SO/AC CHAIR REPORTS Friday, 30 October 2009 ICANN Meeting Seoul, Korea >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We then move to our next set of reports which come from our standing and advisory committees. The first one of those is the chair -- the report is from the Nominating Committee on my list. And I'm just looking to see if Tricia Drakes, who is the chair of the Nominating Committee, is ready to come forward and give the report of that? As you know, the Nominating Committee is charged with seating a whole slate of officers on many of the institutional organs of ICANN including the board, the GNSO Council and the other councils. Tricia has been chairing the Nominating Committee. Tricia, welcome and thank you for the report. >>TRICIA DRAKES: Thank you. So I'm the chair. However, it is a 22- strong committee. This will be posted, but just so if you don't like some of the choices, you can pick up on the committee. And I would mention here that with one exception we were, as a committee, unanimous on our decisions in relation to the slate. So what was our mandate? Three seats, three-year terms on the board, two GNSO Council, three at-large seats and one ccNSO Council seat. In terms of applications -- and I think the recruitment and the getting interest is, perhaps, an area for attention from the next committee and the community. We had 86 SOIs, of which 15 were female, ten from Africa. And I'm pleased actually within the African ones, we had some from the fellowship program coming through. We've seen people there. 24 from Asia/Australia/Pacific, 23 Europe, 12 Latin America/Caribbean and 17 from North America. So there was a reasonable spread. Our selections -- and we did -- although we could make our selections if we want to sitting far away, but we did actually take advice and take input in terms of requirements. So in terms of the board, there was a balance between continuity and experience and skills but also bringing in some freshness and youth and new areas. And the selections of the committee were, one, returning Ramaraj. And, Ramaraj, I think we probably would have from the community, as well as your fellow board colleagues, been really taken to task if you were not returned. You are hugely respected and the skills and balance there. George Sadowsky, George, I think, is here. Most of us know George. But if George could stand up. He was here a minute ago, but just -- Thank you. And George, in fact, was a Nominating Committee chair for three terms but, in fact, has that continuity aspect. And then in terms of freshness and approach but also looking from the world looking out with experience in terms of GAC experience and freshness and also by five years the youngest-ever board appointment is Gonzalo Navarro. Gonzalo, I think a lot of people are not familiar with you so perhaps you might like to stand there. And, Chairman, I think you have already had some experience of the new board members coming into play. I will at this point mention it, and it will come later on as well, being a lady, former board member, one of the things that perhaps I was a little sad in that list is that there isn't a lady there. But I do hope -- we did have some very good candidates. Every year is different. And I do hope that those that did apply this time, and perhaps more, will apply for the next period as well. So that was my only regret there. In terms of the other -- and I will be much faster on the other ones. In terms of the other appointments on GNSO, Olga Cavalli very respected in a second term coming back. Andrei Kolesnikov, this, in fact -- Chuck and some of the others who made some initial comments I hope actually in a few months' time will say it was a really good choice and we are really pleased you did that. Andrei actually runs -- or is the dot IU ccTLD manager. He's also got broad -- much experience in terms of IDNs and that aspect. He will sit on the GNSO Council, though, representing and putting the interests of the community ahead of everything else being there. And, in fact, as well as bringing in the Russian element of it I think will perhaps, we hope, produce some insights and enthusiasm in term of the council's work. So, Chuck, I'm sure you and council members will let us know in the next coming months. In terms of ALAC, there we had to produce one from Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and also Asia. Dave Kissoondoyal. If Dave's here, perhaps he can just stand up. Carlton Samuels and James Seng. And James -- have all been there. And, again, there from a point of view of James with IDNs and other expertise but also enthusiasm and drive both for ICANN but within the community. And for ccNSO, Becky needs no introduction and I believe is delighted -- or ccNSO is delighted on that. Don't worry, I'm not going to go through the detail of this but just to say that there is a huge amount of work that the committee undertakes from its initial meeting, conferences, outreach and the big effort on outreach starts now for the next committee, getting in the SOIs, working with professional evaluators in terms not of the evaluation but doing some of the basic legwork and assessment but putting a professional view on that, reviewing them. In Sydney, the committee did deep-diving interviews with -- I think there were nearly 50, perhaps more, people. In fact, that's where Gonzalo emerged out as being a real superstar and runner to come and join the board aspect. So a lot of work. Sydney, we then had our face-to-face meeting. And, as I say, we came out with the selection being unanimous. We then held our breath for due diligence with John and his team doing the work on our behalf. And, finally, on the 28th of August made the announcement and the rest, as they say, is history. Few points for attention. We did only get 86 statements of interest. The work, quite rightly, is with the committee and the chair; but I think actually it is the duty and responsibility of everyone in the community, in this room, sitting behind me, to actually help and assist in identifying good candidates and encouraging them to put SOIs. In terms of diversity, I'm particularly -- now and for the next few years, again, from that is not just sex of male or female but also in terms of perhaps some -- "heavy hitter" seems to be a popular word at the moment but also bringing through perhaps youth and people from developing countries, I think, is a really important area. And then in terms of the process, as we heard just now from Roberto, Nominating Committee review is reaching its final stages. Public comment period is still open. But, again, I think in terms of some of the processes, it is really important to get that input and to take advantage of getting the process rights. Thank you. And at this point, I would like to actually thank not only the committee -- the 22 members of the committee but also the staff, Maria Farrell, who sadly as with the rest of the Coms team is going to be departing. But Maria was our lead staff support and had to work really hard to support all of our effort together with Joe working back on the admin side in Marina del Rey and for everybody that supported our work that's there. And I hope next year when Wolfgang comes and does this report, he'll also be thanking the community for their efforts in terms of helping with the outreach and recruitment of getting the candidates there for us to select. So thank you. [Applause] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Tricia. In the interest of time, can we move please to the next report on my list which is from the At-large Advisory Committee. The chair of that committee is Cheryl Langdon-Orr. Cheryl, we look forward to the report from the at-large. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And if we could move immediately to the second slide. The synopsis shown on this slide shows what is in full on a four-page report online, and I would encourage you to go to the URL or use the meeting room space here and read our more fulsome report. But it is my pleasure to report to you all today that we have a growing community with more than 10% growth this year in our at-large structures. We are very pleased to report that with moving towards Seoul, we have welcomed our newest ALS structure, OCIA from Korea here. And they are already playing a very active part in our policy development and our work groups. So we welcome them formally to this stage, and look forward to doing very much the same as we move to the Nairobi meeting as well. Within our five geographic regions, of course, there has also been a great deal of outreach activity and moving towards encouraging other types of community, public interest and individual Internet user groups to join our fold. And to this end, we have another four applications currently in the pipeline. So we look to be not sitting just at a mere 120 organizations and peak bodies but by near Nairobi very much closer to 130. We have been a more active community. Those of you in various of the rooms will have noticed a more vociferous, a more productive and a more obvious presence of at-large and regional leadership members here in just about anything that didn't say "closed" on the door. There is a very good purpose for that because part of the role of bringing people to these meetings is for us to also report back to our community. And in my report, there is a URL which is a living document where the feedback from those members of the community who are here under travel support are contributing to not only our meeting report and the archive but to the communities that are out there on the edges and unable necessarily by language or by time zone to be here. We also have a changing community. Let me move back one moment, if I may, Mr. Chairman, because with a more active community, you will have noticed a significant increase in the number of policy development pieces of advice and work group contributions that have been made including in the public comment period. In 2008, this was a number 12. So far in 2009, it's a number 22. That is a 69% growth. And with the five, one of which we voted through last night, by November it will be a 70, 75% increase in our tangible, measurable productivity. Back to the change in community, with the Structural Improvements Committee's report, you noticed that we did have our first joint meeting on the, I think, fairly well-under-the-way plan for implementation of our improvements. This is something that we are very careful to engage the whole of the At-large community with. We thank the Structural Improvements Committee for being involved in not only our face-to-face meetings but also some of our regional and community calls because this is bottom-up and consensus-built policy development. We, of course, have also had some changes. With the AGM, we have some of our members not quite leaving us in all cases but moving on. Tricia did mention the Nominating Committee appointees who have replaced members who I do want to name for the record. They are -- we are recording that -- sorry, she says scrolling up desperately trying to find the page. There we are. That Fatimata Seye Sylla has been now placed by Dave Kissoondoyal. Nguyen Thu Hue has been replaced by James Seng. And Vanda Scartezini has been replaced by Carlton Samuels. We also need to note for the record that the regionally elected member Jose Salgueiro who is now moving on to the Nominating Committee has been replaced by Sylvia Herlein Leite and we welcome her to join us. We have completed our liaison appointments and elections and our elected officers. And they are fully recorded in my report. But just to let you know, I have been returned to serve as the chair of the At-large Advisory Committee for another year. My vice chairs are Mr. Sébastien Bachollet and Alan Greenberg. The rapporteur is Mr. Carlton Samuels. And the African region to provide the fifth regional balance will be advising us in the next coming day who will be joining us on our executive team. We have had our good-byes and our photo opportunities and to say good-bye to those who have been working with us so long and so hard. But we also want to note Wendy's hard work over the last couple of years and wish her all the well in the new role she has as the GNSO Councillor appointed by the NCUC. And Jose Ovidio Salgueiro doesn't escape but moves to the NomCom. Of course, Vanda Scartezini is going to be liaison to your board over the next 12 months. And we look forward with her almost continuing role with one of our -- as one of our champions for the At-large community. Finally, it is the volunteers who we obviously need to thank for the huge amount of work which is detailed in my report but I do want to mention staff. Without staff support, volunteer communities simply could not function. We appreciate this resource. We definitely need this resource, and I'd like to name not just only our at-large staff but, indeed, the staff in the GNSO working groups and all of the other areas we interact with -- sorry, that we interact with who have been so helpful and made our community feel so welcome and genuinely part of the public interest processes that the AoC calls for. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Cheryl. [Applause] And congratulations on your election. I'm sorry. We haven't got time for questions. If we get to the end and we do have, we'll take them. It gives me pleasure now to call on John Curran, the chairman of the ASOs. John? See John's instant delegation to Louie. Thank you, Louie. >>LOUIE LEE: Thank you, Peter. I'm Louie Lee, chair of the ASO address council. Next slide, please. Oh, right. So the ASO AC consists of 15 members. Three members are sent from each of the five regional Internet registry regions. And of this 15, ten of which are elected by the regions and five are appointed from the RIRs. Now the SOAC functions include appointing two seats on the ICANN board of directors, appointing a representative to the ICANN Nominating Committee and processing global number resource policy proposals. Now, our recent activities on May 7th, we had appointed Ray Plzak to the ICANN board. And recently on September 7th, we elected Wilfried Woeber to serve on the 2010 ICANN nominations committee. Currently, we are monitoring two global policy proposals, making their way to the RIR policy development process; namely, they are the IANA policy for allocation of ASN blocks, or ASNs, to the regional Internet registries. And before I go onto the next one, this one is for extending the life of the older A.S. formats that is in use in the Internet today. And the next one is the allocation of IPv4 blocks to the regional Internet registries. This one governs the way that addresses are recovered, reclaimed and returned to IANA and then subsequently reassigned back to the RIRs. And for additional info, you may go to our Web site, http://aso.icann.org. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Louie. We will move on, if we can, for the next one because we are running short of time. It gives me pleasure to call on Chris Disspain, the chairman of the country code names supporting organization. Chris, welcome. We look forward to your report. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Good morning, everybody. No slides. There is a written report which will be on the Web site shortly. We had over 100 participants at the ccNSO meeting around whom 60 were actually ccTLD managers. We've spent a fair bit of time dealing with a fairly -- for us a fairly high number of issues. And very briefly, they include our concerns in respect to the gTLD process on the use of country names. And we are currently composing a communication which will go to the board and be submitted in the consultation process. We're absolutely delighted, of course, that we appear to be reaching the end of the IDN fast-track planning stage and hopefully heading towards implementing it. We do have some concerns about variants. We think that a clearer description of what is meant by "variant" is necessary in order to ensure if variants are to be allocated, reserved, blocked or delegated in the fast-track process, that they are very specifically defined. The board has asked us to get back to it on wildcard -- what's commonly called "wildcarding" in respect to how we can work out a way that cc's can be prevented from wildcarding. In that respect, we have set up a study group to summarize all of the issues that arise. Steve Crocker and Ram Mohan have very kindly agreed to provide us with some input. And we hope to be able to deal with the issue in Nairobi. Our delegation and redelegation retirement working group is working, and we're conscious of a note from the board about requesting some input on the retirement of ccTLDs. And we'll deal with that as quickly as we can. We have an incident response planning working group which grew out of the issues that arose with the Conficker, and that working group has become very active and we're working very hard to come up with a template and plan to how the cc's together can deal with such incidents. That's it. And thank you all very much. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Chris. [Applause] We move then to the Government Advisory Committee. The chair is Janis Karklins, who is also the liaison to the board. The usual practice for the GAC and their report is to read from the communique. Janis, the GAC report? >>JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you, Peter. The Government Advisory Committee met in Seoul but it was not in the hotel lot. That was in the place which you can now see on the screen. Now on a serious note, 58 members, including two remotely, three observers, and one invited country, Russia, participated in the meeting. One minister and one deputy minister took part in the deliberations of the GAC this time. The Governmental Advisory Committee expresses warm thanks to Korean Internet Security Agency and Korean Communication Commission for hosting the meeting in Seoul and ICANN for supporting the GAC meeting. On IDN ccTLDs, Mr. Chairman, the GAC takes note on the latest version of the draft implementation plan prepared by ICANN staff and welcomes the progress made towards resolving a number of outstanding issues raised by the GAC in previous meetings. The GAC also appreciates the briefings provided by ICANN staff, both during and before the meeting in Seoul. The GAC welcomes the confirmation provided by ICANN staff that the delegation of IDN ccTLDs will not be contingent upon any agreement between ICANN and IDN ccTLD operator regarding the payment of fees for processing the application or annual cost contribution fees; and discussion on reaching agreement on fees from ICANN will, if necessary, continue after delegation of TLD. The GAC also notes that the possibility of allowing a single- character ccTLDs and treatment of their variants are still two issues that have to be resolved. And I would encourage ICANN to resolve those issues as a matter of urgency. The GAC intended to adopt principles on IDN ccTLDs but has been asked by members of the ccNSO to delay adoption to allow time for ccNSO to offer comments. The draft principles are attached to this communique, and you can read the full communique text you can read on the GAC Web site. The GAC invites the whole of the ICANN community to provide comments on the document ahead of the next meeting. The GAC intends to adopt the final version during the meeting in Nairobi. On new gTLDs, Mr. Chairman, the GAC provided ICANN with extensive comments on the draft applicant guidebook, Version 2, in its letter to the board dated the 18th of August. The GAC appreciates the reply provided by the chairman of the board on 22nd of September. Following the discussions in Seoul, however, both between GAC members and other stakeholders, the GAC feels that many of its concerns remain outstanding, related in particular to the need to take full account on the security, stability and resiliency issues including those identified in the recent root scaling reports. These concerns are the potential cumulative effects of the changes resulting from the introduction and implementation of DNSSEC, IDNs, new gTLDs and IPv6; the importance of future economic studies to improve the community's understanding of all the cost benefits and market impacts; the need for more effective protection of intellectual property rights; the ongoing discussion of the community regarding structural separation between registries and registrars, price caps and potential impact on competition in the DNS market; and the need to explore track differentiations between categories. The need to respect national public interest and sovereign rights regarding strings with geographic meaning and the need to assist developing countries which would otherwise be constrained by limited access to financial and technical resources. In the expectation that the new draft of applicant guidebook will be issued, the GAC does not intend to comment at this stage in detail on Version 3. The GAC, therefore, intends to provide more comprehensive comments to the board before the next meeting in Nairobi. On the Affirmation of Commitments, the GAC welcomes the Affirmation of Commitments as a positive step in the development and future of the DNS and its management. The GAC endorses the focus of the AoC on the commitments by ICANN to ensure that decisions made related to the global technical coordination of DNS are made in public interest. That is, there particular, that they are transparent and accountable to the global community, preserve the security, stability, and resiliency of the DNS, promote competition, consumer trust, the consumer choice in the DNS marketplace, and facilitate international participation in the DNS technical coordination. The GAC recognizes that it has a key role under the new agreement not least given the emphasis in the agreement on the need for ICANN in public interest, but also specifically in terms of GAC's role in the formation of the review teams. The GAC feels that the review process will be an important means to confirm these commitments are being met. The GAC also will be following the implementation of these commitments closely. GAC notes the very tight timetable for the first review process and looks forward to an early engagement in the discussion on the methodology. The GAC has had an initial exchange of views and has not yet come to any conclusion as of the format of the review teams or this methodology. The GAC will provide its views in due course. On the joint working group, Mr. Chairman, the joint working group held its first face-to-face meeting in Seoul. It reviewed and agreed on its terms of reference, which are attached to this communique. The members have begun to exchange on several of the issues and priorities for consideration by the joint working group, and the next face-to-face meeting will be held in Nairobi. We received the briefing from SSAC and RSSAC. The GAC welcomes the detailed briefing from SSAC and RSSAC and VeriSign on DNS, on the signing of the root, the root zone scalability study, and SSAC advisory on the problems associated with the user wildcards. However, GAC regrets that the assessment of the impact of changes on the root zone file was not made much earlier in the launch of initiatives, such as new gTLDs, IDNs, IPv6, and DNSSEC. This has regrettably created a high agree of uncertainty. Moreover, many stakeholders have already made significant investments in these initiatives. They have a legitimate right to expect a more predictable environment in which to make important investments and operational decisions, which is not helped by the current uncertainty. Also, the GAC received the briefings from representatives of law enforcement and -- on domain abuse by criminals. They provided a summary -- the summary of their due diligence recommendations for ICANN to adopt in accrediting registries and registrars which the GAC will consider. We equally adopted the work program for 2010. The GAC identified the following priorities for the next year: Implementation of Affirmation of Commitments, security, stability and resiliency of the DNS, the ICANN board joint working group on the review of the role of the GAC, follow-up to IDN ccTLD introduction under the fast track procedure and contribution to the IDN ccPDP. Introduction of new gTLDs and IPv4 deletion and deployment of IPv6. The work program is subject to review and will be adjusted as challenges arise. And finally, we had elections, and Mr. Jayantha Fernando from Sri Lanka was reelected to the position of the vice chair. Ms. Maimouna Diop Diagne from Senegal and Ms. Heather Dryden from Canada were elected to the position of vice chairs. The decision is effective from the end of the first meeting of 2010. The GAC thanks Mr. Bertrand de la Chapelle from France and Ms. Manal Ismail from Egypt for their service in the capacity of vice chairs and for their outstanding contributions to the work of the GAC. And finally, the GAC warmly thanks all those inside and outside the ICANN community who have helped and also contributed to a dialogue with the GAC in Seoul. That brings me to the end of the report. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much, Janis. A detailed report covering many issues as usual. [Applause] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: And my congratulations to the elected officers. We move from the Government Advisory Committee to the GNSO. Avri Doria is the outgoing chair of that, and is done, but I assume that the report is going to be given by the newly elected chair, Chuck Gomes. Chuck, congratulations once more on your recent election. We look forward to your first report in that capacity. [Applause] >>CHUCK GOMES: Thank you very much. We had a lot of meetings this week, starting Saturday morning and running through yesterday. We had the inaugural meetings of each of the two new houses in the GNSO Council, the noncontracted party house and the contracted party house. That was Saturday morning. We had a lot of working sessions. GNSO improvement committee, their work is ongoing. Various work teams, several PDP working teams -- policy development process working teams and drafting teams -- meeting from Saturday through various times this week. We also had an extensive, although brief, new gTLD DAG 3 question- and-answer session on Sunday. We had a joint GNSO/GAC meeting on Sunday as well, as we usually do. And the GNSO board meeting on Sunday night, along with staff. We also had a joint GNSO/ccNSO meeting. Some of the key accomplishments this week, as Roberto said earlier, we seated the new bicameral council on Wednesday. We approved a subset of the council operating procedures needed to operate under the new council. We elected a council chair and two vice chairs. The vice chairs are Olga Cavalli and Stéphane Van Gelder. One of the things that were -- that happened just prior to this meeting or within a few weeks prior to that, two RFPs were posted for the first of several WHOIS studies that are being considered. We formed and then held the kickoff meeting for a review team with regard to the board request regarding two gTLD rights protection mechanisms for new TLDs. That group met for the first time yesterday, and is off and running. It remains to be seen whether they can achieve the very short time frame, but they are -- that is their goal. And then yesterday we initiated a work prioritization task that will hopefully be concluded in the next month or a little bit more than that, depending on how long it takes us, because the GNSO has a huge amount of work on its plate. I want to give special thanks to Avri Doria, the outgoing chair. She served as chair for two years, and did an admirable job, and so I compliment her and thank her for her hard work. She was the Nominating Committee for even longer than that, on the GNSO Council. I also want to thank the outgoing councillors: Cyril Chua, from the intellectual property constituency; Ute Decker, from the same constituency; Tony Harris and Tony Holmes from the Internet service providers and connectivity providers constituency; Carlos Souza from the noncommercial users constituency; Maggie Mansourkia from the ISPs; Greg Ruth from the ISPs; and Philip Sheppard from the commercial and business users constituency. For those that have been around a little bit for -- in ICANN, some of those names have been serving in the GNSO for most of ICANN's history, and they will certainly be missed. I want to welcome new councillors: Rafik Dammak from the noncommercial users constituency: Debra Hughes from the noncommercial users constituency: Andrei Kolesnikov, who is the NomCom appointee sitting in a nonvoting seat on the council -- and just in response to Tricia, I personally have been delighted with Andrei as a member of our team and I think he'll be very constructive and a lot of fun to work with; Rosemary Sinclair, from the noncommercial stakeholder group, appointed by the board; David Taylor, from the commercial stakeholder group; Wolf-Ulrich Knoben from the noncontracted party house; and Jaime Wagner, also from the noncontracted party house. The latter two being part of the ISPs. Thank you -- for those who departed, but also welcome to those who have joined us, and I think we all really look forward to working with them and they're off to a great start. I also want to thank the -- all the GNSO participants. Not just those on the council, but there were dozens and dozens of people who contributed to the work this week. I want to, in addition, thank all members of the ICANN community that contributed to our work this week. I certainly want to thank the board for their support and cooperation. A lot of change is happening right now, and they've been very helpful there. And not included on this slide, certainly I need to thank staff. The GNSO benefits from a fabulous team of staff that support us, not the least of which is Glen de Saint Gery, our Secretariat, but all of the policy staff. I won't name each one, but they're invaluable to the work that we do. And of course want to thank the Korean hosts of this meeting who made all of this happen. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much, Chuck. Look forward to -- [Applause] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: -- many more reports to you in your new capacity. And again my congratulations. We come then to the root server advisory committee and the report comes in this instance from Suzanne Woolf, who is the liaison from the RSSAC to the board. Suzanne. >>SUZANNE WOOLF: Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everybody. And I will keep this very brief and sort of in hopes that I'm storing time for next time, because we'll probably need a little more time then. But as pretty much everybody is aware, the Root-Server System Advisory Committee advises the board and the community on technical -- on the technical and operational side of the generation and distribution of the DNS root zone. The principal work item for RSSAC right now is the question of the technical implications of scaling the root. Many of you have been in sessions this week that touched on this topic, but just to keep it short, in February as various policy processes converged on what looks to be a more comprehensive set of changes to the root zone than we have yet seen in many years, the board asked the RSSAC and our colleagues on the Security and Stability Advisory Committee to prepare some advice on the implications of perhaps large-scale changes, perhaps in a relatively short period of time. A steering group of volunteers from both committees was formed, and put together a terms of reference for a study. A consulting team was hired to undertake the initial work, provide some preliminary results, and advise on next steps. The result to date -- and I have to apologize, I've been talking to a lot of people this week so I'm losing my voice. The result to date is the root scaling report that many of you have read. There have been a lot of presentations and discussions this week that touched on it. The report itself was posted publicly at the beginning of September. The RSSAC is deliberating specific advice to deliver, which will be the main topic of our meeting in conjunction with the IETF in Hiroshima, Japan, on November 8th. The other item I expect to get some attention on the at that meeting is next steps on the review of RSSAC delivered earlier this we're E. year. The board working group on that review presented the status of the review at the RSSAC meeting in Stockholm earlier this summer and volunteers were requested to take part in determining next steps on that, so that work hopefully will also have some activity to report soon. I do want to say that the request for advice on root scaling is, by far, the most important thing on our plate. It's been a big topic of discussion here, a fair amount of debate, some very thoughtful contributions. I'd like to thank the folks at the meeting who have taken the time to provide thoughtful questions and input, such that we'll be able to frame advice that will be responsive and useful to the community. So stay tuned for further results and thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Suzanne and we will certainly stay tuned to this one. And the last of the standing committees is the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, and the report comes from Steve Crocker. Steve. >>STEVE CROCKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We -- SSAC typically runs two open meetings at each ICANN week-long series of meetings, one on primary SSAC activities and another on domain name security protocol, DNSSEC, which is a topic that is large enough and extensive and long-running, so it runs along a separate track. Next slide, please. At the open meeting, we presented results on DNS redirection. We touched briefly on the root scaling study which Suzanne has described at length. There was, of course, also a separate public session on the root scaling study. We presented New York on orphaned name servers, had some discussion about gTLD registry continuity, and internationalized registration data. This year, for the first time in our seven-plus-year existence, SSAC held a retreat. SSAC is a somewhat peculiar part of ICANN, in that it consists of expert volunteers in various aspects of security and the technical aspects of domain name operation, the addressing system, and security technology in its own right and there is no natural time or place when the whole committee comes together. Some fraction of the committee gravitates going to IETF meetings, some members gravitate coming to ICANN meetings, usually because they have other activities here, but we're now -- we now have expanded to a couple dozen, maybe three dozen, people, and for the very first time we held a formal retreat in Washington, D.C., last month, toward the end of last month, and had very high attendance, and it was an extremely productive and also helped transition SSAC from its looser organization that it had been to a somewhat tighter and more closely functioning organization that we're moving toward. In that respect, I also want to mention that the external and internal review processes that are part of the bylaw-mandated review of every component of ICANN, is nearing completion. This week there was a report from the board's working group comparing the recommendations from the external reviewer and the recommendations that we had prepared internally, and reconciling all of those and putting forth an integrated set of recommendations. From my perspective, I've been sensitive to the -- for the need for SSAC to evolve from the very loose organization that was created seven-plus years ago, eight -- almost eight years ago now, to one that has become a bit more formal and now has a track record, and so we've been incrementally making those kinds of changes and trying to align with the external review process. So I'm quite excited about the -- it's pure bureaucracy on the one hand and, on the other hand, I think we're -- they're moving toward a more smoothly functioning machine, if you will. Next slide, please. DNSSEC, which has been ongoing for several years, was considered as kind of arcane and complicated technology a few years ago, with relatively-difficult-to-get attention. In the past couple of years, it's become front and center. One of the unexpected accidents along the way was the work of Dan Kaminsky finding a bug that had -- in a sense had been known for a long time but he found a new way to exploit it, and in the process, highlighted the need for this technology. That has caused a rather sharp shift in the attention and forward progress along many fronts. We've made a practice of highlighting the developments for the top level domain operators, as well as activity at the root, and here you see on the slide presentations from several different countries and other organizations and the next time I give this report, I'll show you a map and progress along the way. The pace is quickening. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll bring this to a close and available for questions. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Steve. A full set of activities. In the interest of time, we'll move on. We come now to the last of the board committee chairs. I moved that down too far on the list when I shifted things around for the IANA one. We come back then to the public participation committee, which as I described in the opening part of the session, one of the newer, more important committees, in that it deals with the fundamental role of the public and the necessity to have their input to the ICANN processes. That's ably chaired by Jean-Jacques Subrenat, to whom I now turn to the report. >>JEAN-JACQUES SUBRENAT: Thank you, Peter. I'm not sure this was done by purpose, but I think it's quite interesting to have a report by this committee after all the others, because after all, all this is about public participation. So next slide, please. Although we won't dwell on any of these slides at length, I do want to look at this one and say thank you, simply, to the members of the committee, but all those who are not on the slide. That's the staff support and especially Kieren. More about him later, no doubt, so I won't dwell on that. Next slide, please. This is the work we've done since Sydney, and next slide, please. So one of our first topics was to take care of the document publication operational policy. Why? Simply because from all the feedback we got over the years from you, this was really one of the sticking points. It was clear that we had aggravated you by not bringing out the text in time, so now there's a standard formula, and the chair pointed out earlier that this is now in practice. There is a 15-working-day cutoff date for the production of documents. I do realize that there is still improvement to be done, especially regarding translations of those texts, but we're on the way and this is a first step. Next slide, please. We also have, in this publication policy, a guideline on using, as far as possible, plain language, explaining jargon when it's really necessary to produce it, and also on translation and presentations, and I'd like to inform you that we do have a policy of asking staff to report regularly on the results of all these improvements. That's the whole point. Next slide, please. So remote participation. I think this is of great interest to all of us, but even more to those who are attending this meeting at a distance, who are not here physically in Seoul, and it is for them but potentially for all of us to -- we are not the ones who are making these instruments, obviously, but we have to make the proper selection and provide them, because not everyone has the best broadband connectivity, not everyone has the best equipment available. So I think this is really a very important aspect of public participation. Next slide, please. Public session, Seoul. This is the fourth public session we've been holding a few days ago, and we had an opportunity to run through the whole gamut of the topics which we found were interesting. By the way, we found them interesting because of you. You signaled to us which were the points you found interesting, and we tried to respond to that. A final note, if I may, of context. Actually, all this is quite important, because it cuts across, through many of the activities of ICANN, and relating with our community of which we are only the -- some representatives. The other point I'd like to make is a figure some of you know but maybe not all of you. It's that in these international public meetings, actually there's a good third of first attendants, so one of the challenges is to bring the utmost we can to them each time, and of course with the hope that, where physically possible, some of them may come back. Next slide. Well, thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Jean-Jacques and thank you for leading the work of the PBC. Now, I'm in your hands to a certain extent. We're now 40 minutes late. We have a board meeting scheduled to start and we have people that are ready to fly out. Are there any -- but I'm prepared to have a few minutes of questions, if there are burning questions from people, particularly that we've not heard from, and particularly -- [Laughter] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: -- particularly if there are other -- not other mechanisms. Are there any, other than Monsieur de la Chapelle. Are there any other people wanting to ask a question? Frank? >>FRANK FOWLIE: (Speaker is off microphone). >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I certainly do. It's not on my list. Thank you for the reminder. I've just reminded that I haven't called on the ombudsman for his report and I apologize for that. Frank, the ombudsman's report. >>FRANK FOWLIE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two days from now will mark the fifth anniversary of my being appointed to the office of the ombudsman, so this is the fifth annual report of the office. It's available outside, and I'd encourage people to pick up a copy of it. There is a prepared text. It's under the public forum label or link for -- for the meeting, but I just wanted to take you through a couple of numbers. Since the office began five years ago, there have been 2,425 complaints or contacts made to the office. 247 of which were in the jurisdiction established in the bylaws which means it's act a, decision, or inaction by the board, staff, or supporting organizations. There have been 12 formal reports filed in accordance with bylaw 5 to the board, with a total of 39 recommendations for action by the organization. There are presently no files in backlog. The ombudsman has been in travel status for a total of 693 days in five years. The annual report is published in six languages, and complaints have been received from 71 different countries over a five-year period. Last night, the latest report was filed with the board, and an abridged copy was put on the ombudsman's Web site. And that's my report and I'm leaving the stage and I will table a copy of the fifth annual report with the secretariat. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you very much, Mr. Ombudsman. [Applause] >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Appreciate that. We now have the opportunity for questions. Are there anybody -- is there anybody other than Bertrand who wants to ask a question? If not, Bertrand, go ahead. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: My name is Bertrand de la Chapelle. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you very much, but I would like, if you can, that you make a distinction between the commitment of stakeholders and abuse of procedure. I hope that my comments I consider constructive, and that your remark was not a way to imply that I'm abusing the process. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: No need apologizing for that. The issue really is to make sure that everybody gets a chance -- >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: I fully agree. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: And I was making -- I very much value your contribution and I welcome it today. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: And in order to contribute to the speed, my comment was going to be only one sentence. I just wanted, first of all, to thank the SIC for the excellent session that took place the other day and I hope all the comments will be fully integrated and to encourage the SIC and the board in general in designing the accountability framework for this organization, to consider the distinction between two words: "Public comment" and "cross-community interaction." The public comment mechanism function pretty well can be improved. There is not enough tools for cross-community interaction. Thank you. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Bertrand. Go ahead. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Adrian Kinderis. My question is to Janis on his report, if I may. I note that in your report and on the GAC communique that's recently been posted to the GNSO Council list, your last two lines are "In the expectation that a new draft of the applicant guidebook will be issued, the GAC does not intend to comment at this stage at detail of version 3. The GAC therefore, intends to provide a comprehensive" -- sorry -- "to provide more comprehensive comments to the board before the next meeting in Nairobi." Therefore, I'm reading into that to say that the GAC's assumption, clearly, that we will not see anything locked down and, potentially, your ability to comment prior to Nairobi. I say "locked down" with respect to the applicant guidebook. >>JANIS KARKLINS: May I answer? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Yes. I'm sorry. I was waiting for you to respond. >>JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you, Adrian, for the question. There are a number of requests which have been made by the board to the GNSO Council. And the -- a timetable of response, they are -- they are later than the comment period ends for the DAG3. And we would like to see what is the GNSO Council responds to those questions which have been asked by the board and take them into account in our further comments on the new gTLDs. So that's the only reason why we will not do report -- or commenting on DAG3 in the time -- framework which is asked. But we will be waiting further inputs from the GNSO. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Thanks. That's helpful. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Mr. Foody. >>PAUL FOODY: Good morning, gentlemen. I'm sorry I was a bit late. But I was just watching CNN, which this morning is carrying quite a long article on the introduction of IDNs. Given that that is going to put pressure on you guys to introduce the IDNs, it's inevitable that there is going to be some changes. So, given that I spoke yesterday in Korean and that the Hangul script has been identified by UNESCO as a scientific treasure, I believe that the dot com registry is a similar international treasure. And, in order to preserve that to that the best possible ability, would the board please give very serious thought to the introduction, as a matter of urgency, of dot xxx so that all pornography and nonfamily-appropriate content can be taken off dot com? >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I'm sorry, Mr. Foody. I'm not sure you appreciate that these are questions in relations to the reports which have been given. You seem to be raising a matter which is unrelated to any report. >>PAUL FOODY: I apologize. >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm sorry we haven't allowed time for more questions in the day. We'll make sure to deal with that next time. I'm going to call a halt now. And the board has on stage for nearly 2 1/2 hours. We'll resume for the board meeting at 11:00. So back at 11:00. Thank you. [Break] >> Ladies and gentlemen, we have a member of ICANN, attendee, who has lost their BlackBerry. If any of you find it or have picked one up, we would appreciate it greatly if you could bring it to the control table. Again, a BlackBerry has been lost. And we all know that's our lives. So, if you could be so kind as to bring it back, we'd appreciate it.