Board Meeting Minutes have been posted: http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-27mar08.htm The section regarding the ALAC Letter to the Board is reproduced below: The Board moved to a discussion raised by Wendy Seltzer relating to "Front-Running", which had been provided to the Board by the ALAC seeking an emergency policy: The key parts of the letter reads as follows: While we are aware that you have been monitoring the public outrage in response to registrar activities that have been variously described as "front-running" and/or "domain reservation" or "cart-hold" or "cart-reserve" activities, we are of the view that the obligation to safeguard the operational stability of Registrar Services now requires the immediate temporary establishment of a consensus policy curtailing such practices to be taken in accordance with the board's authority under the provisions set out in section 4.3.4 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, that states: "A specification or policy established by the ICANN Board of Directors on a temporary basis, without a prior recommendation by the council of an ICANN Supporting Organization, shall also be considered to be a Consensus Policy if adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors by a vote of at least two-thirds of its members, so long as the Board reasonably determines that immediate temporary establishment of a specification or policy on the subject is necessary to maintain the operational stability of Registrar Services, Registry Services, the DNS, or the Internet, and that the proposed specification or policy is as narrowly tailored as feasible to achieve those objectives." Wendy Seltzer spoke to the ALAC front running position and recommendation to the Board, pointing to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement sec 4.3.4: the Board can take emergency action to make "consensus policy," which is then sent out to community and affirmed or rejected. We don't need to take wait for PDP to address issues critical to operational stability. With domain name reservation, someone looks for a domain name on a site unaware that it has been reserved and can't be obtained somewhere else. This is a detriment to user confidence in the registrar system, results in non-uniform behavior in the system and the loopholes in the AGP harm registrants trying to obtain domain names. ALAC has requested, in a document that has consensus among the regional at-large organizations and at-large structures, that the Board take emergency action. The Chair asked what emergency action is being requested. Wendy Seltzer advised that it is to stop registrars from using their inside knowledge of the use of the registration system to reserve names. Bruce Tonkin stated that he is a registrar and does not want to comment for or against an action; however, he did question whether the request for emergency action like this, should go through the GNSO for action as the entity responsible for doing policy work on this issue. He considered the GNSO would be the more appropriate body to raise this through. Wendy Seltzer noted that the GNSO has been looking at this issue for a long time and it's clear there are different viewpoints from differing parties, so ALAC is asking the Board from a public interest perspective to take more rapid action. Bruce Tonkin responded that what she was really saying was that the current policy process was not working. The Chair noted that he thought the argument should come from the other way. We should understand agreement to the position is possible and then adopt it. Rita Rodin, indicated that in looking at the issue strictly from a process perspective, the ALAC was asking the Board to take emergency action. She wanted the General Counsel's opinion, but noted that in this regard, if the Board was going to refer the issue to the GNSO, she believed that it should note that there was not going to be any such emergency action taken, because the conduct in question did not jeopardize the stability and security of the DNS. The Chair noted that there is a tendency to bring matters into the stability and security mandate. There is a paper on this prepared by the SSAC, and the Board does need to get some sort of community support for the position. He asked whether the Board could encourage GNSO to do something about the concerns being raised. Wendy Seltzer indicated that argument would work for GNSO improvements, but that she thought it was clear that the current GNSO is structurally incapable of taking action in lots of places, such as this, where ALAC is interested in seeing action. The Chair whether the GNSO is acting on the broader issue. Denise Michel advised that the GNSO has not been specifically asked to address domain name "front running" and to be clear it is not clear whether the practice has been confirmed. The GNSO has undertaken work on domain tasting and more recently an issues report on fast flux has been prepared. Wendy Seltzer responded that it has been seen: Network Solutions "reserved" domains, and register.com is now offering a "hold," so it can't be argued that evidence does not exist. The ALAC is responding to that evidence. As an advisory committee to the Board, ALAC is bringing this to the Board thinking this is the most expeditious and fair way to have the matter heard. The Chair indicated that if there is evidence of the practice, the Board should refer the matter to the GNSO Council and ask them to report on what action they think should be taken. Dennis Jennings agreed, and indicated that he personally he finds the practice of holding names for individual registrars customers unacceptable and in violation of trust and that should become an input to the discussion. Jean-Jacques Subrenat agreed. The Chair considered this is why action should be taken. Rita Rodin agreed, but would like confirmation from John Jeffrey, if it is necessary for the Board to take a vote on this issue in response to the ALAC request. The Chair suggested the Board reference the letter and the SSAC paper and forward it to the GNSO for action. John Jeffrey advised that he is not aware of a bylaws mandated process requirement that requires the board to immediately take a vote because they are asked by an advisory committee for an emergency policy. He indicated that to his knowledge there is not a defined process for acting on an emergency process request, but he agreed to look into any process requirements and prepare a paper for the Board. Susan Crawford indicated in response to earlier comments that the matter should be forwarded to the GNSO, that she considered it an abdication of the Board's responsibilities to refer a request for an emergency policy to a supporting organization for policy development, and that the board should take up the issue when requested. Bruce Tonkin considered the right thing to do, if not establishing precedence on stability and security, SSAC could advise the Board that action needs to be taken with the timeline for referring it to the GNSO by June. He inquired whether it was really an emergency and whether something needed to be done quickly? He also asked does the GNSO want to do policy development on this? Rather than waiting till June, you could forward to the GNSO and by end of April to get a response. The Chair did not think a completed process was expected but asked what response is being sought. Bruce Tonkin noted this is a different process to what has been done in the past. ALAC is requesting immediate action, and it is appropriate to ask the GNSO for its view and go to constituencies to get input and respond by the next GNSO meeting. The Chair suggested that the matter be referred to the GNSO and request a response by April. Rita Rodin reiterated that she wanted to be clear on how these matters should be handled, and agreed with Susan. She agreed that John should ensure that there are no defined processes on how to handle emergency policy requests and get back to the Board. Rita indicated that if there is a procedure for an advisory committee to come to the Board and request emergency action that, to me, means that the Board has to make a decision. She elaborated that it is important to make sure we paper this properly in that if we are saying to the ALAC, "We think that we need to have the GNSO give us information," in effect, what we're saying is we don't think that this jeopardizes security and stability right now, today, on March 27th, 28th, but we're going to get input from the GNSO on an expedited basis and get back to you. I do think if there is a process to come to the board and request emergency action, we have to say, we, the board, don't think it should happen right now, but this is the process we're going to follow to get answers to your questions. Bruce Tonkin agreed. The Chair also agreed with Rita's assessment. The Chair asked if a resolution was needed. Steve Crocker noted that this action was triggered by bad behavior by one or more registries and he sent a note around expanding on this. He considered that if the Board is making an emergency ruling, we ought to include the rest of it, telling registrars that if they know that the information's leaking out by some registries, then they're obliged not to deal with those registries. The Chair determined that emergency action is not required today but the matter will be referred to the GNSO for additional information or policy development if necessary, but not an emergency action. ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com