Third report on Tunisia

[KathrynKL at AOL.COM]

All:
I am now home safe and sound from Tunisia, and will share with you this final
report.
You have already received a GNSO Council report from Chon.  Milton attended
by phone and Chon was there in person, and Gabriel sent his proxy to Chon, so
we were well-represented.  Chon was articulate in calling for some final
revisions to the language of the Task Force descriptions -- which he received.

Milton's vision of a task force to review the data elements of the WHOIS
record (a record 21 years old and badly in need of revisiting) was achieved.  Task
Force 2 was accepted by the Names Council, and now the right questions can be
asked, including what do we need from a domain name registrant and who should
have access to the information?  The GNSO Council, as you know, also created
Task Force 1 (bulk access to WHOIS data for marketing and other purposes), and
Task Force 3 (whether WHOIS data should be more accurate, and if so, how to
do it).

And sigh, all three Task Forces will run in parallel at the same time.  So we
will need everyone's help -- for information gathering, responding to
questions, editing, etc.  If you are particularly interested in one or more task
forces, please let us know.

After the Council meeting, things were a bit quieter.  At the ICANN Public
Forum, an all-day meeting that takes place in front of the ICANN Board to
discuss issues (and in which the ICANN Board is generally quiet), the key
controversy was over new sponsored TLDs, and opposition to ICANN's decision not to offer
any this year.  The next day, the Board reversed its decision and decided to
go ahead with  a "limited" offering.  .TRAVEL and .MOBILE will be first in
line.

The last day, Friday, was the ICANN Board.  This is the day in which the
audience listens and the Board talks. But the new Board did little talking.  Vint
Cerf did the vast majority of work: reading resolutions, calling for votes,
getting everything passed quickly.  Vint was reelected for another term as
Chair; and Alejandro Pisanty, participating by phone from Mexico, was reelected as
Vice-Chair.

I was impressed by one Board member in particular, Mohammed Diop from
Senegal.  He talked with me privately and the Board and audience publicly about the
tremendous need for top level domains in many languages ("IDNs").  He is very
concerned about delays here, and thinks that the barriers to creating IDNs are
not too high.  I would very much appreciate your insight on this issue --
should NCUC be working hard on IDN issues?

Overall, though, the Board members (new and old) were pretty quiet.  Here is
the link to their names and biographies
(http://www.icann.org/general/abouticann.htm).  If you happen to know them, please let us know.  These individuals
hold a great deal of power in ICANN, and as we continue to talk about issues of
such importance --  personal privacy, freedom of communication, and due
process of law -- the more we can reach out to explain our concerns, the better off
we will be.

Many thanks for sending me to Tunisia,
Kathy (Kleiman)
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