Hello All, The ICANN Board at its meeting in Rome, passed the following resolution (from http://www.icann.org/minutes/rome-resolutions-06mar04.htm ) "Resolved, [04.18] that in order to prepare for the designation of a transparent procedure by 30 June 2004, the Board authorizes the President to take steps to initiate the process as specified in Section 5.2 of the .net Registry Agreement for designating a successor operator for the .net registry, including referrals and requests for advice to the GNSO and other relevant committees and organizations as appropriate." This implies that the President will be seeking advice from the GNSO.
From the .net registry agreement ( http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-net-25may01. htm )
"5.2.1 Not later than one year prior to the end of the term of this Agreement, ICANN shall, in accordance with Section 2.1, adopt an open, transparent procedure for designating a successor Registry Operator. The requirement that this procedure be opened one year prior to the end of the Agreement shall be waived in the event that the Agreement is terminated prior to its expiration." "5.2.4 ICANN shall select as the successor Registry Operator the eligible party that it reasonably determines is best qualified to perform the registry function under terms and conditions developed pursuant to Subsection 4.3 of this Agreement, taking into account all factors relevant to the stability of the Internet, promotion of competition, and maximization of consumer choice, including without limitation: functional capabilities and performance specifications proposed by the eligible party for its operation of the registry, the price at which registry services are proposed to be provided by the party, the relevant experience of the party, and the demonstrated ability of the party to manage domain name or similar databases at the required scale." Thus the terms and conditions need to be established via the processes for consensus policy. ie "4.3.1 "Consensus Policies" are those specifications or policies established based on a consensus among Internet stakeholders represented in the ICANN process, as demonstrated by (a) action of the ICANN Board of Directors establishing the specification or policy, (b) a recommendation, adopted by at least a two-thirds vote of the council of the ICANN Supporting Organization to which the matter is delegated, that the specification or policy should be established, and (c) a written report and supporting materials (which must include all substantive submissions to the Supporting Organization relating to the proposal) that (i) documents the extent of agreement and disagreement among impacted groups, (ii) documents the outreach process used to seek to achieve adequate representation of the views of groups that are likely to be impacted, and (iii) documents the nature and intensity of reasoned support and opposition to the proposed policy." Note also that if Verisign is not selected, Verisign has the right under the contract to challenge the "reasonableness" of the decision. Given that a final procedure must be established before 30 June 2004, we should start to think about the specifications/terms and conditions immediately. The Names Council went through a similar process for the re-assignment of .org.
From the DNSO archives see: http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020205.NCdotorg-to-ICANN.html dated 5 Feb 2002 And http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020117.NCdotorg-report.html dated 11 Jan 2002
Given the time available, I recommend that the Council form a subcommittee (e.g with 1 rep per constituency) of the Council to review the .org material, and draft a set of terms/conditions for .net consistent with the ICANN mission and core values for consideration by the Council. Please let me know your thoughts. Regards, Bruce Tonkin