New gTLD Program Status
Monday, 14 March 2011
ICANN Meeting
San Francisco, California.


>>KURT PRITZ:  Welcome, everyone.  We're going to start in just one
minute, okay?  Thanks.

Okay.  Can we call the meeting to order?  Anthony?

So this morning Rod talked about using social networks to promote the
goodness of his tie and I just wanted to advocate briefly for my tie.
See if I could do any good.  So it has a lot to recommend it.  I
bought it as an emergency action so I bought it from a store that was
much too expensive.  I'll never have a tie this expensive again, and,
you know, it's understated but yet bold.  So if anybody wants to
advocate on my tie's behalf, that would be great.

So what is the applicant guidebook?  I think we all know but I want to
use this slide for a little bit different purpose.  The applicant
guidebook is the product of the ICANN model at work.

The work of many stakeholder groups.  And I think it's one of the
themes here, is that this exercise for new gTLDs and IDNs and some
similar exercises have really effected a paradigm shift in the ICANN
community, and that is the ability of our policymaking community to
meet in working groups and work on very difficult problems and develop
timely, meaningful, and substantial work product in an amazingly short
period of time.

And, you know, we've all said these letters over and over again and we
speak in letters, but we formed the IRT, the STI, the HSTLD, the JIG,
the JAS, the STI working group, the IDN working group, the arcanely
named Rec6 CWG, and they all delivered very complex positions on
difficult issues, and that's what's really remarkable about ICANN and
really remarkable about the guidebook, that it reflects this work that
was difficult, yet done in a really short period of time.

And part of the theme for this discussion, too, is now enter the
governments, right?  So the guidebook reflects significant input from
the governments.  It's not that the GAC or other governments haven't
been listened to, big sections on geographic names, but now the
governments, through the Governmental Advisory Committee, is working
very hard to work for compromises and completely understand complex
issues with regard to rights protection and protection of names and
the effects of different jurisdictions and the arcane definitions of
community TLDs and others, and have contributed significantly over the
last couple months to the guidebook.

And so that sort of completes for us, I think, this paradigm shift in
ICANN that we've created -- we've not created but we've affirmed that
ICANN's a place where governments can effectively affect Internet
policy.

So that's the first bullet.

So we've got a ways to go.

What is the guidebook?  It's a roadmap for those who want to apply for
a new gTLD.

So it's like getting all the test questions months before you have to
take the test.

So you should pass, and so it's not meant to be a block to your
application and everyone fully understands that.  We can hire
consultants to fill out the applicant guidebook questions, but what's
important, I think, is that the guidebook and the questions there are
meant to be a guide for people that aren't fully aware yet that,
"Here's what it takes to competently run a registry that's stable and
resilient."

So it's meant to help prospective registry operators become viable,
stable registry operators after they apply.

So it's a -- it's intended to guide that building of a resilient,
stable registry.

And it's also meant to be advice for those who are not going to apply,
but also want to take advantage of the upcoming opportunities or make
sure they address the risks.  So that could be, you know, registrants
or other users.

The guidebook is long but clear.

So the current guidebook's about 80,000 words, and here's why I say
that.

The first version of the guidebook was 40,000 words.  So when people
talk about our community being able to participate effectively in this
process, the guidebook's changed from 40,000 words to 80,000 words,
pretty much based on the community input to it.  New sections on
trademark protections, new sections on protections for geographic
names.  Of those 80,000, only 20,000 of the -- of the original words
are left.  So quite a remarkable amount of change.  And a lot of those
words are, you know, "of" and "the" so they don't really matter
anyway.

And the germane sections of the guidebook are short, so here's how --
you know, everybody knows this but it's important to reintroduce it,
that the guidebook's laid out and how you apply for a new TLD and how
it's supposed to address different issues.

So module 1 is, you know, who can apply and how much money you have to
pay and that sort of thing.

And then the most germane section is Section 2, so of all this 80,000
words, you know, just this much (indicating), you know, is module 2.

So this is the stuff you have to pay attention to if you want to apply
for a guidebook.

And then the rest of the guidebook is intended to resolve disputes
that arise through this process.  It's meant to address all those
lessons learned we got from the preliminary rounds in 2000 and 2003.

So, you know, what if there is an objectionable string?  What's the
path for that?  That's in module 3.

What if two entities apply for exactly the same name, how do we
resolve that?  That's in module 4.  Once you pass your evaluation, how
do you get a contract signed and get delegated in the root.  That's in
module 5.

So I just wanted to take a chance to reiterate that because we tend to
look at the guidebook as a great big monolith now, and not as its
component parts, which I think have been, you know, clearly
delineated.

And then I also just want to take a chance to reiterate the
opportunities and the benefits we're going to see, we anticipate in
new gTLDs, to encourage these new opportunities.

And especially opportunities for those other than applicants and
registry operators.

Even if we get 500 applications, that will be, you know, 500 entities
running registries and billions of people across the world that can
benefit from this new domain space, so the real opportunity and
benefit we see is to those users and registrants.

Particularly those who might use IDNs and be able to communicate in
their own language.

And then the other goal -- another goal of the program is to protect
-- provide a safe environment for those users, for trademark holders,
so it has measures to mitigate malicious conduct and protect
trademarks.  It's meant to provide, at the end of the day, a safer
environment than what exists now.

This is the part where I'm going to try to convince you that there's
been benefits to this long, long discussion we've had about new gTLDs.

It has taken a long time.

I think every time, every iteration, we do make the benefits of the
program more concrete and we minimize the cost to others more
effectively.

Another benefit, it's like -- you know, it's kind of like war, right?
You fight a war, you make a bunch of new inventions and there's a
bunch of side benefits to war.  So in this conflict we're having now,
you know, these benefits I'm talking about are the benefits of a -- of
a vibrant, nimble, community that can create new policy very quickly
and effectively.  And I think that's been a benefit of this, and it's
something I talked about earlier.

Lately now we're establishing a clearer role for the government, so
the governments are not merely conveying opinions or broad opinions,
but they are actively involved in the policy -- detailed policy
discussions that are important in order to launch this process, and
it's very important to take, as you know -- it's very important to
take into account the concerns of governments as we launch this.

It's very important for ICANN to provide an effective place for our
governments to participate.

I think ICANN has always been that in the past.  I think what we've
experienced over the -- over the past days between the Cartagena
meeting and now is a little bit remarkable and reaffirms for us what
that role of governments is.

So it's really putting -- you know, I think at the end of the day,
we've reaffirmed and put the ICANN model to work.

So there have been 54 -- 54? -- 54 working days since the Cartagena
meeting.  There were 39 working days between the Cartagena meeting and
the publishing deadline for this meeting.  So what got done between
then and now?

Well, one thing that didn't get done is the publication of a new
guidebook, which is why this presentation is somewhat abbreviated.  So
that's your good fortune.

But it also didn't make sense to publish a new guidebook, given the
discussions that are occurring between the board and the GAC right
now.  Changes are being made to the -- substantive changes will be
made to the guidebook as a result of those discussions, and it didn't
seem appropriate to publish a guidebook without taking into account
the full advice of the GAC, which that advice-receiving will continue
at this meeting and we'll talk about that a little more.

But what happened since the last meeting in -- ICANN's last meeting in
Cartagena?  We had the GAC consultations.  I'll talk about them a
little more, but a lot of work went into them.

We closed public comment sessions on the last version of the
guidebook, on the joint applicant support working group report, two
economic studies and root zone scalability study.  So when we close
public comment, that's accompanied by a form of analysis that says,
"Well, here's the comments, so here's how the guidebook can
accommodate it.  We can change the guidebook in certain ways or we're
not going to change the guidebook and here's why."

So there -- that's sort of the synthesis of getting from the comment
period to the -- comment period to the next version of the guidebook.
And I'll talk a little bit about potential changes for the next
guidebook in a minute.

There's a lot of other work that took place since Cartagena.  We
launched an IDN variant project team which I'm going to talk about in
a little while.

The board published its rationale for its position on vertical
integration, so in new gTLDs right now, restrictions are relaxed for
registries and registrars being co-owned by the same entity.

The board, in increasing the amount of detail and reasoning it
publishes associated with each of its meetings, published rationale
explaining why it made that decision.  So that's a next step in the
transparency work that ICANN's undertaken.

As part of its routine publication of the minutes from the last
meeting, it will publish shortly the rationale for the decision to not
undertake further economic studies.

So that's done, too.

The high-security TLD team issued its final report.  That's not how
you spell "briefing."

The -- at the board's direction, a briefing was furnished to the GNSO
about this sort of esoteric issue where if you're a community TLD and
you want to change your charter or change your community
representation or change your registration restrictions, how -- under
what circumstances can you do that.  Because you've signed up to be a
community TLD with these restrictions.

So a procedure is needed for that, and a briefing has been provided.

A lot of planning has gone into the communications plan, how we're
going to communicate across all regions that the new gTLD program
launch is imminent, with the idea that after the end of the first
round, no one will raise their hand and say, "Gee, I didn't know about
this, I wish I did."

While that's sort of an impossible goal, that's the aim in that
communications plan.

And then operational readiness.  There's a team at work there at ICANN
that is, one, getting ready to accept and process and evaluate
applications; and, two, then service the new expanded domain space
with all the new registries and all their new businesses associated
with that.

And I'll talk about that more in a minute.

So -- but let's turn to the ICANN -- GAC/board consultations.  What
were the purposes of those?  Well, you know, as the bylaws state, the
board cannot disagree with the GAC unless there's a good-faith attempt
at reconciling those differences.  And I didn't say those bylaws words
exactly right, so that's the gist of it and you can look up the real
words.

So if you're going to have a difference, you need to know how you're
differing.

So the first and primary goal of these consultations was to clarify
what those differences are.  A statement that -- for example, that the
GAC is against a way of doing things isn't enough to say there's a
difference, or if the GAC were to say, "You need to do more for
trademark protection or more to mitigate malicious conduct," there's
not enough there to hang your hat on, to say we're differing if the
board decides, "We're done."

And so the purpose of those is to provide clarity on those
differences.

And then once you have that clarity, then you can have a negotiation
about -- reach an accommodation or agreeing to disagree or just some
sort of compromise.

So the two purposes were to achieve clarity and what the differences
are, and I think a good job was done, and then, you know, working
towards -- working towards common ground on a lot of the differences.

You know, a ton of work went into that consultation.  There were --
it's all posted, but there were preliminary briefing papers.  The GAC
scorecard is sort of a remarkable document, and with great specificity
outlines all the subissues associated with the 12 areas where they
would like to see changes in the policy.

There were a set of informal pre-calls between board members and GAC
members to try to get clarity as to what those differences were, so
when they got to Brussels they could hit the ground running.

They -- there were two full days of consultation that turned into
three.  They were having such a good time.

[ Laughter ]

So, in fact, there was -- the plan was for the two teams to meet
separately, but headway was being made and they decided to meet again
on the third day to discuss issues further, and the next steps.

So good after-the-meeting notes on the scorecard were published where
-- with some more clarity.  The 12 issues were subdivided into 80
subissues, and then the board published what its position was on each
of those 80 issues, and then, you know, assigned each one a score.

So it developed that methodology, if you're familiar with it, of, you
know, scoring things a 1A or a 1B, whether there was complete or
substantial agreement, or a 2 if the board chose to still disagree.

So I just -- the next slide -- this slide, it used to be the next
slide but now it's this slide -- lists the GAC scorecard topics and
I'm just going to flash that up there but I'm not going to make you
listen to me read it.

And then it's also posted, so it's memorialized for all time.

And we're going to talk more about these in the session this
afternoon.

So are we closer?  After all that work, what the board notes
indicated, anyway, is that the board thinks that the guidebook's --
the board is going to direct some changes be made in the guidebook and
after that the guidebook will be consistent with GAC advice on 25 of
those issues, be consistent in principle with 28 of the issues,
meaning that there's some revision still to be made, and that the
guidebook's not consistent with 23 GAC issues that the board and GAC,
as of right now, continue to disagree.

If you add those up, it doesn't add up to 80.  That's because there
are a couple TBDs in the -- there are a few TBDs that the board didn't
know how to assign scores to.

So, you know, there's a lot of -- there's a lot of -- you know, you
can look at that a couple ways, but substantial agreement on two-
thirds of the issues where we thought there were differences is pretty
darned good.

But then there's 23 issues where there's difference.

The other way to look at it is there's 28 issues where there are
essentially offers in compromise.  You know, not quite full GAC
agreement.

So the additional consultation this week is meant to get at these --
the 23 areas of difference, and then assure the 28.

And so I want to flag for everybody one of the concerns and one of the
-- not a concern the board has, but one thing the ICANN board wants to
make sure of is that in these next set of consultations, there's
agreement as to this scoring, right?

It's the board's scoring.

So part of this is when you're working with another party, make sure
that the other party's nodding and agreeing with you when you make a
statement like this.

So part of that consultation is to get a meeting of the minds on this
sort of scoring.

So what's going to change in the process as a result of the -- as a
result of the meeting with the GAC?

Well, governments want a way to -- for public policy reasons to be
able to give advice on TLD applications directly to the board, and so
the board discussed creation of a procedure for the GAC to give advice
directly to the board on gTLD applications.

So that the GAC does not have to pay for an objection and go through
the objection process.

There's got to be some prerequisites to that, right, and this session
afterward, you might want to comment on this, if we get to it, or in
the session on Wednesday.

You know, there has to be some transparency about which countries are
objecting.  There has to be some methodology to a GAC consensus
position that, you know, the GAC is against an application for any
reason.

So if there is a procedure for the GAC to give advice directly to the
board, there have to be some safeguards there.

You'll also see the implementation of an early warning procedure.  So
those of you familiar with trademark protection, sort of an IP claim
where a government can signal to an applicant that this string being
applied for is sensitive for some reason in that nation, and that the
applicant should be aware of that.

Other changes are that GAC and possibly ALAC should be able to object
without paying the dispute resolution fee.

So again, there needs to be procedures wrapped around, you know, an
ALAC objection, for example, being a consensus position in a group
that's made up of diverse interests.

Some streamlining to the URS is in order.  The clearinghouse can be
expanded so that it can include other kinds of rights other than
trademark rights, with the understanding that registries still are
only obligated to honor registered trademarks, and depending on
whether you're using IP claims or a sunrise process, the trademarks
the registries would have to honor would be different, but inclusion
of other types of names in the clearinghouse, better definition about
what our commitments are regarding root zone stability, what kind of
monitoring will ICANN do of the root zone or listening to monitoring
that others do.

How will it ensure the root zone is still operating stably before
launching a second round.

And then with regard to economic studies, in their verbal presentation
or oral presentation in Brussels, the GAC said they'd like to see
questions on the application regarding the perceived benefit and cost
mitigation measures that the registry was implementing for the purpose
of evaluating how effective and accurate those are, after the first
round.

So collect information in the application, and then after the first
round, do an economic study in order to ascertain -- you know, in
order to gain some intelligence over what's in applications versus
what really occurs afterwards.

So at this meeting, there's going to be two types of sessions with the
GAC, and, you know, as you know, the meeting schedule has been turned
somewhat topsy-turvy in order to accommodate this, but the board and
the GAC and many of you interested in new TLDs think this is very
important and are willing to devote the time to this, so the board
took the move of changing the schedule somewhat radically.

And so there's two types of sessions.  One is the ICANN board/GAC
consultation, and that's going to be essentially a continuance of what
happened in Brussels.  In other words, they're going to build on the
work that was done in Brussels to try to get to closure on more
issues.

So that is open for observation, but for everyone here, that's
attended a board/GAC meeting at any meeting, it's the board talking,
the GAC talking, and that's about it.

So those are going to be full-day sessions on Tuesday and Thursday.

And then just so you know, on Thursday the public forum, the regular
public forum, is going to follow directly after that.

Those sessions can be informed, though, by what the rest of the
community says here, so there is a session right after this, at 3:00,
and another one on Wednesday, to afford the community to offer
opinions on the work and on specific issues that the board and the GAC
have considered.

So the board, for example, would like to hear this afternoon on the
issues marked a 2, what do you think.  Do you think the GAC's right,
do you think the board's right, what should -- you know, what should
-- what should the result of that be.

The board is looking for input.

After going through the 2s, the next -- the next go would be to go
through those issues labeled 1B, where we're close but there's not a
precise agreement, so you'll see in this Monday session, you'll see
board leads on the stage.  You'll see GAC members here participating
in that discussion.

On Wednesday, I don't know if the GAC members are going to participate
yet or not.  It seems not because they have some business they have to
get done, and Wednesday's a big day for them to do that.

So those are the two types of sessions that are going to occur this
week about that.

So there's other stuff going on with the guidebook.  Guidebook
amendments are being written in response to other inputs.

The IDN variant project is underway.  The joint applicant support
group, their work continues, so they're working on a model to develop
sources of funds, and then ways to allocate funds to potential
applicants.

The high-security TLD team issued its final report to guide further
work in the creation of TLDs where users might expect higher security.

And then I already talked about this GAC briefing process.

So some of the -- some of the amendments you'll see in the next
version of the guidebook will be some changes to trademark and
malicious conduct protections, a change to the community dispute
resolution standards.  That's been a very hot topic for a very small
area of the community.  Excuse me.  And some improvements to the
registry agreement that make it -- make requirements more effective --
what am I looking for?  Like SLA requirements, more effective and --
but without being costly for TLDs to measure.

The Rec6 working group, the group that considered morality and public
order standards finished its work in the last meeting, right, in
Cartagena.  Was that right?  And you will see some changes in the
guidebook with regard -- as a result of that work, the ability of the
GAC and the ALAC to object, some changes in the discrimination
standard and what used to be called morality and public order
standard, and some clarification of the GAC/board role.

Right now the board is not getting involved in individual TLD
applications, but you just heard me describe a possible role where the
GAC might provide advice directly to the board.  And then there will
be more changes as a result of these GAC consultations.

So just a few plugs is that one thing the board is asking ICANN -- has
asked ICANN staff and the community to take on very urgently is work
around IDN variant management and the ability to delegate variant
TLDs, which is very important for users in some areas where there are
variant characters.  And the ability to use IDNs is dependent on
delegating these IDN variants.

So Core Project Team has been held.  There is a session -- I am going
to tell you when the session is in a little while, but a very
intensive project has been undertaken.  The community is being
solicited for volunteers.  ICANN is investing quite a bit of money on
this.  I think there is 1 or $1.5 million, a supplemental budget
allocation, to resolving this issue with the goal that it get resolved
in time to delegate variant TLDs in the first round.

And what we're doing is conducting five case studies.  So variant
management issues get really complicated very fast because you talk
about delegating Arabic variants and then somebody will say, Well,
what about the Chinese case?  That won't work.  And it comes up the
whole discussion.  That's my opinion anyway.

Instead, we are undertaking five separate case studies in five
separate scripts to understand the issues associated with delegating
variants in those scripts and then resolving them.

That work will start in earnest with the community.  A project plan
has been posted, and the project work will start in earnest with the
community starting in the session Wednesday afternoon.  And that group
should draw to a close this calendar year.

I talked a little bit about operational readiness, so we are getting
ready to process applications.  We have an application -- a Web-based
application system that is in beta test right now.  Deals are being
negotiated with service providers that will hire the panelists that
will do the evaluation.  So the announcement of those firms will be
made before or at the Singapore meeting and we've established or are
establishing a customer support function that is multiregional and
multilingual.

And then also, as you know, it is very important for ICANN to augment
its compliance, its registry liaison, its IANA staff; and there are
staffing plans in place to do that.  And actually now there's --
because we're talking about a new budget, we're actually furnishing
budget for those things.  So if it's helpful to you, it is getting
real for ICANN because we're budgeting for doing that.

So you can look this up later, but there's a lot of sessions that are
related to new gTLDs at this forum.  One is the JIG, the Joint IDN
working group, is meeting today.  There is these four GAC
consultations.  There is the IDN variant management session on
Wednesday, and then also there's the public forum.  So I encourage you
to participate in all of those.

So what's the process for closing?  So as you know, I'm not able to
show you a timeline.  I think what we want to do, two things, right?
We want to urge the board and the GAC to close on their discussions
and settle on areas of agreement and disagreement, but we don't want
to get in the way of that either.  So we want to -- if you are not
involved in that, you want to say what you want and then facilitate
that discussion and be supportive in any way you can.

At the end of this week, there's -- the board is going to get a heck
of a lot of input this week.  And at the end of this week, we will be
looking for them to provide a vision for how we're going to close the
GAC consultation process, how we're going to address the remaining
public comment and publish the next guidebook.

So I think, you know, as I walk into this room each ICANN meeting, I
get an increasing number of jokes about giving the same presentation
over and over again, but there is a difference in each one.  And
certainly this one is that through this new gTLD process, we've all
been part of a change of -- we've been part of a metamorphosis of
ICANN changing into a body.  Even though this has taken a long time,
our policy developments have become more nimble.  And even governments
are becoming nimble and providing policy advice to ICANN.  And so it's
our goal then -- our goal to help them bring that to a close in any
way we can and then launch the process.

So I want to thank you very much for coming.  The next session is at
3:00, and I can take questions between now and then, if you have any.
Thanks.

[ Applause ]

Any questions?  No questions?  Hello, Amadeu.

>> AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:  I hope you don't feel too frustrated that
nobody is asking you anything anymore.  We still love you, Kurt.

I'm Amadeu Abril i Abril, CORE, Internet Council of Registrars.

Perhaps I was sleeping for five minutes, and I apologize for that.  I
think you mentioned you will discuss some parts that would change in
the new version, and then I didn't got exactly what parts could still
change.

I have a concrete question regarding the evaluation to a carrier on
the comparative evaluation or the community priority evaluation, which
it is called now.  We have tried to point out very often how
equivalent in practice are things like name selection or registrant
selection or use policy that in practice are used alternatively but in
your evaluation always are given different and cumulative points so it
makes in practice impossible to achieve 15, 16 for any real existing
TLD today in any part of the world.

And I would like knowing whether this part could be revisited or not.
Thanks.

>>KURT PRITZ:  So in answer to your question -- first question, I did
in a broad way discuss some of the changes that would be upcoming in
the guidebook.  But if you look at the board notes on the GAC
scorecard that are printed in the third column, it describes all the
changes so far that the board has directed be made as a result of the
GAC consultation.

>> AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:  My question was if those were the only parts
that would change.  Sorry.

>>KURT PRITZ:  And then there's more.  You will see some changes that
aren't big, but you will see some changes in trademark protections and
malicious conduct mitigations brought to us by experts that say, If
you do it this way, it is really not going to be effective.  You'll
also see some changes in the registry agreement where registries have
said what you're asking for is impracticable as far as an SLA.  As a
matter of fact, there is a meeting here -- I don't know if it has
occurred yet -- to discuss those.

You will also see some changes based on the Recommendation 6 working
group study about the ability of the ALAC and the GAC to object.

Karen, who is the primary author of the guidebook, does have a list.
But as I go down that list, I see very few large changes and more
slight midcourse corrections.

Karla?

>>KARLA VALENTE:  Hi, this is Karla Valente from ICANN staff
representing our remote participants.  We have one question from Danny
Young.  Why haven't proposed policy changes been formally brought back
to the GNSO for reevaluation?  No specific example.

>>KURT PRITZ:  Okay.  So, Danny, I hope you can hear me.  I'm going to
make a presumption about your question that those changes are changes
due to the GAC work.  But they could be other -- you know, my answer
is that the board has been fastidious at ensuring that changes do not
change or interfere with the original GNSO policy recommendations.
And in cases where they do, say, the work of the IRT, they have sent
that work back to the GNSO, to a working group to see whether, in
fact, those changes changed the policy or not.

There were some comments in the GNSO session that occurred Sunday that
some of the members there appreciated the fact that the board did say
no or have -- we disagree with the GAC on this issue because they
didn't want to change the policy recommendations.

So after this, we can talk.

I feel like I'm talking to the ether.

After this, we can talk and I want to hear your specific examples, and
we can address that and discuss whether those are policy changes or
not.

Hi, David?

>> DAVID MAHER:  Hi, Kurt.  David Maher, chair of the registry
stakeholder group.  Along with the other stakeholder groups, we
received a letter from Peter Dengate Thrush involving the consultation
and asking for speakers to be available.

My question:  The registry stakeholder group, like many others, counts
on Tuesday as constituency day.  And we really need that time to
develop our position on the many questions that have been raised in
the scorecard.  We're not really ready to address those this
afternoon.

What should we do?  Can we file a written statement later and have
that taken into account?

>>KURT PRITZ:  So I think -- I'm not the one to speak for the board.
But if I were, I would say two things.  One is I would take advantage
of the opportunity to kick off the session and say -- I don't know
what the registry stakeholder group wants, but if it wants an
extended, you know, board-GAC consultation or if it wants it brought
to a close or if it wants this session to really focus on these
issues, to help focus the session, not the substance but focus how
people -- the things we talk about, I think it could be ready for
that.

And then I think, too, that you should say that the registry
constituency or stakeholder group would offer a written comment on the
specific issues.

So I think Peter was looking for a very brief introduction to this
session from the registry stakeholder group and its support of the
process or where do you think this session should go.  And then I
think you should go and make your substantive comments on each of the
1s and 2s.  I don't think Peter was looking for a stakeholder group
position on each topic.

>>DAVID MAHER:  Thank you.

>>KURT PRITZ:  I said that three times trying to get it right each
time, but I'm not sure I did.  Thanks.

>>DAVID MAHER:  Thanks.

>>KURT PRITZ:  Is that all?

Okay, terrific.  So we're going to get the board members and others
set up here for a 3:00 start.  And I think it is going to be a very
good session so y'all come back.  Thanks very much.

[ Applause ]