New gTLDs Discussion of Issues Identified by the Governmental Advisory Committee ICANN Meeting- San Francisco 14 March 2011 >> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Two minutes, our meeting will begin. If you can be settled and take your seats, we would appreciate it very much. Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, would you be kind enough to take your seats. We'd like to begin our program. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Let's get the show on the road. Ladies and gentlemen, we're ready to begin, if you could take your seats. Thank you. Sorry for the slight delay. Five members of the board and staff got stuck in a lift and went from 12 to mezzanine and then back to 12, and then mezzanine. We thought it was a plot. But we survived. So welcome to this public consultation session on the new gTLD process. We're going to assume that many of you have done a lot of work, just as the board has done a lot of work and has the GAC has done a lot of work, we know that the community has also been following this closely. And so we are going to put up very quickly the position that we've reached on a number of contentious items in relation to the GAC scorecard. And then we're going to ask you for comment. And what we particularly want to try and see is where do we stand in terms of the community support for the position in the current guidebook or in relation to the GAC advice. We need you to tell us your thoughts on those matters. What we have done is asked for prepared -- we've asked the constituencies if they would take some action, and we know that members of the constituencies are ready to help us with this. So we're grateful for that. I'm obviously going to be assisted in this by Kurt Pritz, who's been leading this project from the start from the staff. And we're going to have the topic leaders from the board available to help take you through the topics. But as I say, we're not going to tell you, again, what we've done. And we don't -- we're going to treat that as read. I understand we invited the GAC topic leaders to help in that way, but I understand the GAC response is that Heather Dryden, the chair of the GAC, is going to come and help me run the session, which will be great. So I imagine the GAC are still breaking and getting here. Perhaps Heather has had the same lift, elevator experience that some of us have. Kurt, perhaps could you start and go through how we're going to deal with the slide material. And then we'll get on to the first of these topics. >>KURT PRITZ: Okay. Thanks. So can everybody hear me? Good. So in the session we just had, the purpose of these GAC-board consultations earlier are first and foremost to clarify the differences between the GAC and the board. And then once achieving that clarity, then you can have a debate upon whether there should be compromise, agreement, a shift. So that's the -- that's been the goal of the consultations to date and the goal now. And the goal in these sessions that are going to occur here in San Francisco. These are the topics that the GAC raised in its scorecard, on its descriptive scorecard. And so for each one of these, there were subissues, 80 subissues. And the board, after the consultations with the GAC, developed new positions for the guidebook, and then labeled each one of these 80 subissues, either a 1A, where was in full agreement with the GAC, 1B, where there was agreement in principle, but maybe some more work to be done, and then a 2, where there was still difference with the GAC and the board direction was to still disagree with the GAC. Here comes Heather. So what's the status? Where are we? Well, on these issues, the board determined that they're on all fours with the GAC, in full agreement, on 25 of the issues. On 28 of the issues, there's agreement in principle but still some revisions to be made. Welcome, Heather. And on 23 of the issues, the guidebook, at board direction, would be still inconsistent with the GAC advice. And there's not a difference. So that's after amendments are made based on board-directed changes. And those amendments are being made now. So just like the elevator story, if somebody were to add up those issues, they wouldn't get to 80, because scores weren't assigned to a few of the issues. So for this session, what do we hope to achieve? And I'm going to let Peter talk more to that. But we're going to talk first about those instances, those 23 or so, where the board signaled disagreement with the GAC advice. And the public discussion here, assuming those things are read, that we're going to look at the two -- the items labeled 2, those items where the board and the GAC still disagree, and take the advice of the audience here, so the input of the audience here. So it's that opportunity to provide advice to the GAC and board as to where those issues should go. And so what we're going to do is we're going to put up in a kind of mundane way big slides that are the -- for each one of those sections, what's the GAC position, and then what's the board score and answer to that, and look at the 2s first, and section by section. So I think there's -- at the end of the day, how many are there, Karen? 12? Or -- how many sections did we break the -- about 12. So we've got essentially two hours, so six hours -- ten minutes an issue. So there you go. So was that the end of the slides, Ted? Yep. Okay. So I'm going to turn this over to Peter and Heather. So I'll run -- I'll kind of page through the sections we're going to talk about first, then let people look at them so they at least know what the issues are. And then you can take it away and have -- if you want others to come up to the lectern. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Kind of like Bruce Tonkin, if you could come up, Bruce, because Bruce was the topic leader on the first topic, which was the review of sensitive strings. Where did Bruce go? >>HEATHER DRYDEN: In the meantime, Peter, if I may just make a few comments. As has been explained, the GAC has provided a scorecard of 12 outstanding issues related to the new gTLD program. And so I'm seated at the front as the GAC chair. And I would like to express the GAC's appreciation for being invited to participate in this session. We do appreciate that. And to further point out that the GAC is in full attendance. I can see many of my colleagues in the audience. And we are here in listening mode. So we are very interested to hear your thoughts and your reactions to the board response to the GAC scorecard. And so that is really the spirit in which we are participating here. And we look forward to hearing your comments. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Heather. So, Bruce, I wonder if you could kick off -- I'd rather not have someone spend much time explaining what's on the screen. It's there for people. But, really, as Heather said, we're in listening mode. There's the GAC position, there's the board's position. About so a quick high-level comment on summary, Bruce, and then let's ask the community to start responding. >>BRUCE TONKIN: Good. Thanks, Peter. So on this topic, it was a mechanism for the GAC as a whole to provide advice to the board early in the process, which would be in the initial evaluation if they thought a string was sensitive and should not be put in the root. So a 1B basically has agreed to a process for doing that. If we jump to the next slide, a second part of the GAC advice here was that in addition to saying whether they thought a name should not be approved, the GAC could also suggest measures to mitigate GAC concerns. So it could be if you address these concerns, then, you know, we withdraw our objection, essentially. The board was concerned about that, and currently rates this as a 2, because the feeling was that this might lead to a situation where we are adding additional criteria that are not part of the initial selection criteria for choosing a TLD. So that's basically our current position. But we invite feedback from any of the stakeholder groups and the designated speakers from those stakeholder groups on this particular item. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Well, we asked members of the constituencies and the SOs and the ACs if they would like to comment to do so. So I call -- open the floor, then, to SO, ACs' constituencies to comment on this. What we will do at the end of this is have an open mike session when everybody can -- if we have enough time. But we want to make sure that the constituency representatives have an opportunity to help. And, again, done at short notice. Very grateful. We begin on this side with Marilyn Cade, and then Avri will come to you after that. Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: (off mike). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Microphone. >>MARILYN CADE: (off mike). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sorry. Can we have some -- can we have some audio on this side, microphone, please. Try again, Marilyn. >> (off mike). >>MARILYN CADE: (off mike). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sorry. We're looking for Marilyn Cade. Has anybody seen -- [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Oh, Marilyn. >>BRUCE TONKIN: Marilyn, just come up here just while they're waiting to get the mike sorted out. >> (off mike). >>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] >>MARILYN CADE: While I'm here, do you think we ought to just reform the whole process, or should we start one point at a time? Thank you, all, for inviting me to the stage. I'll make this quick so I can get off the stage. My name is Marilyn Cade. I'm the chair of the business constituency. And I am going to respond as much as I can. We would welcome coming back with further comments. This particular area, I think, is of significant concern to business users as well. And I would say that the business constituency -- first of all, very quickly, I'm going to say something that all of us want to say, and that is how much we appreciate the opportunity to do this work together. I think we share the concern with governments that certain kinds of terms have a high potential for user harm if they are misused. So we do support the call by the GAC to address these kinds of terms more effectively. We don't yet have a set of solutions. But I'll just go on to say that I think we all need more information and discussion from our government -- our GAC colleagues and ourselves around the topic of generally regulated industries. And within the business constituency, we have a number of members who are from those industry areas, certain industry areas. We've seen at the second level that certain kinds of names attract abusive use. And that may be a name that is associated with a regulated industry such as dot bank or something of that nature. So we'd like to think that we would find a way to address these terms in a more effective way so that we don't find that we're introducing risk for users. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Marilyn. Let's come to this side to Avri Doria. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Name's Avri Doria. I'm the chair of the NCSG Executive Committee. And while on the 2 -- in fact, I'm making a general statement for all of 2 at the moment. Basically, while we had some comments that we'd like to offer in terms of the 1Bs, the NCSG basically had rough consensus on supporting the board's position on all of the determinations it made on number 2. So thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much. Dave (saying name). >>DAVID MAHER: David Maher, chair of the registry stakeholder group. Our constituency day is tomorrow, and that's the day that we are planning to develop our views on all of these contentious issues. In general, we're asking that the board and the GAC provide respect for those issues that have been the subject of consensus by the GNSO and the bottom-up stakeholder process. We will participate in the Wednesday meeting and hope to have specific statements on the issues at that time and will file written statements on the issues today. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. We look forward to those on Wednesday. Let's go back to this side. Stéphane. >>STÉPHANE VAN GELDER: Thank you, Peter. My name is Stéphane van Gelder, I'm the chair of the GNSO Council. I have a statement that I will be making on behalf of the council. It's a general statement. Each GNSO group has -- as we've been hearing and will continue to hear, will make their own statements and maybe go into more specific detail. I will read out the statement. The GNSO Council would like to thank the board and the GAC for the interest in this critical issue and the hard work that has been done during the recent and ongoing consultations. The GNSO Council appreciates these efforts and also appreciates the effort to bring to a close the implementation of the policy development process. The GNSO Council is ready to help the board and the GAC work on these issues that are currently before them and to provide any detail or context that may be needed during your discussions. In light of the importance of the bottom-up, multistakeholder approach, we recognize that any result from the board-GAC consultations should also take into consideration input by both the GAC and the GNSO community. The board-GAC consultations will result in new elements with regards to the new gTLD program, so we ask that any resulting modifications to the guidebook be finalized in a timely manner and be published as soon as possible. And that is my statement. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much. Let's come to this side of the microphone. >>MASON COLE: Hi. Good afternoon, I'm Mason Cole, chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group. I want to thank the board and the GAC for this opportunity to weigh in on elements of the scorecard. First, on this issue, I'd like to say that, generally speaking, we support the board. There are some protections already in the applicant guidebook that we think can address the GAC's concerns. And then I have some other information I'd like to read here, if I may, just word for word, to make sure I covered everything. This could potentially be moved from 2 to 1, provided the additional scrutiny does not involve the introduction of new evaluation criteria. Rather, the GAC advice suggesting that measures to mitigate concerns for strings that could impact the public trust could be shared with such applicants who could then choose whether or not to implement those recommended measures. If the applicants choose not to, they do so at the risk of further GAC advice and the board chooses not to approve a string if it's not in the public interest. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: That's very constructive, that kind of format. Hopefully, we'll have that text available. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: -- to us. Obviously, we're listening carefully and looking at the transcript. But a copy of that would be very helpful. Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Peter, I don't speak in name of any constituency, but just wanted to bring my personal experience to this concrete point. May I now or at the end of the session? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: You're there now. Why don't you go ahead. Remember, please -- and this is a comment for all speakers. Just remember the scribes need to be listening and taking this down. So let's keep -- let's actually keep -- >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: The question is that while I completely share your answer, I don't agree with the result of your answer to this concern. I think there is a great pressure for trying to prevent any possible, you know, danger in the world. And we can do two things: Either discuss over the next 20 years of any possible thing that would happen and how to address that before it happens, or having some sort of escape valve. The personal experience. In 2004, I was writing the application for dot cat. Once being evaluated, the board had to deal with something they didn't expect, the possible political aspects of this application and dot Asia. So the famous letters of support from governments were invented. It was not in the application. Were we happy about that? No. Would have we preferred that we are still in the queue, waiting for the board, GAC, and everybody, trying to solve problems in advance? Certainly not. We preferred that to have -- you know, to handle a concrete, understandable concern in a specific way after we send the application than waiting the next 20 years to imagine all possible things that somehow we will never foresee because not -- you know, human imagination will always be beyond our small minds. So even if I understand your concern, I share that, and I share the need not to create a new evaluation process. We need something, and it's better to have a way to address concerns and to change things in the application than simply killing the process or not starting it altogether. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Amadeu. There's mirrors in what you say. Of course, changing the process during the course of the application for one raises real concerns of fairness, et cetera, for others. So that's a difficult thing to get right. >>OLIVIER CRÉPIN-LEBLOND: Thank you, Peter. Olivier Crépin- Leblond, I'm the chair of the At-Large Advisory Committee. We have a general statement and we thank the board and the GAC for being able to have this opportunity to share it. As we discussed with our repeating with the GAC previously yesterday, the GAC and ALAC have much in common on the new gTLD policy. We happen to largely agree with many of the GAC positions, and even when we do not fully agree, our differences are more in matters of degree than direction. Our distaste for the status quo process of the existing AG objection procedures should be well-known to the board by now, because we have stated it clearly on multiple occasions. While we have some concerns about the new GAC scorecard approach, we welcome it as the basis for a true consensus-based alternative that is simpler, less expensive, and more driven by community than by consultants. On issues such as intellectual property and consumer protection, we also share many of the GAC's concerns. The path to new gTLDs needs to address the public interest from the consumer's point of view as well as the supplier's. While we believe that there are some commonsense limits to the intellectual property enforcements that don't quite go as far as what the GAC has proposed, we applaud the GAC's reassertion of the public's interest. Since the summit, we have been expressing our concerns with the gTLD process at every opportunity. We have given explicit comments to the application guidebook, we have taken a leadership position on the Applicant Support Working Group, and we in fact initiated what later became the Rec 6 Cross-constituency Working Group. We have been one of ICANN's strongest supporters of the cross-constituency, multistakeholder approach and fully support the consensus model as described in the many speeches this morning. We believe that the gaps between the status quo and the GAC scorecard are solvable. Now is the perfect opportunity to see the commitments expressed this morning to consensus and multilateralism are genuine. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Olivier. Back to you. >>MILTON MUELLER: My understanding is that we are only supposed to be addressing the objection procedure now? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: No. I've allowed people -- some people have prepared more general statements. I'm allowing them to make those. But I would like -- now that we've heard those, we won't hear them in relation to each topic. So I'd rather, if you've got it on sensitive strings, I'd rather hear that now. >>MILTON MUELLER: Okay. Milton Mueller, Noncommercial Users Constituency. We see in the GAC scorecard a shift from ICANN's original attempt to define some very specific criteria for the censorship of strings to those fateful words, "objection for any reason." The "for any reason" is something that I think almost everyone in the noncommercial users opposes very strongly. We think that there should be very clear criteria and that those criteria should be grounded in principles of international law, particularly ones that protect individual rights to freedom of expression and other kinds of civil rights and liberties. So as I understand the compromise position, the 1B we have here, you propose that the GAC could give you advice to object to a string for any reason and that that would then be taken on board and dealt with as any other GAC advice. We don't like that, at least I'm certain that I don't support that. And we view it as being too arbitrary, not grounded in any principles of law, and puts the board in a very strange position where it has to basically disregard the voice of governments in ways that could undermine the principle of predictability of outcomes. So that's our statement on that. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Milton. Anyone else on sensitive strings? No? If not, Bruce, would you like -- any closing comment on that? >>MARILYN CADE: Peter, I'm sorry, I would like to make a further statement on sensitive strings, if I may. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Yeah, please do. >>MARILYN CADE: Marilyn Cade, BC chair. I want to specifically reference 2.2.1 and 2.2-- through 2.2.3 and note that the business constituency shares the GAC's concern, as I had said earlier, we found the scorecard an incredibly effective way of identifying the issues, the -- describing the concern, and then proposing solutions. So, for us, as business users, it has been very helpful. My question -- and it really is a question -- we're interested in whether the community objection without fee, coupled with the early warning can help to address the GAC's concerns in those three areas. >>HEATHER DRYDEN: I believe we're taking comments. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Next topic again had Bruce as the topic leader. And it's expanding the categories of community-based strings. And again there's a statement of advice -- from the GAC, and then there's the board score, and the comment from the board. And, again, we can largely treat that as much understood. >>BRUCE TONKIN: There's sort of three pages. I'll take you through it very quickly. But the first page, basically, the GAC had suggested predefining what community-based strings would be. Some of those would be relating to historical, cultural, or social. But then strings could also be relating to sectors, such as banking or pharmacy. The board's response is it doesn't want to predefine whether a particular string is a community string, but it gives the applicant the opportunity to designate their application as community-based. And the benefit that that applicant gets is that they would be given preference in any process where there was more than one applicant for the same string. However, ICANN does have a community objection process in the event that there's substantial opposition to a potential string from a significant portion of that community. And we felt that the information the GAC had provided helps clarify the types of organizations that would have standing in being able to raise an objection. The next page is kind of part 2, I guess, of the intent of the GAC in defining a set of strings, is that an applicant for one of these strings that is being defined as a community string must demonstrate their affiliation with the community. They would need to show evidence of support from that community. And if the string is either too broad for a single entity to be able to operate that string or it's sufficiently contentious within a community, that the string would be rejected. The board's response to that has been that, basically -- we're basically treating that through an objection process, and our standard for an objection process is a community that is affected with show substantial opposition to that protest. So that's basically where the issue stands. And open it up again for comment. >>KURT PRITZ: There's one more. >>BRUCE TONKIN: There's one more? Yeah, I think that this is the same point, though. It's basically if there's -- if it's -- if the GAC considers -- if the string is too broad to identify a single entity as the appropriate authority or sufficiently contentious, it would be rejected. And our approach is that we have an objection process that deals with that if a community that the string refers to, if there's substantial opposition from that community, then we would reject it. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. So that's a reasonable summary of the issue. Any response? An Tony. >> If I may ask a point of order. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I'd quite like to give the people that we asked to prepare an opportunity. But I don't see a great crush behind you. So I -- can we just have an indication, constituency, SO, and AC, any responses on these topics? I have one. Let's start with that, because we've asked you to take some time and do that. And then we'll come back to you, Antony and possibly a member of the audience. >>MASON COLE: Again, chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group. Two points of procedure on this, Peter. One is, you'd asked for a copy of our input in writing. Be glad to provide that on behalf of the stakeholder group. The other is, I'd like to echo the registry chair, David Maher, in his input that there's all this input is being provided on a very, very tight time line. The registrars would like further opportunity to revise their input if they find that necessary in order to be helpful to the board and the GAC. On this issue, our input is very short. We believe that the concerns behind the GAC's advice on expanded categories of community- based strings are already satisfied by existing applicant guidebook provisions. We support the board's position on this set of issues and believe the GAC's concerns are already addressed in the guidebook. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Mason -- Antony. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: Happily switch with him. Thank you. And the reason I wanted to come up here is simply because we're going through these issues one by one. It might be more useful to hear input on those. Again, I would like to thank the GAC for showing up. It's very helpful. I think that as far as the applicants are concerned, what we really need is predictability. And I think that helps everyone. So when we look at things like sensitive strings for communities, things like this, if we could define them a priori, that would be one thing. But I don't think we can. So we very much support the approach in the guidebook to look at issues after the fact through an objection process. And I think we've seen the experience of many ccTLDs that have tried to do a priori vetting of strings have eventually abandoned that idea, because it really gums up the works and finds many false positives. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Amadeu Abril i Abril, a public mic constituency. Regarding this, I think that here I have a problem. I agree with both parties. I think there is some sort of misunderstanding of what each party is stressing. The simplest thing I would like to say to the board is that your usual answer that this is dealt with objection process would be true if objection process could work. Okay. We have eliminated the absolute defense. That's good. But still, the requisite of detriment to the whole Internet community is something that could, in effect, make that objection completely unworkable. So we need to, at least, refine that. And the second part, the cost of the community-based objection that are probably higher much higher than prepare an application, which also could be a problem for many community-based TLDs. I think the message that should be conveyed here is that my impression is that the GAC wants that community TLDs are really community rooted when they are community TLDs. And I think that both parties are expressing this in different ways and not meeting the mind of making sure that those that claim they are a community and those that pretend that they are a community, not because the words have different meanings, but to say I want this for this group but they are not community-based simply because they do not want to abide by these rules, should not escape from at least the representation within the community. And I think this is the clue that we could work on. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Mr. Staub. >>WERNER STAUB: Werner Staub from CORE. I would like to remind ourselves that we have this issue associated with the fact that right now all the community-based strings are subject to the post-delegation dispute resolution policy, which I have always believed that this is a mistake. It is just too easy to take a community by surprise, which is why I understand why the GAC came forward with this proposal, which helps enhance the security or predictability at least for those who are not here; namely, those communities who might be affected. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. And now, Dr. Twomey, welcome back. >>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you. I wonder if I could just -- Paul Twomey, a public participant. I wonder if I might just make an observation about this particular provision as something that I have -- this whole community, I think is something I have paid a lot of attention to for the last ten years around the sponsored top-level domain experience. And my only observation about what's put forward is potentially to give some thought on the objection process around the purpose and objective of the string being used by the people putting it forward. Past experience has shown, my experience, is that you might have the same sort of communities vying for a term but the purpose is different. So I just think simply an objection is one point, but it might be useful to have a view to what is the objective use of the -- what the proponent is objectively intending to use the string for might be something you consider in that objection process. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Anyone else on community-based strings? Bruce, any closing comment? Heather, anything? No? All right. Let's scroll through to the next one, which is market and economic impacts. And Ray was the topic leader on that. While Ray is coming forward, you can have a look at the screen which shows what the GAC advice was, and then the board response. Thank you, Ray. >>RAY PLZAK: Thank you, Peter. This is actually a little different than the rest of them in terms of what has happened. In terms of the GAC advice that was provided and is recorded in the scorecard, it was not planned that the information that was gathered as part of the application would be used to predict the benefit of the prospective TLD. However, in the course of the discussion, the GAC indicated that the weighing of cost and benefits should, instead, take place as part of a new gTLD program review as specified in the Affirmation of Commitments. So in terms of the original GAC advice, it's a 2. However, in terms of the GAC advice that is now indicating that it should be used in the new gTLD program review that's specified in the AoC, we consider that a 1A. And so we're at that point of discussion. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Ray. Any comments? Steve Metalitz is making his way to the microphone. Steve. >>STEVE METALITZ: Thank you. I'm not commenting on behalf of a constituency, so if there's any -- if there are any constituency comments, maybe they should go first, but I really had a question. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Go ahead. >>STEVE METALITZ: Thank you. So I just wanted to clarify that does this mean that as a result of the findings and recommendations that are in the economic reports, there will be no changes to the Applicant Guidebook? >>KURT PRITZ: So I have been -- I am going to speak. And one of the points that the GAC raised during the session in Brussels is that the Applicant Guidebook questionnaire be augmented -- be augmented so that the applicant could provide information on the anticipated benefits of the new TLD and also cost mitigation measures so that after the first round, a subsequent economic study could draw a comparison between promises of the applicant and real effects in order to -- in order to effect changes for the second round. So that's one change I know that's going to appear in the guidebook for that. And also, from the most recent economic study that was posted, we're looking at and discussing with the IP constituency and others some changes that could be made to trademark protections, but haven't settled on those yet. >>STEVE METALITZ: Okay. But on the first of those, that would not be an evaluation factor. It would be an informational -- information gathering. And an applicant's answer would have no impact on the evaluation. >>KURT PRITZ: Yes, that's essentially correct. >>STEVE METALITZ: It strikes me that the reason for these economic studies was not just to figure out how we retrospectively evaluate the first round. It was intended to improve the first round. And what I am hearing is that the board has decided there was nothing, virtually nothing in those economic studies that could improve the first round. I wonder about all the money that was spent on those economic studies if that is the board's conclusion. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. Marilyn Cade, speaking as the chair of the B.C. The market and economic impacts issue is one that is very important to the business constituency. In fact, it's so important that members of our constituency have taken up efforts on our own to try to identify and document negative externalities when we have found that the studies undertaken and perhaps the direction undertaken by ICANN were somewhat lacking. There's a difference between an analysis of the marketplace and a market analysis. And we asked to have an analysis of the marketplace undertaken. Facts like the number of Internet users and the fact that the growth of Internet users are in countries and regions which do not speak or write English might have led us to prioritize IDNs over other decisions. And I think I would say historically the comments made by the B.C. several times indicated that that kind of information should have better guided us from the beginning. The problem I see now is that we continue to have very strong concerns about the lack of analysis of the marketplace. And we share the concerns that the governments expressed. We think, actually, that applicants should be able to describe the benefits that their proposed gTLD will provide, including in terms of what registrants will be served by a gTLD and how they will avoid registration of nonqualified users if they say they are addressing a community. Adherence to community-based criteria is important to establish and to ensure is a continued requirement. Studying it after the fact, I'm not sure that the business constituency is going to think totally adequate in terms of addressing concerns that exist at the beginning of the introduction process. Applicants should be ask to affirm the actions and processes that will eliminate or minimize negative externalities that represent cost and risk to registrants and users and consumers which include but are not limited to defensive registrations, cybersquatting, et cetera. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I hate to interrupt, but what you are doing is something we don't want to get into which is repetition of previous materials. What we are looking at is what the GAC asked for and what we've said, and the GAC didn't actually ask for what you just described. So we really want to try to avoid fighting the battles of 2008 and '9 to a certain extent. Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Speaking on behalf of the NCSG, but first I wanted to ask you a question about helping. The numbering you are using now doesn't correspond to the numbers you used in your letters. I am getting here very late because I am trying to quickly map and find things. So if it's possible that someone could say we are talking about what was 4.1 in the board's missive now, would be really helpful, just as a point. On this one, I am speaking from the NCSG. We have a majority view that strongly supports the board's position and is very concerned about use of data for purposes for which it was not collected and going beyond what would be ICANN's scope in collecting data. There is a minority view being held in the NCSG among one of the candidate constituencies that is similar to the CSG's position on supporting the GAC's position on this. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Anything more on market and economic impacts? Ray, a closing comment? That's it. Okay. Let's move to the next one which is registry/registrar separation. The GAC advice that's come up is on the screen, criteria to amend the agreement. So where there is a registry that has market power, prevent them from -- prevent cross-ownership. This is an area where the board thinks it is agreed in principle but it is a much more comprehensive approach. So this in many ways shouldn't be categorized as a 2. The board's's approach to this is the GAC advice in this area doesn't go far enough and it's not only those circumstances where there's cross-ownership. What has to happen as a result of that cross-ownership and as a result of having market power. We are seeing abuses of market power, and what we have said is when we see that, we will refer that to competition authorities. It's not enough, in our view, simply to say that because somebody gets to a position of having market power that they should be deconstructed and have to go through some kind of demerger process. What we're looking for is abuses of market power that arise from the cross-ownership positions. So in addition to being able to refer them to competition authorities in those circumstances, we have also gone further and said there will also be these provisions, restrictions on inappropriate or abusive conduct, and we have created the concept of a registry code of conduct. So to a large extent we think we have gone further in that direction than the GAC advice. Any questions about the GAC advice or the board's response to it in relation to abuses of market power arising from registry/registrar cross-ownership? Mr. Zucker, are you coming to the microphone? And Mason, you have a position? Mason. >> All right. Thank you very much. The registrar stakeholder group agrees with the board. We believe that the GAC-board disagreement might be resolved with additional clarity in the board's language. It's agreed that any detrimental impact -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sorry. Just slow down a lot, please. >>MASON COLE: I'm sorry. I apologize. It's clear that both agree that any detrimental impact of registry market power related to cross- ownership should be a violation of the registry code of conduct and referred to competition authorities. If this is the GAC's intended position, this could be reclassified as a 1. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Once again, speaking for the NCSG. The NCSG had a strong consensus in support of the board's position on this particular issue. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Avri. Jonathan. >>JONATHAN ZUCK: Jonathan Zuck from the Association for Competitive Technology. I am not representing anyone here but I am a little surprised by this recommendation from the GAC because it seems very strange that the governments would want to delegate this kind of authority to ICANN to be in a place to be predictive of market power, abuse or something. And I think the distinction the board made about abuse I think is important because it looks at conduct as opposed to sort of predictions about what the nature of the market might look like. I think market power and market definition is so broadly defined differently in different national jurisdictions, et cetera, that this -- I think this would be an incredible burden to place on ICANN and is much better left to enforcement authorities in country. I think this is a huge can of worms and can be brought up in so many different contexts than ones we are anticipating now with respect to how market power might be defined, in what contexts. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Any other comments on that one? Thank you. This side. Mikey. I think I can't quite see through the light. >>MIKEY O'CONNOR: I have got my new badges on. My name is Mikey O'Connor and I was the chair or the junior co- chair of the vertical integration working group. And I have a question, I think, and that is that it's my understanding that one of the issues that's surfacing is that the authorities in the various countries are overloaded, and, thus, might not be able to get to these issues. And that there's a concern from that angle. And one of the ideas that came up in the working group was the notion of an intermediate group between ICANN and the competition authorities. Some sort of panel of experts approach was laid out in our report, and I'd be happy to go into a lot more detail. But if that's the concern that the GAC has, there may be a way to solve this to the satisfaction of both sides, and we'd be happy to help. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you for that. Any other comments on the GAC scorecard or the board's response? In some ways, it's not really a 2 at all. It's much more of an agreement than a disagreement. All right. Let's move to the next one which Kurt has renumbered for Avri and others. This is the protection of rights owner. So thank you, Ray. Let's ask Rita Rodin Johnston, who has been the board topic leader on the protection of rights owners, to come up, and possibly Bruce as well who has been very helpful in that. 6.1.2 is the scorecard numbering system. Now, Rita, you have got an enviable task here -- or unenviable task. This is the longest list of things, so I don't think it's going to be productive to read through all of them but I leave it to you as to how you perhaps give us a high-level overview and then get into the detail. Rita. >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: Sure. Trademark rights. Woo-hoo! [ Laughter ] >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: So the GAC scorecard basically divided the comments into three areas: the trademark clearinghouse, the URS, and the PDDRP. I just wanted to take 30 seconds to say the board has been very sensitive to comments from brand owners in protection of rights. The board has been aware of this issue for some time. It's a very important issue. It talks to economic impact and real harm and real increased cost that can be borne. So that was the reason that the board formed the IRT and went to people in the industry and said come give us some advice, because these are very important issues. As you all know, the IRT and the STI have done a variety of work on these issues. I was present at some of the -- I will call them IRT-ICANN road shows where there was a lot of debate and discussion from different areas and different sides of the issues. And I think that with respect to this area, it really is important to listen to some of the comments that both some of the constituency leaders made today and that Ira Magaziner talked about this morning. This is a tough job in a lot of ways but I think in this particular area, there is a lot of different contingents and a lot of pretty polar views. So I think Larry said the board needs to force consensus more. In this area, short of taking a bat and swinging, I'm not really sure how we do that, but we did our best with taking a look at these comments. So the things that you are going to see are in these three buckets and are the remaining 2s that the board arrived at based on trying to balance what's happened with the process, respecting the process and respecting the consensus that's gone into some of the positions in the current guidebook. So we're really looking forward to hearing your comments whether we got that balance right. So, Kurt, why don't you flash up, I guess, the first bucket which is comments about the trademark clearinghouse, and we welcome community comments on this area. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: So I think what would be helpful now, if we could have some comments, if we can, on the trademark clearinghouse provisions. I see J. Scott. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: We have prepared a statement that just go through all the rights protection mechanisms, not each one that you have up here but the ones that we want to address. Is it all right if I just address everything at one time rather than coming up here piecemeal? Would that assist? >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: No. We want you to come back 15 times. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I know you want to hear from me. My name is J. Scott Evans and I am the elected president of the Intellectual Property Constituency. The IPC thanks the board for the opportunity to comment on the ICANN board notes and the GAC scorecard. As a general matter, the IPC supports the recommendations of the GAC. With respect to specific GAC advice that is not consistent with the board's current position, the IPC believes the following are the most important to the Internet community as a whole. One, sunrise services and IP claims services should both be mandatory for registry operators. 2, the URS should contain a loser pay mechanism. The URS should go beyond exact matches. And a user -- a use requirement should not be added to the trademark clearinghouse. With respect to the request for the trademark clearinghouse to be used both sunrise services and IP claims service, we believe those should both be mandatory for registry operators to provide adequate trademark protections in the new gTLD space. Sunrise services should be mandatory because -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: J. Scott, could I ask you to slow down a little? Again, when you are reading it's easy to gallop on, but the scribes are having to keep up. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: Sure. With respect to the sunrise for the trademark clearinghouse to be used for both sunrise services and IP claims service, we believe that these should both be mandatory for registry operators to provide adequate trademark protections in the new gTLD space. Sunrise services should be mandatory because historically they have always served an essential function for brand owners to provide to protect their valuable trademark rights at the second level during the launch of any new gTLD. And the IP claims service offers an alternative to unnecessary defensive registrations. With respect to the suggestion that a loser-pay mechanism be added to the URS, we would like to advise you all that there is some support within the IPC for this recommendation because some brand owners believe it improves the proposed model by adding a means to deter infringement at the second level. As the URS is meant only for the most egregious examples of unlawful Internet conduct, it is appropriate to impose some sort of deterrent to those who engage in this illegal behavior. We have proposed a methodology that appears workable based on discussions with a broad cross-section of ICANN community that we would be happy to share. With respect to the URS needing to go beyond exact matches, we believe there has been some misunderstanding between the current GAC and board positions which appear to be already in harmony. With regard to the URS need to go beyond exact matches, the current Applicant Guidebook includes the confusingly similar language that is broad enough to include exact matches plus any other key word or typo- squatting that are established to be confusingly similar under the confusingly similar standard. In other words, we think you are in agreement even though it appears that you are not. We think you are at a 1 on that particular point. And that's 6.2.13, I believe. Finally, regarding the suggestion of adding a use requirement to the trademark clearinghouse, the IPC cannot support this inclusion for two reasons. First, because it would require burdens beyond those that exist in many jurisdictions globally that do not require use to support trademark rights. Second, the clearinghouse should not be assessing the validity of trademark rights, potentially contrary to the laws of a particular country or jurisdiction. Thank you for this opportunity to share our views on the productive dialogue that is going on between the board and the GAC. >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: So J. Scott, I just have one question for you, actually, because this is something that we have been discussing on the board, and I think Bruce actually raised this in Brussels a tad. The reason why there was this use-based requirement for sunrise was that we thought that the community had agreed or come to the conclusion that a sunrise registration right is something that's extra. Meaning that a trademark owner has the right before general availability to say, "I have rights to this mark." So we wanted to require use because we didn't want a scenario -- and I think in some ways, the GAC advice rightfully said this could be interpreted as passing judgment on some trademark offices, meaning use-based U.S. registrations were better than non-U.S. based, where there is no use done to give you your registration, and that wasn't the board's intent, and that's what we tried to clarify in our comments. But in terms of use for sunrise, what we didn't want to have happen, which I'm sure you have done for some of your clients as I have to mine, people want to just get a trademark registration in a jurisdiction. They don't intend to use the mark, but they just try to go get a registration where there's no use-based requirement. So what we didn't want to have happen in sunrise is have a legitimate trademark owner who is using the mark lose that registration to someone who wasn't actually using the mark and just wanted to get it in the new gTLD. So that's why you have that in there and I'm curious why you don't want it in there. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I think our concern is one of the initial push- backs we received from the board in the Seoul meeting is there was some concern that a trademark clearinghouse was somehow creating rights or doing more than just recording and authenticating that the information that has been provided was accurate, which is how we originally envisioned it on the IRT. And by requiring the clearinghouse provider to review and pass judgment on whether use has been demonstrated, you are giving -- you are essentially making them a gateway that looks at something on a substantive level when we don't believe that they are capable or the appropriate group to do so. And then especially given the fact that there are many jurisdictions -- in fact, the majority of jurisdictions in the world have no use requirement. The majority. American trademark owners are going to be fine. Australian trademark owners will be fine. New Zealand trademark owners will be fine. Canadian. So basically your common law countries will probably be fine, but the problem is you are cutting out about 90% of the rest of the world who don't have that requirement. And that's the only reason we say we cannot support it, and those are our concerns. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Actually, New Zealanders won't. New Zealand trademark registrations aren't examined for use. But putting that aside, the issue here is trying to make sure that the people who get this particular advantage that sunrise confers have actually earned it. And what we are trying to do is try to make sure that only the good trademark -- good trademarks, if you like, get it and not the bad ones. And how do you make that distinction? The original distinction was based on the kind of examination at the trademark office. And as Rita says that in the end was too difficult. So this is the solution. Those genuine trademarks that are registered and being used and can prove both steps get this very special advantage that sunrise has. Someone who just rushes off and buys a registration in five minutes or does it online and can walk up with a certificate from some registry, they are not going to get the special advantage. And it seems to me to large extent that's a pro- trademark approach and helps the trademark owner at the expense of the pirate. That's our view so help us think that through. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: We would think a more appropriate solution would be to put in the sunrise challenge that you can challenge, and it's a valid challenge on the basis of an objector that it's not being used, rather than putting it on the applicant to prove up front. So in other words, you would apply for a sunrise registration. If someone believes you are one of these actors who has moved in, you can then initiate a challenge. Just so I can say, because I promised my constituency I would do this, since we went through a laundry list, of all of those, we believe the most important issue for us at this point is to clarifying the 6.2.13 confusion of what -- who can and what will be covered in the URS because as it's currently stated, it says the exact mark and anything confusingly similar, which we believe is the correct standard. And we believe that answers the question of the GAC and it really is at a 1 and not a 2, and that is very important. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Excellent. If there's really a 1 in there, that's great progress. >>J. SCOTT EVANS: I think we are very close and we would be happy to point out where we think there's been some confusion. But that is the most important thing. So I just want to clarify since we went through so many things and you are wanting -- that we're really focused there. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: All right. Can we come to this side? We have -- J. Scott, you can come back if we have the time. Olivier. >>OLIVIER CRÉPIN-LEBLOND: Thank you, Peter. Olivier Crépin- Leblond, chair of At Large. On the trademark clearinghouse we support the recommendations of the STI group because these were reached through community consensus. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Again, in the NCSG there is a majority position and then there is a minority, a small minority position of the candidate, constituency that basically supports the GAC position. In terms of the majority viewpoint, on the specific point that was being talked about, the 6.1.2, we also wanted to point out, as was just pointed out, that this is running against the recommendations and going back to an older. Now, I have another question I wanted to ask, and we have comments on several of them. One of the things that we haven't been talking about is some of the places you have 1B, and when we looked at it and did our own scorecard, we felt that it more should be a 2. Now, I'm not quite sure how -- for example, in the 6.1.1 we thought the definition of intellectual property was too wide and therefore your 1B we would really ask you to reconsider that. And we have several of those in other places. So I'm not quite sure how you want to handle places where the NCSG majority position was that the 1B was not quite a strict enough view of what had been brought from the GNSO and from the STI. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I think now is the time to tell us, if you can. >>AVRI DORIA: I most definitely can. So in terms of the 6.1, the NCSG wrote this goes back to the scope defined which was rejected by the STI. The board request as well as the GAC response is unclear as to the scope of intellectual property and literally taken it would be too broad. On 6.2.3, the NCSG was supporting the recommendation made in the STI process. The respondent should be given the right to participate in selecting a panel, as opposed to the board's position that there would just be one evaluator. On 6.2.5, basically -- okay. I need to read these so I can map them to your words, unless you know the numbers. 6.2.5 was the GAC position was if as expected in the majority of cases there is no response from a registrant and basically our view on this is that's to basically assume that default is -- equates to guilt. And we were very concerned about there in several different places where the default of a respondent was basically presumed to be guilt and none of the normal processes of trying to go further, of trying to understand, of trying to dig into the position was gone into. So that referred to 6.2.5. It also referred to 6.2.10.3, which I can also, if you want, to 6.2.10.3 was in addition to the examination of possible defenses in default cases, according to paragraph 8.4.2, means an unjustified privilege to the noncooperating defendant. And you gave it a 1A and we were disagreeing with basically once again deciding that that is a -- going way too far on the other side and sort of presuming guilt of the nonrespondent, which was equally problematic. And let me see, there was one other, I believe. And six two 12, there was a specific agreement in the STI that the URS would be limited to locking. That was the critical difference to the UDRP, was how URS was originally framed, and to go back on that was seen as problematic also by the NCSG. By the majority in NCSG. As I said, there was a minority that supported the GAC positions. Thank you. >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: Avri, just one question for you. And John or somebody is going to give us the transcript, I'm hoping, so we can go through all of the comments that are going to be made line by line. But the URS, my understanding is, what the community wanted was to have clear-cut cases of abuse; right? So I think that the comments that are reflecting are showing that if you are going to register for a domain name that someone is going to say is clearly abusive of my brand, you have to pay attention. So if you get a URS claim, you need to respond to that. >>AVRI DORIA: There is, I guess, the gulf between just paying attention and perhaps missing an e-mail, missing a communication. It does happen all the time, versus due process where somebody actually looks at you, gets your name, and passes you a communication. There is no in the paying attention assumption, there is no verification, there is no certainty that even if you are paying attention, you would get the notification. Communication media is not reliable in any circumstance unless you have somebody serve -- a processor server actually handing something. So there has to be a little bit more leeway in terms of making sure you have hit your mark. Also, in terms of other things, we have put this all online and it is available to you and we have made the URL available, because I know I'm jumping around numbers. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Let's come back to this side. Marilyn, this is a BC position? >>MARILYN CADE: It is. My name is Marilyn Cade, speaking as of chair of the BC. I will note that I was overawed by the number of subelements in this section. So we may be here for a good long time as everybody tries to go through all of them. There are a few that the BC is going to comment on and some we will not specifically comment on. In 6.1.2 -- sorry, in the section we're referring to here, the BC supports requiring both the sunrise and the trademark clearinghouse for all new gTLDs and we support extending the trademark claims service, I will say perpetually for the TLDs. There was a question about what the rationale is to do that. And our view is that these are really complementary services and they serve two different purposes. Certainly that is what we hear from the brandholders who are members of the business constituency. Cybersquatting is a continued challenge. It does not occur just at the time of a launch. And so since it isn't limited, then we would say that that service needs to continue. The other point, I guess, about the -- the trademark clearinghouse is, since that is a notice service, it's not clear to us why it cannot include nonexact matches, since it is an alerting service. I will have other comments later about other elements under 6. I will make one overarching comment. We do support the 1As that have been agreed to throughout the entirety of the work that's been done and think it's very important for us all to understand that we have made so much progress since we left Cartagena and that it's important to try to keep those 1As, resolve many 1Bs as possible, resolve as many 2s as possible. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you for those last comments, Marilyn. Absolutely agree. Thank you. Elliot. >>ELLIOT NOSS: Thank you, Peter. Elliot Noss, Tucows. I thought I would share some facts with you all. Tucows has for the last couple of years and will again this year, and I'm sure next year, spend well over six figures defending our rights as a domain name registrant in our surname domain name portfolio. We have -- we respect rights. We're a trademark holder ourself. We have never been found, in conclusion, to be in violation of other people's rights. And almost without exception, the people on the other side will be intellectual property lawyers who are trying to game the system. Now, one of the things that I hear at every ICANN meeting is, "It's not you, Elliot, it's not you, Tucows, you're a good registrar. It's the bad registrars." So I want to share that back. Intellectual property lawyers in the room, it's not you. You are the good intellectual property lawyers. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] >>ELLIOT NOSS: But there -- [ Applause ] >>ELLIOT NOSS: But there are thousands and thousands around the world who are not so good. So when we're deciding on the conclusions here, it's very important to balance the rights. Any opportunities for gaming will be taken by some. If the URS can in any way be a mechanism to acquire a domain name, that's what it will become. If the trademark rights in either sunrise or I.P. -- or the I.P. claims can be used to gather a domain name, that's what it will become. And the people on the other side of those issues will be Internet users, will be domain name holders. So, please, keep that balance in mind. Thank you. And continue this great work. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We've got a room full of good registrars and good trademark lawyers. No wonder we're able to make so much progress. Back to this side. >>AMBER STERLING: Hi, my name is Amber Sterling. I'm chair of the proposed not-for-profit operational concerns constituency, and I know I'm not a real constituency yet. May I make a comment? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Please do. >>AMBER STERLING: Thank you. NPOC currently has 18 organizational members across all five ICANN regions, and we are looking forward to growing as we expand our global outreach -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Just again, just slow down. >>AMBER STERLING: Slow down. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We've got plenty of time today. There's no rush. >>AMBER STERLING: Fantastic. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Could you start by repeating your name. I don't think the scribes quite got that for the record. >>AMBER STERLING: I'm sorry. My name is Amber Sterling, and I'm the chair of the proposed Not-for-profit Operational Concerns Constituency. Regarding new gTLDs, NPOC members recognize and acknowledge the importance of this new venue for Internet connectivity, sharing of information and resources and consumer choice. With the potential benefits of new gTLD also brings challenges. For NPOC members, DNS abuse pose real problems to our infrastructure and communities we represent. For example, charitable organizations accept donations online and academic organizations offer high-stakes standby tests. Intellectual property rights such as trademark and copyright, offer members a tool to combat this DNS abuse. We greatly appreciate the efforts of the board and the GAC to ensure these tools are made available as best as possible. Specifically, we are pleased with the progress regarding URS and the trademark clearinghouse. Important tools, if accompanied with the rights policies -- or accompanied with the right policies and procedures can assist our organizations effectively execute its missions and important work. Now I will speak on behalf of my own not-for-profit organization, the Association of American Medical Colleges, to better articulate the challenges faced by the launch of new gTLDs. ICANN anticipates the launch of 500 to 1,000 new gTLDs in the first wave. Let's assume 20, so a very small portion of these, are related to our core mission of higher education, standardized testing, health care, hospitals, et cetera. For defensive registrations, we would register at least five domains in each of these new extensions. Five times 20 is 100. And so I would purchase approximately 100 new domain names at the average cost of $100 during the sunrise period. This is $10,000, which represents 15 to 20% of my overall budget, which is a very large portion when dealing with small funds. Because of the budget limitations we face, we will have to rely heavily on the protections afforded by the trademark clearinghouse and the URS, areas discussed in section 6. We need these tools to either assist in the prevention of DNS abuse in the case of trademark clearinghouse, keeping in mind the limited financial resources that prevent some not-for-profit organizations from even registering their names, or to assist in the prompt and inexpensive resolution of DNS abuse in the URS. While these tools can never be 100% effective, we need them to be as strong as possible. Additionally, we need these tools to be affordable. Please keep this in mind as you move forward. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Let's come to this side. Jeff. >>JEFF NEUMAN: Thank you. Jeff Neuman, NeuStar. This is not a comment on behalf of the Registry Stakeholder Group, but it's a comment that reflects some of their opinions. We'll finalize this tomorrow. We agree -- I agree with all of the 2s that have been identified by the board in its latest scorecard, with the exception of the one that was identified by J. Scott. I do think, on that one, which is the one dealing with the standard of URS proceeding actually is probably really a 1. I think you're talking past each other. The standard should be identical or confusingly similar, just as it is in the UDRP. So I agree with them on that. But with respect to all of the other 2s, I think the board -- the board actually got it right. And I'm very glad that they did. I also want to issue a caution about the IPC statement that was just issued with respect to some of the other items. It's kind of ironic, but they're actually going beyond what was accepted by the I.P. practitioners in the IRT, a group that of those a part of. So I caution that -- I know they're asking for things like loser pays and other items, which really go beyond what was discussed back in 2009. With respect to -- I think it was 6.2.12 -- or .12, which is currently a 1A, which deals with the right to transfer a domain name - - or right of first refusal after a domain name expires if that domain name was subject to a URS, I mentioned this earlier to a couple members of the board during the GNSO Council meeting, I would actually put that at a 1B right now, not because I don't agree with the principle. I just think there are a lot of practical implications or how to implement that is not as easy as it sounds, especially when you consider names that may expire or be deleted two, three, four years after the fact. So there's got to be a maintenance of a database. There has to be some way to authenticate that the winner of the URS proceeding is actually the one that applies for the name. There has to be a mechanism within the registry to check when that name expires and prevent it from going into the pool of available names or prevent it from registrars snapping it up. There's a lot of actually details that need to be worked out. The principle sounds great, but we just need to work through those. And I also want to issue a caution on the term "I.P. claims." And I'm very familiar with that term, and I'm actually sometimes sorry I actually created that back in 2000. And, actually, very astonished that this many people would be talking about it 11 years later. A lot of what the BC and the IPC and others are actually talking about is more of a watch service, is more of a notice service. It's not really the I.P. claims. So I just encourage everyone to -- talking about this to know what they're talking about, to make it very clear that when you mean an I.P. claims service, which has to do with providing notice, and then getting certain reps and warranties from the registrant if they want to move forward with the registration, versus a watch service, which notifies an I.P. owner that a domain name has actually been registered. And I also want to bring up a point that was a couple years ago during the IRT discussions, that for watch services, the IRT was strongly encouraged not to put that into our report by commercial providers of watch services, groups like Thomson & Thomson, MarkMonitor, CFC, and others that actually provide these watch services, strongly cautioned the IRT not to put forward a watch service because it created a sort of monopoly on a service for which a market already existed. So I ask you to consider that as well. Thanks. [ Applause ] >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: Jeff, so I just have one quick question. The URS, I believe, in the current applicant guidebook mandates a freeze of the domain name. And then I think there's a potential one- year extension, right, it's for the term of the domain name. And then there's a potential one-year extension. So isn't there going to be some sort of a tag on that name the registry's done anyway in case the trademark owner wants to do that extension? So I don't know, right, but that's why we thought if there is already a tag, is there a way that once that is triggered and there's a notification to see do you want to extend, there can also be an option and do you want to have a transfer of this name? >>JEFF NEUMAN: Yes, that will be in there. But there are actual different statuses. And we can talk about the implementation with EPP. But the short answer is, there will be some sort of tag on it, but when you're actually talking about preventing a name from expiring, what some of the registries were talking about is locking the name down, which actually prevents expiration. So there's just a bunch of implementation details that need to be discussed about it. I'm not saying it's not possible at all. I'm just saying that we need to talk about it when writing it into the guidebook. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. This side. >>JONATHAN ROBINSON: Hi, my name is Jonathan Robinson. I've worked for many years previously in the corporate domain name services, brand protection, domain name management area, and I'm currently working -- and in fact in that capacity, gave input into the IRT a couple of years ago here. In addition, I'm currently working on a system to provide to validation services for new gTLDs or gTLDs or TLDs. I think I wanted to make two points. One was on the issue of -- in addition to those that J. Scott made on substantive use of trademarks, it seems to me that there are many products, services, and potentially even -- by larger corporations or brand owners, or, indeed, perhaps smaller businesses, which are in development or premarket that legitimately could be trademark protected and require that form of protection and, indeed, would also require that same form of protection in the domain name space without -- without substantive use. So I think that's certainly a point to consider in that. And the second, I guess Jeff's point, to support Jeff's point on the issue of whether or not a watch service should be provided by a monopoly provider, I, too, suspect there are many prospective -- you know, competing services of watch services. So anything that is built into this that in some way creates a monopoly on that service should be approached with caution. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. This side. John. >>JOHN BERRYHILL: Peter, my name is John Berryhill, Elliot was one of the good registrars. I'm one of the bad trademark attorneys. [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Security! Security! [ Laughter ] >>JOHN BERRYHILL: To provide a concrete example of how actually you're not too far off on the identity or confusingly similar standard in the URS is that the UDRP has expanded to where any word joined to a trademark is confusingly similar to the trademark. So the way this works out is U.S. trademark 839,099 for the word "thrush" for automobile mufflers can go into the sunrise period, because, clearly, there is no reason why a man from New Zealand should be able to use the word "Thrush" in a domain name. So he should be preempted from doing that. Likewise, if that gentleman should register "Thrush Consulting" and not get around to using it, that, too, is confusingly similar to that U.S. trademark. And we have this wonderful comment under 6.27 by the GAC saying that, "The defense that you have been commonly known by a domain name can hardly allow a domain name owner to prevail over the holders of colliding trademarks." So in that situation, you know, the defense that you would have any legitimate interest in using "Thrush Consulting" for something other than infringing a U.S. trademark for auto mufflers, you know, flies out the window. And that's what the GAC is requesting. Secondly, on this notion of -- of substantive use, I'm trying to understand with respect to trademarks for which the trademark owner cannot show that they're using the mark on anything, I'm -- I'm at a complete loss to understand what it is we're protecting consumers from. We're protecting them from being diverted from imaginary products. As I had mentioned to you, in Colombia, the word "shopping," for example, is a registered Benelux trademark which can be used during sunrise to get a domain name in any TLD. Now, this notion, then, of, well, we can fix this by having a challenge mechanism so that if a challenger can show that someone is not using a mark, then what happens at that point? Because it's still a generic word. So there's no real incentive for a challenger to do that. And to say that it is the -- the burden of the rest of the world to show that a trademark registrant is not using a mark, when the trademark registrant knows perfectly well if they're using it or where they're using it is an empty promise. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you for that. Let's go to this side. >>KONSTANTINOS KOMAITIS: Konstantinos Komaitis. I am the chair of the Noncommercial Users Constituency. For the record, I would like to say that these positions have not been signed off by NCUC. However, they reflect previous positions. Generally speaking, we would like to express our concern with some of the GAC as to how some of the GAC recommendations seem to expand trademark rights beyond their intended purpose and to also express our support to the board for the 2s that it has given. I would like to focus on two particular issues with the URS, the default and the transfer, and very briefly say we have an issue with the idea that default means bad faith and thus the defaulting party should almost automatically lose. But default can occur for many reasons besides bad faith. It can occur because messages were lost or misplaced or because people in non-English speaking countries did not understand the documents they have received, or other reasons that do not involve bad faith. Failing to accept the fact that default might occur for various reasons will create problems for individuals and small-scale registrants, for registrants in developing nations, and for registrants who are not familiar with the ICANN administrative proceedings and need to find a lawyer to assist them. It is unfair and unwise to deem us bad-faith actors anyone who is unable to respond in 14 days. We are concerned that the (inaudible) free speech will be curtailed and that the URS system is using its rapidness justification as an excuse to limit further the rights of individual legitimate users and design a structure that will be abused and gamed. When it comes to the transfer, I understand that the proposal is the right of first refusal. But we generally do not support the transfer of the domain name in the context of the URS. The URS, I would like to remind everybody, was justified by the IRT on the grounds that it was a mechanism with distinct remedies from the UDRP and not a replacement for it. The rationale -- this rationale was also followed by the STI. The IRT stated, "The URS is intended to supplement and not replace the UDRP. They are separate proceedings with distinct remedies. The URS is designed to provide the faster means to stop the operation of an abuser site. The UDRP is designed to result in the transfer of the abusive domain name." Allowing the transfer of the domain name under the URS becomes problematic at various levels. First of all, the whole foundation of the URS justification collapses. Secondly, by allowing transfer under the URS, a variety of issues emerge. What will be the compatibility between the URS and the UDRP and what will be the differences between the two mechanisms. If the URS is not meant to be a process that invites substantive evaluation but, rather, seeks to examine superficially the alleged infringement, then allowing a remedy that seeks transfer of the domain name is against due process and basic principles of justice. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. This side. >> Hello. My name is Alexander Schubert (phonetic). I am not representing anyone but a few small applicants. And it's very short and brief. I would like to highlight something that Elliot Noss and John Berryhill said previously. We already had a couple of TLD introductions, such as dot info and dot EU. And the respective sunrise Peters back then were very valuable for trademark holders. However, most of the premium generic (inaudible) domain names in dot info and dot EU had been registered by speculators utilizing the sunrise period. If creating a future community TLD like dot Miami or dot Florida, it is harming the community if community-relevant domain names are acquired by speculants during the sunrise. A TLD operator, therefore, should be unable to examine generic key word domains from the sunrise period. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to close the queue at this point for the trademark topics in general. So if you have been waiting to talk about trademarks, now is the time, please. And J. Scott, I indicated you would be able to come back if you wanted further time on the IPC position. Let's close the trademark topics, then, at that point. Thank you. This side. >>DEBRA HUGHES: Good evening. My name is Debra Hughes. I am an employee of the American National Red Cross, also a GNSO Councilor who was appointed by the board to advocate on behalf of not-for- profit organization. It's my pleasure also to be one of the proponents of the proposed Not-for-profit Operational Concerns constituency. And I want to thank the GAC and the board for the opportunity to bring some comments. I want to give the ICANN community a glimpse into the life of a nonprofit person who is forced all day, every day, to consider how to use donor dollars when it must execute its important missions. I want you to think about how I spent my weekend, dealing with the horrible disaster that's going on in Japan, and my e-mails are inundated by the games that are being played by those who make the conscious decision to register a domain name, because, let's remember, the act of registering a domain name is a contract between the registrant and the registrar. And I, as a not-for-profit organization, have to quickly, efficiently, and effectively figure out how to deal with nefarious behavior. So I would really urge the GAC and the board to consider, when it's taking a look at the terms for the URS, not-for-profit organizations that also have to respond to the crazy things that are happening on the Internet. We also have names, although we may not be the type that Elliot mentioned that are out there gaming and making tons of cash, our organizations have names. And it's those names that we rely upon for the community to help us fund-raise and execute our missions. And we ask that you also think about those names when you talk about protection in the clearinghouse. We don't always have the time or the ability to register domain names or to register trademarks for all of our important names. But to the extent that we do, we would hope that the clearinghouse would take those into account. We would also hope that the URS would be fast, efficient, and also take into account the fact that not-for-profit organizations, when nefarious behavior is going on, we need it to happen, we need it to stop immediately. We need resources. We need help. And we would hope that the GAC and the board would take into account these other types of I.P. owners when you're deliberating. Thank you for your time. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Thank you, Debra. Robin. >>ROBIN GROSS: Thank you. My name is Robin Gross. I'm with I.P. Justice and the Noncommercial Users Constituency. However, I am speaking in my personal capacity. I just wanted to let the board know that, in general, I support the board on all of its number 2s that it's given on the GAC scorecard in response to the trademark issues. So I just want to focus my remarks on a couple of the points that I do have, just a few issues. And the first is this issue of changing the URS to a URT, meaning changing the suspension to a transfer. I think it's worth noting that as a member of the STI team, one of the arguments that we consistently heard coming from the IPC when they would ask for more things is, "Don't worry. This is just a suspension, not a transfer. So don't worry about it." And so we would compromise. And so the entire community consensus was predicated upon this being a suspension and not a transfer. And then it turns, they go and lobby the GAC to ask for it to be a transfer. So this is really not a fair way of community compromising or handling community compromise. So that's the first issue. The second issue is the increase in scope to include all types of intellectual property rights. The STI team again took great care to make sure to narrow this only to trademarks, those that had substantive review. However, we see some indication that the board may increase this significantly to include not only unsubstantive trademarks, but all kinds of intellectual property rights, trade secrets, copyrights, pharmaceutical data. The list is extremely long of all the types of rights that this could suddenly -- that this will suddenly incorporate if there isn't some time and attention paid to this issue. And the third issue that -- well, let me just also say that allowing for these nonsubstantive and what we've heard described as imaginary trademarks is creating an incentive that is ripe for gaming. And I don't think -- gaming on behalf of the trademark owners. And I don't think that's an incentive that we want to bake into the policy. And the other issue that I wanted to mention was, again, baking into the policies these presumptions of bad faith on behalf of registrants and losses of due process. So when the presumption is, if somebody doesn't respond in a certain period of time, well, therefore we can presume bad faith, I have serious problems with that. So these are really the three big issues that I wanted to highlight, although I want to, again, preface my entire remarks with, in general, I support what the -- how the board has handled the trademark issues, especially all of the number 2s that it has assigned. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Robin. Back to this side. Philip. >>PHILIP CORWIN: Good afternoon, Philip Corwin speaking on behalf of the Internet Commerce Association. I appreciate this opportunity and want to commend the board and the GAC for engaging in the exercise they've joined in and the board for acquiescing to GAC positions where that is warranted and for defending the consensus positions that resulted from the multistakeholder process where that is warranted, and observing that in particular, the trademark positions reached by the STI RT and unanimously adopted by the GNSO, in our opinion, represent, quote, "true consensus," unquote. Now, on the URS, we believe that a mistake was made in Brussels in assigns a 1A to item 6.2.12, which is the possibility of domain transfer through a URS. As it was noted, the URS was always proposed as coincident to and not convergent with the UDRP. I doubt whether the URS could have been adopted with a transfer option. And certainly had that been on the table, there would have been extensive discussion of how to prevent and sanction the possibility of domain hijackings through an action which it appears it's going to be a $200 file fee with no substantive evaluation. So we are not asking for reversal. We are proposing what we believe is a more constructive alternative that meets the concerns of brand owners. And I have spent -- I spent all weekend speaking with members of the IPC and other very strong proponents of I.P. rights. And the general feedback I got on this suggestion was that it was acceptable to all and for many they saw it as preferably, and that is simply that when a domain at a particular new TLD loses a URS action, it's placed on a list where it's permanently ineligible for reregistration. And we believe that this is not just a win-win, but a quadruple win. It's a win for brand owners. They take slam dunk infringing names (inaudible) removed from the DNS without any continuing costs of paying to keep them in their own portfolios to keep them out of the hands of bad actors. It's a win for registrants who don't have to worry about the URS being a vehicle for domain hijacking. It's a win for the applicants for new TLDs, because, frankly, a lot of knowledgeable registrants will avoid new TLDs once they understand that a domain hijacking can be accomplished through a URS. And it's a win for the ICANN policy process going forward, because it doesn't introduce a tremendously disruptive element into the just- initiated process of UDRP reform. So we're trying to be very constructive here, and we hope that the board and the GAC will take our suggestion under advisement. And we thank you for this opportunity. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Philip, just a quick question. And the suggestion has been made by others that we change the URS into a transfer. There's only transfer in one very limited circumstance, and it's when the person who wins does nothing, and it goes on and on and on and sits there and eventually goes into -- goes back into the pool. So we'll have another look at that. But there's -- there is actually only very limited circumstances where the URS results in transfer. And it's only when nobody's done anything for years. And it's designed to prevent it going back into the pool, some other cybersquatter picking it up and the brand owner having to run another URS. Whereas your proposal is, to me, as soon as somebody wins a URS, it becomes completely banned from the DNS forever, looks like a wonderful ground for gaming. So I'm not sure that we -- that we're talking -- whether you understand our -- our -- whether you understand our remedy and whether you're not just creating another problem. >>PHILIP CORWIN: We're not trying to create another problem. And we're not wed to our suggestion, but we are very concerned about the possibility of domain transfers through URS, which was never, ever on the table until two weeks ago in Brussels. And, frankly, we don't know how the URS is going to operate in practice. And we're going to have to need a few years' experience, because there's always a big gap between theory and practice. But thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Back to this side. >>MASON COLE: Mason Cole speaking for the registrar stakeholder group again. I have four pieces of input on matter 6. They are specific and brief. On URS loser pays. For the reasons articulated in multiple sources, the registrar stakeholder group supports the board position that a full scale loser-pays model would be difficult to implement and could harm innocent registrants. However, our group supports a potential middle-ground solution as proposed by the IRT whereby a URS proceeding against a serial infringer be conducted under a loser pays model. And I want to make a special note here. If such a model is adopted, it's critically important that registrars and registries be closely consulted on the operational limitations of what's involved so as to minimize the operational impact. On URS appeal, the registrar stakeholder group supports a reduction in time allocated for filing an appeal from the proposed two years. On URS exact match, the registrar stakeholder group supports the board's belief that URS claims should be limited to names that are identical or confusingly similar to the protected marks. However, we note a complainant may elect to file a URS -- file a URS for any combination of terms involving its mark and that a URS panelist would be able to make the determination as to whether the claim would succeed based on the applicable clear and convincing standard. And finally on the PDDRP notification, we support a reduction in the 30-day notification period. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you again for that succinct comment. Wendy. [ Applause ] >>WENDY SELTZER: Thank you. Wendy Seltzer from the noncommercial users constituency, speaking here individually pending the time when our constituency has full time to discuss these issues. Rita, you started by saying that you wanted a bat to force the constituencies into consensus. And I want to say I think one of the bats that you, as the board, have is the tool of holding the line where we have previously reached consensus and helping to set that precedent that hard-fought consensus will be preserved. So I want to again commend you -- [ Applause ] >>WENDY SELTZER: -- for holding to many of the points that we have raised in agreed to. I want to raise just a couple of specific points here in addition to, and not to repeat what's already been said. So on the timing, I think while this is nominally limited to the egregious cases, I think we can't expect that it will only be used there, as Elliot referred to the gaming possibilities. And we can't expect that everybody will always receive a notice of claim instantaneously. Unfortunately, wonderful as this Internet communication is, it's plagued by spam filters that sometimes go overboard. Many of the recipients may face translation problems. And whether that's language translation problems or legalese-to-human translation problems of understanding what it is that they have been slapped with. So leaving them enough time to investigate what's happened in this process I think is critical. And one point that I don't think I have heard anyone address yet is the 6.4.2 where a registry operator must assist law enforcement, government agencies, and agencies endorsed by governments with their inquiries about abuse complaints concerning all names registered in the TLD. You have noted that as a 1B to consider changes to the guidebook on how registries and registrars -- or registries in particular will be required to assist law enforcement and those delegated by law enforcement. And I would say it's critically important to protect the end-user rights there; that those be pursuant to due process of law and that registries not be encouraged to take action outside of legal guidance because we want them to be given the proper guidance of law to respect the rights of parties on both sides. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Wendy. And last on trademark issues. Sir. >> Hi. My name is Mike sax and I am speaking as a citizen. I was reading a news Alejandro Pisanty on my iPad, not while you were speaking, obviously, but during breaks, and I saw this story about these e-mails that are being sent supposedly from the Red Cross and they are directing people to sites soliciting for donations to Japan earthquake victims. And they are using sites that have trademarks in it. And I think this is a perfect example of why a rapid response really needs to be rapid, and so we can shut these bad guys down. And it's bad for the donors, it's bad for the victims, and this money will never be -- get to the people who really need it. So a rapid response needs to be really rapid. And I fully support GAC's scorecard on this. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Photograph well, that seems to be -- oh, I'm sorry. Somebody snuck in at the end there. Erick. >>ERICK IRIARTE: Erick Iriarte from LACTLD. I stand up because I listen about the Japan case and the Red Cross. Two years ago, the same things happened with Haiti, and I don't remember, nobody has turned up and tried to say the same, that when this Haiti problem appeared, a lot of domain names were using trademark like Red Cross appear and use fakes. So is not -- Japan is now a big country, but it is not only a problem about the trademarks and these kind of things of fake Web sites. I think that it's important for this process to understand the trademark in a global context, not only the necessity to protect the domain names the trademarks themselves. Thanks. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Erick. Rita, a closing comment in relation to trademarks? >>RITA RODIN JOHNSTON: I appreciate the comments that everyone made. And I think it's interesting, if you listen to sort of there's good registrars, bad registrars, good registrants, bad registrants, good trademark lawyers, bad trademark lawyers. And I think that is actually part of the problem; right? So we're trying to -- and I think Ira was talking this morning about predicting the domain name industry and the revenue that would arise therefrom and he was way off the mark and he was criticized for thinking too big. We are trying to create something in a sense, this is what I always tell my clients when I am negotiating, we are trying to create something that almost assumes bad faith. So Elliot is not a bad registrar, but there are bad ones out there and we need to do something to help protect brand owners. We need to protect the Red Cross which isn't a commercial organization but has domain names, and yet I want to protect free speech. We need to protect people doing sites that might be talking about earthquakes in various places. So there are a lot of competing interests here, and it's a difficult issue. So we really appreciate everyone engaging in this and giving these very helpful comments. And we are again going to take them back and continue to do our best to try to balance this. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Rita. Bruce, any closing comment on trademarks? No? Heather, any comment on -- no. Thank you all very much for that. That's a huge piece of work. And I just want to thank Rita and Bruce particularly for leading the board's work on this. And Mark Carvell and Mark's team have been leading this work from the GAC side. A huge amount of work getting to grip with these contentious issues. And as you have seen from the audience, there are people standing up saying the board has got it absolutely right with all those 2s, and other people are saying no, no , no, you have got it completely wrong, you need to do it another way. So this is a contentious area and thank you to the topic leaders who have done such a good job in clarifying the issues and presenting these things as clearly as they have. So thank you, Rita, thank you, Mark. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We come, then, to the post-delegation disputes topic, and Bertrand De La Chapelle was the board topic leader on that. If we can put that up on the screen and hand over to Bertrand for a high-level overview and then see what the community thinks about post-delegation disputes. Bertrand. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Thank you, Peter. In reality, in the two topics that are labeled -- were labeled at 7 and 8 in the GAC scorecard, in response of the board, the post- delegation disputes were 1Bs. And as we are focusing on the 2s and the -- So could we.... Scroll. There were two elements in the post-delegation disputes. Okay. So if we focus on the 2, if you look at the scorecard and the responses from the board at that stage to the comments by the GAC, there is one topic that elicited a 2 which is on the definition of geographic names. It is not so much the post-delegation disputes. It is collapsing together the two topics of post-delegation disputes and the whole topic of geographic names. So here the GAC was requesting that fundamentally the GAC has a role in the definition of geographic names that actually require letter of support or nonobjection by the relevant public authorities and governments. And the approach of the board from -- and the Applicant Guidebook from the onset has been to rely on lists of geographic names and not to have an ad hoc process. So the idea is to get feedback from the community on where the situation stands. And I would like to make a sort of process remark here. The situation we are in is that the consultations between the GAC and the board have an objective this week to reduce, as much as possible, the areas of contention. So whenever there is a situation that is labeled 2, the objective and the joint objective of the GAC and the board is to try to reduce or to find a solution to this. So as much as possible, I would encourage people to make comments to say there could be a way to solve this, rather than saying we support the board position or we support the GAC position, which is useful also. But how can we move forward? What kind of input can you give so that the discussions tomorrow and then on Wednesday and then on Thursday can find solutions to this? Here, it is very difficult to move away from using very precise lists. I would say the Jon Postel list of there is a list somebody else has done. And moving in a direction that would basically qualify every single string without knowing exactly when it stops. It is not an easy topic, and so the point is suggestions to help do that. If there are any comments. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: So let's open the floor to public comment on post-delegation disputes. Mike Palage. Mike. >>MICHAEL PALAGE: Just dealing with the geographic, and I think that your comment, Bertrand, about Postel pointing to a list, I think what's very interesting if you look at the IDN ccTLDs right now, ICANN has moved forward and made progress without a list. And if you look at some of the names they have approved, they are not an identical match. So ICANN does have expertise in this area. They are doing it right now with nonexact matches in IDN ccTLDs. So ICANN already has experience, and I think that could provide help in the G space. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Sorry, Mike, if I can ask you. When you say ICANN has the expertise in ccTLDs, you mean particularly for the IDN -- >>MICHAEL PALAGE: IDN ccTLD. Yeah, so if you look at all the IDN ccTLDs that have been allocated, you will notice that some of the names, they will give the equivalent, they do not exact -- they do not come from a definitive list. So ICANN is using some expertise to approve. I think that's all the GAC is asking for, is that reference. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: If I may, if I may comment on this, there is a difference in that case, because it is actually connected to the ISO list. And it's finding the equivalent in IDNs to a thing and a list that is existing. And so the question that came in the IDN ccTLD working group was precisely how to evaluate whether the string is meaningful. And without getting into detail, it is a very limited case where basically it's a discussion of what is the equivalent in other scripts of a name or a label. And the government is there to give at least a proposal. It is a much more diverse situation in the case of new gTLDs, and I always give the example of how do you handle the fact that AAR is both the Association of American Railways and many other institutions but also a river in Switzerland. How do we handle this? >>MICHAEL PALAGE: Well, I mean, so these are -- I think this, actually, highlights the very point of sensitive strings and complexities that are the GAC are trying to articulate. And I will give you a much more relevant point with geographic, GOP, G-O-P. That stands for the Grand Old Party, the republican party here in the United States. Gop is also a city in Cameroon of about a thousand people. So again, I think these are the complexities, and I understand everybody wants to make a nice process that gives predictability to everyone, but I don't know if that black box that we all seek is achievable. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Mike. Let's go to this side. Mason. >>MASON COLE: Just from the registrars point of view, we have one specific comment. This is on 8.1.3, city name applications. The registrar stakeholder group believes the disagreement on this issue between the GAC and the board could be resolved by further clarification of question 18 in the TLD application, which requires applicants to describe the intended purpose of a gTLD. A proper reply to that question should address the GAC's concern. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. Marilyn Cade, on behalf of the B.C. We do have a fair amount of sympathy for the concerns that are raised by the governments. And I will just note that Mr. Palage's examples illustrate how complicated this is. We also recognize that, in fact, countries and municipalities and cities and others do have identities associated with the name by which they are legally known and responsibilities associated with that, whether it's a nation state or it's some other governmental entity. We do have a question. We're not expecting an answer from the GAC here, but we welcomed the board's proposed early warning approach. We're not clear whether that -- we think that would allow the applicants to quickly begin to interact with relevant governmental authorities and attempt to achieve a mutually agreeable outcome. We're not clear if the governments will find that fully satisfactory, and so we would like to hear more, and perhaps we will tomorrow on the feedback from the governments on that. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. I see Heather noting down the question. So we will see where that goes. Yes. >>ALEX GAKURU: Thank you very much. I want to repeat something I said a while back. Sorry, Alex Gakuru. I speak on my own behalf. I'm the representative of noncommercial users constituency in Africa. In October of 2009, I gave an example of probably a new string, let's say dot Bakel. And Bakel is a town in Senegal. We have Bakel municipality in the Netherlands, and we have a cosmetic company which has a mark or a trademark called Bakel Cosmetics in Italy. So I am not giving an answer, neither am I giving a way forward as you have requested, but I want to show there is going to be a situation where names are still going to conflict with even two geographical names and trademarks. So as the board and GAC consult we still know there are many other little towns and villages and cultures that we have in Africa that are going to emerge as we go forward. Thank you. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: If I may make one point in this respect. It's extremely important and I think both the GAC and the board and the whole community has in mind that the processes we put in place need to take into account that there are many places, when we talk about geographic names, that are in developing countries where the awareness and the level of knowledge of the whole process may be lower than in many other countries. And it's very important that we have mechanisms that make sure that all the interests are taken into account. I don't know what the solution is. But I wanted to highlight this because it is an important point. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Amadeu. >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: One question, Peter. I don't know exactly, Bertrand, whether this is a 2 or this is really a 2 or refers to the mechanism for the 2. But as I said before, I think we need to realize that either we find early warnings, escapes, a way to alleviate the pressure and to address unexpected problems or unexpected aspects and angles afterwards or we will never be able to start the process. Because we keep discussing all possible things here. I think we are discussing different things. One thing is that I apply for GOP, for the republican government, and then it happens to be the city of wherever in Senegal. The question is we cannot use list, because we not only have list. If I apply for BCN and I explain that this is, you know, to be mainly to the promotion of activities related to the city of Barcelona, even if it is not on the list, even if we don't have list of city names, I understand the concern for the governments to say this should be treated as a valid geographic name even if it was not before. And you can take Buenos Aires, NYC. There are many ways to address that. So it's not just that the string matches, but the string and the intent amount to something that should be considered as geographic names and. We should have a mechanism by which governments or -- local governments or somebody raise a hand and say, wait a second. This should be addressed this way. So, you know, if you just forgot to get the letter of objection, you know, you have two months to do it or something like that. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Amadeu, if I take the opportunity, you mentioned the express escape valve in a previous comment. Could you clarify whether, when you mention that, you referred to something that takes place during the evaluation period or post-delegation or both? >>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL: Post submission of the application. Whether this is before the actual evaluation starts or during the evaluation, I think we need probably both. Because I am addressing different things. Some things are purely related to the string. This question, right? The example I gave. I apply for BCN for geographic type, but I say I am not bringing that because this is not the name of the city, even if there is plenty of evidence that this is a very usual way to designate Barcelona in the present written form anywhere; right? So in this case it would be after submission before the evaluation. In other cases it would arise during the evaluation because of the policies wherever. So I am addressing that before delegation, not post-delegation. At the moment that we receive applications, we all discover that something doesn't fit in our mental categories that we put in the guidebook. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Okay. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: This side. >>ELLEN RONY: Good afternoon. My name is Ellen Rony and I have been following these issues for ten years, originally part of a small group called the Boston Working Group that developed one of the four proposals for a nonprofit organization that eventually was bestowed upon ICANN. In the past decade, one of the things that has disturbed me the most is this issue of this is a zero-sum game. We have got Hollywood in Southern California and Hollywood in Florida. Who gets dot Hollywood when both have legitimate rights to that TLD? So I would just like to throw out there -- and I have to admit, I haven't read the volume of documents, that this probably isn't a new proposal, but why not take the approach that everybody that has a legitimate right to a particular TLD share it? And I want to give the example in playing Scrabble. Scrabble is also a zero-sum game. You have an opponent and you are each trying to outdo the other. But if you ever played Scrabble where you each are trying together to get the highest total number. It is a turn on the same thing and it's far more interesting. So many, many years ago, there was a dispute over some domain name, and what the legitimate domain registrant decided to do was say if you have a legitimate right to this -- it was a second-level domain name, of course -- that we would put your information up and you could share it. I understand that the TLD applicants don't want to spend all this money and share it with others, but, you know, the old adage you can't put ten pounds of trademark names into a one-pound box. We're going to have the same issues over and over. So I'd just like to put out that approach. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Ellen. Sébastien, you are last on this particular topic. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Merci. I am going to force you to look at the screen or to take the headsets. We have interpreters here who need to some time to translate. They need time, too, so that those who do not speak English are able to understand and follow what you are saying. And there is a certain number of people who are new in our meeting, and if you speak fast and you speak with acronyms and you speak -- you use terms that are complex for translation, they will not be able to participate in our discussion. Now I want to take one point. I am Sébastien Bachollet. I am a board member, but I am speaking on my own behalf. What Amadeu was saying about BCN, NYC and other category -- sorry, about cities name. There is one list existing at the international level. It's taken care by the travel association, IATA. And I want that we try to find some solution. There is a list outside, and we heard this morning that it could be good to use it. And maybe when we have a solution, we can use it and not try to come back and arguing and arguing on the same subject when some solution could exist. And I would like very much that we consider in detail -- it's not my job, if IATA could solve one part of the problem, not solving everything, but I think it's quite solved. Because BCN, it's on this list. Thank you. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Thank you. Is there any other submission on that? Was there any other topic in the geographic name that was a 2? No. If I'm allowed, I would just like to highlight for further discussions in the community and feedback for us, the point of multiplicity that has been illustrated, which is the core difficulty. The question of the zero-sum game which is something that I have always had in mind, sharing of TLDs. I have always thought that we have a ccTLD which is dot LA, which is for Laos, and that is regularly used, as we all know, for people who are registering things in Los Angeles. The question of early warning is an important element in this debate, and I'm sure that getting deeper on the list, if you have ideas or suggestions of other lists, other resources that could be used and be sufficiently clear to help bridge this gap between what is obvious and what is very difficult to clarify, don't hesitate to connect to either the GAC leaders or myself so that it can feed into the discussion later. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Bertrand. Thank you again for leading this topic on the board side. And thank you to the GAC for the work that's gone on there. We are going to go back to one of the protection of rights issues, and there's a particular issue in relation to consumer protection. Ram Mohan was the board leader on that one. Ram, if you could come forward and if we could put up the slide that's now on the screen in relation to 6.4.4, this was, and it's the original scorecard numbering. Ram, over to you. >>RAM MOHAN: Thank you, Peter. You see what's up on the screen. The issue that we are wrestling with has to do with the GAC advice that gTLD strings that relate to any generally regulated industry should be subject to more intensive vetting than other nongeographiccal gTLDs. There are two things that have come up in this area. What is a generally regulated industry? What we indicated concern about was that it's a pretty broad term and could include almost any string, depending on the jurisdiction. That's one. The second has to do with the clarification that came in Brussels, which is that it's not only generally regulated industries, but also strings that may be affecting populations that may be vulnerable to abuse and to problems online. And the examples that were used were, for instance, TLD strings that are aimed at, say, kids or TLD strings that are aimed at senior citizens who may be more vulnerable to online fraud or DNS abuse. So that's the issue. And we -- the board has asked a couple of things. One is a clarification of the GAC of what is the intended meaning of generally regulated industries. But the fundamental issue is by attempting to predefine, you know, sensitive -- strings that are sensitive to certain groups or strings that are based in a regulated category, we're talking about categorization ahead of even making a decision. And so there's some concern about that. So with that, let's open up for community feedback. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Let me get in first. Silence will be treated as full support of the board's position on this issue. [ Laughter ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Steve. You are conceding your.... >>STEVE METALITZ: Mr. Chairman -- >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Steve, go ahead. >>STEVE METALITZ: Steve Metalitz. I'm speaking on behalf of the coalition for online accountability. Ram, I understand the concern here about the "C" word, categorization, which is a dirty word in this process, but I just think sometimes when I have been talking about an issue for a long, long time, and maybe getting kind of wound up on it, some prudent person tells me, "Listen to what you are saying." So I just asked the board to listen to what you are saying. You are saying that there are strings that are going to present greater risk of abuse. You may not be able to define them but we all know dot kids would present that. We all know that dot bank would present that. I'm sure there is a lot we would disagree about, but when people's children are involved and people's financial security is involved, we have got to be extra careful. And the board is saying over and over again, no, we refuse to be extra careful. I don't think if you listen to what you are saying there, I just -- I don't think you can find -- be surprised at all that governments and others concerned about the public interest are finding a disconnect there. Now, that doesn't -- I understand this is a tough problem, and there may be other ways to approach it. For example, the fact that you have in the guidebook this time, the most recent guidebook, something that requires security measures, and I think there may -- or there should be some reference to measures against malicious conduct that are commensurate with the nature of the string. I think that's very helpful. I think that's very important, and it shows that you recognize that some strings are riskier than others. But over and over, we hear you saying we can't make any categorization because we can't come up with a typology that everyone will agree with, we won't even try to do it. I think if you will just listen to what you are saying and how the public hears that, I don't think that's viable. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Steve, I wonder if I can help with that because this has been characterized a couple of times by Amadeu as well, and we think we have dealt with that. That's what is intended by section 5.1, and I just asked Kurt to haul that up. I am going to read it out. ICANN's board of directors has ultimate responsibility for the new gTLD program. The board reserves the right under exceptional circumstances to individually consider an application for a new gTLD to determine whether approval would be in the best interest of the Internet community, for example as a result of the use of an ICANN accountability mechanism. So that was inserted as a result of one of the Trondheim resolutions where we considered this, that there could very well be something as you are raising. Without having determined a priori that these things are there, there still could be something that comes through that is going to be dangerous or causes concern or may come as a result of early warning from the GAC or it may come from the banking institute that says, look, these criminals are about to open up dot insurance. So that's how we're dealing with it. It's not a question that we are not going to deal with this or that we -- It's just that we don't want this mechanism for dealing with it. >>STEVE METALITZ: I appreciate that, but I think that still puts it at a different level of risk than what most of the public would say. You are saying there might be -- A meteor might hit the earth. There might be such an aberrant situation that the board will have to step in even though something has gone through the process, checked all the boxes, met all the criteria. That's true. But on the other hand, some of this is a little more predictable than a meteor hitting the earth. When someone applies for dot kids, I think the average person is going to say, gee, I hope ICANN is a little more careful in looking at the bona fides of the applicant, at looking at the security measures that will be used, the protections against malicious conduct than it would be if it were dot web or dot widget. And I am just suggesting that you listen again, maybe with a different set of ears, to what has been said. This is not just simply a once in a lifetime problem. It's going to come up. I think that's quite predictable in this process. And the idea that you should be a little more careful with these is a commonsense solution. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Marilyn, are you ready to go now? >>MARILYN CADE: Yes, sir. My comments are a follow-on and are consistent with what I said earlier. Because I know you've sort of divided the categories, I think it's appropriate to repeat it here. Marilyn Cade on behalf of the business constituency. And 6.4.4, I think similar to what I said earlier, that the BC really might have a broader discussion with the governments. We are businesses. And many of our members are in industries that have oversight relationships with regulators or have developed codes of conduct or other practices that identify an industry segment and give some kind of identification to that industry segment. That may come from a very (inaudible), it may come from some other decision that an industry segment has taken. And I think we've seen over the long history of the existence of domain names, we've seen strong evidence of abusive registrations at the second level in certain domain names. And I've said some earlier, online pharmacy, dot bank. We heard a little bit ago, to me, a very poignant example from NGOs who are trying to keep people from being defrauded and trying to keep people from making what they think is a humanitarian gesture that actually turns into fraud. I think probably the board is saying to itself, perhaps we learned something new in this forum today about what some of the risks are. And I'd like you to continue to talk more about it. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Alex. >> Alex, for the record, Noncommercial Users Constituency. And not here speaking on behalf of the constituency, but on my own behalf. I'm with the board here, with this particular recommendation, that this is clearly not looked at as a back-door way of industries or businesses trying to use this sort of avenue to try and protect other interests. And I would want the government to look at this as public interest institutions as they explain this is my sort of solution what they mean by this -- this definition. Therefore, something like dot ami I don't expect an individual to register unless they are mercinaries. But clearly should be public interest, not private industries, that are using this and have access to this. Besides that, I totally agree that there are certain specific areas where governments do have a legitimate right to insist on that. But they should not interfere with innovation and other areas that people may want to come up with and have unique names just in the sense of regulated industries, which is quite amorphous. So I think the board in this regard is right in trying to want to clear a definition of what it is that those ones are. Thank you very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Mike. >>MIKE SILBER: Seeing as you've chosen to engage with speakers, I'd like to take the same option and ask Steve Metalitz if he wouldn't mind coming back to the mike, because I have a question for him. Sorry, Steve, to drag you out of your chair. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: While we're waiting for that, let's hear from Werner Staub. >>WERNER STAUB: From CORE. I would like to show that this is not so much of a difference in views between the board and the GAC if you look at the need to know more about the string. And I think it can be solved, at least in part, if the applicant is systematically asked to discuss whether the string is a reflection of a regulated industry or a geographic name, for that matter, or any other term that is of public importance. And that if this is the case, the applicant must be asked to demonstrate that it is accountable to the community and the regulatory framework that can be inferred from the string. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to close the speaking order after this. We still have another matter on this, which Katim Touray is leading on that, which is the app Joint Working Group. Mike, your question. >>MIKE SILBER: Steve, thank you again and story for dragging you out of your chair. Just a question. I took cognizance of your comments and I agree completely. And I don't think that there is meteor showers required for us to recognize that children require additional protection. But I didn't quite understand how children fell into a generally regulated industry, other than potentially introducing licensing requirements for parents to have unprotected sex and actually conceive. [ Laughter ] >>MIKE SILBER: I think what you're suggesting is that there are different levels of care that need to be shown. And I would be very interested in hearing a proposal how we then start delineating those and how we start assessing those. But I fail to see how simply assessing generally regulated industries would provide additional protection to children or animals or not-for- profit organizations or people who have been the victims of incredible violence and natural disasters or human intervention. We're looking at, firstly, gTLD strings over here, not second-level registrations, to respond to a previous person. And, second, generally regulated industries. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: So, Mike, what's the question? [ Laughter ] >>STEVE METALITZ: I think I understand the question. >>MIKE SILBER: How our children, kids, children, or any other term for minors, how do they fall into generally regulated industry? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Right. >>STEVE METALITZ: Mike, on that, I was responding to Ram's observation that what's up there in 2 doesn't fully present what was - - what was presented, I guess, in the -- by the GAC, and includes vulnerable groups. So I'd agree that if you just look at what's up there. But I think it was expanded to cover what I think is extremely important, that there are strings which have a much higher risk of abuse. >>RAM MOHAN: That was exactly right. It was me who expanded it. This was from the original GAC scorecard. But in Brussels, in our discussions, the GAC advice that came through was to expand it further to include sensitive populations or other folks who might be vulnerable to abuse. >>STEVE METALITZ: And it reads that way elsewhere in the scorecard, in section 11, I think, where you talk about the due diligence, looking at the applicants, I think it has a more full listing. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Okay. Let's keep moving. We've started to run out of time. And there's a number of social events and other things starting reasonably soon that we have to get to. Mason. >>MASON COLE: Very briefly for the Registrar Stakeholder Group, we're in favor of making all the TLDs safe. When it comes to this particular provision, intensive vetting is fine, provided it doesn't introduce additional criteria into the guidebook. That's our input. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Wendy. >>WENDY SELTZER: Thanks. Wendy Seltzer. I wanted to address to the GAC members who may be listening, as well as to the board, a question about the general term "trust" that I've heard a few times in this meeting, in this environment. I don't think that we want to or can create a platform where ICANN is the guarantor of the semantic meaning of strings and their associations in the DNS. I don't -- while -- while it might be attractive to think that we could automatically assume from seeing "bank" anywhere in a domain name that that was a trustworthy site, ICANN is in no position to vet all of the applicants at all of the levels who might be in a position to make a bank.X or a something.bank. And I think rather than try to go down that route, we need instead to address the consumer education about how else to verify what it is that they are going to encounter on the Web and not to get into the business of trying, as we have relatively unsuccessfully, I think, in the dot pro domain of vetting licensure and appropriateness. I don't think that was a successful experiment for the registry. And I think they have abandoned many of their attempts to validate and verify higher-level registrants in the dot pro domain. So I would take that as an example against trying that at the root level. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Wendy. Always helpful to be reminded, I think, of the -- [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: -- of what the narrow technical scope of the mission is and make sure that we don't set ICANN up for failure by requiring it to do impossible jobs. Antony. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: Antony Van Couvering with Minds+Machines. I think we could get further with this if we had an idea of what a generally regulated industry is. I think that's the key issue. Let me give you an example of that. Years ago, I was involved in starting up the dot TM domain for Turkmenistan. We had a quite successful launch. Then I started to get messages from the government, which was, "How can you register book.TM? Don't you know that that's a word that's reserved to the government?" No, I had no idea. We apologized. We took it off, even though that was really not very fair to the registrant. And then the whole thing foundered on pizza.tm, which I was told by the Turkmeni government was a commonly known synonym for female genitalia and was absolutely not to be permitted. It was a dirty word, in fact. So I think when you talk about generally regulated industries, let's be clear that we have to look at this at a global level and we have to make sure we're all talking about the same thing. And we should not allow too much discretion in what that is although some people think that some things are common sense. I can tell you that they're not common sense everywhere. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. All right. That seems to be the end. Ram, thank you, again, very much, for dealing with those consumer protection issues. And let's move, then, to the last of the topics. And if I could ask Katim to come up. Katim, thank you. This is the providing opportunities for all stakeholders, including those from developing countries topic. And to a certain extent, this is in holding pattern in that we're waiting for the report of the working group. Katim. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thanks, Peter. And I think I'll start off by saying that with all due respect, we now come to the last and what I believe is the most important topic of the day. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] >>KATIM TOURAY: And for the simple reason -- for the simple reason that of all the topics that we've been discussing today, all the benefits that we are anticipating of all the topics that we are talking about, the developing countries stand the least to gain from them. Of all of problems that we have been talking about in all the topics we have been discussing today, the developing countries are the most vulnerable to suffer from them. And so that is why I say I think we come to the most important topic of the day, because it's about protecting the most vulnerable and ensuring that the least likely to benefit from what we are about to do actually do get to enjoy the benefits and the fruits of our labor. On that note, I'm glad to say that the board, along with the GAC, and, of course, with the support of the community, has made tremendous progress on the issues. Certainly, we've had quite a number of ones. And so, for instance, the board is in agreement with the GAC suggestion that we, for instance, have some outreach to people in developing countries, that we also provide technical and (inaudible) support, because already the board is thinking along those lines, for instance, by providing or developing a list of needy applicants and matching them, and also as well as a list of what's called providers of support to needy applicants, sort of like a cupid kind of service for people from developing countries who need technical assistance and support. And so it remains that there are a few issues here that actually had not necessarily a great -- not necessarily a 2, but we are to determine by virtue of the nature of the particular issues that we are talking about here. And the first one here is that the GAC was saying that we should set technical and other requirements, including cost considerations, at the reasonable and proportionate level so that we not include stakeholders from developing countries from participating in the new gTLD process. And certainly ICANN, in its response, the board has said that ICANN recognizes the importance of this. And for that reason, as you all know, had passed some resolutions that resulted in the formation of the Joint Working Group, the JAS, and which is in the process of actually preparing and finalizing its report. So JAS basically is -- we're hoping that very soon, very soon, as soon as possible, JAS will be coming out with its report. There's, of course, the concern also that has been expressed, and I think most of us, it's a widely shared concern, that we should not end up with a system of support that is going to benefit people who actually don't deserve the support. In other words, we need to have a system that is not going to begin by people who are not needy of the support that will be provided or that we intend to provide. And also, with regards the issue of the technical requirements for eligibility or for the applications, the issue has been taken, the board has decided that, really, it would not be advisable to have any reduction in technical requirements for any of the applicants, irrespective of whether or not you are from a developing country. And I think this would be for very obvious reasons something that people would, I think, agree with. So, Peter, I can either stop there or we can continue to the other one before we can start taking comments. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: The other one. >>KATIM TOURAY: We'll do the other one. Okay. So very briefly, the other one actually is -- are we there? This really pertains to the GAC recommendation that the board consider adopting the recommendations that have been proffered by the JAS Working Group. And our response here has been that it seems that the GAC basically was referring to the interim report, the milestone report that was issued by the JAS Working Group. And so for the fact that because they are still working on it and they have to finalize that report, we are saying that it's better that we wait to get the final report from them, and like I said, hopefully soon, before we actually decide what to do with the recommendations that are coming up from them. And, Peter, thank you very much. That's it. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks very much, Katim. I see Avri at the microphone. Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah, thank you. I want to make two comments. First one is the NCSG is very much supportive of the JAS Working Group and its effort. So I wanted to get that said. I wanted to, actually, though from a JAS Working Group perspective, I think, correct one impression, that the final report of the group has not been -- that only an interim report has been submitted. What happened -- and this was when I was still chair of the group and before, you know, we got the new chairs. The final report for the first charter we had, making recommendations on cost reductions and making recommendations on everything else, that one is completed. We called it a milestone report because in that, we were also asking for some further chartering so that we could continue working on questions that had come up, for example, the board's issue of tell us in more detail how you would go about deciding who was needy and who was not. And so we didn't want to call it a final report in that, because that would end the working group and the effort. So the milestone report that came out that was translated into the six -- translated into five languages to cover the six U.N. languages, was, indeed, the final report. The and it's gone to the ALAC and to the GNSO, and, of course, the community. That was a final report for the first part. So those recommendations, for example, acting on recommendations that talked about reduction in fees. We're not doing any more work on that. And the recommendations that were in there are, you know, as I say, it's not an interim report that's been done. It is before the GNSO. It is before the ALAC. We are continuing to work on other issues that came up from that, for example, specific recommendations on how to figure out who qualifies and who doesn't. But that will be a second report. And so I just wanted to try and clarify that. Hopefully, I didn't make it more confusing. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Avri. That's very helpful. Andrew. >>ANDREW MACK: Thank you, Peter. Pardon me. I'm going to read part of this. My name is Andrew Mack, and I'm a member of the JAS Working Group. But I'm speaking on my own behalf. I wanted to thank Katim for the leadership that you've shown and thank you, Avri, for the leadership that you've shown. I'm a little sad that we are at the very, very last part of this, this big and important meeting, talking about basically the rest of the world. And so for what it's worth, since a lot of the people have already left, let it be known that the rest of the world is very much -- you know, wants to be at the table. In item 10 of the scorecard, the GAC made it clear that they want to encourage applications in languages whose presence is limited on the Web. And I think that that's really important. One of our key goals of this whole new gTLD process is to support broader internationalization of the DNS and to provide the best possible experience for users and not just users that use the Latin script alphabet. So I think it's important we focus in on that. My concern is that there are a number of groups that we've identified as part of our work in JAS that work in multiple languages for whom the high cost may be a barrier. They have an identity, if you will, in two different languages or three different languages. We looked at, for example, countries in north Africa that exist on the Web in both French and Arabic. And frankly speaking, some of those needy groups may not be able to afford 185 times two. There was also the earlier example that was mentioned about the Red Cross. And I was thinking about that and trying to reach out to communities in their different IDNs. And the thought that if this had happened in a poorer country, in a Cambodia or a Laos or something like that, where there was a smaller script, would it have been possible for a new IDN to be built out into that script. So I guess what I'm rising to do is to encourage -- I know that there are a number of different proposals circulating out there that would make it easier for TLD operators to apply for multiple IDN versions at some sort of a discount. And I know that there's a lot of discussion around this. I want to agree with the GAC and encourage ICANN to continue to be creative in this, to get the IDNs out there for as many people as we can. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. And what looks like the last one. Oh, no. Marilyn, I'm sorry. Let's go to Olivier, and then to this side. >>OLIVIER CRÉPIN-LEBLOND: Thanks very much, Peter. Olivier Crépin-Leblond, chair of the ALAC. I just wanted to thank Avri for explaining what the current status of the JAS Working Group is and also to say that the ALAC has voted on the charter, voted positively. So work is under way. And I would hope that community members present here would come join the group and work on it. Thanks very much. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. Marilyn Cade on behalf of the BC. My comments may actually address all of the item -- the elements under this. And I hope that will be okay. First of all, I would say that for languages whose presence is limited on the Web, which makes them in special need of support, the BC certainly does support fee reductions. We respect the concerns raised by the GAC and others in the community, and while we support the need for applicants from developing and least-developed countries to participate, we believe that we shouldn't waive or lower the technical or the business performance criteria, because they are as important to the success of a TLD. Applicants and users in those countries perhaps need us to ensure the durability of their online experience as much, if not more. So while we support fee reductions, we're saying we have to keep the standards high. I want to make a point about awareness, that I will say our experience in the business community is there is not sufficient awareness about the issue -- the changes that are happening in the gTLD program and in the IDN program, regardless of where we are. And it is specifically poignant in developing countries. And we are concerned that the communications and outreach information not just be about how to apply to run a string, but be really informational for businesses, NGOs, users, governments, and others about the changes. Because the whole point here, we think, is that expanding the space ought to create new space for users. And so the users need to be informed as well. If there's something that we can do to help, since we do have broad networks with industry associations and contacts, we'd welcome discussions about that. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Marilyn. Antony. >>ANTONY VAN COUVERING: Yes, a very brief point. Antony Van Couvering with Minds+Machines. I actually think that the board's decision on vertical integration was actually very, very useful for operators from developing countries, because it reduces a very expensive administrative burden. And I think one area you can look at in especially places that have no other representation in their language or very poor countries is to further reduce the reporting and administrative burdens. Because I think that's going to be a very significant expense. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Antony. We're going to have to come to a close. We're intruding on the time of the following workshop. Katim, a closing comment. And then Heather. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thanks, Peter. Just to also thank all of those who provided their comments and thoughts on this very important subject. Very briefly, Avri Doria was saying that the JAS milestone report was actually considered like a final report. I think it's important to remember here that what the board is looking for is that it's good to come up with suggestions to say that, "Do this, do that, and don't do that." But we also want mechanisms, sound mechanisms, for the implementation of those brilliant ideas that are coming from the community. So I think what we're looking for in the next report from the JAS would be exactly how do we go about implementing those in a manner that's going to be sustainable and in a manner that we can all live with in the future. With regards to the issue of multiple languages, yes, this is quite a challenge. And I think we'll have to, moving forward, hope that the community, also along the lines of the JAS report, will come up with reports or will come up with ideas that are going to help us implement this. And, Marilyn, you are very right. Standards, of course, are of paramount importance to all of us. I always say and tell people that inasmuch as I'm very passionate about providing support to developing countries, let's not cut corners. Let's not be patronizing. Let's maintain the standards where expected to. And against very briefly, let me say this. I think it's a very good point. I don't remember if it was Marilyn who said it, that we've waited until everybody has almost practically left before we get to the issue of developing countries. So I think maybe by the time the JAS report comes out and when next we have the meeting in June, that we have a special forum on providing support for developing countries and have it as a forum that is a stand-alone forum with no other program programmed in the schedule except for that program, so we're all going to be all together in one room, all hands on deck, and really give this thing the attention it deserves. And, again, thanks. [ Applause ] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Heather. >>HEATHER DRYDEN: Thank you, Peter. I believe we're moving to close this meeting, so just as a final comment, thanks again to the board to -- for their invitation to the GAC to participate in this session. We do appreciate that. And I think we have been listening very carefully to what the community has been saying in this session today. So thank you to everyone for participating. I am reassured to find that there is such good understanding of what is behind the GAC's motivations for providing the advice that we have on these outstanding issues. We do believe that these are important public-policy issues that remain. So it's good to see that level of understanding, even where there are some issues, where there are disagreements within the community. This morning we heard reference to community consensus. And again in this session we heard more about community consensus. And I think in order to have true community consensus, that needs to include the GAC. So on that note, I would just like to inform Chris Disspain that I am still waiting for my "mind the GAC" T-shirt. [ Laughter ] >>HEATHER DRYDEN: Thank you. [ Applause ] >>HEATHER DRYDEN: Thanks very much. And as you know, we will be working hard to resolve these outstanding tissues with all of you and the board. Thanks. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Heather. Thanks, GAC members, for taking time out. Thank, everyone, for the contributions that you have made today. The session is closed.