All -- I don't at all mean to pick on Brian personally, but I became aware earlier of a news article covering our most recent council meeting. (A side note: we should remember that the media and others listen in on our call, and our conversations are public and could end up in news coverage.) The article says: Brian Winterfeldt, Steptoe & Johnson, an IPC representative on the GNSO Council, said that the IPC does not agree with all points of the draft response. The IPC understood the strawman proposal to be the product of negotiations that resulted in a consensus among the participants—including representatives from all ICANN constituencies, Winterfeldt said. “Stakeholders who now say that rights protections should not be revisited cast doubt on the good faith of negotiations.” For avoidance of doubt, I want to restate the RrSG's understandings. Our representatives in the meeting were there at Fadi's request to discuss the trademark clearinghouse and to listen to staff's input on the strawman. They would not at all characterize that (or any meeting on the strawman) as a negotiation, nor would they say consensus exists on the content of the proposals. It was clear there would be an opportunity for comment following the meetings. Our participation in those discussions can't be presumed to be acceptance of the proposals or the process by which they were considered. I made that point on our 20 December call, I believe, but thank you for indulging my repeating it. Mason