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Actions from the last meeting

Stubbs moves approval of last meeting's minutes, Marilyn seconds, adopted unanimously. Constituencies have appointed members to president's committee of wipo2. Names not read; but will be noted in the minutes. UDRP priorities: Business, NCUC, Registrars provided input. Convergence on 9, 12, 4, 5. Detailed discussion later in the agenda. No IPC participants on the call at this point; Tonkin surprised that no input was provided from them.

Request to board to put on their agenda extension of time with three representatives per constituency on GNSO Council. Cerf has confirmed that this is on the board's agenda. Jeffreys: Probably in Carthage. Discussion of various timing issues with respect to election of new council members, and interaction of this time line with possible board decision. Time line of notifying new council members by 1 October won't be met. Milton: What happens when constitutency misses 1 October deadline? Jeffreys (General Counsel): Elect two, appoint alternate in case. Timing issue being investigated. ...

Brief discussion about problems new gTLDs face.

WHOIS Steering Group

Moved ahead in the agenda since Steve Crocker hasn't joined, yet. Tonkin reports about progress on WHOIS Steering Group. Data mining generated most interest. Disclosure to registrants. Draft terms of reference proposed. Steering Committee will meet next week. Different views on whether or not task forces should be run in parallel. Focus steering group on getting terms of reference done. Marilyn: Update on higher-level calls? Tonkin: Twomey has made statement that WHOIS affects whole of ICANN. Another WHOIS workshop suggested for Carthage, half day. Four topic areas: Requirements for new protocol to be used with WHOIS (CRISP); review of WHOIS data elements; work happening in the GAC regarding classifying registrants; best practices among ccTLDs, in particular with regard to privacy. Twomey is planning president's committee on WHOIS. Has asked for recommendations to be sent directly to Twomey. Milton Muller: Work going on headed by Paul? President's committee not yet assembled? Confused. Tonkin: Bit of both. Follow-up from after the meeting in Montreal. Two teleconferences a couple of days apart. Memo to community is outcome of those meetings; reported earlier on. Discussion now about moving forward; form a formal President's committee. Milton: Deadline for suggestions? Tonkin: None given. Assume that committee be formed in time for Tunisia.

Wildcards

Jon Jeffreys (General Counsel); Chuck Gomes, Scott Hollenbeck (Verisign); Steve Crocker (SecSAC) on the call. Tonkin declares that MelbourneIT provides services to Microsoft and Yahoo. Media: Both may be interested in wildcard issue. Possibility for conflict of interest. Hands over chair to Philip Sheppard.

Philip takes over. Asks for further conflicts of interest.

Cary Karp (.museum) may end up in uncomfortable situation. No prior need to articulate conflict. May get there. Jeff Neumann (.biz): Sent note to Council about earlier experiment; no plans to run wildcard "in the immediate future." Ken Stubbs: Director of Afilias. No communications with them regarding this issue. Tom Keller: Working for company that holds shares of Afilias. Buchanan: Wholly owned subsidiary of RCOM, shareholder in Afilias.

Philip: Asks Jeffreys for factual account on ICANN's steps. Then Crocker for technical details. Then discussion.

John Jeffreys introduces himself as new General Counsel. Come to speed of number of issues quickly. Advisory says most of what he can say at this meeting. Have asked IAB and SecSAC to review implications of the launch of Verisign's wildcard service. Reports have been created and posted. Review these reports. Reviewing contractual issues related to this. Crocker: Appreciate invitation to join. SecSAC's focus of attention is on security, stability, not on other, important matters -- contractual disputes, commercial aspects. Focused on good order and operation of the Internet as affected by DNS. Issued an advisory with opinions and recommendations. View those as first steps. Things they were able to say right away (translated into entire week; thanks Hurricane Isabel). Need to look further, and figure out details. Fact-gathering exercise. Meeting scheduled in DC on October 7; details shortly. Middle of three-step process. Conscious that they are part of larger process. Advisory, not enforcement. Cooperating and coordinating with other parts of ICANN and community. Appreciates being invited to call. Expects two-way street in communication.

Structure: Specific technical issues; trying to sort through those. Larger issues well within scope -- stability as a process from engineering point of view. Changes and counterchanges made hastily. Warfare of changes in system. People who build large systems get nervous when this kind of thing happens without testing and care.

Larger, less tangible issue: Public confidence. People depend on Internet, trust that it is in good operational order. Foster and promote that. Provide substance behind that. Some of the areas that SecSAC wants to examine. Comment mailing address.

Philip: Set of technical concerns, some of which inside control of Verisign, some outside control of Verisign. That combination causes call for suspension of service? Crocker: Careful. Suggested that change be rolled back. Multiple reasons for that. Counterreactions part of story, but even without these, cries of pain and claims that services stopped working would have been adequate reasons to ask for suspension. Counteractions added aspect.

Neumann requests to hear from Verisign before comments made. Marilyn: Verisign here to listen? Suggesting briefing? Neumann wants Verisign to react to what just heared. Ability to comment.

Ken Stubbs: Technically incompetent member of community. Develop FAQs to bring things down to level at which general community can understand things. Crocker: Excellent. Can use Stubbs as clueless leader?

Amadeu: Question to Steve -- relation between Verisign service and services in other TLDs, e.g., .museum. Difference in nature or just scale?

(Lengthy statement from myself; assumptions in policy [hold status], code, and minds; centralization; wildcard affects all protocols; pointer to ALAC statement. Abandon sitefinder, don't do this in future.)

Marilyn: Technical concerns from AT&T. Will be providing comments at upcoming meeting with SecSAC. Will publish to council.

Jordyn Buchanan (.pro): Not clear whether Internet standards or clearly written letter or identifiable spirit broken. Curious hear answer to Amadeu's question -- how different from wildcard issues in .museum? Further explanation as to chain of measures and countermeasures? Philip: Move tehcnical questions offline? Buchanan: One of the reasons for SecSAC opinion.

Milton: Problem central to ICANN's legitimacy. Public infrastructure on the one hand; run privately. Want to retain this, want to retain registry ability to introduce new services. Don't underestimate degree of outcry. (GAC liaison joins in mittle of sentence.) Calls for government intervention. Legitimacy of ICANN. Transitional problem. Original contracts anticiapted this? Breach? Interpret contracts? Think about fundamental relationships of how ICANN as regulator relates to public and infrastructure..

Philip refers questions to Steve Crocker.

Crocker: .museum and ccTLDs with wildcards -- fair question. Verisign had related service of redirecting queries that were unregistered and had character codes that meant they were untranslated CJK strings. Service earlier this year. Multiple precedents. From SecSAC point of view, looked closely at prior effort. Challenging. Possibly not make an issue out of this. Not a major threat to good order of Internet. Split with IAB. Bottom line: Not very threatening. Transition or temporary implementation intended to help transition to proper IDN software. Did not interact on .musem or ccTLDs. Critical words are: Matter of scale. SecSAC got involved after they heared about consequences. Turns on scale and process. With respect to RFCs -- examined closely. Important to say that RFC represent best efforts to specify agreements on how things work. Not absolute last work on what is permitted and how best to operate things. Internet proceeded as well as it has because of good practices and conservativeness. Liberal in what you accept, conservative in what you send. Don't surprise. RFCs only part of larger story. Example: Mail protocol says how to send mail, but does not forbid mail-bombing.

Measures and countermeasures: ISC released new version of BIND. Intercepting replies and changing them. Different places in the stream where people change what goes into both directions. Reports that some ISPs change routing to avoid traffic to Verisign side. No documentation of all this. More over next couple of weeks.

Innovation vs. stability? Internet has become important because people have been able to innovate. Innovation takes place on stable base. IP protocol important plank of this. "Hourglass figure": IP in middle -- innovation on physical transport, above that are application protocols of all sorts. DNS is close to neck of hourglass figure. Part of core infrastructure. Many, many, many protocols and services depend on good order and operation of service. Registries are not competitive; no alternative to runs database for .com, .org, ... Domain name queries go to one place.

Philip turns over to Chuck, Scott (Verisign), asks for reaction.

Chuck: Attention to good point Steve made: Document is first step. Still gathering data, as is Verisign. Will be providing detailed technical response to each item in that report, and be cooperating with SecSAC in terms of information gathering. Critical that these kinds of decisions be based on factual information, not on emotional hype. Have formed panel to help do that. Will cooperate with SecSAC, IAB, others. Receive feed-back from community. Will look at questions and issues that are raised. Countermeasures: No countermeasures by Verisign against countermeasures taken by others. Believe that this is option organizations may take, even if it does not create consistent user experience. Lots of room to create best practices for services like this. With regard to other TLD wildcard similarities, there are at least 11 other TLDs that currently support wildcards. All except .museum ccTLDs. Two of those (.cc, .tv) run by Verisign. .cc on Wildcards since 1997. No adverse effects. With regard to .com, .net, domain name registration services and domain name resolution happen in secure and stable manner. Continue to have that objective. With regard to issues raised by myself (names on hold), looking at this. ... Representativity of ALAC? Private response? Innovate on new services in timely manner; can't be ignored in this issue. Final comment: Very careful with months of market and technical research, testing to do everything in their power to make sure fully compliant with RFCs.

Philip starts discussion about resolution posted to council earlier on by Marilyn. Neumann: Severe issues with some whereas clauses.

Marilyn: Summarize purpose of resolution first. Indicate council's commitment to participate fully, understand impact of new registry-level service. Whereas clauses are effort to capture history of what has happened. Would like to put them aside, suggests that editing of whereas clauses can be done. Paragraph below the "therefore." First: Support ICANN's action to gather more informatin, monitor community action. Support earlier advice, ask for further advice. Encourage broad participation by community in SecSAC meeting. Important for further learning and understanding of broad community of impact of service. Registry-level service would require notice and comment? This has been denied to community. Takes from Chuck's comment that Verisign has been working on this for some time, there should have been opportunity for comment. Suspend service; work on process to avoid problems like this in the future.

Jeff Neumann: Number of things in whereas clauses are subjective. If whereas clauses stay, registries have to vote against. Philip: Which clauses? Neumann: Table motion for other meeting? Just got draft this morning. Some discussion of whereas clauses. Support statements 1-3 ok, requests to ICANN: ?; has problem with suggestions on introducing registry-level services. Speaking on behalf of .biz -- PDP every time a new service comes out is not feasible. Philip: Clarification from Marilyn? Read this as PDP on need for formal notice and comment process. Marilyn: Introduction of services that affect DNS is different from innovation at the edge. Support of innovation is important. Responsibility for viability and stability of Internet more important. Don't regulate services at the edge. Jeff: Not happy with clarification. There is notice period in contract as it exists now for anything that effects registrars. Wildcard doesn't fit within that? Don't know whether this is registry service in the sense of ICANN-Verisign contract, ICANN jurisdiction? Registries can't support complicated process. ... Steve Crocker wants to clarify: Discussion mostly about whether or not things are registry service. From his perspective it may be useful to look at this differently. Distinguish database operation in normal mode from process to change database. Distinction between fact that wildcard is added at all, vs. what happens later. Not important whether Sitefinder or fortune cookie is returned, important that change happens at all.

Milton: The more discussion goes on, the more convinced that resolution is premature. Agrees and understands that council deals with fundamental issues, and needs to react quickly. Don't understand where headed, and what pushing for. Issue goes to absolute core of what ICANN does. State of discussion doesn't speak well on ICANN process. Can't construct resolution on the fly on this. Would have hoped for stop-gap. "Concerned, fundamental issues, don't like it. ICANN make ruling. Create PDP regarding relevant policy issues." Not 13-14 whereas clauses plus recommendations that aren't completely understood.

Bruce Tonkin: Comment from process point of view. Too big a resolution to digest in one hit. Spread this resolution over couple of council meetings. Pick up some of the first points -- support for current process under way. Support for ICANN's actions, approach taken by SecSAC. Supporting action so far would be starting point.

Could make request to provide council with information on whether this is considered as registry service by ICANN. Leave future to next meeting -- PDP or not, how to manage that, ...?

Marilyn: Offer modification to resolution. -> End of queue.

Ken Stubbs: ... Registrars held vote with overwhelming support. Proposal no longer in parallel with proposal on floor. Hopes to develop method to get consultation about this. Countermeasures: Concerns about individuals taking countermeasures?

Jeff Neumann: Lets Jordyn go. -> End of queue.

Jordyn Buchanan: Supports Bruce's approach. Premature to suggest action at this point of time. Find out more before leaping to conclusions.

Cary Karp: Puzzled by the notion that council needs to resolve to support what ICANN has already done. That's baseline assumption. ...

Philip: Mainly about supporting SecSAC?

Alick Wilson: Speaks as user. Does not like service. Not enough to say that it should be put down. Comment rather: Why is it ok for .museum and .tv, but not for .com? Crocker: Never said it's ok for .museum and .tv. Hadn't arisen from attention point of view. Experiences and exercises like this help sharpen senses. There may be advice addressing the entire community. Alick: Suggest that resolution made non-specific to Verisign. Doesn't understand well enough what rules of operation are in force. Issue: Upon renewal of contracts, enforce procedure and policy? Demi: Difference between Verisign and others. From technical point of view, SOA under each TLD. What .museum does, affects their community. If community likes that, fine. .com community is larger, and seems concerned. Many TLDs have .com at second level. If you forget to append TLD, resolved by .com. New behaviour by .com brings some more trouble in this case.

Cary Karp: Notion of scale. Distinction between risk and danger. Take experience gathered in last years into account. Jeff Neumann: In running registry, like to have predictability. Want rules. Size arbitrary criterium. Crocker interjects: Study things as they are. Specifying rules, following rules, not looking at consequences is too narrow. Always have to look and see at consequences.

Bruce Tonkin: Point Jeff alluded to -- registries require predictability, so do users. Change without notice doesn't lead to predictability and stability. Two discussions: Technically correct? Should notice be given?

Marilyn: Offer modified resolution. Responsibility of council about policy development. Includes respect and understanding of impact of policy. Agrees with Milton about importance and relationship of this to core of ICANN's mission.

(Specific discussion about proposed modified language.)

Neumann suggests e-mail vote. Can't see text. Appreciate efforts to slim down to more palatable text. Doesn't want to vote on resolution he has in front of him. Amadeu: 24h time line? Philip: Problem is that technically, resolution is adopted at next physical meeting or telephone conference? Just elections or all resolutions? Bruce: 14 days for e-mail vote, ratification at physical meeting.

Marilyn sends e-mail to council. Not comfortable with all changes. Slowly read sections with major changes. Philip reads.

Amadeu: Ask Verisign to suspend?

Jeff Neumann: Replace "registry service" by "wildcard service." To Amadeu: May not be in GNSO's role to ask registry to suspend service?

Amadeu: Community outcry. Council should relay view of community.

Milton supports.

Bruce: Support SecSAC recommendation which implied suspension of service?

Philip calls for vote. IPC absent; registries abstain; all others in favor.

UDRP, other business

Bruce takes chairmanship back. UDRP not covered yet. Request constituencies that haven't yet responded to do so, so council can move forward in Carthage.

GAC liaison: Joint meeting in Carthage as done in Montreal? Bruce: Meeting between GAC whois WG and whois-sc? Marilyn: Maybe come up with agenda before narrowing scope down on whois? WSIS implications of interest to GNSO and GAC? Sheppard suggests Monday October 27. Scheduling discussion.

Meeting closed.