ICANN|ARCHIVES

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Vint Cerf: Okay. If I could get started within about two minutes, please. Two minutes.
Okay. I'd like to call the meeting to order, so if the board members would take their seats, please.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the public board meeting of ICANN here in Tunisia on the 31st of October, 2003. For those of you who celebrate it, Happy Halloween.

It's been called to my attention that this is also the first year anniversary of the formation of the Latin American and Central American Network Information Center, the LACNIC, and so I would like to simply point out that we had a very great, exciting success with the creation of LACNIC, and it is now going strong. And Ivan, I hope you will take back to your colleagues our continued good wishes for their success.

The first item on the agenda is the approval of a request by dot info, or the operator of dot info, to institute a redemption and grace period. Rather than reading the entire resolution to you, I am simply going to summarize it.

You all remember that the redemption grace period is intended to protect a registrant in the event that the registration expires because the registrant has not paid the annual registration fee, and there is a period of 30 days during which this expiration can be rescued. This is intended to help deal with problems between the registrar.

(phone ringing).

Vint Cerf: That's Alejandro Pisanty trying to get in on the phone, and we'll pick that up.

In order to implement this modification to practice in dot info, modifications had to be made to several appendices of the agreement with ICANN, and this particular resolution, if you approve it, will authorize ICANN's President and General Counsel to effect this change for dot info. So I would like to invite placement of this resolution on the table for discussion and vote.

So may I have someone to put this on the table? Ivan. Ivan puts the motion on the table. Is there a second? From Tom Niles. Is there discussion about this resolution?

Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of this resolution, please raise your hand. I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Are there any opposed? If you're opposed.

Alejandro Pisanty: Alejandro Pisanty is raising his hand.

Vint Cerf: How do you vote.

Alejandro Pisanty: I vote raising my hand for yes.

Vint Cerf: Thank you very much, Alex. That's twelve. Are there any who object to the resolution? Are there any abstentions? Michael Palage abstains. Thank you. The motion passes.

The next item on the agenda is the adoption of the GNSO council deletion policy recommendation. Those of you who were here yesterday had a summary of the recommendation. Again, to save some time I will not read the entire resolution.

Specifically, if you vote in favor of this resolution, what you'll be doing is approving a recommendation from the GNSO that lays out the mechanism and the timing of the deletion of a domain name from the registration tables, so to speak. So that there is certainty as to when that event would occur and under what circumstances it occurs.

So I would like to invite a motion to place this resolution on the table. Michael Palage moves. Is there a second? Second from Professor Qian. Is there a discussion of this resolution? It's all clear what the effects would be.

I see no discussion. I'll call for a vote. And all those in favor, please raise your hand. I'll call on you in a moment, Alex.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

Are there any opposed? Are there any abstentions?

Alex, how do you vote?

Alejandro Pisanty: I vote for.

Vint Cerf: Thank you. It's thirteen. That makes it unanimous. The motion passes.

The next item on the agenda has to do with a request by the GNSO counsel to the board to maintain a policy of three representatives per constituency on the council. The original language developed in the evolution and reform process recommended that at the end of this meeting, at the end of the annual general meeting here in Tunisia, that the number of representatives that would sit on the GNSO council would be drawn from each regional constituency, and that there would only be two such representatives. So if we were to take no action at all in this meeting, the GNSO would be invited to name two candidates and not three to sit on the council per region.

The motion -- I'm sorry. The proposal is to leave this unchanged; in other words, to permit three representatives on the council per region, until the end of 2004, at which point there would be a reexamination of the practice.

So in order to get to the substance of this, let me ask that this be put on the table as a motion, so I invite a motion for that.

Ivan moves. Is there a second? I see Tom Niles. There were several others, so I picked one.

Let me first ask whether there is any further discussion or question about this particular resolution.

I'd like to observe that this particular resolution in part demonstrates that the board is listening to its constituents and it's trying to follow the bottom-up style that we've come to appreciate in the Internet community.

So if you vote in favor of this resolution, is the two changes that will occur are in the two component resolutions. One is that the transition article, which, if it went into effect today, would reduce the number of representatives, would simply be changed to permit three until the end of the annual meeting in 2004; and that we also resolve to review the GNSO council in or around July, which would include, among other aspects of the review criteria, an analysis of the efficacy of having three representatives from each constituency.

Tom, did you have a question or were you just playing with your pencil? Okay.

Are there any other discussion points on this resolution?

All right. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. I count one, two, three -- please keep your hands up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Alex, how do you vote?

Alejandro Pisanty: I vote in favor.

Vint Cerf: Thank you. So it's unanimous. And that resolution passes.

The next resolution has to do with the matter of new gTLDs.

This is a fairly lengthy resolution and in fact --

Ivan Moura Campos: Vint, Vint.

Vint Cerf: Here we go. It's on the screen.

Yes, Paul?

Ivan Moura Campos: I don't know if this is relevant, but the sequence of resolutions we have here, you seem to have skipped

Vint Cerf: Oh, you have an old copy. Please look on the screen. What happened to you is that there was a duplicate of the resolutions and we struck the first duplicate.

Ivan Moura Campos: I'm talking about dot pro.

Vint Cerf: Oh, I missed something.

Thomas Niles: Page 2.

Ivan Moura Campos: You skipped page 2.

Vint Cerf: No, my pages don't have this, so....

All right. we'll just use the one on the screen. Not to worry. Serves me right for using an ancient technology like paper when I should be using on-line material.

Thank you, Ivan.

Let's go to the .pro. It's on the screen now.

This particular resolution, if it's passed, will permit the .pro registry, RegistryPro, to offer second-level content that is richer in its proposal. In their original proposal, the second level essentially identified in which professional category a registrant would fit. So, for example, if it were in law, it would be -- I'll pick on Mike Palage. Mike is an attorney, so it could be mike.palage.law.pro. If it were someone who is an accountant, it would be mr.accountant.cpa, for certified public accountant, .pro. What RegistryPro is asking to do is to permit a richer class of second-level registrations which they believe will fit their users better and allow better service to their community.

In particular, there are some institutions like KPMG or others that have more than one category of professional within their organization. And so they're going to permit someone to register as, let's say, vinton.cerf.kpmg.pro in the case I fall into more than one of the categories that institution is capable of representing.

So the proposal if it's adopted by the board will offer the .pro domain operator a richer opportunity for registrations. If you pass the resolution, the President and General Counsel would be authorized to negotiate this change to the registry agreement.

So we can discuss this, let me invite this resolution to be placed in motion. Tom Niles places it in motion.

Is there a second? Katoh-San seconds.

Is there further discussion of this resolution? Everyone understands what the implications are? All right. In that case, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Keep them up. Is that a hand, Paul? Yes. It's a finger. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

Alex, how do you vote?

Alejandro Pisanty: I vote in favor.

Vint Cerf: So we have unanimous agreement on this. I'm not going to call for abstentions or objections because there don't seem to be any.

Okay. The next one is new generic TLDs. This is of considerable importance and it's a fairly lengthy resolution, so I'd like to offer some time for the people here in the audience to see this resolution.

I'd like to ask Paul if you would care to introduce this resolution and summarize its components.

Paul Twomey: Thank you, Chairman.

This resolution addresses a matter of long discussion in the ICANN community, and also addresses one of the core tasks and challenges put before the ICANN community at the very founding of ICANN. So it's a matter of some discussion.

The resolution points out, first of all, that there's a need for a comprehensive process to move from the proof of concept tests, which commenced in 2000, to a more liberalized market in the gTLDs.

In this resolution, this resolution applies to gTLDs, including sponsored and nonsponsored TLDs. Quite clearly it does not apply to ccTLDs.

There is a requirement under the ICANN MOU, the new MOU, for ICANN by September to complete a comprehensive evaluation against a set of criteria, including the potential impact of the TLDs on the root server system and Internet stability, evaluation of creation, implementation of selection criteria, potential consumer benefits and costs associated with new TLD registries, and recommendations from expert advisory panels.

But I would make the point, both to the board and to the community, that this resolution comes not because the MOU requests it. This resolution is on the table because the board and the community consider this to be an important issue. This is an issue of initiative, not of response.

ICANN also needs to consider the technical operational means whereby a TLD will be undertaken, and the resolution points out the board's concern to ensure that for any reason that a TLD may become inoperable or may fail to operate, there needs to be a means by which that concern can be addressed.

The resolution goes on to say the board believes that this long-term policy process should begin immediately and should coincide with presentations of reports both here in Carthage, but importantly, in March in 2004 in Rome.

The resolution envisaged the process whereby, between now and some point in the future, potentially Rome, that there would be an opportunity for expert advice and analysis and issues pertinent to long-term policy from expert sources, and also the opportunity for community input for this to be placed on the table. Before the commencement of an appropriate and targeted policy development process and important consultation with ICANN advisory committees and other supporting organizations.

The final report on these issues put forward, especially on the issue -- sorry, the final report on how TLDs -- the review report on the 2000 round of TLDs will also be one of the inputs and expected to be available to the board by March 2004.

In areas of expert advice that are expected to be sought, some of the areas -- this is not a comprehensive area, comprehensive list, but some of the areas include seeking advice from an international economics organization on the introduction of competition to the TLD market, and other similar markets allocation mechanisms and appropriate business models for the gTLD manager/ICANN relationship. A review and report on intellectual property issues involved in the introduction of new gTLDs to be provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Consumer protection issues to be explored, potentially by a consumer protection agency. Expect to receive reports -- request reports from the Internet Architecture Board and ICANN's Security and Stability Committee on technical stability issues related to the introduction of the new TLDs including plan for registry failures, and also an assessment by the IAB on the need for additional technical supports to support multilingual TLDs. In other words, multilingual.multilingual.

The board will also be considering and seeking views from experts in the community on the appropriate balance between the corporate/sponsor control of the gTLD and the management on behalf of the Internet community, a mix between the corporate sponsorship role and the stewardship obligation. With regard to clarifying and better delineating the appropriate structure and scope of the relationship between TLD operators, gTLD operators, and ICANN.

With that background, the resolution then moves to say that the board directs the president to begin an expeditious and targeted development of strategy and policy leading to a streamlined process for the introduction of new TLDs, and the board directs the president to begin to seek community input into development of this strategy and process immediately following this meeting in Carthage, and to establish a public forum for comments on new TLD policy at, and an e-mail address, tldpolicy-comments@icann.org.

And that the board has requested that a report on the new TLD policy should be completed by September 30th, 2004, and the implementation of the policy should commence before December 31st, 2004.

Vint Cerf: Thank you very much, Paul.

I would like to invite you to make this motion, considering the amount of effort that you personally put into shaping this initiative.

Paul Twomey: I move the motion.

Vint Cerf: Is there a second? I see Njeri Rionge seconds.

I would like to make a suggestion for the text of this resolution. In the text that's showing on the screen we see the reference to TLD. It's probably wise for us to be very clear and to make that text read gTLD, so that there is no possibility of confusion with the ccTLD segment of the domain name operation.

So -- oh, I see that our faithful secretary is going to do a global convert. Thank you.

I hope that that doesn't actually do any surprise damage. One is always nervous about this.

In particular, Paul, I would hope that you would accept that as a friendly amendment.

Paul Twomey: (nods head.)

Vint Cerf: Assuming that that's acceptable, then we don't need to take a special board vote to adopt that as part of the text.

I can't emphasize personally how important this particular resolution is. For the longest time, the board has struggled with this process of creating new gTLDs, and the process has been difficult and frustrating for many. If we are successful in this effort, it may be that the creation of a new gTLD becomes a continuous process rather than an episodic one, one which is not of great moment but simply one which permits candidates to show their qualifications and to be evaluated and allowed to proceed if they meet those qualifications. Not to second guess, of course, what the outcome of the study will be.

So I think it's important that we pursue this promptly.

Are there any comments or questions from the board on the substance of this resolution?

I don't see any. So I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. And Alex, how do you vote?

Alejandro Pisanty: Favor.

Vint Cerf: That's 12. Are there any objections? Are there any abstentions? Mike.

Just as an aside and for the record, the chair is beginning to suspect that Mike is now beginning to channel either Karl or Andy, I'm not sure which.

Mike, feel free to respond.

Michael Palage: Being on the conflicts committee, I feel it's best to take the high road.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate the point, and I hope you don't take offense.

So that motion passes. Paul, I hope you appreciate, since I noticed you voted in favor, that this represents a substantial amount of work for you and the staff. The board appreciates your commitment.

Let's move on now to the next resolution. For those of you -- could we scroll back, please?

For those of you who are sitting in the audience, I hope that you are as excited as I am about this particular resolution, because it opens up the possibility of an sTLD round early on. This is something which has been hotly debated. I can assure you it's been discussed at length by the board. And the conclusion is that we should, indeed, allow an sTLD round to occur earlier, rather than later, in parallel with the effort that was just approved.

So I'm sitting here thinking whether I should invite someone else to introduce this resolution. Is there a board member who wishes to do so? If not, I'll take the task on.

This resolution, if it's passed, first of all, it recognizes that we do have a long-term strategic responsibility on TLD -- gTLD creation, and we just authorized the process by which that long-term effort will begin.

But we also, you will recall, resolved in Montreal to invite comment on an RFP for sponsored TLDs. And we did, indeed, receive a number of comments on the RFP -- the draft RFP.

We held a meeting on the 13th of October, and we discussed this subject at some length. And as you will know from our October 13 report, we were hesitant to initiate an sTLD round at the same time that we were also trying to do the long-term evaluation of TLD creation -- gTLD creation.

There was a very clear signal from the community, both yesterday and in many e-mails, that the community felt that the board had shown every indication that it would proceed with an sTLD round and that, although one could argue whether it was absolutely incumbent on the board to do so, the signals were certainly indicating that we would.

And so in the course of the discussions over this week, the board has concluded that it should proceed.

The board recognizes in this one "whereas" that the community consensus has it that it would be difficult to restrict the applications in this round to the prior applicants of 2000. So this round will be -- if it's passed, this resolution allows for an open opportunity to apply in the sTLD space.

We also recognize that the applicants need not necessarily be not for profit. And so we recognize that any applicants are legitimate in this round.

If the board approves this resolution, if we could scroll upward, please -- or, I'm sorry, downward. You know, if I had a voice-controlled computer, I would get it all screwed up.

There are several component resolutions to this motion. In the first resolution, the board will direct the president to finalize and post, no later than 15 December, 2003, an open request for proposals.

Now -- an open request for proposals for a limited number of sTLDs. We have not picked a particular number to process, and we don't know what that number will be, but it is our intention to at least try to keep this from being an out-of-control landslide. So we're intending to make this a limited number. And that will be based on points of agreement indicated above.

Second, upon completion of the sTLD selection process, which we will document, there will be an agreement reflecting commercial and technical terms. And that needs to be negotiated.

There may be some modification or amendment of those terms as a consequence of the evaluations of the various applications and also the gTLD process, which may expose requirement for amendment later on, after the sTLD agreements are in place.

But that's something which is normal in the case of all our agreements with our registrars and registries over time. There can be need for amendment.

And, finally, the selection process and the implementation for the sTLDs will be evaluated and the results will be utilized in the new gTLD process.

So we hope that by opening this sTLD round, we can perform two useful tasks.

One of them is to allow for the creation of some sTLDs in the near term, but also to learn from that process and to apply the results of that learning to the longer-term gTLD creation process.

So as a proponent of this particular motion -- resolution, I would like to put this on the table. So I move that we adopt this sTLD process.

Lyman, second.

I now open the floor for discussion of the terms of this particular resolution -- I'm sorry, this motion.

Paul?

Paul Twomey: Thank you, Chairman.

I would just direct the board and the community's attention to the second resolution, in that in the discussion of this whole area, the board has been quite aware of a number of issues that concern it for long-term stability.

And considering the stewardship role that ICANN has for the stability, integrity, and security of the Internet, some of the issues that ought to be more fully explored in the long-term gTLD process we have just approved may actually have implications or provide clarity for us in the -- for whoever may be successful in the sTLD round foreseen in this resolution.

So I would just make of point of noting to the board and to the community that the second resolution does actually also say that if -- even after a negotiation of commercial and technical terms for successful applicants or those who are selected, there may well be -- substance may be subject to further amendment as appropriate as a result of the new TLD process.

In particular, the issues that are in the mind of the board in this have been things such as business failure conditions, conditions for the protection of registrants in the circumstances of some form of event that may stop the TLD from operating, those sorts of things.

So I just thought it was worth putting that on the record.

Vint Cerf: Just for clarity, Paul, I assume what you are saying is that while the gTLD -- new gTLD process is underway, even before it has reached its conclusion, some of its results might reflect on the sTLD negotiations.

Is that a correct interpretation?

Paul Twomey: That's right.

And it might be in the case that even if there are agreements that have been finalized, that there was a provision for negotiation of additional codicils to those contracts.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Paul.

Mouhamet.

Mouhamet Diop: Thank you, Chairman.

I just want to raise some point to make at least people understand why, for example, on my point of view, I try to push for such resolution.

It's just about four points that I want to raise here.

The first one is, I'm not saying that we're working for perfection.

We know that -- I mean, as long as we're trying to get all things done in a perfect way before we launch anything, I'm pretty sure nothing can be done. This is the Internet, this is the philosophy, and I want people to keep it in mind that we are not doing something perfect and anything we are doing is subject to evolution.

That's the first point.

The second point is to avoid to slow down process, just because -- I mean, we have some justification that is due to internal structure of ICANN.

This is the second point.

And I think that while this argument can be accepted for some time, but not for so long.

That was the second point.

So we have to avoid just to give the argument that due to some internal structure problem, so we're just delaying and slowing down the process. If we try to get that justification for all the delay that we will have in the process, we will be worse than the organization that we were just delaying all the time.

The third point is to avoid any temptation from ICANN to substitute itself from the market.

I mean, the market is the only regulator of the -- of what's going on the Internet. So -- I mean, people think that we -- just about the number of gTLD in the market, I don't think that we have any role except to be sure that we guaranty the stability of the Internet. Above that issue the only thing we're trying to keep in mind is to protect, I mean, all the stakeholders that are in the market.

And what I am saying here about trying to protect the holders, it means try to make a very open and transparent environment that enables competition, or at least gives to the stakeholders the information they need in order to make a good choice.

And that's very important, because I don't think that ICANN is going to do some economic regulation of the Internet, even for the gTLDs or any -- any concern about the Internet.

And the fourth one is, the -- we are looking for ICANN to be fast.

And as it was in the past, we know that the issue became more and more complex. It's not only technical. I mean, there are so many policy issues that we have to deal with. But we think that our challenge in the future is so high that I cannot accept that at this stage that is the first stage of our evolution that we become really, I mean, slow in the process of approval of approving things. And especially if I look at the TLD space, we are facing, I mean, big challenge in the future regarding the IDN.

And as far as I am concerned, if you spend three years just in order to accept one TLD to be launched. How many years are we going to spend to approve the new launching for TLD? I know that we have not solved that problem yet.

But my concern is, if we are going so slow, I mean, for purposes that we -- we have under control, for things that we do not have control, how long are we going to take in the future.

So that's my concern.

Thank you.

Vint Cerf: Thank you very much, Mouhamet.

Are there other comments on this matter?

I'd like to respond to Mouhamet on one point. I don't believe in slow, either. However, I also don't believe in fast if fast turns into irresponsible. Let me try to say what I'm getting at.

ICANN and its board have a duty of care to assure that what they approve at least is technologically sound. We will never be perfect, and I completely agree with you there. But we have a duty to assure that in our haste, we don't actually cause serious destruction of the Internet. So we have a responsibility to try very hard when we introduce new elements into the Internet that we do so with as full knowledge as we can of its technological implications.

We also have to understand that the parts of the Internet that are run as businesses, whether they are for-profit or not, have the possibility of failure. We have a responsibility to try to mitigate the effects of those failures so that the registrants are as protected as we can reasonably make them. Again, we cannot protect everyone from everything. But I hope that you would accept those observations as supportive, but that also remind us of our responsibilities.

Mouhamet Diop: Thanks, Vint.

I fully agree with the concept of protection for the registrant, and we already talked about it as the concept that we -- we can be supportive when we're talking about TLD in a global sense.

But if you are looking at, for example -- some example of sTLD that deal with industry -- and I want to be clear -- that regarding the GNSO document on Montreal, June 2003, it's very clear that industry has the responsibility to organize themselves if they want to launch something.

And we're -- my concern is, if I try to forget the concept of protection for the registrant, it's only about sponsored TLD, where they are well-organized and they have responsibility to make a choice of what registry is going to run their business.

On that case, I don't think that ICANN has to play any role of protection, because they have the responsibility to take their business and their concern.

In the case of gTLD, where, I mean, the registrant has no contact -- I mean, no connection directly with the registry, I think that that's the role of ICANN to try to protect the registrant community of stakeholders.

And I absolutely agree with you that in that case, we have to take whatever need in order to guaranty the continuity of services in case of failure.

Thank you.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Mouhamet.

The term "continuity of service" is a very useful one. And I appreciate your introducing that into the dialogue. That's precisely the sense that I'd like to convey.

Are there any other comments on this resolution?

In that case, I'll call for a vote.

All those in favor, please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

Alex, how do you vote?

Alejandro Pisanty: Favor.

Vint Cerf: That's 12.

Are there any votes against?

Are you abstaining?

Mike Palage abstains.

Motion passes.

And I hope that we have some happy people in our Internet community who now look forward to the possibility.

(Applause.)

Vint Cerf: A short message to the Internet community, the ICANN community is, we are listening.

Okay.

The next resolution.

I'd like to call on Katoh-San to introduce this motion to the table.

Katoh-San.

Masanobu Katoh: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

This is regarding IDN committee changes.

As I explained yesterday about the proposal from IDN committees and also the board governance committees. By adopting these resolutions, we are going to wind up the work of the IDN committee and the IDN registration implementation committee.

But ICANN continue to work on the IDN issues.

I don't like to repeat what I said yesterday, but by taking this opportunity, I really want to thank all members of the two IDN-related committees for their hard work in the past, and the work continues.

And the problems are very difficult. I think we can, you know, solve those questions.

So I move this resolution.

Vint Cerf: Thank you very much, Katoh-San.

Is there a second, first of all?

Mike Palage seconds.

Is there any discussion of this resolution?

I'd like to just underscore Katoh-San's comments.

These two committees have been timely and helpful in the evolution of the multi-lingual use of Internet. We plainly still have more work to do. And so I want to make it clear that as we close the work of these two committees, that ICANN continues to be committed to the use of IDN.

And it will engage in this area. We will be looking at various ways in which we can do that. It's just that these two particular committees are -- have finished their work and probably don't represent the best way now for ICANN to move forward in this area.

But I would not want anyone observing these proceedings to misunderstand that we are no longer either interested nor believe that we have a very important role to play in the introduction of iDNS within the Internet system. As Mouhamet points out, this is going to be an important and complicated business.

If there are no other comments or questions on this particular resolution, I'll call for the vote.

All those in -- I'm sorry.

Mouhamet.

Mouhamet Diop: I just want to say that there is an important point in the resolution that points out that there was a sort of organization, we don't know which one, that has to deal with the continuation of this work.

And I am not sure that we can say that the job has been done. I mean, we have seen that they have done some milestone, coming from nowhere up to what we have about IDN. But we -- we should express to the public that we don't have the solution now, but something needs to be done.

And I want, if Katoh-San can give some more explanation about that, because the message is, we close two committees and we do not have anything put in place now. But we should put in place something. Because I don't think that the vacuum is something that's going to help.

Masanobu Katoh: May I respond, Mr. chairman?

As I said yesterday, and also repeated by Mr. chairman, that the IDN issues remain. There are many remaining IDN implementation issues, as well as policy issues. Many of the policy issues are common to the general ICANN domain name issues. So many of them will be dealt with within the context of, for instance, UDRP review, with, you know, system or creation of a new gTLD we just talked about.

And that's one area we can cover.

The other one, may be there are some remaining IDN-specific issues. That could be dealt with in a continued discussion group or some forum, I'm sure the board governance community is going to elaborate on the function of this. And by having those two areas looked at, I am sure we can cover all of those future IDN issues.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Katoh-San.

Are there any other comments on this motion?

If not, I'll call for the vote.

All those in favor, please raise your hand.

I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

Alex, how do you vote?

Alejandro Pisanty: Favor.

Vint Cerf: It is unanimous.

And Katoh-San, again, thank you very much for both all of your hard work and the introduction of this resolution.

The next resolution is more explicit thanks to Katoh-San.

And so I'd like to take this opportunity to read into the record a -- an appreciation for Katoh-San's work, because this is his last official board meeting as a board member. My guess is this is not the last that we will see of Katoh-San, who will be participating in other activities relating to ICANN.

So, with your permission, I will -- I'd like to take the opportunity to place this motion on the table.

Whereas, Mr. Masanobu Katoh has served as an ICANN director since November of 2000, having been chosen to represent the Asia-Pacific region in the at-large voting process conducted in October 2000; whereas, prior to his service to the board directors, Katoh-San served as the Asia-Pacific Representative of the Business Constituency on the Names Council of the former Domain Name Supporting Organization; whereas Katoh-San has served with honor and distinction as Chair of the internal working group created by the board to investigate facts and identify issues that may arise concerning internationalized domain names; as Chair of the IDN Committee since its creation and until this meeting, which continued and formalized further the work for the internal working group; as Chair of the President's IDN registry implementation committee composed of interested registries, registrars, and technical experts to consider and exchange information on ways to resolve the issues associated with implementation of IDN capabilities in existing top-level domains, created by the board; as Chair of the Committee of the Board's conflicts of interest committee; member of the Board Governance Committee; and member of the Reconsideration Committee; whereas, Katoh-San served in all these functions, as well as in board meetings and in contact with the ICANN community, with unfailing loyalty, unsinking good humor, unvanishing smile, the will to solve conflicts constructively, clarity of thought, clear sense of ICANN's mission and priorities, and a well-centered principles-based pragmatic approach; whereas Katoh-San has been exemplary in bridging cultures between his native Japanese and others, between his legal training and technical concerns, between business and broader social concerns to the benefit of the ICANN community.

Whereas Katoh-San earned the appreciation of his fellow directors and many in the community for the above-mentioned qualities and a friendly, open attitude.

Therefore, the board of ICANN resolves that the board expresses its thankfulness and recognition for Katoh-San's company, work, and accomplishments and wishes him all the best success and happiness in his endeavors, together with a happy family life.

I so move.

Is there a second? 17 seconds.

For the record, Mike Palage seconds.

Is there any further discussion of this resolution? All those if favor, please clap.

(Applause.)

Vint Cerf: Alex, How do you clap?

Masanobu Katoh: Mr. chairman and fellow board member, may I speak a little bit at this point? May I make some speech here?

Vint Cerf: Yes, you can, Katoh-San.

Masanobu Katoh: About four and a half years ago, when I first attended the Berlin, Germany, meeting of ICANN, which was the second ICANN meeting, and the first ICANN meeting I attended, I thought the ICANN meetings are very interesting.

But on my way back from Berlin, I wrote a very short note and report to my colleagues, saying, "ICANN is a place of anarchists. It's a wild west."

I think it's improved tremendously now. We can focus on many substantive issues. And we can make many good resolutions within 30 minutes. That's amazing.

Three years ago, or more than three years ago, when I was running for the election of the board membership representing the Asia-Pacific region, I said I would like to work at least on the five areas of issues.

And these are still on my web site. I am very bad at -- in updating my web site.

But these five areas included these things: to continue the current work of ICANN to make it more stable. This is very general statement. I think we've done major restructuring. We have much more to improve, but we have achieved many things there.

The second one I was, you know, thinking of at that time was to promote multilingual communications and greater participation by non-English-based stakeholders. We've been talking about this for a while. And there are many things, you know, to improve. But we are having a good focus on this issue.

The third issue was to establish local ICANN supporting organizations. P places, we see those new innovations, and especially in this region, we found during this week that many, you know, people are supporting ICANN activities, in Arab countries, too.

The fourth area was to formalize quickly the multilingual domain name system. Since we just concluded the two committees, I would like to say that we finished our work. But that's not the case, as we just talked. We came here, we reached some point. But there are still many remaining issues there. The IDN may be the biggest policy issues in the near future. I still believe so.

The last one I mentioned was to review the ICANN election system. During the last restructuring process, we temporarily or at this point adopted another new election system for the board membership. But this is regarding the participation or representation. And the question always remains here.

So I think we achieved many things. But still we have many remaining issues.

And at that time, three years ago, I said that I believed that ICANN can be 21st-century model for an international organization dealing with new technology and the new economy.

And that model is bottom-up process, private-sector leadership with a good coordination with the government. And don't be too much bureaucratic.

And I still believe that by having this kind of organization, we can meet the speed and the flexibility of changes in technologies.

I believe in ICANN. I believe ICANN can be the 21st-century model for international organizations.

Good luck.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Katoh-San.

(Applause.)

Vint Cerf: Mike.

Michael Palage: Vint, based upon your earlier comparison to myself to Karl and Andy, I feel it's just interesting to note in -- that Katoh-San stands as an example of what direct at-large voting can sort of put on the board.

I know that's former history, but I think it's just an interesting footnote that there are some excellent-quality candidates that can come to the board and make a significant contribution.

Vint Cerf: Right on.

Okay.

We have completed the formal agenda of work for this board.

However, there are at least one or two items I want to bring up as new business. Particularly with regard to IDN.

One of them is to observe that the result of the work of the IDN committees and the community implementing IDN is the invention of something called a restriction table, which determines under what circumstances various iDNS can be registered.

And I'd like to call upon Mr. Klensin to describe a process -- propose a process whereby we could keep track of and make a record of these various restriction tables, and then to ask Mr. Twomey to pursue this.

So, John, if you would summarize what that would look like.

John Klensin: The original model for these tables, which are usually called character-variant tables, but other terms have arisen, including restriction tables, comes out of work done by a joint engineering team consisting of JPNIC, TWNIC, CNNIC, and HKNIC, working on the various languages and scripts which derive from Chinese characters.

The model has seemed to generalize to other languages and scripts, although each time we look at a comparison between ideographic languages like the Asian languages and languages like most of the others of us use, we discover that each of them is harder in different ways.

The tables themselves are designed to be applied by a registry for a language so that a single registry might have tables for a different language and there might be different tables for the same language, depending on which registry you are using.

The two IDN committees have proposed that ICANN ask the IANA to create a registry of these tables so that they can be easily accessed, used, referenced -- found and referenced by other TLDs or other domains that wish to use them and have recommended that the staff create such registries and make such arrangements as appropriate, and in order to move forward expeditiously iDNS, do so as quickly as possible.

Thank you.

Vint Cerf: So, Paul, with that summary -- oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, Professor Qian.

Hualin Qian: Thank you, Chairman.

I have a little, minor correction with John's talk. The joint engineering team consists of four NICs, not including HKNIC, but including KRNIC.

John Klensin: Sorry.

Hualin Qian: Second thing, among those tables, the most difficult table is the Chinese-variant table. This has been done jointly by four NICs. CNNIC, TWNIC, HKNIC, and MONIC. SGNIC also participated in doing some work.

Thank you.

John Klensin: My apologies to Korea and KRNIC. I have not been getting enough sleep this week.

I also suggest that the magnificent job which has been done on Chinese tables, magnificent set of jobs, reflects the very large size of those character sets.

But I also note the great harmony with which the (inaudible) group managed to work.

And I hope that we do not discover that the smaller but more overlapping in different ways set of scripts which occur in western alphabetic languages and others do not cause a great deal more problems and confusion than the harmony which was eventually demonstrated for Chinese characters and languages based upon them.

Vint Cerf: That's as clear a call for community as any I have ever heard.

And it echoes Katoh-San's observation that if we do this right, we can be a model.

So, Mr. Ceo, I would like to make recommendation to you that consideration be given to tasking the IANA to in fact institute this practice, and I hope that you'll take that under advisement and consult with the IANA component of ICANN in order to carry out the work.

Paul Twomey: I can confirm with you, chairman, that the instructions will be confirmed on Monday for the staff working on the IANA function for the creation of a registry for language variant tables, as agreed by the committees outlined both by the IAB liaison, and also professor Qian.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Paul.

Ladies and gentlemen, unless there is another item of business that I don't know about -- Katoh-San.

Masanobu Katoh: Yes. I have one short report of the discussions we had within the conflict of interest committee of the board. May I have a short period of time to give you a brief report?

This is not any proposal for resolution, but just an informational report for you.

We discussed about the current policy of the conflict of interest and thought that we should ask the General Counsel to review and update the policy reflecting some of the structural change of ICANN that happened recently. And this include, for instance, the coverage of a conflict of interest policy.

Currently, the policy covers or focuses on the board members of the ICANN and also the officers of ICANN. But since we have many fellow liaison to the board who may probably be at least at the same level of conflict obligations, we'd like to propose the General Counsel to review the policy to include those board liaisons to be covered in the conflict of interest policies.

I have two additional reminders for the board members and the community.

One is about the disclosures of the potential conflict by supporting organizations. The conflict of interest policy in its item 7, or article 7, says members of or participants in a supporting organization councils must disclose conflicts of interest or their financial interest in matters within the scope of a supporting organization in the manner required by the bylaws of the supporting organization.

I just want to remind that if they are complying with this requirement.

Second reminder is for the board members, and potentially board liaison, too, to provide the annual statement regarding the conflict of interest issues.

Thank you very much.

Vint Cerf: Thank you very much, Katoh-San. Those are timely and appropriate reminders to all of us that our conflicts, if they exist, should be known to all in the conduct of our business.

Are there any other items of new business? Tricia.

Tricia Drakes: Thank you, Vint. This is just really following on from Katoh-San's appreciation, which is the board can achieve and work towards being the 21st century model, but it can't do it alone. As has happened, the constructive input and cooperation from the community. Without that, we cannot achieve the vision that Katoh-San has.

And I think, also, the engagement of all sectors. and we know that, for example, with ccNSO, there's still work to be done. And we know that Paul, with his really excellent new staff needs the time to be able to get on with the job.

So I think that the board want to engage to deliver what is needed for all stakeholders, but it really needs the help and cooperation of the community to give us a hard time, give us constructive input, which actually came into those resolutions, and to work with the CEO and the staff to enable them to be delivered.

And I think that way there's a really good chance that at this critical point we can deliver. And Katoh-San's expectation, as stated, can really be achieved.

Thank you.

Vint Cerf: Thank you, Tricia. I'm sure that many of us on the board will join you in those sentiments.

If there are no other items -- there is one. Roberto.

Roberto Gaetano: I just want to say a couple of words, because just to underline two of the solutions that have been passed today, that I just want to make sure that the user community understands the importance of what has been achieved now with these two resolutions. And I'm talking about the introduction of new TLDs.

On one hand, we have said that we progress strategically in a careful analysis of the situation for the expansion of the domain name space with the study, and with a medium-, long-term strategy. But at the same time we recognize the need for some quick action. And I think that having this board being accused, in the past, of not taking decisions and not being active and so on, I think that to have shown that the board can, at the same time, show strategic thought in terms of medium-, long-term strategy, and also attention to the basic needs and provide a quick solution in the short term, I think that is something that should be underlined, should be really stressed.

Thank you.

Vint Cerf: Oh, I think you've just done so. Thank you, Roberto.

I'm struggling hard to close this meeting because I want to explain to the remaining participants that we have a second board meeting that we have to conduct this morning.

So this is because we are about to change membership of the board. So I would like to adjourn this meeting of the board officially, but please don't anybody leave the room.

(10:23 a.m.)