[soac-newgtldapsup-wg] MEETING NOTES - JAS WG Meeting August 9

[Wendy Profit <wendy.profit@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear JAS WG participants:
In follow up to today's call, please find below the meeting notes I took.  With 
regard to the comments on consensus, and for the benefit of anyone who missed 
today's call, I will additionally extract them from the transcript when it 
becomes available and forward that section specifically to the WG in the name 
of accurate accounting for what was said on the call (as my notes may be an 
incomplete reflection though I tried to capture as much as possible).  And if 
anyone does not agree with the consensus statements, the process moving forward 
would be to respond to the forthcoming consensus comments from the transcript 
with any concerns or disagreement of consensus status, in which case we will 
change to non-consensus or one of the other appropriate categories.
I hope this accurately characterizes what was said on the call today; and 
please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thank you,
Wendy Profit
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
JAS WG Meeting Notes
9 August, 2011
p. 17-19 on the final report, or look in the notes section.  Floor is open.  
Alan.
RE important dates listed in Adobe, some discussion of Olivier writing to the 
GNSO asking if they could be more flexible on dates.  Any action on that?
Olivier yes emailed Stephen van Gelder cc Rafik, Rafik will have to make the 
formal request whether we could replace or delay the GNSO meeting and have some 
sort of webinar to counsel GNSO members.  It would shorten the amount of time 
it would take for them to read it.  Will follow up after this call.
GNSO if it was delivered to September meeting they wouldn't vote on it until 
October anyway.
Means we're going to have to rush to have it by end of august and then have to 
sit for a month and wait for a reaction.
Would you like me to inquire again so as not to rush JAS into something that 
will sit on a shelf.
Yes, a conversation as email hasn't proven to be effective.
Look at the fee reductions portion of the report as it is now, full consensus 
for waiving the program development cost, full consensus that we are demanding 
review of the base costs, and on lower registrar fees.
Fee should be reduced to 40k without giving background info.  Would it be 
considerable for us to put in some kind of wording, we support the 
recommendation and want to effect as in the GAC ALAC statement, rather than 
review the cost basin and give specific amounts.  Say we agree to reduce fees 
and without giving dollar amount.
Rather than say how much say we want to reduce it.
The fee shall be or the fee shall be no higher than.... Do we demand we only 
charge them x if they say they can afford more.  Likely to be a finite amount.
Don't agree with that if there's an ability to reduce the fee...
All I'm saying at the last meeting there was a feeling of no less or no higher 
than...
One I think there's a distinction between last week and this GAX ALAC reduced 
fee to 47, in terms of requirement for aid we're only saying it's not necessary 
to say they can only pay this much, they can pay more if they can.  Not sure if 
there's complete coincidence between the people this program serves and the 
people designated by GAC.  Specific country designations versus slightly wider 
group of developing economies, indigenous people.   To what Evan said...was the 
inclusion of some form of the contribution ...why they can afford to do it.
Just because someone can afford more doesn't mean they should be charged more. 
VeriSign can afford much more.
Need to explain to the board how they can reduce the fee without ...to the GNSO 
Directive.
The issue isn't that the recommendation is ...what we're going to do is explain 
here how it can be achieved.  Has to do with what makes them eligible as 
opposed to what they're getting.  What is the supposed support and not what 
meets the criteria.
How through waiving costs and reducing costs we're able to achieve the results 
in the GAC recommendation.  More detail as to the kind of cost reductions that 
can be done.
Support what Evan initially said, acknowledge the GAC ALAC recommendation, but 
attempting to provide suggestions on how to achieve the number.  May have a 
problem with what we understand the numbers to be. How to achieve the end as 
47, don't know enough about ICANN's internal budget in order to instruct the 
board and the staff on how to achieve the fee reductions.  Spending time on 
something that we can't actually do very well.  Avri please explain.
One of these cases where we'll be told we'll get more action from staff. No 
point in making an argument with staff and have them say no it can't be done 
that way.  If we end up differing completely we need to say that in the report. 
 Far more ahead otherwise if we can get their active involvement.
Think the staff has put out budget figures, true not a total breakdown but the 
staff has put out a lot of figures. Unless someone is going to disagree with 
the proposal I made, still make short term cash flow requirements and long 
term.  There is a proposal on the table...looking at the times when certain 
amount of money looking. Assuming the income that comes in from the 
applications and the proportionality of applications that we would predict, 
would love the staff to look at it but to say that we have no idea.  There is a 
proposal on the table and I don't think we should drop it.
Sorry, missing something, but recalling all said about cost reduction I want to 
ask what we expect to do on this one.  I don't think we can make any further 
progress, someone explain.
We have a proposal that Avri drew up, useful if staff tells us now if they 
agree, reject categorically or help us, don't want staff giving secret advice 
to the board.
Proposal from Avri but ...the working group members so.
If I can add it's been there for a long time.  I did get some request for 
clarification.  I totally ....staff support.  Agree I'd like feedback from 
board and staff on the practicality of it, not saying we need to do that before 
we put it in the report.  Appendix perhaps not mainstream of the document.  I 
personally think it will fly, only reason would be is for board or staff to say 
we don't want to do it that way. I haven't heard any reason why the funds I 
suggest becomes problematic.  Love feedback love to see it in our document 
footnoted as an addendum.
I think it can be in there, not just as an appendix or footnote, just need to 
show the level of ...of the working group.  Just to highlight the level of 
consensus among us, makes more sense.
I think we should put it in the main body of the report try to elicit the level 
of support for it. We can push to ask Kurt specifically, whether we can ask to 
have an answer from his side.  Also suggest we solicit opinions on Avri's 
suggestion.
I think we have agreement on that hearing no objections. I think we can move to 
a discussion about the proposed support.
Frankly tired of trying to read staff or board minds.
It's to our benefit to try and demonstrate how the fee reduction can be 
maintained as well as the GNSO recommendation about cost, especially since 
everyone knows what we have nice to wish for more info but we need to move on.
I oppose wording based on speculation of what reaction might be
Concept of staggered fee even if we don't feel the ....fee is accepted.  Long 
discussions about timing with respect to staggered fee, if we just tie down 
that there is full consensus on staggered fee.
Staggered fee..more how it would be proceeded.
Are they nearly as relevant if they are lowered to 47,000.  That algorithm 
doesn't make sense unless we say prorate, not nearly as big a need as when the 
number was 185,000.
Doesn't seem relevant as long as we have a reduction in fees, no longer a 
relevant issue.
Maybe say should fees not be reduced then staggering is mandatory.
I would prefer not to say that but that's just me.
We can keep that thought but clarify that it's conditional if there's no fee 
reduction.
We're here to indicate what the community wants, not outline a bargaining 
position.
Conditional to the fact that we have fee reduction if I understood correctly 
what Alan was saying, Evan do you have any rejection.
Clarifying question are we referring here to the proceeds from the auction in 
which the applicant which is supported and won, paid the auction the winning 
bid to whomever presumably ICANN, or are we speaking about proceeds to the 
auction generally and not specifically JAS qualified applicants.
I don't believe we ever talked about the notion - Not sure we covered the 
notion of how a JAS qualified applicant participates in an auction.  My 
suggestion this is something referred to where we speak about things that are 
yet to be form, a board committee on how auction fees should be used.  In 
support of our community, especially the JAS qualified applicant. This 
committee should, could, might look at.
In line with that, question, when we first when throughout this I got feeling 
from board members that original ...fundraising through auction subsidize fees 
that would not be lower, eligible applicants would have access to funds.  Now 
we're saying fee reduction could we change it to say ICANN could maintain 
auction proceeds in order to recover revenue loss from fee reductions.
Last week we said any money to do with fund were separate from revenue 
reduction but 2 as part of recommendation made on how ICANN can afford to 
reduce these fees is included using first portion of auction money to fill 
reserve fund that is borrowed against by having these applicants not pay it.
Not sure I followed the last part of what you said.  Whether we have hoping to 
get fee reduction ....need to recover additional resources including 
administrative costs.  Logical source of funding over the long term would be 
these auction proceeds. Or whether it's easy enough to cover the cost of the 
program. Shouldn't be walking away from that as a way to cover other costs of 
this program.
Auction money goes to fund administrators they decide the best use of them.  
Maybe someday registrar support program, whether it's helping people run IPv6, 
there are a thousand ways to help, that's what a fund administration does, 
decides what's a good choice or not.
I was simply suggesting in the answer to the cost-recovery question is that 
ICANN be entitled to retain auction funds to offset net losses encountered due 
to reduced-fee TLDs
There is an unanswered, even unasked policy question about qualified applicants 
as participants in auctions. if support begins and ends in the application fee 
reduction, then any application which is not a community based application (or 
brought by a party with a right to the name, such as a government other than 
central) is at a disadvantage to all non-qualified applicants in the same 
contentions et
Arrives at the moment - haven't dealt with the structure, any applicants that 
are disadvantage are still disadvantaged with the auction process.
I read this to mean it's a little more than legal support and I didn't think it 
was fully answered then.  You're in the list you're in the line you win, you 
get some support, but there might be other things involved, marketing those 
things, I don't know.
One possible choice is to change the allocation mechanism.  One is JAS 
qualified the other is not, if it goes to auction and there's no support we can 
assume any contention with a JAS qualified applicant will go to the non 
qualified applicant and all investment will be lost by JAS qualified applicant 
with exception of some refund mechanism. Alternative to change...lottery or 
coin toss, then there is no certainty that the JAS qualified applicant would 
get it.  Address the certainty of loss.
If there is contention...if you have some kind of
There's no certainty JAS qualified applicant will lose, to use the shoe 
example, likely to have two or more applications. All strings will go to non 
JAS qualified applicant unless we solve this problem.
What makes a string valuable if it's business oriented mostly exclude any kind 
of support for applicant of that string also highlight public interest, can we 
make exception or.
Issue Eric brings up is relevant not sure how we address it I thought we said 
definitively that we're only looking at applicants to be eligible if they are 
looking at non contentious tlds.  Problem is that we're looking at support 
prior to application then there's no way to guarantee there is no contention.  
Impossible to predict, I don't know how to answer but we need to address.
Defer to others more familiar with the Guidebook, community application 
automatically gets preference.  As far as I'm concerned happy to allow that to 
kick into place, most are trying to serve an underserved community language 
culture, not a conventional tld without the money to do it.  Confident most JAS 
qualified applicants will be based on attempts to serve communities, then if 
there's contention between community and non community application, if you have 
2 different community applications and one is JAS qualified, that may be a 
different question.  Think we can use what's already in the Guidebook dealing 
with it.
I think we do have to analyze and see what aspect of each step and provide some 
level of support even if it's minor and if contention exists.
If we have the 14 out of 16 part of our definition for qualified support then 
this question wouldn't arise, but we didn't, we made no reference or dependency 
on the 14 out of 16.  Overlooking that it's quite difficult, we did allow that 
there'd be other community based applicants, repeated reference throughout the 
WG outside the model of the community based application.  That's one problem, 
our requirement doesn't match with auctions or applicants that arrive at a 
contention status. What we need to know we can't know until it's too late.  
Also the evaluation of the community based application, we can't know in 
advance what would be useful to know what to do, so we have a class of 
applications that are qualified for support and will find themselves in a 
contention state, they will lose, what do we do?
Are we willing to live with that as an outcome if not then we need to address 
it?  Otherwise can we live with the outcome.
I see no reason why we can't raise it as a hanging question.  It's important 
and deserves to be highlighted as an important question, not one that we've 
been mandated but as one we've recognized as an issue to be debated in the 
wider ICANN community.  Don't think we'll come up with something clever by the 
deadline.  But something that has come up within the JAS WG. Not specific to 
what's in the current AG. Something we need to be aware of. Tried to keep 
applicant support very much to the entry to processing of an application, these 
questions take us past points of processing the application.
ICANN selected auction because it is a "fair" allocation mechanism for 
unsupported applicants. The issue is what is the "fair" allocation mechanism 
for unsupported AND supported applicants?
So we need a "there be dragons there" statement.
Could someone please explain the "there be dragons" comment?
Ancient mariners would create maps that say this area is unexplored because 
'there be dragons there'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_be_dragons
So no commercially attractive string can, under our proposed implementation of 
recommendation 20, be allocated to non-first-world commercial/speculative 
applicants. That is unfortunate.
Unless anyone disagrees:  We recognize there is risk, don't attempt a solution, 
just a clear mention of the issue.
Maybe someone will have a marvelous idea with how to address it, agree we 
should note it.  I don't think we have any choice but to note it and go on.
That is exactly what we need to state in the "here be dragons" statement. We 
may be making some light to relieve the tedium of the call but the issue is 
indeed serious. In absence of a creative solution in the timeframe we must 
simply flag it and indicate a willingness to address it.
Earlier on in the call Carlton ran down a list on the pages 17-19 of final 
draft report and made a set of we believe this is consensus.  Can I ask that 
that exact set of consensus goes to the list between now and the next call so 
that those not on the call can weigh in.  If we get some I'm not sure then we 
need to move from full consensus to one of the other categories.
The bc went out of its way to ensure that their applications (not meeting the 
jas recommended qualifications) will not compete with jas qualified 
applications, and their mechanism for non-compete is ensuring non-funding for 
jas qualified applicants. so they take this as a serious risk to their 
applications.
Surveymonkey, more comments can be more available which led to have some 
critics last time.
GNSO rules that you can't do full consensus on a call, then we can't deem it to 
be consensus.
How did the BC ensure non-funding for applicants? We have some BC members here 
(ie, Andrew) who are quite supportive. And -- as we discussed in this call -- 
not all qualified applicants are merely community applications.