GNSO Working Session (a.m. session)
 Cairo, Egypt.
 01NOV2008
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Hello?  Are we just about ready?  The people -- you guys are ready?  Fantastic.  Thank you especially, when we insisted that we needed to start on time, really appreciate it.  Now we really do have to try to start almost on time.
 Do we have anybody on the phone?  I see everybody on the phone -- well, actually, I see.
 >> Yes, this is Rick Austin.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, great.
 >> I can hear you loud and clear.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  And we can hear you well as well.  Is there also Brandon Height on the phone?
 >> These are all my techs.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I am sure other people will call in at some point.  We've got the roving microphone for the two sides.  Okay then.  Okay then.  Good morning and welcome to the first part of the week and starting and all of that.
 So I think the first thing that I'm going to do, as we always do, is have -- and it is always sort of unfair to the people that are here early because then all the other people come in and don't actually introduce themselves, but what can you say?  I like the idea of having people introduce themselves when they're here, especially the council members and others who are here for the open meeting.
 And then we'll go through the agenda and get started.  
 And, again, I want to indicate my great appreciation to all the staffs that got this meeting ready at this time of day because we had been told that it would be impossible.  We said it had to be possible, please make it possible and they did.  So I very much wanted to start by saying how much I appreciate everyone having gotten it ready on time.
 So if we could start with Adrian sort of introducing yourself and saying why you're here.
 >>ADRIAN KINDERIS:  Adrian Kinderis, registrar constituency rep and because I had nowhere better to be at this time of the morning.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.
 >>MARIKA KONINGS:   Marika Konings, ICANN staff.
 >>LIZ GASSTER:  Liz Gasster, ICANN staff.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:  Alan Greenberg, ALAC liaison.
 >>JON BING:  Jon Bing, NomCom appointee and the last meeting as such.
 >> Claudio DiGangi, IPC.
 >>OLGA CAVALLI:  Olga Cavalli, NomCom appointee.
 >>MARILYN CADE:  I'm Marilyn Cade.  I'm a member of the business users community.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Chuck Gomes, the registry constituency.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Avri Doria, NomCom appointee.
 >>OLOF NORDLING:  Olof Nordling, ICANN staff.
 >>TONY HOLMES:  Tony Holmes, ISP.
 >>JORDI IPARRAGUIRRE:  Jordi Iparraguirre, registry constituency.
 >>NORBERT KLEIN:  Norbert Klein, noncommercial.  And our colleague Robin got stuck in Amsterdam.
 >>EDMON CHUNG:  Edmon Chung, registry constituency.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Tim Ruiz, registrars constituency.
 >>ZAHID JAMIL:  Zahid Jamil, BC constituency.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  Philip Sheppard with the BC.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Mike Rodenbaugh with the BC.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  I would also ask the people that are here around the side to also introduce themselves.  And I know there will be more people later.  And I ask people to introduce themselves when they speak, if they haven't done it already.
 >> Nacho Auradoz, dot CAT.
 >> Joan Francese Giras from Syria, from the government.
 >> Dr. Y.J. Park from [inaudible].
 >> Wolf-Ulrich Knoben, ISP constituency.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  And on the other side?
 >> Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek, dotBERLIN.
 >> Katrin Ohlmer from dotBERLIN.
 >>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI:  Dirk Krischenowski, business constituency and dotBERLIN.
 >> Dennis Jennings, ICANN board.
 >>  Ali Bouallou, dot EH.
 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  Hartmut Glaser, NicBR and address council of the ASO.
 >> Michael Young, Afilias.
 >> James Bladel, registrar.
 >>ROB HOGGARTH:  Rob Hoggarth, ICANN staff.
 >> Ken Bour, ICANN staff.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Thank you.  And then we have the two Mikes in the back.
 >>MICHAEL PALAGE:  Mike Palage, individual.
 >> Michael O'Connor, also an individual and Obama fan.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, thank you.  No politics, please, otherwise you will get me started, especially U.S. politics.
 Okay.  The next thing is going through the agendas, and I will go through the agendas for what's ahead of us.  
 Today's agenda is we, basically, are starting reviewing agendas.  Then we go into the GAC and board prep.  
 Now, the reason I've got that one at the beginning of the day is because putting together the schedule for these two days with the -- it is no longer that tentative.  We've managed to get all the appearances confirmed, but getting all the people scheduled that we had coming in at various times meant this schedule was constantly moving.
 But one of the things to talk about during the board and GAC prep -- and also perhaps we'll talk a little bit about the cross-silo meetings -- is to make sure that we know what we want on the agenda for those meetings.  I don't have slides yet.  I don't even know if I'm going to do a slide for the board meeting, and we'll talk about that later because I'm not sure if that doesn't constrain conversation.  All of a sudden I'm in presentation mode.
 Okay.  Then we have at 10:00, the board working group on the ALAC review wanted to come in and discuss their midterm consultation report.  
 Then we go to WHOIS at 11:00.  I have to step out at 11:00 to go have a meeting on how we're organizing these cross-silo meetings so Chuck who has been leading this WHOIS hypothesis study group anyway for a long time will take over the meeting at that point and will, basically, first, have sort of an overview of the hypothesis group report to the council.  Then there is references and basically a discussion of the various proposals, the various ways we can go with it.
 Then it continues.  There is lunch -- we have a working lunch, but I've also noticed that we don't generally work that much during lunch, although we do actually do the little bit of working together in smaller groups, discussing things.  So I don't have a specific topic on for the working lunch, but it is working through on the WHOIS and what other subjects are of interest to those.  And then we continue after lunch to review the proposals and the constituency feedback.
 This is all with a purpose of coming up real soon now with our formal request to the staff, if any, of studies we would like to have done and specifics on it. And while we don't have a vote on that at this meeting, I would very much like to have a vote on that at our next meeting, if at all possible.
 So if we can come out of this meeting with a good idea of what it is we would like to do, if anything -- and I keep putting that in because that was part of the whole charter of this -- then it would be really good to come out of this meeting with a good idea so that then a couple people can frame it as a motion and then we can vote on it at our next regular teleconference.
 Then there is a break, and then we start a two-part discussion on the new gTLD implementation details and discussion.  We've given a lot of time to it in these two days, obviously one of the more important things on the table.
 We also have a fair amount to talk about -- it will be talked about on Monday in terms of there will be workshops.  It will be a major part of the trans-silo meetings.  It is also on our agenda for Wednesday.  We will get to that.  And it is very much going to be an undercurrent of this whole meeting because there is so much content that we figure people might want to talk about.  One of the trends that I've kind of put in the agenda here is come our Wednesday meeting, once we've talked about it here and we've talked about it in workshops and we talked about it in trans-silo, we get to the point where we talk about it with the GNSO community and among the council members to see at this point is there anything we as a council think we need to be doing about this or are we fine with it and we'll sit back and either wait for board to come with us to sort of say, Here are some questions we would like you to answer or where are we on it, what do we do next, if anything, other than keep watching and commenting as individuals.
 So that's kind of the thread I was hoping to have through this, a lot of discussion, a lot of education on what is in all those.  And having been reading those, there is really a lot of material in there.  It is really an amazing body of work and probably lots of things to discuss.  So that's the way I was hoping to sort of thread that through this meeting.  So any questions on today?  
 And then I'll go on to tomorrow and such.  So if there's no questions on today, then give me a second.  Okay.  So then tomorrow we start out again with new gTLDs.  Basically, there were two reasons for splitting it.  One was there was a sufficient amount of content for more than just a couple hours.  The second reason was there were a certain number of people who because of unavoidable either family or flights or schedules or work couldn't be here for today's discussion so they have a chance to read the transcript or listen to it.  They have a chance to come in tomorrow with questions.  We also will all have time to sleep on it and come up with more questions tomorrow.  So we'll start out with that in the morning.
 Then we'll have the kick-off meetings of the two steerings committees, the PPSC and the OSC, the operations and the one on process.  
 Basically, we have a little bit of agenda in each of those.  To start off interim chairing those, I will interim chair the PPSC until it elects a chair, which we could do tomorrow or we can talk about when we will do it tomorrow.  That's up to the group.
 Chuck will interim chair the OSC.  Same thing; Chuck put together a presentation and sort of an agenda for the OSC that I have shamelessly borrowed and copied and will pretty much do the same thing except for where obviously the topics are different.
 But so both of those meetings will be fairly uniform in this first instance other than the subject matter.  They will be held in parallel, so they will be in two different rooms and we'll have the information, if it is not already available, which one is in here and which one is in another room.
 And then after that, we have a working group meeting, the IRTP part A working group meeting.  That will be a working group meeting of that which, of course, is open to all council members and open to anyone else that comes to our open meetings.
 And it will, basically, talk about its status review and talk about the statement of work.
 We have a working lunch.  That discussion can continue, or any of the discussions.  If we get to any specific topics, that is if through the day today and tomorrow we find that it is really good to have a specific topic with further conversations, then I can sort of slap that into "Let's make the working lunch kind of about this."  And then we can see, you know, if we generally feel that's what we want to talk about, we certainly can.
 We have a discussion with SSAC after lunch which, basically -- there is several papers they have come out with.  There are references, I think, elsewhere or I will get them added to here.  
 Steve can't make it to that meeting because he's got a board workshop, but Dave and Ram will be here from the SSAC to speak with us about these various issues from their perspective.
 We also had -- and then any other topics that came up, one person had brought up a topic of do we want to have a liaison with SSAC.  I don't know that we did, but that may be a topic worth discussing.  Or we may want to discuss it in council first before broaching it with SSAC.  But that's something that we can play by ear as we move along.
 Then we have a follow-up discussion with the -- in council on, basically, the PPSC, the OSC, bring the two together, make sure we are heading in the right direction, give a slight report of which -- of what each of them did as we move forward because a lot of the agenda on both of those was how do we move forward.  So then bring it back to the council meeting, each of the two groups will -- either the interim chair or the actual chair will report on where they're at and discuss as a council how it goes forward.
 We have a GAC meeting.  We have a joint meeting.  It is only scheduled for an hour.  There had been some discussion of it being able to be extended if there was conversation.  But I also noticed they have other things on their agenda for after so that may no longer be the case.
 As I said earlier, several topics came up.  They're interested in WHOIS studies.  I think one of the topics there is sort of how do we get more direct feedback from them on which studies, something that's more specific than, Well, we sent you the principles and we sent you the principles.
 Then they wanted to have a discussion on the PSC report, and I don't know -- sort of, I guess, they would lead that discussion in some sense.  I am not sure if this group has anything, but we can talk about that when we talk about other agendas.
 And then issues in new gTLDs, and the most standout issue is two very proposals on geographic names:  The policies that the council approved in terms of the objection processes and the permission advance -- notification advance permission procedure -- I guess it is not defined -- practice that is being recommended by the GAC or is in the GAC principle.  And also the -- of course, there is the staff contribution to how they are looking at handling that.
 So that topic we can shift the order.  As I say, I'm not sure whether us having a presentation there is the right thing.  I have felt every time I have done a presentation there that I have ended up talking and we don't really get into conversations.  It would really be better if that hour could actually be spent in sort of a conversation between council members and GAC members.  But I leave that open.
 Oh, yes, and then we have the board dinner where we couldn't really -- there were two topics that seemed to be at the top of the list on things that needed to be talked about:  Restructuring and treatment of geographic names in the new gTLDs process.  Restructuring was the topic last time, so I was little loathed to put it in as the topic again because I try to refrain from having the same topic at every dinner.  However, it is really an important topic.  It is an ongoing issue so I have put it as the dessert topic and basically with the first topic being the treatment of geographic names in the new gTLD process because, basically, the board has that decision in front of them.  
 They have gotten our recommendation, which I believe that they have approved.  They have the staff's implementation, which differs from it.  And then they have the GAC position which differs from it.
 So, basically, the board is in a position where it's going to have to deal with this in some way or other, unless, of course, we all come to a common consensus beforehand and take it out of their hands.  It is certainly though at the point of tomorrow evening still very much an open discussion.  And then the dessert goes to restructuring.  That won't be formal.  Once you have noticed from eating food to eating sweets, it is time to switch the restructuring.  I won't stand up there and say, okay, everybody now start talk about restructuring.
 Any issues on Sunday?  Okay.  Questions?  No.  Okay.  Let me then go back.
 We have a joint council lunch meeting with the ccNSO.  Oh, that was cancelled?  That's right.  That was cancelled.  Correct?  The lunch is cancelled?  The lunch was cancelled will, that's right.  We scheduled it.  We unscheduled it.  We scheduled it.  We unscheduled it.  At this point, we just decided everybody had too much to do.  We really both value it.  In fact, what was really happening between Chris and I, we both felt we didn't have time for it in the schedule but we both kept putting it in because we felt that we had to because, well, we didn't want to insult the other one by saying we didn't want to do it.  Eventually we talked to each other at the same time and said we can't really fit this in, especially because we go to the joint SO/AC session on new gTLDs at 2:00.  And there was a registrar or registry meeting right before that.  It was just we couldn't fit it in.  It is at the top of our schedule planning for the next time to make sure that it's one of the ones that sort of gets the safe space as opposed to the ones that gets fit in (saved).
 We sent out something on the joint session.  As I say, it is still gelling.  It is still very experimental.  I have to go away for a meeting at 11:00 to try to get it to gel more.  But, for example, we were going to have it moderated.  Rita had agreed to moderate it.  Unfortunately due to problems with pain, she had to at the last minute cancel coming.  So I'm not sure who we have moderating it at this point.
 Let me see.  We have our open meeting.  I don't know if I updated this schedule after we talked.  Glen, the schedule after we updated it yesterday and put in detail, we didn't change the topics but we put in more detail, is that anywhere posted yet for the open meeting?  That's on the Web site.  So I could go to that.  By the way, before I go away, for the working sessions, there are two zip files that contain all of the documents that people might want so you don't have to go looking for all the references that are listed.  Just download the zip files with all the files you might need and you will have more than enough to read for the week.  Of course, most people have already probably read it all.  And I understand that there are USB keys on the way but they, like several people, got stuck in Amsterdam which is probably not the worst place in the world to get stuck, but still.
 So the agenda for that meeting is we start out normally.  We are going to get an update on the AGP budget provision and consensus policy.  As always, there will be some discussion.  Though, I don't actually plan on lots of discussion necessarily on this issue.  It has got a half-hour.  It is a report and then an open mike discussion.  Then we go into the report and discussion on the GNSO improvements and restructuring where Chuck and I will give an update on the various two.  If there is actual chairs elected, then I'll still give an introduction to the topic but then the actual chairs would do the talking.  But if it is still interim chairs, then -- that's right, you haven't seen these things where I have necessarily plugged in your name.  If I did wrong, tell me.  In fact, we did this last night so there may be several people to whom their name being attached to something is a surprise.  In which case, please forgive me and tell me if I got it wrong. or tell me if I got it wrong and then forgive me.
 Item four, the WHOIS discussions, feedback on studies for which estimates are requested, background update, status update, Chuck, since Chuck has been leading it.  Here's the references.  Basically -- and then those are each short, you know, in the five-minute category.  Then comments from the community and council members on what studies.
 Then there is discussion and feedback on new gTLD planning, and really the question that I'm planning to put forward -- and it is really -- at that point, I think there is very little to be said.  We don't need another tutorial.  We don't need another stat constitutes update.  I will get up there and say we talked about it here, we talked about it there.  Should the GNSO Council be taking any action at this point and, basically, asking the community that question, asking the councillors that question, is there anything we should be doing, if so, what?
 Then there was a discussion on single character names.  Basically, asking Patrick Jones to give us a retrospective.  We, basically, had a RN group during new gTLDs, where do things stand with that, where do things stand north with the various issues that are coming up in RSTEP, et cetera.
 And, basically, is there something that we need to be doing in this area or -- it is sort of an area that seems to have sort of fallen sort of aside.  Tim -- I guess it was Tim brought it up at the last meeting under any other business of, hey, are we forgetting about this so it is on there to make sure if there is something that we should be doing, it has been discussed, the community has a chance to say, yep, there is something you should be doing.
 Then there's the -- an hour of general open discussion which can go back to any of the topics.  In other words, I will try to cut off debate fairly sharply at the timing.  And then anything that didn't get done during the -- that part, people can bring back up during the general and any other issues that weren't on this agenda that need to be discussion.
 There will be some pending motions.  We have -- one, we'll have the confirmation of the ccNSO liaison.  We have had -- well, we had as people have been reading the list, we had one candidate I knew of.  We had one candidate I didn't know of.  And I apologize -- well, I guess it was e-mail.  We eventually traced it down and sending things to my PSG.com account can be problematic.  It is incredibly strict.  Sending things to ACM works because PSG trusts ACM and passes it all on.
 But if I understand correctly, Mike, you did not -- you graciously sort of said you didn't require an election at this point.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  That's right.  I was comfortable with Olga, absolutely.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  So one of the things that had -- thank you very much for that.  And sorry about the e-mail issue.
 So one of the things that we had talked about is we need to confirm that just so it's been done properly.  However, it had been mentioned on the list with no objections that, you know, if there was a reason before Wednesday and I could certainly mention it to Chris earlier.  If there was a reason before Wednesday where it would be useful to have our yet-to-be-confirmed liaison participate in the ccNSO, there will be no issues or problems with that.
 Is that a correct assumption?  Okay.  So as I say, I will confirm with Chris and we will do the confirmation vote at that meeting.
 We also have received an issues report on registration abuse policies.  Obviously -- I mean, it came out Thursday, I guess, yesterday -- day before yesterday.
 We are not going to -- and thank you.  But we are not going to be voting on that at this meeting.  Just want to put it up there and make sure that we have a schedule and we have talked about when we are going to handle it.
 Okay.  And this is an amazing amount of meeting time.  Yes, Mike?
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Another issue of the reserved names working group that seems to have fallen by the wayside is the ICANN-related names.  I'm wondering what has happened with that or if we could get maybe an update from Patrick or whoever.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Yeah.  I'll ask Patrick and ask him if he can include that in his update and we'll include that in that topic.  Is that okay?  Okay.  Thank you.
 Okay.  Now going back, basically the Thursday -- and then Thursday, we have -- it's amazing how much time it takes to talk about this many hours of agenda.
 There are two meetings on Thursday.  There's a meeting that's actually not listed here but it's listed elsewhere.  It is this trans-silo, is having a sort of "bringing it back together" and talking about -- and actually, I'm not sure what we're doing there.  That's one of the things we're talking about, 11:00.  There's a view from Bertrand, who has been setting this up, that we should be focusing on PSC, and there's a view from the rest of us that we should be sort of talking about any of the issues that came up in the other, and what discussions happened either in constituencies, in advisory committees over the week, based on those, and it's open to any of the topics, but we'll resolve that.
 There's a 8:30 to 9:30 where there's -- oh, that's a public forum and then 9:30 to 11:00 is the open joint session reporting back, we're calling it.
 Then we have our close-up meeting, which is basically recap issues, look at our planning going forward, trying to get in a status of proposed amendments to the RAA but having trouble with some of the scheduling with Kurt, so not exactly sure.  That's an item that we have to get in the agenda, but it's being hard to fit in.  We're looking at moving that to tomorrow's lunch, if Kurt is able to make tomorrow's lunch.
 So don't know yet.  It's something that we've got to get in, had asked Kurt to do it then.  Unfortunately Kurt is involved in the board meeting at that point, so that will be hard.
 And then basically getting -- making sure that we've got planning for the next three months.  Among the things that Glen will be talking about is schedules of upcoming elections, et cetera.
 But that meeting is very much open, like it often is, because it's very much what happened this week that we need to deal with before we move on.
 So that's a fairly full agenda of agendas.  I don't know -- hi.  I don't know if any comments on that before we move on to the first issues in today's agenda.
 Any questions or issues on that?  Okay.  So I've got the one note about adding the report of the ICANN-related.
 Okay.  So this one is the GAC board and prep.  And basically in the next 15, 20 minutes, I've talked a little bit about what we've got on the agendas for the two of those but I wanted to sort of open the floor to a discussion of what is important.  I want to open the floor to a discussion of the sort of notion I said that I'm not going to do a formal slide presentation but just going to sort of try and open the floor to discussions.  What do people think?  Are there any issues with that?  And sort of -- I've been talking for a full half hour, so, you know, I would like to hear from other people what they'd like to see covered, what they'd like to see happen in the GAC and board.  Yes, Chuck.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: I had a hallway conversation with Suzanne Sene, who is the GAC liaison for us here yesterday afternoon, and they really are very interested in the WHOIS topic.  In my conversation, one of the things I discovered is they really didn't understand where we were at and what the next steps are, so I do believe it will be very helpful for us to -- just to, in a brief way, explain, you know, recent steps that have been accomplished, where we're at now, and we'll have more information on that after our session today.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  So are you volunteering to do this?
 >> CHUCK GOMES: I'd be happy to do that.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Okay.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Anyone else want to speak on either the board agenda items and things they want to make sure that we discuss with them and perspectives that people want to make sure get put across, or on the GAC meetings.  Yes.  Marilyn.
 >> MARILYN CADE: Avri, it's a general question, as a member of the PSC.  
 At some point, could you clarify would you see -- what you, as the council see, as the interaction to the PSC, given that the PSC is a President's Committee and really provides sort of strategic advice across the broad -- a broad set of issues?
 And I didn't -- I was just looking for clarification on how you saw -- all of you as the council saw interaction with the PSC, because scheduling might be useful.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  I'm not sure that I necessarily saw any direct interaction.  What's included -- and hopefully other people will comment.
 What's certainly included is there is the PSC report, there's open comments, the PSC report is one of the things that's going to be discussed in the AC/SO joint meetings, and hopefully people will get in there.  I hadn't actually tried to plan any specific GNSO PSC meetings, but if that's something that people are interested in, we should probably talk about it.
 But that hadn't been something I was thinking of.  It's that within this trans-silo work that's being done, the PSC report has taken on a very large perspective.
 Within GNSO Council meetings, we actually haven't talked about it -- I was going to say "very much," but actually have we talked about it at all?
 And so I would have to say that I haven't the faintest idea what the GNSO Council's perspective is on our interaction, if any, with the PSC.  Certainly the PSC has never come to the council; they've come to the whole community.  We have never taken up the PSC report as a council discussion item.  Doing it in these trans-silo meetings will really be the first time that we've taken it up in a joint participation.  Beyond that, I don't know.  
 And maybe other people who have read it, who have listened to or been to some of your regional meetings want to comment.  Anyone want to comment on PSC and GNSO council/GNSO interaction?
 >> MARILYN CADE: Let me make a statement.  Then people may want to comment on that.
 As a member of the PSC, I see this consultation as being a consultation with the community, not with organized groups of the community.  That's the present approach.  So I just put that out, and people are being encouraged to participate as individuals and in all of the outreach and file comments.
 So I just -- you know, I'm just looking for -- since it was on your agenda, I was just looking for clarification, since that was my present understanding of how the outreach was being organized.  And so that was why I was asking.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: And I think you said a key think there and I suspect that it ties together what Avri said and what you just said, and that is that rather than there being a GNSO or a GNSO Council position, which we're not prepared to do, obviously, as Avri has shared, I suspect there will be comments from individuals within the GNSO.
 >> AVRI DORIA: The only thing I would add to that is, should -- I mean, the GNSO can always -- GNSO Council can always decide that as a council it wants to make a particular comment.  So if, after all this discussion this week, there was something that rose to sufficient level of council needs to make a statement, that could happen but I don't see it happening.  But it certainly is always a possibility.
 Any other comments on our GAC interaction?  So there's the WHOIS.  Any -- any comments on the geographic names issue and the sort of difference between the positions and recommendations on the approaches we should be taking in terms of talking to the GAC and talking to the board?  Yes.  And please even though many of you are well-known -- sorry to interrupt you -- give your name when you begin speaking, for the transcribers and... 
 >> TONY HARRIS: I'm sorry.  I'm trying to get my head together after 34 hours and getting here at 1:00 a.m.
 This is it a new gTLD question about the geographic --
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yes.
 >> TONY HARRIS: Okay.  I read the RFP with a lot of attention and personal interest, of course, and I do think -- I do think I'm a little concerned about some of the additional documents.  Not specifically the RFP, but some of the -- specifically the one that has to do with geographic considerations, the new TLDs, and the letter from Paul Twomey to the GAC, and it's -- the sensation is it's sort of like, you know, the position has caved in and we're telling the GAC, "Well, you know, we'll do whatever you want us to do and tell us anything that looks like a geographic TLD.  We will certainly ask your opinion and be very careful," and it sounds so much like surrender to me and I don't know if all that territory has to be given up that easily because we're talking about generic TLDs, not ccTLDs, and just as an example of the way they've put in a clause about continental and U.N. defined continents and so forth, and I find that a little confusing because aside from the European Union, which is an economic union, really -- I mean, the countries are still countries.  They still have their own governments, their own identity and so forth.  That doesn't exist in -- for instance, in Latin America or in Africa, to my knowledge, and to that extent of development, and, I mean, in the case of a developing continent, who would be the body who would have a real valid basis to object or to confirm a TLD has to do with a continent?  I'm a little confused about that.  Perhaps there is an answer, but... anyhow.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you.  I think that hopefully you'll be able to bring that up when we're talking at the GAC and such.
 Any other comments on that?  Concerns that people want others to be sort of --
 Has everyone had a chance to read the additional white paper on the geographic names?  If not, I do recommend that you try to get that read before the GAC and board meetings tomorrow, because it is very contentful, and you will notice that it is at variance with -- to use -- it is at variance with what we recommended as a policy, and so it's definitely an appropriate and quite reasonable topic for us.  Yes, Mike.
 >> MIKE RODENBAUGH: Could we just -- I have read the document a couple of times, but I haven't really had time to interact with too many people about it yet.
 I'm wondering if we could just kind of leave some open time, for that discussion with the board in particular on the new TLD process.  There's a couple of issues, I think, that I would like to raise, but I'd like to think about it a little bit more first.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Well, it is -- it is definitely a topic that's on the dinner agenda.  It is the primary dinner agenda topic.
 >> MIKE RODENBAUGH: Well, not just geo names but generally there's issues in there.  For instance, the registry/registrar separation issue and pricing controls.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Oh, okay.  In terms of the other issues.  Yes.
 >> MIKE RODENBAUGH: Yes.  I just kind of want to have room to talk about other issues, if possible.  I don't know that we need to focus the entire time on geo TLDs.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Yes.  I had Marilyn.  Did I have anyone else?  Okay.  Marilyn.
 >> MARILYN CADE: I have a question about timing.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  I have a question about timing.  The RFP and associated reports are open for comment to the community of stakeholders, and I would expect a significant number of comments at least from the parties that I've been talking to, ranging to details I think similar to one that Mike suggested, but lots of comments on other details.
 Has the council discussed how, as a responsible body for laying out guiding -- the guiding framework?  Because what the council did -- and just for the record and for those who do not know this, I was a councillor and did participate in the early stages of developing parts of the policy.  But the policy guidance given, of course, has now been gone through, as it should, an implementation development process and now we are back to the community for feedback.  It's very possible that there will be significant feedback that will be of strong interest to the council.
 Has the council discussed how that interaction might work in terms of taking into account the comments of the community that come back?
 >> AVRI DORIA: No.  And that's why it's one of the main agenda items for Wednesday when the question is:  What should the GNSO Council be doing about this?
 Basically, the question is:  We're here this week getting our workshops that explain it all to us, talking among the community, with the community, as part of the community, about this, and Wednesday's agenda item is really the question that you're asking.  It's us talking with the community at that point on what should we be doing about it, and then from there, the council would then figure out what, if anything -- okay, you're going to tell me I'm wrong.
 >> MARILYN CADE: No.  I'm making a different point.
 Yes, I know you're meeting here, and I know you will hear from people who have the resources to travel here.  I was making a point more elongated.  
 That is, there's a 45-day public comment period, so my question was:  Yes, of course you'll be able to hear what people who come can say, but how will you be able to take into account the 45-day comment period?
 >> AVRI DORIA: I assume we would read the comments and that would be part of what we are doing.
 Yes, Chuck.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: And really, because we all just have seen this information and it was several pages, we -- we need to start thinking about how we're going to do what you're talking about, and that's really one of our unstated action items for this meeting.  We may not make a final decision.
 For example, as has already been pointed out, there are some places where the implementation plan goes contrary or goes further or doesn't cover at all the recommendations that we put forward to the board, and as everyone, I think, knows, those recommendations were a supermajority vote.  Approved by a supermajority vote.
 So one of the key questions we're going to have to ask ourselves is:  Okay, with regard to those, how do we proceed?  Do we develop, you know, a team or a working group or something in the next 30 days or so that will decide what the council position is, including getting comment from constituencies, et cetera, and decide what to do, because as I think everyone knows, the bylaws requires that for the board to go counter to a recommended consensus policy requires a two-thirds majority vote of the board.  So there's some issues there that we have to get our hands around and decide how we're going to proceed going forward.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yes.
 >> TIM RUIZ: Forgive me for not knowing.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Please be sure to give names.
 >> TIM RUIZ: Oh, Tim Ruiz.  Registrars constituency.  Forgive me for not knowing offhand what the next step would be in the bylaws if the board did vote two-thirds in favor of rejecting the recommendation.
 Doesn't that then come back to the council?  It doesn't -- they can't just approve something completely different, correct?
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yes.  They -- yes, they cannot approve something completely different.  They need to reject, they need -- I mean, I think there's various ways that they could do this.  They could certainly send an issues report to us anytime on any of the topics, and sort of say, "You know, there is this issue.  Please consider it."  They haven't done that.  But that's certainly something that in the bylaws the board -- anytime it wants to -- can initiate an issues report --
 >> PHONE PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much.
 >> TELEPHONE OPERATOR: Tricia Drakes joined.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you.  We're just about to get to the item.  Thanks for being on the line, Tricia.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Okay.  Thank you.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  So -- and with the board issues report, if they ask for an issues report, we don't actually vote on whether we're doing a PDP on it.  It's an automatic thing.  So they can certainly force us to do work, but they can't remake the decision.  As far as I understand the bylaws, without forcing a bylaw crisis, as it were.
 Any other comments before I move on to the next agenda, which -- now that we have Tricia on the phone, which is a discussion on the ALAC review?  I'm sure we'll be coming back to these topics a lot.  I will not do slides -- I guess you'll do some slides for the GAC in terms of WHOIS, or maybe you will or maybe you won't, but I won't be doing any slides.  I'll sort of, you know, just talk, and talk as little as I'm able to force myself into talking as little as possible, and try and make that hour with the GAC something that's actually conversational and sharing of points of view as opposed to a fixed presentation, "We have done this based on your that."  Sometimes that's appropriate.  I don't think this time it is.
 Okay.  So that's a little bit on that.  The next item on the agenda -- and by the way, there's coffee in the back, so if people need coffee, they should get coffee.  I'd remind people to introduce themselves when they speak, to make sure that those doing the transcription are able -- I'd like to invite anyone that's involved with the board working group on ALAC review to come up here.  There's a couple seats up here.  Thanks.
 So -- and we have Tricia Drakes on the phone?  She's the chair of this -- this working group, correct?
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: That's correct.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thanks.  So how do you guys want to proceed with this?
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: What I'd like to do, with the forbearance of the chair, is sneak one minute at the beginning, just to very quickly introduce the gentlemen who were doing the RSSAC review.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you.  Yes.  In fact, I apologize because I was going to -- I was told that you would like to do that.  I said sure and then I forced you to have to come in and sneak it, so it's my apologies for not having said so first.
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: That's fine, Avri.  Colin Jackson and Andy Linton, who are doing the RSSAC review.  They will be seeking to talk to people about that over the course of this meeting, and will be seeking comments in various ways.  Obviously there will be particular members of the GNSO community who will have a particular interest in RSSAC activities and these two guys would very much welcome your comments in that regard.
 Colin, would you like just to speak very briefly to that.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yes.  Give your name, please.
 >> COLIN JACKSON: Yes.  Thank you very much.  I'm Colin Jackson.  Next to me is Andy Linton.  We've both had a track record of involvement with ICANN in one form or another, and I suspect we're known to many of you around the table.
 We're here to do the independent review of the Root Server System Advisory Committee, the RSSAC.  Our purpose here in this venue in Cairo is to get input from the people here.  We want you to come and tell us what you think about the RSSAC.  We have a set of terms of reference which are -- which are pretty much the same as the terms of reference for all these reviews.  They say, "Does the RSSAC have a purpose?  Is it fulfilling it well?"  It had a lot of other subsidiary questions.  That's all up on the ICANN Web site.  But for now, what we would like from you is to stop us in the corridor and tell us what you think.  So that's what we're both here for.  And thank you very much.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.
 Okay.  Now, to the ALAC review.  How do we proceed with that one?
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: I think Tricia will make some opening remarks and then we're really here to listen to views of members of the GNSO community.  So after Tricia remarks, Avri, we'll just let the conversation run.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Okay.  Tricia, the microphone is yours.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Thank you very much.  And just to check, vis-a-vis the colleagues that are there, from the working group, Jean-Jacques is there, Vittorio.  Are Thomas and Nii also present?
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: No.  We have Vittorio and Jean-Jacques, Marco, and myself.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: And that's it.  Thank you.  Okay.  
 Because again, just knowing if there were any points to pass on to them.
 But basically, just in terms of introduction, as you know, the independent report was produced at the time of Paris, and we've been actively consulting the community between Paris and now, and the document which I hope everybody has seen, which was called the midpoint consult (inaudible) document, which means exactly that, is actually a basis for (a) letting you know what the working group's current thoughts are, as reflected by the input that was taken to date; and also, to really use that to help us (inaudible) our thinking for the final report which we want to have completed and posted and considered for the Mexico City meeting.  So these are not firm recommendations; they're just the current midpoint thoughts that we have, and we're really -- and I hope during this session, most of the time will be spent with you asking myself and colleagues the questions.
 There are -- and if you've brought the report with you, we did do a one-pager of some of our key thoughts, and for those that haven't read the whole report, it would be helpful if they would be able to just see that as well.  But really the floor is yours to ask myself and our colleagues questions, and to tell us what you think.
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: Tricia, for your information, the report is currently on the screen in front of the group, and can I ask whoever has the controls of that, perhaps, to go to the --
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Perfect.
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: -- I think it's the --
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Page 4.
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: -- next page, which has the key points.  There we go.  Thank you.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yeah.  I'm not sure --
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Patrick is my eyes at the meeting, so thank you -- and many other things as well at the meeting, but fantastic.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yeah.  No --
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Perhaps it might be helpful and perhaps there's quite a bit of echo on the line.  You might want to just run through that page for those that might not also have been through that.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Yeah.  I was going to suggest that because while I'm sure that most of the people on the council in the room did read it, this -- I have compared this particular week to being in grad school with having a thousand pages of reading to do before the class, and so I'm not sure that everyone has had sufficient chance to really focus in on everything, so if someone could talk through the key points, that would be helpful.
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: That's fine, Avri.
 So really just reading from the screen there, but, first of all, reiterating Tricia's point that these are, by no means, final recommendations; they're merely the points with which we would like to consult with the community.  So please don't consider these to be in any way final.
 The first is that the ALAC has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure.  This continuing purpose has three key elements:  Providing advice on policy; providing input into ICANN's operations and structure; and as part of ICANN's accountability mechanisms.  And the paper itself goes into each of those three points in more detail.
 The next point is with regard -- the next two points are with regard to organization.  At-large should, in principle, be given -- a tree.
 [Laughter]
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: Sorry.  They've taken the slides away from me.  There we go.
 At-large should, in principle, be given two voting seats on the ICANN board, and the ALAC-RALO-ALS structure should remain in place for now.  The "for now" at the end of that second sentence is a quite conscious and significant inclusion.  We're not suggesting that that will be the answer for all eternity, but at the moment we see it having a useful role.
 The voting seat question is obviously one where we expect to get a lot of community comment and we look forward to taking that from the people in the room in a moment.
 The next points are to do with effectiveness and participation.  
 Educating and engaging the ALSs should be an immediate priority.  
 Compliance should be a longer-term goal.  Which is not to suggest that there are no compliance issues, but rather, the best way of dealing with those is through education and engagement.
 ALAC should develop strategic and operational plans, including performance criteria and cost information, as part of ICANN's planning process.  Which is not dissimilar to what we would hope eventually to have with all the SOs and ACs.
 More effort needs to be putting into developing accurate cost models for the at-large activity.
 ALAC should be encouraged to make its own choices of tools for collaborative work.
 The public comment period -- and this is another one that obviously has a big implication for the GNSO.  The public comment period should be kept 30 days, except in special circumstances, in which case ALAC may request an extension to 45 days.  The key to making that work is actually beginning the involvement of ALAC much earlier in the process, so that they're not reliant on the one 30-day window to engage with the issue and make a comment.  And that's the only way that that will be workable.
 Point 9, ICANN should strengthen its translation processes.  That's particularly important for ALAC.
 The last three points are to do with the relationship with other ICANN entities.
 Point 10, the ALAC is the appropriate organizational channel for the voice and concerns of individual Internet users in the ICANN processes.  Since ALAC is the appropriate channel for the voice and concerns of the individual Internet user, it is inappropriate for other ICANN entities to attempt to claim to represent that individual user voice.
 Processes for providing advice on policy should be strengthened, both within ALAC for the development of policy advice, and within SOs for requesting input from ALAC on policy issues.
 That's a very brief summary designed to focus people's minds, I suppose.  There's a lot more detail in all of those points in the -- in the paper itself, but I think Tricia, unless you have a few words, we'll take comments from the floor.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Yeah.  No, please do.  And also, if Jean-Jacques or Vittorio wants to comment, because I can't see people there, please encourage them to jump in as well.
 >> AVRI DORIA: They shook their heads no.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Okay.  Thank you Avri.  I hope there will be some positive nods during the next -- during this agenda item.
 [Laughter]
 >> AVRI DORIA: Go ahead, yes.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Thank you.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  I have Tim and Chuck and Philip and Tony and Alan and -- okay.  Tim.
 >> TIM RUIZ: Tim Ruiz, registrars constituency.  Just a question.  One of the recommendations was for the ALAC to be allowed to put two people on the board, voting board members, so is that -- is the idea, then, that that would replace the liaison appointee that they have on the board or is that in addition to?
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: No.  That is definitely to -- if we were to go forward with that recommendation, because it says "in principle," then in the detail of the report I think we say the liaison position would then drop away.
 >> PATRICK SHARRY: And if I could just add that one of the things where we need to engage the community is exactly on the mechanism by which those changes could take place, because there's a phasing there that we need to think through fairly carefully.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Chuck?
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Yeah.  So follow up on that same item, I understand, Patrick, what you just said, that it -- the mechanism for doing that has not been decided, but has the team come up with some possible mechanisms for doing that?  If so, if you could talk just a little bit about that.
 Plus are there any contingencies in terms of implementing that, that you're thinking about?  For example, you know, the RALO structure is in place right now.  How will -- you know, I mean if that's not successful, do those board seats still exist there and then who are they really representing and what's the thinking along that line?
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  I think -- and, again, this may be where colleagues might want to come in.  In terms of the details, that's one of the specific areas where we can get further input during the public comment period and during Cairo.
 The group is a very -- the working group is a very broad group, so if Karl Auerbach had been with us who was one of the original directors, he has some very good views and some others have different [inaudible].
 So, yes, we've discussed it but I think we want to get input, and that's one of the specific areas that we'd like input.
 I think the other thing on the RALO structure -- and, again, already in the key points we say the ALAC, RALO, and ALS structure should remain in place for now.  I think there is perhaps a feeling -- and this has come out in some of the comments to date as well -- that perhaps the RALO -- middle layer that the RALO currently provides might not be required as things move forward and the ALS structures perhaps became stronger.  
 I think the other thing to say in our thinking -- and we had quite a lot of discussion on this -- is that voting [inaudible] responsibility [inaudible] need to develop as well.
 And so I'm not sure -- and again I'm not sure with formulation in our own thinking . [inaudible] I'm not sure that we would be happy to just [inaudible] yes there are two votes without actually seeing a role -- a greater and clear role that the at-large would be playing as it moves forward and we've had some thoughts on that.
 But one would hope that the enthusiasm [inaudible] participation and the responsibility angles would also accomplish to do that.  I don't know Jean-Jacques or Vittorio would want to talk to that and [inaudible].
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, thank you.  Vittorio, you had a comment you wanted to make on this issue?
 >>VITTORIO BERTOLA:  Yes, I wanted maybe to give a bit of insight on this.  Sure, the idea is that the seats would replace the existing liaison.  Some discussion was whether they should replace certain noncom seats or whether are they positioned in a way to noncom seats.  Because from one point of view, you might think that the at-large would bring the voice of the general public; so a similar kind of voice than noncom appointed seats.
 From another point of view, the at-large seats would be appointed by constituencies so, I guess, they would tend to bring, say, insiders to this community, people that have been participating in ICANN for several years.  
 While the noncom process is mostly focused on the outside so people are often new to the ICANN communities.
 So there is -- I mean, you could see arguments in favor of both replacing noncom seats or adding more noncom seats to balance the new at-large seats.  This is an open discussion, and we welcome comments on that.  
 In the end, I don't think it will be this working group anyway who will decide that.  It will be more in the context of the board review.
 The other pointed I wanted to make is what is written there is that the at-large will get board seats.  We should not be confused with the ALAC getting the board seats.  In the end, the mechanism might rely on the ALAC.  But the point is that these seats should represent a much broader community.  Even if you compare it to the massive Internet users, of course the at-large is still small.  But if you compare it to other constituencies, it is one of the biggest and more diverse constituencies and we would like to get a flavor of all that.  So find a way to involve in the process of selecting these board members, the entire community all around the world and not just the committee of 15 people.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.
 >>PATRICK SHARRY:  If I can just add a little bit on the end of Vittorio's comment there.  While this is very preliminary thinking to comment to what I think was part of Chuck's question, the mechanism that we would see would likely be some sort of voting more at the ALS level rather than at the RALO or ALAC level.
 However, there is a lot of work still to be done to sort out of the detail of that mechanism.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Next I had Philip.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  Avri, thank you very much.  I think it is worth pointing out that the -- any of these reviews ICANN does is somewhat constrained by the initial terms of reference.  And I would expect that constraint to particularly impact the original consultant.
 But I'd hope that when -- when we get to the review by the BGC, that constraint to some extent is removed and the current situation becomes that in which any recommendations are viewed.
 And it is precisely in that context I want to make a comment.  For me the -- that list -- that short list of recommendations, nearly every one of those is tinkering a little bit within the existing structure.  But there is one of overwhelming significance, and that's the very last one.  That is expanded on page 15 of the midpoint consultation report.  It is Recommendation 17, and it is all about policy development.  And there was a very significant recommendation in the last paragraph of that.  I will just read it.  It is one sentence.  "The working group recommends policy development processes of the GNSO, the ccNSO, and the ASO be changed so that at-large input is required as part of the process."
 Now, personally that's something I completely agree with.  My concern is that this is however rather ignoring a dramatic reform happening within our own house, within the GNSO, in that one of the fundamental points of GNSO-wide community agreement was to extend a hand of openness toward at-large to say, We want you inside the GNSO.  We want your input.  We want that perspective, and we want to expand it.  
 And this is now changed in the concept of the user's house with a new concept of a noncommercial stakeholders group that the BGC themselves have said they expect to see to be dramatically different to that which we know of as a noncommercial users constituency because it will be integrating elements of at-large into that.
 And for me this is where I see a significant disconnect between this report and the BGC perspective on it.  On the one hand, it is still looking at it as if nothing else is changing.  And, yet, we are talking about a fundamental way in which we want to accommodate this recommendation to the BGC in what we are doing in the GNSO.
 And I would like to see a follow-up version of the BGC ALAC review working group to be taking your Recommendation 17 and putting it right on page 1 and talking about how it's going to work, how that's going to be integrated into the GNSO so that we can, indeed, take upon that policy perspective, which after all is what ICANN's all about.  Representation is all a part of getting a perspective across.
 This to my mind is the only thing that really matters.  It is so significant.  And I find it a bit bizarre that it is sort of a little bit buried in the report.  Members of the BGC, your perspective on that, please.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  You mean the working group?
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  Yes, the BGC working group, sorry.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  We probably should have put a notice to say that the order of the key points did not reflect the order of importance because there are some pretty key points low down than the ones up top.
 Secondly, I am encouraged by your comments which is good.  And I think this is something -- I don't know if Denise, who, I'm sure is sitting there might want to comment further on because there are -- there are a number of strands which come into -- Denise and also other working group members there as well.
 There are a number of strands that make this quite an important piece of work to do on the road between Cairo and Mexico City.  I'm sure it won't get completed, but I think it is an important point.  I don't know whether Denise or other colleagues would like to add to that.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Anyone else wish to comment before I go on with my -- I mean, from the working group?
 >>PATRICK SHARRY:  If I can make a comment, Avri.  I would like to reinforce what Tricia said, Philip, those comments are enormously encouraging.  And I think that's exactly the sort of dialogue we would like to continue about how to make this work.  The positioning in the paper is actually due to the practicality of the order of the recommendations of the initial Westlake report.  
 Just to reinforce what Tricia said that that shouldn't be construed to be an order of importance.  It is just the practicality of the numbering of the original report.
 I would be interested to get from you some views on how we might most appropriately and effectively continue that conversation.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  I mean, our reasonable perspective when we had the discussion internally was that our view of the new users group was that it would somehow -- the noncommercial part of that would somehow integrate completely the GNSO policy relevant parts of ALAC's input.  And that would be the vehicle combined with votes within the GNSO as to how that policy input came into being.
 And that was why we as commercial users were supportive of that change in the GNSO.  It was a -- it was not just a nice idea.  It was conditional upon support.  It was absolutely fundamental.
 So, you know, what's in this report is pushing in that direction but we still have a disconnect in terms of that happening.  And, you know, we see it as being a fundamental part of integration without taking away any external ALAC input to -- external to GNSO, ALAC input.  And that's frankly done in other ways.
 This should be the mechanism for that.  That was our understanding and our hope.
 >>PATRICK SHARRY:  Can I --
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  Philip, I don't know if whether any of your colleagues might like to add to those points.  But I will be actually in Cairo hopefully arriving later this evening.  So it may be that this is something that we can explore in further detail at some point during the week when we can because I think this is a really encouraging piece of feedback and also an area that we need to explore further.  It is better to do it now rather than waiting for the GNSO improvement report where there was a lot of further work that was needed to be done.  We didn't go into a lot of detail, include putting together the recommendations for BGC.
 So I'm sure myself and other working group colleagues, once I am in Cairo, will ask you whether it is [inaudible], wherever, sit down and explore with yourself and colleagues on that.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  Tricia, thanks for that.  There may be a more formal point where you will be more than welcome.  On Tuesday, which is the normal constituency day, we've created a special sort of user's house information session in that day in which precisely these points are going to be discussed.
 So certainly you and other members of the working group would be absolutely welcome to be a part of that session.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  Okay.  That's fantastic.  And if we do that, that also means -- because Avri did have a long speaker list, we can actually pick up on the other points now and not hog the floor with this one.
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  That's 13:30 on Tuesday.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  Thank you.
 >>DENISE MICHEL:  If I may, a brief comment.  This is Denise Michel.  Just to make sure everyone is aware, there is several inflexion points that affect this decision and related issues I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of.  We are, of course, soliciting additional community input on the role of users in the GNSO, both in direct contact with the council and constituencies as well as the public comment forum.
 The board is expected to take action, although it is not final, but the board is expected to take action on this as it relates to the noncommercial stakeholder group at its December board meeting.  
 In addition, of course, there are the issues raised by this at-large working group.  And the recommendations from this working group will go to the full Board Governance Committee for consideration and then ultimately to the board so that process is a bit longer.
 And then in addition to that, I would also commend you to read the board review, the independent evaluation from the board is going to be posted next week.  So that will also contain some outside observations and recommendations about the structure of the board that also connects to this.  And, of course, the board itself ultimately will be dealing with these meta-issues and the interconnections between these various review and improvement and implementation issues.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, thanks.  I have Tony Harris, Alan, Chuck, and then Tony Holmes.
 >>TONY HARRIS:  Actually, Philip made the question I had so I will defer.
 >>ALAN GREENBERG:   I had two questions, both of which have now been asked but I have follow-on comments I was going to make on them.  First was Tim's question on do the two voting board members replace the liaison, and I will point out that it is not obvious to me that should happen depending on the process that's decided to select the members.  If the board members are selected by something akin to the previous method of voted for by individuals or voted for by ALSs, then essentially that disenfranchises the ALAC with no more opportunity to speak at the board level because there could be a complete disconnect between whoever is selected by the lower organizations within at-large and the ALAC committee itself.  So the devil is in the details.  And we could end up with it in ALAC, which has less ability to do its job by getting voting board seats.  So there is some.  
 The other one is Philip's comment.  When I read the interim report, I read it as almost saying the working group disagrees with the current thrust and direction within the user stakeholder groups of the GNSO and does not believe there should be user voices at that level.  If that is the correct reading, then it is not -- then we have a situation where we have two directions that are going ahead in parallel which are at odds with each other and that could be rather significant.  If that, indeed, is what's going to happen, then we need to fix it quickly.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  Can I try and answer both of those because I hope the answer will be short.  In relation to the liaison points, again, the devil is in the details.  But our feeling in this initial thinking was in terms of the election of the two -- or how the two were elected, that would take into account the at-large input into of [inaudible] in terms of voting.  There was a lot of details that would have to be worked out.  And, again, taking input during Cairo in public comment will be fantastic.
 The second comment in terms of are we really saying we shouldn't have, I think our feeling in putting this together and, again, on the basis of input that we've received including [inaudible] from agriculture on the GNSO call is that the individual user needed -- or should have the opportunity to be represented.  Actually could be -- that form could take whatever is the appropriate place for it to be in.  And I think our feeling was that actually there is no one single place for herding together the individual users.  And that's a different interpretation than you were taking on that.
 So it is really the view that the individual user voice and participation can happen across many different places.  Hopefully that helps.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.  Chuck.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Thanks, Avri.  This is really a follow-on to Philip's comment, Alan's second and even Denise's comments with regard to timing.  The GNSO improvements process that is ongoing now, really just getting started in terms of implementation, we first had a planning committee and the planning committee looked at the involvement of users quite a lot and actually, Alan, I think it was you on behalf of the ALAC that suggested that there was a big concern that individual users be included in the noncommercial users stakeholder group that's part of the new GNSO structure that will be implemented.
 In fact, the planning committee for the GNSO bought into that idea and suggested that the board recommendations for GNSO improvements include users in that, not just registrants.  And my main point is this and it comes back to Denise's comments with regards to timing.  Obviously as we will be working intensely over the next few months to implement the GNSO restructure, it is very important especially for the noncommercial user stakeholder group to know whether users are going to be included in that or not.
 So timing is really critical here.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  And, Denise -- and again I haven't got eyes around the table.  I'm sure Denise and colleagues nod that, in fact, we've --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yes, she nodded.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  That we have been making the same comments, recognizing that this -- and having myself put input, there is a lot of effort in the original GNSO [inaudible].  There is a lot of things happening not quite in parallel here where there is some to catch up to gather good output and good conclusion in a short period of time.
 [inaudible] ALAC review didn't complete until July.  So there is a lot of catch-up to get there.  But we'll all of the right mind, and really even from the beginning of starting our work we have been making the same observations, Chuck.
 Can I also say that the working group itself has been putting sort of time and energy -- and, Patrick -- [inaudible] and colleagues there, but we are willing to do whatever it takes in order to have the right conclusion and to [inaudible] with timing.  But we have to do catch-up, but we also have to [inaudible] in terms of outreach of at-large in this [inaudible] context.  It is also going to be an important piece of work as well.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, thank you.
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  I think from Denise's and Marco as well, there is a desire for everyone to try to put together and for me that's very, very -- and I hope you, too, it very, very encouraging.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay, thanks.  There were a couple nods there.  I have Tony Holmes next.  Did you want to add a comment?  Okay, Tony Holmes.
 >>TONY HOLMES:  Okay, Tony Holmes, the ISPs.  My original intervention was going to be to mention the meeting on Tuesday and to request that we do get some engagement there.  I would just like to take this opportunity to endorse some of the points that have been made.  I think the agreement that came out of the group that looked at GNSO reform, all agreed a fundamental building block for the whole process was engagement of the individuals.  And it is something that everyone bought into.  
 And I'm just a little bit concerned that Denise referred to the board looking at some decisions in December with this.
 But we actually have to get engagement from this group now.  And there's a lot of work going on between now and the next ICANN meeting.  It the shape the whole process, the working process for the reform GNSO.  And we have to have that engagement from the start.  So how or another, I just want to make the point that we actually need that participation as from today really.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Did you want to comment?
 >>TRICIA DRAKES:  Thanks, Tony, and also on that point, we totally agree.  And certainly during the Cairo visit, I hope staff will be able to discuss how we might fit in to help enable the [inaudible] process [inaudible] objective to be achieved.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Okay.
 >>PATRICK SHARRY:  Avri, since we have a little bit of time, if I could return and ask a question initially of Philip, although others, Tony, for example, may wish to reply.  I would be interested to hear, given as several people have said this morning the devil will be in the detail, exactly how that process of involving ALAC in that noncommercial user stakeholder house might play out in the practicality of developing --
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Just a second.  Let me correct you.  The GNSO planning committee did not recommend involving ALAC.  It is a very important distinction.  We recommended that individual users be included in that.
 >>PATRICK SHARRY:  In that case, let me rephrase it in those terms.  But the point is -- the point of the question is still the same.  How in a little more detail might that process work?
 >>PHILIP SHEPPARD:  To some extent you are asking the one person because I'm with the commercial users group.  And our hope is that discussions between noncommercial users constituency and ALAC and other parts of the at-large organization will be taking place precisely to thresh that out.  And we have been conscious of not wanting to interfere in that process but to thoroughly encourage it.
 As I say, for us, it was not merely a nicety, it was a fundamental building block of the entire GNSO reform.  And if it fails, then GNSO reform will fail and we will be vociferous in wanting to bring about additional change.
 It is that important that it works.  And we know some discussions started taking place, and the part of the reason for this users house information meeting this week really is for us as the two users group, the commercials and the noncommercials, to understand from each other what progress has been made in both of our parts of the same users house.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  I've got Alan but before that, I wanted -- and then I'll add Tony.  I also wanted to ask if there was someone from nuclear that wanted to comment.  I know Robin's not here, but if one of the other two members wanted to comment on the question also.
 But Alan?  I'll just give you a chance but -- yeah.
 >> ALAN GREENBERG: Okay.  I think the answer is:  We don't know how it's going to work either.  There are a couple of examples which come out easily which we can foresee.
 For instance, I would be surprised if we don't see the formation of a consumer protection or consumer advocate constituency -- you know, in the U.S, Consumer Reports, but there are groups around the world like that -- and have a constituency which speaks out on their behalf.
 They're not speaking for users; they're speaking on behalf of users.
 There are other groups like that, I think, which will coalesce, given the right set of circumstances.  So I don't see a user constituency, as such.  That's my opinion.  Other people may disagree.  But I see people speaking on behalf of users.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Tony Holmes.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Thanks, Alan.  And I think just picking up on Chuck's definition point, the words we're using in terms of ALAC is in terms of them being -- or ALAC being the current organization or framework and umbrella for the individual user.  So I think we're probably speaking about the same thing.  It's just in terms of wording, and again, that's what we need to flesh out there.
 I think the other thing is that in terms of the individual user -- and Patrick and colleagues, please jump in -- we had long discussions as to whether there should be an individual user constituency or if it was an SO or how -- the organizational framework.  And in fact, we felt that it was important that the individual user or the end user --
 [Audio interference]
 -- was there, however it was appropriate to be and then picking up on, if I understood Alan correctly, how that then fits in to whether it's a (inaudible) protection or whether it's -- whatever voice it needs to be.  It's leaving the route to the journey open on that.  And I would emphasize that this is all obviously on the basis of our initial thinking, very early stage, getting your input, so there's nothing in stone, and so this is a very healthy debate and discussion.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Tony.
 >> TONY HOLMES: Just a quick point.  Chuck is quite right.  It wasn't referred to the ALAC, as such, for the engagement in the noncommercial stakeholder group but I think both Philip and I are coming at this from the same perspective, and that is, it was recognized during those discussions that to have a healthy and successful ICANN, you have to engage with a broad set of stakeholders, and as part of that, the individual user representation is incredibly important and it needs to be basically expanded with the right makeup in the reformed GNSO.  And an important element of that is exactly that community, whatever you want to call it.  We need engagement from that community, and that's the real point.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Did -- Norbert, did you want to comment on NCUC's...
 >> NORBERT KLEIN: Well, I would like to comment only very briefly.  We have been in the noncommercial group always looking forward to the Board Governance Committee's discussion on that, and I hope we will have an opportunity during these days here in Cairo to discuss this more.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  Alan, you had your hand up before.
 >> ALAN GREENBERG: Just some small qualifications.
 When the recommendation came out of the GNSO working group on structure, we talked about at large involvement, very carefully saying lowercase at-large, not necessarily the At-Large as confined by ICANN in the current hierarchical structure.  That may end up being involved in some way, but it's not necessarily the same group.
 The other comment I'll make is just to muddy the water more.  The recommendation here in the report says the next review in three years, we should look at the ALS RALO structure.  We may well find in the interim, as we start talking about that, that that gets reformed into something which is different from what it is now.  So whatever rule we make right now, we don't want to make so careful -- in so much detail that we can't end up making realistic discussions -- or decisions three years from now, in looking at the overall capitalized At-Large structure, so...
 >> VITTORIO BERTOLA: I just wanted to make a point and not as a member of the working group but as an individual user, someone who has been participating in ICANN for years in other capacities.
 And I must say I'm a bit confused.  I mean, if you come to me and say you have to participate in two different places, it's already so hard to participate in one of them, since the ALAC has this big structure which I contributed to in the (inaudible).  Still, it's already quite complicated.  So I mean, I'm all in favor of involving individual users in working groups of the GNSO, so when you actually discuss policy issues, because that's of value.  I'm a bit skeptical on involving them at the structural level and having them -- I mean, how does a user pick whether he should participate here or there?  Whatever solution we find, it should be clear.  Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to me.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Philip?
 >> PHILIP SHEPPARD: Thanks.  I just have a comment about Key Point for Discussion No. 11, which is the -- the phrasing is currently "it is inappropriate for other ICANN entities to attempt to claim to represent the individual user voice."
 I just want clarification that there is understanding within the BGC that that is -- is different to those entities who essentially are individual companies or are companies formed by individuals who are essentially consultants.  I presume you're not looking to the BC to be issuing half a dozen letters to our existing members to say, "Thanks very much, chaps.  Goodbye now.  You got to go and join ALAC."
 [Laughter]
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Do you think even if -- if letters were issued, if anybody wanted to do anything, the one thing that I've found -- this is a personal comment, not as chair of the -- any of the working groups or anything -- is that actually at the end of the day, it's you around the table, the constituencies, who are kings, so we have to provide the framework but I can't imagine any of the members on your list if you told them to go and do something that they would just go off and do it.  So no, it's not the intention, Philip.
 We are thinking, I think, along similar lines, so just be reassured on that.
 [Laughter]
 >> PHILIP SHEPPARD: Herding cats comes to mind.
 [Laughter]
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you.  Jean-Jacques.
 >> JEAN-JACQUES SUBRENAT: Thank you, chair.  This is Jean-Jacques Subrenat.  I'd like to make three points.  The first is that the meeting that we're having together this morning is I think very important in that it illustrates that a certain number of items, part of the work, remains to be done, which is very important.
 But at the same time, I have the feeling that we have already engaged now in a real discussion of the appropriate points.
 My second point is the content.  This was pointed out by several people who intervened this morning.  I would like to underline what has already been said by Tricia and others.  It is that it was not the task of our working group to preempt, in a way, the decisions which had to be taken on a more collective basis.  The mandate of the working group was to evaluate the work of the independent reviewer or consultant, and of course then there was a choice.  Either we just forward it and say, "Yeah, it's more or less good" or, "It's very good" or, "It has to be rewritten entirely."  But we, I think, as a group, as a working group, were of the view that we actually had a responsibility of bringing added value, and that's what we tried to do by commenting on the propositions or the recommendations of the independent reviewer.
 The third thing I'd like to come to is engagement, which is a very important term used by Tony Holmes.  I agree with that, and this brings about the point of timing, which was explicited by Denise.
 I think that this meeting this morning is one important step, but we can't stop with that.  I think that if we don't have the physical possibility of meetings such as this to carry the thing forward, we can rely on our chairs and on the contact people to get more of your input, because this is what it actually is about.
 We on the working group would very much like to have much more input from you on the mechanisms which you have just evoked so far this morning.  What is the doable thing?  What is the thing which is not an option?
 I think that the mechanisms are very important, and you have to advise us on that.
 And as regards timing, my last point is to reinforce what Denise pointed out, that, indeed, as I am both a member of the board and of the ALAC review working group, I can say that we are very much committed to this, and I think that the time line which was given to you by Denise is, in fact, reasonable and workable.  Thanks.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Thank you, Jean-Jacques.  And have you -- have you -- sorry.  There's a timing difference.  Have you finished, Jean-Jacques?
 >> JEAN-JACQUES SUBRENAT: Yes.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Okay.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Yeah.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: I thank Jean-Jacques for that, but also to say that we, as the working group, you know, will put in whatever effort and energy is needed so that things can fit in with the time line that needs to make these things happen.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you.  Do we want to -- it's almost time.  We got three minutes left.  I don't know if someone from the working group wanted to sort of make a final comment or whether that was the final comment.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Well, I think Jean-Jacques, as he often does in our work, really summed things up wonderfully, so nothing -- nothing further from me, apart from saying I found this session very, very encouraging and I hope over the next few days we'll have the opportunity, based on the meetings and in the corridors and whatever is needed, to try and flesh out some of this.
 And also, to really say that Patrick and Denise's staff and mark on would as well, and we're all committed and united to work together to make this happen, so again, we'll be speaking.  It's just we do need this detail that has started to come out from this session, and so, no, I think that's all from me, really, unless anybody else has anything.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thank you very much.  Thank you for participating on the phone.  Thank you, technical folks, for the phone working so well.
 And that's the -- that's it for this agenda item.
 >> TRICIA DRAKES: Thank you.  And I look forward to seeing you all.
 >> AVRI DORIA: So okay.  So the next item is the beginning of the WHOIS discussion, and I'll turn the chair over to Chuck.  You've got two minutes to grab yourself a cup of coffee and get back to your seats, if you want to, and -- if we start that item on time.
 Thank you to the members of the working group that came and attended this meeting.
 [Break]
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Okay.  We are going to start now, so if we could have people rejoin and stop the conversations in the meeting room here.
 All right.  This session has to do with the WHOIS hypotheses that were developed.  What I'm going to do, to start with, is to just briefly talk about how we got where we are and where we're going.
 This is essentially what I'm going to share with the GAC tomorrow when we meet with them on this particular topic.
 As everyone, I think, recalls we had a WHOIS working group that reviewed proposals for studies on WHOIS.  Of course all this stuff goes back to the beginning of the year.  They came back with some recommendations.
 In Paris, we essentially decided that, you know, in some cases it was really clear what the hypotheses were by the proposed studies; in other cases -- especially in those where they didn't follow the guidelines that we had given -- it wasn't really clear what the hypotheses were.  So we formed a WHOIS hypothesis working group that I chaired, and that group then tried to -- the sole task was really to, for each of the proposed studies, come up with concise and clear hypotheses, and we tried to go back to the proposers of the hypotheses, where possible, to make sure that what we did was consistent with what they intended.
 So the WHOIS hypothesis group then finished the work and came up with a list of hypotheses, and you can see that as the first link under this agenda item on the screen right now.
 Now, where we're headed is the next step for the council is to decide what studies, if any, we would like staff to go back and prepare cost estimates on.  Once we then get that information back from staff, we would then make a decision on what recommendations the council would like to present with regard to what studies should be performed, so we wouldn't do that until we had some cost information.
 And keep in mind that doing cost estimates by staff is likely going to involve more than just preparing cost estimates.  To really prepare cost estimates, they're going to have to look at feasibility and a little bit on methodology and so forth to do that reasonably.  So whenever I'm saying "cost estimates," keep that in mind.  It's a little bit more than just costing, because the studies aren't designed enough to go just directly to costing.
 That said, our goal in this session, which will continue after our working lunch, is to get a feel for where the various constituencies and other council members are with regard to WHOIS studies.  The ALAC has submitted a statement on WHOIS studies, and just this past Wednesday I submitted one on behalf of the registry constituency and I will go over that this morning, but I wanted to open the opportunity for anyone from any constituency to share what your thinking is with regard to WHOIS studies.  So this is not just a registry constituency presentation or registry and ALAC, but anyone else, even if you haven't formally submitted something, that would like to share.
 So the first thing I'd like to do is to identify if any other constituencies have some suggestions to share with regard to the WHOIS hypotheses and how we should proceed for deciding what studies to ask staff to cost out.
 Anyone?
 And while you're thinking about that, Alan, do you want to talk about the statement submitted by the ALAC?  No.  Okay.
 So is there anyone else besides myself, representing the registries, that wants to present anything?
 Okay.  And you're welcome to later.  You may want to -- I'm sure you'll want to say some things after you see what the registry constituency has put forward.
 Now, I apologize, like I did in the e-mail, for the lateness of the registry submission on this, but frankly it was just a whole lot of work and we wanted to make sure that we -- that -- I wanted to make sure that the full constituency was behind putting these recommendations forward.
 So with that said, let me ask Avri to put the -- a little -- some slides.
 Now, the document itself is a 25-page document that we put forward.  As I said in my e-mail, there's several reasons for that.  Number one, it contains all of the printed-out hypotheses, so you can actually look at it without switching around to other documents to see what we're talking about.
 So when we say "hypothesis 1," you know exactly what it is.
 Secondly, it also includes two appendices.  The first one is just a -- a methodology description of how we went about coming up with these recommendations.  And then a bigger attachment, then, is it actually shows the data that we got from the registry constituency.
 So with that said, let me go ahead and share with you.  And please feel free to stop me as we go through this.  The idea of these slides is to give you a quick overview of what's in the 25-page document.  
 Okay, Avri.
 Sorry, we weren't able to get the presentation up from my PC, so Avri is kindly controlling the screen for me.
 All right.  What methodology did we use?
 First of all, we tried to categorize all of the hypotheses into three categories.  The first category is one where the -- a study -- a proposed study could be done by just gathering facts that are already available, with little need for analysis, and without the use of a professional organization.
 Some examples there might be just direct surveys of registrars, review of existing studies or other documents, consulting with experts, data-gathering exercises.  You'll see, as we go on, that we identified several proposed studies that we thought fit that category.
 The second category would be very similar to that.  In other words, the hypothesis could be tested by gathering available data and then analyzing the data.  So there would be some analysis -- instead of just gathering data and obtaining facts that are already available, some analysis is probably needed, and it may be that that analysis could be done by a professional, and so maybe a cost estimate would be needed for that kind of an effort.
 And then third would be the studies that we believe require significant empirical work, and likely would be performed by a professional organization that specializes in that.
 So one of the things we did, then, was to categorize all of the proposed studies and their associated hypotheses into the three categories.
 Okay.  We also -- sorry about the -- tried to identify studies that were similar enough that we thought they could be combined into one study, and you'll see -- I'll show you what ones we think could be combined together and be more efficient that way.
 We also applied the criteria that you see in (a) and (b) there to eliminate studies, if possible.
 We felt like, you know, studies that really don't add value to possible future WHOIS policy work shouldn't be done.  If they don't help in substantiating or refuting a particular hypothesis, it's not going to be very valuable to us going forward.
 Also, there shouldn't be studies -- there -- you know, we shouldn't pursue further studies if there's reasonable consensus within the GNSO that we -- we're all in agreement on the hypotheses already.
 Okay.
 >> AVRI DORIA: You want to take questions?
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Is there a question?
 >> AVRI DORIA: I have a question.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Yes, please.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Maybe it's just I'm having trouble parsing (a).
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Okay.
 >> AVRI DORIA: "Should not be pursued if there's reasonable consensus that evidence is sufficient."  Is it evidence that we already have --
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Yes.
 >> AVRI DORIA: -- or evidence that the study would bring up?
 >> CHUCK GOMES: No.  In other words --
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  So evidence in hand.  Okay.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: In other words, there's reasonable agreement among us already, that, hey, we'll all concede that's true --  
 >> AVRI DORIA: I see.  
 >> CHUCK GOMES: -- so let's not spend money going out and testing it if we're already in agreement that it's a fact.  Okay?
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Go ahead and -- okay.  Now, I -- again, the key thing here -- and I kind of already talked about this -- is that we really want -- the registry constituency really believes that, you know, we want to pursue studies further, if there is really the possibility of added value, whether that value is providing future direction or whatever it is.
 So you'll see that we did some ranking in -- with regard to value, when we go through the hypotheses.  All right?
 So that ranking, what we did is we ranked proposed studies from 0 to 5, with 5 representing what we believed was the highest perceived value to future policy development work, and then a study assigned a value of 0 would not be pursued further.
 We also tried -- and we didn't spend too much time on this and I suspect staff will have to spend more time on cases where we asked for cost estimates, but to determine whether we thought that a study was doable or not, and whether you can really get the data you need in an accurate and reliable way to be able to perform study.  Okay?
 Now, what we did then, first of all, in our recommendations and you can find the detail in the full report that you have access to online as well as the document that I sent around, first of all, we suggested three combination studies.  We thought that you see there what we call study A, that you could combine area 1 studies, 1, 14, 21 and GAC data set 2.  And on the full recommendations, that's Section 1.1 on page 2 of the recommendations we sent forward.
 We also thought that study B -- and, again, it is easy to see what these studies are if you look at the full document -- that studies 13, 17, GAC 1 and GAC 11 could be combined into one study.  We thought they were similar enough.
 And then study C, we recommend combining GAC studies 5 and 6 from area 7.  And I think as I recall, that the WHOIS hypothesis group also noted that those two were really similar enough that they could be combined.
 Okay.  Going on from there, we recommend that before actually estimating costs for any studies that staff attempt to determine the feasibility of each proposed study.  So if we do select some as a council to be pursued further, that feasibility really needs to be checked first.  There is no use spending money estimating costs if it's pretty clear that it may not even be feasible.
 Yes, Mike?
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Chuck, I don't know by implication, does the RyC take the position that the three studies, A, B and C, are feasible?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Not necessarily.  You'll see when we look at the different studies that we make comment on that.  And we are really not dogmatic.  It may be that the council decides something feasible and we wonder whether it is or not.  We are not hard-nosed on that.  We think this is a starting point where we can look at that.
 Number 2 there, we identified 11 sets of hypotheses that would appear to require an empirical study performed by a professional organization.  Five of those were -- we assigned a top priority a five, three a medium priority and three a low priority.  And you'll see the specific things on that when we look at that.
 We also identified four hypotheses that we -- that is believed that a full-blown formal studies are not needed but they could be done by gathering facts that are already available and then analyzing the facts.  So these -- this grouping, in our opinion, would be -- you know, may require a cost estimate because of the analysis that would need to be done and the fact gathering.
 One of those we assigned a top priority, in our opinion, two medium and one low.
 We had identified seven studies that we thought really could be done by just gathering available facts and data that's out there right now with little need for analysis.  These would probably be the least expensive kinds of things to do.
 Two of those we assigned a medium priority to and the others were all assigned low priorities.  Again, that's in our opinion as we talked together about it.
 Okay.  We also identified three hypotheses that we thought should be handled by ICANN compliance staff rather than by a study.  And if it is decided to request cost estimates for any studies at all, the set of studies requested should provide a reasonable balance between those that focus on privacy concerns and those that focus on legitimate needs for access to WHOIS data.  In other words, what we are saying here is at the end, when the council decides what to do, we think it is important to make sure that we're covering both extremes and in-between ground rather than just focusing on studies maybe that law enforcement wants and ignoring those that privacy interests want or something like that.
 Now, the cost estimate recommendations for formal studies, the 11 that I mentioned, and to really benefit from this you have to look back at the detailed document.  And I'm not going to try to do that here because it would be way too time consuming unless people -- let's see what they want.
 There are 11 of these.  Now, the areas were identified by the original WHOIS group that worked on the studies, and then we just used those in the WHOIS hypothesis group.  So if you look at those, you will see the areas.
 The study A, the combined study, one of the combination studies that we recommended, we assigned a top priority to that.  The area 1 study 15 we assigned a medium priority.  Area 3, stud, I don't know if it is too helpful for me to read each of those because without looking back at the detail it is hard to do it.  But you can see that the last two there we both assigned a top priority to those studies.
 So the next-to-last one was another combination study, study B.
 So going on then to the next slide, again, continuing the recommendations for formal studies, you can see them there, another couple top, couple medium, couple low.  And that covers the 11 recommendations there.
 Notice that we're not necessarily saying which one should be done.  Obviously we think the higher priority ones -- I mean, we could decide as a council to do them all.  But if we don't do that, then we assign some priorities to try and help us narrow them down.
 Go ahead, please.
 And then in that other category of fact gathering and analysis recommendations, you can see that we have some there, four of them, one top priority, one low and couple medium.
 And then we thought that these studies here could really be done just gathering available data with little analysis.  Just substantiating some things in data that's already available.  So you probably don't really need an outside organization to do them.  There will be some cost in that regard.  But it would probably be less cost than the formal study and even less than one that may just need data gathering and little bit of analysis.  And most of those, we thought, were lower priority if we decide to apply priorities, one medium.  Is that the same slide?  Did I put it in twice?  You can go to the next slide.  Okay.  I guess that is it.  I guess that's it.  That covers it.
 Now, what we can do, Avri can pull up the table, if you'd like to look at these things maybe before we consider that, do you have other questions in terms of the registry constituency recommendations?  Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I just have one because I haven't been involved in the WHOIS group -- the council-wide group.  I am just wondering how this document from the RyC came about and what the other constituencies are doing, if anything.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Clarify for me what your question is.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  I'm just wondering why the RyC is putting out this document and how it ties into the work of the broader group that you've been leading.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Well --
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  In other words, are other constituencies tasked with coming up with a similar plan like this?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Well, all constituencies were sort of asked to comment.  I think what the RyC has done is --
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Comment.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  -- comment in a substantial way.  But I think -- I don't know.  In fact, that's one of the things we are looking for in this particular meeting is for sort of all the constituencies to give the feedback of, okay, the council asked you guys to take a look and comment so what's up?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  And our next step for the council is to decide which studies to request cost estimates for.  All the registry constituency did is say, let's look at these and come with a methodology for making decisions and that's our input into the process.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  Just to be clear.  I am not at all trying to negative about this.  I think it is actually great to get this out there in this form.  Thanks, Chuck, I know it was a lot of work.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Other questions?  Tim?
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Are we going to go through these in more detail one by one or do we comment on if we have questions about individual recommendations?  Do you want to hear those now?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Hold off on that part.  But I think that's up to the council whether we think it is useful to go into the detail.  Obviously it is hard to look at study numbers to do this.  But it just depends on whether -- it is up to us as a council to decide that, I think.
 As far as the detail, once we decide to do that, we can certainly go through the detail.  I think that's the more appropriate time to make comments.  Although if you have one now, that's fine.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I guess one way to go through this, as we continue, since not every constituency is at, is to then take a walk-through the various recommendations and see which constituency had what comments on each.  And then as a council, we can decide do we want to sort of accept the organization that you guys came up with as, Yes, that's a useful organization and walk through it that way.  Or do we want to walk through -- against the report itself?  We can go either way.  So -- but okay.
 >>TONY HOLMES:  Yes, just a short point.  I don't -- I don't know really if the question of accuracy should be put into a pool with hypotheses and follow this track of action.  I know it is a very sensitive issue for registrars.  In fact, ISPs can understand that very well since we appear to be one of the main reseller channels for domain names.
 But to get back to my point, accuracy does seem to be an important point and I don't know if it is a hypothesis, it just needs some means to enable compliance really.  Something we were discussing this morning with some colleagues.
 And I'm not sure where that fits in here, Chuck, if you have any thoughts on that.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Well, I would tend to agree with you that ideally -- and maybe it is not ideal, so we have to decide that as a council.  But ideally, I think that's a compliance issue.  And if could be handled through the compliance function, that makes sense.  If we decide as a council that, no, we don't think that's going to happen or we don't think that's where it should be, that's a decision we have to make.  But rather than doing -- if, in fact, we believe that it is a compliance function, then it seems like it should go to the compliance staff to work that and that doesn't mean it is less important.  It is just I don't know if we need a formal study to do that.  That's a decision we'd have to make.
 >>UTE DECKER:  Thank you, and thank you, Chuck, for this important report.
 I think the registry constituency has provided us with a very important worked [inaudible] that is really taking the work on the studies to another level.  It is something that would have normally come out of a working group, I think.  My question is very similar, I think, in terms of Mike's in the sense that in preparing for a decision of the council during this meeting here in Cairo, how do we ensure the continuity of the people within the constituencies who have been deeply involved in this?
 For example, if we are having a discussion of this today gathering constituency input, the people from the IPC who have been very closely involved are actually not in the room.  So I am a bit worried.  How do we sort of continue the work of the working group into the council decision?
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  And it is my assumption -- in fact, this is an area where I'm not as optimistic in terms of Avri in terms of how quickly we can bring this all together.  But my assumption for the meetings this week is that hopefully we'll at least map out a plan forward to find out how we're going to determine what studies to ask cost estimates for and that we wouldn't be making that decision -- I mean, if we could make it this week, that would be great.  I really don't believe that's going to happen.
 So obviously we have constituency day where these things could be talked about.  I really envision that there is going to be that interaction with our constituencies and the other community on where we go forward in the coming weeks as we work towards making that decision.  Does that make sense?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Before I go to Liz, I wanted to correct a statement on my optimism.  My optimism was that this week we could come to the point of being able to write the motions that we would vote on in the future.
 So I'm still optimistic, but I certainly did not have us deciding this week.  I had us using this week to get to the point where we knew what we were going to -- that was my optimism.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  I understood that.  I would be very surprised if we were able to get to the motions this week.  I think it will take longer than that, but that's okay.
 [ Laughter ]
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Liz?  We take ternes being optimistic about things.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  That's true.
 >>LIZ GASSTER:  I just wanted to be sure that people saw the note that actually Denise sent to the council earlier today that reprint Stacy Burnette's blog post from yesterday, a couple days ago, having to do with services and compliance activities with regard to WHOIS accuracy.  It really follows on Tony's point.
 They are about to embark on another WHOIS accuracy study and also some other studies of -- or survey, rather, on privacy and proxy registration services and some changes to the WHOIS data problem reporting system, which is undergoing a redesign.  That may be relevant in your consideration about what further studies the GNSO Council might want to launch to keep in mind what's happening in the compliance arena.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thanks.  Any other comment or question on that?  If not, do I have a question for the group.
 Okay.  In terms of how we proceed on this, the question I have for the group is we really have two ways to sort of walk through these and collect sort of, at the moment, the known comments and the known constituency viewpoints.  We can either walk through them sequentially in the report or we can, as a working model, sort of accept the study A, study B, study C notion and use that as a working model that we work off of as we proceed through this.
 And I would like to -- basically, we've got ten minutes now until we break for lunch because the staff has to go to a staff luncheon at noon.  So, yeah, I've got Tim and Mike and Tony.  Okay.  Tim?
 >>TIM RUIZ:  In the past when we've discussed this, at least some number of the councillors express concern as to whether, you know, any study should be pursued and had various reasons why that shouldn't be.  In fact, some statements were presented to that effect by the registrars.  I believe even some of the registries were signed on to that as well as some members of the at-large advisory committee, et cetera.
 But it doesn't seem like we have ever really formally kind of approached that subject and said, you know -- it sounds like we're just saying, yes.  We're just accepting the fact that some studies will be pursued.  So this is now we're going to get there?
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I actually don't think -- I think what we're doing is sort of working in an abeyance of that decision and sort of saying what studies are there that people -- some people think are worth doing.  And then at the end, we, basically, have to convince the council or the council has to be convinced that study X, Y or Z should be pursued.  So it is let the people who think the studies are a good idea propose why studies are a good idea.  And then as a GNSO Council, as a GNSO, then make that decision.  I think at the end of the day if doing those studies -- if the people that believe studies are a good thing can't convince the council that any of these studies are worth doing, then that's the "if any" clause.
 I mean, we can have a discussion on the "should we do any studies at all in principle," but it seems to me we would come back to, well, when we are talking about that, I really think that the stuff that's being talked about in study 2.  So if we make sure that we have gone through each of these and have gotten comments on why it is a good idea, why it is a bad idea, why it would work, why it wouldn't work, what the issues, then we get to that decide.  I might be looking at it wrongly obviously.  But we did have the "we should look at studies and decide which ones to do, if any," which seemed to me to look like we basically had proposals for studies, we looked at them and then we made a decision which ones to do, if any.
 And we could have a decision that went through 20 studies that said, nope, none of them should be done.  At least that's how I've understood it and such.  Okay, Mike.
 >>MIKE RODENBAUGH:  So I think it is definitely a good idea to go through this in more detail.  I just want to -- I think we should reframe it not in the sense that we are looking at each of these recommendations and commenting on whether we think it is good or bad.  At least for our constituency, I think we are just at the point of having some questions for test and maybe for others as to what they mean or why they think some of these -- why they are not sure some of these are feasible, that sort of thing.  I'm glad to discuss them, but I don't want it to be seen that we are taking any sorts of decisions at this point.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Yeah, no.  I certainly didn't mean to say that I was suggesting we take decisions on a one-by-one basis while having that discussion.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Just from a registrar's perspective, it makes it difficult to really approach the constituency when the position is pretty much across the board that no study should be pursued because it is not really going to change anyone's mind, blah, blah, blah, as we expressed before.  This is Tim Ruiz with the registrars.
 So now to try to continue to approach them with, you know, advancing ideas about studies that may or may not be pursued, which ones we think are good or develop comments about them, it just makes it difficult unless we could come back and say "here's the decision of the council, that at least one or more of the studies were deemed feasible and pursuable and so we are going down that road so we have to discuss this now."  We have to start forming some opinion about these individual studies.  I'm trying to figure out where I can get past that roadblock of the constituency feeling that no study should be pursued.  That decision of the council would be helpful in that regard.
 >>AVRI DORIA:  We kind of as a council already did make a decision that we would look into various studies and then decide which studies, if any, should be done.  So I think we've already made the decision as a council to look at studies and so we're at the stage now of trying to understand the studies and gather opinions on the particular studies to get to the point.
 But I believe that first decision was made to look at studies and decide which, if any, were feasible, were things we ought to do.  And we didn't have a motion on the table to sort of say, we should stop talking about studies because none of them were worth doing because to do that we would have to look at all the possibilities and make a decision that none of them were worth doing.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  Just one other comment, if I may.  Right.  So I'm just -- it is just difficult because we never quite get to that point.  So we had -- we have had a lot of work that culminated, we thought, with the idea -- that we would put together a working group that would be looking at hypotheses that we could formulate.  So we've done that.  Now we're looking at reorganizing things, which I don't think is necessarily a bad idea, reorganizing things into various groups and we will continue to discuss that.
 Where is the end point at which we decide to make --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  I think that's what I'm trying to get to is once we've talked through all this, made sure that everyone has a common understanding, gotten to the point where we are ready to have motions on proposing studies or not.
 >>TIM RUIZ:  We're still in the stage of trying to get a -- trying to get a --
 >>AVRI DORIA:  Trying to understand the work that the working group did.
 >>CHUCK GOMES:  Tim, it seems to me if I'm hearing you correctly, there is multiple ways we can go forward, of course.  But one of them -- and I think you're maybe suggesting that, and I'm asking for that clarity right now.  Are you suggesting that we decide right now before we spend any more time on this that the council make a decision without any further review whether any studies should be pursued any further?
 >>TIM RUIZ:  No.  It seems like given the structure of the registry's document, it is actually proposing studies that should be pursued based on your top priority, medium priority.  These aren't feasible, these we should ask -- so it is really presenting it in a manner of we've done all the discussion so now here's a proposal for how we want to move forward on pursuit of studies.  That's a little different than what I was expecting we would be doing once the hypotheses were done.  And that was --
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Well, tell me what you were expecting.  That would be helpful.  
 >> TIM RUIZ: Now that we've seen the hypotheses of these studies, making first the decision that, yes, the feeling of the council -- by vote or whatever -- is that one or more of these studies, you know, should be pursued.  
 Then the next step would be "Well, now let's look at how we're going to do that," and we look at, you know, a document structured similar to what you've got or other proposals from other constituencies.  
 I'm just wondering where we -- just something where we're getting to that point where we're saying, "Yes, the council believes studies should be pursued."
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  First of all, from my understanding of the motion that we voted on, that was not an automatic next step.  That is, we were going to look at studies and then we were going to go vote on, as I said, "what, if anything."  
 Now, if anyone were to put through a motion proposal that basically said what you want to say there, it would be a motion that the council would take a vote on at -- you know, one week after the motion had been posted, et cetera.  
 So there's no reason why we certainly couldn't have someone frame a motion the way you're framing it and we take a council vote on, "Having seen the working group stuff, we propose that no studies be taken," you know, as a possible motion.
 That could be done.  
 There's nothing saying that such a motion can't be offered and wouldn't be voted on.  
 But the process, as I've understood it -- and as I say, any motion from any member of the council can change that understanding -- is that we were looking at possible studies and then we were going to vote on which, if any, were worth doing.  
 The question was never if anybody -- if any studies are worth doing, which should we do.  It's which studies, if any, are worth doing.  
 So the "any" was -- I always understood it as it fell out of the decision, none of these are worth doing.
 Now, there's no reason why you couldn't offer a motion that sort of said, "Okay, we've seen the hypotheses.  None of these are worth doing.  Call for a vote."
 That's a perfectly viable option.  It's not the one that I see automatically, but as I say, any member can present that as a motion, seconded, and then we vote on it.
 And I had Mike and I have Tony and then we have to break for lunch, but we'll come back to this, certainly.
 >> TIM RUIZ: Yeah.  Can I just ask Chuck, then, just a quick question so we know how to frame the registry's document?  
 So is the registry then saying that, "Yes, these studies with top priority, at least, that the registry believes those studies should be pursued"?  Is that the way to read that?
 >> CHUCK GOMES: Yeah.  We didn't, you know, talk about that question quite that directly.  I think after everyone looked at the -- and there were three of us, actually.  David Maher and Ken Stubbs and I worked on the first iteration and then we put it to the whole constituency.  
 So we didn't specifically answer the question, "Do we want to recommend just the high-priority ones?"
 We were actually putting this forward kind of as a methodology that could be used by the council, if they want to pursue further -- or possibly pursue studies further to do.
 I mean, if the council decides to pursue all the studies, you know, the priorities provide a means, at least from our opinion -- and I suspect they would change when the whole council looks at it.  And that's okay.
 If the council decides to not pursue all the studies for cost estimates, then the priorities provide -- at least our thinking, initially -- maybe which ones we'd consider first.
 So again, we're not -- we're not putting forward a hard-and-fast, you know, "either all these studies should be done" -- because maybe the cost will be exorbitant to do all of them, okay?
 But it's more of a framework by which we could pursue this, and the way we tackle the problem.
 Now, I know you're aware that there were some registries that really kind of felt like, "Let's not do any studies."
 I think after we've gone through this exercise as a constituency, that that's not the case anymore.  Certainly they haven't communicated that any further.
 So I think right now, we would, as a constituency, support moving forward with some studies and then we -- and we have provided input to help the council decide which ones.
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  Thanks.  I'm going to take Tony, and then we're going to break for lunch, and then after lunch we start off with Mike and Jeff.  
 >> JEFF NEUMAN: (Speaker is off microphone).
 >> AVRI DORIA: Okay.  You don't -- all right.  Okay.  
 Okay.  Great.  Okay.  Thanks, so Tony, you've got the last, and then we take a lunch break and we come back to this with Mike.
 >> TONY HARRIS: That's great.  So how long I talk depends how hungry everybody is, right?  So I'll make it really short, just in case. 
 Basically, I rather like this document that Chuck circulated, and I think it does provide us with a framework of how to focus this rather confusing array of possibilities as far as WHOIS studies.
 My other interpretation is that a WHOIS study is not a policy decision.  In other words, you can come up with a result of a study, but that doesn't mean to say it's automatically an ICANN policy and it puts registrars out of business.
 That's my first conclusion.
 And I don't know if I would support studies, but I do think that that is a fact.  And I think I would support using this framework as the basis for being able to focus on the different options, although perhaps as a constituency, we would not support -- necessarily support the priorities that have been defined by the registry constituency.  We may have other priorities.  Okay?
 >> AVRI DORIA: Thank you.  And we'll continue this discussion of using this model afterwards, after lunch, and I definitely wasn't proposing that we use their priorities.  Basically just that we use the study (a), (b), (c) groupings as a facilitation device for the discussion.  
 Okay.  Thanks.  Have a good lunch.  We can continue discussing this informally, but it won't be transcribed until we come back from lunch, and lunch is scheduled here 12:00 to 1:30, and any of the staff that hasn't left already for their staff lunch, thank you for staying with us the extra minutes, but don't want to get you in trouble.  Thank you.
 [Lunch Break]