ICANN Brussels
GAC Plenary
Session on New gTLDs
Tuesday, 22 June 2010


>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   May I ask GAC members to take their seats.  We are
starting in a second.

This part of our plenary meeting will be devoted to discussion about
the morality and public order.

I recognize that there is a considerable interest in the room, but
this interest, considerable interest in the room, also makes
considerable noise.  Thank you for letting us address the issue.

As the GAC in Nairobi wrote in its communiqué, and I'm quoting:  "The
GAC continues to have concerns regarding the procedure outlined in
Draft Applicant Guidebook Version 3 for objections on the basis of
morality and public order.  The GAC questions the appropriateness of
the phrase 'morality and public order' and is unclear how the proposed
mechanisms would be worked in practice.  The GAC believes that item
should not be listed at the closed item list" which -- "with respect
to the new gTLD process and requests a more detailed briefing from
ICANN staff on the anticipated practical implementation of the
approach."

In intersessional period, in March -- no, sorry, in April, if I'm not
mistaken, the GAC had a conference call specifically devoted to issue
of morality and public order.  We had Kurt Pritz on the call, and we
had a rather fruitful exchange on the subject.

It seems to me that until now, we had not really found the solution to
the question.  And I would like to start this -- these 45 minutes
maybe with a general discussion about the question and see whether we
have some ideas or solutions to propose.

And I would like to ask to start this discussion to the U.S.
government representative, Suzanne, if you would take the lead.  Thank
you.

>>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:   Thank you, Janis.  I appreciate having
this opportunity.

Just to share with my colleagues our work an the conference call that
we held with ICANN staff, Kurt Pritz, in early April, my agency tried
very hard to develop an alternative or tried to see if we could
correct what we considered to be the challenges presented to
governments of the proposed approach that ICANN has developed to what
they are calling morality and public order, which we have adopted a
shorthand.  We call it MOPO, just to make it easier, so we don't have
to repeat the phrase, so MOPO.  And I thought it would be useful to
share our -- the results of our analyses with my colleagues.  I
actually had hoped to get Mark Carvell's views, as he has always
kindly held the pen for us on new gTLDs.  But I think I got it to him
too late to circulate to people.  So I'm just going to sort of put it
out there verbally.

The problem that we finally identified as basically being
insurmountable is that the proposed approach is exceedingly complex
and possibly highly subjective.  That's just a first observation.

The bigger problem is that the terms "morality and public order" are
used in the Treaty of Paris as grounds for countries to take an
exception to the obligations they have signed onto.  So, in other
words, the Treaty of Paris pertains to tractor protection.  And I hope
our WIPO colleague is in the room, because I will defer to that
expertise.  And that provision in the treaty permits countries to deny
a trademark application on the basis of morality and public order.
But the determinations for the denial are made on a country-by-country
national basis.

So it is -- the more we thought about it, the more we realized that
this was a very bizarre, if you will, basis for ICANN to create a
foundation for an affirmative decision when it's used in the treaty as
an exception.  So, from our perspective, that tells us -- confirms our
understanding that there is no international law on morality and
public order.  There is no internationally agreed definition of what
morality and public order might encompass.  It is determined on a
country-by-country basis.

So from our perspective, these -- the proposed approach in DAG -- it's
been in DAG V2, 3, and 4, I believe -- simply unworkable.

Unfortunately, we were unable to identify an alternative approach.  So
from our perspective, it -- the job -- the ball goes back into ICANN's
court to try to figure out how they would seek to approach or deal
with those issues that they have labeled "morality and public order,"
MOPO, but the basis on which they've built this approach is a flawed
basis.

So I welcome other people's views.  I know when we had the conference
call, the GAC had developed about nine or ten questions for Kurt
Pritz.  And all due respect to Kurt, I think he did struggle to try to
answer them.  But my assessment at the end of the call was that he was
unable to answer them.  And some of our questions, just for the
benefit of our colleagues in the room who may be interested in knowing
what our questions referred to, we were trying to understand so that
we could explain to our ministers -- all of us have political bosses,
and so at some point all of us have to write a memo to our political
bosses trying to explain this thing called "MOPO" and how it works and
how it intersects with national law.  And when you try to write that
memo, you will realize that you can't actually explain it, because
your minister will say, "Well, wait a minute, how does this -- you
know, does this mean that our standard, our definition, how will that
be judged by these panel of so-called three juridical experts?"

And that's when I realized, well, we can't answer that question,
because we don't know how this thing is going to work.

So I just thought I would put that out there.  And I certainly welcome
other people's views.  Thank you.

I know in Nairobi, we said -- we urged ICANN to be aware that we did
not consider this a closed issue.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Suzanne.  Any comments and
interventions at this stage?

European Commission.

>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION:   Thank you, yes, I'd just like to agree,
actually, with the perspective of the U.S. on this situation.

At the risk of repeating myself, I should just say something I've said
many times before, that I think we all know that, clearly, new gTLD
applications have the potential to raise concerns at the political
level about particular application.  I think Suzanne is right, and
it's not just for trademarks, actually.  It will vary from country to
country.  We know that.  It's called the real world.

And my concern is that from the perspective of being a GAC member, is
that I'm not able to -- and an official -- I'm not able to prejudice
any future decision that my political masters, whether that be a
parliament or a national government in the European Union, decides
that there is a concern about a particular application and instruct
me, actually, to raise concerns or objections as a GAC member and to
invoke what I see as my role and the GAC's role, actually, to give
advice to the board on that.

So I'm concerned about the proposals we've seen so far and I've
expressed that concern for more than a year now when we've had
interactions with the GAC staff -- sorry, with ICANN and the ICANN
board and staff.

I think GAC can actually help define a way out for ICANN on this.  And
I think that's our problem, is that we haven't been able to see yet a
solution that would meet ICANN's requirements and our requirements.

But I think that doesn't mean we shouldn't do the first part of our
job, which is to say that we can't delegate or endorse a procedure
which would limit our ability to raise objections at any point in the
future.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you.

Any other comments?  Italy.

>>ITALY:   Okay.  Thanks to Suzanne that gave to us let's say based on
scientific reasoning, let me say --

>>SUZANNE SENE:   Lawyers.

>>ITALY:   Lawyers.  Certainly, it is true.

But the real problem here is that Suzanne demonstrated that there is
not a possible implementation of the MOPO in an objective way.  So --
that is understood by everyone.

But the real point is that there could be interpretations on the value
of the strings of the new gTLDs that are considered by different
government in a subjective manner, let's say.  And this is the real
point that we have to understand.

And if I understand it, the idea of ICANN is to leave to external
bodies the judgment if a string is acceptable or not.  So the real
point is, who takes the responsibility of that.  And I think we have
to try to elaborate this aspect that is the most important.  Because
no one would like to take direct responsibility to follow, let's say,
a government that says, "This is offensive, this string, for us," and
who will judge if a single government says something like that?  This
is the real point.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Stefano.

I had somebody, France.

>>FRANCE:   Thank you, Janis.

Actually, it's good that we are starting the discussion, and thanks to
Suzanne, on a sort of methodological level.  The key problem we're
facing here is something that we're finding in other situations where
one alternative would be too much restrictions or too many
restrictions, and on the other hand, not enough restrictions regarding
some actors who would resent or be strongly opposed to the existence
of one particular string.

Just the notion that, actually, morality and public order is not used
as an exception exclusively in the Treaty of Paris.  It's also in
Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  But I agree
with Suzanne, also in -- as an exception, as a limitation, as a
justification for some limitation.

The problem we're facing here is, of course, the articulation with
national laws.  And to give you an example, it is a well-known fact
that the legislations regarding hate speech in France or in the U.S.
are completely different.  And it has caused sometimes some problems.
And so the problem we're facing is, as the root is a single table, the
problem becomes, if we want to continue with this current situation
where all TLDs are accepted in all countries, there is a need to find
some mechanism to make sure that all the strings are acceptable.  On
the other hand, if we want to make sure that the objection of one
single country or community will not prevent the existence of a useful
string by leading to, for instance, the inaccessibility of the whole
TLD in one specific country or one specific zone, it can even be on
one specific platform.  For those who are familiar with the debate
going on today around the accessibility of some applications on the
Apple iPad, we are in a similar environment.  I could imagine that at
one given time, specific ISPs would say, "We are serving a specific
community, and we agree with this community that these TLDs that we
don't like or that do not correspond to the values of our community
will not, simply, be accessible," which is a danger for the general
accessibility and the equal accessibility of content.

So I don't have a solution at that stage.  But what I wanted to
present as a background element is this problem that is connected to
an objective that I think is common, which is that the domain name
space at the higher level is ideally, as much as possible, and
ideally, completely accepted and accessible in all countries, so that
any element of limitation filtering control of content happens for
content that is at a lower level.

I don't know if I framed it clearly enough, but I'm trying myself to
understand more clearly how we can frame the problem to make it
addressable.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Bertrand.

Any other comments?

Pakistan.

>>PAKISTAN:   Thank you.

I think that the interesting perspective that France brought to the
table, in that if we want the same string to be acceptable to all
countries, then obviously the problem becomes very complex.  And on
the other hand, if we make selective exceptions, then the
accessibility by all gets compromised.  However, I would say
practically speaking, if we do not come to any conclusion otherwise, a
generic solution, then our fall-back position, at least from
Pakistan's standpoint, would be at least that a given country or a
group of countries should have the option to block off certain TLDs if
they are offensive to them.  And I think we should also work to have
some tier of appeal level, that even if the generic standard does not
allow for, you know, stopping some country to use a TLD name which may
be offensive to other countries, there has to be some appeal
mechanism.  I mean, there are some other ideas that we need to toss
around before we finalize our position on the issue.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Tarek.

India.

>>INDIA:   Thank you, Chair.

I think ICANN as a body needs to factor cultural diversity and also
have a commonly accepted principle.

Drawing a parallel from the accounting world, we have the generally
accepted accounting principles.  I would like to suggest the TLDs are
ubiquitous, universally accepted type of paradigm.  We must think in
terms of generally accepted string principle, if I may, use such a
term.  I hope we are not left gasping, because then it will be an
acronym "GASP."

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Ravi.

Switzerland.

>>SWITZERLAND:   Yes.  Thank you.

I have listened very carefully to the last remarks made in this room.
And I think that it is important to keep in mind the universality of
ICANN and all the system.  And it is also important not to have some
people decide for the others.  We are in the international field that
we discuss, and we try to decide in a manner that we have not to fight
together, but to find a compromise.  And it will be, for me, a pity if
we have a solution that divides the world in part of the world that
accepts some gTLD, and the other -- the other part of the world will
be not available.

I think if we go in this direction, it will be the beginning of the
end for me to have a universal system.  And I think that the community
will not to have that.  So we have to think very carefully how in the
international field we can find the solution that helps together to
find a common solution at the end.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   So thank you, Frederick.

European Commission.

>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION:   Thank you.  And thank you for the comments of
colleagues.  I just will make a couple of other observations that have
occurred to me, listening to the comments made so far.

I think it's worth remembering that we have more than 270 top-level
domains at the moment, and to my knowledge, none of them are offensive
to anyone.  So that's our starting point, is universally resolvable
root which is accepted by everyone.

I think the point made by Switzerland is one we should not
underestimate, actually.  I think we -- you know, the global Internet
community will not be pleased with us, I think, with ICANN, actually,
if the result is that we end up with an increasingly fragmented
Internet where you get a different version of the Internet, depending
on which country you're in, and different levels of access.  I think
that would be, I think as Frederick said, the beginning of the end.
And that would be a very unfortunately step.  But I think our starting
point is, we have a root zone file full of TLDs which are acceptable
to everyone.

I think the TLDs we add to that root zone file should also be
acceptable to everyone.  Now, the implication of that is difficult.
But I'm not sure we should throw that away as being impossible at the
beginning.  I mean, ideally, to simplify matters, we should be seeking
to introduce noncontroversial TLDs to the root.  And we know there
will be cases where countries may object to a TLD on grounds the rest
of us find inappropriate or incompatible with our own standards of
freedom of speech.  But I think we should keep that on the table that
the ideal starting point would be that any TLDs we add to the root
zone file should be acceptable to everyone, knowing that in reality
we're going to have pain along the way, that there will be cases.

But the means -- you know, the means doesn't always justify the end.
I think the core thing we need to keep in focus here, the objective,
is to keep a universally resolvable root.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Bill.

So may I invite colleagues to think in practical terms.

We have DAG version 4.  We have heard a number of members saying that
which is proposed as a mechanism seems is not workable.  And we know
what does it mean.  And --  But from other side, we do not have
alternative to propose which we could suggest to the ICANN staff and
the community to consider.

So what do we do in these circumstances?  And I see we can just flag
our concern without solution.  What does it mean?  It means that we
may be seen as not being sufficiently constructive, not being able to
propose any solution forward, and as such, just trying to prevent
things from moving ahead.

Another option is to develop an alternative proposal, which from this
debate does not really transpire except on general -- say on very
general principle, or a very general level, which is not very helpful
for ICANN staff in writing the implementation proposal.

So a third option is replying that this is not workable and suggest
that that should be removed from the DAG.  I don't know whether that
option is feasible or not at all if we do not have alternative to
propose.

So I'm just thinking aloud.

United States.

>>UNITED STATES:   Well, I'm gratified to see a lot of heads nodding
at your third option.

[ Laughter ]

>>UNITED STATES:   So -- but I do have another angle that I'm happy to
share with my colleagues.  As we were doing the analysis -- and by the
way, I am not a lawyer, but I was literally surrounded by legions of
attorneys to analyze this stuff.  But with my GAC hat on, as we sort
of delved into this, I also realized that the MOPO approach would not
necessarily alleviate some of the concerns that the GAC raised in the
GAC principles.  And in that case, I think it was article 2.1, 2.2,
2.7, 2.8, so we did flag this well before the GNSO recommendations
were completed and forwarded to the board.  So, again, if you will
recall, when the review team met with the GAC, they asked for an
example.  When the GAC had actually provided advice that they weren't
entirely sure was advice, but I think we reminded them that from our
perspective, it, indeed, was, that was March 2007.  And yet the board
simply endorsed the GNSO recommendations as presented in June 2008.

We said we're a little bit concerned that some new gTLD applications
will use terms with national, cultural, linguistic, and geographic
significance whose use may raise sensitivities.

So in analyzing MOPO, we realized that MOPO would probably not
alleviate those concerns.  Those concerns probably fall into
categories like ethnicity or language or religion.

So I did look at the geographic names approach, where there is a
proposal for a geographic names panel that will review all the strings
to see if they fall under that category, and started to try to think
out loud, I don't know if we might want to pursue this.  You know,
could you develop an approach for string review that might minimize
the potential that the new gTLD process would be overwhelmed with
possibly intractable disputes over sensitive strings that fall into
certain categories.

Can you identify such as the ones I just mentioned.

And if you could, are there some authoritative sources, perhaps in the
U.N. -- there are some U.N. bodies that I do believe maintain lists of
the names of tribes all over the world, lists of the names of
languages all over the world.  I think there are some academic
institutions that have lists of religions that are practiced all over
the world.

So if you could find such an authoritative source, could you then use
that to determine whether the entity applying for that particular
string is considered the appropriate entity.

So the parallel maybe to geographic names is that there is an
approval.  So in the case of geography, it's the relevant government
authority, have they signed off and is that okay.

So I just throw that out there as well because it struck me there is a
direct link back to concerns identified by the GAC in 2007 that it
appears that MOPO would not be able to address.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you.  That sounded something which is worth
exploring and went in the direction of constructive proposal.

France and then European Commission.

France, please.

>>FRANCE:   Thank you, Janis.

We are clearly trying to think out loud here.

I think Suzanne is highlighting the difference between two types of
problems.  One case is a case where the string itself is offensive for
whatever reason.  It can be a disparaging word in one specific
language or something that is unsuitable, for whatever reason, for a
given community.

And so it's the string that causes some sort of problem, sensitivity.

There's another situation which I think is more addressed today in the
dialoguing, more clearly and easily be addressed is the notion that
some term that is acceptable in itself might be managed as a gTLD by
an actor who is not appropriately suited to that term in the view of
the community that is directly concerned.

The second problem is easier to solve.  And actually, it requires just
a slight translation in what today is the regime for community
evaluation or community priority evaluation in the DAG.

When you look at the mechanism for community priority evaluation, it
provides actually exactly the necessary list of criteria to verify
that on a given string, a community objection can be made, and there
is a big parallel.

So in this respect, if it is a question of matching the entity that
manages the TLD with the TLD string, I think most of the elements are
present in the DAG.

The real question is the question about the objectionability or the
objectionable nature of the string itself.  And in this respect I
sense from the different interventions, particularly from Switzerland,
but also from our colleague from Pakistan,  I sense there is a strong
desire by not only GAC members but I suppose the broader community to
maintain this notion that the goal is to make sure that all TLDs are
accepted in all countries and in all territories.

The problem is that this is precisely why we are addressing this
problem, because if we want to make them all accessible, we need to
make sure that they are not considered illegal or completely offensive
in one country, and then we are back to the square one, which requires
to move probably a little bit further away and to consider the
following.  The string itself, especially if it's short or if it's
meaningful, I don't think it makes much sense, honestly, for any
operator to really invest the time, money, and so on to run a TLD
operation where the likelihood of being blocked in a country is
maximum.

If I were, heaven forbid, intending to do something that is incredibly
offensive, I would certainly not take a very offensive word, but I
would -- sorry -- I would allow people to register domains underneath
that are dealing with content that, at a lower level, are addressing a
very sensitive topic.  But in order to make sure that the TLD itself
is accepted in the most general places, the generic term, it's much
better strategically and even commercially to use a relatively softer
term.

So in that respect, I wonder whether we couldn't explore a direction
where some mechanism would tell any applicant that is putting forward
a term that is clearly raising concern something that would encourage
a period where it can apply for a different term that is less
offensive, but the goal of the TLD is the same.

If you are targeting a community, you can do things with very, very
different terms.  You can have very, very delicate content under a
relatively neutral top-level domain.

So the goal is to make sure that the TLDs themselves are not blocked
or be declared illegal as a TLD.

Mutatis mutandis is there is a similar challenge to the one we have
regarding applicable national law for globally hosted content.  If you
are a platform, be it a video platform, a blogging platform and so on,
the challenges that all governments are facing is to make sure that
the content on those platforms in that country that are incoherent
with national law are not accessible but that the platform as a whole
remains accessible.  Because otherwise you overshoot.

So I think as an objective, collectively we should try to find a
formulation that allows any kind of legal limitation, and I insist on
the term "legal" like the procedure goes by law in the country to say
that type of content is objectionable is being made unaccessible at
the lowest and most granular level possible.  And on the other hand,
the objective is to have the TLDs accessible.

How can applicants be encouraged to find a formulation that is
accessible?  I don't know.  But maybe it's a way to formulate the
problem.  And maybe it would be good to have in the coming days some
interaction with, also, potential applicants or existing registries to
have their views on how that would function.

Because if we try to have an absolute rule, I don't know how it will
work.

I'm trying to find analogies here.  It's not operational yet.  But I
hope it moves the discussion forward.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Bertrand.

I think our task is thinking about theoretical constructs.  We need to
bear in mind that those theoretical constructs should be implementable
and enforceable.  And that's the challenge.

European Commission.

>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION:   Thank you.  It seems to me that some of this,
actually, relates to another issue we have been discussing this week
and that's the role of the GAC within ICANN.

I want to resist a little bit your suggestion that if we identify a
problem and we don't come with a solution, it will be seen as not very
constructive.  Ideally, of course, we would contribute to the finding
of the solution, but we are an advisory committee within the ICANN
context.  It's the supporting organizations at the moment under the
bylaws who are responsible for making policy proposals.  The board
endorse them.  The staff execute them.

I don't think we should feel too guilty if we as governments flag
something as a major concern and then we invite the community, the
rest of the community, to fulfill their roles to define policy and to
execute it.

So this is not to be too negative, but it's to make a reference, I
think, to discussions we have had elsewhere, that we might take
account of that in seeking to clarify the role of the GAC within
ICANN.

I think it's also important that we, somewhere along the line,
actually, I think we reiterate concerns that some of us have expressed
in the past that we need clarification on how any proposal by ICANN
would impact on our current ability or responsibility, however you
want to see it, to give advice to the ICANN board on public-policy
issues.  So whatever system is worked out, the end of the day, if we
are unhappy, actually, about a particular application, we can go to
the board in our communiqué and say we're not happy about that.

I did raise that in Sydney, actually, and I don't think -- I think I
got two answers which differed, one from the CEO and one from the
chairman.

So I think that's an issue that needs to be clarified, that we're not
being invited to give up our right to give advice to the board on a
particular application.  Because that's what the bylaws say at the
moment, and I would suggest that the bylaws need to be changed,
actually, if ICANN staff or the ICANN board think that that would be
inappropriate in this situation.

My last point is trying to be more constructive.  Of course we're very
happy, actually, to try to contribute to finding a solution on this
process.  And I think the U.S. have done a good job already in
starting that with the document they circulated.

I caution, though, against us trying to do this in isolation.  I think
clearly this is a multistakeholder problem, actually.  And while it's
useful and very important that we, as the GAC, have an opportunity to
have a tour de table amongst ourselves to exchange views, I think the
solution part of it, really we shouldn't prejudice that by trying to
find proposals amongst ourselves.  I think we need to have this
discussion among other members of the community.  Because it's a
collective responsibility, it's a collective problem at the moment,
and it's an ideal example of where we need to work with the other
constituencies.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Bill.

I am more than sure that we are not doing it behind the closed doors
and without giving information to others.

I see that there are much many outside GAC members in the room than
the GAC members around the table.  So that proves that the question is
of interest of many people in the community.  And I hope that this
discussion will also feed in their discussions about the same
question.

Now I have a number of requests.  I had Nigeria, Italy, and Indonesia,
in that order, and then Portugal.

>>NIGERIA:   Thank you, Mr. Chair.  And thank you, my colleagues, for
all the work.  They are interesting points that I think we should
explore further.

And my starting point would be what European Commission said about
already we have 270 TLDs that are not contested.  Nobody is objecting
to it.

And I asked this question several, is anything wrong with it?  Have we
explored all of them and they are all viable?  That's a question I
have from the ccTLDs.

The other thing is, who determines MOPO?  Is it the country?  The
community?  Or who?

That's another thing I want us to explore.

The third thing is what Bertrand raised; that is, legal limitation.
If we're to find a way out, probably to replace MOPO with legal
limitation in countries, because -- and who determines the legal
limitations?

And the third and the fourth thing is that a proposal is on the table
also for GAAPs, generally accepted standard or principle.

You see, from a developing country point of view, there are some
sensitive issues that we -- that words, there are languages, there are
actions we still find very offensive, while in the developed world it
might not be.

So there will be some restrictions.  So I think we would explore more
of the legal limitation as mentioned by Bertrand I think we could find
a way out of it.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Mary.

Italy.

>>ITALY:   Okay.  Thank you.

Following the European Commission intervention, of course it is
important here, then, to decide the kind of advice that the GAC could
give in this subject.  And in my opinion, this advice should be
related to the methodology and trying to avoid to be then involved in
the fine details of the implementation.  Because, of course, we have
to provide criteria, but not then entering into judging single cases
and things like that.

This is a very important aspect.

And then perhaps someone mentioned the possibility of having an appeal
against a string, even after the committees that are examining the
strings of ICANN have concluded something, in the sense that before
going ahead with the implementation of a certain string, someone could
say this is particularly offensive for our country.  And then you have
to consider this aspect.

At this point, of course, the ICANN board would have decided what to
do if a single government apply against a string.  And then in the
end, it might well happen that some choice of the board in the end is
criticized.  And even the GAC itself might have been criticized
because of something that is not considered appropriate has been
approved in the end.

So we have to be practical on that.

Make an example.  We have long, long discussions about the XXX.  Then
there has been an appeal.  And now the XXX is at the examination of
the board, just now.  And we are not involved, but this is right,
because in the end, this is a mechanism of doing things and
implementing things.

We should not enter into evaluation on a single string, especially
looking at the hundreds of applications that will be on the plate with
the new gTLDs.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Stefano.

I have now Indonesia.

>>INDONESIA:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think we have to remember, first of all, that Internet is globally
used in various and diversified countries, from the highly developed
countries to the very less developed countries.

And so we are using a similar thing for very diversified people,
diversified countries.  That's number one.

Secondly, as you might aware, several I.T. laws in some countries has
a global jurisdiction.  It is very interesting, because if someone do
something wrong in another country, he or she can be prosecuted in
another country.

So that is very interesting development in the legal system.  And it
is like that, because Internet is a worldwide platform.

In this case, if someone do a crime or whatever, a crime in one
country might not be a crime in another country.  That is also
important.

What this means, it means that if somebody do a crime for country A
and he or she is doing this in country B, which in country B it is not
a crime, the locus delicti, the place to do the crime, is in country
B.  But country A legislation, regulations, might say that that Mr. X
can be prosecuted once he or she can come to country A.

What does it mean?  It means that we must be careful, because this
global Internet platform might also cause a tension within countries,
which is not necessary because it is not necessary like that because
we want the Internet to be developed in the whole world together and
bring the world together in peace, not the other way around.

Now, I think in the next GAC meeting, wherever it is, Mr. Chairman,
perhaps at that time you will also already leave us by the time we
have another GAC meeting in other countries.  Perhaps we can also show
here a movie shows how the Internet is used in so many countries.

The people is different, the people is so varied, the situation is so
varied from a big city like Brussels to a very small remote village in
Indonesia, for example.  The culture might be very different, the
people might be very different, and their understanding of what the
Internet or international cultures might be very different, too.

This also help the GAC members to, you know, find out, to see the
world situation on the Internet.

So I really think because of the above that perhaps we must pay more
attention if a gTLD is given only for a period, and see whether within
this preliminary period something happen or not.  A short period first
as a trial.  Well, in a company, you see, if you apply for a job in a
company before you are given the employ of the company, the status of
employ of the company, you will always be given for one year or, I
don't know, a trial period.  Or at least that's what happens in many
countries around the world.

So perhaps we can do this for gTLDs, too.

So then if after a period it is okay, then we can give a longer
period, you know.  It's something happening in our offices.  It
happens in our -- (inaudible) cell phone, you see.  You cannot apply
for a (inaudible) cell phone directly.  You must have one-year trial
period also.  So I think it's the same with many big companies, too.

But again, if something happen, then ICANN should be able to have a
system or operating procedures as how to handle it, to stop it or to
change it to other names, like what my colleague from France
mentioned, the idea of that.

But we must be able to handle a world situation like that.

Mr. Chairman, I don't want to be in a situation where a member of the
GAC here cannot come to a GAC meeting because there's a big
demonstration in his or her country sparked by a generic TLD in
another country.  That's a situation I don't want because then that
will be the end of the GAC and hopefully it will not be the end of the
Internet, ICANN.  We want the ICANN to be here, the Internet to be
here for thousand years to come.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you.

Why only thousand?  Why not 10,000?

[ Laughter ]

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Our challenge, of course, is that the
international law does not provide us sufficient guidance and support
in this discussion.  Even human rights conventions, U.N. conventions,
which potentially could be applicable in this debate on these issues
are not ratified by all countries.

And, for instance, I think that there is kind of general -- there is
general agreement that child pornography should not be on Internet and
that should be banned in all its forms.  And the convention of the
rights of the child could be invoked in this as a -- let's say as a
legal instrument to justify that.

The point is that even the convention of the rights of the child is
not adopted by all countries.  It is not universal instrument.  And
some significant countries are not state parties to that convention.

So, see, that is the challenge and we are facing.  The world is
diverse, and we are struggling to find a universal solution for the
very diverse world.

I have Portugal and then Australia, and by that time we will have
already ALAC in the room and we will continue our discussion because
the subject of the conversation with ALAC will be exactly the same,
morality and public order, otherwise known as MOPO.

Portugal.

>>PORTUGAL:   Thank you very much.

Well, I caught myself trying to reason a little bit if there is a way
of rationalizing this complex subject to see what options we have
available to begin with.

So I will share with you my thoughts first, and then to try to drive
-- try to go to the options that I think are available.

So I depart from the point of view that was expressed by several
people that it would be desirable to have names that would be
acceptable worldwide so as not to fragment the system.

Well, if we think about this with rigor, we find that the only
possible objections that could be raised in this setting that we could
handle are those that flow from laws, appliable on any jurisdiction.
And this means international, national, and regional.  Because the
others, of course, can always happen, but they don't have the
legitimacy to be handled institutionally in this setting.

Well, and that is absolutely true that if we want to have universally
acceptable names, they have to comply to those laws.  Otherwise, it is
the obligation of the local -- of the regional, national, or
international authorities to block them, because they have to comply
to their own law.

So after thinking about this this way, what can we do from a practical
point of view, since we don't have, as Janis pointed out,
international-accepted code that will be the union of all the
limitations that exist in all levels of jurisdictions for this
purpose, and we will not have, it's not something that is possible to
produce.  I think the only possibility is to actually have a period
where objections can be raised fundamentally by different levels of
law.

And that raises another difficulty, because then there has to be the
possibility if that is not accepted to contest it and to judge it.  So
the idea of having arbitration or judging on that to see if in fact
what has been claimed as being in agreement with the law of a certain
jurisdiction is actually true should also need decision.

And I don't think, from a conceptual point of view, there are result
of these three levels of capacity.  So the best thing is just to face
it and actually to produce as simple as possible a system to deal with
this difficulty.

Thank you.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Thank you, Luis.

Australia.

>>AUSTRALIA:   First I'd like to thank everyone else's contributions,
because I think many of you have said what I'd like to say, or at
least I think you have.

I think I first wanted to sort of concur with Bertrand's distinction
that I think was very useful in that where there's two types of issues
we're looking at here.  One is what it's going to be what it's used
for, potentially, which I agree I think goes to a community of
interest type mechanism, which already exists in the DAG.  And another
thing, which is something inherent in the string itself which we may
-- which people may find offensive or otherwise want to object to.

I'd then like to agree with a number of colleagues who I think have
spoken, and I think what they're all getting at is, instead of looking
for some lowest-common denominator that everyone agrees on, that, in
fact, we're looking at something which will be unoffensive to
everyone.  And I agree with the sentiment that has been expressed, I
think, by France and Portugal that this should not be limitless, but
should be linked to national laws, which I think is, from our point of
view of governments, what we're interested in here, or certainly what
I'm interested in.

So I wouldn't like to see that we say that MOPO is unworkable and get
rid of it.  I would certainly like to see it replaced by something
which gave some ability for governments to object based on their
national laws.  I think we'll probably have difficulty finding common
lowest ground.  So I understand it will cause difficulties and
potential complexity if we in fact go to the other end of the
spectrum, where all countries' national laws would be a basis for
objection or appeal.  But I think that's probably worth exploring.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Okay.  Thank you.

I see considerable movement in the room, and that is slightly
disturbing, at least for me as a chair.

I see that these are not GAC members who are moving back and forth,
but, rather, our guests.  And I would like to ask if you would stay
until the break, which is indicated in the program.  Otherwise, it is
really difficult to lead the conversation.  Thank you for
understanding.

I would like now to draw this part of the debate to the end.

What I heard, that there is a serious preoccupation with the proposal
in the DAG 4, that there is a need for further reflection.  And some
ideas have been put on the table, particularly by the delegation of
the United States, by European Commission, by France, and by others.
We need to maybe use the next meeting with At-Large Advisory Committee
to continue our reflection.  And I would like now to break for five
minutes to welcome -- until our at-large folks settle in.  And maybe
if we could leave some space at the table for ALAC people.  And I will
ask those GAC members who are more than one per delegation to maybe
take a seat back so ALAC representatives could find their seats at the
table.

Five minutes' break, and we will resume.  In the meantime, there is
one announcement which will be made by Malta.

>>MALTA:   Yeah, thank you very much, Chair.  Could I ask
representatives from the Commonwealth countries if they could stay
behind for about ten minutes at 12:30 before the lunch break so Mark
and I can bring them up to date on the commonwealth IGF initiatives.

Thank you very much.

>>CHAIR KARKLINS:   Certainly.

And I see that coffee is served and some fruit.  Please feel free to
help yourself.

(Break.)