At-Large colleagues, The ICANN Board will meet telephonically Nov. 20 (21:00 UTC). Several items are up for discussion and possible decision: 20 November 2007 Special Meeting of the Board 1. Whois Conflict of National Laws Procedure 2. Discussion of .TEL Contractual Amendment 3. Redelegation of ccTLD for .BB (Barbados) 4. Initiation of Early Awareness Procedures for Global Policy Proposals a. Allocation of Autonomous System Numbers b. Allocation of the remaining IPv4 address space in the Regional Internet Registry system 5. Update on Czech Arbitration Court UDRP Application 6. Contract for Consultant to write RFP for New GTLD Process 7. Discussion of progress planning for New gTLD Policy and Implementation 8. Updates on Bylaws-Mandated Reviews 9. Discussion of President’s Report 10. Discussion of Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 11. Other Business Many of these are informational updates, from which I will try to report back with further detail to the at-large before they are presented for decision. WHOIS and National Laws: In Los Angeles, the GAC acknowledged that its member nations were not going to reach a uniform recommendation on WHOIS, thus making way for the Board to implement the policy on conflicts with national law described at <http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois_national_laws_procedure.htm>. [GAC Communique: "Due to the complexity of this issue related to the diversity of national policies and procedures among GAC members the GAC does not believe a uniform process is workable and accordingly the interim solution from the GAC’s San Juan communiqué should be the basis of resolving any potential conflict: … specific cases should be referred to the relevant national government for advice on the authority of the request for derogation from the ICANN gTLD WHOIS policy."] The .tel contract amendment, which has been out for public comment and considered under this procedure and others, offers greater privacy rights to individual registrants. Telnic is based in the UK and submitted that ICANN's general registry contract conflicted with UK and EU data protection law. Please let me know if you have comments to add on any of these subjects or would like additional information. Please let me know further if ALAC has other matters to bring to the Board's attention. I expect I will not have further to report before the ALAC teleconference, as the Board has not met since Los Angeles. --Wendy -- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Professor, Northeastern University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/ https://www.torproject.org/