Firstly: John, feel free to join the European list; I'm sure that nobody will object. Secondly: If there are missing elements from the issues report - which was forwarded around recently, and is attached again here - we should identify those and make improvements to the report. Any thoughts on that subject would be very helpful. Thirdly: Just because the ALAC requests an issues report from the At- large staff does not automatically lead to the GNSO Staff asking the GNSO to initiate a PDP. Here's a snippet from the Bylaws (Annex A(1)): 1. Raising an Issue An issue may be raised for consideration as part of the PDP by any of the following: a. Board Initiation. The Board may initiate the PDP by instructing the GNSO Council ("Council") to begin the process outlined in this Annex. b. Council Initiation. The GNSO Council may initiate the PDP by a vote of at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the members of the Council present at any meeting in which a motion to initiate the PDP is made. c. Advisory Committee Initiation. An Advisory Committee may raise an issue for policy development by action of such committee to commence the PDP, and transmission of that request to the GNSO Council. In other words the ALAC would need to take action formally and transmit a request to the GNSO Council as provided above. HOWEVER: Just because ALAC asks the GNSO to start a PDP doesn't mean that they will. The Council has to vote to do so - and the weighted voting of the registrars and registries means that the extra votes they dispose - especially in this case - could block a PDP being raised. I'm not saying that they would block it, or that any other constituency might do so, but the voting position means that we must move carefully. The initiation of a PDP is a serious step and it is very political. If a PDP were to be sought, careful thought would need to be given to how to assure that the PDP process actually begins - and then how to raise the votes in the GNSO Council to help the process reach the desired conclusion. I would suggest strongly that careful planning and though, as well as advance discussions with members of the GNSO council and the ICANN Board, should be held so that the political climate can be assessed. The At-Large Community should also, in advance, have a clear idea of exactly what the outcome of a PDP ought to be. On 16 Feb 2007, at 15:35, Rudi Vansnick wrote:

John Levine asked me to forward the message below to the European maillist as he was not authorised he said.

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007, Rudi Vansnick wrote:

...

I support the Domain Name Tasting issue to be discussed at the upcoming ICANN Meeting in Lisbon. Looking at what happens in EURid, I personally think the issue is a real big hurdle for EURid, even at Belgian (.be) level many discussions are ongoing.

That's a good thought. The ALAC has already asked for and received an issues paper on this topic. It wasn't as complete as I would have liked, but it did cover the basics.

The bylaws say that within 15 days after the report, the GNSO council staff is supposed to recommend to the GNSO whether or not to initiate a policy development process (PDP). The issues report came out months ago, but I don't recall hearing what happened relative to a PDP.

Nick, can you query their staff and find out? Thanks.

Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.

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