*** Disclosure: The following is the output resulting from transcribing an audio file into a word/text document. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages and grammatical corrections. It is posted as an aid to the original audio file, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.*** JAS Working Group Proposal for Support for New Gtld Applicants from Developing Economies Thursday, 23 June 2011 ICANN Meeting - Singapore >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon. Good night to everyone. Thank you for joining us for this session. We're going to be talking about the joint applicant support work group and the work it's been doing and to give you some idea what the next steps are. With me is the cochair of the working group, Rafik Dammak. And we're supported on staff by Glen and with Carol and Seth and Matt and Gisella. So we do have significant staff support here. We would like to begin by giving you a little background. And we thought that we prepared a few slides that will kind of help you to put this meeting in context. Rafik and I will share the task of going through the information on the slides. And, thereafter, we're going to ask our colleague who has been very important to the work group, the work of the work group -- he's been one of the lead writers of the milestone report -- Evan Leibovitch to give an update, because there's some significant updates since the Singapore meeting which we think those members and those interested would love to hear about. And we'll leave Evan some time to update us all on what has happened since the meeting began here in Singapore. Then we will take questions, and we will together talk about what's going to happen next for the work group. So I'm going to lead off with the presentation. It's a canned presentation. If you're online, you'll see it in the Adobe Connect room. But, if you happen not to be online, if you go to the agenda page and click through the agenda item, at the bottom of the last page, you will see the presentation so you can get access to it. So what we're going to go through here on slides is up there as agenda, kind of outlines we're going to go through the data and the content of the slides. And I would go for the next slide. Got it. Next slide. Okay. The highlights. Why are we here? I mean, there's -- there's a frame, a process we got here back in 2008. There was a policy, a declaration that says ICANN must put in place a fee reduction scheme for gTLD applicants from economies classified by the U.N. as last developed. And then up to March 2011 there was board resolution number 20 from Nairobi meeting that, actually, gave some more precise definition of what that meant. And then, in February of this year, the GAC released a statement in which it explicitly recommended the free reduction for so-called needy applicants. The next slide is kind of give you a pictorial view of the timeline that we're talking about. Essentially, if you look at the top, you see all of the announcements, the public official announcements. And, since that time we've been working -- the work group has been working and having twice weekly conferences, telephone conferences. And a lot of work has been done by volunteers. I want to thank them publicly for their participation. It took a lot of time and effort from those members who participated in the teleconferences. It certainly was quite an effort. We got to the point where -- the next slide will show you the board resolution -- from the board resolutions to where we are. Right now most of you would have been -- look at the significant issue here is the request -- how do I say this? We had a situation where the GNSO and the ALAC, as chartering organizations, there was some differing views of how we would proceed. We had an extension for the charter. There were some issues associated with adding items, other work items to the charter. I'm saying this to let you know it has been a rocky road and to let you understand that, in fact, if we kept all the way to May, it has been a series of meetings and compromises. And what is significant in all of this is that there was at no time any faltering of the work group in terms of meeting its objectives. We came all the way now into June. And in June we produced the milestone report. And the milestone report had some questions that were asked for clarification from the GNSO. We provided those answers to the GNSO. And since that time now into the conference, into the Singapore conference, some significant developments have taken place at the Singapore conference. I'll now move on to Rafik to go to what's happening since then. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Carlton. Next slide, please. Don't think I'm going to read the whole statement. But the main part is that we show the support, this support from the ALAC to the work done by the JAS working group. And then the next slide. It's last motion made by the GNSO Council in regard to last report, the second milestone report produced by the working group. I think now we are going to more substantive part of the presentation. The next slide, please. Yeah. Okay. We are going to follow for the rest of the presentation the structure of our report, which is in five parts to explain why providing applicant support, when this support should be provided, and also who qualifies for the support and then what kind of support that the qualified applicants can get and how -- finally, how will the process work and the relation of that work to the gTLD applicant guidebook. Next. Next slide. As I said, the first part is when this support should be offered. And, clearly, it should be done in the first round and the next round, if there will be. We -- in the report we give some reason. So first -- and I think the most important -- that this new gTLD program should be inclusive and that, with every new gTLD application round, the market will become disadvantages to those applicants who are in underserved communities. And the third reason, there is no guarantee or indication that there will be a second round or whatever subsequent round. And, finally, that we think that there will be a quite a demand for new gTLD, so including IDN gTLDs. So on the next slide -- next slide, please. So here we are more describing who can qualify or is eligible for the support. So in this figure we can find five -- maybe five, not criteria, but description who can receive the support. So, first, an applicant that's sponsored by a nonprofit, civil society and non-governmental organization in a manner consistent with the organization's social service missions, but also support for the distinct cultural, linguistic, and ethnic communities. The third, service in an underserved language, the presence of which on the Internet has been limited. And also note we also think that we should give opportunity for those entrepreneur -- local entrepreneur who want to operate in the real constrained market, which make the normal business operations really difficult. And then also operating in an emerging market or nation in a manner that provides -- that we insist that provides social benefit. But before that it's really important that the applicant should show first a financial capability and need to be qualified to have a support and also show that it will service the public support, that it's really -- >>CARLTON SAMUELS: To the public interest. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Yeah, to the public interest. That's really important, I think, criteria. Okay. In the next slide it's more we -- it's not -- we, here, we're trying to give who -- next slide. Okay. so let's wait. Okay, let's wait. (No audio). >>CARLTON SAMUELS: For those out in cyberspace, we're having a slight technical problem here in the slides. But they can see it in Adobe. Okay. We'll continue. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you. In that slide we list which applicant shouldn't receive the support. The first is an application from a governmental or parastatal applicant. This is, as we say, subject to review because we have feedback from the GAC asking that they lack these abilities or local government. And also applications should receive support if they can be a needy applicant. We have also a TLD string explicitly based, and related to, a trademark. So we have some discussion, if we can call it in the dot brand TLD. And also that we -- a string based on a geographic names shouldn't receive support. And then that, if the applicant has sponsors or partners who are bankrupt or under bankruptcy protection, because we are asking that there is a need to show financial capability, sponsors or partners who are subject to litigation or criminal investigation. And, finally, those who cannot -- who are not able to meet any or to match any of those applicant guidebook due diligence procedures. The next slide, please. Okay, this one. Now, this slide is more about what benefits or what kind of support the applicants should receive. So we serve this in a different way. So first financial support/relief from ICANN like a cost reduction, staggered fees, and partial refund from any auction proceeds. I think from cost reduction we have this now with the last board resolution, resolution in Monday. Sorry. Okay. So we said there should be financial support from ICANN but also non- financial support or relief from ICANN. And also that should be -- we should ask maybe the members of the communities or those third parties to provide the support to those applicants and that this will be facilitated by the ICANN. So we can have a pool of collected resources and assistance and also directory and referral service only for those qualified applicants and also as, for example, as technical support and IPv6 support. Continuing on the financial support, we recommend that there should be a financial support distributed by an ICANN originated development fund. We still have a schedule how this should be operated. And, finally, the financial support distributed by external funding agency, maybe like World Bank or any other aid agency that wants to support a qualified applicant. Next slide, please. Okay. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: So how are we going to evaluate the evaluation process? And there's quite some concern in the community with respect to how that would impact the application guidebook processes. We anticipate it would be a parallel process and with little to no impact on the guidebook. There is also the sense that if an applicant, having received support, has success, then there is some measure, at least, for repayment of that support based on success. Next slide. So the next steps in the work group process. We have published the milestone report number 2. It's out for public comment. And then, from the public comments and inputs from the community, we intend to develop the final milestone report. And then we should place that report to the board through our for charter organizations for board consideration. Those who have been here in Singapore would have been privy to the board resolution on JAS. It's taken up definitely significant attention from the board. But a couple things that has come up, the board, as you know, had put in -- agreed to put in a $2 million fund, kind of seeding for a fund. They expect matching funds from external funders or contributors. The board and the CEO know that they have agreed that the gTLD process is now in high gear. And the work group, certainly, has the intent that applicant support should begin from the get-go from the start. The CEO has already iterated this strong interest of ICANN to get a finalized report from the work group to guide development of the joint applicant support processes. So we are under the gun. The intention is that the gTLD, new gTLD will be launched in next January 12th. So the next steps that we have placed up there, it puts the work group under significant pressure to complete its work sometime before the 12th of January. So this is the hard stop timeline that we're dealing with. And you see the rest of work that is required. Now, in moving forward with the work, there were some details that we feel that further exploration with members of the community would certainly help the group to kind of flesh out and evolve it further. And the work group, you know, has been keen to hear what the GAC has to say on this issue. And so we have been reaching out to the community for guidance to be incorporated in our next steps so that we can advance the work as quickly as possible. I am going to turn it over now to my colleague Evan Leibovitch who has been working on refining our report and making sure we cover all our bases. Evan. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Thank you very much, Carlton. First of all, I would like to say that we have interpretation between English, French and Spanish in this room. We still have it, and I welcome anybody here that needs it to please take advantage of that facility. I'll continue in English. [ Laughter ] >> No! [ Laughter ] >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: One other thing to get out of the way. Without diminishing the importance of the issue or the seariesness with which we treat it, this has been an extremely demanding task. There has been a small group of people here who you may notice by a slightly different accoutrement, and this has been the drafting team that has been working extremely long, doing extremely hard work in a compressed time frame. And what you see on our heads is a particularly effective method of stress relief. So I just want to take the opportunity to thank Andrew Mack, Cintra Sooknanan Dev Anand Teelucksingh, and Avri Doria who has joined us since in the drafting team that has done a particularly difficult job in an amazing amount time, and by far our job has not ended. I wanted to give a small update on an interaction between the ALAC and the GAC that has taken place as a result of the ALAC-GAC meeting that took place on Sunday in relating to JAS. Getting GAC involvement in this process has been a bit of a challenge simply in the way that the organization communicates and interacts with the rest of the community. And so as a result, a very small team was assembled of At-Large members as well as a number of members of -- GAC members. And as a result, some progress has been made. It is my understanding that there will be a JAS component of the GAC communique that will come out later today, and there is further work on GAC instructions to the JAS group. As one very specific example, I will make reference to something that has already been stated. In the criteria, the original criteria had disallowed applicant support for applications coming from governments. By the -- at least in agreement between the ALAC and GAC representatives on this team, there is going to be a suggestion to narrow that focus so that support is denied to applications coming from national governments, but would still be allowed from local, regional governments because their considerations are different. That is just one example. There are other recommendations in the works. They will be far more specific than the directions coming out of the communique. And as well, the call that Carlton put out about the need for more input is underlined. We have been asked to come out with a document either at the Dakar meeting or at least available by the time that the actual program rolls out, I believe in January. And we have, again, a very serious, difficult task of taking the rough information that was distributed in the Second Milestone Report and turning that into an input document of quality. We hope to be close to that of the Applicant Guidebook itself. We're hoping to get some staff resource, but we also need some continued volunteer effort to make that. And I'll end my comment now because the most important part of this meeting is getting feedback from the rest of this room. You've read the milestone report. Now we need to hear back. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Evan. May I remind you -- We are going to open it up for the record. May I remind you for the record we have a transcript. You just say your name as you start. We have Alan up first and then followed by Sebastien. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Okay. Alan Greenberg. Just a quick question for Evan. In relation to support for municipal governments and non-national governments, is there any restriction that you are looking forward to putting in that? There is an awful lot of very impoverished municipal governments throughout the developed world, and are we saying they are all eligible as well? >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Right now the way the criteria are worded in the milestone report, there are positive criteria; that is, things that you must -- criteria that you must meet, and then there are negative criteria, applicants that are disallowed because of some certain status. All that is being done is to remove the disallowance from municipal governments. If they otherwise meet the criteria of need as expressed in the other positive components of the criteria, this would not automatically disallow municipal governments, is what's being suggested. >>ALAN GREENBERG: So in other words, yes, we are opening it up to all of the municipal governments throughout the developed world. >> Can I speak to that? >>ALAN GREENBERG: Unless we specifically have some words. >>ANDREW MACK: I understand Alan's concern completely. The entire State of California, with their budget deficit, would fall nicely into the situation of need. I think that's something we haven't really addressed and we probably will need to right that. Obviously, the purpose of this is not to support the -- Sacramento or Hoboken in their efforts to get a new top level -- >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Can we have Sebastien and then Avri, please. >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you. Sebastien Bachollet for the record. First of all, I would like to thank the JAS group participant. It was a tremendous effort, and work done since the beginning of this working group. Some, as Evan has underlined, more active or more righter than the other, but I guess all deserve to be thanked. What I wanted to add, I think it's very interesting and important that there is discussion with ALAC, GNSO, and the GAC. Like that, we will not wait for the advice of the GAC at the end of the process, but include the input at the beginning. And the meeting between ALAC and GAC must be also seen as a good sign of the health of this organization. When it needs to be -- change its practice, it's done by the bottom-up process, and that's very good. I have a question about the timeline now, because from my recollection of what the board ask, it was to have a final report prior to Dakar, to be able after to have an implementation -- work to deliver an implementation phase and to be able to work as soon as possible prior to the launch of the application phase. Because if this working group is, at the same time, trying to figure out what is the best criteria and at the same time starting the work of the implementation -- and, frankly, the implementation must be the job of the staff, even if it's under discussion with working group and with the GNSO and with ALAC -- it's two different things. And my preference is, and I hope that it was the suggestion of the board, is to have the report prior to Dakar to implement that. One point who must be important in the discussion about the expense is that when we will have to review the applications, it will be -- it will be need people, money, time. And part of this job will not have to be redone during the formal process for all the application. Then we have also to see how part of the job done once is not redone a second time in the general process, because if we analyze the application for needy applicants to be sure that they are needy applicants and they fulfill the criteria, some of them will be useful in the next part of the analyze of the application. And I want to be sure we are on the same page, and I'm not saying that I am right, but I would like to be sure that both ALAC, GNSO, GAC, eventually board, staff, and the working group are on the same page, what are the next step and who deliver which steps. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Sebastien. I'm going to turn to Evan, and then I'll say something, and then, Avri, you have the floor. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Sorry. Just a very quick answer, Sebastien, regarding -- first of all regarding the timeline. We are going to be making very, very specific requests of staff to get the kind of support we need do the work that you say is required. In terms of also there is an explicit attempt not to redo work that already exists in the Applicant Guidebook. It exists. We can refer to it wherever possible. So if there are tests and evaluations being done that are already being mentioned in the Applicant Guidebook, we would not be restarting that. We would always be referring to existing work going on, and only be adding new things where they're required to assess the needs. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you. Avri. >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Sorry, it's a follow-up. It's the reverse. I agree that you will take tha into account. My point was when there will be evaluation, they will be done for determining if the needy applicant is fulfilling all the obligation, but then it must not be done again. You see, it's a reverse of what you say. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Can I just jump in here? Can I just jump in here? We were developing a work flow for -- that harmonize the JAS applicant processes as well as the Applicant Guidebook process. And I think we are struggling to see how we harmonize it, but we are very aware of that and that has been up on the board for us. Avri has been waiting for a while. Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I am actually going back to the national and para-statal clause. I just want to point out that there was, as is so often the case in groups that I am in, there was at least one objection of discomfort with moving forward in that and various issues. So I'm glad to see that there's other concern and that there's still need to discuss exactly how those kinds of changes would go in, and even to the extent to which they would go in. Thanks. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Avri. We have a list. Tony. Might I remind the folks behind me, if you just want to be up, just indicate by tapping me on the shoulder, and I'll put you on the list. So I have Tony, Wolf, and then Mohammed. >>TONY HARRIS: Good morning, my name is Tony Harris. I am a member of this group, although I have admittedly been absent for the last couple of months. I apologize. I have been working on a project out of the office. We had a meeting on Tuesday of the ISPCP constituency and reviewed the Second Milestone Report. There was one thing which interested us, as a constituency I'm talking now, and that was a mention of not requiring the applicants that are subject to this program to implement IPv6. That was a little surprising because, first of all, you may not have a choice because IPv4 addressing blocks are not all that abundant and they are slowly running out. And the second thing is, why would it concern a needy applicant registry? That is something which is the concern of the carrier or the Internet Service Provider who at some point would providing connectivity to the registry and/or the back office. And eventually it could also scale back to a concern of the back-office provider. But we fail to see -- to understand how it would affect the actual applicant, the needy applicant. At least on a technical basis. On a cost consideration, for example, in Latin America, you can obtain IP address -- IPv6 address blocks at no cost at all. It is considered for the foreseeable future to be experimental and necessary. And LACNIC is not charging for these blocks at this time. So we just -- I thought I would put this comment on the table since you are going to write the final report. It might be something worth revisiting because it doesn't seem to make much sense. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Tony. Can I ask Eric Brunner Williams, who is a member of the team, to respond to that. Eric, you have the floor. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Tony, the requirement is in the Applicant Guidebook. It's a policy requirement which is independent of any particular constituency, or their views on the subject. It's something that's come out of GNSO consensus policy. Our recommendation is that it -- that the requirement is capable of being deferred because v6 is simply not available in parts of the world. Additionally, under ARIN 124, v4 addresses are reserved for critical infrastructure. We expect this proposal to be adopted also by RIPE and APNIC. Registries are a critical infrastructure, and so as we get to the exhaustion portion of the v4 allocation regime, these critical infrastructure elements are reserved -- have access to the reserved pool of v4 addresses. So I hope that makes sense out of it; that is, there are -- v6 is actually not pervasively available. We do not want the requirement to limit registries from being located in portions of the world where v6 is not available. And v4 capability -- v4 allocations are still available for critical infrastructure under the exhaustion regimes of at least one, if not more, of the RIRs. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Tony. >>TONY HARRIS: I just want to thank Eric for the response and I will relay it back to the constituency. Thank you very much for the clarification. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Something just to follow? >>AVRI DORIA: On that topic I really wanted to say two things. One is the IPv6 requirement, to the best of my knowledges not something that came out of GNSO policy. That perhaps came out of some other policy, but I don't believe that was ever part of the GNSO policy on these. The other thing is there's been some discussion of perhaps a way of saying if this is important to the RIRs that there be v6 connectivity, that they basically guarantee the connectivity for anyone that would need it in any of the regions where it's not currently available. So if there's a real problem with taking that requirement out, perhaps something can be discussed in terms of way of providing it. But I really wanted to say it was not a GNSO requirement to the best of my knowledge. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Bill Woodcock is here from ARIN, and he would like to make an intervention. >>BILL WOODCOCK: Just very quickly, Avri, there is no chance at all of the Regional Internet Registries purchasing transit for other people. The Regional Internet Registries are pro IPv6 deployment, but they do so through the sort of the policy process not through financial subsidies to specific recipients. So the best you're going to see from registries is what you are seeing in the LACNIC region and in AfriNIC, which is no cost IPv6 for some ongoing period. ARIN and I believe RIPE and APNIC had that policy during early test phase and have gradually phased it out. So ARIN is, I think, in the fourth year of a five-year phase-out of IPv6 subsidy. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Okay. Can I now go to Wolf. You are next on the list. >>WOLF-ULRICH KNOBEN: Thank you. My name is Wolf-Ulrich Knoben, and I am a member of the GNSO Council and with the ISPCP constituency as well. I am one of the council members who put questions on this report to you. Can you hear me? Sorry. And I thank you very much that you came back with replies to those questions. I have to comment just in addition to what Tony Harris was saying. I was also seeing, and we had during this discussion in our constituency the point that you are asking for -- the report is asking for some waivers in technical sense. The one with regards to IPv6 and the other one with DNSSEC. Maybe there are others. I just would like to tell you that we are -- will come back with those issues with regard during the comment period, public comment period, and looking especially in particular to the point whether any security reliability items are touched in this respect. So I wouldn't like to point out the specifics right now, but we would like to come back with that. That's one point. The other point is I would like to come back to some -- to what George Sadowsky was pointing out during his speech on Monday with regards to the question of funding. You -- the ICANN is going to open up this bottle for funding right now a little bit, and you came back just right now with comments from GAC, which would mean to open the bottle more and more. And this is really the fear what George was having at that time, and personally, I do have that fear as well. If you start right now to open that bottle more and more, you will end up really in a massive discussion how to manage that what you would lake to do and how to come to an end. So I really would like to stress that point and would like to ask you to discuss this very deeply and very diligently. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Wolf. Next up, Mohammed. >>MOHAMMED DIOP: My name is Mohammed Diop. I am from Senegal, and I am also from the registrar constituency. Also been part in the registry for AfriNIC. So my concern is, first, I want to congratulate the JAS committee for the tremendous amount of work and achievement they have done. Seriously, for an environment like ICANN where it is very difficult to talk about cost reduction and, like, financial support from other constituencies, it's something that I really have to say thank you guys for this achievement. I just want us to point out one thing in the developing country market space. We all are talking about new gTLD applicants. And, seriously, even if you are talking about vertical integration between registry/registrar, I just want to raise one fundamental point in our market is nothing would happen in the developing country if the registrar business is not addressed in term of facilities. And I want to be clear. Whatever we can have at the gTLD level, all what we're trying to set up in the GNSO policy, like all the protection, all the protection apply, for registrant, all the mechanism we want to put in place. If in the market we have four, five, six level of resellers who have no contract bind with anybody, what going to happen is all that we are trying to do will be useless because at the end the registrant is not protected. The market will be just like a soup and no rules can be applied correctly. So for me, what the JAS have achieved as a commitment from ICANN to see the developing market in another perspective is if you don't help develop registrars by the same time you are allowing new gTLD applicants, at the end of the day, even if you have new gTLD with their ticket to operate in the market, nothing would happen. And it's really something that we need to address. And I think that at the ends of the day, what we really want to achieve as a JAS working group is our effort will be efficient for the developing country community. And the model we have developed for several years is a registry/registrar model. Even if we are going through integration. But integration in developing country between registries and registrars makes sense. I mean, it's a long history. They are all in the same market. In Africa, we have four registrars only accredited by ICANN. Imagine for 900 million people, we're talking about four actors you get in front of the consumers. So how are you going to achieve protection if you know that the registrar who are operating in the African market will not operate directly but go through four, five level, six level channels. And at the end, the price goes up. At the end, nothing would happen efficiently. So I just want really to take that as part of an extension, of an extension of the working group committee to try to have this cost reduction fee and this encouragement to generate more registrar by helping them get more initiative in the continent. Please put that as an extention of your mandate. It will really help achieve what we want to do in the developing countries. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Eric Brunner Williams has indicated he wants to respond to this specifically, and then move to Alan. Thank you. >>ERIC BRUNNER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mohammed, thank you very much. I thought there was three in Africa. To know that there is four, that's a modest improvement. I think there's only six in Latin America. The absence of registrars in developing countries is a critical lack in expanding the registry/registrar model. So your point is extremely well taken. Thank you very much. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Eric. Alan, you are next. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Three quick points. On the issue of something Sebastien said, which I don't think we've discussed at all, we're talking about a program to evaluate and provide funding or some sort of benefit to needy applicants. Implementing that program is going to cost money, and we've never discussed the issue of who funds it. That $2 million, if it really exists, could all be eaten up in the administration of the program and nothing left to give out afterwards. I think we need to consider it. It's not something we can decide on today. That's number one. Opening it up to municipalities and other types of potential applicants, I have argued for a long time that as much as we want to help people, on this first go-round we probably need to select a smaller subset of those we help because whatever amount of money is available from donors, from ICANN, from whatever, it's going to be a finite amount. And the more potential applicants you have, the less each you are going to get. So somehow, it's a zero-sum game, and we have to remember that as we're trying to be helpful to people. The last thing is regarding registrars. The issue has been raised a number of times, and generally, the answer is but we've allowed vertical integration; therefore, the registry can be their own registrar. And that's nice. But if you as a registrant are used to buying your domains from a certain vendor and they don't carry it, that registry is going to have an awful hard time surviving if they are the only vendor of their own domains. So I think the problem is going to -- deserves far more attention than it's gotten to date. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you Carlos, you are next and then I have George and then Avri. >>CARLOS DIONISIO AGUIRRE: Thank you, Carlton. Carlos Aguirre, GNSO appointee by NomCom. JAS Working Group worked a lot, very hard during one year, more than one year. I actively participate til December when I was -- accept the charge in GNSO. I want to express only wish. After Monday board resolution, times became very short. I think we have times to definition, we need push to arrive before than late. A lot of needy applicant support are very anxious. I have the possibility to talk with many of theirs, and needy applicants are needed also some specific information like cost reduction, what kind of relief, and of course definitions. I feel working group have no doubts. I can say more than that. Working group have certainties. So, again, we must go forward following the process in order to give what needy applicants are asking to us, as soon as possible. And wait, of course, ICANN board have receive the input of society, definitely resolve what needy applicants are need. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Carlos. Move to George Sadowsky. George? >>GEORGE SADOWSKY: Thank you. I want to support Mohammed's intervention very strongly. We need local registrars very badly. And an interesting example of this is provided by the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. In 2008 a British travel agent was advertising -- and I think he was even living in Spain -- was advertising trips for British citizens. The Web site was in Spain. And the U.S Department of Homeland Security, either by accident or because there was reference to Cuba, found out about this. And the travel agent was registered with the U.S. registrar. There was a takedown put into effect. The Web site was unavailable. Six months later the mistake was corrected, and the business was totally ruined. If you don't have registrars in these countries, you're implicitly blocking -- how do I put it? You're implicitly not -- giving control of your Internet -- of your Web sites in that country to, essentially, foreign agents. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Okay. Thank you, George. We have a queue. But I think Evan wanted to respond to that. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: George, your point is extremely well-taken. My only question -- and it, actually, goes back to the original one as well -- is a matter of scope. The JAS working group -- no, I'm saying if this is something we need to deal with, it was not in the charter, neither was how do we pay for this. If these are things we need to consider, that's great. I don't want to harp on formalities and procedures -- well, it's not my thing. Others, I'm sure, will take that up. But there is also the issue that we haven't dealt with them if only because we haven't been charged with dealing with this. If this is something that needs to be part of our scope, we need to be told that. We need to be told that really quickly. >>GEORGE SADOWSKY: I think you need to decide it, not to be told. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Okay. Thank you. We have in the queue Avri, then Chuck, Andrew, Sebastien, and Katim. So Avri. >>AVRI DORIA: First thing is I don't see why it's not in our scope. Because no one specifically mentioned what things we can and can't sort of make recommendations on as are needed. I think the notion of needing registrars is -- it is important. I go back, though, to some of the earlier discussions we had where, for example, requirements like the IPv6 mean that we may be able to get registries in developing economies, but they'll have to use registry service providers in regions that have the IPv6. So, as important as getting registrars in the developing economies, is either getting full service registries or registry service providers in those economies so that everything doesn't have to go back to the incumbent north. And, while it's good that we could possibly get IPv6 addresses in some of these regions, you still won't have access for IPv6. And how many registry service providers do we have in developing economies? I think it was none. I wouldn't want to swear to none, but I think maybe there are others in the ccTLD area that could provide registry service and such. And on the registrar, while that may be a solution, that is one that costs more money. So it's -- for a northern boutique registry that may not get a registrar, it's certainly an excellent solution. But it's yet another thing that we would need to help provide funding with. And I do believe that would be in scope. But it's yet another thing that needs support. Thank you. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Avri. I think on this same topic a comment from Mohammed and then Katim. >>MOHAMMED DIOP: Thank you, chairman. Just to see these two points of view. The -- if you look at the new mandate of the JAS as helping new gTLD applicant in developing country, if you take into account vertical integration, you have two situations. In one situation the new gTLD applicant will have both function of registry and registrar because he will say, okay, it is inside my business model and I will develop it. And in that case the support that the working group is giving to that applicant is in the scope of your initial mandate. On the second side, if you look at the whole market of the new gTLD, if you were thinking about sustainability of their business, because we're not trying to push for this to happen and then bankrupt just immediately after, if there is no gTLD and that is the case, I fully agree with Avri that there is no gTLD in developing country right now. If new gTLD happens to exist and they have no registrar to serve in the region, it's just like them asking to start the boutique without any distribution chain. That is really in both cases bring us the -- inside the mandate of, when we support, we want to support application that will survive and then serve the whole community. So I think that it's not -- for me it's very easy to talk about that component even if we know that vertical integration is not a necessity but it's open window for everybody who wants to do it. But in the African developing market and other developing market, I don't think it's going to be the role because they need more people involved in the whole process. And the whole ICANN community is strong because of their supporting organization. And the fact that we don't have any registrar communities, strong in developing country, will not help us achieve our goal to serve the community. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Mohammed. I think we still have questions. But Chuck, please. >>CHUCK GOMES: Thank you. Chuck Gomes,speaking mostly from my personal capacity. Maybe later I'll speak from a registry perspective. This isn't why I raised my hand, but I want to respond to the issue of scope. It's a real easy issue to deal with. Avri may be right that it may be included. But, if there's doubts, ask the two chartering organizations. And, while you're doing that, ask can we -- is it appropriate to add this if it needs to be added? That's always an option in working groups from a GNSO perspective. I suspect it's not too much difference in the ALAC. So don't let that be a hindrance. Just ask. The first thing I wanted to say was, just before this session here, I was having a conversation with Dennis Jennings. And it so happened that the JAS working group came up. And I just want to encourage you to reach out to Dennis with regard to how the funds, whatever funds they may be, the two million plus, et cetera, are handled and who handles them. I won't try to repeat Dennis' comments that he shared with me. But I found them very, very useful in that regard and -- because I don't think I would do it justice, I encourage you to reach out to him with some thoughts he has. Because I think that's a fundamental issue. Questions like should ICANN be the handler of those funds or should some independent entity, et cetera. I won't belabor that. But please reach out to Dennis and get his input. I think it is very, very useful. And I'll stop there and come back to some other issues later. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Chuck. So we have in the queue Katim. Yes. We have you, Sebastien. Katim, Andrew. Katim, please go ahead. >>KATIM TOURAY: You know, I'd be happy to -- Rafik, thanks. I'd be happy to yield to Sebastien if he was already in the queue. No, no, that's okay. Go ahead. >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET: Thank you. I want to be a little bit disagree and maybe provocative here. I think there's already a lot on the table to do. And the objective is to help needy applicant. So the question of the registrar in developing country is a real, real, real issue. And I don't think it must be added in a working group because -- in this working group, specifically, because the question of the registrar will come -- needs to come in a broader level but needs to come after the -- how we will support the needy applicant. Because the registrar is eventually just one part of answer of each of the applicants. And then we will not solve that, generally. My second point is that I love this discussion about new registrars. I hope that you will raise your hand saying that why the hell ICANN increase the cost to become a registrar? I was one of the only ones who say we don't need to do that because, in the developing country, it will be more expensive. And it's not just the only cost, but ICANN just decides to go to add the cost. I don't remember the figures, but to increase the cost to become a registrar. And except this part could be something to say, if a registrar in a developing country arrived today, with this program we need to have the cost back to what it was before this -- during this fiscal year and not next year. And, Chuck, great that Dennis has ideas. I know about members who have ideas. Always, always, I try to tell them there is a working group. You need to come to the working group. It's not the working group we need to come to everybody in this community who have something to say. They need to come to the working group and to say whether what they want to say, and they need to participate in the work. At least they make a call, they come for five minutes or whatever. If not, I don't know how this working group can do that. It's too much work. Thank you. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Sebastien. We have Katim, Andrew, Eric. And also we have a remote participation question. So I just want to remind everybody to make really short answers because we have just 15 minutes left in the -- in this workshop. So, Katim, please go ahead. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thanks, Rafik. And thanks to all of you for the wonderful and fantastic work are you doing. It's very important work. We certainly are looking forward to the report that you're producing at the end of your work. I'd like to comment very briefly on the idea of, you know, taking on board the issue of providing support for registrars and registries into the work that you are doing. I think it's a very exciting and a very enticing idea, but I think it could also potentially be very distracting. Especially exciting and enticing because of the fact that, as Mohammed has mentioned, the -- what's it called again? -- the relaxation of the cross regulation of rules has made this possible and a logical issue to consider in terms of the JAS working group report. However, what I'd like to see done or what I think would probably be a much more effective start would be to really focus on the core mission of this group, which is applicant support in this round of new gTLD applications and then the further issue of support for the issue of getting more registrars from developing countries and registries to a much broader discussion on the role of or the relationships between ICANN and the developing countries. Just very briefly to mention that yesterday we had a meeting on -- the preparatory meeting to talk about having a possibly proposed idea of having a summit in Dakar on ICANN and developing countries. What came out of it was that, rather than having a summit in Dakar, we ended up setting up a small working group to refine a concept paper which we'll share and then, hopefully, be used to build a stronger partnership in the community and then use Dakar as a meeting to discuss ways and means we can, you know, go forward with -- in terms of organizing the proposed summit. So yeah, I think, you know, again, the issue of registry -- the number of registries in the developing world is very important. Chuck might remember -- I think it must have happened at a GNSO Council meeting we must have had in Mexico City or something, they were lamenting the lack of very few number, if any, of registries and registrars that came from the developing world. And I told him that the reason you are here yourselves is because you have a stake in the processes that are being -- issues that are being discussed here. And that, if we had more registries and registrars in the developing world, they would pay for themselves to get here. In fact, they would not need to get sponsorship from ICANN. So there's, clearly, an incredible need and reason to have registries and registrars in the developing countries. And I think the issue now is really how do we go about it? And, finally, regarding the issue of -- and just to add my voice to what Sebastien was saying, regarding the issue of what to do about the management of the funds for supporting applicants from developing countries, I'm 100% behind the suggestion that I think it's going to be distracting for the JAS working group to go around talking to -- meeting every single Tom, Dick, and Harry. I think, as long as we have the word out there that this is what we're are doing, that anyone who wants to join you is more than welcome to, I think that would be perfect for me. Of course, you have your own -- what's it called again? You have rights to determine how you work. But my suggestion is that, you know, have people come to you, man. Thanks. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Katim. We're moving very quickly now, folks. We're almost down to the wire. Andrew. >>ANDREW MACK: Katim brings it up, and I think this is an underlying issue is money when it comes down to it. The more we're trying to do, the more money it's going to cost. The $2 million that's on the table is something to start with and certainly something that we can use to try to attract other funds. But $2 million isn't going to get us very far, realistically. So one of the questions I have for this group is do we want to -- with due respect and appreciation for some seed money, do we want to get up at the open mic and say hey, good start but not nearly enough, number one? And number 2, relating to Chuck's point, if ICANN is going to put up a small piece of this and we're going to be going to other donors, we're going to have to expect that those other donors are going to want their role in managing this, their practices and procedures, things like that. So I think, with all due respect to ICANN staff and their expertise, you put up most of the money, you get most of the say. And $2 million isn't going to get that done. The last piece of it is that we've discussed this on some of the calls, and I think it's extremely important. Sustainability has two pieces to it. One is funding for things that need funding. The other one is a policy locked into place of price reductions. And we want -- I think we want to go make sure that publicly we don't give people the impression that signing a check for $2 million, ICANN is done. Thanks. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Andrew. Can we now have the online question. Matt is helping us here. Matt, thank you. >>MATT ASHTIANI: Hi there. Matt Ashtiani, for the record. This question comes from Dwi Elfrida. She asks, "What will happen if investors from developed countries register or propose a new gTLD in a developing country in order to receive a price discount? Are there any actions or proposals to handle this possibility?" >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Yes, there is. Short answer, this was considered within the realm of gaming. And we're trying to look to see what we can do to keep that to a minimum. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Chuck, you have the floor, sir. >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah, I wanted to follow up on a couple points that were made. First of all, going back to the need for registrars in the developing world, I fully understand why this group doesn't want to take too much more on. But I'd also point out that, if you defer that, it's a pretty good lead time for registrars to come up to speed. So, if there's some way of at least acknowledging that need from this group and maybe other members of the community can jump in and fill that, I wouldn't just put it off until you finish everything else. Because, when you do that, the time to actually get registrars up and running will be too late. With regard to expecting people to be in your meeting in order to take their input, I would hope you wouldn't do that. All of us have lots of conflicts. And, in Dennis' case, he had another meeting at this time. It wasn't because he couldn't be here or didn't want to be here. I'm often in that situation myself. So please don't not reach out -- refuse to reach out to people who have good ideas, because your work product will be much better if you do that. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Chuck. Just to mention that we also have a Wiki space that is up there and available in cyberspace. We have two teleconferences every week, Tuesdays and Fridays. So there are lots of opportunities to interact and to interface with us from where we are. We do accept, though, that we will bend over backwards to reach out if there is something substantial to add value to what we're doing. Eric, you have the floor, sir. >>ERIC BRUNNER-WILLIAMS: Thank you. Eric Brunner-Williams for the transcript. I'd like to respond to the statements of the three members of the board who spoke recently -- George, Sebastien, and, of course, Katim. Our scope is not just the application fee; that is, our action doesn't end on the day that the application window closes and checks are sent in. Continuity support is part of the total cost, part of the total need for supporting applicants. And that's actually looking several years into the future and to the problem of failure or at least the avoidance of failure and the management of the cost to prevent failure or in anticipation of failure. We have a goal of -- well, in having the idea of registries not necessarily riding on the existing North American and European registry services providers, our goal is really that the wholesale margin stays within the developing economies. If we don't do anything about the registrars knowing that almost all of the registrars are located in developing economies, then we know that at least five out of six registrar margin dollars is going to exit developing economies and go to developed economies. That is not sustainable in the market. And that points directly to the issue of continuity, failure, and sustainability. So we also want the retail margin to remain in developing economies, as Mohammed Diop originally suggested. Thank you very much. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you. We have Alan and then Jaime. >>ALAN GREENBERG: I have one last comment before I run out on registrar issues. I think the onus is on us to mention that it is a critical issue. We don't have to propose the solution. We don't have to spend a lot of time working on it. It doesn't have to divert us. But I think it's critical that in our report we raise the issue, although what Chuck says is correct. There is a time lag in getting them up to speed. The deadline is not the same. That is, we don't have to have it all put in place and implemented by December of this year. So there's a little bit more slack, but we need to raise a red flag. Thank you. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Alan. We have Jaime. >>JAIME WAGNER: Thank you. Jaime Wagner. I'm with ISP constituency, and I'm with GNSO Council. I would like to echo those considerations made by Mohammed claiming for the working group to add a consideration for support for registrars in developing economies. Due to the reasonable consideration made by Sebastien that this would add to an already full agenda and that it's information -- his information that the fees have been recently raised for registrars, I would like to recommend that the group put up a specific recommendation to lower these fees for the developing economies. The only consideration to be made was to -- for these registrars to operate in this dual region and not to sell abroad and in -- for the registrars, don't go -- develop economy. Go there to market. Thank you. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you, Jaime. So we don't have anybody in the queue. Any further comment? I'm not sure about the people behind me. Okay. So we have five minutes left in this workshop. We'll be happy to have more feedback now. Otherwise, I will defer to my colleague, Carlton, maybe to make a final statement. And I think to just -- I want to remind people that we have an open public comment about the second milestone report. We have good feedback today, but it would be good to have more comment. Thank you. Yeah. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Rafik. Yes, I want to echo the comments here. Certainly, the two comments that have come up, we know that the issue of whether or not the JAS support is extended to governments and entities is still outstanding. We've heard that this is still not settled, and we surely would love to see comments on the record. It certainly would help us. The issue of registrars in developing economy and impact on that -- of that on continuity. And, certainly, as Eric Brunner-Williams points out, the sustainable issue. And, of course, the more strategic issue, which is to say we're trying to develop economies in underdeveloped economies. So, whatever we would do to keep dollars in those economies would certainly help the sustainability of the infrastructure that we're trying to get in there. That is significant. And, Mohammed, thank you so much for bringing that to the table here in such a direct manner. You're being from the registry constituency is significant in that respect. The work of the JAS group continues, as you would figure out. We have until Dakar to finalize a report. Because, between Dakar and 12th January, we really expect to be working with the staff on implementation issues. Now, this is not going to be a one-off situation. So we are imploring all of you to have this matter at heart and would like to help, please make your comments on the public comment periods for the JAS, second JAS milestone report. It's out, it's available for comment. We will be closely monitoring those comments. Your comments will be helpful to us in terms of how we schedule the next piece of work to finalization of the report. It is important for you to understand that where there is input, if you can't put it on the Wiki, we have two teleconferences weekly, Tuesdays and Wednesdays 1300 UTC. >>Tuesday and Friday. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Tuesday and Friday, 1300 UTC. We will always welcome all of you. These are public meetings. And every one of those meetings are recorded publicly. So please remember that in our business everything is transparent and public and open. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Carlton, I'm sorry, but I think you're not going to have the last word. We have a line of questions. You want to comment? >> This is just a very small comment about the registrars. You know, we have a registrar implementation model, which is 11 years old, 12 years old, which has been created at the time when needs were different, essentially, was created for the purpose of ICANN's own stability. It had nothing to do with achieving the penetration of the market and unfair distribution. Nowadays we have to think in terms of the general registrar model of new solutions and also address the inefficiencies of the current model with respect to other problems where we have been looking now. We will, actually, have an opportunity of taking this case here of providing a good model that would then be copied elsewhere. And what I would think of would be, essentially, the accredited reseller, which will be accredited by the registries themselves, which would take responsibility under, of course, a framework provided by ICANN. But the responsibility would be taken by the reseller for those registrars, credit by themselves, which would achieve faster penetration than even African company or even Asian company or even European companies have to go to a U.S. evaluation where people don't understand what the business is about. >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Thank you very much. The online question, Matt, please. >>MATT ASHTIANI: Thank you. This is Matt Ashtiani, for the record. This question comes from Faisal Hasan from the ISOC Bangladesh Dhaka chapter. He asks if a group of developing countries apply for a common gTLD together, will that be considered? For example, if the South Asian countries come up with dot South Asia, will they get any preference? >>CARLTON SAMUELS: That's a tough one. I doubt if we can answer that here. But, if you follow -- the question could follow on the Web site, then probably we would put something there in due course. Evan probably has something else to say. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: The way we've handle it is the unit of measurement is the application. So, whether the application is coming from a single entity or cooperative behind a number of entities, that's less relevant. And it's the application itself that gets measured against the criteria. I would also note that in the specific example, something like South Asia, one of the things in the criteria said that applications for geographically -- for geographic names of strings was one of the exclusions. So that particular string would probably not be eligible under the current criteria, based on what's already been laid down. But, in terms of collaboration on an application, that's certainly within the realm of what can be done. It's the application as a unit that gets measured against the criteria. So who's behind it is just part of that measurement. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Cintra, you have the very last comment. >>CINTRA SOOKNANAN: Thank you very much, Carlton. I just want to mention that this is one of the areas we're are working with the GAC on. And, certainly, they are assisting us in fleshing out the extent of support that we should lend to developing countries. Thank you. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Well, I think we're at the time. So I want to thank all of you for participating in this session. We certainly have helped some of us in understanding more of the needs. And, on behalf of my cochair Rafik Dammak as well as the members of the JAS work group, I want to thank you profusely for all the help and support. I also want to recognize support of the staff, Carol, and Glen, and Matt, and Seth, to make this and Gisella, of course, to make this meeting successful. Thank you all. We're ended here. [Applause] >>RAFIK DAMMAK: Please stop the recording.