brief report on NCSG Policy Discussion Wednesday 6 January

[William Drake]

Hello

We just did this call (about ten people, including the three elected NCUC councilors), at the end of which I rather innocently asked whether we shouldn't have a practice of reporting the highlights of such discussions to members, to which Avri replied with the suggestion that responsibility for doing this could rotate among counselors.  Be careful what you ask for...so ok, since I have a few minutes now I'll do this first one. In addition, for anyone who wants more info, the call was recorded, not sure where that'll be located; Avri are you able to point people to a URL?

Being in post-holiday mode my memory's fuzzy, but I don't think we have an NCSG-members list yet, so I'm sending to NCUC-members and NCSG-policy, I presume that will reach everyone....

So here's some brief notes, and anyone else on the call can add/elaborate/correct me if I missed some nuance.  And of course, responses from/discussion with other members would be great...

On Jan 5, 2010, at 2:29 PM, Avri Doria wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I suggest the following as an agenda for the 6 Jan meeting
> (dialin info at  http://ncdnhc.org/events/ncsg-policy-discussion-6  please let me know if you cannot access this site)
> 
> - Review agenda
> 
> - Cover Issue related to the upcoming GNSO council Meeting.
>  The agenda for that meeting includes:
> 
> -- Issues Report regarding vertical separation of Registries and Registrars
>    http://gnso.icann.org/issues/vertical-integration/report-04dec09-en.pdf
>    http://gnso.icann.org/correspondence/issues-report-summary-17dec09-en.pdf

We discussed the closely interrelated procedural/institutional and substantive issues here for most of the first hour. These included, inter alia, the staff's contentions in the issues report that: GNSO Council approval of policies is not required, as the council's just one of the many voices the board listens to; the Council has provided no guidance on how the issues should be addressed re: new gTLDs; and the approach taken in the DAG does not constitute a change in policy that merits a PDP, so Council should just weigh in through the implementation process already underway.  We also discussed the draft position paper Milton circulated in December suggesting, inter alia, that the issues in play concern joint marketing rather than VI per se; that joint marketing by new TLDs does not require a PDP or constitute a change in policy; and that only JM by registrars with at least a 45% market share should give rise to limitations.

In essence, participants agreed that a restrictive interpretation of the Council's role seems problematic and worth discussing with other SG's representatives on the Council.  It was also noted that the Council's recs and attendant discussions on new gTLDs did provide some guidance to the effect that that separations should be preserved.  As to whether the DAG approach constitutes a change in policy that merits a PDP, some people felt the answer is clearly yes, while others were a bit more equivocal but had not yet been persuaded to the contrary.  In any event, there is presently no consensus for opposing a PDP when the Council votes on January 28, and a feeling that the issues should be explored further and could be clarified over the next year plus without delaying the new gTLD process.  There was also some discussion of the possibilities of the Council considering an implementation recommendation if it decides not to pursue a PDP, or of further study of community views and revisiting the PDP issue later.  So these are the sort of points we could raise on the Council call tomorrow. It would be helpful to hear from others who weren't with us, with an eye toward the vote on the 28th.
 
> 
> -- The IDN Implementation Working Team Final Report
>    http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/idn-implementation-working-team-report-final-03dec09-en.pdf

People felt the WT report seems solid and unproblematic.  We need volunteers willing to participate in the development of a draft charter for a GNSO group on scripts for which single character IDN TLDs should be allowed and the method for allocation of single character IDN TLDs.  Members with Arabic and/or Asian language skills could be particularly helpful here...

> 
> -- AGP Limits Policy - Implementation Report
>   http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agp-limits-policy-report-14dec09-en.pdf

This seems to be going well.
> 
> -- Draft Proposal for Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) Review Teams
>   http://www.icann.org/en/reviews/affirmation/affirmation-reviews-draft-proposal-26dec09-en.pdf

We had concerns with the draft proposal's assertion that only small teams could be effective, given that a) there's plenty of evidence to the contrary in other IG domains, and b) the proposed team composition (8 for accountability and transparency, 6-7 for security and reliability weighted toward the technical community, 7 for consumer/competition, 8 for WHOIS) might not fully reflect the full geographical and sectoral diversity of impacted stakeholders.  In particular, there's some question about having just one or less GNSO rep per, given the differences across and within the two houses.  So we'll raise these points tomorrow.  We may want to consider whether any other NC response is merited.
> 
> -- Prioritization of GNSO work
>    --- The updated GNSO Project Status List
>         http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/pending-projects-list.pdf

The view here was that all these items have their proponents and are going forward but a) there shouldn't be undue priority given to items favored by commercial interests but problematic for NC, and b) we need to get more people involved in the various processes, especially the RAA work...again, volunteers needed...
> 
> - as time allows any other Issues - especially issues the NCSG community would like to have brought up by the Council members.

Going forward, the monthly NCUC calls could be replaced by pre-Council NCSG calls.  The same meetings can be used to develop consensus within NCUC and/or NCSG, as applicable, rather than requiring us to do double calls.

I think that's enough for now.  Comments...?

Best,

Bill

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
 Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************