December 2011 - Bc-gnso - lists.icann.org

RE: [bc-gnso] ICANN hearings
by john＠crediblecontext.com Dec. 8, 2011

Dec. 8, 2011

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ICANN hearings
by Mike Roberts Dec. 8, 2011

Dec. 8, 2011

Reading over today's testimony, one can't help but have the feeling that ICANN is digging itself deeper and deeper into a bunker position from which it may not recover. I'm reminded of the gigantic underground cistern located near the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Worth a trip if you haven't seen it. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Goths and so on came down the peninsula and ravaged the city. So walls were built. Then sieges were put in place and folks ran out of water. So at great expense the cistern was dug and covered over. Then longer sieges, etc. The invaders prevailed. The moral being that some ideas are so flawed that no amount of building walls thicker and cisterns deeper will carry the day. The Kurt Pritz testimony goes on for more than 15 pages trying to cover every possible contingency of bad behavior connected to new TLDs. And doesn't succeed. Even though the BC membership includes members with multiple relationships to ICANN, some of which are linked to proposed new TLDs, the core rationale for our constituency is to represent business users of the Domain Name System. Setting aside IDNs, which have their own rationale, I haven't seen any enthusiasm for new TLDs among users, and most of us have been opposed but willing to work on the details with ICANN because that seemed better than letting it happen without any input from us. What we have gotten for our trouble is Kurt claiming in his testimony that there is broad community support for new TLDs. That has never been the case. The ever greater accretion of protective bureaucracy to the program has produced a balance of costs and benefits - in the broad sense, including more than dollars and cents - that is seriously out of whack. It's time for us to acknowledge this, and say so publicly. - Mike

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FW: On Another DC Subject...
by Phil Corwin Dec. 8, 2011

Dec. 8, 2011

For those of you following the PIPA and SOPA anti-piracy bills pending in Congress, I have posted a letter sent today to the Chairman and other senior members of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the potential impact of SOPA on registrars and other domain name intermediaries - http://internetcommerce.org/SOPA%20Concerns SOPA Could Shutter Registrars and other Domain Name Industry Intermediaries - And Terminate Their Vital Registrant Services The Internet Commerce Association has just sent a letter to senior members of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the likely unintended but potentially devastating impact of H.R. 3261 ("SOPA") as introduced upon ICANN-accredited registrars and other participants in the broad domain name industry, as well as upon the domain registrants who use those services. Registrants, for example, might find it impossible to renew domains due to the extrajudicial termination of payments services sanctioned by the proposal, or to complete domain sales or transfers. Further, many of the domain name industry companies subject to potential payment and advertising service termination under the bill might lack the income to pursue their legal rights, and could well be forced into bankruptcy. This potential impact arises because, while domain names are subject to trademark law, the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) as well as ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) place the responsibility for domain name infringement upon the domain registrant and look at a variety of factors, particularly the actual use of the associated domain, before reaching a determination as to whether infringement exists. ICA believes that SOPA, as introduced, creates the strong possibility that trademark rights holders will seek to have payment and ad services terminated to registrars and other domain name intermediaries based upon the allegation that they are facilitating the use of domains that constitute "counterfeit marks" in and of themselves, without reference to actual use or available defenses. This potential shifting of "cybersquatting" responsibility from registrants to registrars and other domain name intermediaries, as well as the failure to incorporate the more comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the ACPA and UDRP, appears unjustified and unwise - and could lead to the shutdown of these domain name intermediaries and the associated termination of critical domain-related services to millions of registrants engaged in non-infringing uses of their websites. The letter also expresses concerns that the introduced legislation needs substantial narrowing and is not required to effectively address infringement on websites subject to U.S. court jurisdiction, and will also have negative effects on cybersecurity and on the availability of venture capital for innovative Internet startups. At this time the full House Judiciary Committee is tentatively scheduled to "markup" - amend and vote on reporting the bill to the full House of Representatives - on Thursday, December 15th. U.S.-based domain industry participants who have concerns about any aspect of the legislation should contact their representatives at once, especially if they serve on the Committee. A complete list of Committee members is available at http://judiciary.house.gov/about/members.html . The full text of ICA's letter follows --- (continue to the website if you wish to read the full letter -- http://internetcommerce.org/SOPA%20Concerns ) Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/cell "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey

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Confirmation of Date for the upcoming BC Call: Friday 9th @ 10am EST
by Benedetta Rossi Dec. 5, 2011

Dec. 5, 2011

Dear BC Members, Please save the date for the upcoming BC members pre council call scheduled for Friday the 9th of December at 10am EST. Please find the agenda attached. Dial in details will follow, please let me know if you require a dial out. Thank you, -- Kind Regards, Benedetta Rossi BC Secretariat www.bizconst.org bc-secretariat(a)icann.org

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FW: Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey -- distributing at request of ICANN staff
by Marilyn Cade Dec. 3, 2011

Dec. 3, 2011

Dear Members The Chairs of the constituencies/SGs were to asked to distribute this questionnaire to our members.I took the survey today. It does not take long to take. I wanted to check it out so that I could factually tell you it will go quickly. This is a good willed attempt to gather comments, and would ask that you respond if you can find time. Skipping responses is allowed in the survey. With best regards Marilyn Cade, BC Chair ============================================== Subject: [soac-discussion] Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey Dear Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee: Consistent with the spirit of the Affirmation of Commitments and in response to community requests, ICANN has developed a Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey to obtain the community’s perceptions of the Performance Effectiveness in ten service categories supported by ICANN. We invite you and members of your community to take a few minutes to assist us in this initial effort to start tracking the level of satisfaction with various services provided by ICANN and the certain activities undertaken by ICANN. The service categories we are tracking in this survey include: DNS Policy Development DNS Policy Implementation Services Contractual Compliance DNS Stability & Security IANA Operations Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee Support Communications Public Meetings Strategic Planning Leadership A link to the survey can be found at - http://ICANN-SS-2011.questionpro.com/. We ask that you circulate the survey link to members of your organization. The survey will also be made available to the broader Internet Community as well. The survey is designed to create an initial baseline of general ICANN stakeholder satisfaction that can be used to develop improvements and compare against future results. We plan to refine the process over time, gather data about additional services, and focus more closely on specific services or projects in future surveys. If you have comments to the survey itself, please make them in the comment box on the last page that is reserve for overall comments. This initial survey will close 31 December 2011 at 12:00 UTC. An ICANN Survey Administrator (an external contractor) will collect and tabulate the results in January 2012. This timetable will support the plan to conduct a public review session of survey results in Costa Rica. A process for follow-up actions and a subsequent survey will then be started. The survey results will be used to identify improvement areas in the organization's services capability and delivery. We intend to share summary reports with the entire ICANN stakeholder community and opportunities for additional community comments will be created before any improvement actions are formalized and implemented. Identity of respondents will not be published. We appreciate your cooperation in passing on this first Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey and hope that many will participate. Best regards, Kurt Kurt Pritz ICANN

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US Senate to hold new gTLDs hearing next week
by Chris Chaplow Dec. 2, 2011

Dec. 2, 2011

http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/12/02/senate-hearing-gtlds Those concerns were most clearly expressed at ICANN's recent meeting in Dakar where Steve DelBianco from the organization's business constituency outlined <http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/10/25/bc-four-holes-in-gtld-process> four issues that were unresolved: What should ICANN do? * It should take each of the four points raised by the business constituency and take serious, solid efforts to address them and then be public about what it is doing and the fact it is doing it in response to the BC's feedback (DelBianco will most likely be one of the witnesses that the Committee calls). Chris Chaplow Managing Director Andalucia.com S.L. Avenida del Carmen 9 Ed. Puertosol, Puerto Deportivo 1ª Planta, Oficina 30 Estepona, 29680 Malaga, Spain Tel: + (34) 952 897 865 Fax: + (34) 952 897 874 E-mail: <mailto:chris@andalucia.com> chris(a)andalucia.com Web: <http://www.andalucia.com/> www.andalucia.com Information about Andalucia, Spain.

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Change in date for BC Conf. call: Hearings - U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation now confirmed for next Thursday
by Marilyn Cade Dec. 2, 2011

Dec. 2, 2011

Dear BC MembersEarlier, our Secretariat asked you to hold the date for the regular BC Call. Something has come up that leads me to move the BC Call to another date -- and Bene, Steve, Chris and I are working on that right now. Next Thursday, at the time the BC Call was scheduled, there will be a U.S. Congressional Hearing on ICANN's Epansion of Top Level Domains and some members asked me for the details, and to change the call to allow them to listen in, or attend. In the meantime, I am also following up with Steve Delbianco on the BC's proposed improvements in the new gTLD Program, and we will come back to the BC members for further feedback. Apologies for the late change in our call. I am checking on Wednesday or Friday of next week, and Bene will be asking the Officers/Councilors to confirm their availability as options, and will confirm the change in date asap. So, no BC call on Thursday. Date options: Wednesday, Dec. 7, or Friday, Dec. 9/to be confirmed asap. Members may find the Congressional hearing useful to follow, in terms of ICANN's testimony. In the meantime, details on the U.S. Congressional hearing below, as presently known. Steve or others may have more current details, and will post any corrections to the BC list. I hear that the following witnesses are possible: Two ANA companies [names when available] Kurt Pritz, ICANNFiona Alexander, U.S. DoC [separate panel] a Registry operator -- possibly PIR ===========================U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation -- ICANN's Expansion of Top Level Domains Dec 08 2011 10:00 AM Russell Senate Office Building - 253 WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation announced today a full committee hearing on ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) expansion of top level domains. In January 2012, ICANN will begin allowing interested organizations and companies to apply for additional top level domains. This hearing will examine the merits and implications of this new program and ICANN’s continuing efforts to address concerns raised by the Internet community. Please note the hearing will be webcast live via the Senate Commerce Committee website. Refresh the Commerce Committee homepage 10 minutes prior to the scheduled hearing start time to automatically begin streaming the webcast.

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Concerns about the Hotel in Dakar
by Marilyn Cade Dec. 1, 2011

Dec. 1, 2011

Thanks to Mikey for the resurrection of the ALAC Report, and the [miscommunication] by ICANN staff to the Minister. The letter is not on the ICANN site because it is being 'readdressed'. I spoke to the Chair and Vice Chair last night. A different approach will take place including an apology to the Minister for the letter. ICANN will address the complaints, themselves. First, I need to hear from the BC folks who did stay at that hotel. I know that one member moved, and Chris and I had offered to have another BC member move into one of our rooms, but that didn't happen. Can those of you who were at the hotel look at the report from ALAC, and give me [off list] your quick experience? Re the letter: --the complaint is about the lack of due diligence of ICANN staff, and once it surfaced, how the ICANN staff [meetings staff] handled the complaints/or did not. For now, ignore the unfortunate staff letter to the Minister. That will be addressed by the Chair, with an apology. However, the responsibility of ICANN to address their decisions and endorsement of the hotel remains. Do any of the affected BC members want to share any of your experiences? I feel very badly about this for our members. As you all know, originally, Chris, Bene and I were at that hotel. When I moved us due to bad feedback, I had also alerted the members we knew who were there that we were moving ourselves. The cost of moving was rather excessive. But, I didn't realize that ICANN was putting people that they were funding at that hotel. So, our outreach to members was limited accordingly. There is a longer term issue in that ICANN continues to accept venue hotels with very limited room availability. We continue to find that the venue hotel is booked out before the host site even goes live, which is a future challenge. On that front, Ayesha and I participated in the Meetings public session and raised several issues. And, in that meeting, I did raise the concerns about the experiences of those at that hotel. I cannot tell you that the Board members present demonstrated much awareness of the serious nature of the concerns, not did they ask any questions to learn more. BUT, the focus we all take should be the ALAC report and any augmentation, or just general agreement, if that was also your experience. As noted, there should not have been an ICANN staff letter to the Minister, and that is separately addressed. I am pleased that the Chair and Vice Chair are both now aware, and addressing that misfortunate misdirected staff communication. We don't need to say more on that front. I was disappointed to hear that they were not briefed on site; but I gather that 'gap' is also now addressed with staff. Accepting and endorsing hotels is the responsibility of ICANN staff -- and requires due diligence, and accountability. if you were at the hotel and want to share your concerns, please email me and copy Bene, who will compile and help me to generalize the experiences. Marilyn Cade,BC Chair P.S. Mikey, thanks for putting the doc up. ================== > Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] a pretty scathing report from At Large about Hotel Almendine in Dakar > From: mike(a)haven2.com > Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 11:55:07 -0600 > To: bc-gnso(a)icann.org > > > i threw a copy up on my server -- here's the link; > > http://www.haven2.com/clay-to-guirassy-23nov11-en.pdf > > mikey > > > On Dec 1, 2011, at 10:32 AM, Smith, Bill wrote: > > > > > And now the report is no longer on the ICANN site. > > > > On Nov 30, 2011, at 5:10 AM, Mike O'Connor wrote: > > > > hi all, > > > > i remember several of you mentioning that it was pretty rough going at the Alemendine. i had no idea *how* rough. here's an astonishing report from the At Large documenting the situation with a poll and pictures. > > > > http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/clay-to-guirassy-23nov11-en.pdf > > > > they raise some pretty interesting points -- and offer suggestions on how to move forward. > > > > m > > > > - - - - - - - - - > > phone 651-647-6109 > > fax 866-280-2356 > > web http://www.haven2.com<http://www.haven2.com/> > > handle OConnorStP (ID for public places like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.) > > > > > > > > - - - - - - - - - > phone 651-647-6109 > fax 866-280-2356 > web http://www.haven2.com > handle OConnorStP (ID for public places like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.) > >

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a pretty scathing report from At Large about Hotel Almendine in Dakar
by Mike O'Connor Dec. 1, 2011

Dec. 1, 2011

hi all, i remember several of you mentioning that it was pretty rough going at the Alemendine. i had no idea *how* rough. here's an astonishing report from the At Large documenting the situation with a poll and pictures. http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/clay-to-guirassy-23nov11-en.pdf they raise some pretty interesting points -- and offer suggestions on how to move forward. m - - - - - - - - - phone 651-647-6109 fax 866-280-2356 web http://www.haven2.com handle OConnorStP (ID for public places like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.)

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