STAFF UPDATE Friday, 6 March 2009 ICANN - Mexico City >>DOUG BRENT: Good morning to all you early risers. We are going to start in a couple of minutes here. >>DOUG BRENT: Okay. Good morning. My name is Doug Brent. I'm chief operating officer of ICANN. I'll begin by sending regrets from Peter Dengate Thrush, who wanted to chair this session of staff updates, to you all, but since I am part of staff and this is staff update, it's perhaps natural that we will do this this way. We have a few short presentations from staff this morning, and depending on what the timing is, we may have some opportunity for Q&A as well before the board session at 10:30. So we will begin with Kurt Pritz talking about new gTLDs. Kurt. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you. So quite a bit went on at this meeting, I think. There were several meetings, consultations, and discussions. Just prior to the meeting, the next version of the applicant guidebook, the revised version, and a comment analyses were released, and one of our purposes here was to describe the content in that comment analyses in the new version of the applicant guidebook that was released for public comment. So we did that in a variety of venues. There was a several hour briefing for the GNSO, a high level of participation at the ALAC Summit, abbreviation for the GAC and individual GNSO constituencies, registries, registrars, the cross constituency group. There was a workshop on -- and Q&A on the applicant guidebook and a session on potential branding. And then there was a public forum discussion here with the board yesterday. So I think it went pretty well. I can say that, I guess, because there's only a few of us here; right? So it seemed like there was overall positive reaction to the analysis that went -- the work that went into the analysis and the format in which it was presented. There were a few suggestions for how that format and information transference can be improved, so we are going to work on that next time. I think there's a recognition that the public consultation process is working. There was a lot of thoughtful comments, comments from a broad- based membership of the Internet community. It indicated that there was a higher awareness about new gTLDs and of ICANN and the ICANN model. So there are several new participants in our environment now, which represents an opportunity, I think, for ICANN and for all of us. So what did we talk about here? Well, we identified a settle of overarching issues, a set of fundamental issues that needed to be further studied and discussed before the implementation is launched. And those issues really were identified as four. There were trademark issues, a possible multiplication of abuses through the DNS because there is a multiplication of top-level domains. There's the case of the effects of the coincident introduction of DNSsec IPv6 IDNs and new gTLDs into DNS stability. And also discussions about the economic effects of introduction of new TLDs into the marketplace. So the results of these consultations, which started here -- there's a lot of work that went on here with regard to these -- will be published in a subsequent version of the draft applicant guidebook. So what's this mean for the timetable? This means that, at earliest, applications will be received December 1st or December 2009 and maybe the middle of February of the following year. What else did we talk about when we were here. We talked about in addition to these overarching issues we talked about issues that are handled in the more routine ICANN fashion, if there is such a thing. That process of proposed position being posted on the Web site, some community discussion and feedback, an amendment of that position, and an iteration of that cycle so that we get to resolution of that. So now we're going through another -- I want to start that one again. We are going to go through another iteration of those issues. And some of the more important issues that were discussed here were these. I'm just going to cherry pick some of these, but an issue that got a lot of discussion was the three-character requirement for certain IDN gTLDs. Think of ideographs maybe in Chinese, Japanese or Korean where one character represents a whole word so that a three-character requirement for a gTLD essentially means a three-word requirement for Chinese TLDs. We talked about thick versus thin WHOIS and whether there should be a requirement for thick WHOIS. We talked about several registry agreement terms, and in particular, potentially partially lifting the restriction on cross ownership of registries and registrars. We talked quite a bit about geographical names and any process that might be included in the guidebook to accommodate the GAC principles on new gTLDs and their position on geographical names. So where does that leave us? Now, here is what's left to be done in order to launch the process. We're going to complete the community consultations on these overarching issues, and in particular, the trademark and malicious behavior issue. And you will see the board discussing that quite a bit in the upcoming board meeting where a specific effort with a specific timetable is launched. We understand that these issues require additional consultation, should be thoughtfully considered, but need to be considered in the near term. We want to complete all third-party studies, such as market analysis or economic analysis, and also an SSAC RSSAC study that goes to the DNS stability issues. With regard to the routinely handled issues, we want to finalize those. You will see final -- close to final positions on those in the next version of the applicant guidebook. And then we have got to complete ICANN's readiness work, so put into place -- execute the organizational plans that have been made in order to be ready to, first, process applications as they arrive, and then support gTLD registries as they are inserted into the root and conduct operations. So with that, I want to thank you very much and convey to your friends and associates that were here our thanks for all the work that went on this week here. I have just included in this PowerPoint presentation, which of course will be posted, is the link to the new gTLD Web site, and there is a host of information there. So thanks very much, everyone. >>DOUG BRENT: Kurt, thank you very much. Given your brevity and the importance of this topic, do you want to see if there's a question or comment or two to take from the audience? I guess it was just that clear. Thank you very much, Kurt. Next we have Tina to talk about progress on IDNs. >>TINA DAM: Thank you, Doug, and good morning, everybody. So the IDN staff update today is one slide. And what is posted online is a much longer presentation with a lot of details and links to the different documents and so forth. But I tried to do one slide that would include some of the main topics that were discussed this week. So first of all, like with the gTLD program, there was a lot of sessions on IDNs, and I would say that even though the community still remains divided on some of the topics, things are progressing, and the model, with having these meetings and reaching different collaborations and a different constituency, supporting organizations, and advisory committee meetings, is actually working very well. So the three topics I selected out for the staff update are the IDN ccTLD fast track, the IDN gTLD, and a little bit about technical standards. On the fast-track process, the main topics that were discussed were the draft required documentation of responsibility, which is the framework or relationship between ICANN and the ccTLD operators for IDNs. And there's a whole detailed draft posted on that. The other topic that got a lot of attention was financial models to reach some level of cost recovery. And you may have heard that both the ccNSO and the GAC did resolutions yesterday on -- specifically on those two topics, suggesting or recommending to us that the documentation of responsibility should be a volunteer arrangement, and that financial model should be, too. In particular for the financial model, we're going to come back to you with some more details. There's going to be a topic paper with financial details posted so that we can get a more informed discussion on reaching a solution on that area. The last topic on the fast track I wanted to mention is the IDN tables and variants, and that's a topic that created a little bit of confusion. Some felt that it was a highly technical topic, and I just want to mention that there is a paper out on that, and it actually isn't as technical as you might feel that it is, and it has some implementation consequences. There's a couple of proposals in there; for example, suggesting that TLD variant strings are going to be allocated to meet the overall purpose of the fast-track process in itself, which is meeting the demand of the local communities. The fast-track process revised draft implementation plan is posted for public comments until the 6th of April, so we are looking forward to reaching more feedback on that. In terms of IDN gTLDs, as Kurt just mentioned, one of the main topics related to IDNs in that is the number of characters in a string. And just to put on the record that even when the first version of the guidebook was written, we knew that there was a problem with requiring a minimum of three characters in a string, particularly in the CJK area. However, the policy recommendation did not leave us a good way of implementing anything, and we couldn't -- well, we couldn't come up with a good way of implementing that. So I'm happy to let you know that this week we actually got a suggested solution from the CJK community, and we're going to be building on that and see if we can build that into both a technical and a policy sound solution that works for implementation. The last topic is the IDNA technical standards, and there has been quite some questions this week around why are the technical standards required and so forth. I'm not going to go into the details of that. The other slides that are posted have links to a blog post and there are some other materials provided, some time ago, actually, on this. But since it's a topic that has been raised, we are looking at potentially providing a full-day session on this topic and other technical related topics in the Sydney meeting. And I can see I have about 20 seconds left, so I am just going to say one thing that I said earlier this week. It's really nice to get comments on the draft papers that are posted, that are critical and that required changes and so forth. But please, if you can also provide comments on things that you think are positive, because that would provide a very good way for us to get those topics off the table and finalize and decided upon. And that concludes my report. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you very much, Tina. Just to add quickly that this will also be a subject of the board discussion today with the resolution, and some of the discussion around the more contentious topics that Tina mentioned, so I think we will get a good perspective from the board. Any quick questions or comments for Tina? Yes. >>MANAL ISMAIL: This is Manal Ismail, Egyptian GAC representative. First, I would like to thank Tina for all the effort she put in this and the effort she put in explaining IDN technical stuff to our GAC community. I have a quick remark on the presentation, on the financial contributions. It's posted on the Web site. It has two types, either cost recovery, and it's a gTLD model, or no cost or voluntarily -- no fees or voluntary. And I see those as three categories, actually. It's either no fees, which would not cover any costs, obviously, or calculated fee-based thing, which would cost whatever we will be calculating. And in between will be the voluntary contributions, which, again, could be cost recovery, I mean. And my last question is, is there any link between the DoR and the financial contributions? I mean, can a ccTLD go for one but not for the other or are they both linked together? >>TINA DAM: Okay. So I think on both of your questions, it's really hard to give an answer. On the financial -- Specifically on the financial piece, the community reaction this week has been that they need some more information. So what we asked for when we posted a revised draft implementation plan is for the community to say what kind of components and what kind of level do you think that would be appropriate on some level of cost recovery, fee contribution. And what your response was, well, we need some more information. So we are going to put some more details out on that. So, if that answers you on that one. In terms of whether the DoR and the fees are related, they are not today in the draft papers are that are out. And that is to have a discussion on those two topics separately. Whether or not they will be in the future is kind of hard for me to give any answers on at this time. >>MANAL ISMAIL: Okay. Thank you. And for praising positive things, I would like to thank you also for taking care of delegation of variants of the same TLD to the same registry. Thank you. >>TINA DAM: Thanks. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you very much, Tina. I think that's about all the time we can spend on IDNs right now. If we have additional time at the end and there are additional questions, we can take consider them as well. Now I would like to invite Paul Levins to come up and speak on the improving institutional confidence initiative. >>PAUL LEVINS: Good morning, everyone. I am just expecting a slide to come up. I'm here today to talk about the improving institutional confidence process. This is a process commenced under the auspices of an organism called the President's Strategy Committee. That committee was set up in 2006 to advise the president and CEO on strategic matters, and it had done a lot of work in relation to ICANN's confidence as an institution, post the JPA. But it was expressly asked to work on that particular issue out of the midterm review of the Joint Project Agreement last March, in 2008. So the President's Strategy Committee has proposed a framework for improving confidence in the organization overall following the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement. They have published a plan for information/discussion only. It's not for decision. The final decisions on any of these matters have to be taken by the board. And that documentation was published on the 27th of February. So the Sunday of this meeting. There was a session held on Wednesday, and I'll talk a little bit about some of the key points that were taken up in that discussion in a moment. Presently, the plan is to submit from the PSC to the board with recommendation that the board do a 60-day public comment period, and then the board will consider whether to ask staff to do a more detailed implementation work at its April meeting. So if we can just go to the next slide. As I said, there was this session on Wednesday of this week where there were general comments, comments particularly about GAC and participation. There was support, generally, for board/GAC joint mechanisms to review the GAC's role and community review -- with the community review. Also to support -- support for enhanced ways for governments to interact with ICANN. For example, briefings at the IGF and other international fora. There was also a discussion around extra legal presence. Now, what does this mean? It doesn't mean that we're leaving our head office in California, but it means that we would potentially -- the recommendation is potentially to look at exploring an additional legal personality beyond the one that we have already as a California not-for- profit. But the view is, has been and remains that there is a real need for detailed analysis on this, for instance, the applicable laws, what it means for policy and the risks in that include not just legal accountability but accountability to stakeholders. We want to make sure that people, our stakeholders themselves, have real confidence in those measures before we were to proceed with that work. So the process going forward is to translate document summaries or progress reports, a predictable and reasonable publication of time line, and to use conference calls with what we call experts, still to be identified, to move some of these key areas forward. As I say, all of this is contingent on the board agreeing to move this forward, and they will do so, having looked at this documentation, at the April 2009 meeting. So with that, I'll conclude my remarks, and, Doug, if people want to ask questions, feel free. Looks like we might be running ahead of time. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you, Paul. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: I have -- >>PAUL LEVINS: I'm sorry, Sebastien. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: I'm sorry, today I guess it's just an English session. I have just one remark from your report and the previous one. It seems like ALAC Summit didn't do anything in the list of the body you were discussing with, you were participating in. There is no at- large anywhere. I am a little bit astonished. Thank you very much. And another thing, somebody lose his iPhone. I don't know who it is, but it's here. >>PAUL LEVINS: Sebastien, sorry, if I can ask you to come back to the mic. Firstly, I will take the iPhone if no one else wants it. It's this gentleman's. Can I just clarify your question? Are you saying you are disturbed that there is no one from the at-large on the PSC or involved in the discussions? Which? >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Here you take comments from the GAC. In the presentations there were GAC, ccNSO, GNSO. It seems that the interaction you got with the at-large community is not taken into account by you in your feedback report. >>PAUL LEVINS: I'm sorry, Sebastien. There's probably some confusion in the way I put that slide together. What that's meant to suggest is that there were comments about the GAC, not comments exclusively from the GAC. As you know, we have had a number of policy development periods on the PSC documentation, and certainly ALAC, amongst many others, have made contributions in that forum. But this is meant to indicate that on the session on Wednesday that was held, people in that session focused on GAC and participation issues. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: I understand your rationale. I just want to say that there were other meetings on that subject deuce during this week when a lot of feedback came from other constituencies that are not here. It was not just the Wednesday meeting on that subject. >>PAUL LEVINS: That's a very fair point. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: We have three working groups on the topics in the At-Large Summit. I'm sure other constituencies talk about and discuss with you about that. It was just my point to say that there are other things -- even if you have short summaries and you can't say everything here, it could be useful to say that you are taking also into account the other feedback on other subject that come from other constituencies. >>PAUL LEVINS: That's a very good point. At the ALAC Summit there were not only sessions on transparency and accountability but, in fact, this improving institutional confidence work and a number of really useful sessions on that. So for that, I apologize not listing those. That was an oversight. >>DOUG BRENT: Excuse me, Paul, and Sebastien. Tina has a comment for you on that as well. >>TINA DAM: Sebastien, thank you for bringing that up. Obviously it's my mistake that it doesn't list the at-large on my slides. There was an IDN session with the at-large, which is really important for us because the reason for IDNs is to provide this for users. And some of the main concerns is to make sure that IDNs work for users on a global capacity. So I'm going to update it in the posted slides, and thank you for bringing that to my attention. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you. And I want to now, after criticize, I just want to tell you how I was impressed by your work to help us to work here, and not just here, generally. Thank you to staff and every of you. Thank you very much. >>PAUL LEVINS: Thanks, Bertrand. It wasn't critical it was creative criticism. Useful. So thank you. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you, Paul. I think we do need to move on to the next topic, which is the operating plan and budget, and this is Kevin Wilson, ICANN's chief financial officer. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you, Doug. I am Kevin Wilson. I am the chief financial officer. Next slide. I would like to share with you what staff shared this week on the development of the fiscal year '10 operating plan and budget and then share what we heard from the community. First of all, the framework for the operating plan and budget for fiscal year '10 was posted in mid-February for the second year. Both the budgeted and operating plan were posted in the framework which allows 4-plus months of feedback from the community. This year, there were more details and more comprehensive analyses provided in that framework for the purpose of allowing more feedback from the community, more detailed analysis as well. This year, also consistent with the dashboard reporting that rolled out in the fiscal year '09 period, we have functional reporting, lining up. So the categories are the same, which allows the community to see - - have more accountability and transparency views of accounting, spending, where the spending is. From an accounting standpoint, from the numbers standpoint, the operating plan -- operating expense budget is proposed in the framework at 54.3 million, and this is about a little less than 5% growth over the fiscal year '09 period, reflecting the organizational maturity of the organization. As the growth has slowed down from what we've seen in prior years. Also, in the framework, there's a separate new gTLD budget amendment described, and that amendment would be proposed -- the actual budget amendment would be proposed to be to the board and community about 90 days before the launch of the new gTLD program. And there's also a three-year framework description of that in the framework. Okay. Next slide. This is a quick snapshot of the budget, just showing the 54.3 million, and essentially the costs associated with the new gTLD program and the other functional areas. Most notable is the -- is that most of the functions of ICANN are -- have little or no growth. The exception to that would be the compliance area, to complete the build-out of that as well as in some technology operations and security efforts to complete that. Okay. Next slide. So what we heard from the community, a couple of really important developments. One is there are certain aspects of the -- certain parts of the community were very engaged in the operating plan and budget. We were happy to see, in particular, the kickoff of the ccNSO strategic and operational planning working group was formed, recently, and we met several times this week to provide their framework. They came up with a charter on how they're going to grab and capture the ccNSO comments and make sure that they're plugged into the operating plan as well as in the strategic plan. We also heard the -- and I also mentioned that we met with ALAC as well about the various aspects of the budget. There are some constituencies that we want to reach out and have even more input from on the budget. We also heard that the people appreciate, the community appreciates the detail provided in the budget, but we'd like to -- they want to facilitate more. They want more detail on that. There's lots of discussion on the appropriate level of travel support. We heard lots of support on the compliance focus. And there was a clear message that they'd like to have more details on cost analysis by constituency. Next slide. So what's next? Next slide, please. What's next is to solicit more community input. We have -- the framework is posted online and there also will be a travel support public comment section to gather more of those comments, and we'll be synthesizing those. We'll then refine the assumptions and then on the 17th of May we'll post the draft budget for final consideration for the Sydney meeting. All right. Thank you very much. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you, Kevin. Are there questions or comments? Looks like we have one. We have probably time for one or two. >>SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: My name is Sivasubramanian Muthusamy. I want to state about something that is my individual and personal question. My opinion is that ICANN has a huge task of maintaining critical infrastructure, and it has formidable challenges ahead, and I notice that the scale of its budget is about $50 million, which is not even the size of the operating budget of a mid-size registrar or a telecom retailer. ICANN is a nonprofit body, but it happens to be operating in a trillion-dollar environment, and it happens to be operating in a field where there are financially powerful players and one of its tasks is to -- is to deal with these forces, and are there -- there is a possibility that there are situations where ICANN could find it financially inadequate to handle its huge tasks. Why is ICANN resistent to the idea of greater revenues? I'm not making any suggestions like increase gTLD fees or tax people, but I'm just generally talking about the idea of being open to a larger budget. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >>THOMAS LOWENHAUPT: My name is Thomas Lowenhaupt. I'm with connecting.nyc, Incorporated. We're a not-for-profit guiding the effort to acquire the dot nyc top-level domain for New York City, and as many of you know, as we all know, I'm sure, there are no top-level domains for cities at this point. It was -- I don't know if an oversight is the proper term, but there hasn't been and cities have been at a disadvantage in their operation for the past few decades. It's becoming more apparent all the time. And ICANN is moving towards issues TLDs for cities and that's great. One of the things that we suggested in some comments we filed on the first draft RFP was that it would be appropriate if there was some way to look at cities that, you know -- I called it a Carper, a city advanced research project study agency or something, some effort to be set up to look at cities and how a top-level domain can be best utilized to serve the needs of the city in terms of the civic needs, the government needs, the needs of the schools and the churches and everybody else in the city. And so we're trying to raise some money for this study and I'm wondering if there's anything within the ICANN structure that would provide some assistance in that regard. >>KEVIN WILSON: Yeah. I think that's probably a larger question. I'm not sure if that's relevant directly for the operating plan and budget. >>DOUG BRENT: Kevin, let me just quickly add something to that. >>KEVIN WILSON: Sure. >>DOUG BRENT: Thomas, I don't know if you were in the earlier session where Kurt Pritz reviewed the gTLD discussion from this week and sort of in identifying the issues, certainly one issue that's gotten great discussion this week is this idea of potentially more categories of TLDs with different -- with potentially different roles. There's, you know, a lot of feelings on both sides of that, but that's definitely one of the takeaway discussion points from this meeting, to have that kind of discussion. >>THOMAS LOWENHAUPT: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's clear even in the first and the second draft RFPs that cities are a category. I mean, to an extent. And -- but there is this need, you know, to -- there's this neglect that's been going on for decades over cities, and to just issue these names without having looked into the prospect without providing any guidance continues the neglect. You know, some cities will just look upon them as revenue sources and not use the domain name system as it was designed, so perhaps, you know, to my mind, there would be some responsibility within the ICANN for that, but I presume it's a bottom- up effort, as the ICANN is, and I'm wondering if I could have some guidance as to how that bottom-up effort might find its way into the budget process. >>DOUG BRENT: Again, I'll just add that that's certainly one of the takeaways from the new gTLD discussion. The way it would find its way in is through this discussion about potential categories and then being worked into the new gTLD budget amendment. >>THOMAS LOWENHAUPT: All right. Thank you very much. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >>DOUG BRENT: Kevin, we're going to have to move on. Thank you very much. Next is Denise Michel, to talk about the GNSO improvements. >>DENISE MICHEL: I'll skip through, in the interest of time, the background information on GNSO improvements. All of this can be found on the GNSO improvements Web page at ICANN.org. Just go to the drop- down menu and you'll find it. So last year, the board approved a comprehensive improvement plan, and restructuring plan for the GNSO, as a follow-up to our ongoing commitment to independent review and improvement. Last October, the board passed a phased implementation schedule to seat the new GNSO Council. Phase 1 was receiving an implementation plan from the GNSO. Phase 2, existing constituencies reconfirm that they're complying with the bylaw principles and objectives laid out in the GNSO improvements report. Phase 3, stakeholder groups submit formal plans by the Mexico City board meeting. Phase 4, council representatives are selected by the new stakeholder groups and seated at the June 2009 Asia-Pacific meeting. So to recap the key restructuring tasks that the GNSO is now working on, the implementation plan, the council submitted a proposed structure to do the implementation work in December, and the council has created a structure of two steering committees and several work groups under those steering committees to address the myriad of issues, and contained in GNSO improvements and restructuring. And I'd also, by the way, commend you to look at Avri Doria's GNSO's chair's presentation yesterday from the SO/AC chair reports. She also highlighted the recent activities in GNSO. And I'll quickly recap these for those who didn't see that. Constituency rules -- renewals are task 2. All six constituencies responded to the board's request. These were all posted for public comment. The public comment forum recently closed, analyzing both the comments and the charters received. We'll share staff analysis with constituencies this month and prepare a report for the board. Third task is the issue of individual Internet user involvement in the GNSO. That's a -- somewhat of an open issue. The board asked for public comments, also solicited consensus recommendations from the community, which it recently received from a group comprised primarily of GNSO constituency and ALAC reps. So the board is considering the input it's received on that. Task force stakeholder group charters. Five proposed stakeholder group charters were received. Two from the noncommercial stakeholder group, and just to remind you, the new council structure has a registrar stakeholder group, a registry stakeholder group. That's on the contracted side. On the non-contracted side, the new council will have a commercial stakeholder group and a noncommercial stakeholder group. The communities involved in these stakeholder groups have been asked to submit proposed charters to the board for consideration, review, and approval. There's ongoing community discussions, quite a bit of discussion here in Mexico City this week. The charters may be revised based on this dialogue. A public forum has been opened on all of the charters, and we encourage you to take a look at them and share your thoughts. Staff will be analyzing these comments and charters, sharing the analysis with the stakeholder group communities, and staff will ultimately evaluate the final stakeholder group charters and provide a report to the board. GNSO Council restructuring. The board also, of course, as part of this restructuring has encouraged new constituencies as appropriate. This slide lists the notice of intent to form a constituency. This is really exactly what the title says. It's not a formal application, but an intent to file one. We have received such notices from the cyber-safety constituency, the city TLD constituency, and the consumer constituency. Cyber-safety is the group that's gone on to submit a formal application. All these are available on the GNSO Web page. Additionally, these -- these constituency -- this constituency information is available to the public and any formal submission of a constituency charter also is posted for public comment. So the remaining four improvement areas, aside from restructuring, include improving the policy development process, defining an ICANN working group model to be the foundation for policy development within the GNSO, enhancing the support for constituency operations, and improving technology and communications. Again, the GNSO has a structure of steering committees and working groups -- their names and the chairs are noted -- to advance that work. Many of them met here in Mexico City to advance their work, as I noted. And there's been significant productive dialogue and negotiations on a number of issues. So the next steps here are that the board is considering individual users in the GNSO, how to structure that in a way that's not duplicative of the at-large structure, board action on the new constituency petitions it receives, board action on renewing constituency, board action on stakeholder charters, board action on board seats 13 and 14. An outstanding issue is approval by the board of a recommendation from a GNSO working group on how to -- how to elect the new -- how to elect the two board members from the GNSO. And finally, a number of bylaw amendments need to occur. Again, all this information is available on the GNSO improvements homepage. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and would encourage you also to refer to this page. Thank you. >>DOUG BRENT: Denise, we probably have time for one comment or question, if there's one from the audience at this time. Okay, then. Thank you very much, Denise. Marco Lorenzoni. >>AVRI DORIA: I want to make one comment. You don't have to come up. The one comment I want to make that I don't know that Denise included -- and if she did, I missed it, but it's worth repeating anyhow -- all of the work that the GNSO Council is doing on this is open to any of the constituency participants, so if anybody here thinks, "Oh, I know what they should be doing in that," please get in touch and let us know. >>DOUG BRENT: Great comment. Thank you very much, Avri. So next up to discuss the status of independent reviews is Marco Lorenzoni. >>MARCO LORENZONI: Good morning, everyone. Let's see a short update of the state of organizational reviews and what has been achieved during this week. But, first of all, let's have a look when the position, the dedicated position of organizational review was established. It was back in October 2008, so just immediately before Cairo. And in November 2008, the board established a board structural improvement committee, as you see from this slide. The task of the organizational review and a the task of the board structural improvement committee have some parallelism. It means that the organizational review works hand in hand with the structural improvement committee in providing staff support. This slide tries to report to you on the progresses from Cairo to Mexico. As you will see here, we represent the six phases making up the organizational review processes, and you'll see that we had several improvements and advancements and now we are getting close to the working group work for the major part of the organizational reviews that are presently open. Others to come, of course. And if we have a look to what has been done during this week, well, first of all, the GNSO I cannot add any further words to what has been said by Denise right now, and I would like to start with ALAC. I would like to start with ALAC. ALAC is the first organizational review that has been presented here in Mexico, with two meetings. The status of the at-large organizational review is pretty advanced. The working group made, I think, outstanding work in trying to use the inputs from the reviewers, and tried to correlate these inputs with all the inputs that have been received from different communities over a long period of time, and they presented here, first of all, at the ALAC summit and then here in the meeting the draft final report for consideration of the board. A public comment period is open, and the target is -- well, first of all, it is open till the 17th of April, so please make a note in your calendar, if you want to comment on this present draft, the final version of the report, and the focus will be to take into consideration the input from the community for the finalization of the final report and presentation to the board for action. NomCom. The nominating committee review has been carried out long ago, and after delivery of the report from the independent reviewers, the working group finalized its work and delivered its final report in July 2008 at the committee that at that time was in charge with the coordination of organizational reviews. At the time, it was the BGC, and now as you know is the structural improvement committee. We had -- well, at that time the decision was taken to put on hold the further actions, because the review of the board was ongoing, and there were expected several interdependencies between the recommendations of the NomCom and the work of other major organizational reviews. We had a public meeting this week, presenting the results that at that time were delivered by the NomCom working group, and there was a unanimous agreement that the final recommendations, the final findings are outdated and need to be updated quickly in order to go to public comments and to proceed fast to the implementation of the opportune recommendations. Several topics that -- several issues that were recommended in the work of the working group have been already achieved by the following nominating committee, so it is an intention of the structural improvement committee to call a group of people -- let's say a working group -- to carry out interviews and analysis in order to consider what best can be proposed for the further improvement of the nominating committee. Board review. I think several of you were present yesterday here in this room for the presentation of the interim report of the board review working group. The interim report reflects the state of the present discussion at the level of the working group. The working group agreed, considering that several of the recommendations issued by external reviewers are already under implementation or under consideration by different committees of the board or by the board in its entirety, but several inputs are still needed from the community, particularly in order to conclude on some very key issues about the size of the board and about the issue of payment for members of the board, and about the idea of setting a board making up the full -- representing the interests of all the stakeholder groups and all the communities. And the report has been posted and is open till the 17th of April. We tried to -- to put that same deadline also to allow formal inputs from ALAC, which has a meeting, if I'm not wrong, on the 14th of April, so we try to put the date in the calendar, allowing any kind of comments. So please, please comment on this work of the working group in order to allow for further progression on this work. RSSAC. RSSAC, we had the presentation here of the draft report -- draft final report from independent reviewers. Several topics are very interesting for discussion. They propose a different -- a different structuring of RSSAC in order to allow for higher interaction between the RSSAC and the root server operators. We had a very lively and passionate discussion during the presentation of this. Several inputs have been collected already, and in order to make possible even further inputs from the RSSAC community, we're going to San Francisco the 22nd of this month to represent the same reviewers' report to the RSSAC community because they're meeting there just before the IETF. Also in this case, a public comment period is open. Don't ask me the date, the deadline. You'll find it on the Web site. If I'm not wrong, it closes around the end of April, something like that. 27th or 28th of April. Please also in this case, if you have something to say, participate with the public comments and let us have your inputs on this. Following the public comment period, the working group will try to prepare an interim report for presentation to the following meeting in Sydney. SSAC also for SSAC, we had the presentation of reviewers' final report -- draft final report, sorry -- and also in this case a very intense discussion. There's been also some -- some teleconferences in order to present the results of the findings from the reviewers to the SSAC community. In this case, the working group very likely will ask a finalization of the report by the end of this month in order to go immediately to public comments and to open another window for public comments. Finally, ccNSO, the organizational review of ccNSO has not started yet. We are progressing on the writing of the terms of reference with the objective to have an approval of a final version of the terms of reference in a month's time, something like that, in order to go immediately to public comments on the terms of reference for this organizational review. ASO is out of scale, as you see. It's an organizational review that is coming up and will be -- will be addressed shortly. But before closing, if time allows me -- >>DOUG BRENT: We are a bit short, so if you could close quickly. >>MARCO LORENZONI: Okay, okay. Just literally one minute. Other two major tasks that have been conducted during this week, it's to start the process of analysis of the interrelationship and the dependencies, and also consistencies and inconsistencies of the different organizational reviews that are ongoing now. This process is being steered by the structural improvement committee, but we advanced in this discussion here, at least at the level of agreeing on a methodology to approach this point, and you'll be glad to hear that this is the very last slide. There is work that is being coordinated by structural improvement committee. I am supporting this work as staff for reconsideration of the processes of organizational reviews based on the experiences made during this first round of reviews in ICANN. Thank you very much, and sorry for the long presentation. >>DOUG BRENT: Thank you, Marco. We are very short on time, so if you can keep your comments brief. >>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Just one question. In your chart of the review process, you have all the bodies except one. It is not a body; it's at-large. Is it because the review is going to be for the at- large or it is ALAC review? >>MARCO LORENZONI: It's the ALAC review. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you very much. My name is Marilyn Cade. I have something I'd like you to take into consideration. Great presentation, but I am having a little trouble getting my calendar full in keeping track of all of the comment dates. Would it be possible for a single -- at a single place, we could actually sort of show a calendar with the listing of the comment periods so when you - - you know, I could click on each of them; right? But then I -- so if we had a single space, a single page which list the public comment dates, and track it across the calendar, I think you might find that would make it easier for people to keep track of of when they need to burn the midnight oil. >>MARCO LORENZONI: Thank you very much, Marilyn. We have a Web page on independent reviews, and we will put this calendar online. >>AVRI DORIA: One quick question. Avri Doria. All the volunteer bodies are there, and when the question came up about something that was missing, I thought he was going to say, "But where is the staff reviewed?" And then he asked a different question. So it occurred to me that I had that question to ask. So when does the independent review of the staff occur? >>MARCO LORENZONI: In this case, it's not up to the staff to create this review. >>DOUG BRENT: That question is probably best directed to the board, Avri. Thank you. Next up and to close off this morning's session is Kurt Pritz to comment on some of the great progress -- I'm sure this will be part of what he says -- great progress this week by the GNSO on RAA amendments. >>KURT PRITZ: Thank you, Doug. So, woo-hoo! [ Applause ] >>KURT PRITZ: There are four categories of amendments. I don't know how to say woo-hoo in Spanish. I asked around. >> Arriba! >>KURT PRITZ: There's a set of 17 amendments that are proposed for board approval. They cover four areas. There's improvements to enforcement tools to give ICANN better tools to carry through on its contractual compliance obligations. There's provisions for certain registrant protections, enhancing consumer information, and especially concern protection of registrant data. There's changes to the agreement that promote a more stable and competitive marketplace, and that is to ensure the even playing field across all registrars in their competition amongst each other for our business, and then there's certain areas of agreement modernization, bringing the agreement more into step with the existing gTLD marketplace. This chart is a little bit small, but I included it -- the font is a little bit small but I included it for your reference so when you look at it online, you can get a little bit more of a description of what the amendments are, but very briefly, some of those important changes are provision for audit. So for example, in the existing agreement, ICANN really doesn't have a right to conduct an audit of registrars, but that's included here. There's a graduated sanctions program where, formally, the only weapon ICANN had in its compliance arsenal, contractual compliance arsenal, was effectively breach and termination notices. There's a group liability provision, where groups of registrars are owned by a single entity. Wrong-doing by one of those registrars will create liability across the set. There's an arbitration stay, and that's been eliminated. So where a registrar is going to be terminated for not complying with its agreement, the ability for that registrar to delay the procedure through an arbitration stay is removed. There are certain improvements to registrant protections. There's a provision about the of escrow proxy data, and it's intended to shine a light on the risks associated with proxy registration statuses, the risk to registrants where their data is not being escrowed. There is the provision for certain information disclosures by licensees and other information. Regarding the promotion of a stable registrar marketplace, there's a provision where if a registrar acquires another registrar or if an entity acquires a registrar by purchase, they have to go through the same accreditation requirements as that registrar did the first time. So I just wanted to touch on some of the more important amendments, in my opinion, of the first 17. Where did this all come from? Some time ago -- and I will get to the dates in a second -- the board directed the staff, through a resolution, to gather input from the community on suggested changes to the RAA amendment in order to effect some of these improvements, and then for ICANN staff to engage the registrar constituency in order to develop a set of amendments, and then take that back to the community and get the advice of the ALAC and the recommendation of the GNSO before taking those to the board. So again, very briefly, that process has been ongoing for quite some time. In June 2007, ICANN conducted a registrant protection workshop that included solicitation of ideas for amendments to the RAA. At that same meeting, the board passed the resolution I just described. Then over the next several months, there was an open comment forum to solicit ideas. Those ideas were synthesized into a report, and then the registrar constituency was engaged for a period of time, October 2007 to June 2008. That was a fairly intensive -- even though it was over nine months, it was fairly intensive, I think three face-to-face meetings during that time and several teleconferences, to negotiating the set of agreements. Since that time, there's been briefings for various GNSO constituencies and at-large. And then in December, as a result of the posting of a set of 15 amendments and those consultations, two additional amendments were added, and the final set of 17 were posted in December. So what happened then? The ALAC voted to approve the set of amendments in January 2009. In January 2009, the GNSO Council voted, too, and the vote was as indicated here: 14 for, 9 against, and 4 abstentions. Without going into a lot of technical detail that, didn't meet the requirements for a two-thirds GNSO approval that were required to make these amendments incumbent upon the registrars to adopt. So here in Mexico City, there was significant activity and a lot of work that was undertaken in order to reach a compromise where this set of amendments could be approved. And that compromise really was that the recognition that these amendments afforded real improvements for registrants and protections for registrants, but also that additional work needed to be done. And so this -- the GNSO resolution in this regard requires that two groups be convened in the next short period of time. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a second, but I want to thank -- I want to personally thank, on behalf of ICANN, the work of those GNSO constituency groups -- the IP constituency, business, at-large, the noncommercial constituency, and the registrar constituency -- that worked very hard on that. And as a result of that, the GNSO voted unanimously to approve the set of amendments, which there's a footnote here back to the woo-hoo at the start. So what happens next? The GNSO resolution called for convening two groups within the next 30 days, and I think a key provision of that was to do this within 30 days of board approval so that the effort gets moving to draft a registrants' rights charter and also identify additional amendments to the RAA and have both those drafts complete by July 30th, July 31st of this year. The GNSO compromise was developed with the expectation that the board would approve the amendments at this meeting, or as soon as possible or practical, given the board notice requirements and our public comment requirements. The community has advised the board they think that the amendments have been fully vetted through the appropriate comments. The good news here is by timely implementation of the set of amendments that they will become effective with 70% of all registrars within the next 18 months. Also, ICANN is going to be offering a set of incentives for registrars to adopt the amendments immediately. And so we're fairly confident that these amendments will have good effect in the very near term. So there's a ton of information and documentation that went into the last year and a half where all of this was discussed. That's the Web site there where you can scroll through the -- scroll through that information. You know, I would like to thank Tim Cole and Mike Zupke with the registrar -- with our registrar liaison function for all the work they did and ask them to update this Web site with the latest stuff that occurred here, so people looking at it later today can read that. And also, thank the GNSO constituency groups and at-large that worked so hard on this here. So with that, I will close. Thanks very much, Doug. >>DOUG BRENT: So Kurt, very deft work assignment from the podium there with Tim. We are short on time, but are there any burning questions for Kurt on the RAA? Of course this will also be a subject of the board meeting today. Thank you very much, Kurt. And thank you to all of the presenters for brief and hopefully very informative presentations. Hopefully everyone found them useful. The ICANN board meeting will begin at 10:30, so according to my watch, 24 minutes from now. I expect, and certainly personally hope that there are coffee and sweets outside to get the caffeine levels up. And this session is now officially closed. Thank you. [ Applause ]