting that the GAC, if I think I am quoting, chose to use the term "contractual relations." I'm reminded of Bill Clinton, who used the term "sexual relations." It depends on how you define what it is that you're actually saying. [ Laughter ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I do have another point, which is not strictly to do with contracts, but it is to do with the process, if I may, Peter. The GNSO Council and the ccNSO Council met jointly today. And which you won't be surprised to hear, talked a little bit about IDNs. One of the messages that we'd like to deliver to the board is this: The GNSO, in one of their submissions to the IDN ccTLD working group, said something like, "In principle, the release of IDN ccTLD and IDN gTLDs should happen at the same time." Now, there is no official ccNSO position on that. But I think it would be fair to say that the -- that there would be -- I suspect there would be consensus that that would be agreed to. However, there is a caveat. And the caveat is agreed by both of us. And that is that unless keeping them at the same time causes an unreasonable delay to the other one. I would be very concerned if those two processes were tied together in such a way that meant that a major issue on one caused a delay on the other. And I believe that the GNSO feels the same way. And I just wanted to make that point. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Is it more on the same, Ken? >>KEN STUBBS: Yes, it is. Just a quick response to the comment by the chairman of the GAC. I can appreciate your concern about the -- we won't use the word "contract" anymore, but the fact that agreements, potential agreements, between the parties could cause a delay. The only thing I would express concern over is that as this process is now proposed, it is an ongoing process, and I would think that if you ran into a circumstance where early members of the process were not required or not -- it was not felt necessary for them to enter into some sort of agreement with ICANN, as you move further into the process of this fast-track process, new members could be required or may be asked to enter agreements, and you would run into a significant concern about discrimination within this category. So I think it's something that needs to get resolved early on so you don't have that problem later on. Thank you. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Hi. My name's Bertrand De La Chapelle. Just one quick point following what Chris mentioned regarding the relationship between the IDN process and the gTLD process. He used the word "release." It is a bit ambiguous in this respect, because the two processes are going to run in parallel and there are several steps in each. The main evolution at this meeting in Paris regarding IDN ccTLDs has been to make a smoother transition and a smoother evolution in the allocation of IDN ccTLDs, like first announcing that you intend to have an IDN ccTLD, then propose the string and evaluate it, then delegate it. It would be dangerous, I believe, to tie the two processes too much, because the IDN gTLDs process is going to go in rounds as well, and any mention of too close a relation must be made more explicit. One should not be depending on the other. The IDN process is a very important one also politically. And the more we smooth the possibility to actors to get into the IDN space for ccTLD fast track, the better. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Bertrand. I have Harald and then Steve Goldstein. Harald. >>HARALD ALVESTRAND: Harald Alvestrand, speaking to the issue of fast track versus slow track. I think that this is within the ccTLD's remit to solve, that the very minimum commitment one should have from the recipient of a fast track ccTLD, IDN ccTLD, is that once the slow track has completed, they will undertake to be on the same -- under the same kind of arrangement with ICANN as those that get allocated later. I do not want to have yet another category of grandfathered TLDs with special rules. And I do think that we can get consensus on that. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Harald. Steve. >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN: I'm Steve Goldstein, a board member. And I actually had the pleasure and the privilege of working with Jon Postel on a few occasions, with ccTLD issues. I remember one issue where Jon had delegated the CC management to somebody in Philippines before the Internet came in, this was UUCP to UUNet. But they need somebody to manage the domain. When it was time to connect the Philippines to the Internet in 1994, I believe -- or '5 -- the educational network FilNet went to the CC manager and asked to be delegated FilNet.PH for Philippines. And the manager tried to extort them for big money. Jon believed that -- you know, believed in human -- in the kindness of human nature and the fairness of human nature, but it didn't always work out that way. And it certainly didn't work out that way in the Philippines. As a matter of fact, we got them registered as FilNet.net, because the CC manager wouldn't give them, without extortion, you know, a reasonable name. Okay. Where I'm getting at with all of this is, this time around, we've got to get it right. And if it takes some time to get the agreements in place to get it right, then it's going to have to take some time. We're not going to go out of our way to slow things down. But I don't propose that we act with knee-jerk -- in a knee-jerk sense, either. We've got to get it right this time. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Thank you. Could I ask the chairman of the Nominating Committee, Hagen Hultzsch, to identify himself. Is Hagen here? >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: Yes, I'm here. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Hagen, have you got a report. Is your report posted? Are there any questions for Hagen, as chairman of the Nominating Committee? >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: I would (inaudible). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sorry, Hagen? >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: It's available for (inaudible). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I'm sorry, I can't hear you. >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: It's available for presentation. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Please, go ahead. >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: I don't know whether it's posted. I'm Hagen Hultzsch. I'm the chairman of the Nominating Committee, which is active as of -- which is active, as you know, as of the Los Angeles ICANN meeting last year. Our task is to seat two board members. Is it coming? No. To seat two board members, two ALAC members, one GNSO member, and one ccNSO member to councils. And as I said, we are 21 members. The group started to work in Los Angeles the two days following the ICANN meeting. Paul is getting to set up his computer. Sorry about this. And in the meantime, we had, I think, about 12 telephone conferences, which I think provided the mechanisms to procedurize our decision process. And we had a kind of extensive dialogue. We also managed to have, by the originally scheduled deadline for providing statement of interest, which was 15 April, we managed to get 78 individuals of this group to supply their statement of interest. So please go to slide one and show it first. And then go to slide two. Here we are. One more. Thank you. That's where we are. So we managed to get 78 candidates providing their statement of interest, which is I think a significant success for this organization. The bad thing is that we have to, in the end of the process, inform 72 individuals that they cannot be seated this year, but I hope that they will stay ready for next year's term, because the ICANN, let's say, rollover process continues to ask for new people to be involved in the councils and on the board. One thing which we added to this year's process is that we asked an outside -- a human resource consultant firm to do a professional assessment of the SOI providers, not of all of them, but to most of them, so that we, the members of the Nominating Committee, had better professional mechanism to make our judgment. And we also had, as the members of the Nominating Committee, we had some meetings with the Russian Internet community, because we, some of the members of the Nominating Committee, thought that this was important, also in relation with some ICANN staff, in order to help Russia to better understand the opportunities to participate in the work of ICANN. We had with the individuals, a whole bunch of meetings both physical presence, but also telephone call. Next slide, please. As I said, we have chosen as a professional consult, Ray & Berndtson, -- which is very helpful and also of assistance to the later nominating committees. The Nominating Committee, which starts its work tonight, has now -- the references by the individual's names, the SOI providers, Ray & Berndtson assessment, which is a good piece of paper. And also the information provided by the deep divers, actually, two members of the board deep kind of on each candidate, so we do our best to provide high-quality, best candidates to both the councils and to the board. And, as I said during the remaining part of this week, tomorrow and Saturday, we will have face-to-face meetings of the Nominating Committee. There's one issue -- please give the next slide. The time will be six to eight weeks after now, the -- to be seated individuals will be published. You know, there are some procedures afterwards which have to be make sure that we have the right candidates. And those who will be selected will take their seats at the end of the Cairo ICANN meeting. Please, next slide. There's one issue which the Nominating Committee was confronted and thought that this might become an issue of reconsideration. Currently, when a candidate has two or, in some cases, more than two, three, citizenships globally, all these citizenships count regarding the regional distribution of the board. As you know, each region must be presented in the board by one candidate minimum, and by five candidates maximum. This may be a limitation if we count all citizenships to this number. And we thought that it might be good to reconsider, because other international organizations have a different procedure. The United Nations, for example, counts only the citizenship which is named by the standing country. Some other international organizations leave it to the individual or to the selecting group. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Excuse me. I'm going to have to -- >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: Allocate one -- just a minute. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We're going -- we're running out of time. Could I ask you to bring this to a close in one or two more minutes. >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: I will be finished in one second. If you wouldn't have interrupted me, I would have been finished already now, Mr. Chairman. [ Laughter ] >>HAGEN HULTZSCH: We are thinking that this is the subject of reconsideration, of the Reconsideration Committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Hagen. Can I call now the hosts of the Cairo meeting to come forward to give you a presentation on the next ICANN meeting, to be held in Cairo in November, Nermine El Saadany, director of the International Relations Division. >>NERMINE EL SAADANY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to address your gathering today on the occasion of the upcoming meeting of the ICANN meeting in Cairo November 2008. My short presentation today will just give you highlights on some of the attractions that you might like to see in Cairo, as well as the preparation that we have taken to welcome you in our beloved country. For most of the people, maybe, Egypt is known only for the pyramids, the camels, and the Pharaohs. However, our beloved country can offer you much more than that. Cairo is a metropolitan city with a unique geographical location between the east and the west. Very alive, very safe to move around until after midnight, because, as we say, Cairo doesn't really sleep. The ICT in Egypt among various developments the Egyptian market has witnessed during the last decade is considered to be one of the most booming sectors that generates revenues and helps in fostering socioeconomic development. Worth mentioning that ICT growth rate has shown steady increase to about 15.5% in 2007, with a mature legal and regulatory environment. The ICT market has introduced a public-private partnership format that has created a successful model for other sectors to follow as well. That formula helped in increasing the FDI and increased as well the number of multinationals working in Egypt. Now we are looking carefully at the challenges of conversions and IPTV-related issues and how to integrate with them and how to make use of the opportunities that they entail. The hosting organization of the ICANN meeting in Cairo will be the National Telecom Regulatory Authority, which has been the catalyst for the previously mentioned positive developments in the ICT market. The NTRA has been very active in hosting several international events. The latest was the IT Telecom Africa in May 2008, where we hosted about 9,000 delegates from about 75 countries, including about 50 ministers and people of all different nationals. The ICANN meeting will take place in one of the luxurious hotels in the Heliopolis area, the Intercontinental CityStars. It's about seven to ten minutes away drive from the Cairo International Airport, very central, as I told you, and the winner of the Best Business Hotel for the second year by Business Traveler. For the comfort of all ICANN participants as well, we have chosen another twin venue, as I call it, which is the Holiday Inn CityStars, the same complex of Intercontinental, two minutes' walk, or you can take a golf cart to reach the Intercontinental itself. The CityStars complex is the finest shopping center and entertainment in town, where you can shop, dine, and entertain. It has as well a mirror market for the Khan El-Khalil Bazaar, which maybe some of you have seen before. So you don't need to go to the other way of the city. It's just behind you. The venue is providing as well Internet for free in all locations. However, as a host, we will make sure that you will have stable, sound, and fast connections at all times, without interruptions, for your convenience. Other official hotels as well will be announced soon on the Web site. With specialized rates. And they will all be selected in the same area, ten minutes' drive from the area. We have chosen Egyptair to be the official carrier for the event. They will be offering discounts that vary from 15 to 20% from all destinations. And on the flights, if you decide to extend your stay in Cairo to go to the Red Sea or whatever. A help desk will be available in all terminals at the Cairo International Airport. Shuttling services will be available from the airport, and to the airport as well. And between official hotels and the venue. Different kind of excursion and sight seeing will be announced on the Web site soon. I think it has been launched today, the Web site. And I advise you that you continue following updates on the Web site, because we will keep it dynamic. I just hope all these attractions and temptations, you will still be able to attend the ICANN meetings. And with this, I conclude my presentations and leave you with a tip about Egypt. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much for that report. I know most of us are looking forward with a great deal of pleasure to going to Cairo. Can I just confirm that registrations may now be made on the front page of the ICANN Web site. So Cairo is up and running. One last housekeeping meeting before I close this forum. Would you please remember, when you do go, to hand back your headsets, the translation headsets. Yes, Paul has an answer to the order of the public order and morality question that was raised online. >>PAUL TWOMEY: Could I thank -- can I thank the participants who raised the question and just briefly say the following: The implementation process for the policy for new gTLDs, including the issue of objections based on morality or public order, is a process whereby the staff has been asked by the board to report, whether it first of all thinks its policy is implementable, and then go to the next level of detail of implementation. If the board is -- if the board were to approve the policy, which is on the schedule for this coming meeting, there are many issues of great detail in terms of implementation that will need to be worked through. Those details of implementation will also be posted fully for public comment and consultation, and will come up for board decision-making later in the year. The specific question will be addressed. And I think -- I'd ask the participant to watch this process and participate in it to see the specific -- if the board does approve the policy, to look at the specific implementation steps suggested. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Paul. I'm going to declare the forum closed. And with your permission, although we're scheduled to roll straight into a board meeting, I'm going to say with your permission, grant an ten-minute bio break to board members, who have been in workshop for five and a half hours before the hour they've been on stage. So unless there's violent dissent from the board, I'm going to schedule the start of the board meeting for a further ten minutes, which will be 4:15. You're all welcome back to observe the board in action. There are some crucial decisions facing the board, and the discussion and the resolutions are likely to be interesting. Thank you very much.