- At-Large - lists.icann.org

INVITATION TO COMMENT AT-LARGE ADVISORY COMMITTEE INDEPENDENT REVIEW
by At-Large Staff March 10, 2008

March 10, 2008

Westlake Consulting Limited (http://www.westlakenz.com/) (WCL) has been selected by ICANN's Board of Directors to conduct an independent review of the At-Large Advisory Committee (http://alac.icann.org/) (ALAC). WCL's review team is gathering information from many different sources including a range of people who have an interest, directly or indirectly, in the ALAC. The objectives of the Review are principally: * [To determine] whether the ALAC has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure; and, * If so, whether any change in structure or operations is desirable to improve its effectiveness. The Review Terms of Reference (http://www.icann.org/reviews/alac/alac-review-final-tor-20jun07.pdf) note that: ³It will be important to consider different perspectives relevant to the ALAC, including the views of individual Internet users, the ALSs, the RALOs, past and current Members of the ALAC, and many others within (and perhaps outside of) the ICANN community.² Accordingly, WCL invites individuals or organisations, who wish to contribute observations or information about any aspect of the role, structure or operation of the ALAC, to email their comments to alacreview(a)westlakenz.com, no later than 18 April 2008. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org

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Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom
by Jeffrey A. Williams March 10, 2008

March 10, 2008

All my friends, The ALAC may want to pay particular attention here. I hope my hint is taken and taken in the proper light.. This is the kind of thing I and our members have been fearing would happen if ICANN didn't take steps in time to get its Registries and Registrars in line with policing their registrants properly. Frankly I, nor any of our members support censoring of Domain Names entirely for minor mistakes such as Wikileaks has done, however many times they have done so. Their rep., was damaged permanently as was Wikipedia's over a year ago now with constantly posting to their web sites totally inaccurate and often unverified information. Google will be facing same if they don't get their act together as well. Also just as frankly, it seems to me that Wikileaks has a 1st amendment case here if they choose to make the challange. My guess is that they don't have the resources to make that challange or are fearful of the E-Discovery such a challange would no doubt require and produce. One lesson I hope is taken by registrants as well as Registries and Registrars is Dishonesty never pays for long and usually ends up being very very costly indeed! See: The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a http://wikileaks.org/wiki/WIKILEAKS.INFO_censored_by_eNom_and_Demand_Media boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a 'global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and will not be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community. Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1(a)ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827

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Re: [At-Large] Deep Policy Issues
by Jeffrey A. Williams March 10, 2008

March 10, 2008

JFC and all, JFC Morfin wrote: > At 23:58 09/03/2008, Roberto Gaetano wrote: > >I wonder whether we will see a similar > >situation developing in juridical practices about domain name registries: > >i.e. whether some national laws will develop in a way to provide a different > >set of rules, and maybe attract the business of registries because of that. > > C'est déjà le cas. En fait les lois de beaucoup de pays interdisent > le Whois. Ceci est appliqué par certain ccTLD. Il serait important à > mon avis que l'ICANN se penche sur les disposition de l'OMC sur les > obstacles techniques au commerce (WTO/TBT). Tu n'aurais pas du > laisser Bart et Jaap aller seuls à Genève fin janvier. Tout cela > repousse trop de chose vers ce que je prépare, le retarde, et posera > à la fin des problèmes car trop de choses devront être discutées en > même temps. > Ciao! > jfc English translation for non french speakers: It is already the case. In fact the laws of much of country prohibit the WHOIS. This is applied by certain ccTLD. It would be important in my opinion that the ICANN considers the provision of OMC on the technical obstacles with trade (WTO/TBT). You would not have to leave Bart and Jaap to only go to Geneva at the end of January. All that pushes back too much thing towards what I prepare, delays it, and will pose at the end problems bus too many things will have to be discussed at the same time. > > > Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1(a)ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827

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Deep Policy Issues
by Danny Younger March 10, 2008

March 10, 2008

I am reposting the insightful remarks of Bertrand de La Chapelle (Special Envoy for the Information Society, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- GAC member) found on the cpsr governance list on the topic of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) action with regard to the Cuban-themed websites of Steven Marshall -- (note: this topic was first raised in the article "A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears" by Adam Liptak of the New York Times). Milton, Following your remarks to McTim below, and supposing this indeed is done through the courts, the interesting set of questions here is : 1) Would/should a foreign registrar comply with a court order from the US ? 2) And if it failed to do so, would the court order Verisign to do it (block the domain name) ? 3) Should Verisign do it, does that mean that all .com registrants become indirectly subject to US law, not only in terms of appropriate strings, but also in terms of the very activity they run, even on servers not located on US territory and serving customers outside of the US ? This is a real and useful discussion. Nothing to do with the "oversight of the root" via IANA. It is exposing the core challenge of competing or overlapping jurisdictions and probably the need for some "globally-applicable public policy principles". I believe nobody has the full complete answer. In my personal view, this is an illustration of the mutation of sovereignty, disconnecting it from the sole physical territory and allowing it to expand in a fractal manner on other territories - or conversely, retract - depending on the influence of the corresponding national actors in the digital sphere. And those national actors are not only the governments : the existence of a dominant player in a specific domain (Verisign, but also a Google, YouTube, MySpace or Facebook) does bring the corresponding government a leverage. But it probably also gives it a special responsibility it did not have before. This notion of "fractal sovereignty" is harder to handle than the traditional territory-based one but probably more adapted to our connected world than the notion of strict subsidiarity : the challenge is to manage interdependence and interactions. To enrich the discussion, I'd like to put in perspective here the issue of IDNs. Will the physical location of the future major registries for IDN TLDs (particularly gTLDs if any) give the corresponding national courts a specific authority/legal power on all registrants in those TLDs, even if they are not located in that country and have no business with its citizens ? These are deep policy issues and I'd be interested in comments on those challenges. Because they are challenges for governments too. Best Bertrand ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

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GNSO Solicits Public Comments on Draft Resolution to Curb Domain Tasting
by At-Large Staff March 9, 2008

March 9, 2008

http://www.icann.org/public_comment/#domain-tasting ICANN¹s GNSO Solicits Public Comments on Draft Resolution to Curb Domain Tasting Comment period 7 March 2008 to 28 March 2008 Please submit comments to: <domain-tasting-motion(a)icann.org> Comments may be viewed at: http://forum.icann.org/lists/domain-tasting-motion/ Explanation: The GNSO Council is considering the issue of "domain tasting", a term used to describe the case when someone registers a domain name and then tests to see if the name has sufficient traffic to provide more income than the annual registration fee (usually through pay-per-click advertising). If the name is deemed sufficiently profitable, it is kept. If not, the current "add grace period" (AGP) - where domains can be returned within five days without cost - is used to return the domain at no net cost to the registrant. Recently there has been a significant increase in the number of domains registered and returned within the AGP. ICANN staff prepared an Issues Report in June 2007 http://www.gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-domain-tasting-report-1 4jun07.pdf and subsequently a GNSO working group published an Outcomes Report in October 2007. http://www.gnso.icann.org/drafts/gnso-domain-tasting-adhoc-outcomes-report-f inal.pdf The GNSO Council decided on 31 October 2007 to launch a policy development process (PDP) on domain tasting. An Initial Report http://www.gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-initial-report-domain-t asting-07jan08.pdf was produced for public comment, outlining the policy development process, possible actions that might be taken, and the arguments put forward for and against such actions. Public comments were incorporated into a draft Final Report (posted 8 February) http://www.gnso.icann.org/drafts/draft-final-report-domain-tasting-08feb08.p df for GNSO Council review and action. Members of the Council subsequently drafted this motion http://gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/dnt-motion-6mar08.shtml to curb domain tasting. It would prohibit any gTLD operator that has implemented an add grace period from offering a refund for any domain name deleted during the AGP that exceeds 10% of its net new registrations in that month, or fifty domain names, whichever is greater. An exemption may be sought for a particular month, upon the documented showing of extraordinary circumstances, as detailed in the motion. The GNSO Council will consider public comments and constituency impact statements regarding the draft motion and incorporate them into a further draft for Council consideration at its scheduled 17 April meeting. -- Regards, ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff(a)atlarge.icann.org --

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Motion for ALAC board
by Franck Martin March 8, 2008

March 8, 2008

I propose the following resolution for the ALAC board. Resolution: ALAC will request ICANN to create a mailing list reserved to the board members of ALS and only the board members of ALS. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Franck Martin franck.martin(a)gmail.com http://www.peachymango.org/ "Toute connaissance est une réponse à une question" G. Bachelard

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List Posting and Moderation
by Cheryl Langdon-Orr March 8, 2008

March 8, 2008

Just a quick note to remind ALL members of this list that (as previously stated to this list) the ALAC will be discussing (and finalizing mechanisms that the participants of this list have recently called for , discussed / debated and raised (both off and on this list) with their representatives on the ALAC at our next for the next Monthly meeting of the ALAC on 11th of March... https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?11_march_2008 You will find this already on the published AGENDA under Item 6. Under New Business List Posting and Moderation (see ALAC/2007/1/1.Rev9.1 (EN) <https://st.icann.org/page/alac/rules_of_procedure/attachments/2007092411182 3-0-24454/ALAC-2007-1-1.Rev91%20-%20EN.pdf> and AL.ALAC/CC.0308/1/5 Proposal of the Chair on <https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?AL.ALAC%2FCC.0308%2F1%2F5%20Proposal%20 of%20the%20Chair%20on%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20Enforcement> Code of Conduct Enforcement & *please note* this proposal has *not as yet been uploaded to the WIKI* , but will be soon... as I am looking at the logistics of some of the options we have available to us). Meeting participants will also get an alert to this on the Internal list as soon as possible so that they have as much time as possible to consider and prepare for the meeting... Though I suspect most if not All have already formulated their own and collated and collected the views of their regional constituencies... CLO

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ICANN Wants To End Commerce Dept. Oversight In 2009
by Jeffrey A. Williams March 8, 2008

March 8, 2008

All, I seriously doubt that ICANN will be moving to Switzerland or released from DOC/NTIA oversight any time soon or in or by the end of 2009. Many of our members outside of the US believe such a change would create chaos worse than anyone can likely imagine for the Internet. FYI: http://www.thestandard.com/people/i-lamont550036 ICANN's current Joint Project Agreement with the US Commerce Department is set to expire in September of 2009, and ICANN wants to become more autonomous and http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/07/icann-looks-toward-end-us-agreem… switch to a global governance model, says ICANN's executive officer. The agreement between the nonprofit ICANN and the Commerce Department has been in place since 1998, and was renewed in 2006 http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/1843254&tid=95 despite international protests. A few US-based groups named in the article including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the trade group TechNet and a conservative think tank iGrowthGlobal would like the agreement with the Commerce Department to continue, in part to provide 'accountability. ' The ICANN officer quoted in the article says expiration of the Commerce Department agreement would not remove accountability, as ICANN still has a contract with the US to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and must follow California law governing nonprofits. The Register is running a related story about http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/05/us_kills_european_based_cuba_websit… why some people are uncomfortable with the United States' influence on ICANN. We discussed ICANN's http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/24/1241232&tid=266 request for independence a few months ago. Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 277k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1(a)ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827

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Domain Tasting News
by Danny Younger March 8, 2008

March 8, 2008

You may recall that Dell and Alienware Corp. filed a federal complaint against BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, DomainDoorman, and others on October 7, 2007... so you may be wondering if this filing managed to impact domain tasting... The results are in. The November .com registry report shows a massive drop in tasting activities -- down from 56,195,866 in October to 30,454,736 in November. In the October report, the belgium/capitol/doorman group accounted for 41,605,036 deletes... that dropped to 13,415,139 in the November report. Those tracking these matters may also wish to keep their eyes on UltraRPS dba metapredict whose deletes are rapidly escalating on a month-by-month basis. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

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Happy Women's Day!!!
by Veronica Cretu March 8, 2008

March 8, 2008

Dear ALAC/AtLarge Colleagues! This is to bring the warmest wishes for ALL Women on ALAC/AtLarge, ALL WOMEN within the ICANN community and not only:) ... with the International Women's Day and with the Spring! In our part of the world, we do celebrate March the 8th and it is an important holiday for us, so this is to share with you the spirit of the coming Holiday! « You can do almost anything you put your mind to ... ... You can swim the deepest ocean and climb the highest peak, ... Be a doctor or fly a plane, ... You can face adversity and still walk tall, ... You can be very active in ALAC/AtLarge and ICANN Community:), ... You are strong, beautiful, compassionate and much more than words could ever say! Today is yours, and so is every other day!» Happy Women's Day to all mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and everyone else we have close at heart! Happy Holiday from Moldova, as ever, Veronica

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