ICANN|ARCHIVES

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I would now like to formally start the GNSO Council meeting. If you need a break, I suggest you step out as individuals at the relevant time, because I think if we have a break, it will probably be another 20 minutes before we get back in this room. First then I would like to formally convene the GNSO Council. Probably the most important topic today in WHOIS in terms of the next steps there and my intent is also on Thursday afternoon following the public forum, we do have a lunch with the members of the Nominating Committee or Appointments Committee to the board. Following that lunch, I would like to convene a council meeting to go through any materials we may receive from the GAC this week.

I'm aware that they are -- they seem to be confident, anyway, that they will complete a resolution on WHOIS principles and also a resolution on new gTLD principles. So I think it would be worthwhile, while we're all here, at least those Councilmembers that are still here, to convene the council after lunch on Thursday and at least go through those GAC documents. We can also have any further discussion about how we want to incorporate some of the comments we've received this week into the new gTLD work.

Chuck?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Bruce, don't we have a -- we have a lunch meeting with -- you are talking after the NomCom meeting with the council?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Would this be in place of the new TLD group that was supposed to meet at that time? Because we were supposed to consider the GAC recommendations as well.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Or a combination of both?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Combination of both, Chuck.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Thank you.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Certainly I don't mean this in any sort of a closed meeting. Obviously the new gTLD committee members that aren't on the council are obviously invited. The intent is really to receive that GAC input including the WHOIS task force members, too. I will put something formally out. But I want to convene a bit of the meeting for those who are here to talk through those.

Okay. So, first, I would like to take a formal roll-call of the council members that are here today. Glen, is anyone dialing on?

>>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Alistair is dialing in for the council meeting.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Would you like to invite him to do so.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: I am on.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I must commend in terms of the organizers of this particular ICANN meeting as well as the technical support company, this is actually by far and away the best technical support we have ever received and it is the first time the phone has ever worked without me asking for something to be done to fix it.

[ applause ]

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: You get my acclamation as well.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Alistair. You can be the first to announce your presence on the council.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Alistair Dixon, the (inaudible) constituency.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Is there anyone else on the phone conference? Okay.

My name is Bruce Tonkin, chair of the GNSO Council. We will go around.

>>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: I'm Glen De Saint Gery, the GNSO secretariat. And there are formal apologies from Robin Gross who cannot participate remotely or be here and from Tony Holmes, ISP, who cannot participate remotely nor be here.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Mike Rodenbaugh with the business constituency.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Philip Sheppard with the business constituency.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Kristina Rosette, intellectual property users constituency,.

>>ALAN GREENBERG: Alan Greenberg, ALAC liaison.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Chuck Gomes, gTLD registry constituency.

>>EDMON CHUNG: Edmon Chung, registry constituency.

>>SOPHIA BEKELE: Sophia Bekele, NomCom, GNSO. Thanks.

>>ROSS RADER: Ross Rader, registrar constituency.

>>JON BING: Jon Bing, NomCom appointee to the council.

>>NORBERT KLEIN: Norbert Klein, NomCom, (inaudible) constituency.

>>GREG RUTH: Greg Ruth, ISPCP.

>>AVRI DORIA: Avri Doria, NomCom appointee.

>>UTE DECKER: Ute Decker, intellectual property constituency.

>>TONY HARRIS: Tony Harris, ISP constituency.

>>THOMAS KELLER: Thomas Keller registrar constituency.

>>CARY KARP: Cary Karp, registry constituency.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you. Now, does anyone wish to make any update to any statements of interest? Okay, standing agenda item.

Next then is the approval of the GNSO Council minutes, the last meeting was held via teleconference on the 15th of March. The minutes were posted about a week ago. Glen has since posted a couple of corrections. Do you just want to note what those corrections were.

>>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: The corrections were in the WHOIS task force report which was a slight correction of the constituencies instead of representatives of the constituencies. The second one was that Chuck Gomes will publish a report. It has been published now. And the third one was just a date change at the bottom, date of today. And they have been corrected.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Thank you, Glen. Are there any other changes to the minutes?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Can I make a motion that we approve them?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Chuck. All those in favor of approving the minutes please raise your hand or say aye.

(Chorus of Ayes).

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Any against? Any abstentions? Tom, is that an abstention.

>>THOMAS KELLER: Yes, it is.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Tom. You will note those minutes as passed.

Okay. So I think we are now on to WHOIS. WHOIS. Let me attempt to summarize where we are in WHOIS, and I will attempt to do that without any reference to any proposals because that seems to be the contentious thing when anyone tries to propose something.

The current situation in terms of the contractual requirements for a registrar -- I think I can just summarize, too, I think most relevant here, the first one is that the contact information must be adequate to facilitate timely resolution of any problems that arise in connection with the registered name. That's one contractual commitment.

And the second contractual commitment is that a registrar is required to take reasonable precautions to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration or destruction. Now, those two things, I think, there is just very little disagreement amongst anyone in the community, as though two things are required.

Now, when we attempt to implement those two things, we actually have for registrars implementation as specified in the contract. And that's where the problem is, is that that implementation has its issues and one of those implementation issues is that it be available for free via the port-43 which is a particular protocol via port-43 WHOIS which is an IETF standard and a Web based -- worldwide Web based query access via a Web site. That's how we currently implement these two requirements.

And the difficulty is it is very hard to protect the personal data using those two technologies under the current contract. So the WHOIS task force has been tasked to look at improving the effectiveness of WHOIS while taking it into account the need to ensure privacy protection for the personal data of natural persons. That actually was added. That is not actually in our contracts currently. But it was added clarity. And the task force was trying to clarify what the purpose of WHOIS was and it has been very contentious and also to specify, if we were going to change some of the access to WHOIS, if we did make those changes, how do we still allow those people that still need to contact people to do so sensibly.

My kind of summary, I guess, is if I look at the two proposals together -- Let's perhaps look at the intent of the two proposals. That might be a better way of putting it.

I think the operant proposal is essentially saying that using the current sort of port-43 worldwide Web mechanisms with no access control, the idea is to limit some of the personal data that's displayed. So, for example, it will be the registrant name, the country of the registrant and the state, I guess, or the region within the country for that registrant. So that would still be completely open access. You're able to data mine that until your heart is content.

And then the other piece of data that would still be displayed would be a contact and that contact would -- the intent obviously is that -- I will just reword I guess the contractual commitment, is that that contact would be adequate to facilitate timely resolution of any problems. So that's our current contractual commitment and I think certainly the intent is that that information that would be still available for data mining would be sufficient for that purpose.

Now, the issue, of course, is that some of the information that is currently available, such as the street address, the e-mail address, the phone number of the registrant would not be available for open access and, therefore, there is a need for some access control but still a need for those that need access and we've heard a number of those. We have the anti-phishing group obviously need access. The law enforcement obviously need access. The intellectual property group needs access. The Internet service providers need access.

We have all these parties that definitely need access to information. And that has not yet been clarified as to how that would be done. I guess at the moment the status quo in that current proposal is that it would be left for each registrar to continue to provide that access. But the concern, I think, that the -- those are not registrars have is if that is not done in a standardized way and there is no way for ICANN to, I guess, con force any kind of compliance, that -- let's call them bad actors, would make it difficult for legitimate users such as the -- we will use the anti-phishing group and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since they came to the public forum, that somehow they would not be able to access the information anymore. That's not the intent but I could see that could be an outcome if registrars were to abuse the process in some way.

Then we have the issue that even -- we still have the issue that we may not be truly protecting the personal data of natural persons in that process. And the intellectual property group had suggested a Special Circumstances Proposal to deal with that situation where a party could prove that they were going to be impacted by releasing their data and, therefore, they would be able to get special circumstances.

I think the sense of the discussions I've had since that proposal has been put out and certainly the meeting we had with the GAC is that that was overly restrictive in terms of being able to get those special circumstances. And I think the positions of others in the community are that the special circumstances essentially are that you are a natural person and you are using the domain name for non-commercial purposes and that that should be the special circumstances.

Given those special circumstances, there might be a third level of access control so we have total open access for data mining. We have access for those that have legitimate reasons. We need to identify what sort of access we would give them and how we would check to see that they are legitimate and the third access would be for personal data of somebody that is using a domain name for non-commercial purposes. Again, there needs to be rules as to how that data would be released.

So essentially my perspective of reading all this and listening to all of the arguments is that there is three tiers. First tier is open totally. Can be used for absolutely anything you'd like.

Second tier is where the person that's requesting the data is at least authenticated. That doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be complex, and I think some further work on that should be able to provide access to all those that have at least come forward here. I am speaking to particularly the intellectual property group, consumer protection groups, individuals that may need to access data because they want to check to see who is behind a particular commercial Web site.

I think that's a solvable problem and it has been solved in a number of different government databases around the world.

And the third level of access is where we generally need to provide protection for natural persons that are using data for non-commercial purposes. They might just be using the domain name for their own private e-mails amongst their family members. And a domain name doesn't necessarily mean a Web site. It could just purely be used for e-mail and it is not commercial. It is just for communicating amongst a person's friends.

And then there might be a stronger requirement for when that data is released. That's kind of how I see the options.

Having said that, that's just trying to put it into simple terms, I think we now have a situation where we have a report where we have instead of a single proposal with elements of further work, we have two proposals with elements of further work.

Neither of the proposals seem to get, let's call it, close to 75% support. And we've heard from the GAC. There are problems with the OPoC proposal. I think we even heard from the GAC, at least some GAC members, would consider those issues with special circumstances. I doubt we are going to give guidance from the GAC to tell us which one of those proposals. I think we are likely to get guidance from the GAC that says here are some issues you need to consider for either.

One option we have is simply let the board work this out and say the council doesn't feel it is competent to do any further work. It would just give it to the board and ask the board to sort it out. I am sure they won't thank us for that, if we did that.

And my personal recommendation is we don't do that, but obviously it is a matter for the council to decide whether it wishes to just not do any more work and give it to the board to sort out.

The second option is that we form a working group to do some more work. And we could have a single working group or two working groups or three working groups. If we had two, we would probably say, all right, one working group works on special circumstances and one working group works on OPoC.

If we have three, we might say there is one for working on OPoC, one for working on special circumstances and one for anything else that you can think of.

Or if we have one working group, then we always have this issue of what are the priorities and what does that working group focus on?

And I would personally say that that working group should probably focus on looking at not so much the proposals but the objective and the objective is to basically provide contact information for those that need it and to protect the personal rights of natural persons. So those are the two objectives.

We then look at those access issues and that could be two layers. It could be how do you access data that's no longer open to mining and how do you access data that is protected under special circumstances.

I think if we focused on access and what those access requirements could be -- I think there is a simple solution there. If we basically had a working group on access for the data that's not open for mining, then we would probably have a good basis to then go back and look at those two proposals and see how access could be used for both of those.

I think it is potentially possible to just combine the two and basically say special circumstances is the category of the third tier where it is not easy for legitimate users to get access to it. And, therefore, there is some barriers to getting to that third tier, but at least we have a first and second tier fairly open and available to people.

That's kind of my summary. And so now I open it up for members of council to consider what they wish to do.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Bruce, I want to comment just on your first recommendation, first of all. I think it would be irresponsible for us to pass this to the board and let them try to sort it out. I know it is complicated. I fully understand all of the complications. But I don't think it is time for us to punt on this one.

I think the other possible recommendations are a much better way to go.

The board really isn't supposed to be a policy development body in and of itself. That's our responsibility, and I think we should continue to assume that and do it in as timely a manner as we can.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Does anyone else want to talk to that point, whether we give it to the board at this stage? For or against that as an idea?

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I would absolutely agree with Chuck. Not only have we not yet heard from the GAC but I have received communications privately from various individuals who felt very strongly that the representation that was made at the joint GAC/GNSO meeting on Sunday that law enforcement had been adequately consulted was not, in fact, true. And I think Ms. Bird from RCMP made that very clear this morning.

Not only would it be irresponsible in terms of what our obligations are as a council but to move ahead without making any effort at all really to consult with law enforcement, I think would be completely irresponsible.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Ross?

>>ROSS RADER: I think it's certainly the case that there's -- there's further work that this council needs to do. I think it's also the case that the GNSO itself has spent a lot of -- put a lot of time and energy into this effort and that whatever we do decide to do at this council level needs to be extremely finite and bounded, such that we come to either success or failure within a very limited period of time.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So I think if I'm hearing that correctly, if we undertake a working group, it's got a defined time limit, and at the end of that working group, if we're not successful, we'll just simply report to the board where we got to. And the board could decide whether it wishes to go further, but I think if we -- we can't sort of continue to work on it with no progress for several more years. Avri?

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah. I guess to some extent, I disagree with some of the characterization of "punting," "irresponsible," "asking them to make the policy decisions."

I think within the report there -- and we keep equivocating that there's just a little bit of preference for one or the other. I think, though, what we have is more that in the details, there are implementation details that need to be looked at, and that things did not go as far in implementation as in policy.

So I think if we focus more on how one implements these things, and perhaps that's similar to what you said, as opposed to further discussions of the right policy, the wrong policy, et cetera, we'll get further, so that we're focusing more on that.

And I'd also want to caution, in your conversation, you talked about people "obviously" having the right to it or "obviously" having the need for it, and I think that that "obviously" is very contingent upon national policies so that who "obviously" has a right or who "obviously" needs or doesn't need access is not so much an ICANN decision to make, but it's a national government decision to make for their own localities.

So we may, in an implementation method, say, "And here's a way to implement so that you can allow national variants," but it doesn't become an ICANN issue to sort of say, "And we, therefore, grant the world access to this and we define who has the need to it."

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I -- that's a very good point, your last one. I don't think we can decide who should have access at that second tier, so I think it's actually a different question. We actually already have a second tier and it's called the bulk WHOIS access agreement, and those -- to get access at that level, they pay a fee, which -- or typically they pay a fee and the maximum amount of that fee is set by contract, and they sign an agreement and that agreement is not so much an agreement to say who they are. It's an agreement to say what they will use the data for and particularly what they will not use the data for. And they will not use the data for mass unsolicited marketing communications, et cetera. So I -- I think the way to handle that is not so much at the second tier -- and by the second tier, I mean accessing some of the data that might get removed. Let's say we removed the phone number. And we're saying who has access to the -- needs to have access to the phone number? Well, anybody can have access to the phone number. But to do so, you need to sign some sort of agreement to say that you're not going to use the phone number to ring them up and abuse them or something. Then you've got something -- a contractual commitment from that party that what they will not do. Because I think there's -- it will be easier for us to get on agreement what they should not do with that data than it is to decide what the positive uses are for that data.

>>AVRI DORIA: But I think that often that will be constrained by national law.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Absolutely. So that -- but let's just say that with -- at -- at the second tier, let's just say I'm talking about the address of the company, and then the third tier is where we're saying that if it's natural person, it's noncommercial, there may be a third tier and then again there might be a stronger need for demonstrating that access is required at that layer. So that's kind of how I'm trying to structure that, but I agree with you. We'll never win the debate if we start deciding which of the many people in this room, who gets or who doesn't. I think we're more concerned about what they do with the data once they get it and at the moment, we have no control over that, so I would argue that if you look at our contractual commitments now, the implementation which is actually in our contracts is -- is not consistent with other parts of the contract, so we've got parts of the contract that don't seem to be consistent because we've got no control over what the data is used for. Ute and then Chuck and then Tony.

>>UTE DECKER: Thanks, Bruce. Just to agree with every -- our previous speaker to say that the council has to do some further work before that can go to the board. I can tell that we're already starting to do some of that work now. However, I think we should rather do that in a working group that will have to be formed. I think it should be one working group, and I think that working group should not rerun any of the work that the task force has already done, so it should be based on the task force report and just take it from there. And in that sense, I think we -- I hope we can take it to a different level and sort of without wasting any further time on the fundamentals, just keep thinking about -- about the implementation issues. That is, not the implementation of the OPoC but the implementation for the best possible solution between striking the balance between the interests -- access to data and the interests in privacy.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, I think that's right, which I don't think you want to have another debate about the privacy versus -- let's call it law enforcement intellectual property community. I don't think that's useful. I think it's more useful to think about the implementation issues generally. Yeah. Chuck and then Tony.

>>CHUCK GOMES: I'd like to respond to both Avri's and Ute's comments. I know it's semantical to talk about the word -- to be concerned about the word "implementation" but frankly I don't think we're ready for implementation of anything. And I think it's better that we avoid that word. And I think it's important semantics in the environment that we're dealing with. So I'll make that point there.

Secondly, I do believe --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Hang on. Before you make that point, what are you going to replace it with? Do you want to replace it with "solution"?

>>CHUCK GOMES: No.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No?

>>CHUCK GOMES: No. I don't think you need to use -- we don't need to be -- I mean, we're going to come to a point, and I don't think we're there yet, where we'll -- we will need an implementation group when it's mapped out enough where we can really talk about implementation. We're not there. And I just think that it's a very loaded word and people that aren't in this session or somewhere else and they -- and the newspapers will grab all of the -- "ICANN is implementing a new WHOIS solution!" We're not there yet. And I think we can avoid the misconceptions of that by just avoiding that word. And when we get to a specific resolution, I'll be glad to suggest ways that we can avoid that, if that's necessary.

Secondly, I would agree with Ute that we don't want to repeat the work of the task force but I think it's important that whatever we decide to do and whatever motion we craft, that we're not overly restrictive. In other words, you know, it may be that coming out of that work, it might not look exactly like OPoC or special circumstances. There should be enough flexibility that as we we learn things, we can maybe craft something a little bit different and I'm sure -- I suspect that that's what -- that Ute's okay with that, but again, I emphasize I don't think we should repeat the work either. But let's not be overly restrictive in terms of as we learn things what we can do.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Thank you, Chuck. Tony Harris?

>>TONY HARRIS: Yes. I'd just like to address the question which was raised about the need for access. I think that harmful activities and the parties addressing these harmful activities really define who needs access to the information. In the case of ISPs, it could be governments requesting us to take action.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So just restate that, so I understand it. So you're saying the -- the requirement for access -- so if someone comes to a registrar and says, "I need access" they would need to explain what the harmful reason is -- effectively give a reason. Is that what you're saying?

>>TONY HARRIS: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that in work going forward, defining who needs access is not necessarily a government decision. It's harmful activities of any sort generate the need to action for different parties, different actors. In the national context. And I think that that itself produces the need for access and the justification and the necessary channels.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So can you just give an example, because the consumer protection agencies when we had the meeting in -- somewhere, in the recent ICANN meetings, made the comment that consumers -- this is an individual consumer -- has a need to access the information because someone ripped them off. So they -- I don't know, they bought something on eBay or whatever it was, and, you know, they were -- they didn't get what they wanted so they want to go after the holder of that e-mail address, let's say.

Is -- because once you get it down to that level, it's pretty much anybody, isn't it? Because they're not an institution, they're just an individual. Or are you saying that individual reports the matter to the police and the police go get access?

>>TONY HARRIS: That is right. They would go to anyone who would help them but it would end up coming to the desk of somebody who would actually take action on that. Which would probably be a network operator or a law enforcement agency addressing a network operator, for example.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. So the access, then, is through a law enforcement agency directly or through a network operator.

>>TONY HARRIS: Yeah. I know it's something to bring it to that level of detail.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I just want to talk it through a little bit to see if it's practical.

>>TONY HARRIS: I'm just saying that the need to access to data is related -- let's put it this way -- to the need to correct harmful activities. That's at the root of the basic need to having access to data, in my humble opinion.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Interesting you didn't mention security and stability which is the mission of ICANN but...

>>TONY HARRIS: It's already been mentioned.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. Okay. Ross Rader?

>>ROSS RADER: Yeah. I think both Ute and Chuck raised some very, very good points about next steps. And if I understand Chuck correctly, the -- I can understand how implementation would be a confusing word, and I think from my perspective, it's not so much judging how we will proceed with implementing the recommendations of this council and of the task force, but at this point we need to focus on judging the feasibility of implementing those recommendations. And where that feasibility doesn't exist, explore other options that we can implement as policy recommendations that would eventually move to the board for implementation.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So feasibility recommendations, as opposed to implementation --

>>ROSS RADER: Correct, correct. Certainly.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>ROSS RADER: You know, Ute, I would also -- you know, hearing a bit of what Tony is saying about the investigative needs, certainly, you know, the task force has had many, many discussions about whom needs access and which privacy directives and laws need to be brought into account, and I would certainly hope that this working group or task force or committee, whatever it is we decide to call it, doesn't spend a lot of time or any time, for that matter, focusing on what the legislative issues are around this stuff but really, instead, focus on facilitating the access requirements, for instance, of those with a legislative mandate or legislative sanction and thereby allowing us to leave specific national issues around these issues in somebody else's, you know, area, so...

>>TONY HARRIS: I agree.

>>ROSS RADER: Great.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So basically, the -- we often seem to jump in with the laws to have a debate about, you know, was that particular ccTLD's implementation lawful or not. I don't think that's our discussion here. That discussion needs to happen in that country. I think the laws really break down into two broad areas. There are some illegal activities laws, and lots of those, and a number of calls, not all, there are some laws for privacy protection. If we use the principle that we're using with new gTLDs and we're just saying that at the ICANN level, we're looking at what is generally acceptable, legal norms, I think that privacy protection probably fits into one of those. It's generally protected amongst most countries so let's not keep debating whether it exists or doesn't exist and focus on what you were talking about as the feasibility of the implementations. Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I'll add you to the queue, Alan. I have Mike Rodenbaugh next.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Thanks, Chuck. I mean, Chuck. Bruce. I'm new here.

[Laughter]

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I just want to absolutely agree with pretty much everything Chuck said and Ute has said about next steps and I would just argue that we, in fact, don't have a policy at this point to be implementing, and obviously we need to be judging the feasibility of any such policy recommendations that we make, but we can -- wherever we're using the word "implementation" we should be using the word "policy" because we're just not there yet.

I don't want to talk too much about the access and other concerns because I think we're going to have plenty more time to do that. I think we're going to most likely vote to continue studying the matter so I'll leave it at that. But one thing you said, Bruce, at the outset about making the distinction between commercial and noncommercial uses, it's an incredibly difficult distinction to make.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It is, yeah.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: And it obviously can change. I mean, in your example of using a domain name as a personal domain name for your family's e-mail, that all may be well and good, but then when someone in that family starts using it for fraud or any other sort of illegal activity, obviously it becomes commercial.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: And you're just creating an additional step to go and get the information.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But having said that, Mike, it's not dissimilar to other issues. I mean, you come from the trademark community, so a word on its own isn't a trademark problem. It's when they start to use that word in a way that violates your trademark. So in other words, it's not something you're testing up front. You're allowing a registration of a name, but then if they use that name in an inappropriate manner, then they become exposed to trademark law. So the concept there is that, I agree, you can't -- I can't tell when you apply for a domain name, are you going to use it for commercial or noncommercial. I have no way of knowing that. You might warrant that you aren't, but then the -- the issue is, when you cease to get protection, if you like, is when there's evidence that you are using it commercially. So just giving you an example. I agree you can't determine that up front, but you can determine it afterwards.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Right. But then you're -- I guess -- requiring anybody who wants access then to give some sort of proof of commercial use in order to get that access, and it's kind of a chicken before the egg thing. Often you won't have that proof until you have access to the information to find the people.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's right, but anyway, that's a separate debate.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Yeah. Agreed.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Jeanne Bing and then --

>>JON BING: Thank you. I just wanted to put in a modest note of agreement with both Avri and Ross, in pointing out that if a law enforcement agency would seek -- require access, they obviously would find authority in the applicable national law for that operator or in an international agreement with the national law -- appropriate law agency authorities.

I think this is nothing that should be addressed by ICANN, but ICANN should only make available facilities for exploiting or -- or making access available on the appropriate request. Thank you.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Jon. Alan Greenberg.

>>ALAN GREENBURG: Yeah. Just two quick comments. First of all, I strongly support the concept that what we need is a -- an implementable policy, not to implement it. But feasible and implementable is the target.

Regarding law enforcement, we keep on talking about law enforcement which is duly authorized to get information. I think we need to remember that in many cases, we're potentially talking about two different jurisdictions. That is, where the law enforcement group may be authorized to get information according to their country law. That doesn't mean they implicitly have free access to information that resides in some other country.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Just capturing that. So I have -- they have past access to own information in their country but accessing information outside it's usually subject to various treaties and things isn't it, sort of -- data access treaties?

Okay. The -- the other thing I suppose that's come up a number of times from the law enforcement groups in the presentations from the GAC has been about how the time of dealing with that, so if you do have to access data from another country, there's a number of steps involved in getting that. Let me go back to the queue. I have Ross, you're next. I've just added -- Ross Rader?

>>ROSS RADER: Thank you, Bruce. You know, I would like to point out that I think we -- I'm seeing, anyways, some consensus around the issue of further work, which is very heartening. One thing I would like to draw on relief I think is the importance of starting points for this further work. I think I've heard from certain submissions that working with the policy recommendations of the task force is a natural starting point, and I think it would be appropriate to focus on that. I've heard other submissions that I would disagree with that we have various proposals floating around. While I agree that there's been -- there have been many proposals made on this subject that I think at this point it's important to take a step forward and work with the policy recommendations and building support around those policy recommendations, to the extent that we can. I would also submit that perhaps a -- if we are going to undertake some sort of a feasibility working group or committee of some sort, that we bound our focus in terms of the data subjects less to commercial and noncommercial applications, which is a concept which is rather fuzzy in most jurisdictions, as far as I understand, and instead deal with what we know, which has been flagged for us through all the -- all of what we've heard from the GAC and from the community to focus on legal persons versus natural persons. And I think with those -- those starts points, we'll be in a much better position to move this work forward in the time that we hope to.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Thank you, Ross. Tom Keller?

>>TOM KELLER: Thank you, Bruce. Talking about starting points, one thing that comes to my mind, that if I have a look at what we discussed about over the last couple of years in terms of WHOIS, we always try to feel out what is a legitimate need and who has a legitimate interest to access data, and having had all those discussions, I'm -- I've arrived at the opinion that in some way, we probably can't solve that ourself. I mean that's probably up to government to do that. So we can't really finalize -- or cannot really have an opinion who should be accessing what data under what circumstances, you know. I'm pretty sure my government has some pretty strong opinions that, you know, what I'm -- as a registrar I'm supposed to do under what circumstances. So what I would like to see as a starting point for further work is not to have that debate again, because I'm believing that that's not really going anywhere, but to put it more on a technical level where we say, okay, we have to design a system where we can create data and the access to data differently and then just put it out for the discussion to the GAC, for example, for them to make a decision on in what country what data can be accessed. By whom.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Tom. Ute?

>>UTE DECKER: Yeah. Just to avoid misunderstandings, I think when we're talking about starting points, when I mentioned the task force report, I didn't mean the policy recommendations because, of course, we have to find our own policy recommendations. I meant the material collected by the task force and presented in the report, and so that is everything that the task force put forward on the OPoC and everything the task force put forward on the special circumstances as well and everything else and background.

The categories that you mentioned, Bruce, I also believe that I think we should draw the line between natural person, on the one hand, and legal entity on the other, because the justification for drawing that line, I think, stems from data protection law, and data protection law really only looks at whether or not it's a natural person or not and ignores whether the use is commercial.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, that's right.

>>UTE DECKER: Regarding the problem that was raised on law enforcement agencies in one country accessing data that is available on WHOIS for -- I don't know that is available on WHOIS I suppose worldwide, I think the reason why WHOIS data is available globally is really because the domain is usually available globally so that's -- I think that would be cutting it really too fine, in a way.

And without wanting to actually preclude anything that will have to happen in the working group in any event, to my mind there's too much emphasis here on public law enforcement agencies' work, and I think we have to be mindful of the fact that -- and, you know, we've made that point numerous times before -- a lot of important and essential law enforcement work that eventually serves the whole Internet community is actually done with the help of the private sector. So making a distinction there in terms of access between public law enforcement and the rest of the world, I think, wouldn't work.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Norbert Klein and then Avri.

>>NORBERT KLEIN: I would just like to share an observation which I have, and I would like to add again I live in Cambodia since quite some many years.

When I hear the word "harmful activities," where we need law enforcement, I hear it very often completely from the opposite side than it is here mostly used. We also have problems of access to data which I would like to see protected by law enforcement, and the whole question: What is a harmful activity is -- I think has to be defined. It is very different. It's not just a question of intellectual property rights and so on. We have discussed this again and again, but when we talk, I always hear "harmful activities" as if it would be very clear what we mean here, and I think it is a very complex problem which is very different in different societies. Thank you.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you Norman. Go back to the list. Avri Doria.

>>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. As I listen to the discussion, it sounds to me like we're getting more and more back to a starting point that is all the way back to the starting point. We discuss everything in the report. We -- we have a -- some have indicated no policy that we can move forward from. And at that point, I come back to sort of the -- the -- a recognition that I, and some others, have had that we're not talking about WHOIS anymore. WHOIS is perhaps a tool that should be deprecated because the level of complexity that we're talking about, in terms of tiers of access, of access lists, of security, of private sector access versus law enforcement access, degrees, is a much richer, more complicated tool, than WHOIS could ever be, and also as we talk about going through all of the recommendations that are in the report, I then find myself needing to bring back up the proposal that sort of says, "Either let's do away with WHOIS, because it truly is an inadequate tool for what we're talking about and there are other tools that do it or restrict WHOIS to such an extent so that the basic information of who is responsible for the record can be found," going back to the original purpose, and start working on a working group, a task force, a policy creation for the tool that it is -- that everyone wants. The tool that has the full depth and complexity and covers all the different facets. I don't think WHOIS is the tool to do that, and I don't believe, as we go back to the raw starting point at time zero, which we're getting closer and closer to, that in 90 days we'll get any closer than we are now.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think it's important just to -- you're using -- there's two layers of WHOIS. There's WHOIS as a technology and WHOIS as a service. Very rarely is this group that I've seen talked about WHOIS as the technology. I think you're referring to it in the technical sense but I think most others in the community are referring to it as a service. So WHOIS as a technology is port-43. It's a protocol definition and I think its time has passed but anyway, it's a contractual obligation that we use it. And then there's a WHOIS service, which is the provision of contact information, essentially.

Chuck?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. There's been a -- I think we all appreciate the need for law enforcement access and that can be governed by laws, but I don't think -- and I'm not a legal expert, but I don't think that the laws really necessarily cover the timely access that law enforcement people have said they need. So I think we need to be a little bit careful about just relying on laws, and maybe this is a little bit of what Ute was getting to. I'm not sure. Also, if we rely solely on law enforcement, law enforcement is not going to be able to respond in a -- in a manner to all the needs that people have. What I have seen happening in the environment is there's lots of groups that do a lot of self-enforcement through the use of WHOIS data. Now, I'm not here to debate whether that should -- they should have access or not. I think that's for another meeting. But what about a bank that's fighting phishing? Do they have to rely on law enforcement to do that enforcement of phishing? I think it's honest to say that probably that won't be very effective, if they're not able to do some of that on their own.

So I think it's important that as we look forward -- and this isn't the time to resolve it or to debate it -- that we make sure that we don't have too narrow a focus, that we're just relying on law enforcement to do every -- all enforcement with regard to WHOIS.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Let me go back. I'm worried that we're starting to hit into the actual WHOIS task force debate rather than talk about how we go further forward. I think I had Jon and I think I had Ross and Philip Sheppard. So I think if I can just ask the next speakers to focus on the original question I raised, which is do we want three working groups, no working groups or somewhere in between.

For whatever number of working groups you choose, what do you think that working group should work on.

Let's sort of have that as the focus of discussion for the moment.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Bruce, can I be added to the queue, too?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Certainly, Alistair. Jon, you are going to propose whether we should have zero, one, two or three working groups or infinite.

>>JON BING: I am going to disappoint you. I am for one working group. I just wanted to say very clearly that at the same time as we are speaking about law enforcement, we have the cyber (inaudible) convention coming in force with 24/7 days national contact points and so on.

I rather think we shouldn't worry too much about the law enforcement and stick to our own table and try to tidy that up. There are enough problems there than we trying to solve the general law enforcement national problems, which they have tools for doing themselves. Thank you.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Jon. Ross? How many working groups?

>>ROSS RADER: I would like to avoid answering that question, Bruce, and instead possibly seek to move the discussion forward by putting a resolution on the table, if I may.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, that would be helpful.

>>ROSS RADER: So I will float this. The GNSO Council resolves, one, to accept the policy recommendations contained in the WHOIS task force report. Two, to create a working group of effective stakeholders including GNSO constituencies --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: You have to go a lot slower than that for me. Accept policy recommendations in the report. Now, are you talking about the ones under the heading of -- that have, I guess, a majority support?

>>ROSS RADER: I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: What are defining as the policy recommendations in the report?

>>ROSS RADER: The policy recommendations are the ones specifically made in the report.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes, but there are a number. Some had more or less support -- some had support of supermajority and some had a minority. I want to be clear.

>>ROSS RADER: There is a specific section as described in the PDP that is included in the report which outlines --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It is under the heading of "policy recommendations" in the report?

>>ROSS RADER: Correct.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And, two, what was the second one?

>>ROSS RADER: Two, to create a working group of effect affected stakeholders including GNSO constituency and community participants whose work is to be completed within 90 days.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Slow down. Sorry. Create working group of affected stakeholders.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Could this be e-mailed and put up on the screen?

>>ROSS RADER: It could. Do you have e-mail? To whom should I mail this?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes, please. Let's have a break for about two or three minutes which will allow me to exit the room shortly and for you to put this on the drive and I will put it up on the screen.

>>ROSS RADER: Very good.

(Short break)

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Let's get started, if the Councilmembers would like to take their seats.

For those that are listening to this discussion translated into Portuguese or other languages, the language translation will stop for a break from 12:30 to 1:30 so we will be without translation during that period.

>> (inaudible).

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's right.

I would also like to thank them for their efforts in this regard because trying to translate what I am saying half the time would be difficult.

Okay. What we have -- and I thank Ross for putting forward a motion for discussion. I have just played around with the wording slightly. Let's see how we go.

Basically we are saying the council resolves to, one, accept the WHOIS task force report and I have added thank the task force for their work. Two, to create a working group of affected stakeholders, including GNSO constituency and community participants, the work is to be completed within 90 days, that the work will examine the feasibility of the policy recommendations and make recommendations concerning how those policies may be improved.

And then specifically there are three areas listed here, whether or not the roles, responsibilities and requirements of the operational point of contact can be defined, how legitimate interests may access registration data no longer published via WHOIS and whether a distinction should be made between the registration contact information published for legal versus natural persons.

So that's the motion as provided by Ross, as slightly modified by me. Is there a second for that motion in that form?

>>CHUCK GOMES: I'll second that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Chuck. Any discussion now on this motion?

>>AVRI DORIA: Can you put up the printed text?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Can you display the text? We can't see very much of the scribing that's going on.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Oh, sorry. Forgot my important cable. I will run that through again but with the text displayed on the monitor. The GNSO Council resolves, one, to accept the WHOIS task force report and thank the task force for their work. Two, to create a working group of affected stakeholders including GNSO constituency and community participants whose work is to be completed within 90 days. That we will work to examine the feasibility of the policy recommendations and make recommendations concerning how these policies may be improved. And then, specifically, the three areas, whether or not the roll roles, responsibilities and requirements of operational point of contact can be defined. How registrants may access registration data no longer published via WHOIS, whether a distinct should be made between the registration contact information published for legal versus natural persons. That's the resolution as proposed and seconded.

Do you want me to use a smaller font to display the whole thing or is it more useful to be able to read the bits that are in there?

Go ahead, Mike.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I think I am generally fine with it with a slight wording change. I think down near the bottom you say "the policy recommendations" and based on how Ross was, I think, trying to define that earlier, I just want it to be clear that it is the feasibility of any and all of the policy recommendations in the report. Specifically, including minority recommendations obviously.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Do you accept that amendment?

>>ROSS RADER: As originally drafted, Mike, the intent of the motion was to focus on the recommendations made within the specific section labeled "policy recommendations" and not those recommendations made within the minority report.

I think we've heard a broad range of proposals on the subject over the years. Some of those are in this report, some of those are not. I think at this time it is important for us to seek agreement on a finite set of proposals. And if we cannot do that, to simply not move forward with anything. In that respect, I would not accept that amendment.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: How can we -- why would we have a working group to essentially only considering part of the recommendations of the report that were basically supported about I an extremely narrow minority?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Could I respond to that? I don't know if this solves it or not. If the working group examines feasibility and finds out that the recommendations are not feasible, then, of course, it opens the door to other things. I don't know if that's sufficient. It is really looking at feasibility.

I suspect, Ross -- and I will let you answer this -- that your intent is to keep this bounded enough that it is really realistic within 90 days, too. I think we have to be careful of -- you know, if we go your direction, Mike, and then we, oh, yeah, there were some other proposals, too. If we don't bound it enough, we might not be able to get it done in 90 days and I think it is really important that this group doesn't go any further than 90 days.

Now, I honestly, personally think that when we get to the end of 90 days, we are not going to be done but we will be a lot closer.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I will keep going on the queue on this. I see Ross is in there, too. I have got Ute, Kristina and then Ross again. Ute?

>>UTE DECKER: Yes. I would like to understand better why does 90 days that we are proposing. I agree we need a very tight time frame. I wonder how 90 days will relate to the timing of the next ICANN meeting.

To my mind, I think this working group will need time sort of into the next ICANN meeting and possibly a little bit beyond. If 90 days finishes before the next ICANN meeting, that sounds too ambitious to me. I think this working group might need some in-person time at the next ICANN meeting.

My other question is also -- I don't know what the understanding is of the points in particular that the working group will discuss under the broader heading of examining the feasibility of the policy recommendations of the task force report. This is starting out with -- I can't see it on the screen. But this is starting out with the feasibility of the OPoC function analysis in particular.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Is this the section that you are looking for?

>>UTE DECKER: Yeah. So on point A, we would be talking about the details really of OPoC and then we would turn to other questions. Whereas, I don't see a particular point of examining the benefits of the special circumstances model.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Sorry? Say that again -- sorry -- for me.

>>UTE DECKER: In some way, the three particular points draw a balance in the sense point A invites an in-depth examination of how the OPoC model would work and whether or not it can be implemented whereas there is no in-depth examination here of the special circumstances model.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So do you think number -- point C is kind of related to that there? Because the special circumstances basically is saying -- you have got special circumstances around the fact that somebody is a natural person, as I understand it, and then that proposal has obviously got ways of implementing that and one way of implementing it -- actually, you have got slightly different -- I think as the special circumstances is currently drafted, it goes beyond saying there should just be circumstances for an individual. It says that those circumstances need to be proven in the context of, I think, you need a legitimate privacy complaint or something like that.

That goes a little bit more beyond that. I think C would -- from my mind, is at least trying to consider that those are special circumstances and I think the different is that they're not the ones that were in the minority report because the minority report -- let me just go back to those restrictions, if I can. I would say C is related to special circumstances, in my view, but it is a bit more open in the sense it is talking about higher level issue. Can you distinguish between natural and non-legal persons? If you can, then I guess the next step is what are the circumstances where you treat them differently.

>>UTE DECKER: What I think is missing is a point that would go to the question as to whether or not it is necessary to have an operational point of contact and the pros and cons of having an operational point of contact rather than point C only picks up on one little subset that is relevant to the special circumstances model and it is also nothing that is particular to that model.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Essentially the Special Circumstances Proposal is saying that -- allows registrants. I assume it is probably not well characterized on this slide. But is the intent that's natural persons? Is it registrants or natural persons you are talking about there in the Special Circumstances Proposal?

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: It could be anybody. You are making a case.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It can be --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: I think it was anybody because you are actually making a case for exemption based on your circumstances or whatever rather than purely --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: You are saying if it is a shelter for -- I don't know -- people or something so it is an actual address of an organization so it is broader than natural persons. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. All right. What we might end up having to do is vote on the change if those that put Ford the motion don't accept it. Let's come back to that because I think you are raising a similar question to what Mike has raised.

I have got KRISTINA.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: And Philip for the queue as well, please, Bruce.

>>AVRI DORIA: And Avri in the queue, please.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Bruce, can you scroll to the top of that language and I have a number of questions. Maybe what I will do is run through them all and if they can be answered by Ross or Chuck or whomever. To the very top of the proposal, the very beginning of the proposal in the text.

>>ROSS RADER: Just on that point, I am taking notes on all the questions that have been raised so far.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: My first question is whether or not affected stakeholders is intended to include to the extent that they are given permission by the respective governments to participate the views of law enforcement.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Let's put that in explicitly because I am sure that would be a friendly amendment. Including GNSO constituency, law enforcement -- that's okay?

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: If you can scroll down just a little to the next group, I think then we are into A, B, C. Before we get to the end of that introductory clause -- again, this will tie into some of the suggestions and the points that Ute and Mike have raised.

But I think what we may need to do to ensure that we don't end up 90 days from now or whatever having to come back and say, well, the scope was too narrow and there was really this other issue that came out, what I would propose we modify that clause to be, so that it would read how those policies may be improved "including but not limited to." So you would replace "specifically." "Specifically" can be read and may well be read as more constricting than I think the working group would need. "Including but not limited to."

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Are you okay with that, Ross? I guess it is essentially saying that those issues will be -- that you have listed are being studied. If the working group decides to work on other issues, it may. Is that essentially what you are talking about? You are okay with that?

>>ROSS RADER: I was just asking if you wanted me to speak on that now or wait?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Just trying to see if it is a friendly amendment or just amendment on the fly. If it is not, we will debate that separately.

>>ROSS RADER: If I may speak on that. May I?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Sure.

>>ROSS RADER: I am not a fan of open-ended terms of reference for working groups. If there are specific elements that the working group should pick up, I think we should include those now. I'm not opposed to expanding the scope of the items that -- or the number of items that we're looking at.

These three were the ones that I felt picked up the discussion through the week where there was broad agreement.

If there are other areas where we have agreement, then certainly let's get those included now. In terms of just creating an open-ended terms of reference are, I would not accept that as a friendly amendment.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I think ultimately what we do with that will depend on what happens with some of the suggestions that Mike and Ute have made. But I would be inclined to say that if the ultimate decision on how this is worded is to restrict it solely to OPoC, then I would instead suggest that it read how those policies may be improved namely or only to make clear that it is the intent of the motion to include only those so that there is no uncertainty at all as to what is in scope and what's not.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think if I can understand the sort of point of disagreement, if you'd like, that is Ross is saying he wants to take the recommendations that had the majority support and I think Mike and Ute and yourself are saying it shouldn't just be limited to those, it should also look at the recommendations that had minority support. That seems to be the difference.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Yeah. What I essentially want too do is make sure there is no uncertainty. If the ultimate decision is that it is only going to look at those three, say only or say namely. Use language that makes clear and eliminates any ambiguity that you are only talking about those three. And specific "specifically" I think is too vague. I think you will have to say "namely" or "only" or whatever word or you will have to say "including but not limited to."

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I kind of thought about that, too, because we could be a bit more explicit. Before I make that more explicit, we want to limit it that way. I think the pros and cons of this are essentially we want the current debate going on in the WHOIS task force to continue in that we have groups that have decided to -- instead of the task force working together on something, the task force split in two.

I think what Ross is trying to do, if I understand in good faith is say, let's not split it in two again, let's just focus on one and see how we go. If we can get to an outcome that the constituencies that were previously against it or in favor, then we've achieved something. If we haven't, then we haven't. It is not limiting the opportunity to go back afterwards, after this group has come up with its report and you can say, yep, it actually hasn't really solved any of the problems that we had. Then basically, you can go back to the council and the council could say, okay, let's go and do more work on the Special Circumstances Proposal and see if we can get that to work.

I guess it is a question of -- this is really the question I was asking about whether we are doing one, two or three task forces.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I agree. Part of the suggestion was intended to make clear so that if there is a point at which the working group decides that they're not going to -- whatever their recommendation may be is not going -- they may ultimately say we can't implement, we can't design a feasible way to do this. If this is worded this way, full stop, we have to start over. If it is more broadly worded, then they've got the latitude to explore other solutions. That's essentially what I am trying to say.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So how about we sort of handle that by saying similar to what we have done with some of the working groups in the new gTLD report.

But why don't we basically just set a time frame that we think is reasonable to study the issue as Ross has drafted it and then the group comes back.

If the group has managed to move the matter forward, great. If it hasn't, then it reports that back to the council and the council then can decide. I think obviously the next order of priority would be to have a look at one that had minority support and see if we can do more work on that to make that successful.

I think the danger is because they are very much opposed in their current drafting, trying to work on them both at once is difficult. I think what I would rather see people do is focus on perhaps the first one that's got the slim majority and see how the concepts of special circumstances could be considered. And I think the concept around that is some notion that there is some difference between types of registrants and the one that Ross has picked as the one that's got a basis in law, I suppose, about the distinction between registrants that are natural persons or not. And I agree there is another distinction you can make as to whether organizations or companies have a legitimate need. I suspect they can probably be dealt with under the current proxy services.

I think -- I am not sure the scenario that you were suggesting around the sort of women's shelter-type scenario couldn't be dealt with via proxy registration. I am not sure that's not something that currently can't be dealt with in the current system. The vote cousin natural persons and legal persons at least seems to be something that is fairly commonly agreed that there is a separation, I suppose, in law.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I have some comments about that, too. But for now, like I said, if we're going to just limit it to these three areas, I would propose that we make it very clear that those are the three and that "specifically" be replaced with "namely" or "only" so there is no uncertainty. Many people are not going to be following all of this debate and all they are going to see is the proposal.

And then moving farther on down, I just had some other clarification questions.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: A and B has been raised by the intellectual property constituencies on -- whenever it was -- Sunday. And that was what we reported to the GAC. So A and B were covered there. And then the third point, I think, was raised in that discussion that we had with the GAC on -- there seemed to be agreement in protecting natural persons. I think that's kind of the origin of those three has come from the intellectual property constituencies and the GAC essentially.

If there is another concern you think needs to be addressed, let's add that concern.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I guess at this point, if I am confined to these three, I have just wordsmithing simply because I think, for example, with A you can define an operational point of contact any way you want. But whether it's a way that's feasible that is consistent with the overall goals --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: We will give improved wording. I think what Ross is saying, if I understand him correctly, if there is another concern you have on, let's call it, the majority recommendations, let's put it in here and study it so we make a D. Or if there is a better wording of A, B and C, let's do that. To sort of say let's look at two different proposals at once I think is where they're saying that may not help get us to converge.

In other words, add the issues that have been raised. If there is an issue that has been raised this week, let's put it in here and study it.

>>ROSS RADER: Sorry to jump in on this, Bruce. These are not my words. These are my read -- or this my understanding of the words I have heard this week. These are the words I have heard from the I.P. interests. These are the words I have heard from the GAC, law enforcement interests and these are the words I have heard from the registries and registrars. This is simply my attempt to bridge those words and restate them in a way that might be -- somehow lead to an acceptable conclusion for the broadest group possible.

If there are ways we can improve these words, then by all means let's do that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think KRISTINA is thinking of some more words.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I just want to make sure that we're very clear on all sides of this as to what this is intended to do. For example, another suggestion that I would have is how legitimate interests may access registration data is not necessarily as I understand kind of the should, must, may hierarchy have used consistently not necessarily reflective of that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Give me the word.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: How legitimate interests should, how legitimate interests would -- perfect. Yeah, fine. Works for me.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Keep going.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: And then the point with C, namely that as I think you've recognized that the Special Circumstances Proposal to a very large extent can be divided into natural and legal persons. But there is a little bit more of an overlap there under particular conditions. So that might not necessarily be the best way to characterize that distinction if that's, in fact, the distinction that Ross is intending to get to.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: The other option, would you like to look at commercial versus non-commercial at the same time? I mean, I think this is the key. Tell us what you think the distinctions that the group should look at.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: (Off microphone).

What about something along line with regard to C whether distinction should be made between the registrant contact information published based on the nature of -- guess we should use "registered name holder" because that's in the agreement. Or --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's making it much more general. I don't see a problem with that.

>>ROSS RADER: (inaudible).

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Legal and not natural persons is one way of characterizing a registered name holder. I think what the suggested replacement is you can look at it a bit more broadly so there could be other natures of a registered holder.

It is what KRISTINA has proposed is more broadly saying whether a distinction should be made between the registration contact information based on the nature of the registered holder.

So you could say, for example, to make that clear but it is also allowing you to pick up some of the other natures that you had suggested in the special circumstances so you have people that have a need to have their data protected, that they are actual legal entities of some sort.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Again. I can live with this, what I was going to also add is based on nature of the registered holder or its use of the domain name because then you could sweep into that commercial/non-commercial distinction to the extent that's something that would be desirable to look at.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And that's where the noncommercial/commercial concept comes in.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Oops.

>>UTE DECKER: Bruce, can I just make a comment because I have to leave in a moment.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Sure. Go ahead, Ute.

>>UTE DECKER: Okay. I think that we have to look closely at the correlation between the scope of the working group, that which is discussed based on what Kristina said, and the need for having point C in the first place, because I do agree, of course, that we want to be very clear on what this working group is going to look at in particular, and if the working group is to focus on the feasibility of the OPoC proposal and test it under point A, then frankly I don't really see a reason for having C and we could eliminate all these problems by just focusing closely on Questions A and B, and phrasing that correctly.

So that is my constructive proposal, and in that sense, I think, you know, if we -- if we had C, we would assume we'd have a broader scope, so we would have this scope discussion again.

My proposal would be to stick with A and B only.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: If I just sort of make a comment about the point you make, I'm not seeing what you've just argued. So C -- I think we -- we are trying to sort of look at the -- those recommendations. If you go back, I guess, to this paragraph which is just saying concerning those recommendations and how those policies may be improved, one element of the policy, of the current recommendation, specifies particular data elements, and there's probably two areas of improvement there that I can think of that have been raised this week, just as an example. So let's not get too focused on every element of it, but one of the issues that was raised on Sunday by the -- by Kristina, I believe, was that having the state wasn't enough that you actually needed the city, for example, because that was something that you needed, because some states had different courts or something, was that it? And so, you know, you thought having a city was useful. So, I mean, that's a -- that's a constructive improvement, potentially, to that proposal. So let's say you decided, as part of that, that you were going to add city as well. That may still mean that you still want to distinguish down in C, because maybe, depending on C, you don't display any of the city or state and maybe you just provide country.

So there's still scope in the OPoC proposal, as it currently stands, to adjust the data that's displayed based on the nature of the registered holder, registered name holder, I should say. And then if you look at B, there may be some distinction there made between how legitimate interests will access registration data because we haven't -- that OPoC proposal doesn't talk about access, and you might create two access levels and the special circumstances is essentially an access level in my mind, and basically you're saying you might provide access to the data for let's call it the street and phone number and e-mail address to legitimate interests, but maybe there's a higher bar put on what those legitimate interests are if, depending on the state of the registered name holder. So I certainly don't see C as being mutually exclusive to the OPoC proposal. Would you agree, Ross, I guess, as the proponent of the OPoC professional? I'm just giving you my -- I haven't been on the task force. I'm just sort of looking at it from my understanding of the proposals.

>>ROSS RADER: Yeah. The -- I'm just laughing at your notion of the word "proponent." I've turned from the guy that had the notepad two years ago to the proponent and I just find that remarkable.

[Laughter]

>>ROSS RADER: No, I don't believe the distinctions made in C are exclusive. As a matter of fact, from a registrar perspective, as it relates to our compliance with our national laws, the concerns about natural persons versus legal persons is really the only concern in this area, regardless of what the proposal is. So this extends to -- to any publication of data around natural persons. Does that answer your question, Bruce?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. So in other words, you're still in favor of keeping C in?

>>ROSS RADER: Yes.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And you think it is relevant --

>>ROSS RADER:.

[Speaker is off microphone]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes. And you believe that question is relevant in the context of the majority recommendations rather than call them your proposed recommendations?

>>ROSS RADER: Yes.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Bruce, if I could suggest another alternative of dealing with C, I know we're talking about having just one working group but as I look at these, C's really unique in terms of the work that needs to be done. I'm going to have to study some laws and so forth, and I wonder if that could be a staff task or a special work group with some expertise that could deal with that. It might involve checking with registrars and so forth, but it is kind of unique, and possibly it could be done in a parallel track by a different group of people. Just an idea to resolve this particular issue.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Well, I think that's fine. Why don't we use that as something the working group determines because I think once we formulate the working group, you may find that there are individuals in that working group that have that area of specific expertise, and I know in your reserved names working group, you did actually form subgroups to look at specific topics. I think I'd rather it was managed hierarchically like that rather than trying -- otherwise you're talking about the council having to manage the multiple working groups.

Are you raising your hand Avri?

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah. I just -- but I wasn't on C --

>> I was on the list about half an hour ago.

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah. And I was on the list too so I was just wondering when we were getting back to it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. One of the problems is I'm not maintaining a list on the screen and I'm not getting back to it. I think I had Tom, Avri and do we have Alistair as well.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: I think I'll [inaudible] for the moment, Bruce.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. So if I had -- so if ear going through that list, Tom Keller and then Avri.

>>TOM KELLER: Thanks, Bruce. I almost forgot my point, but after listening to this discussion, I guess the proposal we have on the table right now, it's -- at least to my thinking -- pretty good and we should kind of draw an end to discussion and vote on it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Avri?

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah. I'm almost to that point. I wanted to offer and see if a friendly amendment would be accepted. And this is within the body of 2. As we talk and expand in the points to -- there's a phrase "that will work to examine the feasibility" and I'd like to add the clause, "Within the constraints set by the defined purpose of WHOIS."

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think that's --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: [inaudible]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, I don't think that's a smart move. Yeah.

>>AVRI DORIA: I mean basically we're starting to open it up and we already set at a certain point a defined purpose of WHOIS, and I'm not -- and I'm basically concerned as we open up the -- the -- what we're trying to achieve here, that we maintain achieving that within the constraints that we've already set, which was the defined purpose of WHOIS. As -- as the -- as the council already went through a discussion and an agreement on the defined purpose of WHOIS.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>AVRI DORIA: To sort of way, "We've worked on proposals and now we're going to try and hone it in and narrow it down and see where it's feasible." To open up the whole purpose of WHOIS again beyond that is again going back to time zero.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Well, but let's be careful, because that's not an ICANN policy yet, and that was also something that was a majority recommendation, with at least three constituencies voting against it. So I'd be wary of putting so much wait on that at this stage of the game, where I think we're more productive at looking at the proposal on the table. My hope had been that we go back and review the purpose of WHOIS after you guys have already reached agreement on the rest of it.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So rather than inherent something that's also controversial into this -- and this is already controversial -- I would caution against that. But I don't know whether Ross feels that he wants to add that in as a friendly amendment but I think you'll end up with less support overall for the motion, rather than more.

>>ROSS RADER: I think from a social perspective that was a very friendly amendment, but I'm not -- I'm not sure that it's wise at this point for the reasons that Bruce said to actually accept that as a friendly amendment.

The intention here is to work on the proposed policy recommendations of the task force and to leave those -- those other work items that we've already completed as future work for council. So I'm not inclined to accept that at this point.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. And the last speaker and then I think we'll put it to a vote and just see how the cards lie.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Oh, sorry. Philip. My apologies.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Thank you, Bruce. Just as a couple of I hope friendly amendments, if you just go to the top.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: The second word there is "to accept the WHOIS task force report" and given sort of the technicalities of PDPs and votes, et cetera there, we might -- and the fact this is incomplete work, we might be better to say, "To note" or "to welcome the report" or something like that. Or "to recognize the WHOIS report." Something of that sort of phrasing, just to be clear that we are doing further work rather than taking it as done.

Secondly --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Just let me try and get the right word there. To note --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: We can welcome it, if you like. If you like a friendly word, we can acknowledge it, if you want a neutral word:

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Something like that. I understand what you mean. You got to be careful what we're doing from a bylaws perspective.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Because we're not actually voting it up to the council at this point. Sorry, up to the board at this point.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah. If you scroll down a bit to that feasibility paragraph.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: I'm just a bit concerned about the word "feasibility." I mean there's actually nothing unfeasible about the recommendations in the task force. I mean creating an OPoC is quite -- is quite feasible. I think the task, the more interesting task, of course, is actually making it work given the privacy versus getting at the bad guys' objective. And it's just a bit loose maybe --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So why don't you say "that will work to examine the issues raised regarding the policy recommendations of the task force and make recommendations concerning how those policies can be approved."

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Something like that, yeah, yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if I say that -- let me just put some bracketed text here for a second.

So the work will examine the issues raised with respect to the policy recommendations of the task force and make recommendations concerning how those policies may be improved and then namely, these are actually the issues that have been raised.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah, exactly. And then my -- my third and last point is actually just on A where you are now. Just back, back, back, back, back.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Just let me clean that -- I think that's all right. I don't think that changes the sense.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: All right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: This is painful, but necessary. Okay.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Scroll down to A. It's "whether or not" is a bit wishy-washy at this point, I thought. It may be just to -- to seek to define the responsibilities and comments.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think it's define, isn't it? Or --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah. I think "define" the -- we sort of want a word here. In other words, the roles, responsibilities and requirements that will actually make it all acceptable and work is the concept I thought we were trying to capture here. Isn't it? It's to define --

>>ROSS RADER: [inaudible]

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Okay. But I mean just defining the roles that's going to be useless is not exactly what we're after either, I guess. So I'm open to alternative suggestions there. But I mean the point is it's making it move on, rather than just, you know, saying, yeah, it can be done. That was my third point. Back to Ross, then.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Ross?

>>ROSS RADER: I'll pick those up in reverse, Philip. I think as it relates to defining the roles and responsibilities of the contact, that we are -- we are at a bit of an impasse with that subject. It is a subject that the task force failed to come to any conclusion on, and in discussions this week it's become clear to me that even creating the operational point of contact is making people very uncomfortable. What I'm proposing with that original language is to examine whether we can define it, and to the extent that we can't, we do nothing. In other words, we do not have an area where there is consensus, and we stick with the existing construct around those specific points. It's certainly not something that the registrar community cares deeply about. It was more of a -- a bit of technical elegance that we could somehow refactor the WHOIS, and it's grown into something that is of grave concern to the larger community. I think we at least need to step back from that position and perhaps live with -- with what we have.

So to the extent that we can't come up with something, you know -- so changing the language, I think minimizes our capability to actually step back from it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So Ross, what's the -- you know, I've struggled to understand why that can't be possible because the feedback we were getting from stakeholders that didn't support the proposal was there wasn't clarity around this, and it seemed to me if you could give clarity, that was going to make a number of people a lot more comfortable with the recommendation, so it would seem to me not sensible to say, "Look, too hard, I can't tell you what the purpose of the contact is." Would it not be sensible to try and spend some time -- you know, that's really the purpose of the working group to move forward rather than --

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Perhaps --

>>ROSS RADER: Yeah, the record will support --

[Speaker is off microphone] -- there was a definition for the operational point of contact proposed that was not acceptable in a broad way. It has now fallen off of the set of recommendations. So I think with -- without something to rally around, I don't have any further suggestions beyond what's already been proposed, so if there is a way to define that, if there is a proposal on the table that we could perhaps rally around, then perhaps. But I'm not seeing that today.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But what why not have the working group have a go at doing that. I can't see how this is not different to a number of other point of contacts that are used in legal frameworks and I think you could borrow legal language that exists today. You know, people act as company secretaries and, you know, there are other roles where people formally are acting as as a point of contact.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: We will have no problem offering suggestions. Whether or not they're acceptable is another matter, but I think there are -- it is relatively easy to make an attempt at the definition, as you were saying.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:.

[Speaker is off microphone]

>>ROSS RADER: So in terms of moving the -- moving the discussion forward, I think we can accept this as a friendly -- as a friendly amendment, to the extent that it's -- it allows us to fall back to the -- to the status quo around those specific contacts. We -- again, we do not deeply care whether it is the operational point of contact or the admin and technical contacts.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, exactly.

>>ROSS RADER: So if we can somehow, when we do look at these, break these down into discrete recommendations, I think we'll be in a much better position to move forward.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Because one of the original tasks of the task force was actually to define the role of the admin tech contact and I think we've kind of gone around in circles a little bit because the OPoC proposal just looks like the admin contact to me and so we have the registrar and the admin contact is essentially what's there, and then what you're really arguing about is the purpose of the admin contact, and it's quite funny that there's such a big debate about OPoC when all it is really, when I read it -- you know, engineering hat on -- it looks the same to me as an admin contact. Which you already have. And then we're really -- so suddenly we're saying, hey, we don't need an admin contact or -- I think what we're saying is what would help in terms of clarity for the intellectual property constituencies is actually defining what the purpose of the admin contact is. That's what it really breaks down to. And what the expectations are. So when you contact that person, what are they supposed to do. You know, I think that's -- there's probably some RFC stuff there we could use around admin contact. I think I could probably dig some stuff up. But I think there's also some other legal frameworks that are available that we could use to use more clarity.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Sorry, sorry. Just in parentheses, I think that's missing the point. The issue here is that we are taking data away that was open access. Yeah? Open contact information away. And, therefore, the nature of the operational point of contact becomes key in a way that it never was before. So, in essence, it's not merely a semantic change.

>>ROSS RADER: So on the other points that Philip raised, as it relates to the issues raised versus feasibility language, if you could pull it up there, Bruce.

My belief is that it is much narrower, if we look at the feasibility of these recommendations, rather than reexamining the issues associated with these recommendations. I think we have a broad awareness of the issues. I'm looking for action with respect to these recommendations. And if that means inaction -- i.e., we cannot come to consensus as to the feasibility of these recommendations -- then inaction is a definite answer. I'm not proposing that we drive forward with the operational point of contact proposal at all costs. I'm seeking to some -- come to some sort of conclusion on the issue at all costs. And there's a big difference in my mind between those two. So I'm not inclined to take that language as written. If there's a different way of bounding that, Philip, I'd be more than happy to include that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I've suggested it slightly differently, Ross and let's see if we can get something that you'd be comfortable with. I've got here that we'll work to examine the issues raised. So basically you -- let's sort of understand where we're at. You've got a majority report with some recommendations, but you've got three of the constituencies against that. That's not a good state. And then we're saying not only have those three constituencies raised issues, so has the GAC and we've obviously had public comments that have raised issues. So normally what we do in policy development work, I guess, is that we take input on the policies we come up with and then as people raise issues we try and at least address them and see how that issue can be solved with -- with the policy. You know, and I don't think it's a matter of just ignoring them. So I think what -- but you're also right, in that sometimes issues can't be solved, and we accept that. But I think the intent of this working group is essentially to say that we'll work to examine the issues raised with respect to the policy recommendations and then make recommendations concerning how these policies may be improved to address those issues. That, to me, is the crux of what the working group is doing. It's saying you're -- and I think --

>>ROSS RADER: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- a lot of the feedback is essentially that --

>>ROSS RADER: Okay. Understand. On the last point, I just -- it's a technical question, as opposed to any sort of resolution issue. What are the procedural implications of accepting a report from the task force versus acknowledging it? It's certainly my impression that the task force has completed its work, it's presented its final report and we're now taking that on board. So that's where the language came in from. As long as the --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>ROSS RADER: As long as we're not leaving the impression that the task force is now kind of dangling out there waiting for further instructions.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No. That's right. That's where I've kind of tried to thank their task force for their work. I think what we're really saying is we've got your report, we've read your report and now we're doing some further work on it, and I think the concern that Philip's raising, and -- I don't think it's the word "accept" that's the problem. I think accept is fine.

>>ROSS RADER: So we've received the report, in other words.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>ROSS RADER: Okay.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: I'll add for the completed work or something, to make it clear. That group is closed, yeah?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: [inaudible].

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>ROSS RADER: And finally, there was a concern raised earlier regarding the duration of the task force, and that's just simply an arbitrary number. That sounded both long and short at the same time. So if there's contrary thought to the duration, I would certainly be willing to extend that or shorten it up, as the case may be.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I would suggest we extend it a little bit. I'd like the suggestion that perhaps this group could get some face-to-face time, near the end, in San Juan, so, therefore, extend it to 100 days, 120 days. You know, not that much farther.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: [inaudible] another month. It just gives us you a bit of flexibility to at least consider it more formally, yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Although you can control the overlap with San Juan by the start date. It's going to take a little while to get the group together.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Yeah -- so basically I've just changed -- to be absolutely clear, we acknowledge the completion of the WHOIS task force work and that we have received and discussed their report and thank the task force for their work, and then as a result of that, our action is, creating a working group of effective stakeholders working to examine the issues raised with respect to the policy recommendations of the task force, and make recommendations concerning how these policies may be improved to address these issues. Namely, defining the roles, responsibilities and requirements of the operational point of contact, which is formerly the admin contact, essentially, how legitimate interests will access registration data no longer published by WHOIS and whether a distinction should be made between the registration contact information published based on the nature of the registered name holder -- for example, legal versus natural persons -- or its use of the domain name.

So then I think we'll just vote on it. It was --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Just one totally different issue that we can cover in our meeting tomorrow, but I want to make sure we don't forget it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yep.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Keep in mind with the PRO working group, we made the motion and we forgot some of the things we needed to get that group started like the statement of work.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Things like that. And we want to keep in mind when we do that, that we include other people than like we did in PRO and reserved names like law enforcement, et cetera.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: I'm perfectly okay with that happening tomorrow, but let's not forget that.

And the start date, which we can control that, how we're going to get members and so on.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: What we'll do as a result of this meeting, we'll create a statement of work, and in our next council meeting, which will -- let's say that's in two weeks' time, we will ratify that, essentially. But just without trying to spend a lot spend a lot of time on here, it will be consistent with the way we've formed the most three recent working groups in structure and how we formed them.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: And Bruce, who would do the statement of work?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I will work with the staff to create a statement of work, publish it to the list, people can obviously, you know, suggest changes on that list, and then at our next council meeting, we'll just ratify it. But it will be consistent with this resolution, essentially.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: And just one clarifying question. Does our -- does that current wording also allow for the -- the nature of any knock-on responsibilities, if you like, of the registrar, the registry, contingent on the responsibilities of the point of contact? In other words, point of contact name fails or whatever. As long as we feel that wording covers that element, then we're -- we're okay, but it's clearly an important part of the functionality.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So maybe I'll just add that slightly.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Or something like that.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Something like that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That was one of the other things that was raised.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Is the concept that you might have the roles and the responsibilities of the operational contact really well-defined but if that information itself is false or that operational point of contact doesn't fulfill those responsibilities, what's the -- what's the next step, yeah. And I think, you know, some of those processes probably already exist around the accuracy stuff that we can reuse there, but I think that's fair. That we cover that. Yeah.

All right.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'd just suggest a slight wording change just because "fails to act" is only focusing on the OPoC itself. It could have been the designation of the OPoC that fails and the requirements. I would just say what happens if those responsibilities and requirements are not fulfilled.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I'm trying not to create a legal document here. How's that? And what happens if they are not fulfilled, is that --

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Uh-huh.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Just remember, I'm an engineer. I don't understand English.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Anyone else wanting to talk about this? Okay. All right. All those in favor, please say your hand or say aye.

[Chorus of ayes].

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Any against?

[Chorus of nays].

>>BRUCE TONKIN: We have Kristina and Avri against. Any abstentions? Okay. We'll note that motion as passed, and at this point, we will close this meeting and we will -- I believe Alan wishes to -- has a point of information for us just before we close. Go ahead, Alan.

>>ALAN GREENBURG: Thank you. The ALAC yesterday passed a motion, a resolution, saying that we will be requesting an issues report from staff on domain tasting. I'll be sending out e-mail to council with a little bit more details, but effectively I'm soliciting support from GNSO constituencies and help in framing the request to illustrate how it does, indeed, address ICANN policy issues.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Thank you. Alan. So at this point, I'll close this meeting and --

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I just have a point of order. I realize that under the new rules, there's no proxy for councillors, but had this meeting concluded on time, Ute would have been here and been able to vote, and I have her -- information from her as to how she would like to vote and I'm wondering whether -- you know, given the circumstances, we can reflect her vote.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think what we'll do is we'll record that in the minutes.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But I think we'll record the vote as it was --

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Sure. Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- conveyed, but we will add to the minutes that Ute was also against the motion. Yeah. Okay. And we'll reconvene tomorrow after the meeting with the nominating appointments committee or whatever it's called, and we'll be considering both -- whatever output we get from the GAC this week on the topic of either new gTLDs or WHOIS or both, and we'll also follow up on some of the other elements here of how we incorporate the working group material into our new gTLD reports.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Bruce.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Go ahead, yes.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Bruce, will that be posted to the council as to the timing of that and --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Sorry. Say that again, Alistair?

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Will the timing of that posted to the council list?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes. It will be roughly in terms of our time probably 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. I'm imagining.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It's probably not going to be a very good time of the day for you.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Not really, no.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. But it will be recorded, is that right?

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: It will be recorded.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So it will be recorded, so when you wake up, you'll be able to listen to it.

[Laughter]

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: I'll look forward to it.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Well, thank all the council members for attending, and we'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Just one announcement. The meeting tomorrow will continue in the room where we're going to have lunch with the nominating committee. That is Amitiste. It will unfortunately not be as big as our GNSO working room was but we'll make the best of it. There will be AV equipment in there. Thank you.

>>CHUCK GOMES: What time.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: After the nominating committee lunch, yes. We just sit there and we continue there.

>>TONY HARRIS: Glen, I have a question. The meeting with the nominating committee, do we stay here for that?

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: That will be in Amitiste, as soon as the public forum is over tomorrow.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: This is tomorrow we're talking about.

>>TONY HARRIS: Oh, I thought it was today.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: No.

>>TONY HARRIS: Tomorrow.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Tomorrow.

>>TONY HARRIS: Okay.