Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:09:17 -0400
To: alac-internal@atlarge-lists.icann.org
From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca>
Subject: GNSO Council Liaison report

There have been three major issues before the GNSO this last month which were addressed during the Sept. 6 Council meeting. The first and the last were the result of policy development processes over that last several years.

1. Policy document on new Generic Top-Level Domains (GTLD) had been finalized and was released for community comment on August 10th ( http://www.icann.org/public_comment/#gtld-draft-final-report). The comment period ended on August 30th. There was a spirited discussion, particularly related to recommendations:

- 6 (Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under international principles of law);

- 19 (Registries must use only ICANN accredited registrars in registering domain names and may not discriminate among such accredited registrars); and

- 20 (An application will be rejected if an expert panel determines that there is substantial opposition to it from a significant portion of the community to which the string may be explicitly or implicitly targeted).

Ultimately, the report was approved with some abstentions or no votes (primarily from the NCUC).

2. The GNSO General Assembly (GA) is an open mailing list. Historically, the GA was a integral part of the former DNSO (before it was split into the GNSO and the ccNSO). The current GA is a part of the GNSO only in that the GNSO has responsibility for the mailing list. It has been quite inactive but has recently been brought back to life. A set of guidelines were created for mailing list participation, and were submitted to the GNSO. The GNSO basically supported the revived GA Activity with specific cautions.

3. The last WHOIS working group had reported in, with little actually concluded. There has been a lot of discussion regarding what to do next, some of it just barely civil (or perhaps already over the line of civility). Ultimately, a outcome was brokered which all constituencies accepted. The motion makes no particular policy recommendation to the ICANN Board, but does request a set of specific actions culminating in a vote during the Los Angeles public GNSO Council meeting.

Details of the three actions can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/resolutions-gnso-06sep07.shtml.

Work is proceeding on the Domain Tasting issue that the ALAC initiated. A Request for Information was issued in August 10th, with input due by September 15th ( http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-10aug07.htm).

Alan











http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/resolutions-gnso-06sep07.shtml