ICANN Nairobi
Public Forum
Thursday, 11 March 2010


>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Ladies and gentlemen, good morning.  Could
you take your seats, please.  We will be starting in one minute.

Thank you.

Welcome, everybody, to the ICANN open forum.  Let me just begin by
thanking our Kenyan hosts for a fabulous party last night.

Do these Kenyans know how to party or what?

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   As they say in Swahili, (Speaking Swahili).

Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the best features of the ICANN
program, in my view, this is where we get a chance, as the board and
staff, to hear from you.  You've been here in your groups during the
week putting your plans together, preparing your policies and coming
across problems and coming up with solutions.  This is a chance for
you to share that with your colleagues in the entire community, but,
in particular, with the board, because we are here to help.  We need
to know what's going on.  We need to know what your problems are,
where we can provide resources, how we can steer the policies and so
forth.

So, please, make your contributions, and help ICANN with its important
work.

Can I just begin by referring you to the, if you like, the house rules
for this.  We do this at every meeting, just to remind you that we
have to keep order.  And to keep a civil discourse so that everyone
gets a chance to have their voice heard.

And I won't go through them, but on the slide on the screen are the
rules of engagement, which we've developed over the years, we, as a
community, have developed these rules because they're good for us.  So
please communicate, listen, take responsibility, be constructive,
respect the diversity of the incredible ICANN family, and stick to the
standards of behavior.

Now, the next piece of housekeeping is to hand over to senior policy
directory Rob Hoggarth, who is going to be managing the online
component.  As you'll know, there's a large part of the ICANN family
spread around the world participating remotely.

Rob, could you tell us how we're be communicating and dealing with our
colleagues in the online room.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Certainly, Peter.  Thank you.

Those of you in the room and over here, if you have any problems about
the remote participation or any comments, this is where you can find
me.

Before we get started, I do have a couple of important things to say
about language interpretation and the impact of some of the technical
and equipment challenges we have had this week and how they will
affect this session.

As you know, it's the intention of the board that ICANN deliver live,
streaming audio of all languages for any session for which
interpretation is provided to in-room participants.  This week in
Nairobi, the designated languages are English, French, and Spanish.
Since our arrival in Nairobi, every effort has been made to honor
this.  But we have not achieved that goal for all our sessions this
week.

Unfortunately, those technical limitations will also have an impact on
this public forum.

What does that mean?  This morning, in this room, instantaneous
interpretation will be available in the English, French, and Spanish
languages through the headsets provided.  Similarly, audio streams in
English, French, and Spanish will be transmitted to our remote
participants.

However, if someone here in Nairobi chooses to ask a question in
French or Spanish, we don't have the capability to instantaneously
interpret that question into the English audio stream going out to our
remote participants and scribes.  Particularly given the emphasis we
have put on remote participation during this meeting, we apologize for
the inconvenience this may cause our French and Spanish speakers and
listeners.  But the forum is being recorded.  And any questions asked
in those languages, as well as their answers, will be available in
English audio stream that we will post to the public forum agenda page
on the ICANN Nairobi meeting site within 24 hours.

Other recordings of the session streams will be available within two
hours of the close of this meeting.

We'll continue to make every effort at future meetings to ensure that
live, simultaneous interpretation is available to our in-person, those
of you here, and remote meeting participants who are listening to me
now as well.

Let me talk briefly about the submission of remote participation
questions and comments and the rest as well.  Just another moment or
so.  As a community, we have taken some great strides this week in
Nairobi, delivering expanded remote participation capabilities to
meeting attendees.  It's actually been seeing the community's
commitment, patience for, and desire to make this work.  So thank you,
all, very much for that.

So far this week, we've had remote participation tools available in 39
sessions, covering approximately 112 full hours of session
programming.  While we're excited by that accomplishment, remote
participation is still, obviously, a work in progress.

We're developing some interesting new tools that we hope will continue
to improve the remote experience.  An example of that is the remote
intervention form.  We ask those of you joining this session remotely,
whether in the Adobe Connect room, to use the remote intervention
submissions pod on your screen to access streamlined question forms.
And you can find, actually, two pods right next to the chat room when
you look at the Adobe Connect virtual meeting screen.

Once you fill out the form with a question or statement, it will
automatically be placed in a queue for this session.  And archived for
future reference.  Those of you remotely participating and not using
Adobe Connect will find these same forms visible to -- and available
to you on the agenda page for this meeting on the Nairobi Web site.

The remote intervention pod and its form queuing function are
important for two primary reasons.  First, as you can see from the
agenda that Peter is going to be discussing shortly, we've got seven
separate topic areas that have been identified on our agenda this
morning.  The forms are going to help me dynamically organize the
questions that get read during the live session.

Secondly, and many of you know this much more passionately than I do,
invariably, there are more questions than there is time in the session
to answer them.  The automatic archive capability of the remote
submission forms will enable us, the staff, to answer every question
submitted during this session and post both questions and answers on
the agenda page for this session on the Nairobi meeting site.

The format we plan for this session is that Peter will alternate
between the in-person questions here in Nairobi and those submitted
online.  I'm generally going to be reading the questions.  We may
convince a couple of notable guests to read some as well.  But the
plan is essentially to do the alternating back and forth.

And that's it, Peter.

So let's get started.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Rob.  And my thanks to all of those
involved in the remote connectivity team.  When I took up the chair, I
challenged ICANN to become a world leader in remote participation so
that our meetings can be really, truly global.  And we're making great
strides.  So thank you very much to the team for doing that.  And
thank you to the people in the room for helping us.  There's going to
have to be some give-and-take as we deal with the people who we can't
see.  Can I mention another thing, that is, the people who are
scribing these words that you're seeing on the screen are in the
United States.  They cannot see you.  So that will occasionally mean
that the text needs correction.  But it also means that you need to be
very clear about identifying yourself.  When they hear, you can
usually get your name right by checking in with them first.  When you
come to speak at the microphone, please take that moment to clearly
identify yourself.

Now, if we can put the agenda up, please, just a brief explanation of
how this works.  This is a result of some advice that I've received
from the Public Participation Committee, and a result of discussions
with the CEO and the staff, and the rest of the board, in terms of try
to get a sense of what the priority questions for Nairobi are.  There
are always more topics than we have time for.  So this is a selection
process.  If I've got it wrong, then it's my fault.

The time guides are as much for us here as they are for the people in
the room, people who can see this and check in when their particular
topic comes up.  But it is only a rough guide, as far as time is
concerned.

And if some topic becomes more important, it can expand to fill some
of the time, and other topics can move back down the agenda.  This is
the order we will discuss them, but not necessarily the time.

So let me begin by welcoming, then, the chair of the Nominating
Committee, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, who has asked for an opportunity to
address you.  The Nominating Committee is an important institution in
ICANN and performs a very important role.  So I'd like to hear from
the chair of the Nominating Committee.  Thank you.

>>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER:   Thank you, Peter.  Good morning, everybody.

If you love the Internet, if you love ICANN, then you should apply for
a leadership position in ICANN.  ICANN is as good as the people who
lead ICANN.  And we need the best people in the world to make ICANN
better.

ICANN is a permanent -- is in a permanent process of improvement,
though we had official reform a couple of years ago, but the reform is
going on.  And you can make ICANN only better if you have the right
people to do the job.

And that's why I think the nomination procedure every year is an
important element in the continuation of the improvement of ICANN.

My name is Wolfgang Kleinwächter.  I'm chairing the nomination
committee in 2010.  And I want to use my five minutes for -- probably
there are some slides.  Okay.  Yeah.

You know, for some basic information.  This year, we have, again, to
fill seven positions in the ICANN councils and boards and committees.
We have to select three directors for the board.  We have to select
one director -- council member for the GNSO Council, one member for
the ccNSO member, and two members for the At-Large Advisory Committee
for Europe and from North America.

So to apply for ICANN leadership position, it's rather simple.  You
have to go to the NomCom Web site.  You have to fill in the SOI, which
is the statement of interest.  I think no organization has more
acronyms than ICANN.  So -- and the SOI is our main acronym we have in
the nomination committee.  SOI, as I said, means statement of
interest.

And here, you have to send it -- this to us until April the 2nd.  We
did not make the deadline April the 1st, because then some people
would have thought this is a joke.  But the nomination committee is
not a joke.  This is very serious business.  So you have one day more
to consider to send an application to the nomination committee.

So April 2nd is the deadline for this.  And we hope that you,
yourself, but also, you know, people you know, that you do the
outreach and encourage people to consider to apply for one of these
leadership positions.

We have on the Web site -- on the Web site, you will find all the
information, the criteria.  And as I said, the overarching criteria
is, you have to love the Internet.  You have to understand ICANN's
mission.  And you have to bring the energy to the various bodies to do
a lot of work and to help that all the issues which are on the long
agenda also in this public session, you know, can be settled step by
step forward.

Let me add some final words about the procedure, how the nomination
committee works.

I think it's important to understand that the process is a
confidential process.  Though in previous years, we had elections,
elections are different from a selection process.  In an election, you
make public that you are a candidate, and then at the end of the
election, you have won the election or you have lost the election.

But the confidentiality principle of the nomination committee protects
the candidate.  So there are no losers.  If you apply, nobody will
know that you have applied, because your application will be treated
in a very confidential way and you will remain in the pool also for
two more years if you wish to remain in the pool.  So that means --
that's a process, a very individual process, where we really look,
then, in the best candidates.  And very often, the selection is not
just based on your individual capacity and skills, though we have to
take into consideration a lot of other aspects, like geographical
diversity, your political aspects, gender aspects, and specific skill
aspects, although if you have already five technology people on the
council, there is probably no need to add another expert for
technology.  But you need somebody who is more familiar with business
aspects or diplomacy or with other skills.

The other year, the composition of this council or board has changed,
and then your specific skills are needed.  So that means it changes
from year to year.  And so far, you know, I encourage you not to be
frustrated if you are not selected after your application, but, you
know, to do it again the other year.  We need you, and we need
everybody.

And let me add at the end another important element.  Some people say,
okay, this confidential principle, this is -- at the end of the day,
this is a conspiracy behind closed doors, because the voting members
of the nomination committee, you know, try to find their good friends
and then give them a job.

This is nonsense.  This is not true.

You have to understand the nature of the nomination committee to
understand that this is really a high quality of new democracy which
you do not find in any other organizations or institution.  Because
the voting members of the nomination committee are selected by the
community itself.  But it means one-quarter -- one-third of the voting
members of the nomination committee coming from the At-Large Advisory
Committee, and the other two-thirds are coming from the GNSO council,
the ASO council, the various constituencies.

And so far, it's the community itself which selects the people who
have the voting power to select, then, the directors for the board,
for the councils, and for the At-Large Advisory Committee.

So the nomination committee is totally independent from the board.  So
if Rod tells us, "I want to have this and this guy on the board,"
though we have no -- no way to follow his wish, because we are acting
independent.  We will listen to him, and we did so.  And we invited
him to give us his perspective.  But the nomination committee operates
independently from the board.

And also, I, as the chair, and Hartmut Glaser, as associated chair, we
do not have voting right.  I steer the process, I encourage the
discussion.  But the decision-making capacity is in the hands of the
community.  In such a process, you do not have in a government, you do
not have in a private corporation, you do not have in a
nongovernmental organization.  This is really a unique model how the
leadership positions are filled in this organization of ICANN.  And so
far, you know, this confidential principle is a strength of ICANN and
not a weakness.

And, once again, I encourage you to apply for one of these seven
leadership positions in 2010.  The time line is, again, April the 2nd,
we need the statement of interest.  Then we will look into the
individual candidates.  And the final decision has been made at the
end of the Brussels meeting.  So that means we will have a two-day
meeting after the ICANN Brussels meeting.  And then we will have the
new directors, the new councillors, and the new directories.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Wolfgang.  It's exciting to me to
hear your passion --

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   -- for this.  Let me support the proposition
that we are only as good as the people who lead us.

But let me also confirm that we have already world-class people from
the Nominating Committee on the board.  Could I ask the people on the
board who have been appointed by the Nominating Committee just to
raise your hands.  See, ladies and gentlemen, we have eight board
members appointed by the nom- -- thanks very much -- eight board
members appointed by the Nominating Committee, a majority of board
members, in fact, six come from the support organizations, but eight
are appointed through this mechanism that Wolfgang has explained to
you.  So, please, get involved.  It's not just the board.  All the
other council councils have nominations from the Nominating Committee.

Extraordinary.  Thank you, Wolfgang.

We come to the next agenda item, which is a discussion -- sorry.
Jean-Jacques.

>>JEAN-JACQUES SUBRENAT:   Thank you, Chairman.

I just wanted to make a small remark about vocabulary.  As we know,
NomCom stands for Nominating Committee.  But I noticed with interest
that the chair of NomCom mentioned several times the nomination
committee.

I think that's much more apt, actually.  Because if you say
"nominating committee," everyone thinks that it is this committee
which, in the ultimate process, nominates, whereas, it proposes,
actually, to the board people for nomination.

So for the sake of clarity, especially in other languages, because
this will be translated, I suggest that perhaps we look at the
possibility of transforming the name one day from "nominating" to
"nomination committee."

Thanks.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Jean-Jacques.

The next item, if we can have the agenda back, is a discussion of
necessary -- if anybody wants to make any comments about the first
decision that we have received from the Independent Review Panel.

The point about the Independent Review Panel is that ICANN's structure
is a corporation, for historic reasons.  So the authority for the
decisions of ICANN under California corporation law has to be made by
the board.  But at the very beginning of ICANN, when drafting the
bylaws, we recognized that there would be times when members affected
by a board decision would want to have it questioned.  And so we
created an independent panel to have the authority to review decisions
taken by the board and give a declaration as to whether or not the
board has followed the bylaws on this particular occasion.

Now, I can remember being a member of the get review advisory
committee in 1999 that helped set this process up.  It's taken until
this year to have the process used.  And we've now had a decision in
relation to the board's treatment of an application for a top-level
domain.

That decision's been reached, and the declaration is that the board in
fact did act improperly in the way it treated this particular
application.  And the board will be, as the bylaws require,
considering the decision at its formal meeting tomorrow.

But now is an opportunity if anyone wants to talk or ask about the
Independent Review Panel decision in relation to the dot triple X
application.

Marilyn Cade.

>>MARILYN CADE:   Thank you, Chairman.  I would first point out that
there is a correction needed in the transcript, because the -- I think
you said -- and it's important that this is accurate in the transcript
-- that the board did act improperly.

So let me watch and make sure that the scribes heard that.

Thank you.

My name is Marilyn Cade.  I'm speaking in my individual capacity.  I
spoke on this topic a number of years ago.  And what I'm going to say
now is about a topic I've been talking about during the time that I
was on the President's Strategy Committee.

And that is the issue of accountability mechanisms.

During the time that I was on the President's Strategy Committee, we
did extensive public outreach, and we heard from the community that
ICANN lacks sufficient accountability mechanisms.

We said, from the President's Strategy Committee, and we say, as
ICANN, in all of our documents and in all of our comments, that, ahh,
we do have accountability mechanisms but we are going to create more.

So now we have a decision from the one significant accountability
mechanism that we have.

I think it's very important that we think really hard about how we
adhere to the message delivered.

I think the world is watching us and counting on us to respond to
govern ourselves, and the IRT has given you information that I hope
you will listen to.

The other thing I will say is that one of the things that I took to
heart from the decision was that the rules that we have to follow in
this case are the 2004 rules.

I will say more about the importance of accountability mechanisms
later when that topic is on the agenda.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Marilyn.

Can I come to you, Rob, for an online comment or question.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes.  Thank you, Peter.

Edward Hasbrouck, identifying himself as a journalist, an independent
review requester, asks a question and has a statement.  I think you
have already answered his question as to when ICANN is going to act on
the pending request for independent review.  If not, let me read his
statement and then let you address that.

This is now Edward speaking:  ICANN and ICM registry mutually agreed
to submit certain questions to arbitration, but that arbitration did
not comply with ICANN's bylaws for an independent review.

ICANN's bylaws require specific procedures for policy development and
decision-making.

ICANN has not yet followed these procedures to properly approve an
independent review provider and procedures for independent review.

ICM registry chose to accept ICANN's choices, made in secret, of
arbitration provider and arbitration procedures, but that decision by
ICM registry is not binding on anyone else.

ICANN still needs to properly select an independent review provider
and develop procedures for independent review.

ICANN also still needs to deal with the other independent review
requests that it has been ignoring for many years, including those
from myself, Karl Auerbach, and others.

I urge you to schedule a public meeting as soon as possible with me
and other people whose requests for independent review are pending to
begin this policy development process.

The arbitrator's finding was not that ICANN had made the wrong
decision on dot triple X.  The arbitrator's finding was that ICANN had
not acted in accordance with ICANN's bylaws.

The decision was about ICANN's process, not the substantive yes-or-no
outcome of ICANN's decision.

ICANN should reverse its decision on dot triple X, but that will not
be sufficient to rectify the procedural problem identified by the
arbitrators.

ICANN needs to admit that it acted in a manner contrary to its bylaws
and think seriously about how and why it did so and what changes need
to be made in ICANN's decision-making process in order to bring that
process into compliance with the bylaws.

An organization that doesn't follow its own rules is unlikely to be
able to reform itself from within.

If ICANN is serious about acting on the arbitrator's findings it
should immediately open a public forum on the changes needed to bring
ICANN's procedures into compliance with the bylaws.

The board should schedule substantial time to consider these issues
and community and outside input at its next meeting, and that meeting
and subsequent discussion of what to do to reform ICANN's decision-
making process should be conducted in accordance with the bylaws, with
the maximum feasible extent of transparency, not by closed
teleconference.

To begin that discussion let me suggest some reasons why ICANN did not
act in accordance with the procedural rules in its bylaws.

First, ICANN's organizational culture --

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Rob, sorry to interrupt.  We do actually
have a speaking limit and it applies to people online and present.

Is there much more to Mr. Hasbrouck's statement to go?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   No, not much but I am glancing up at the screen.  I
think we are going to have that posted.  And I am observing that,
Peter.  Once that's up there, I will stop at three minutes.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks very much.  Please carry on.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you.

Second, ICANN's failure to comply with its transparency bylaws has
meant that many of the violations of other procedural rules in the
bylaws have occurred in secret.  This has prevented community members,
outside watchdogs and journalists such as myself from observing and
reporting many of the violations of bylaws.  This has delayed or
prevented community and public knowledge and calls for accountability.

Third, ICANN staff and legal counsel have failed to monitor ICANN's
compliance with the procedural rules in ICANN's bylaws or to alert the
board when those procedural rules were not followed.

There is, as I look, several more paragraphs, Peter.  I will remind
Mr. Hasbrouck and others that these statements are produced and will
be available for all to read.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Rob.  Let's move back to the
room, and I have Bertrand De La Chapelle, the French representative to
the GAC.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Good morning, everybody.  My name is
Bertrand De La Chapelle.  I am the special envoy for the Information
Society in the French Foreign Affairs Ministry and the French
representative in the GAC.

Concerning the decision of the Independent Review Panel in this case,
we have a tendency to focus on the result of the decision and the
specific case it was addressing.

I would just like to highlight the importance of the three first
elements in the decision that was made regarding particularly the
ambiguity on the binding or nonbinding nature of the decisions of the
independent review panel, on the applicability of international law,
the discussion in the transcripts of the hearings, and the decision
and the wording in the decision is extremely important and should be
taken into account in the review of the AoC this year.

And third, on the differential treatment or differential standard, if
my memory is correct, regarding that should be applied or not
regarding the decisions of the board.

I take this opportunity to remind the attendants and the board that in
the joint statement that the French Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr.
Kouchner, and the Secretary of State for Digital Economy, Mrs.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, made after the announcement of the
Affirmation of Commitment, France has formally expressed its desire
that ICANN introduces in its mechanisms a full accountability
mechanism for appeals mechanisms for decisions of the board.

In that respect, we expect that in the decisions that will be made in
the review on accountability and transparency that is going to start
this year, these elements as well as the recommendations of the
President's Strategy Committee will be fully taken into account.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Bertrand.

Mr. Delbianco.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Thank you, Chairman.  It's Steve DelBianco with
Net Choice coalition, speaking on my own behalf.

And whatever decision the board reaches with respect to setting things
right for the applicants in this case, I would like to ask the board
to think about incorporating the lessons learned from the decision in
the new gTLD round.  And I would have just two specific ways in which
we could do it, by working into the Draft Applicant Guidebook for new
gTLDs, version 4, which I know is nearing completion.

One area would be community applications, which the ICM decision
refers to.

So with respect to community decisions, let's be sure that we have
instructions for our evaluators in the guidebook so that the evaluator
would look at the applicant's claim that they represent a community,
and look at how objections would come in and be evaluated against the
applicant's claim.  We want to get that right and learn the lessons
from the case.

And I would think another area is morality and public order
objections.

We should be sure that the guidebook includes instructions for the
evaluator as to how to ascertain if an objection that comes in on
morality and public order has really met the bar necessary.  Because
it would be a shame not to learn those lessons and incorporate them
now as we move forward.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  In fairness to Edward, I never
actually asked his question, so if I can do that.

When is ICANN going to act on the pending requests for independent
review?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Let me just explain that Mr. Hasbrouck is a
frequent complainer about the applications through this, and has had
frequent responses to this question from ICANN legal team.  But, John
Jeffrey, general counsel, I wonder if I can just give you a moment and
then you can come and give Mr. Hasbrouck an answer about the previous
applications for independent review.

While John is preparing himself, is there a further question in the
room?

Is there a further question online, Rob?

Amadeu, are you coming to the microphone?  Amadeu Abril i Abril.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   That's me.

Good morning.  Amadeu Abril i Abril speaking in my personal capacity.

Just regarding the consequences for the future of this decision, I
heard some people saying that this shows that taking certain decisions
is very difficult and very risky for ICANN, and, therefore, that this
will still lead into ICANN and the board, especially, to be more
cautious about moving on the new gTLD round, because, you know, many
accidents will happen.

I would just like to remember that the problem here was not morality,
public order or community.  The problem here was that ICANN changed
twice the rules after submitting the application.

First, when these applications and others failed the evaluation, but
nevertheless went on, and then at the end when one single application
was sent back to the original cage.

So the thing here is we should be very clear that we need to stick to
the rules, but we also need to take some risk in the sense that we
need to make, at the end of the day, decisions about which TLDs will
need to approve or not and for which regions.  Thanks.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Can we make this the last one?  We are out
of time on this topic and I think there are some people who want to
get on to the next ones.

Let's hear from you, Antony, and then we'll go to John.

Antony.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   Thank you.  Antony Van Couvering.  I am not
speaking in a personal capacity.  I am the CEO of Minds+Machines, and
I can fairly represent that our company feels that irrespective of the
outcome, I think the important lesson learned from this has to do with
the form of what's happened.  It's been very, very lengthy.  It's been
very, very expensive.  And I would hesitate to think that any gain in
justice or fairness has been achieved by the top-heavy -- the weight
of what has happened.

I would very much like to see some kind of appeals or adjudication
system that was much more open to people, that could render a decision
in a much more timely and inexpensive manner.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Antony.  And thank you for
keeping it brief.

John, could I get you to answer the question from Mr. Hasbrouck about
earlier applications for review.

>>JOHN JEFFREY:   Certainly.  In response to Mr. Hasbrouck we have
answered both publicly and in direct correspondence to Mr. Hasbrouck a
number of times that we do not believe he had formally filed his
complaint in an appropriate mechanism.

And in November of 2008 and since then we have offered him assistance
to file that if that's what he would like.

We again offer that assistance.  So that we don't have to speak about
this at every public forum going forward, we're going to put up a Q&A
directly responsive to Mr. Hasbrouck's complaints so that the
community can review that and we could receive any comments about the
information that's been provided to him.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, John.

Let's move, then, to the next topic, which is new generic top-level
domains.

We have separated out, and if you can see on the agenda, into some of
the hot topics that people have been discussing here.  And we begin by
the various aspects of trademark protection.  You will understand that
one of the policy positions is that the new application should not
infringe the rights of others.  One of the important rights we are
conscious of is trademark rights, and so these are mechanisms designed
to ensure trademark rights are protected to the extent we can.

Is there anyone who wants to discuss, comment or query the trademark
clearinghouse proposal?

I see Rob has his hand up.  There's nobody in the room, Rob.  Over to
you.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  Jeff Neuman in the chat asks I
think the first trademark protection mechanism question.  It's related
to post-delegation dispute mechanisms.  Here is your three minutes,
Jeff.

This week we have heard ICANN staff declare that we are almost done
with trademark issues, and for the most part they are correct.  A
tremendous amount of progress has been made through the bottom-up
process and the community deserves a tremendous amount of credit for a
job well done.

However, the post-delegation dispute process is one protection
mechanism, as we have heard this week, that requires a good amount of
work, although some progress has been made.  Specifically, one, ICANN
must be more involved in the PDDRP at outset.  As the IRT recommended,
it's not enough to state that ICANN will continue to do contractual
compliance, but there should be an affirmative commitment by ICANN to
do and ramifications for ICANN's failure to enforce agreements.

Two:  ICANN must be more involved in determining remedies.  ICANN has
committed to do this during the week, and we look forward to seeing
that incorporated.

Three, PDDRP must not replace contractual dispute resolution
mechanisms.  Registries not happy with the determinations or remedies
must be able to have such determinations or remedies reviewed de novo
through the dispute resolution mechanism in the contracts.

Four, requirement for registries to put up any fees must be removed.

Five, ability of panel to award monetary damages must also be removed.

The determination of damages or financial harm in a trademark dispute
is one of the most complex adjudicatory decisions which usually only
arise after subject to discovery, the presentation of evidence, and a
hearing subject to cross-examination.

ICANN has proposed, however, that we have one panelist who is not an
expert in determining damages, no hearing, no presentation of
evidence, no cross-examination, and a 20-page limit in complaint and
response.

This is not the UDRP.  Proposed URS and even ICANN's independent
review process does not allow for the determination of financial harm.

Financial harm should only be determined by a court, not a panelist.

I will be drafting a more detailed comment on the PDDRP but wanted to
make sure this was in the record now.

I again make the same offer I have made at the last several ICANN
meetings, and that is to make myself available to help ICANN staff
craft a post-delegation mechanism that will hopefully work for all
parties.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Rob.  Thank you, Jeff.  If you
are listening, I think you have been a very vigorous participant in
this meeting remotely, a proof of concept, including taking part in a
panel and contributing to online discussion.

I am also delighted to welcome yet another acronym to the ICANN
lexicon, the PDDRP, not to be confused with the PDTRP.

I think we need to declare ICANN an AFZ, an acronym-free zone, but we
can't do it until it has its own acronym.

Is there anyone else who wants to talk about trademark protection
mechanisms?  Antony and Steve.

Steve DelBianco.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Steve DelBianco with Net Choice and speaking
about concerns that the business constituency has raised.  With
respect to the trademark clearinghouse, we want to point out it's just
a database.  It's a service for the convenience both of brands who
want to use it and registries who may choose to use it.

But as such, it is just a service.  It's a database service.

On top of that has to be the effort taken to run something like
trademark claims service.  And that is only optional during the
sunrise period.

So what the business constituency has said is we would encourage the
next application guidebook to increase the urgency -- that is to say,
even make it a requirement -- that if we put all the work of putting
together this trademark clearinghouse database, there ought to be more
of a mandate to use it, not only during the sunrise period but
afterwards with mechanisms like the trademark claims service.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Over to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  Steve Metalitz representing the
Coalition for Online Accountability mercifully provides me with a
short question to ask you.

What is the status of those recommendations of the IRT report that
were not addressed in the STI report?  Because not a subject on which
the board and staff sought GNSO guidance.  Chief among these is the
Globally Protected Marks List.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Let me ask Kurt if you can come forward to
the microphone, the staff microphone here, and while you are coming
forward, Kurt, we will go back to the room.

Sir.

>>WERNER STAUB:   Thank you.  My name is Werner Staub.  I have a
comment about the trademark clearinghouse.

The idea of that trademark clearinghouse is actually old.  Remember,
inside of our organization, CORE, we proposed such a mechanism back in
2000.

We came to a different result, though, with regard to lookup, and I am
astonished why in the context of ICANN where we talk about lookups --
namely, the DNS, which is a lookup mechanism -- where we have one of
the most performing lookup mechanisms available, we are thinking of
some new protocol to be defined for people to secretly look up
something that should be public.

If somebody claims that he has a right about a certain string, which
other than that would actually -- you know, if there is not such a
right, it would be public, then this should not be done secretly.  If
somebody says, "I have this right," you say so publicly so why should
the lookup be done in any other fashion by the DNS?

If you look at other ways of making lookups in black listing, for
instance, for mail spam kind of thing, the DNS is used very
successfully for very fast lookups and anybody can look it up.  It's
just a string.  It can be with respect to a new TLD or it can be just
a substring on the dot ARPA so people could just actually make a DNS
query to see what kind of clearinghouse claims there are.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Herr Staub.

Now can I come back to staff. Kurt, the question was what happened to
the other recommendations from the implement recommendation team that
we put up in Mexico.

>>KURT PRITZ:   That's right.  And as Steve has accurately pointed
out, the GPML, the Globally Protected Marks List, is not in the
guidebook and that was the result of several areas of public comment,
comments even by individual IRT members but, more importantly,
comments by the community and GNSO members in particular that were
concerned with implementation difficulties regarding the GPML.  And
those were detailed well in the comment.

So those can continue to be discussed, and perhaps ironed out.  And,
Steve, we should continue to discuss them.

Another objection to the GPML had to do with a creation of a new sort
of right and that is where others have tried to create this list
before, there was concern that certain trademark holders would have
rights that other trademark holders do not if they were included in
the GPML.

So again, we're coming up on guidebook 4 which will be another draft,
and we can continue to discuss those two issues.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Kurt, just to summarize, though, the
recommendations that were made that have not gone forward, it's pretty
clear that we are not moving forward with them.

I thought the comment you had put together about that made that pretty
clear.  If we can put this to bed.  There's not a set of
recommendations lurking that we are still considering, is there?

>>KURT PRITZ:   No, that's correct.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Back to the online room.  Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  Phil Corwin from the Internet
Commerce Association has a short statement and question about uniform
rapid suspension.  Phil asks or states:  The URD debate showed that
implementation of a low-cost rapid supplement to the UDRP is a policy
issue requiring GNSO review and board decision, yet as fully outlined
in my letter posted this week by ICANN at, link, the CAC in the face
of unanimous opposition nonetheless intends to implement the core of
its low-cost UDRP variant next Monday.

It will result in a UDRP that is no longer uniform, provides none of
the clear standards or safe harbors developed by the URS, but instead
leaves it a panelist -- leaves it a panelist's, at his or her sole
discretion, absent any guiding standards whether a full UDRP analysis
must be rendered standard and would result in domains being
transferred absent the reasoned decision required by the UDRP.

Will ICANN's board enjoin this abuse of supplemental rules and
instruct CAC that implementation of any such UDRP variants must await
a UDRP PDP as called for by us, by the registration abuse working
group and by many others?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Rob.

John, can I ask you to prepare an answer in relation to the ability of
the UDRP providers to make such changes and offer such additional
services.

Thank you, Amy.

>>AMY STATHOS:   Thank you, Peter.  First with respect to the CAC, we
are assured the only thing the CAC is changing its fee structure.

With respect to changing supplemental rules, we are in the process of
looking at a process where the providers will have to follow specific
process before they change supplemental rules so that they would go up
for public comment.  And we are actually in the process of trying to
put the parameters around that right now.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks very much.

Let's come back to the room.  Let's come to Antony.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   Thank you, Peter.  I would like to speak
about the post-delegation dispute mechanisms.

I think that we can break this into two parts.  One has to do with, I
think, a perfectly legitimate need to deal with a registry that is
infringing trademarks at the top level.  That there is no other way
currently that I know for someone to object to that, and I think
that's legitimate.

Then you have the fact that this also concerns names at the second
level.  And clearly, it's minute to address a registry that is turning
a blind eye to or otherwise allowing violations of trademarks in the
second level domains.

We have a lot of different mechanisms to deal with that.

We have the UDRP, we of course have the courts, we have the URS, we
have a number of different mechanisms.

And I think that the only way that this makes sense is as a last
resort.  And I'm particularly concerned that this might be used by
trademark holders abusively.  And that is addressed in the document
but not very specifically.  There's no definition of what abusive is.

And I'm very concerned that this might become a first instead of a
last resort.  And given the extreme measures that can be taken by a
single panelist, which include awarding monetary damages, as Jeff
noted, and shutting down a registry, that we really look very hard at
defining the circumstances under which it can be used and try to use
it as a last resort.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Let's go back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  Kristina Rosette from the IPC,
but speaking personally asks:  Does ICANN anticipate that the
trademark protections to be embodied in DAG 4 will adequately address
the issue of trademark protection in new gTLDs?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Looking around the board, I see people
nodding.

I'm not sure how we can answer that.  We're not putting them in
because we think we are inadequate.  Whether they are sufficient I
guess is the question that time will tell.

Bertrand.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Good morning, again.  Bertrand De La
Chapelle, French GAC representative.

Two points following the distinction made by Antony Van Couvering.
Trademark protection at the top level, I just want to repeat the
comment that I made in a previous session on trademark protection,
regarding the treatment that should be applied for people who try to
trademark a TLD; i.e., a dot music as a trademark.

I'm not sure at the current stage that this issue has been addressed
sufficiently.

The second thing according to what Antony was saying, is regarding the
second level regulation policies, the absence of distinction among
categories is making the problem actually harder to solve, for two
reasons.

According to the experience in certain categories, trademark
infringement has been significantly different from others.  And here
again, I pay respect and tribute to the work that has been done by
Minds+Machines in one report, comparing the trademark infringement in
different TLDs.  And I pay tribute also to Amadeu who is here with dot
cat, demonstrate that sometimes small TLDs on linguistic and cultural
orientation do have a level of trademark infringement that is
significantly lower than anything else.

In that respect, taking into account the possibility of categories is
very important.

But in any case, and that's the last point, ICANN must not try to
invent for the new gTLDs a complete trademark system.  And there seems
to be not enough attention paid to the fact that for a certain number
of registries and TLDs that will be deeply located physically either
in a community or in a country because it is a brand TLD related to a
company that has operations in one country, who will be operating in
one country this TLD, or whether it is a geographic TLD, like a city
TLD that will be hosted in the country maybe because the city itself
will have requested the registry be there.  The national laws will
provide an incredible framework.

So in as much as we can resent sometimes that ICANN says it is not the
responsibility of ICANN to ensure trademark protection, it is not
either the responsibility of ICANN to design the whole trademark
protection system for the new TLDs and it should take much more into
account the legal national and international frameworks.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Bertrand.

Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Paul Farkas from dot music has a question regarding
the clearinghouse.  Actually, a statement.

We remain concerned about the IP clearinghouse.  Global marks present
a difficult territory for innovator applicants such ourselves to
assess as they are vague costs being raised for clearinghouse data
access.

We are concerned that there will be decisions that will shift
protective cost burdens from brands over to new gTLD applicants, and
then operating registries, as well as Internet users overall.

It is generally in brand owners' interests to obtain the strongest
global policies possible to protect their brands, and in this global
forum, many of their representatives are seemingly happy to err on the
side of overprotection or allowing innovation.  Over, I guess.

This should continue no longer.

Generally we believe there should not be decisions by ICANN as to
trademark protections mechanisms that are beyond the bounds of
trademark law and beyond the scope of ICANN's technical mandate.

This would have a very harmful impact on the innovators in the
community such as us as well as overall freedom of expression.

As stated by our colleagues, substantive rights for trademark
claimants do not exist in law should not be created here.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Rob.  Can I just confirm that the
members of the board are very concerned to get that balance right
between innovation and freedom of speech and other rights and rights
of protect being the rights of others, where that balance lies of
course depends on your point of view.

We as group are working hard to make sure we do what's in the public
interest on that.  Amadeu.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   Amadeu Abril i Abril from CORE.

First, I want to say that I love Kurt's optimism saying that he thinks
that ICANN has finally found a good solution for trademark protection.

It's not that I disagree.  It's simply that I would like seeing this
as the end of the blockage for the whole process moving forward.

Regarding the issue that Antony raised about post-delegation for
second-level domain trademark infringement, the problem here is still
ICANN lacks some tools at the contractual compliance level.  The post-
delegation procedure is perhaps, once again, the nuclear weapon.
Going to that procedure that may end up in terminating the contract
with the operator, even canceling the TLD itself.

And in the contract is always the same kind of nuclear weapons.

In case of breach of contract, you may terminate your provider, look
for another one.

But the fact is that some people who have been misbehaving not only in
the area of trademarks, but, for instance, for community TLDs, they
may be tempted not to just sell dot cat for the Catalonian linguistic
and cultural community, but for cats or whatever you want.  I just
take this example.  And this is also a problem.

I think in the contractual compliance, you need the gradual weapons,
from raising the per-domain fee of that registry to forcing them to
have a different prevalidation for new registrations if we see an
incredible amount of non-complying names or trademark-violating names.

And the third one, which is the most effective, is just suspending new
registrations for, let's say, three to six months until, you know,
they understand what happens.

Because just (inaudible) the operator or, even worse, cancelling the
TLD, harms the registrants who are in that TLD probably more, or at
least at the same level, than the registry itself.  Preventing new
registrations harms the bottom line of the registry, but at least the
registrants don't -- aren't affected by that.

And I think we still need the sort of gradual weapons for contractual
compliance in ICANN.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Amadeu.  Very thoughtful comment.
I completely agree, if we can have gradual weapons and not only have
the one that you mention as the nuclear weapon, that's a sophisticated
response.

Rob, someone in the online room ready to go?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   No, Peter.  We don't have any more trademark
clearinghouse questions.  I don't know what the time management will
be here.  I do have a couple of vertical integration questions.  So we
can be flexible, of course.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Let's stick with the people at the
microphone, then.  And we've got Marilyn Cade.

>>MARILYN CADE:   Thank you.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  And I am a
member of the business community.  And I am speaking in my individual
capacity.

The discussion about trademark protection mechanisms has, of course,
been with us for some time.  But I'd like to put it into context by
thinking about it differently.

The board is committed, I believe, to a successful introduction of new
gTLDs, as the community is.  But I hope we're committed to a
successful, useful experience in the life of the registrant.  And I
say that by saying people who register domain names want to be able to
use them.  If names are in fact, after registration, tied up in
trademark disputes, those names are not going to be put to use.  So
when you think about these mechanisms, think about them that way.

The second point I want to make is, the fact is, we don't have the
facts.  Some time ago -- and I'm hoping that the economic studies that
you're going to support are going to get us there.  Sometime ago, in
an earlier round, a client of mine, AT&T, another member of the
community, MarkMonitor, and myself, spent extensive time doing a
prototypical survey.  And we actually looked at the facts.

So when we say we don't think there is a lot of abusive registration,
I think one of the things we have to do is figure out how we're going
to get those facts.

The study that MarkMonitor did, that analysis Mason did, showed that
for five different global companies, one in the ecommerce area, one in
the entertainment, one in information and technology equipment, one in
travel, and one in finance, 88.1 or 2% of their registrations are
defensive.  And those defensive registrations are not only in dot com.

So let's be sure when you do the economic analysis that your economist
doesn't sit in his or her office; that you actually do what
MarkMonitor and (inaudible) Mason did, sign contracts, confidential
exchange of information, so that the real portfolios could be looked
at and the full scope of what it cost a trademark holder to protect
their brand and to protect the public, and, in the end, once the
decision is determined if there's a dispute, that domain name, if
there is a dispute because it's alleged that it's a cybersquatting or
trademark infringement, can either be used or returned.

I say that because, again, if we're going to spend all of our time
introducing new gTLDs and we're going to tie those things up in
trademark disputes, we're not going to have a successful experience.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Marilyn.

Wendy Seltzer.

>>WENDY SELTZER:   Thank you.  Wendy Seltzer, speaking here in my
individual capacity and from my experience as a member of the STI
actually.

I want to first echo some of the comments that I've heard about the
importance not only of protecting trademarks, but also protecting free
speech and innovation opportunities by leaving sufficient room for
people to innovate and express themselves on the Internet and through
locations.

I also want to stress the importance of the community process and the
consensus -- the hard-fought consensus that was reached in the STI and
to say how important it is that that not be undone by changes in
implementation detail, that some of those changes may in fact be our
policy changes that would undo some of the consensus and compromise
reached in the STI.

I also want to thank the chair for suggesting that some issues have
been put to bed.  It's wonderful to see that the board can take issues
and close them and move on, because I look forward to the soon and
successful launch of the new gTLD program.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Wendy.  Me, too.

Now Jean-Jacques has a comment.

>>JEAN-JACQUES SUBRENAT:   Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to give you my impression at this stage on these very
important issues.

I'm struck by the fact that there have been many interesting comments
and even some valuable suggestions made so far.

But I'm also struck by the fact that these reflect mainly the concerns
of trademark holders or others who are operating in this domain, but
in the developed world, or, let's say, in the industrial world.

I'm a bit puzzled by the absence of reactions or questions or contest
by people from the developing world.

We are in Nairobi.  Much of this ICANN meeting, the 37th meeting, is
aimed at this part of the world.  So does anyone care to come in and
say this is not really our concern.  Yes, we agree completely.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Jean-Jacques.

Just checking on the agenda, is there any comment on -- we've jumped
around.  But nobody's made any comment in regard to the Uniform Rapid
Suspension system.  As I commented during the debate.  That could be a
sign that this one is ready to go.  I see no one coming to the
microphone.

Let's come back to you, Rob, because you had a question about the
vertical integration.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   We had a couple remote questions generally on the
URS.

Yes.

Just real quickly, at 9:30, we have 86 remote participants, of which
40 are -- don't appear to be here.  So we're having some good turnout.

Constantine Roussos of Dot Music has a comment and brief statement.

Here's the statement:  Vertical integration, especially for closed-
community gTLDs, will benefit consumers by allow the creation of
service-product bundling as well as offering consumers differentiated
pricing options, given an increased product variety.

Vertical integration will allow new gTLDs to be innovated by
introducing new distribution and marketing channels in regards to
product placement.  Vertical integration will allow new gTLDs to
differentiate themselves from competitors, such as dot com.  It will
allow them to offer a higher quality product with a competitive
advantage that is attached to the opportunity to incorporate new,
innovative services that extend beyond mere domain name registrations.
Domain names are currently treated as commodity items, with dot com as
the leader in market value.

Vertical integration will help increase consumer willingness to pay,
given the value creation opportunity that it brings.  The
registry/registrar separation, vertical integration options paper,
written by Salop and Wright, fails in the sense that the options given
rely on arbitrary numbers and complicated market share assumptions.

Only the market can determine whether a new gTLD is successful or not,
and the real competition is not within the specific gTLD itself, but
with other generic gTLDs, such as dot com, dot net, dot info.

The paper fails to acknowledge that registry/registrar separation can
be detrimental to closed communities with innovate innovative
technologies, especially if registrars are not equipped or interested
in employ such innovative solutions and alternatives.

Constantine has a question.  We still have a minute and a half left.
Without vertical integration, how does the ICANN board suggest new
gTLDs increase competition and innovation in the marketplace if
registrars are not equipped or interested in employing innovative
solutions?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Anybody on the board want to try
an answer.

I see Dr. Tonkin.  Bruce.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:   Sorry, Peter.  I don't want to respond on this
particular question, but I would want to respond perhaps to some of
the general comments that are being made about trademarks.  So at an
appropriate time, if I could comment.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Why don't -- now that you have the floor,
why don't you go ahead.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:   Thank you, Peter.

I've listened to a number of sessions during the week.  And there's an
overlap between some of the topics around malicious use and
registration abuses.  There was an initial report that's available in
the GNSO on that topic.

And then some of the issues around new gTLDs with respect to trademark
protection or brand protection at the second level.

I tend to think that we need to separate a topic of -- of brand
protection and some of the issues around abuses from the specific
topic of introducing new names, because I think they're parallel
topics.  They're not -- the issue of abuse is not a subtopic of new
gTLDs.  New gTLDs does not create the abuse.  The abuse is there on
the domain name system today.  And what we really need to do is
address the abuse across existing ccTLDs, gTLDs, and any new TLDs that
are created rather than try and say it's just a problem of new gTLDs.

And to be particularly specific about that, there has been quite a bit
of analysis done by the community, and perhaps ICANN could have a
dedicated Web site where the analysis that Marilyn referred to and the
analysis that some other parties have referred to could be put in one
place, so we can see the data.  And then we really need a -- to
identify where the problems are in our overall system today and how we
need to fix those.  And a lot of that comes down to things like UDRP
and how we improve that.

But just so the audience is clear, there's really two main mechanisms
of -- that are used around names.  This is in gTLDs, ccTLDs, plus any
new names that get created.

One is typing, where people are relying on the fact that people
mistype when they put a domain name in the system, and they direct
them to a location that's different than what they intended.  And then
what kind of misleading behavior happens when they get there.

Because that relates to typing of names, it mostly relates to the most
widely-known names amongst consumers, which are generally the major
existing gTLDs, existing ccTLDs, and it relates to the registration
policies of those existing gTLDs and ccTLDs that allow the
registration of names easily.  And so misspelling are easily
registered.  And so that's predominantly COM and a number -- and net
and org and a fairly open registrations.  A number of ccTLDs have
exactly the same characteristics, same problems occur.

So that's typing.

The second method of attack is through spam e-mails where you're
misled visually to click on a name that looks like the site that you
might recognize, like a banking site, et cetera.  Again, most of those
will end in a name that you're familiar with, which are the major
gTLDs and ccTLDs, 'cause if you see a name dot com or a name dot UK or
a name dot DE, you assume that's probably the official site of that
organization.

A new gTLD, it's going to be hard for them to get that to work
initially, because people won't recognize those names.  So they'll
know straightaway they're being mislead.  If they see bank.sport or
something, clearly they know it's not going to be the right bank.
It's going to be less likely to be misled there than they are today
with the dot coms and ccTLDs.  Just to be clear, it's typing, which is
a misspelling when people are trying to go to a name that already
exists, name space.  So the major gTLDs, major ccTLDs, and the
registration policies that they use that make it easy for you to
register these misspelling.

And the other technique is visual confusion, which, again, generally
relies on you having as much confidence as possible that you've
already seen the name before and there's only one or two characters
that are changed.

So let's just be clear, we're talking about problems of the domain
name space as a whole today, and we do need to improve.  That's
absolutely true.  And, you know, we need to sort of try and draw these
different activities together around that topic of how we deal with
abuse in the system today.  And anything we do to fix the system today
will apply into the future with new gTLDs.  I just want to separate
those issues, 'cause we're getting so much focus by saying we can't do
new gTLDs, because it creates problems.  They don't create problems,
the problems are there today.  We need to fix those problems today.
And when we fix those problems, they'll apply to the future as well.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Bruce.  Very helpful distinction.

We come back into the room.  And I have Bertrand de la Chapelle.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Bertrand de la Chapelle, France.

Quick comments.

On the vertical integration, there are two expressions that are being
used, vertical integration, and registry/registrar separations.  They
are a mirror image in terms of default states.  What I mean by that is
that for any kind of policy rule, you can either state that the rule,
by default, is that something is forbidden, and that exceptions occur,
or that -- that, by default, something is allowed and that exceptions
occur in the other way around.

The choice between the two alternatives in which I don't get into, is
very important in terms of the dynamics of the future.  And I hope the
PDP working group in the GNSO -- soy sorry, not the PDP, the vertical
integration in the GNSO, will look at this dimension of what is the
default state.

The second thing is, for any policy structure, you also use what
academics call the deontic operators.  And these deontic operators are
three.  It's "must," "must not," "may."  You make a choice of one
default regime, and you apply the rules for when you must do
something, when you must not do something, and when you may do
something, provided whatever.

The third element is that in any kind of regime, according to these
mechanisms, you need an essential function, which is the so-called "or
else," i.e., what happens if the deontic operators are not respected,
you had to do something and you don't.  What happens?  The reason why
I mention this is because, in many cases, ICANN seems to develop very
extensive rules for very lengthy processes, but I'm not absolutely
sure that in all cases the monitoring and enforcement has been up to
par, which actually ends up penalizing the good, respectful actors.

And, finally, I'd like to take the opportunity to highlight that, as
Constantine Roussos obviously implied, this is another example of a
situation where it is hard to find the right answer if you don't take
into account categories.

How can you imagine that you will apply the same rule for brand TLD or
a single-registrant TLD, if ever this is allowed, and for a completely
generic domain?  This doesn't work.  And in that respect, I would like
to say that when the exchange was made in Seoul between should there
be vertical separation or not, the question in the end is not should
there be vertical separation or vertical integration or not.  The
question is, when should there be vertical separation or integration
and why?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yes, Bertrand.  Let's go back to the online
room.

Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  Mike Palage, of FERRIS global has
a question about vertical integration.

ICANN's original economic analysis by CRAI discussed the concept of
single-registrant TLDs and the inefficiencies of these registries
being required to use registrars.

While ICANN has expended substantial resources on allowing common
ownership, it has done little to address this real issue.

Question:  If ICANN wants true intervention and competition in the
next round, when will this issue be addressed?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Let's come back into the room.

Antony.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   Hi.  There was some news today, I'm not --
can't verify it myself, but it said that Go Daddy now has 50% of the
registrar market.  And it's interesting to me that I almost didn't
come up here and make this statement, because I am going to be working
with registries, and they need Go Daddy.

So I can tell you, there's a chilling effect right now based on market
power.  And the fact is that, you know, I like the people at Go Daddy.
I think that they do a good job and there's a reason that they have
50% of the market.  But they are not going to want to carry all new
top-level domains.  And that means that if they don't want to carry
you, you've lost 50% of your market.

So I don't think that this debate should be framed in terms of that
the current situation is actually favoring the consumer.  It --  When
new gTLDs come out, it won't be.  I think that allowing vertical
integration of registries and registrars is actually going to be
crucial to allow many new gTLDs to be successful.

And that has nothing to do with the intentions of Go Daddy or other
large registrars.  But, you know, they have, among other things, a
user interface problem.  If there are hundreds of new gTLDs, it's very
difficult to display them all.  They are going to be making choices
based on economics about which are good for them and which are not.

And those who don't happen to meet their criteria are going to face a
very, very difficult challenge.  And they should at least be given the
opportunity to do their own marketing and branding and sales.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Antony.

Anyone in the room?

Yes, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.

Jeff Neuman from NeuStar has a statement and comment under the theme
what about the transition period.

ICANN staff has recently released an economic report that presents
several new policy options with respect to loosening the restrictions
with respect to vertical integration.

What is missing from the discussion has been a discussion on the
measures that will be taken with respect to existing registries and
allowing them to compete on a level -- on a competitive playing field.

More specifically, that encompasses two different aspects:  First,
there are currently contractual constraints that do not allow existing
registries to vertically integrate for new TLDs.

Second are the contractual constraints with respect to vertical
integration in the existing TLDs.

What is the ICANN board's plan to address both of these issues?

In addition, as has been acknowledged by both the ICANN board chair in
Sydney and by the economists as well, normally, when you have
deregulation, as is being put forward here, there is an ample
transition period to allow the development of a competitive playing
field in addressing the appropriate concerns.

When and how will this issue be addressed?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  And the quick answer to Jeff is, we have to
solve the policy before we start thinking about how to implement it.
We haven't yet agreed what the policy is.  And so, of course, we
haven't started working on implementation plans.

When we know which policy we've chosen, we will then address the
implementation issues.

Let's come back into the room.

Steve.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Thank you.  Steve Delbianco, speaking for Net
Choice Coalition.

With respect to vertical integration, earlier this week, the study by
economists Salop and Wright was posted for comment.  I've read that
over.  And I'm interested to note that they recommend that allowing
cross-ownership both ways, registries can own registrars, and vice
versa.

And I would say that if the cross-ownership line is going to be
allowed, it should either be both ways or neither way.  I think that's
appropriate.

They go on to give two options for how market power concerns might be
addressed.  And of the two options, I think I'd favor option three,
mainly for the following reason.  A lot of my members have
contemplated, but are a bit confused about the idea of a single
registrant TLD.  So, let's, a dot Skype, a dot Facebook, or a dot
bank, where they want to tightly control which of their users is
entitled to a second-level domain solely for use within their
platform, within a social networking service or with something like
Skype, it would be a peer-to-peer communications protocol.

So they're considering that.  But a bit confused, because under these
new recommendations, if they're do go into effect, imagine if Skype or
a bank were to want to create its own registrar and then own 100% of
the registrar, have it sign an RAA and then proceed to use only their
own registrar to bring its customers in and to give them second-level
domains.

I think that makes the most sense for a single-registrant TLD.  But
would that run afoul of your market power test?  Because, frankly,
Facebook does have 100% market power, 100% market share over the
likely registrants in the Facebook TLD.

And if it does cause a market share issue, the last thing we'd want
that to do is to turn into a long public-policy debate here at ICANN.
They ought not be subject to, say, antitrust review if they seek to
wholly own one registrar and use only that registrar to allow their
users to come in.  So just two questions for you.  Would be, do you
intend to try to specifically address the single-registrant issue?  I
know that's something that Mike Palage brought up in an earlier
comment.

And then the second part of that would be when?  Do we think we'll
work that into the first round of the new gTLD?  Or will it happen
later?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Steve, let me ask Kurt Pritz if he could
just be preparing an answer in relation to that single-
registrar/registrant -- single TLD market.

Rob, back to you.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.

Fred Feldman of MarkMonitor has a Uniform Rapid Suspension question.
It's responding to Bruce's comment earlier, I believe.

Bruce, we agree with your comments wholeheartedly.  Net domain name
system abuse should be resolved now so the learning can be applied to
new TLDs in the future.  And we encourage community members to work
within the registration abuse policy working group to effect this
result.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks.  Just a quick comment.

These problems need to be worked on.  We're not going to solve any of
them.  My reaction to some of this is a little bit like saying, until
we've solved burglaries, we're not going to build any new houses.
Clearly, you've got to stop burglars and you have to make mechanisms
and you make the new houses as safe as possible.  But you don't stop
the building of new houses because people burgle them or stop making
of cars because they crash.

Constantly working on the entire ecosystem is the exercise, not
stopping some portion of it, seems to me to be the logical response.

Bertrand, and then Brian.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Bertrand de la Chapelle, France.

First point is to remind people that the registry/registrar separation
was originally a remedy to a situation in order to alleviate the
situation of monopoly that dot com and VeriSign had on dot com.

In competition policy, there's a distinction between the normal rule
and the remedy.  So maybe the remedy applies to certain situations and
not to others.  It can be size; it can be market power; it can be
whatever else.  But it is not necessarily the basic rule that has to
be applied if it was a remedy for a specific case.

The second thing is, I would like to pick on a word that Peter has
used.  And I'm, let me say, surprised to hear that we are -- now have
not set the policy for vertical integration.

I thought that in June 2008, ICANN as a whole had moved from the
policy that was finished towards implementation.  What you are saying,
Peter, is that ICANN has misunderstood the fact that between the
policy made or drafted by a supporting organization and the
implementation that is done by the staff, there is a step that should
be called "implementation policy."  And all the problems that are
listed there are not implementation problems.  They are implementation
policy problem.

Finally, regarding what Steve was saying, I think the case of Facebook
is a very interesting one, if ever brand single-registrant TLDs are
envisaged.  Why not envisage in terms of trademark protection for that
category -- and again you hear the word "category" -- that category of
TLDs, a mechanism that would be an internal trademark protection
process.  I could very well imagine Facebook, when it gets to
registry, establishing its own trademark protection process in
partnership with the different trademark actors.

What ICANN needs is not to solve all the problems beforehand, but to
try to find a way to do it afterwards.  If there is a category for
single-registrant brand TLDs, maybe they collectively, or those who
are interested could get together and propose to ICANN something that
would allow them to solve it among themselves.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Bertrand.

Let's come to Kurt.  Kurt, the single-registrant.

>>KURT PRITZ:   So Steve asked a very interesting and difficult
question.

Market power, one measure of market power might be market share.  But
I think market power is determined by many factors, and at the end,
you know, is illustrated by harm to registrants.  So if there's dot
IBM and the IBM registrar registers all the names in IBM, that's a
monopoly.  But if it's an internal brand TLD, there's not really harm
to others who want to get in on that.

If dot IBM wants to hold itself out as a public registry, it might
find out that the most effective way to promote that business is not
by using its in-house registrar only, but it can grow its business by
using outside registrars.  And the market sort of addresses that.

So, yes, IBM -- the IBM registrar would have a monopoly in IBM, but
that doesn't necessarily mean, I don't think, the exercise of market
power.  That's why I think the report, you know, talks about that.
Talks about harm to registrants and users.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks very much.  Let's go back to Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Jeff Neuman from NeuStar has a follow-up question.

Yes, the vertical integration policy needs to be defined first before
transition plan, yet ICANN staff announced this would all be final
before draft applicant guidebook 4 and the expression of interest
process and that would all be done by June.  So can we assume from
your statement, Peter, that resolving the vertical integration issue
by June is a stretch, given that the policy has not been defined?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Let's go to Brian.

>>BRIAN CUTE:   Brian Cute from Afilias.  First I want to note this
decision was made during a so beg your pardon point in the meeting.
But I'm very proud to be wearing my masai here in Nairobi and thank
the hosts very much for their hospitality.

[ Applause ]

>>BRIAN CUTE:   I'd like to follow up on Jeff Neuman's first question
and try to keep it at a high, simple level.  The question in my mind
is how many sets of rules of the road are you going to create here?

There's been a report that came out recently that's clearly wrestling
with the question of dominance.  And I'm not talking about that
question right now.  That will be resolved.  But there is an
outstanding problem.  There is a PDP that's in play.  We don't know
what the outcome of that is going to be.

There are existing registries who have a question about vertical
integration and how and when we'll be able to do that, and new
registries that will be subject to a set of rules on vertical
integration.  So the simple question in my mind is, I think there's a
risk shaping up of establishing three distinct sets of rules of the
road for three different categories of registries.  And I don't think
that's optimal.  If there's going to be one set of rules on dominance
and then two other sets of rules, there have to be clearly-articulated
bases for distinct treatment of registries as a whole, and supportable
articulated bases for separate rules of the road.  So I just raise
that issue and think that's something that needs to be addressed in
the short term.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Brian.

Back to you, Rob.  And I just -- I'd like you to give priority, if you
can, to new questions, otherwise, the people online seem to be getting
a slight advantage.

>> I'm just asking, what policy does ICANN have, for example, in
protecting the territorial rights, for example, like, for a string
like dot masai, for example, because you find that the uptake for TLDs
in this part of the world is quite minimal.  For example, let me refer
to a case where a Japanese firm registered, for example, (Swahili),
which is, for example, Kenyan basket.  And up until now, it is still
-- I mean, the World Trade Organization cannot do anything about it.

So what policy does ICANN have to ask this kind of -- I mean, things
that may come?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   That's a very good question.  I think
probably best again to turn to Kurt to just outline the different
mechanisms that we have set up to try to deal with that.

>>KURT PRITZ:   That's right.  It was a major policy focus of the GNSO
in formulating the policy for implementing new gTLDs that in fact one
of the reasons for the whole process was to allow community TLDs to
flourish.

And so what the GNSO recommended be put into place would be an
objection process where if somebody's misappropriating your community
label, you could object to that and have that -- have that application
denied.  And there's a very specific set of rules around that.

In addition, if somebody seeks to adopt your community label to get an
advantage in the evaluation process, there's a very high bar to ensure
that who is ever applying for the dot community TLD really has a close
association of the T- -- with the TLD, the support of the TLD, and
that other -- other community members aren't objecting to it.  And I'd
be happy to take some time later and show you in the applicant
guidebook where those -- where those specifications are in place so
you can comment specifically as to whether you think they're adequate
or not.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Kurt, can I perhaps just add to that two
other things.  One of them is the -- we were talking about the post-
dispute -- post-delegation dispute resolution.

If a community TLD is delegated and there is a complaint later about
the way the community feels, then that's grounds for redelegation.

And the other ground, sir, is the marketing campaign.  And I'm hoping
we're going to have some discussion about the -- the starting of the
marketing, advertising, awareness, communications program very
shortly, to make sure that to the extent that we can, communities are
aware that this process is starting.

Werner Staub.

>>WERNER STAUB:   Very short comment about vertical integration.  We
have a status quo by which many can live.  And it is good to do work
on this.  But if you're not sure that we're going to be done by the
time that we have scheduled now for the next steps, I don't think the
vertical integration should delay anything.  People would just stick
with the status quo and wait until the rest has been done.  It can
still be done after.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Can I ask if you are talking about the dot
pro status quo or the dot com.  Which of the status quos would you
like to us to stick to?

>>WERNER STAUB:   The status quo is for the -- the new TLD, those who
have now started -- recently started, they were not allowed to own
their own registrars.  Or....

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   There's a different set of requirements in
the dot pro agreement than there is in the dot com agreement.  Some
have a 15% rule, some don't.  There is no such thing as the status
quo.

There are several status quos.

>>WERNER STAUB:   Yes, but for new ones, I mean.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yes, we're talking about which of the status
quos we will take into the new round.  It just doesn't -- if there was
a status quo, we could just ship in, we may look at that.  But there
isn't.

>>WERNER STAUB:   The status quo for the new ones that were being
created was that it would be 15% maximum.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   As I keep trying to say, there isn't a 15%
rule in the dot pro agreement.  So when you say "status quo," I'm
asking you which of the status quos you're talking about.

>>WERNER STAUB:   About the most recently added gTLDs.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Well, of course, that's another set of policy questions, why wouldn't
we use the oldest and most experienced set of rules.  So these are
difficult questions.

Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   This is challenging.  We have to maintain our
flexibility here.  I do have a statement or question from Khaled
Fattal, the ICANN President Advisory Committee on IDNs, also chairman
of the Multilingual Internet Group.

He links it with a statement from Jean-Jacques and puts it under the
category Uniform Rapid Suspension.  But I think it's a tangential
question.

Then again, I don't feel comfortable on the fly editing people's
comments.  So I'm going to go ahead and read it, with your permission.
It's not very long.

I am very pleased to hear Jean-Jacques make the point that ICANN is in
Nairobi today.  Yet the compelling issues remain very western and
specifically U.S.-centric.  He also asks if any questions exist that
pertain to internationalization.

The question, isn't this a result and caused by the current ICANN
infrastructure of structure's formats and processes, how will ICANN
manifest how it will balance special interests versus global interests
so that IDNs and IDN gTLDs are given their due merit?

As much of the serious concerns from the IDN communities and
developing world continue being overlooked and are hardly being
touched in the new gTLDs, I believe this is currently very lacking in
the ICANN process.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

If board members may during the day at some stage respond.  Amadeu.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   Amadeu Abril i Abril from CORE, also
regarding vertical integration.

Quite frankly, the economic report you got is surprising on one hand
at how simplistically it looks at the market, and not surprisingly at
all why you -- because you asked a couple of economic specialists, how
(inaudible) has spent the last 25 years saying there is no problem
with all these vertical restrictions.

So the answer has to be necessarily optimistic and simplistic in that
sense.  And he might be right, but always the same caveat:  provided
market power.  The market power question is really cross-(inaudible)
of the man, and there is no hint there about checking that.  There are
even the temporal factors.  It's not the same.  The market power a
registry has over registrants at the moment of registration or after
they have registered a TLD, as CORE mentioned, but also for the
primary market or the secondary market.

[ Speaking too quickly ]

And it is not exactly the same the situation on market power regarding
a registry being vertically integrated as a registrar, at the launch
of TLD when the land grab, so to speak, happens, then, two years down
the road.

In order to ascertain whether there is market power or not, and there
is not, forget about vertical separation.  We need to do that.

If that's too complex, and it might be, as Brian Cute said, have so
many different rules, then the simplest rule is let's keep to the most
common, latest development, and more favorable to integration rule we
have today, which is the 15% cap registry/registrar,
registrar/registry.

The reverse would be making lots of problems because besides of that
theoretical questions, there are two real issues.  The one is the one
Antony mentioned, the small or focused TLDs that will not grab the
attention of big registrars.  The second one is big or medium
registrars wanting to become a registry and grab, you know, for
themselves, as registrars as well, in the market the most valuable
50,000 first names, which are the ones that will have the value.
There is a difference between cost and value.  And because of their
privileged situation in the market, both as a registry and registrar
at that time, make sure that nobody else is able to take that part of
the difference between cost and value.  And this is not theoretical.
This is the reason why we are discussing this here.

We should not forget that.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Amadeu.  Could I just ask you and
all other speakers to remember the translators and the interpreters.
That was a very difficult piece to keep up with, Amadeu.

If you could just bear that in mind, I would appreciate it.

Rob, is there someone in the room?  Thank you.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, sir.  Kristian Ørmen, Larsen Data, has a
statement on vertical integration.

It would be the wrong way to go if registries are allowed to run a
registrar themselves.  Registrars are used to helping end customers
and offering a full solution with a good choice of many different
TLDs.

This gives the customer the best solution of registering all their
names at the same place and it gives competition between the
registrars.

It examine nearly impossible to compete against a registry.  We are
seeing the exact same in ccTLDs today, and some ccTLDs are moving away
from their old model and are charging, and is changing to a
registry/registrar model instead of selling directly to the end
customers.

I heard some registries want their own registrar, and some don't want
any other registrars at all.

If this is because they want to offer a full solution to the
registrants, they should have a look at dot tel.  Dot tel is offering
a full solution through their registrars and is very successful with
that.

The only reason I can see to approve registries running their own
registrar is if it is a brand TLD and they are only using it for their
own use and it's not selling or giving away domain names to end users.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Comment in the room.  Jaime.

>>JAIME WAGNER:  Jaime Wagner.  I am from the GNSO Council, but I am
speaking on a personal capacity here.

Well, I feel that there is a recursive demand from the community for
the council to consider the fact, and I emphasize here that "fact" is
my personal opinion, but I think it's the fact that there are
different categories of TLDs.  And that if policy-making acknowledged
these differences, progress would be smoother.

I feel also that there can be a fear from the part of the board to
delay the process by bringing in a new discussion on which would be
those categories.

Am I right or where is council's resistance to address this question?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   The quick answer is yes, that the
speculation about the kinds and types and numbers and amounts of
categories that we might create would be endless, and that attempts to
focus on some of the benefits that would clearly derive from having
categories are outweighed at the beginning of the process by the cost
of maintaining and supervising and checking the multiplicity of
systems.

If I can ask Kurt, I think we put up a chart when this question was
asked in Sydney, which just showed the number of issues that we have
to deal with already.  And as soon as you start -- that's in one
category.  As soon as you make a whole series of categories, the order
of magnitude of difficulty just goes -- the difficulty just goes up by
orders of magnitude.

That's not to say that in the future, if there emerges a category with
clearly defined issues:  cultural, linguistic, national, city.  If
such a category emerges, and at this stage we have no idea whether one
will, there will be no problem with starting to develop sui generis
rules around that particular category.

But the board's decision was not to stop, try to speculate around what
categories might come, try to invent rules for that speculation.  But
that doesn't stop us from doing it in the future.

>>JAIME WAGNER:  So the board did consider and did consider this
possibility.  Yes?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yes.

>>JAIME WAGNER:  And are these first studies available to the
community?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I'm not sure whether anything written is
available on that.  Kurt, I think it's largely the result of long
debate.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:  Peter, I can probably comment on it as well.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Bruce, you have a response?

>>BRUCE TONKIN:  Yeah, you used the term council.  This is the board.
I think that's probably the first place to direct your question
because the new gTLD policy came from the GNSO.  The board didn't
create the policy.

And the council did consider -- innumerous times the idea of
categories were raised.  Our experience with categories as an
organization, this is over ten years, hasn't been good.  We tried to
create a category in 2004 which was called the sponsored TLD, and the
biggest problem there was an argument about what was in and what was
out of that category.  Not so much the rules for the category but who
was in and who was out.

We do have categories today, both in the domain name system we have
two, generic top-level domains and Country Code Top Level Domains.

Within the G space we also have categories in the new policy.  We have
a category of community-based names and a category of standard,
essentially, is one -- two of the categories.  And the third category
that's really emerged, it was in the original report and has been
elaborated since, is geographic names.

So we have three categories today in the new gTLD policy, and those
categories came from the new gTLD policy development process.

As Peter says, maybe new categories get created into the future, but
the challenge is making sure you can define what is in and what is
not.  Even if you chose city names, city names overlap with company
names, as an example.  So you can't just say, oh, we've got this
category of city names because I know innumerous cities that also
match the name of companies.

>>JAIME WAGNER:  Thank you very much for explanation.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Bruce.

Back to Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Hirokatsu Ohigashi from GMO Registry, Inc. has a
comment on vertical integration.

I monitor registrations and marketing of dot registrations and noted
one yesterday, dotFacebook.com, which shares the same name servers as
Facebook.com.  So the topic of vertical integration is a timely one.

I cannot confirm their purpose of registration without discussing this
with them but I believe it helps us respect that the concept of
vertical integration is a worthwhile discussion.

I know there are a few companies in who would be interested in
applying for brand TLDs for their own needs.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Chris.

>> Chris (saying name) from (saying name) dot com and the business
constituency.

Peter, you mentioned just a few minutes ago about the cost of
defensive registrations for large businesses, and we keep on hearing
about Nike and how many millions it's costing them a year.  But I
think I want to advocate just for a second about small businesses,
because actually it's more disruptive and more expensive to small
businesses as a percentage of their turnover than larger ones.
Because the larger businesses, in a way, they have a department, a
sausage machine to make policy on registration and to take the UDRP
cases.

But -- I'm a Web master for a number of small businesses, and there's
one that's a reasonable size gated community called (saying name), and
they all the time get, a practice called -- I discovered yesterday
it's called slamming where they called me and said, listen, Sharon
somebody from this company in London just called me and they say they
have got a client who wants to register your domain dot EU or your
domain dot CN or something like that and we have a client and we have
his credit card details, and we are just about to go but because we
are a responsible company, we are ready, we just want to check with
you.

I called Sharon, and she was incredibly well trained.  You know, I
went, tried to establish that definitely it was a scam.

And the only fault in everything was that the cost of the domain
registration was 600 pounds for ten years, and she said it was
obligatory to register for ten years.  And that was the thing that
made us absolutely sure it was a scam.

So I got back to the client and said, listen, this is just a scam.
Don't worry about it.

But when you are 99.9% sure, what you do is you say, well, we better
register these domains anyway.  I didn't register with Sharon at that
price, but I registered them with another registrar for one year for a
lesser price.

But that's just an example.  And this company has 50 domains.  My
client has 50 domains.  They only have got one Web site, and the other
49 are just defensive registrations, really.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Nothing right now.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Let's go to Becky.

>>BECKY BURR:   Thank you, my name is Becky Burr.  I am speaking as
someone who was present at the creation.

With all due respect, Peter, I think the discussion about multiple
status quos is misplaced here.

The underlying policy that was a product of the negotiations between
ICANN and VeriSign at the very beginning was that the resources of the
registry should not be used to advantage the registrar over other
competing registrars.  That was the policy.

The way it was put into place was through a very elaborate behavior
control because VeriSign was integrated, which was you have to provide
equivalent access and you have to engage in fair and equal treatment.

That system carried through until VeriSign spun off Network Solutions
in 2003.

At that point, everybody, every contract that came up after that had
the 15% limitation.  And it wasn't an accident.  That happened to be
VeriSign retained a 15% interest in Network Solutions.

But dot pro contract is still a 2002 contract.  So it's never been
revised.

So the registry constituency has written us out.  We have provided
this information.  I will provide it again.

But I think it's really important to understand that what the -- that
there is a policy and then a variety of implementations over time to
make the process simpler and cleaner.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yep.  Thank you, Becky.  I guess the quick
response would be, and it's just really focusing on dispelling this
idea that there's a simple status quo that we can just take forward.
The status quo you described was the status quo when there was
effectively a single registry and a single registrar, and now we have
900 or so registrars.

And so the question is what should the policy be going forward.

>>BECKY BURR:   That -- It was not one registry and one registrar.  It
was one registry and the introduction of competition in registrars.

I just think that the -- I agree with you that the world is a
different place, but the discussion about status quos just misses the
fact that what we're talking about changing is a policy.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Thank you.

Rob?  No?

Let's go to this side, then.  Paul.

>>PAUL STAHURA:   Yeah, my name is Paul Stahura, and I have been
involved in ICANN for 10 years, and this is my -- I think it's my 32nd
ICANN meeting.  I lost track on the number.

Currently my main policy focus is new TLDs, although I have been and
still am involved in many other issues.  The issues we address are
very broad and many are very complex.  It's a full-time job for me to
understand them all in depth.  It's all I can do to keep up with them.
It takes me a lot of time and effort to ramp up.

I would like to commend many on the board for also taking the time and
effort to understand these issues.

At this ICANN meeting in particular I have been impressed with the
depth of understanding many on the board have shown on the detailed
issues associated with new TLDs.

This is also the first ICANN meeting where I have been able to, as I
am no longer associated with a registrar, I have been able to observe
all the GAC meetings and interact with some of the GAC members.

I think it is very unfair that the GAC has been placed in a position
where they have to provide guidance on very complex issues that they
do not have the time and resources to fully understand.

I am just one guy, and I don't know what the solution is to prevent
the GAC from falling prey to slogans, I call it slogan-eering, but I
do know the GAC needs to get more efficient.  Maybe it's that
Secretariat idea.  Maybe they can make subcommittees to explore each
issue to the depth that's required.

I commend them for inviting experts to speak at their meeting, but
they need to understand both sides of the issue.

Thanks.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:

Thank you.

Back to Rob.  Rob, is there someone in the room?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, sorry.  The screen was updating.  Hong Xue from
Beijing Normal University has a comment on post-delegation dispute
mechanisms.

Unlike the clearinghouse and URS that had been subject to hard thought
community review and improvement, the present PDDRP proposal is
basically intact since the IRT report.

With respect to this very complicated and special trademark protection
mechanism that may be applicable to both top and second level,
substantive works are still badly needed to be done.

The present judgment criteria are highly substantive and, in a large
part, subject to the discretion of the expert panel.

Furthermore, application of the procedure at the second level imputes
an indirect liability on registry.

This may have serious chilling effect to drive the registry to monitor
and supervise not only the domain name strings but the content of the
Web sites that the domain names are used to prove their innocence.  As
a result, this will impose new restrictions on registrants.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Let's come back into the room.
Mr. Krueger.

>>FRED KRUEGER:  Yes, Fred Krueger from Minds+Machines.

I just want to bring up a point which was brought up seven or eight
times today which is categories.  And we discussed it a little bit at
the board level, but this has been paraded out as a revolutionary new
idea, a breakthrough for how we are going to address things.  And let
me tell you, it's not a breakthrough.

Aristotle about 2,400 years ago came out with a book called categories
and he came up with ten.  And guess what?  Those ten categories of
words are not used today.

We have categories right now in the Draft Applicant Guidebook.  We
have geographical names, we have communities, and we have everything
else, open, generic.

Now, if we start going and having predefining what is a brand TLD,
what is a linguistic TLD, what is a pornographic TLD, what is a bank
TLD, we are getting to linguistics.  These problems are not solvable.
They haven't been solved by Aristotle.  They haven't been solved by
any of the linguists for the last 2400 years, and they are not going
to be solved by us in the next two years.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  I suppose we should also add as
a category the IDNs that we have got.  That's another whole set of
categories.

Let's come to this microphone.  You, sir.  It's your turn.

>>RAFIK DAMMAK:   Hello, my name is Rafik Dammak.  I'm from Tunisia.
So about vertical integration, I think it won't change the situation
in developing countries as we don't have local registrars.  And then
people from those countries have to buy domain names from companies
based in developing countries.  And in practice, so it's complicated,
because the problem of payment, for example.

So I think there is a need to encourage registrar accreditation for
register from those developing countries.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Rob, is there someone in the
room?  No.  Let's go back to the other microphone.

Sir.

>>LEE WILLIAMS:  Lee Williams with the financial community.  Good
morning.

I would like to raise out loud a topic that I suspect is just below
the surface in many of our minds.  There's a temptation, I think, for
all of us to think first about our organizations or our immediate
constituency.  And when we're a little more broad minded to think
about the overall ecosystem.  It's at least as important, in my mind
probably more important, to think about the individuals at the very
end of the chain of the Internet, those ultimate end users to whom I
think we all have great responsibility.

So my plea to the board, to the GAC, to the overall community is that
as we work our way through all of these issues today and every day,
that we think at least as much about the effect that trademark
protection and some of these others have on the individuals as we do
on the organizations that we directly represent.

Just as an example, in trademark clearinghouse, we could think of that
as avoiding customer confusion.  Rapid suspension is really ultimately
about minimizing consumer fraud, all the way down to the economic
studies that really are about opening value and opportunity ultimately
to the end users.

So as much as I appreciate that that's very much an implicit part of
our conversation, my plea is that we make it as often as possible an
explicit and conscious and rigorous part of the discussion.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Lee, thank you for that.

Can I just assure you that the board does, to the extent possible, do
that.  We are constantly aware of the responsibility to future
generations, people who are not in the room taking part in the debate.
Indigenous cultures without the resources to participate, and so
forth.

We have active debate on those issues.

But thank you for reminding us and we probably need that reminder
every now and then.

Thank you.

Rob.

No?  Let's go to Bertrand.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Bertrand De La Chapelle, French
government.

I want to highlight something Kurt said just earlier, and I was very
glad to hear it and I encourage the board and staff to use this more
often.  He said one of the purpose of the new TLD was to help flourish
community registries.

I think if the board and the staff could use both the notion of
enhancing competition and exploring and developing community spaces it
would be more balanced.

The second thing is in response to Paul Stahura, I love when you
position things like that.  Thank you so much for the appreciation of
the work of the GAC.  You are another.

I would not dare to suppose that some people in the community, at the
same time, don't understand the sense of public interest or fair
treatment.  What you are saying about the GAC that does not understand
those things, basically there is a lack of understanding on both
sides.  And I would therefore fully support what you said in terms of
allowing the GAC to hear more about the positions, but also allowing
the rest of the community to understand more about what public policy
constraints are.

The next thing is, I would like to highlight one thing when we talk
about categories.  When I had the privilege of joining the GAC for the
first time in the end of 2006 in São Paulo, I was struck by the fact
that categories would be a good idea.  Since then, the topic has been
iterated, but I ask anybody to explain to me how the topic of
categories has slowed anything since the end of 2006.

On the other hand, I would argue that the absence of having dealt with
that has produced the delays and the inability to solve a lot of
issues.

So I will not get into the debate now, because of the time.  I agree
that categories are not new.

By the way, they already exist.  There are two spaces, the CCs and the
Gs and inside the Gs we already know that they are the sponsored ones,
they are the mil, gov, and others.  We have different regimes.

But furthermore, I would support the notion that in the DAG itself
there are already categories.  It's not -- just that they are not
designed this way.

So I am pleased to say in this respect that the board doesn't have to
worry or have concerns about delaying or addressing this.  I will not
betray secrets by saying that the GAC has said that there is a need to
explore categories, because we said it in our Seoul communiqué.

You know that there is an idea floating around on the creation of the
cross-community working group that will report one month before
Brussels to explore the usability of the notion of categories in the
gTLD program.  It cannot slow anything because it is not conditioned
to anything else.

And I will circulate today to the chairs of the ACs and S.O.s a place
for birds of a feather on that topic this afternoon.  We will discuss
how to organize this, and I invite those who are interested in
understanding how we could address this to contact their AC or S.O.
chair respectively.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Bertrand.

Dennis, you have a response?

>>DENNIS JENNINGS:   Yes.  Thank you, Bertrand, for bringing up yet
again the question of categories.

My understanding is that current policy from the GNSO is that there
won't be any categories.

So -- I'm looking to other board members to see if there's nodding,
that is a correct statement of the current policy.

But if that's the case, then these comments should be directed to the
GNSO, not to the board.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Rob, is there someone there?  No.

Let's go to this microphone.  Then, sir, it's your turn.

>> Willie Currie from the Association for Progressive Communication, a
member of the noncommercial stakeholders group.

I've been tracking some of the discussions about developing country
participation in ICANN and in the new gTLD process.  And I just want
to raise a couple of points around that.

This issue of pricing for the new gTLDs has come up.  I've heard a
board member say that it's not a big problem; it's a matter of
prioritization, that it's equivalent in value to a mobile tower or to
certain degree of fiberoptic cable laying that's going on in parts of
Africa.

I think that sort of misses the point.  And what I want to draw the
board's attention to is an interesting development in Cameroon in
central Africa where the government of Cameroon has received or is in
the process of receiving technical assistance from The World Bank to
define and implement a strategy for managing and administering the
domain name dot CM.

Now I think this might be an interesting avenue to explore, because I
think it would be simply tragic if, in the process of the new gTLD
process, there was insufficient participation from developing
countries and that one simply saw developed countries taking the
lion's share of the new gTLDs.

So I think this requires some active thinking and action by the board.
I would like to propose that the board mandate George Sadowsky to take
a lead in investigating the issue of developing country participation
and new gTLDs, drawing input from across the different supporting
organizations and advisory committees.

I haven't discussed this with George.  But I know that he has done
extensive work in developing countries and would perhaps have an
important role to play here.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I'm sure George is very grateful for all the
extra work the community can give him.

Perhaps you could come back to some of that when we come onto the
communications program and also application fees.  Can we just do a
quick check.

The gentlemen that are in the line, are you still talking -- just
talking -- agenda topics that you're talking about, we haven't --
we're still actually technically in vertical integration.

Is anybody wanting to talk about thick WHOIS?

No.  Three -- we'll come on to three-character variants, then,
shortly.

I'm taking it that you're going to be finishing the block of topics
that we have scheduled for before the break.

Monsieur Bachollet.

>>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   Peter, I guess one of your board members
wanted to talk.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   No, but I know --

>>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   Thank you.

(Speaking French).

(No translation available to scribes).

As there is trouble with the possibility to have the script working in
French or Spanish, I will follow in English.  But I would like to
thank the host for the kind hospitality in this very good meeting, and
I would like to tell the interpreters that they are doing a very good
job and we need them.

But it's about what Bruce said earlier about the categorization.  I
would be very happy that if we can, the staff can indicate just where
there is an analysis of the lack of the nonpossibility to use
categorization in the second round of new gTLDs, because as I
remember, in 2000, it was the first introduction of new gTLD.  It was
a test bed.  In 2004, it was an additional TLD into the test bed.  And
that was supposed to be analyzed.  And I will be very happy to know
where this categorization was taken out of the scope, because it was
not possible to follow them.

Thank you very much.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Rob -- Bruce, would you like to
respond?

>>BRUCE TONKIN:   Just to clarify what I thought I heard Sebastian
say.

Are you asking about the possibility of categorization in a second
round of new gTLDs?  Is that what you said?

>>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   I said that in the second round, it was
supposed to be sponsored TLD.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:   Okay.  Sorry.

>>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   And then at the end, obviously, the -- it was
not followed, this categorization.

And I would like to know why and who analyzed why it was not followed
or if it was followed, how it was followed.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:   Okay.  So in the new gTLD committee, we can get the
staff to find you the relevant meeting where that was discussed.  But
it was decided that sponsorship as a category of TLDs was not
something that was manageable, basically.  So it was part of the
deliberations of the new gTLD committee.  And there are minutes of all
those meetings available.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Bruce.

Yes, sir, your turn.

>>DANIEL SCHINDLER:  Good morning.  Thank you.  My name is Daniel
Schindler.  People who know me well would say I'm not the most
complimentary person they've ever met and, indeed, it's always easy to
find faults.  But I would like to take this opportunity in the public
forum to compliment the chairman, president, board, and staff for the
strides they have taken, especially since Seoul, and particularly with
regard to new TLDs.

This is my sixteenth or seventeenth ICANN meeting and definitely the
most positive I have attended, where the board, so ably lead by the
chairman, appears to be doing what boards of directors are supposed to
do, lead.

To this end, I look for decisions to be taken at your board meeting
tomorrow to help us over the finishing line as quickly as possible, as
I don't think anyone could argue that matters relating to TLDs have
not been adequately addressed in the years since the process was
started.

And in closing -- and I hope this is not an inappropriate forum to say
this -- and despite my relative longevity within the ICANN community,
I have only just learned that the chairman and other board members are
not paid for their time.  In the real world, how can we reasonably
expect to retain the best board we can when we don't afford them the
financial respect their participation obviously warrants.

Thank you very much.

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Mr. Schindler, thank you.  It's nice to have
the hard work that the board does recognized by the community.  I can
assure you that members of the board work extremely hard.  So thank
you for mentioning that.  Bertrand.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Bertrand de la Chapelle again from
France.

One point regarding categories is that there is an ambiguity about
this term.  And we all, as usual, are talking past one another.  When
somebody says we think categories would be great, what he means is not
necessarily what the others hear.

What we're talking about here when I say categories exist already in
the DAG, we're talking more or less about regimes.  There was a
comment made about geographic names, brand TLDs, community ones, and
generic ones.

If you look closely at the DAG, although it is (inaudible), there are
specific provisions that I cannot detail now but that I am very happy
to do that describe that, de facto, we already have categories in
there.  Furthermore, the last two years have clearly revealed the
emergence of very simple categories that can be used.

Anyway, the purpose is not to convince you now.  Once again, this
topic has never slowed down anything.  And the group that is being
proposed is just here to help understand what we mean by categories.

But I wanted to share one thing and to push a little bit further what
Dennis responded.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, if I go
through the list that is on the screen here, apart from the
Independent Review Panel decision, the accountability and transparency
review, the EOI, and maybe DNS security, none of those topics are
actually at a stage of decision-making on the board.

I therefore question why, on those topics, instead of the board on the
stage, we cannot have an interaction with the staff, which is actually
doing the work at the moment.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Discussing categories is certainly slowing
us down.  But categories are not really a problem.  You seem to be of
the view that we deny the existence of categories, when I think it's
quite clear that we've acknowledged that there are whole sets of
categories.  I'm not quite sure how much more productive this debate
can be.  I'd rather not go on about --

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   No, but, Peter, please, can I stop this
kind of thing?  This is exactly the purpose of -- this is off this
debate.

Those who believe that categories or the concept can be useful have
the burden, that we understand, we collectively have the burden, to
prove that it is useful.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Nobody denies that.  And we welcome the
formation of your group and look forward to the results of the report.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Peter, may I just -- or Mr. Chairman, may
I just produce a personal testimony, as the representative of a
government that participates fully in this organization that the
demand or even the suggestion has been made repeatedly to the board to
allow the possibility to explore and that I am sad to say that the
swiftness of reaction to this kind of suggestion supported by large
groups in the community has been much faster on other topics than on
this one.  So we understand that it is up to us to make the case.  We
will try to do it.  We may fail.  But, please, let us express that
there was a deep sense of frustration in the last two years in the
constant refusal by the staff and the board of accepting even to
explore the usability of this concept.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Avri --

[ Applause ]

>>AVRI DORIA:   Good morning.  Avri Doria, speaking on my own behalf.
But also speaking historically as the chair that was the GNSO that was
doing this GTLD.  And I also beg your indulgence for mentioning
categories yet again.

I actually want to disagree with Bertrand.  And I have been speaking
with Bertrand about categories since long before the new gTLD process
was solidified.

At that time, as I explained to him then, and I think he agreed, we
didn't know which categories would emerge.  Now, because the
implementation process has taken so long, those properties have
started to emerge.  However, I sort of agree with him on one thing and
disagree with you on another, which is that talking about them hasn't
slowed anything down.

I think talking about them probably hasn't, except maybe for your
meeting schedule.  But doing them at this point, to try and go back
and look at the new gTLD process and sort of say, "Okay, let's insert
the notion of categories," I think would be yet another thing to slow
this process down.

I think that the staff has in this case done a good consideration of,
perhaps in each of the -- each of the subjects, looking at, for this
type, we might need that adjustment.  For that type, we might need
this.

I think to go beyond that for round one would be suicidal to round
one.  I think it's a wonderful idea to think about it for round two,
which I hope is a reality.

So thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Avri.

Dennis.

>>DENNIS JENNINGS:   Thank you, Peter.

My board colleagues have corrected me.  It's not that we have a policy
(inaudible) of no categories.  But there's standard, community, and
geographic as a subset of community as groupings within the current
application guidebook.

But the introduction of any further categorization is clearly a matter
for the policy development process.  And I reiterate that we welcome,
obviously, every attempt to introduce new ideas.  But we have a policy
development process that should be exercised.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Dennis.

I'm going to call to a halt after you, Antony.  We have time for the
-- we're at time for the break.  So you're the last.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   Antony Van Couvering.  I think a useful way
to look at this question, I personally believe that a prescriptive
definition of categories is likely to fail, because we actually don't
know what the categories are going to be, because we haven't seen a
lot of applications.

However, once this round is complete or the EOIs are approved and we
begin see what applications have come forward, we will then be in
place to look at a descriptive application of categories.  And maybe
something will emerge at that point.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   And Rod wants to comment.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Yes.  First I want to just thank and acknowledge
Dan Schindler for his comments and Avri for your very kind comments
about the staff of ICANN, who have worked incredibly hard on these
issues for many years and incredibly hard for this event.  Also want
to acknowledge, I've sat on many public and private boards.  I have
never seen a harder-working board of directors than we have at ICANN.
Their time commitment to this organization is unparalleled amongst
anything I have ever seen.  And I'm truly honored and supported as a
CEO to be able to work for them and with their support.

So I will second that comment.

And then I just wanted to briefly discuss the categories issue.

First, I appreciated -- I believe it's Fred (saying name)'s reference
to Aristotle 2,000 years ago.  That scheme didn't work out too well
and actually led people down the wrong path of metaphysics for a long
time in terms of having to look at the world until we got to the
elemental tables.  A more recent work I would recommend on this topic
is called "Everything is Miscellaneous" by Professor Weinberger at
Harvard University, amazing book, and talks about why categorization
schemes are really not working on the Internet and modern electronic
systems and how search is going flat, the world is going flat.  You
simply get to the information you want by describing or looking for
the tags on that information.

Anyway, excellent book, but it's a modern treatment that has relevance
to this debate and discussion.  And very clearly, you know, as CEO, I
want to recognize, you as a community asked me repeatedly to try to
help keep the trains running on time or moving forward.  To do that,
we have to, as a community, respect process.  There's been a process
around new generic top-level domains going on for many years now.  The
staff has done, I believe, their utmost overall, has done their best
to follow that process, including many public postings and public
comment periods, discussion and debate in public forums.  And if we,
as an organization, -- I can tell you this as a CEO -- if we choose to
re-evaluate every single decision that's ever made in any process, it
is a disrespect of process, in my view.  And I'm not trying to predict
the outcome of any specific process here, but say I think it is
important for our productivity, that is improving together that we're
working on that we try to respect process.

So thank you, Avri, for your comments.  Bertrand, I respect very much
your intelligence and your clarity of thoughts, and I also would
simply like to say, it would seem to me to make sense to introduce
those concepts further in subsequent rounds, if necessary.

But I leave that, obviously, to the decision of the board, who's the
final arbiter on those decisions.

But thank you again, Avri, and Dan, for your comments.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Rod.

Let's call it a break now for 15 minutes.  We have coffee and
refreshments outside.  Let's resume at 11:00.

Thank you, all.(Break)
>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Ladies and gentlemen, board, if you'd take
your places on stage.  We're getting underway in two minutes.  Thank
you.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, if you take your seats, we're going to begin
the portion of our public forum.  Once again, if you take your seats,
we'll be starting very shortly.  Thank you.

Would the ICANN board members please return to their seats on the
stage so we can begin our program.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a wonderful portion of our program
available now.  Let me introduce external relations manager, EURid.EU,
Giovanni Seppia.

>>GIOVANNI SEPPIA:   Thank you, Nancy.  Thank you, Peter.  Thank you,
Rod.  Thanks, board.

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of EURid, the registry manager of the
dot EU domain, it is my pleasure to introduce you the ICANN 38th
meeting, which will take place in Brussels from 20 to 25 June this
year.

We have produced a video to briefly show you the beauties of one of
the most international cities in the world, and a country with great
history, culture, and attractions.

Let's see the video together.

[ Video. ]

>>VIDEO:   Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Brussels, for the ICANN
38th meeting.  Brussels is not just the capital of Belgium, but also
the capital of the European Union.  As president of the European
Council, former prime minister of Belgium, and, more importantly, as a
native from Brussels, I would like to invite you to discover the heart
of Europe, the heart of dot EU, the European online identity.

 [ Music ]

>>VIDEO:   Brussels is one of the most important international cities
in the world.  It is home not only to the European institutions, but
also to NATO, many headquarters of big international firms, and, of
course, EURid, the European Registry of Internet Domains, which is
hosting the ICANN meeting in Brussels.  The EU domain is a symbol of
Europe, of togetherness, of culture integration.  It representatives
the European online identity.  It's a way to show your Europeness in
the world.

>> We are pleased because this gives us an opportunity for you to know
our country and Belgium better.

>> Maybe you've seen the little boy.  He is on the street corner for
100 years.

>> We call him -- more impressive, like the royal park.

>> Just a couple blocks away from the square Congress center where
your meeting takes place.

>> At the king's square, you can see the new MAGRITTE museum, with
over 200 paintings by famous Brussels painters.

>> This is considered one of the most beautiful medieval squares in
Europe.

>> The square is dominated.

>> By the magnificent 15th century town hall with hundreds of statues.
You found this butcherstreet in which every building is a restaurant.

>> And the oldest covered shopping arcade in Europe.

>> You like history?

Well, Belgium has loads of it.  >> Visiting the old city of Bruges,
which has remained largely untouched since the Middle Ages.  It is
like stepping back into a history book.

>> Belgium is as rich as it is diverse in all its aspects.

>> To some, it's known as the country of Belgian endive.

>> It is with love that we welcome everyone who wants to see our
small, but beautiful country.

Famous for things that taste good like Belgian chocolates and waffles.

The Belgian chocolate, the best in the world.  Belgium is an easy
country to travel in.

>> You can cross the borders without even noticing.

>> Leave early in Brussels.

>> Have breakfast in Paris.

>> Lunch in (inaudible), have tea in London.

>> Dinner in Amsterdam, and be back in Brussels in time for a night
cap.

>> If you visit the bridge, don't wear socks, certainly not with
sandals.

>> You should visit the Ensor Exposition.

It will blow your socks off.

>> As innovative in their time, though their collective name wouldn't
give that impression, were the 15th century Flemish painters.

Come and see the beautiful paintings in their hometown, Bruges.

>> Antwerp is our most feminine city.

>> Famous for diamonds.  And diamonds they do say is girl's best
friend.

>> Women love fashion, and so does Antwerp.

>> City where world-famous fashion designers went to school and still
have shops and ateliers.

>> It's a real beer country.

>> With more than 500 different beers, every city worth its name has
loads of different beers.

>> Like the world-famous trappist beers, like the monks who brew them.

>> Belgium is famous for its restaurants.

>> You can eat Belgium fries on every corner of the street and in our
fry shacks.

>> I am pleased that this meeting gives you the opportunity to get to
know Belgium and the European capital.  It's a city virtually open to
everything and certainly very much looking forward to welcoming you in
June.

 [ Music ]

[ Applause ]

>>GIOVANNI SEPPIA:   Thank you so much.  We understand that -- if you
would like to pick up some literature and gadgets on Brussels, please
come by.  See you in Brussels.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Excellent presentation.  I look forward, and
I'm sure the rest of the board as well, in meeting up with you and all
the rest of the community in Brussels in June.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, we return to implementation issues around new
gTLDs.  And we're up to the item 3, character variants.

If there are no questions or queries yet about three-character
variants, the floor is also open to the EOI, the expression of
interest topic.  Is there anyone wanting to discuss expression of
interest?

And can I just make a point, while some are coming to the microphone,
the chairman of the GAC has requested permission to leave early.  Of
course, that's being granted.  But I just mention, if anybody has a
topic on the agenda that they wanted to discuss with the chairman, you
may have been waiting to bring that up and many other issues after
12:00, please bring that forward if there's anything that you wish to
ask the chairman of the GAC.  He wants to make himself available in
case there is such a thing.

Let's go back to the speaking order.

Rob, we'll start with you.  Anybody in the room?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, sir.  There are quite a few people in the room.
I'd like to share, a number of folks came up to me during the break to
ask these questions.

We had at our peak, just before the break, 117 remote participants.
We have people from many different countries, and we'd like to
acknowledge our remote hub participants in Reston, Virginia; San
Francisco, California; and Bangladesh.

Let me turn to the first statement, from Chuck Gomes, Peter.  And he's
commenting on the subject, expression of interest.

In my personal capacity as a member of the GNSO and an active member
of the new gTLD PDP, I want to comment on the public comments summary
and analysis prepared by staff regarding the proposed new gTLD EOI.

The GNSO recommended, one, a broad-based communication effort take
place that would last a minimum of four months but could be longer.
Two, the communication period should begin after all issues are
resolved.  The intent of the GNSO recommendation was to make best
efforts to inform those who are not actively involved in ICANN aware
of the new gTLD process, and in doing so, to make sure that a complete
picture of the process was available so as to allow them to
participate.

I disagree with the apparent staff conclusion that the GNSO
recommendation could be met by having a four-month communication
period starting soon after board approval of an EOI and running until
the EOI is initiated.

To fulfill the intent of the GNSO recommendation, I believe the
communication period needs to extend beyond the point when all major
issues are very close to final resolution.  This would not preclude
starting the communication period earlier, but if that happened, it
would mean that it may need to last longer than four months.  If all
major issues in DAG 4 are close to final resolution, then the
communication period should go at least a couple of months beyond the
posting of DAG 4, assuming that the minimum four-month period is
achieved.

Moreover, I firmly believe that this should not cause any delays in
the overall process.  It would just mean that the communications
period would last longer and would overlap the EOI period.

I also disagree with the staff conclusion that strings need to be
publicly disclosed.  Up until the introduction of the EOI concept, the
new gTLD implementation plan started -- stated that strings be
disclosed after the start of the application period.

Certainly the strings need to be collected in the EOI.  But they do
not have to be publicly posted before the start of the application
period.

It seems very possible that the benefits of making strings public
could be offset by problems associated with gaming by potential
competitors.

The gaming would probably be mitigated by not -- some by not posting
the strings until after the EOI ends, but the more time between the
posting of strings and the start of the application period, the more
there will be possible problems, not the least of which is premature
exposure of business plans of applicants.

If strings are disclosed before the application period starts, then
disclosure of the string should definitely not occur until all EOI
responses are received in the time period between the end of the EOI,
then the start of the application process should be minimized.  And if
strings are to be disclosed as part of a mandatory EOI, then the EOI
should mark the beginning of the application process and not be a
distinct process.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Excuse me, Chuck.

I've asked Rod if he could comment in relation to the length of time
because that has budget implications.  And I think Rod also wants to
comment on the other aspects.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Sure.  Thank you very much, Chuck.  And I got two
major points from your question.  One is on the communications period,
when it starts, when it ends, how long that goes, and how that lines
up with the applications.

Obviously, there are going to be some budgetary constraints on what
can be done in terms of dollar spend on media and communication and
resources.

On the other hand, I will say I have had very good discussions with
multiple groups here, both formally and informally, who are
volunteering to help out with that communications process, including
the GAC, including the ALAC, and other advisory committees.  I see
Cheryl Langdon-Orr nodding her head here, and her group was very
supportive of this idea.

The reality is that all the global Internet ecosystem partners here
have tremendous wiring in the countries around the world, and we're
going to need your help.  Another successful case study was in Germany
where there was a program put together by the government in
conjunction with private industry called Neue Addresses an Internet,
or New Addresses on the Internet.  It was a half-day program just on
new gTLDs where the government and the private sector brought together
several hundred experts from all aspects.

ICANN then showed up and delivered information on the program and
education, which really helped those people move along.

And we would like to have similar support around the world from other
private sector and government players.

So that will be very important to get leverage on our activities so
it's not just what we do or spend funds on, but how you, the
community, helps us to spread that word, particularly in the
developing world.

With respect to the timing of the announcement of strings, another
issue that came up in discussions is in the IDN program, ICANN has a
policy of not disclosing the strings until they are approved or not
approved.  However, the applicants have the privilege to publish and
share.  When they do that, it effectively promotes the IDN program and
shares word around the world.

A good point that was brought up in the registrar discussion Peter and
I were at with the registrar constituency was that if we do the same
with new gTLDs and the applicants can have the choice to disclose when
they want, that itself could create a tremendous amount of
communication and education around a new gTLD offering.

And I believe that will be open, and according to the current policy
guidelines, and I will ask Kurt or someone else to step up and correct
me if I make any statements that are not accurate.

The other point on string disclosure is a difficult one.  And staff
did work on this, shared it with the board.  The documents were out
for public comment.  Why did we lean on the side of transparency?  And
the reason was, first we did sign the Affirmation of Commitments.
That commits us to transparency as a guiding principle.

Secondly, the Affirmation of Commitments commits us to act in the
global public interest.

While parties made cogent arguments as to why not disclosing strings
would be in the interest of private businesses -- namely, the string
applicants -- no arguments that I recall were made as to what the
global public benefit was for end users of not sharing those strings.

And so given a lack of strong arguments on the other side and a lack
of, I think, strong public comments in terms of the public interest,
not opposing why it should happen from a business standpoint but from
the public interest, the policy guidelines have gone in the direction
of transparency.

And ultimately, that will be at the discretion of the board.

Also, Chuck, one last comment is you made the comment that if the
strings are going to be disclosed, they should not be disclosed until
the end, until all applications have been received.  And I believe
that is the proposed policy framework in the documents.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you very much, Rod.

Rob, we have had one online so go to the microphones.  Antony it's
you.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   Thank you very much, Peter.  I want to stay
I am thrilled this meek is happening in Kenya, and this is very
appropriate because this is a country that has a quite short history;
not, actually, a great deal longer than ICANN's.

And as I walk in, I notice there's a large statue of general Kenyatta
in the courtyard.  He and (saying names) were all people who gathered
together to try to start independent countries, and several of them
paid with their lives.

They know and they knew, and these countries have learned the lessons
that rights are never given by the powerful.  They are only earned.

And I think that they learned the lesson that counsel to wait, that
others had their interests at heart.  They learned that honeyed words
are always accompanied by naked force, and I think we should look at
the new gTLD program and EOIs in particular in that light.

There are a number of people here who have spoken about the public
interests and why it's a good idea to wait and have counseled patience
and so on.

And I think that we should learn that we need to get this program
going, and that to do that we're going to have to fight for it.

And I am especially pleased to be here today and seeing that long
fight come to fruition.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Antony.

Is there somebody online, Rob?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, Peter.  Susan Reynolds from dot gal.  She has
two questions.  I will read one, stop, let you answer it and ask the
second, which I think it was discussed in the previous period.

Here is Susan.  Dot gal, for the Galatian cultural and linguistic
community, supports EOI as long as it doesn't delay the whole new gTLD
process any further.  Timelines are crucial for potential applicants,
so we would appreciate it if you could provide an estimated but
reliable timeline regarding the publishing of Draft Applicant
Guidebook 4, final guidebook, and the launch of the process.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I'm sure we can answer the first part.

Kurt, we have an estimated publication date for DAG 4?  And for those
of you not in the room, Kurt is making his way to the microphone.

>>KURT PRITZ:   And he arrived.

Yes, we plan to publish guidebook 4 in time for discussion at the
Brussels meeting.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   And would you like to put the rest of those
-- answer the rest of the question about the rest of the timeline?

>>KURT PRITZ:   Sure.

So then there's an EOI that's planned, and the board is going to
consider whether we should conduct an EOI at all, and we have had a
lot of discussion here about whether to say yes or no.  If we do, we'd
launch a communication plan and the EOI at the close of that four-
month communication plan, so you can plot that out in your mind.

What's the plan for the final guidebook?  Well, we are going to
publish guidebook 4, the board and the staff.  But primarily the board
has been driving very hard at this meeting to close the remaining
issues.  And so that guidebook 4 becomes a final version of the
applicant guidebook.  The true test of that is of course the comment
after its published.  But think about a publication period of
guidebook 4, a comment period, and then consideration of a final
guidebook, formulation of a final guidebook that would have to be
considered and approved by the board.

So think about, without being specific, think about comment periods in
consideration for that.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Very helpful.  Thank you, Kurt.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Susan's follow up.  If we do not get to the solution
to all the problems in all new different strings, is ICANN thinking of
different categories of applicants; e.g., geographic, brand,
linguistic and cultural, as some members proposed?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   We haven't got a plan B for the failure of
plan A yet, but that may be one of them.

Thanks.

Maruyama-san.

>>NAOMASA MARUYAMA:   Yes, this is Naomasa Maruyama from Japan. I
speak about the EOI.  That is the, I think, the implementation issue.

To be quite frank, I do not like any kind of the substantial policy
discussion take here at this stage after the final policy
recommendation by the GNSO.  But this EOI, I think that is the purely
implementation issue.

EOI.

I have two point here about the EOI.

I think point one is that the initial motive for this EOI is to
accelerate the process of new gTLD process so that that is an
important point, I think.

The second point I want to refer here is on the page 12 of the staff's
recommendation, there is certain key provisions that significantly
affect an entity's decision to participate, would have to be settled
prior to EOI launch.  I think this is (inaudible) point.

Having said these two points, I want to recommend two modification to
the draft EOI proposal.  One is that the EOI should be launched after
the DAG version final minus one.  Not the version 4.

I hope that version 4 will be the final minus one, but I think it's
not certain.

And the second point is that whether the latest version of the DAG is
final minus one version or not should be decided by the board.

To be putting another way, the board -- when the DAG -- new version of
the DAG comes out, board will discuss that version is sufficiently
completed or not.  And when they find the version is sufficiently
completed, then they will give goal to the EOI.  That is my proposal.

If this proposal will not be accepted, my alternative proposal is to
completely abolish the idea of the EOI to serve the (inaudible).

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Back to Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Kristina Rosette from the ICT posting personally as
a statement and a question, and with her assent I will sort of combine
the two.

Here is the statement and it will end with her question.

Yesterday, ICANN posted an announcement of a March 18 Webinar
described as, quote, "Providing an overview of the current Expressions
of Interest and preregistrations, parentheses, EOI preregistrations
model proposal," end quote.

Also yesterday, Melbourne I.T. which employs a board member
distributed an e-mail invitation to a Webinar, coincidentally also
scheduled for march 18, about the board's decision on the EOI, quote,
"a critical step in the gTLD process that will also be the
preapplication for first round submissions," end quote.

There would be no point in having these Webinars unless ICANN staff
and Melbourne I.T. knew that the board had already decided to adopt
the EOI staff model.

The Webinars announced yesterday by ICANN and Melbourne I.T., does
that suggest the board has already decided to adopt the staff EOI
model?  Is that correct?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   The board has made no such decision.

Amadeu.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   Amadeu Abril i Abril from CORE.  I will try
to speak slowly this time.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   My compliments and my thanks to the scribes
wherever they are this time.

Regarding the EOI, as Susan Reynolds said previously, we also support
that provided that it doesn't mean more delays in the real process.

The question that everything should start from communication to even
the EOI when everything is settled is troubling because then, well, we
start.

We don't care about the naming.  We don't mind whether is another
thing, is the first step.  The only thing we ask the board to bear in
mind is that regardless of all the advantages and disadvantages, just
to check and make sure whether adding the EOI adds three more months,
it's neutral, or shortens three more months, three months from, you
know, the general schedule.

I think that the staff proposal is a good compromise about the things
that should be solved before and the things that can go in parallel
with the EOI.

So please, my advice to the board and my request is that if you feel
the need because of any comments or consensus in the community to
solve absolutely everything, even from a grammatical point of view,
before you enter the EOI, you forget it.  If that can help to be in
parallel of some part that need to be implemented in parallel, well,
that's a good idea provided also, as Rob has said, that the strings
are public, because I think this is an absolute need for the EOI to be
meaningful.

Thank you very much.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Amadeu.

Ayesha.  Ayesha, could I ask you to hold for a moment.  Rob, you have
somebody on the line?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, and as a heads up, I have another ten in the
queue.

Constantine Roussos, dot music.  The topic, expression of interest.

I will read the statement, then the question.

The EOI should be used for legitimate interest purposes only and not
allow EOI slots to be transferred from one party to another or sold
because it invites foul play or gaming.

Unacceptable scenarios that can arise include slot owners profiteering
from their EOI process by auctioning their slots as well as conducting
extortion-like tactics, asking to be paid off to keep their slot
position.

The EOI process should not be used in bad faith to profit behind the
scenes nor to invite potential illegitimate bad actors.

Does the ICANN board agree with ICANN staff opinion that it is okay to
transfer or sell slots to third parties?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   The board doesn't actually have a position
on that yet because we haven't gotten to the stage of having an EOI.
We will be considering that as part of the discussion today and any
resolution tomorrow.

Ayesha.

>>AYESHA HASSAN:   Thank you, Chair.  Ayesha Hassan from the
International Chamber of Commerce.

As the board considers the Expression of Interest proposal, I am
pleased to provide you with the comments of ICC, who also submitted
informal comments to the process ahead of this meeting.

ICC, the International Chamber of Commerce is a global business
membership organization with companies and associations from the
supply and buy sides, across sectors and geographies and of all sizes.

Our members all rely on the Internet for many facets of their
operations, communications, and distribution channels.  Thus the
technical coordination of the Internet is of critical importance.

ICC does not support the implementation of an EOI or preregistration
process until the rules for the new gTLD application process are
actually fully developed and agreed upon by the ICANN community.

It is very difficult for business to evaluate participating in an EOI
when new or changed gTLD application rules could significantly impact
business plans and models.  There are several important issues that
remain unresolved in the current Draft Applicant Guidebook, and it is
not certain that they will be resolved by DAG 4, though we appreciate
the efforts to discuss many of these unresolved issues here in Nairobi
during discussions this week.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you.  Hirokatsu Ohigashi from the GMO registry
has a statement on Expressions of Interest.

First of all, we would like to thank ICANN staff and ICANN community
to make this meeting really successful and safe.  Remote participation
is working really well, and I could attend many meetings regarding to
new gTLD process.

GMO registry would like to express strong support to EOI program and
any efforts to push new gTLD program faster.

It seems like ICANN has made a lot of progress on studies about issues
which have raised in past concerning on new gTLD program.

I find many friends in Japan and Asia who are interested in applying
for new gTLDs not only for business.  It's more about having more
identity of Asian in beautiful world of Internet.

This is going to be great opportunity for all of us, especially for
people in developing countries.  We would like to support them.

I am looking forward to seeing the EOI happening soon so we can push
the new gTLD process ahead, and see many good positive things happen
on the Internet.

Thank you, ICANN, and everybody in the ICANN community.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  And particularly thank you for
the acknowledgment that the staff has put into the remote
participation.

Rob, can I ask you, we may be running into time pressures shortly and
we may have to give priority to people who haven't spoken before.  So
if you can have an eye on your list and make sure we don't get into a
problem where people haven't been heard.  Herr Staub and then we are
coming to Izumi.

>>WERNER STAUB:   My name is Werner Staub, speaking in a personal
capacity.  This is about the topic before EOI; namely, this so-called
three-character variants.  I believe there is no such a topic.

We have a three-character minimum length requirement.  That is one
topic.  And we have another topic which was the IDN variants.  Is that
correct?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yes.

>>WERNER STAUB:  So it's not about the three --

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  It's the three-character length.

>>WERNER STAUB:  The fact that this title was like this on the agenda
as if there was a topic such as three-character variant shows an
amount of neglect collectively we have for this.  We kind of don't
care.

And we should care, however.

I think we have a workable solution now on the table for the three-
character limit which is lowered to two in some cases.  However, we do
not have a workable solution for the variants.

It is simply not a good idea to say that some TLDs were for -- how do
you say?  Technical or for the history of the technical evolution, for
reasons linked to the history of technical evolution, there's a need
for variants.  This is not their fault.  It is simply a fact.

And if you say this could only be used by possibly half of the users
because we only delegate one of the variants, if they need two
variants, for instance, that is actually hurting quite a built the
development of these IDN strings.

And the argument that I have seen in favor of that does not seem to
hold.

We say that we want to be sure there is a technical solution to ensure
that all the domains that is both variants will be treated equally.
If that had been applied before, then ICANN would never have accepted
the IDN launch the way it was done in 2000 when, for instance,
accented domains were allowed to be totally different, delegated to
different people than unaccented domains, even though they actually
should be regarded as variants at the same level.

There are easy technical solutions for that.  For instance, a registry
can delegate both variants to the same name servers and they can use a
simple script just to see what are the IP numbers being pointed to,
and they can enforce the equality between the two variants by a simple
policy.  It is not -- there is no need, there is no urgent need to the
point of delaying the introduction just for that.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  First let me apologize for the
typographical error which was entirely my fault in conflating two
issues.  You are absolutely right, and I'm glad you weren't confused.
We are talking about three-character length.  And we were going to
talk about variants, but we took it off because there was lack of
interest.  It was prioritized for lower down.

I think we do have a solution for the three-character length, and in
relation to variants, I can tell you there is a board working group
that is formed and I am hoping they will be able to report tomorrow in
a resolution in relation to variants.  So I thank you for separating
those issues out and I hope you will be satisfied with the progress on
both fronts.

We come now to this microphone.  There's comments from the board.
Thank you.  Quickly.

>>HARALD ALVESTRAND:  Just speaking as an author of RFCs on this
particular topic of IDNA and a member of the board of the Unicode
consortium and various other roles, no, solutions are not simple.  We
believe there are solutions, but calling them simple is -- well --
does not help.

And we are working real hard both on staff level and at board level on
figuring out what we can do about this.  But some of these things go
back to errors in the design of Unicode, I'm sorry to say.  And we
have to work around them but it's not simple.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  No further comment?  Then we
come to Izumi.

>>IZUMI AIZU:   My name is Izumi Aizu, speaking for myself.  I am a
member of at-large community.

On the EOI, like many of your board members, perhaps, it's not sort of
a clear single black-and-white decision or solution to satisfy every
member of the community.  So we need a good balance.

For now I would like to concentrate on one particular thing called
city or geographic TLD.  I have had several meetings with the city
government or local government of Tokyo, Osaka, there are two; city
(saying name), Kyoto again, too -- and a few others.  And there are,
I'm sure, very interesting the possible application for them for the
new gTLD or geo TLD.  And then came the EOI relatively recently, like
December.

So usually these local governments decision-making process is fairly
long, like ICANN, perhaps.  A few months to more than a year from the
staff level to the senior level, and then to the top and then the
council or, you know, these processes.

So with that background, I have, first of all, one question.  If this
EOI requires a full mandate of the consent or nonobjection of the
local government.  Is it clear now?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Mike, you want to answer that?

>>MIKE SILBER:  Thanks, Peter, as I understand the EOI process, there
is no consideration of the objection at this stage.  Lodging of the
EOI will launch the process but will also create a period -- a pause
period during which people may be able to obtain the necessary local
government or other support that they are seeking.

If they then proceed with the EOI, they would need to supplement their
application with all of the required documentation.  EOI would only
require a very slim line application.  Then once the actual process
launches, then the additional information would be required, including
the letters of support and the like.

It would then trigger the objection process.  It would also trigger
the payment of the balance of the application fee.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Mike.

>>IZUMI AIZU:   If I may?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yes.

>>IZUMI AIZU:   So that puts local government in an odd situation,
perhaps.  If they want to go forward, they cannot make the EOI
application until the closure of the EOI, while the other some -- you
know, whoever wants to get this apply for.  It's a foreclosure; right?

And if the city cannot really endorse that application but they would
like to have the other guys, the other entity to run for, so they were
facing a very difficult situation.

>>MIKE SILBER:   Of course, bearing in mind that there is an objection
process.

So if somebody else were to apply for the same string, the city would
be able to object and there would be significant grounds for objection
given that many cities do go ahead and proceed with trademark and
other defensive registrations around their own names.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  We are going to move on.  We are
running out of time and there are a lot of people behind you.

Mr. Foody, it's your turn.

>>PAUL FOODY:   Thank you very much.  And thank you to the board.
Thanks to our hosts.  It was a fantastic night last night.  I
thoroughly enjoyed it.

On the Expression of Interest, Mark has just made the point that when
you pay your 50,000, all you are really getting is the right to pay
another 130,000 in whatever period of time it is.

So what it means is that anybody stumping up the 50,000 to begin with
has got to be absolutely certain that they are going to be able to
meet the requirements of the DAG, whatever those requirements are, in
order to not just be chucking their money down the toilet.

Now, the fact that so many people in this room have been aware of this
process for five years or more, there is an incredible advantage to
this particular group.

So in order to really make the -- well, I personally do not see any
benefit for the Expression of Interest at all.  But on the basis that
you are going to go ahead with this, first of all you have got to
publicize it.  Absolutely, you have got to broadcast it to everybody
who is going to be wanting to be interested.

Now, we can accuse people of being, you know, lazy and not bothering
to be interested in ICANN and matters affecting domain names, but it's
not just people who are lazy.

I was lucky enough to speak to my M.P. in December, John Weston.  I
was lucky enough to speak to the ministry for the treasury in British
Columbia as recently as January the 12th and neither of them knew the
first thing about new gTLDs.

And that is an incredible failure, not just on their part, but on the
part of the people who should be notified -- notifying this.

So I've made the point repeatedly that what we really need is we need
to e-mail every registrant.

In the last year there have been 5 million dot com registrations
registered.  And would those people have registered their domains had
they known that these changes were in the offing?

So first of all, we have got to let the entire world know what is
going on.  We then have got to give them a reasonable length of time
to decide whether or not they want to take part in this.

And when we tell them about what's going on, we really should -- we
should let them know what the ultimate aim of new gTLDs is.  And we're
not talking about adding something that's going to be complementary to
the dot com.  We're talking about something that's going to replace
the current system.

In the words of Harald Alvestrand, and I apologize Harald, he said
last year at the Seoul meeting, "The place I see us going is with
everything significant named as one level."

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay, Mr. Foody, your time is up.  I am just
watching the length of the line growing and growing.  Thank you.  I'm
sorry.

Let's go to Rob in the room.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Peter, we will have to acknowledge that this will be
one of those instances where folks may want to go to the Web to enter
their remote comments.

And even some of the statements already up here, we aren't going to
get to, it doesn't look like.

The next comment is from Jothan Frakes, Minds+Machines, on the topic
Expression of Interest.

My name is Jothan Frakes.  I am the chief operating officer of
Minds+Machines, and I will do something refreshing and authentic and
state that I am speaking in that capacity, though my personal position
is aligned.

I would like to thank the staff, board and community for their efforts
and attention in looking at the Expression of Interests as a means to
allow some forward momentum.  I am hopeful that those who seek to
introduce delay to the overall timeframe of new TLDs have not created
doubt that the EOI would provide great benefits to the public interest
this week.  I would add that although I had the distinct privilege of
presenting this in Seoul, there were a great number of stakeholders
and individuals in the community who participated in the proposal in
Seoul and afterwards, who deserve credit for the EOI.

I am hopeful to see the board vote in favor of the EOI and recognize
the benefits to the public interest and ICANN which were delivered
with it.

Whatever the decision taken by the board tomorrow, I request that if
we do not see the EOI carry forward, that concrete dates be restored
so that the institutional confidence in ICANN and the new TLD process
are not set backward.

Finally, it is the absence of dates and time lines that have created
the situation of disadvantage to the public interest.  Most notably,
those that currently claim that the 55,000 or 185,000 cost of a TLD is
out of reach.  These parties, having the empowerment of time lines,
can have success in obtaining grants, funding, or other manners of
participating in the cost that exist not only in the EOI or
application, but also the operational costs.

Concluding that point, it is the absence of dates that disrupts the
ability to fund these important initiatives for developing communities
as they have no way to illustrate the real needs that they have for
important operational funding to realize the benefits of new TLDs for
their stakeholders.

I believe that in the absence of dates, the EOI can help illustrate
the new TLD program is real and get those funding initiatives underway
or approved.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, JOTHAN.  This microphone, Mr.
Andruff.

>>RON ANDRUFF:   Thank you, Chair, Ron Andruff, RNA Partners, member
of the business constituency, but speaking here on my own behalf.
Also, full disclosure, we are applying for the dot sport top-level
domain.

And I would ask Kurt to correct me if I'm wrong on this, but as I
understood, the final DAG in Brussels -- the DAG in Brussels will
hopefully be the final one, depending on public comment thereafter.
And the question came to me about the communications plan starting
before or after that.

We've heard from many of our colleagues here during the course of the
week from the developing world in particular that they are asking for
information to be disseminated as rapidly as possible so that it can
filter down through their communities to make sure everyone hears it.

So I just want to also weigh in and bring my voice to this that the
board might consider bringing that accelerated program in terms of
disseminating information about the process so that we really have a
transparent process.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you very much.

Go back to the room.  Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.  This next statement, from Tony
Kirsch of AusRegistry International, is on the topic of expression of
interest.  It's going to be longer than three minutes, so at three
minutes, I will stop, and then folks can refer to the record.

Ladies and gentlemen of the board, firstly, let me extend my
congratulations for what has been a great meeting thus far.  Despite
difficulties in the leadup to the meeting, I want to publicly state to
you and for the record that remote participation has been an
incredible success and the online meetings have been smooth, keeping
me up until all hours here in Australia.

Credit and acknowledgment must be given to the hard-working staff.

I now wish to post my humble assessment of the EOI process to the
board for your consideration as you approach this vital decision
tomorrow.

Although undertaken in such a short period since the proactive
approval in Seoul by the board to evaluate the EOI proposal, this is
the best example I have personally seen of community collaboration and
communication.  And I applaud all of those who have participated for
their efforts.  In all honesty, I did not initially support the EOI.
However, on further reflection, I've come to the conclusion that
although not being perfect, it currently represents the best way for
the community to actually go through the new gTLD process.

However, please let me be clear about what I mean when I say "actually
go through the process."  I'm not suggesting that the EOI represents a
commitment from ICANN to potential applicants that the program will,
indeed, go ahead.  It does not.  And further to this, the currently-
proposed model provides sufficient mechanisms to handle refunds should
the program not go ahead for any reason.

Whilst I fully understand that this is not the desire of ICANN to be
involved with refunds, it is highly unlikely that it will be required
that applicants who are serious applicants will suggest this serious
risk.  Further, I am not suggesting that the approval of the EOI
implies the application process will go any faster than the community
is comfortable with.  Anyone who has been listening this week is aware
that the EOI will not make the new gTLD process go faster, as it is on
a different path of acceptance and that it has completely different
purpose.

I understand that the board, in voting tomorrow, has a large decision
to make and cannot do so lightly.  However, I wish to state my opinion
on the current state of play.

We have overarching issues or other things that require consideration
that I would like to discuss briefly and share my thoughts.

One, malicious conduct.  I fully support the introduction of the
community-designed mechanisms, such as the high-security zone and zone
file access and see this issue close to finalized.

Two, vertical integration.  I believe that the board will be voting on
this at some point today.  And I support the fact that an EOI could
not proceed without clarification of the process.

And Peter, I'll conclude on this.

Three, trademark protection.  I think that the community is
fundamentally in agreement with our current position, perhaps with
some exception to the post-delegation dispute resolution process,
which does require some extra work, in my view.

And we'll leave the rest for the --

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Rob.  Let's come to --

>>SOPHIA BEKELE:   Thank you, Chair, board.  My name is Sophia Bekele,
and I represent Dot Connect, an Africa organization.  Mine is not a
specific comment, it's more of a general.

First, let me thank the ICANN board for coming to the continent, to
Kenya, and how successful the meeting was this week.

ICANN continues to demonstrate that it's a truly international
organization.  And the local host has been excellent and executed a
well-organized conference.

Dot Connect is a TLD applicant and is formally endorsed by various key
regional organizations in the African Union which represents the head
of states of government of Africa.  And given that we know that ICANN
is working for several years on new TLDs, we believe you're close to
addressing -- adequately addressing the overarching issues, and we
look forward to assisting ICANN in any way we can in finalizing these
overarching issues.

Once this is done, we believe that dot Africa looks forward to
bringing the African continent and the incredible benefits that a
continental TLD promises.

Thank you very much.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Steve Metalitz has a brief question on the --

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Sorry, Rob, I'm going to hold there.  There
are people in the room who haven't spoken.  I'm going to start given
them priority over anybody whether in the room or -- who has spoken
first.

>> George Bundy from BRS Media.  And we've run the AM and FM TLD for
12 years.  For full disclosure, we've broadcast our intent to be an
applicant in the new TLD for dot radio.  We encourage the board to
move forward with the expression of interest.  We see the new top-
level domain market and consumer choice and innovation that it brings
to be an unparalleled level.  And as an example, we have 12 years of
just that, in a non-legacy TLD fashion, like com, net, and org, we've
seen some very interesting things done in our space.  And we do
anticipate the same thing happening in dot radio, dot connect, or any
of the other TLDs that have been announced.  So we encourage the board
tomorrow to vote yes.

Thank you for your time.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Rob, is there somebody in the room we
haven't heard from?  Give them some priority.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, sir.

Casper von Veltheim from Bayern Connect GmbH on the issue of
expression of interest.

As the CEO of Bayern Connect GmbH, which is a small registry applying
for dot Bayern, I would like to express my support for the EOIs and
urge the board to move forward with it.

One, the EOI shows that ICANN is serious about getting the new gTLD
program going.

Two, our investors are getting nervous.  The EOIs will show them that
ICANN is committed to the gTLD process and is really going to do it.

Three, the EOIs provide important information to ICANN that will make
the whole process clear, predictable, and easy to communicate.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Rob.

I'm going to ask the staff if they're going to change the timer,
please, to two minutes so we make sure we get through this.  I'm sorry
to have to do that, but it seems fair.

We -- must be at this microphone here.  Sir, your turn.  It's your
turn.

>> DAVID SVARRER:  Thank you very much.

My name is David Svarrer.  I'm from Digital Age Institute here in
Nairobi, Kenya.

And thanks for coming all the way to here.  It's an honor to be here.

I have a general comment.  We were just listening to this lady, Sophia
Bekele.  And I think there's a very interesting -- very interesting
thing with these top-level domains, especially dot Africa.  When I set
foot here in Africa the first time in 1997, everybody here wanted a
dot com, everybody.  And if you had a dot com, you were saying valued
at the music.

What I can say is that if the dot Africa becomes a reality, we are one
of those who will be changing from dot com to dot Africa.  We will be
very proud of running a business here in Africa, very successful in
ICT, and we'll be very proud to market, for instance, also our digital
journal in the U.S.

We have more than 2,000 readers over there.  And a domain for that
where they download it from is a dot com.  That's, of course, fine.
But we are Africa-based.  We are Africa I.T. and we are actually proud
of it.  I'm the only white in the company.  There are 27 others who
are Kenyans.  And they are on the same top level as any other I.T.
staff around the world.

So I'll just comment on this work done by Dot Connect Africa.  And we
are one of those who are eagerly waiting for dot Africa to come up.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you for that local insight.  That's
excellent.

Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   David Taylor with the IPC on the expression of
interest.  I can see certain advantages and disadvantages to the EOI.
And as is often the case, it depends where you sit as to whether you
see primarily the advantages or the disadvantages.

If the EOI does go ahead, and there appears to be some considerable
comment against it, then I would hope that some of the amendments
proposed are taken into account.  One of these should be an option for
applicants in the string in question to be confidential, as entities
may well wish to keep a brand launch of a business plan confidential,
and to force this out in an EOI, published, could have severe
consequences on that launch and strategy.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

We come to Tony Harris.

>>TONY HARRIS:   Yes, this is Tony Harris speaking on behalf of the
Latin American and Caribbean federation of the Internet and electronic
commerce.  I'm very encouraged by the way things seem to be going
finally towards the application gate.

I think it's no secret we're in line to be an applicant for dot lat,
Latin America.

And I would really like to restate support for any and every action
that would lead us as soon as possible to the application window.

I would also like to add, with respect to application fees, that I
support expressions I've heard in different instances of this meeting
which relate to the possibility that nonprofit organizations might
have some special consideration as far as application fees are
concerned, especially in the developing world.  I think this might
merit some attention from the board when the -- when the DAG is
finalized.

Thank you very much.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Tony.

Back to you, Rob.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Thank you, Peter.

Nick Wood of IPC, slash, marks on the expression of interest.  A
statement then a question.

Many corporations participate in expressions of interest in their
course of business.  It's rare in Europe, at least, for a failure to
submit an expression of interest to lock a corporation out of a
process.

Here's the question:  When communicating the EOI, if it goes ahead,
will consideration be given to calling it, quote, "stage one of the
application process," close quote, in order to convey the importance
of this phase to all parties?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   The answer is, yes, we will be looking at
what we call it if we go ahead with it.

I'm going to exercise the same rule here, if I might.  And the first
three at the microphone have all spoken before.  Can I ask you to give
way, please, to the two at the back of the line, Nii, we'll come to
you.  And thank you for those in front of you in the queue for
appreciating this.

>>NII QUAYNOR:   Thank you very much for this opportunity.

I think I'm very pleased with how ICANN is trying to move forward on
this subject, in spite of the challenges and the difficulties.

So we'd like to encourage you to move quickly.

In particular, considering the environment that I'm coming from -- and
I'm part of the dot Africa, you know, interest group.  And we believe
that you need to communicate the information as widely as you can,
because for our efforts, some level of community-building and
consensus we consider as essential.  And so the more it gets widely
communicated, the better we can bring (inaudible) together to form
that consensus that we think we will require.

So beyond that, I say thank you very much, and we'll appreciate it if
you move the information rapidly and as quickly as possible.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, NII.

Rob, is there somebody new in the room?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Not yet.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   To the microphone.  Steve and Avri, could I
ask you to do the same and give way to a new speaker, the lady behind
Avri.  It's your turn.  Thank you.

>>CAROLINE JUMA:  Thank you so much.

My name is Caroline Juma from Kenya Computer Resources.

I'm here today to give support to dot Africa, as championed by Sophia
Bekele.

Different countries in Africa are currently looking at ways to work
together, especially in the ICT arena, shared services being the way
to go.  Dot Africa would be key in this regard.

When talking about promoting and enhancing Internet, as I've read on
the brochure that you have given us, what greater way would this be
than to have dot Africa promote that?  And remember when dot KE came
in, and most of us had dot KE and were very proud.  We were suddenly
very proud to be identified as Kenyans because we had the dot KE.
With dot Africa, pride will be even bigger, shared services will be
enabled.  We will be able to walk as a continent.  Africa is a giant.
It will be a positively visible giant through dot Africa.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you for that.  And thank you for
having us in your country.

Anybody else in the line, if you could focus your comments on policy
and how we can help get the policy right.  It's not helpful to us
today to be hearing endorsements of individual TLDs, or also urges for
us to hurry.  We get the message.  Tell us how we can hurry rather
than just urging us to do so.  That would be the best use of time,
from our perspective.

Rob, nobody there?

Then we come to this line.  Thank you, sir.

>> My name is (saying name).  I self-identify with the African
Internet technical community.

I don't want you to hurry.  Here in Kenya, we say slowly, slowly.  And
I want you to sign the root first, do IPv6 first, do IDNs first.  Then
we can focus on new gTLDs.  I want us to get the technical stuff right
first, and then we can move on to the nice to haves, new gTLDs.  As
much as I would love to see dot Africa, helping the African Internet
community come together, I want us to do the other things that are the
needful, as we say in Africa.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Back to this side.  It's -- thank you.

>>JOE CADY:  Hi.  My name is Joe Cady.  I'm with a company called STG
Interactive,  one of these days, of dot frogans.  Speaking on behalf
of myself.

Just with this -- I have noticed with the EOI, I seem to sense there's
an inherent danger, inherent risks, in that if you have any window of
opportunity to make any policy or process decisions after the EOI is
launched, there will be a great temptation for the information that
you gather that it affect these decisions that can still be made.

And just as a quick metaphor, you raise up a wind sock to see which
way the wind is blowing.  Once that wind sock is up in the air, you
have a tendency to say, "And that way's north."  And since the winds
do change and the nature of subsequent rounds in the gTLDs and
everything could change, be careful about what indelible imprint is
left by policy that is made once the EOI is -- the information is
gathered.

Thanks.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Behind -- all three of you have spoken.  Let's stay on this side to
somebody who hasn't spoken.

Can you come forward.  Thank you.

>> About the EOI or --

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I would like to get off the EOI.  Anybody in
the queue who wants to say something new about EOI?  Something new,
Antony?  Fire ahead.  You're -- we are running out of time.  And we're
not going to get time to talk about the fees, economic studies, DNS
CERT, a number of other priority topics.  Just recognize that you are
taking up the time of other people's topics from now on.  Thank you.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   Thank you, Peter.  I'll be very brief.  And
I have a suggestion with regard to the communications plan.

Today, there are several hundred million domain names, and registrars
in the gTLD space are those that have the ability to communicate to
customers.

So what I would like to suggest is that in your communications plan,
you provide a very simple one-page or less notice that you can give to
registrars and ask them voluntarily to communicate it to their
customers.  There would be a link somewhere to the new gTLD area on
the ICANN Web site.  And I think that because owning a domain name is
probably a very good indication of someone who might consider applying
for a gTLD, this would be an excellent way to reach tens of millions
of people.  And I would encourage you to do the same thing with the
ccTLD operators, who also have customer records and the ability to
(inaudible) mail them in order to alert people in the developing
world.  Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Antony, be careful what you wish for.  First
of all, the problem in my country of the anti-spam legislation.  Do we
want to start using this avenue.  Imagine what law enforcement might
ask us to do in relation to that communication channel.

>>ANTONY VAN COUVERING:   It's a suggestion.  Maybe useful.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Steve, we've all had a turn.

I think the person at the very back of the line.  I don't think we've
heard from you yet.  Or have we?  In which case it's -- we'll come to
you in a minute, Rob.

>> It's on the question of fees.  Are we there yet?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   We can be.  Go ahead.

>> If that's okay.  Thank you.  My name is Andrew Mack, AM global
consulting.  I am a new member for the BC.  So for the first time, I
get to stay I'm speaking on my own behalf.  First to extend my
personal thanks to the Kenyan organizing team.  It was a wonderful
event.  Show an incredible warmth, but also Kenya is more than Safaris
and crafts.  And I think the meeting has shown how Kenya has become a
true leader in the region.

My comment is about gTLD applications and specifically about
encouraging gTLD operators to buy the entire six-pack instead of just
one bottle of (inaudible).  And here's what I mean.  My concern is
that given the costs of the applications, most of the new and existing
registry operators are going to have a hard time making a business
case for building out TLDs in some of the smaller scripts, like
Cambodian, like Jordan -- Georgian, or just up the road in Ethiopia,
like Amharik.  This could leave some scripts out in the cold.  I don't
think we as a community want that.

The way I understand it, the new gTLD implementation plan will require
potential operators to apply for each IDN version separately and pay
full feels for each one.  But, instead of this one size fits all, or
if you will, a single-bottle pricing, why not apply the supermarket
principle to the process?  You know, when you go to the market and buy
a six-pack, it costs less than if you buy one beer.

So, for example, registry operators applying for multiple gTLDs, why
not try to evaluate technical qualifications together and look for
other economies of scale that could lower costs for the applicant and
for ICANN and encourage the building out of new IDNs.

You can argue whether or not some sort of reduced pricing might be
appropriate, as Tony mentioned, and to make it easier for countries
like Kenya to participate more fully in the new gTLD game.  For
example, if there's interest in a dot masai, like Whitecliff
mentioned, I think it's worth considering.  But either way, if we're
really serious about making the Internet available as much as possible
to everyone in their own language, we need to look for ways to reduce
fees, helping applicants create package deals.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Rob, we have one online?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes.  Annalisa Roger from dot green.  Comment on
expressions of interest.

Thank you for the excellent remote participation offered for this
ICANN Nairobi meeting.

As a not-for-profit organization interested in applying for a new TLD,
we would like the board to vote "yes" on EOIs, as it will enable us to
better prepare our community and our fund-raising efforts by being
able to show in our business plan that new TLDs are real.

Thank you very much for this public comment opportunity.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Let's come to the microphone.

Bertrand, it's your turn.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Bertrand de la Chapelle, I'm the French
GAC representative.  But I would like to start by quoting the wording
of the GAC communiqué that we finalized yesterday on this topic of the
EOI that might be of interest for the community.

The mandatory nature of the current expression of interest model turns
it into a slot reservation step and not a mere data-gathering
exercise, as initially intended and presented.

Opening slot reservation and conferring rights to the participants
against payment of a fee would constitute a de facto launch of the new
gTLD application process.

Should the board intend to use an EOI mechanism as proposed, the GAC,
after interaction with the rest of the community, formally advises the
board to launch it only after the overarching issues have been
resolved and the applicant guidebook finalized.

In that context, the GAC questions the benefit of pursuing further a
separate EOI process, which would distract attention and resources
from finalizing the new gTLD program.

The GAC believes that public comment, public forum comments on the EOI
and the face-to-face discussions in Nairobi have helped identify ideas
and concerns that can usually inform the development of DAG v4 on
which the community should focus.

I would like to add, if you allow me, just a few personal comments, as
the time is very limited.  When I say "personal," I mean on behalf of
the French government.

The first thing is, the purpose of the EOI is to provide a time line,
to bring back a time line.  The way it is constructed today is that it
provides an artificial time line.  And is it really a service to the
applicants who have been waiting for a while to basically, as Avri
said in one of her comments, have the right to pay to stand in line
without any indication on when the final application will take place?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Bertrand.  I have to cut you off at
that point and move to the next one.  Thank you.

Steve.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Steve Delbianco, NetChoice.  This is the official
statement of the business constituency, which we will submit in
writing with regard to the EOI.  And I'll summarize it with just three
points.

First, the business constituency opposes the EOI, because the EOI
consideration and execution has become a distraction from resolving
the unresolving issues, both the overarching and otherwise.

Second, the EOI is not a substitute for an economic study.  It may
indicate supply of TLDs, but is not a measure of demand by
registrants.

Third, we think the EOI is unclear and ambiguous about its objective,
that is, is it data-gathering or is it a mandatory preregistration?
That presents a dilemma.  Either applicants are forced to invest
blind, because they don't know if the rules will be changed after the
EOI is over, or, by accepting funds from EOI applicants under draft
rules, that could make it impossible for ICANN to subsequently change
those rules in important ways.  And ironically, that's even if the
information that we gathered in the EOI reveals serious new concerns
that must be addressed.  Will we be allowed to address them, given
that we've accepted money?

That's the business constituency position.  I'll add one item from a
NetChoice member who is very concerned about the gap between the
publication of the strings at the end of the EOI and the beginning of
accepting of applications.  If that gap stretches out because of some
delays or policy considerations, it leaves a lot of applicants exposed
dangerously.  Picture an applicant whose string is now out there and
then there are a lot of parties who want to discourage him from having
that string.  They could end up being the subject of legal harassment
and otherwise when, in fact, if the application had begun, they're
protected within ICANN's procedure where objections have to be
handled, the process.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Very good points.

Izumi.

>>IZUMI AIZU:   Izumi Aizu again.

First, on this argument, I'd like to ask the board to consider two
sides, the demand side as well as the supply side for the EOI.

I'm not going to into details about that.  Two points I just tried to
mention earlier about the city, geographic names.  I'd like to suggest
two things.  One is to prepare some kind of exceptional fee structure
for the small cities whose needs are forgotten (inaudible) which is
not new if you see the CCTLD.  Many of the new IDN ccTLD applicants,
they have to pay 25,000, except there are some cases where it's case
by case, you can (inaudible) with ICANN staff.  Likewise, it can be a
minor improvement for the implementation.

The second one is kind of a fee refund.  Currently, it's very
difficult if you go for the EOI, and as mentioned in many governments,
city governments, they have to go through the formal process.

On the other hand, they have -- on the one hand, they have to apply
before its closure.  Otherwise, you'll miss for another unknown years.
On the other hand, they may not be clear enough for the details that
some of the public servants have to go through as a public policy
procedure, the large cities or small cities.

So in case of certain well-defined exceptional cases which can be
detailed later, that fee can be refunded.  So that will help the many
applicants who are on behalf of citizens to join this new game.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  I am just going to take the sense of
the room.  We are now out of time on this topic, but I'm happy to use
the time available for the later topics if there's less interest in
those.

The remaining topics are the accountability and transparency review.
Can I have an indication by a show of hands from the floor how many
people would like to comment on the accountability and transparency
review?

I see a number.

How many want to talk about DNS security, DNS cert?  Slightly less.
How many have other issues they want to raise that are not on the
agenda?

All right.  In view of that, I am going to close discussion on the new
gTLDs program.  Thank you for those who have contributed.

We will come back to it.  And of course as we said, we will take
comments online and we will give answers online.

Can we move to the accountability and transparency review topic and
have people who wish to speak about that.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Foody.

>>PAUL FOODY:   Thank you very much, Peter.

On the accountability and transparency issue, I tend to find that
people tend to be -- they tend to behave best when they know people
are watching what they are doing.

And in that regard, we had the registrants rights charter a year ago
in Mexico, part of the RAA agreement was that there would be a
registrants rights charter published within 31 days, I think it was.
As it happened, I don't think it was published until sometime this
year.

Nevertheless, I am looking through the registrants rights charter, and
it strikes me as a registrant that the one right I am most interested
in is being notified of any material changes, any changes that ICANN
or my registrars might be contemplating that would materially affect
my domain name.

And don't forget when we talk about domain names, companies are basing
entire marketing strategies around domain names.  There's a guy in
Seoul who quoted a figure of $3 trillion, and I have no idea how
accurate that was.  But to me, it's believable.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

>>PAUL FOODY:   So the registrants rights charter, we should be
notified by e-mail of every change that might materially affect it.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

>>PAUL FOODY:   Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Rob, somebody online?

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   We have one question online, Peter.

Michele Neylon from Black Night asks:  How can ICANN marry its
commitment to transparency and accountability with its insistence on a
unilateral contract change clause in the Draft Applicant Guidebook?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I'm not sure now is the time to attempt
that.

Ayesha.

>>AYESHA HASSAN:   Thank you.  Ayesha Hassan from the International
Chamber of Commerce.  ICC submitted comments on the affirmation review
panels.

This is the first team, and we see this as a pilot.  We look forward
to building on this experience and improving the process for
identifying candidates and reviewing them.

Given the time constraints and the outreach constraints as a result of
this being such a pilot, we would strongly encourage focus on
qualifications and experience.

This is an extremely important review for the business community as
well as for ICANN as an organization.

We may not have all of the diversity elements in place in the pool of
candidates that would be considered this time around.

We can certainly all work together for future panels to improve that.
But again, we would strongly encourage focus on qualification and
experience of the highest priority.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you for that.

Come back to you, Rob.  Is there somebody?  No.  We come to Mr. Zuck.

>>JONATHAN ZUCK:  Jambo.  Jonathan Zuck.  (Speaking in Swahili).
Loosely translated from Swahili, a handful of water cannot be grasped.
And if we think about it, water has a lot of positive characteristics.
It has a certain degree of transparency, and a certain amount of water
can allow things to grow as well, and it's very well thought of here.

And similarly, I think the ICANN staff can be congratulated for a
flood of documents and remote participation that amount to a great
deal of transparency.  And certainly, they can't be accused of
depriving the new gTLD process of any water.

However, the foundation of accountability is solidity.  And that's one
thing water lacks, is the solidity necessary for accountability.

The foundation of this organization is its contracts.  If one were to
ask to describe this organization in one sentence, I think that
sentence would probably involve the creation of contracts.

And so I have to echo Michele's concerns about the notion of
unilateral changing of contracts after they have been established.

At a time when accountability and transparency are at the top of the
agenda -- ironically, at the bottom of this one -- it seems strange to
be discussing this idea of unilateral changes to contracts after they
have been signed.  I think that idea is all wet, and like water, makes
it difficult for ICANN to be grasped and to be truly accountable.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Rob?  No?  Marilyn Cade.

>>MARILYN CADE:   Thank you.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  I would like
to speak as an individual but I will say that my comments are echoed
both in writing in earlier comments and I think will be echoed
throughout the rest of the meeting by many in the business community.

We welcomed the Affirmation of Commitments which came at the end of an
extensive consultation process which was undertaken by ICANN itself
which was undertaken by the President's Strategy Committee, but it was
a wide consultation with the community.  And the community spoke, as I
said earlier, and called for ICANN to establish further and enhanced
accountability mechanisms.

So what I want to say here is, let's not lose sight of the fact our
work on that is not done.  And we, as the community, have to also work
on that.

Moving forward with this first review panel is what we need to do, but
you know, we need to also go back to what we're going to do in
parallel on working on enhancing our accountability mechanisms.

Now I'm going to declare a material interest in the outcome of whether
or not ICANN establishes enhanced accountability mechanisms.

I'm a registrant, and I believe in ICANN.  And I want ICANN to be all
it can be, and I know we have to be accountable.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Monsieur Bachollet.

>>SÉBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   Thank you.  This first review team, it's a
very important for the future of ICANN, but like Marilyn says, there
are a lot of things that we can do without this review, in parallel to
this review.  And we would like very much that the advice, the
comments we made on any subject as the at-large community, we have
feedback on that.  And it's not the case.  And it's a matter of
accountability and transparency for our member, for the member of the
ALSs.

I want to take one example about the strategic plan.  We still need to
have feedback.  We need to have a loop.  We make comments.  We need to
have a return from the board and from the staff about those subjects.
It's very important for our community.

Thank you very much.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

And the last one on transparency and accountability.  Steve.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Steve DelBianco for Net Choice Coalition.

Net choice submitted comments during the comment period on this, and
we suggested definition for a key term in the Affirmation of
Commitments and the measurement criteria on the teams, and that's the
term global public interest.  It appears in paragraph 4 and then again
in several of the review teams, including the transparency and
accountability team that's going to go first.

We suggest that there's no definition for that, and therefore, it has
the danger of becoming a catch-all phrase that means what anybody
wants it to mean.

We proposed a definition that ICANN try to adopt the notion of
availability and integrity of the DNS as being in the global public
interest.

Availability meaning 24 by 7 by 365 in all scripts and languages
around the world.  That's the availability of the DNS.  And it's a
broader definition than just security and stability.

Availability of registrants means being able to get all the names that
aren't snatched up by insiders, and it means to be able to get to
IDNs.

Integrity means when I do a resolution, I am getting the actual site I
am trying to reach.  I am not being the subject of fraud, phishing
pharming, botnets.  That's the kind of availability.  Keeping that
integrity together on the DNS side.

I think we run a risk of letting everyone define that term on their
own.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   What's the prospect of a working group self-
forming around this concern?

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   One here, Werner.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Bertrand.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   On accountability and transparency
review, I want to highlight, as we have commented before, the
importance of making both a qualitative as well as quantitative
analysis.  And in particular, to insist on the three words that are
the end of paragraph 9.1; i.e., transparency, accountability and
public interest, as Steve said.

I want to take this opportunity to address two elements in terms of
accountability and transparency.  The first one, transparency.  We
would have appreciated if the reports from the staff to the board
regarding the EOI were made public, because I have personal reasons
and personal testimony to see that in the summary of the comments of
the second round, some of the comments that have been put forward have
been actually mischaracterized, not intentionally but factually.

The second thing regarding accountability is that in the public forum,
the allocation of time slot has to be fair and equal.  However, due to
the fact that very few governments have either the willingness or the
capacity to speak in this space, the allocation of time is necessarily
somewhat skewed.

The result is that when I take three minutes to express the position
that 36 governments have taken the pain to formulate in response or in
follow-up of the question that they have made to the board to
continue, I suppose that in a certain way it deserves at least as much
consideration as the comments of one individual, however respectable
he is, that has the intention of providing maybe one application.

So in terms of accountability, it is extremely important that any
public forum or any public comment forum is not just a show of hands
on numbers, but that also it's taken into account the nature or the
direct interest of the different actors.

Finally, just as it blinks one, zero, to make the announcement that
the cross-community on categories is in Room 101 at 4:00 this
afternoon, first floor.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

And, Rob, we have someone online.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Yes, sir.  Jeff Neuman, in his individual capacity,
has an accountability question.

He would like to know has any progress been made on making staff
reports to the board public?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   No, but it's something I am very keen on.  I
think it's going to improve the visibility of, amongst other things,
of the amount of work the staff do and the amount of work the board
does, but I think it would also improve the decision-making process.

In line, you are still on accountability?  Still on accountability?
Okay.  Let's close accountability after you three, and we will move to
DNS cert.  I'm not sure which microphone now.  Werner, it must be you.

>>WERNER STAUB:   Werner Staub in personal capacity.  With regard to
accountability, I looked at the process to find the reviewers for --
what is it called?  The AoC review process.  And I was struck that it
was organized in a way to make sure that all the reviewers have been
cleared by the respective Supporting Organizations.

I would suggest it would be a good idea for the selectors, final
selectors, to take at least some reviewers who have not been endorsed,
because the current process of only taking those would mean that any
decisions would have to be excluded.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   The trouble with that idea is they have to
be representatives of the community, and that's the process for
checking whether they are a representative of the community.  It's up
to that community to choose by its own mechanisms who its
representatives are.

>>WERNER STAUB:   That leads me to an important point.

I heard you use the word representative in a sense that is very
worrisome when you compare it to another sense of representative.

We in the gTLD talk about representative institutions in the sense of,
I hope, at least, an institution that is legitimized to act and speak
on behalf of the respective community.

You seem to be using the word representative in the sense of being a
specimen of the species, which is not exactly the same thing.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I hope I don't do that.  I am trying to use
the word representative as someone who is actually authorized, not
just a member of the group but actually has some of the imprimatur of
the group behind them.

Avri.

>>AVRI DORIA:   In terms of the  accountability and transparency, I
have a couple hopes of the information that will be available to the
people doing that.  So on the question of the board reports, whether
they have become available to the rest of us by then, I am certainly
hoping that they are available to that review team.

In terms of the archives of internal dialogues within the staff on why
and how they are doing things, I am hoping those will also be
available to those folks.  Obviously within the umbrella of
confidentiality that they will have.

And then finally, I would like to request that we consider while doing
this certain open consultations by those review teams that perhaps
could be held on the Friday afternoons after the meeting has closed so
it's not part of the meeting, of the Brussels and the meeting after
and announced in enough time so people can make their plans that way
so that the public also does have an ability to consult with these
panels.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  We'll take those on board.

Jonathan.

>>JONATHAN ZUCK:   Jonathan Zuck from the Association for Competitive
Technology.  I guess whom I am speaking on behalf of is probably ICANN
as an idea in the context of the great deal of scrutiny I think this
organization is under.  And I want to say what I have said many, many
times and I apologize for that, but I believe it's a mistake to leave
all of the terms of reference of these reviews to these review teams.
I do think that metrics and measures of success for accountability,
transparency and all the other things that will be reviewed by this
process should be the responsibility of the community and the
organization up front.  And just because the AoC has forced metrics
upon us doesn't mean these review committees should be the ones to
define them.  I think they should come from the community and that the
criteria on which the organization is judged by these review
committees should be determined in advance.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

That's the end of accountability and transparency.

Is there anyone who wants to make a comment on DNS cert and security?

Rod does and Steve Crocker does.

And Rod cedes to Steve.  Dr. Crocker.

>>STEVE CROCKER:   Thank you.  I want to speak in my role as a chair
of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee and address a remark
to Rod Beckstrom in his role as CEO and president of the organization.

In your remarks to the GAC earlier this week, you emphasized the
importance of increased work on security.  As chair of the ICANN
Security and Stability Advisory Committee, this is heart warming to
hear.

However, you also said the DNS is more fragile and vulnerable today
than it has ever been and it could stop at any given point in time,
literally.

Some of the members and others outside of our committee have
approached me for clarification of the statement.  There has been
enormous improvement in the operational resiliency of the major DNS
operations at both the root level and the TLD level.  For example,
Rodney Joffe, senior official of NeuStar and former founder and CTO of
Ultra DNS, which is now part of NeuStar, one of the largest domain
name system operators wrote, "As the operator of registries for two
TLDs and authoritative DNS for hundreds of thousands of domains, we do
not see a full scale attack on our systems, nor have we reported such
a situation other than the ever present short-lived DDOSs that have
reduced in frequency and size over the last two years.

Let me ask on behalf of the technical community committed to enhancing
the security and stability of the Domain Name System that we work
together to gain greater clarity on the specific vulnerabilities that
exist in today's Domain Name System, and from that the specific
improvements that will have the greatest value in improving security
of the overall system.  The Security and Stability Advisory Committee
was created with the specific role of advising on these matters and we
stand ready, willing and able to assist in this work.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Steve.

Can we move to Rod.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Sure.  Thank you very much, Steve.  And thank you,
Security and Stability Advisory Committee, for the outstanding work
that you have been doing, and incredible time you have been putting in
in addressing so many issues.

And I wanted to share some background on my comments yesterday, all of
which I feel were accurate from my perspective as CEO of ICANN, but
with the humility of recognizing that world class engineers have
designed the Internet through the IETF and many people are involved in
the ecosystem.

Let me provide some context.

Since I took office eight months ago, I have met with many registry
operators and registrar operators around the world.  I have even
participated in dedicated discussions, informal discussions with those
parties, and the information I just received from one of the DNS
providers that have shared information with you is the first time I
have heard of a decrease in attacks.

I have been told by many, many parties of increasing attacks and even
outages in registrars and registries.

I have to take that at what I hear it at.  Those parties don't
generally wish to disclose publicly those transactions, and I think
the industry can do more to be transparent about that, but I have
heard growing concerns from the largest parties, from some of the
smallest registry operators around the world.  I have heard as
recently as this week that they have only begun to look at
cybersecurity and the security of their systems and the integrity of
their systems from attack and from data manipulation and usage for
different attacks.

So many concerns have been brought to me by major CEOs of registry,
registrars, and different operators around the world.

I would like to propose -- and I'm very happy to hear that the SSAC is
going to look at this.

I would like to mention a couple of dilemmas we have.  And actually,
let me give you some other background.

Before I went to the GAC meeting yesterday, I was told that there was
a set of governments that were going to try to block ICANN moving
forward with the DNS cert.  Okay?

I have experience working with governments, and discussions on
authorities.  And I have seen those discussions and debates stall and
thwart critical cybersecurity efforts.  And I didn't -- and in the
ICANN context or even in that meeting, several countries came up to me
afterwards, representatives and said, "We very much do want to do a
DNS cert and be engaged in it with you.  Please move ahead, please
involve us, and thank you for what you said," including another one
that approached me last night and offered the assistance of
introducing another 20 countries into such a plausible effort.

At the same time I am not presupposing that a DNS cert would be inside
ICANN as opposed to on the outside.

I do believe, and let me also share this.  Some governments might not
want ICANN to do anything in DNS cert or in cybersecurity efforts.
Much of the community wants ICANN's role to be extremely limited.

One of the other dilemmas we face, and I like Steve's proposal of a
group to look at DNS availability, because it's more than just about
security and stability.  I want to quickly read from the Affirmation
of Commitments paragraph 3.  This document affirms key commitments by
the Department of Commerce and ICANN, including commitments to
preserve the security, stability, and resiliency of the DNS, preserve
it.  Secondly, paragraph subpoint D, facilitate international
participation in DNS technical coordination.

As a CEO, I feel that ICANN is probably living up to the facilitation
of DNS technical coordination at some level.  As a CEO, I am concerned
we are not living up to our contractual commitment of preserve the
security of, which is very strong language.  And my concern was that
as an organization, after the community supported, albeit be a lot of
debate, the concept of the DNS cert somewhere, the notion that
governments might seek to block ICANN from moving forward or the
community from working on this through an ICANN platform, was very
distressing to me.

I would also -- so I think the community needs to engage in some
process, perhaps in what Steve said as a working group, to discuss
what does the Affirmation of Commitments specifically mean with
respect to the security and stability of the Domain Name System, and
also what does it mean with respect to the facilitation of the
technical coordination.  Because there's other bodies that are
involved in that.

So as a CEO, I can say we need clarification.  And I think it goes
beyond just the SSAC's role, which is critical.  But we need to define
those expectations because otherwise we have a contract where we are
committing to do something, but we have a bottom-up policy and
community process, parts of which say you shouldn't do that at all.

So how do we resolve those two?  I don't know the answer to that but I
think we need to have a process, we need to discuss it, and the other
comment I am going to make is one of the concerns I have as a CEO is
that as an industry or as ICANN, depending upon how you look at it, I
have not yet been told of a comprehensive model of the Domain Name
System.  A model that can be tested and simulated for different
attacks.

Not that any model is ever perfect.  But without a model, that can
assess the entire DNS system and how it's affected by attacks and what
its vulnerabilities are, how can we know of its ultimate ability to
withstand new attacks?

And so I would also like us to investigate as a community and had good
discussions with SSAC on that, and that may be the place, or maybe
ICANN is the place, but here is the next dilemma we need to discuss:
ICANN's fundamental business model is being supported by domain name
registrars and registries.  Typically in advanced countries.  Because
many registries around the world, perhaps most, do not contribute
financially to ICANN.

At the same time, those registries are asking us and me for security
assistance in what they are doing.  Capacity building, training hot
lines, et cetera.

So how do we resolve that issue?  There needs to be a discussion or a
debate in the community.  We are very open to it but until we have a
comprehensive model, until I hear that all registries and registrars
are secure, I am concerned.  And I have heard even this week of the
concerns that others have.

So at the same time, I defer, for ultimate technical advice and
judgment, to the SSAC and to other groups in the community.  And I
look forward to a discussion.  I do hope we can create one or more
working groups on this topic, and I look forward to participating and
moving the ball forward.

Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Rod.  Chris.

>>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Peter.

Thank you, Steve, for your comments.  I'd like to read to you a letter
that the Country Code Names Supporting Organization has written today
to Rod.

Dear Rod, I'm writing to convey the ccNSO council and members'
concerns regarding your comments made to the joint meeting of the
ICANN board and the Governmental Advisory Committee on Tuesday, the
9th of March.

Your inflammatory comments to governmental representatives regarding,
in your view, the precarious state of the security of the DNS, have
the potential to undermine the effective and productive relationships
established under ICANN's multistakeholder model.  Your alarming
statement to the GAC infers that current security efforts are failing.
This could cause great concern among governments regarding how
elements of critical Internet resources are operated and managed in
their countries.  In particular, your remarks have the potential to
damage the effective relationships that many ccTLD operators have
developed with their national administrators.

In the circumstances, it is difficult to comprehend why, despite a
brief discussion on your DNS CERT proposal, the full details of your
security-related concerns were not raised during your meeting with the
ccNSO earlier this week.

The ccNSO council is also concerned about your intention to write to
governments about their DNS, asking whether or not such DNS is able to
withstand the perceived new levels of attacks.  This has the potential
of compromising the manner in which ccTLD managers in those countries
operate.  It also has the potential to undermine ccTLD managers'
ongoing efforts to make their DNS more robust and resilient against
attacks.

We urge that if such measure is to be taken, it be first dealt with
through the ccNSO.

Further, your comments discount the huge efforts of many of the ICANN
community to ensure the ongoing security and stability of the DNS,
including the Root Server System Advisory Committee, Security and
Stability Advisory Committee, and the ccNSO.

It diminishes the efforts of those that collaborate with ICANN, such
as the IETF and the CERT community.  In addition, a number of the top
20 registries in the ccNSO state that you have not spoken to them on
this topic.

At a broader level, your statement has the potential to strengthen the
positions of those that criticize ICANN and who would prefer to see
changes to how Internet numbering and naming resources are managed.
The ccNSO council would like to reiterate that security remains a core
strategic and operational priority for the ccTLD community, and we
remain strongly committed to working with ICANN, other Internet
stakeholders, and governments, to ensure the stable and secure
operation of the DNS.

Our concerns lie not with your focus on security issues, but with your
precipitative unilateral analysis of such an issue and the public and
inflammatory manner by which your views have been communicated.  We
agree that as the CEO of ICANN, it is your responsibility to address
these issues.  But it is equally your responsibility to do so through
ICANN's bottom-up, consensus-based multistakeholder model.  It is also
the responsibility of those in positions of influence within ICANN to
show due care when making statements on complex, cross-cutting issues
to ensure effective analysis and stakeholder engagement without
unnecessary confusion or concern.

Nearly finished.

Regarding the issue at hand, we suggest that ICANN work with all
relevant internal and external stakeholders to develop a clear
analysis of the current mechanisms in place to ensure the ongoing
security of the DNS.  As a first step, we urge you to share with us
and other stakeholders the underlying facts or studies that originally
led you to make your statements.  Only after analyzing the entire
security landscape, with the buy-in of all stakeholders, can ICANN
develop a clear strategy and operating plan for improvement.

The ccNSO stands ready to contribute to this process.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Chris.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Chris, I just want to say thank you very much for
sharing that letter and those comments.  I'll be responding with a
letter to those.  Also to say, I think it really would be a great
contribution to the community if the ccTLD operators could share
transparently the security experiences they have had on a specific
basis so that the level of comfort could be achieved.  But perhaps
that could be done through the working groups and bottom-up process
you have proposed.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Steve.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Thank you, Steve Delbianco of NetChoice.
Comments are my own.

I think the CEO's role is to raise the alarm when he or she sees the
need to do so.  I think that's appropriate.  And as to the CEO's
direct style of communication, that's no surprise.  It's exactly what
the corporate world is all about.

So I do think you're right to sound the alarm, but maybe not so right
to rush to the conclusion that we need to build a DNS CERT to solve
it.

Now, I know you clarified earlier that it might be inside, it might be
outside.  And that's an important distinction.  Because to use the
chair's analogy of some three hours ago, with a -- respect to
burglars, remember burglar proofing the house, the chair said just
because I can't make a perfectly burglar-proof house, that's not going
to stop me from building the house.  You're going to go ahead and do
it.  That metaphor works here, if we know and sounded the alarm that
burglars are present and threatening the house, that doesn't mean we
create our own police force, complete with cars, 24/7, 365, two
shifts, pension plans, badges, and uniforms.  Instead, we would find a
way to tie our house security system into the local police department,
we might even preprogram our telephone to dial 911 in case of an
emergency.  So there's a lot of things we can do to take this alarm
and turn it to action that works with existing CERT as opposed to
creating our own.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Steve.

Last two on DNS CERT.

>>BOB HUTCHINSON:   Bob Hutchinson from Dynamic Ventures.

I would like to reiterate that existing CERT channels support millions
of computer users every day, and the advisories that come through them
get translated into numerous languages all around the world.  These
channels are effective and long-running channels in our industry, and
we should attempt to use them as much as possible for this kind of
information.

It's not clear at all to me why you need a separate CERT.  But I --
I'm glad that the proposal was made in order to get a dialogue about
how this section of networking can clarify its own support picture for
the user community.  For example, I checked your Web page, and there
is no linkage off of the ICANN Web page for people to find which CERTs
are being supported or which information they need to get.

So that's one improvement that could be made right away.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   We'll look right away into that one.  Thank you
very much.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   I'm just checking here.  Are you on a new
topic or on DNS CERT?

Okay.  On this side.

>> Hi, I'm Kurt Erik Lindqvist.  I'm the CEO of Autonomica
(inaudible), the I root server.  And we also provide slave services to
around 60 TLDs.

And I would like to echo what Steve conveyed.  We don't see an
increase in effects today.

On the question of a DNS CERT, I must -- I'm not convinced that
looking at the DNS system in isolation adds any value.  The stability
and robustness of security -- we take this pretty serious -- is
dependent on many factors.  And there are a lot of other issues that
affect this ability.  You break out the DNS, you will lose the view of
these factors.  And that's why some of the CERTs are very effective,
because they can see cross functional, see how a lot of these issues
are linked.  The other reason CERTs are successful is because they
have a very close tie to the community, direct connections.  I'm not
convinced that a central DNS CERT around the globe will have that
linkage and even be effective.

I think that what ICANN could do is do capacity-building and help work
to get an recurrent CERT, existing CERT inside the kind of frameworks.
Because adding more frameworks, adding more structure will just be
taking focus away from these issues.  I think that's where ICANN can
do different.  Also help in establishing new CERTs.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

Heather, last on security.

>>HEATHER DRYDEN:  I am the Canadian GAC representative, and I have
been listening very carefully.

I have a question for Rod.  You mention you have been consulting with
several major governments.  And I wondered whether you had spoken to
the Canadian government.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Not recently, no.  But in my previous capacity, yes
in terms of cybersecurity.  I can point you back to some of the
(inaudible), not since I've taken the position at ICANN, no.  But I'd
be happy to do that.

>> Please do.  Thank you.

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Now we're opening the floor for a
couple of minutes before the board escapes.

>>BRUCE TONKIN:   Peter, can I just, if I may.

I just want to address a question that was raised a little bit
earlier.  It's in the context of what we're doing on the security
front.

I think there was a concern expressed, it's come up a couple of times
in this meeting, that ICANN is spending everything on new gTLDs and is
not doing anything about security or I.P. version 6.

Just to be clear, the DNSSEC, in terms of signing the root, is a
process that's happening this year, which is 2010.  New gTLDs are
probably unlikely to be added to the root before either late 2011 or
even 2012, I think, in terms of many of them.  So those events are
different events on a different time scale.  So the organization is
introducing security mechanisms this year.

Secondly, in terms of what is done about improving security, there's a
lot of work that's been going in the new gTLD process to add stronger
mechanisms and new agreements, both with respect to the requirements
to use DNSSEC and also the requirement for name servers to be
reachable by I.P. version 6.

Just want to be clear.  You hear a lot of discussion about policy
here, but there are a lot of other activities going on in the
organization.  So I just want to make that clear.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Bruce.  Very helpful.

Now, we have only five more minutes.  The board has to have lunch, and
then we are going to spend the rest of the afternoon digesting all the
comments we have received from this process, all the comments we have
heard for the rest of the week, so that we can try and make some
progress at the board meeting tomorrow.

What are the prior -- what -- can I just do a quick check down the
line.  What are the topics that you, sir, would like to raise now?

>> I'm going to comment about dotGay LLC and also the time line.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Behind you, the topic?

>> I want to know why ICANN have not a representative in Africa.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Amadeu, your topic?

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   I want to propose a resolution to the board
apologizing to Kenyans and Africans the way the communication about
organizing this meeting has been handled.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   And Adam.

>>ADAM PEAKE:   Gender and balance in ICANN.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  And down this line.

>>AVRI DORIA:   The beginning ceremony issues about religion and
secularness in ICANN.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Marilyn.

[ Applause ]

>>MARILYN CADE:   I want to talk about participation.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Yes.  Bertrand.

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   I would like to ask why the EOI workshop
of the board this afternoon is not public.  And I'm done.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

>> (inaudible) I want to raise a comment about the next African
meeting.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Right.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   And I want to raise a comment on the economic
studies.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Are any of you able to make these comments
in writing through the comment process?

Adam.  Done so?

All right.  Why don't I -- why don't we take a minute, then, on each
of these topics.

>>ROB HOGGARTH:   Peter, this is Rob.  If I can interject what's
online.  One is the conflict of interest on gTLD evaluators.  A second
one is on applicants applying for the same string.  And a third is on
future use of remote participation, particularly by the noncommercial
community.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   All right.  Let's see how far we can get
with a minute each on these topics.

And this is not the end of this.  This is just the opportunity here.
You can still make the comments through the other process.

Sir.

>> Thank you.  I'm Scott Seitz with dotGay LLC.  I'm the new majority
stockholder in dotGay.  It was introduced in June of last year by
Alexander Schubert prior to my ownership of dotGay LLC.  I owned SPI
Marketing, which was one of the first companies to do gay and lesbian
marketing in the United States.  We work with both community
organizations and Fortune 500 companies.

dotGay is an amazing opportunity for --

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Excuse me.  Sorry.  We really don't need to
hear about any individual TLD unless you can tell us how to help a
policy development process.

>> Using your house analogy, currently, we are already out talking and
building constituency in our community.  We're building a house, and
we don't know if we own the land.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Gotcha.  Thank you.

Avri, a minute.

>>AVRI DORIA:   Yes.

This is Avri Doria speaking for myself.

Very concerned about the way the -- ICANN started this time.

Many of us have religious feelings, some of us have irreligious
feelings.

It was extremely unusual to start with a prayer, even to start with
two or three religions' prayers.  In a first place, I believe we need
to maintain a separation of the secular, which ICANN is about.
There's nothing in the mission about reverence for God, thanking God,
or even caring about God.  Beyond that, even if we do care about
religion and we are religious, there's no way that we can be fair to
all religions in doing anything.  That's one of the reasons why people
do maintain a separation of the secular and the religious.  And I ask
ICANN to please go back to the good old days, where we started with
technology and policy concerns and not with God.

[ Applause ]

>>ROD BECKSTROM:   Thank you, Avri.  That couple-minute exercise has
generated a lot of feedback, both positive and negative, both
extremely positive feedback and very negative, which we're open to.
The decision to do that was based on social integration of communities
here in Kenya, in particular, in light of things that had gone on in
downtown Kenya, Nairobi, in the last several months, we thought it was
desirable to let the leaders of the primary communities come forth and
participate in this event constructively.  We thought that was a
positive thing to do, to ask for their involvement and ask for their
help to make sure this was really a successful program, and we -- we
understood that some members of the community might enjoy that.

Personally -- I also want to say, I fully recognize the right of
groups inside ICANN to create constituencies on any topic they deem
appropriate that fits within the policy charters.  And I do understand
that there's one proposed constituency that may include religious
organizations.  I would certainly hope that as an organization, we
wouldn't try to exclude that or exclude that component of people's
lives, which is important.  Not to speak to opening ceremony.  I'm
actually going to propose we put that online and get comment.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.

Amadeu.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   On that note, okay.  But this is not only
about -- that's about local policies, then let's pray for serious
things.  I am a Catholic without the gift of the faith.  I just have
the cultural Catholicism in me.  But I was told, very seriously, that
God is not to be used for things like DNSSEC or WHOIS reform.

You use that for important things.  Don't pray for the future
Internet.  Pray for the future of the nation, if you want.

[ Applause ]

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   Okay.  Now to my proposal.

And sorry to, you know, change the mood of what has been going on
today to something a little bit less negative.

I would formally request the board and ask them tomorrow, besides the
usual thanks resolutions, pass an apology resolution for the way this
meeting was handled.  It's not about whether there was a security risk
or not.  I have my opinion about that.  Whether this security issue as
such has been dealt in a professional or at least acceptable way, I
have my opinion on that.  But, you know, this is the kind of things
cannot be discussed in a public forum.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Amadeu, you're out of time.

>>AMADEU ABRIL i ABRIL:   Wait a second, Peter.  The question is about
how the communications have been handled, in a way to invite all of us
not to come here and ending in the summit, with this post about
(inaudible) for delegates.  Because, you know, some heads of state had
the bad idea to join here, so we had to go 50 more meters to go to the
restrooms.  All of this was really insulting to me as an attendee.
But I think it was even more insulting for the local organizers and
for the African people.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Amadeu.  Marilyn.

>>MARILYN CADE:   Thank you.  My comments are going to be about
participation, in particular to the wonderful work done by our host.
And I must say that I feel very strongly that everyone who didn't come
-- and while I appreciate your participating remotely -- I feel that
everyone who didn't come missed out.  And so that's my message about
that.  Participation matters.  And so we were very fortunate in the
business community to have a local member, (saying name), from the
computer society of Kenya, who was well integrated into the host
organizing and could work with us.  He set up an outreach breakfast to
bring global representatives together with the local business
community.  That was the first time we really had an opportunity to
talk at a very local businessperson-to-businessperson level about why
ICANN should matter to local businesses.  We really appreciate the
fact that the board adjusted their schedule and some of you were able
to come to the reception.

So why -- I wanted to thank you.  But why am I saying this?  Because
in looking ahead to Brussels.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   You're out of time.  So please be quick.

>>MARILYN CADE:   Looking ahead to Brussels, we plan to do more.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.  Steve.

>>STEVE DELBIANCO:   Steve Delbianco of NetChoice.  Comment on the
economic studies that are currently being planned.

There's a saying that the more you try to resist something, the more
you conform to it.  And I think the same could be true of Bertrand's
push for categories.  The more we try to resist that idea, it's clear
we've already conformed to categories on the G side with respect to
things like IDNs, communities, geographical, and, of course, all other
Gs.

The first set of economic studies ignored the categories idea and said
choice is good, so more choice must be better for global registrants.
But if you take a look at the categories underway now, which of those
four categories that we love are already being underserved?  And you
can take a look at small geographical communities.  But the most
underserved is IDN users.  They have no choice at the TLD level.  So
if you take a look at incremental benefit to individual registrants,
it's going to be the gTLDs and IDNs.  And it will be essential to
serve them if we're really going to meet the test of global public
interest.  Thank you.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

And, Eberhard, you have the honor of the last comment.

>>EBERHARD LISSE:  I'm speaking for dot NA.

I would like to thank the ICANN board for not giving in to the
unfounded and unsubstantiated scare-mongering and going ahead with the
ICANN meeting in Nairobi.  This meeting has proven once and for all --

[ Applause ]

>>EBERHARD LISSE:  This meeting has proven once and for all that we
Africans are more than able to hold such a meeting successfully.

It is therefore that I wish to use this opportunity to state for the
record on behalf of the Nimibian Network Information Center, the ccTLD
manager of dot NA, that though we were unsuccessful in bidding for
this very meeting, that we are encouraged by the success of this
meeting to bid for the next ICANN meeting to be held in Africa, ICANN
43 in October 2011 in the capital of Nimibia, in Windhoek.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you.

And now just some closing comments from board members.

I have Katim.

Katim.

>>KATIM TOURAY:   Thanks a lot, Peter.  It's been a wonderful session.
I have been enjoying the contributions from the floor.

I just wanted to remark, Peter -- I just wanted to remark, Peter, that
I noticed that you closed off the discussions on the application fees
just before two delegates from Africa were able to make their
contribution.  And I'd like to suggest that we remind and encourage
them to not be discouraged, but continue and provide us their comments
offline.  Because I think it's very important that we hear their
opinion, most especially, because of the time that it's not very often
that we are heard from from Africa.  So I think it was Fatima and
Ogutu from Kenya.  Please go ahead and submit us, provide us your
comments.  It will be very much appreciated.

In fact, along those lines, I have the idea that we might actually
want to pursue this whole notion of offline participation and enabling
people to, even after the meetings are done, to provide us audio
contributions, either by podcast, or provide them in facilities here,
where they can go and we allow them three minutes, two minutes,
whatever, they're recorded and it will be part of the official record
of the public forum.  Because there are instances in the United States
where you have Congress members, members of Congress addressing empty
chambers just so they can actually go on the record, and the
transcripts of the Congress.

Finally, I would like to say -- not quite final -- and ultimately, I
think we should give seriously thought to the suggestion from Bertrand
that we at least give a little bit more consideration or extra
consideration to presentations or opinions from various groups and
international organizations and government parties.  And I'm thinking
in this regard that maybe what we can do for the next forum is to have
a special block of time in the beginning that we endorse entities,
international organizations, stakeholders, the councils, and the
advisory committees, those of them that want to make a statement as a
representative of their collective organization, and then the rest of
the time we can leave to individual contributions and opinions.

Finally, I'd like to say thank you very much to the Kenyans hosts.
You've been wonderful.  And I'm really glad everybody's come.  I'm
really positive about the experience we have had here.  Again, thanks
for your opinions.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thanks, Katim.  Bertrand, a response?

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   I want to ask you, Mr. Chair, if you
intend to answer the very short question that I made, which is, is
there any specific reason why the workshop of the board on the
decision of the EOI is not public?

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   That's the same as the -- all of the
workshop, I suppose, is the answer.  The board needs --

>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Don't you think that this gives way to
the -- what was the expression in the previous about the preparation
about the theater of the board meeting?

The reason is that the board meeting on the EOI is actually the
workshop that you have this afternoon.  I do not see any fundamental
difference, apart from the taking of the decision, between the meeting
this afternoon and the meeting you will have tomorrow.

There may be a very valid reason.  I do not see it.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Okay.  Thank you.

Any other board member want to close?

In which case, I declare the forum closed, with great thanks to all of
those of you who participated, and thank you for comments.  Thank you
for keeping them as concise as you could.  Thank you for those on
line.  And, finally, thank you to the staff, who have worked so hard
to bring all of this together.  All of the staff teams, the security
team, the online team, the legal team, the policy team.  You do
tremendous work.  And we appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

[ Applause ]

[ Concluded ]