Dear Bruce , fellow Councillors and Barbara

RE: Terms of Reference for Task Force on:

Procedure for use by ICANN in considering requests for consent and related contractual amendments to allow changes in the architecture or operation of a gTLD registry.

While we, the elected representatives of the Commercial and Business Users Constituency (BC), recognise that the Draft TOR were agreed by Council on 2 December 2003 and have been put out for public consideration and that submissions closed on 28 December 2003, due to the holiday period the job of developing the BC initial position on the matter has only now brought to light an undesirable "narrowness" of the TOR.

Specifically we consider that two of of the three aspects recommended to be considered "Out of Scope" should be included in the PDP consideration, namely:

A) Changes to the nature of the agreements between ICANN and the registry operators

B) Additional obligations on registry operators or gTLD sponsors beyond what is already specified in their existing agreements

We would note that the PDP under consideration is not focused on any particular registry service, action, change in architecture or operation, but rather on developing a procedure for consideration of any such change. For such a procedure to have maximum usefulness it:

- should not embody any issue specific constraint (such as potential changes that might also be considered in the future policy development associated with the review of new gTLDs (out of scope A); and

- must be flexible and forward looking such that the procedure can deal with changes in circumstances, markets or technology innovation not previously foreseen and explicitly captured in wording of existing contracts (out of scope B)

We do not envisage the removal of these current "Out-of-scope" constraints to have any great impact on the PDP process, the complexity of response to the identified four main tasks or the final overall policy recommendation. In fact, seeking to embody the current out-of-scope constraints is likely to lead to a more convoluted procedure.

Hence, we seek an amendment to the current draft of the TOR by the removal of the first two "Out-of-scope" constraints.

AND

We erquest that this matter be included on the agenda of the next GNSO call, scheduled for 22 January.

Sincerely

Elected representatives of the BC

Grant Forsyth

Marilyn Cade

Philip Sheppard