[pdp-pcceg-feb06] Revised draft minutes pdp-pcceg-feb06 teleconference 29 March 2006

["GNSO.SECRETARIAT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[To: pdp-pcceg-feb06[at]gnso.icann.org]

Dear All,

Please find the revised draft minutes of the first task force meeting
held in Wellington on 29 March 2006.
If you would like any further changes made, please let me know.

The next proposed meeting date is Tuesday 6 June 2006 at 11:00 LA,
14:00 EST,  18:00 UTC, 20:00 CET. Dail-in details will be sent later.

All Council members who are not task force members are on the
pdp-pcceg-feb06 mailing list as observers.

Thank you.
Kind regards,
Glen
.....................................................................

PDP-Feb06 Taskforce on Policies for Contractual Conditions: Existing TLDs

29 March 2006

Proposed agenda and documents

Task force members
Maureen Cubberley - Task Force Chair - Nominating Committee appointee
Philip Sheppard - CBUC -appointed by constituency 13 March 2006
Marilyn Cade - CBUC- appointed by constituency 13 March 2006
Grant Forsyth - CBUC - appointed by constituency 13 March 2006
Mike Roberts - remote participation - CBUC - appointed by constituency
13 March 2006
Greg Ruth - ISCPC - appointed by constituency 10 March 2006 (lead person)
Antonio Harris - ISCPC
Tony Holmes - ISCPC
Jon Nevett - Registrars (Network Solutions)
Jeff Eckhaus - Registrars (Registrar .com)
Ross Rader - Registrars
Ken Stubbs - gTLD registries
David Maher - gTLD registries (PIR)
Cary Karp - remote participation - gTLD registries
Ute Decker - remote participation - Intellectual Property Interests C
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C.
Milton Mueller - remote participation - NCUC
Mawaki Chango - remote participation - NCUC
Sophia Bekele - Nominating Committee appointee
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

Bruce Tonkin - GNSO Council member, observer


ICANN Staff
John Jeffrey - General Counsel
Daniel Halloran Deputy General Counsel
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination
Maria Farrell - ICANN GNSO Policy Support Officer
Liz Williams - Senior Policy Counselor
Glen de Saint Géry - GNSO Secretariat


GNSO Council Liaisons
Bret Fausett - ALAC Liaison


Absent:
Paula Breuning - NCUC
Lucy Nichols - Intellectual Property Interests C - apologies

BACKGROUND MATERIALS:

Issues Report
Terms of Reference

Taskforce Guidelines which will guide the work of the group.

1. Introduction of Taskforce Members and Statements of Interest
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/gtld-policies/statements-of-interest-pdp-feb06-apr.html.

Jon Nevett and Marilyn Cade withdrew their nominations.

Maureen Cubberley, nominated by Lucy Nichols and seconded by Cary Karp
was unanimously elected by all present including the votes of Ute
Decker, Mawaki Chango and Milton Mueller who participated remotely.

Decision 1: Maureen Cubberley elected as task force chair


Liz Williams, Staff Manager, handed over the chair to Maureen Cubberley

Maureen Cubberley asked for a motion to approve the agenda.

Marilyn Cade requested that item 4 be discussed in detail and items that
arose should be added to AOB

Philip Sheppard, seconded by Jon Nevett moved for the adoption of the
agenda.
Agenda unanimously adopted

Decision 2: Agenda adopted

3. Confirmation of Task Force Charter (please refer to the Terms of
Reference)

If, at the end of the public comment period on 30 April 2006, there were
substantive comments, they would be discussed, incorporated into the
report and would be brought back to the task force.

Ken Stubbs seconded by Ross Rader moved that the Terms of Reference, as
previously posted, be adopted as the Task Force Charter.

Context

The GNSO initiated a policy development process in December 2005
[PDP-Dec05] to develop policy around whether to introduce new gTLDs, and
if so, determine the selection criteria, allocation methods, and
contractual conditions.

During 2005, ICANN commenced a process of revising the .net and .com
agreements. There has been substantial discussion amongst members of the
GNSO community around both the recently signed .net agreement (dated 29
June 2005), and the proposed .com agreements (dated 24 October 2005 and
29 January 2006). As a result, the GNSO Council recognized that issues
such as renewal could be considered as part of the broader issue of
contractual conditions for existing gTLDs, and that it may be more
appropriate to have policies that apply to gTLDs generally on some of
the matters raised by GNSO members, rather than be treated as matters to
negotiate on a contract by contract basis.

Subsequently on the 17 January 2006, GNSO Council requested that the
ICANN staff produce an issues report "related to the dot COM proposed
agreement in relation to the various views that have been expressed by
the constituencies." This issues report is available at:

http://www.gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg01951.html
.
Section D of this issues report provides a discussion of many of the
issues that had been raised by the GNSO community in response to the
proposed revisions to the .com agreement. In the issues report the ICANN
General Counsel advised that it would not be appropriate to consider a
policy development process that specifically targets the .com registry
agreement.

At its meeting on 6 February 2006, members of the GNSO Council clarified
that the intention of the request for the issues report was to seek an
issues report on the topic of the broader policy issues that relate to
the contractual conditions of gTLD agreements, which have been
identified from the various views expressed by the GNSO constituencies
on the proposed .com agreement.

At its meeting on 6 February 2006 the GNSO Council recognised that while
the PDP initiated in December 2005 [PDP-Dec05] included within its terms
of reference the topic of contractual conditions, a possible outcome of
that PDP would be that there should be no additional gTLDs, and thus the
Council could not depend on this PDP to address the issues raised by the
GNSO community.

Thus at its meeting on 6 February 2006, the GNSO Council, by a
super-majority decision, decided to initiate a separate PDP [PDP-Feb06]
to look at specific areas of contractual conditions of existing gTLDs.

The work of PDP-Feb06 will naturally be conducted within the context of
the work on PDP-Dec05, and if it is decided that new gTLDS should be
introduced, the policy work of PDP-Feb06 will be incorporated into a
single gTLD policy.


Goal

The overall goal of this PDP therefore is to determine what policies are
appropriate, for the long term future of gTLDs within the context of
ICANN's mission and core values, that relate to the issues identified in
the specific terms of reference below.


Terms of Reference

1. Registry agreement renewal

1a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding renewal, and
if so, what the elements of that policy should be.

1b. Recognizing that not all existing registry agreements share the same
Rights of Renewal, use the findings from above to determine whether or
not these conditions should be standardized across all future agreements.


2. Relationship between registry agreements and consensus policies

2a. Examine whether consensus policy limitations in registry agreements
are appropriate and how these limitations should be determined.

2b. Examine whether the delegation of certain policy making
responsibility to sponsored TLD operators is appropriate, and if so,
what if any changes are needed.


3. Policy for price controls for registry services

3a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy regarding price
controls, and if so, what the elements of that policy should be. (note
examples of price controls include price caps, and the same pricing for
all registrars)

3b. Examine objective measures (cost calculation method, cost elements,
reasonable profit margin) for approving an application for a price
increase when a price cap exists.


4. ICANN fees

4a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding registry
fees to ICANN, and if so, what the elements of that policy should be.

4b. Determine how ICANN's public budgeting process should relate to the
negotiation of ICANN fees.

5. Uses of registry data

Registry data is available to the registry as a consequence of registry
operation. Examples of registry data could include information on domain
name registrants, information in domain name records, and traffic
data associated with providing the DNS resolution services associated
with the registry.

5a Examine whether or not there should be a policy regarding the use of
registry data for purposes other than for which it was collected, and if
so, what the elements of that policy should be.

5b. Determine whether any policy is necessary to ensure
non-discriminatory access to registry data that is made available to
third parties.

6. Investments in development and infrastructure

6a. Examine whether or not there should be a policy guiding investments
in development and infrastructure, and if so, what the elements of that
policy should be.

The Task Force Charter was unanimously adopted.

Decision 3: The Terms of Reference, as previously posted, be adopted as
the Task Force Charter.


4. Agreement on the task force timeline and work program

After discussion at the initial meeting, the following timeline was agreed.

10 March 2006 - Appointment of Task force Representatives and
notification of representatives to Secretariat

7 March 2006 – 30 April 2006 -- Public comment period

29 March 2006 – Task force Charter confirmed

29 March 2006 – Task force timeline agreed

30 April 2006 – Constituency statements due, public comment period closes.

26 May 2006 – Preliminary Initial Report released

9 June 2006 – Task force meeting to discuss Initial Report

16 June 2006 – Updated Initial Report released to GNSO Council for
discussion at Marrakech meeting

(24-30 June 2006) – ICANN meeting Marrakech – TF meeting within ICANN
meeting schedule

mid July – release Task Force Report for public comment

Further dates need to be agreed.

John Jeffrey, General Counsel remarked that there were different
considerations with regard to the policy development process (pdp)
timelines not being met. One was that all previous pdps, including
successful ones, had not followed the timelines and had been accepted as
policy direction from the GNSO and ccNSO.thus creating a precedent for
accepting policy that had been created outside the stipulated
timelines.The board was considering how to deal with activities that
were not in compliance with the bylaws.

A formal request was made for input on better technology to support task
force meetings.


The ICANN bylaws section 3 (2) make provision for :

2. Outside Advisors. The task force, should it deem it appropriate or
helpful, may solicit the opinions of outside advisors, experts, or other
members of the public, in addition to those of constituency members.
Such opinions should be set forth in a report prepared by such outside
advisors, and (i) clearly labeled as coming from outside advisors; (ii)
accompanied by a detailed statement of the advisors' (A) qualifications
and relevant experience; and (B) potential conflicts of interest. These
reports should be submitted in a formal statement to the task force
chair within thirty-five (35) calendar days after initiation of the PDP.

There was general agreement that expert advice be solicited through a
"call for papers" similar to the process that was implemented in Call
for Papers -- Policy Development for Introduction of New gTLDs and that
the Staff Manager would draft the invitation to submit papers.

A three part consultation process to solicit input was agreed upon:
- Constituency statements
- Public input through the open public comment period
- Expert input through written submissions from the "call for papers".

There was general agreement that there should be broader discussion on
prioritisation.

5. Next meeting

Friday 9 June 2006 new PDP-Feb06 task force call (time to be decided)

Avri Doria proposed a motion of adjournment

Maureen Cubberley adjourned the meeting and thanked present and remote
participants.

Meeting adjourned at 9.45 local time.



--
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org