[alac] GNSO Council Notes

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some notes from today's GNSO Council call:

- Bruce Tonkin was unanimously reelected as GNSO chair for another
  one-year term.

- For the WHOIS task forces, there were requests from the IPC,
  (implicitly) the registries, and us to have multiple persons on
  some or all task forces.  Marc Schneiders opposed this for the
  NCUC, on the grounds that this may create unfair opportunities
  for, say, IPC to dominate discussions.  The council adopted the
  approach that, on any given conference call, multiple persons may
  listen in for each constituency, but there should be a single
  representative representing the constituency's views on that call.
  
  I think we can live with this.
  
  Barbara Roseman will be the Staff Manager for these Task Forces;
  Denise Michel will take staff support functions.
  
  Amadeu Abril i Abril was added to Task Force 2 at his request.
  
  Task Force chairs will be determined as the task forces are
  constituted.  There seems to be a possibility to add external
  chairs.

- New registry services.  Not everyone had had a chance to actually
  read (or even digest) that report.  Barbara gave a brief summary.
  Christopher Wilkinson, as acting GAC liaison, pointed to
  experience that technical standards bodies may have with
  confidentiality issues similar to the ones ICANN may encounter in
  processing requests for registry changes.
  
  For the registries, Jordyn Buchanan spoke.  He had various issues
  with the report, that he perceived as being overly prescriptive.
  Most notably, issues mentioned included whether an a priori or a
  posteriori review should be conducted; he also noted that ICANN
  should not act as a regulatory body here, and raised the sponsored
  v. unsponsored issue.
  
  I asked whether the suggestion was to create a consensus policy or
  whether the GNSO is asked to design a process that will govern
  ICANN's activities if and when it is asked to review a proposal
  for changing the contract.

  The answer was that the latter is intended; the governing issue
  statement from the report is the following:
  
        The issue raised for consideration is the development of a
        policy to guide the establishment of a predictable procedure
        for ICANN's consideration of proposals by registry operators
        and sponsors for contractual approvals or amendments to
        allow changes in the architecture or operation of a TLD
        registry.

  (This clears up some of the questions and speculations from my
  note this morning.)
  
  There was then some discussion on how to handle the new registry
  service issue.  The issues report recommends that the council
  itself handle the PDP on this (no task force); there was some
  support for this by council members.  I'll have to figure out how
  this best mixes with our intentions about the task force; I'd just
  note that even in the event that I have to take care of this in my
  role as council liaison there'll be ample opportunity for others
  to work on ALAC's position on this.

  No decision was taken at this meeting.  The Council will vote on
  commencing policy development on new registry services at another
  call which is scheduled for December 2.  Until then, Bruce Tonkin
  will produce a short Terms of Reference draft for use by the
  council in developing the review process.  Barbara Roseman will be
  taking questions during this time, and will compile an FAQ.

Regards,
-- 
Thomas Roessler  <roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
At-Large Advisory Committee: http://alac.info/