I understand what you are saying, but the problem is that the meetings are exclusive and not open to all to participate. In fact, I can remember one such meeting where I was kicked out personally. With the introduction of new registry services, we believe that those issues being discussed in a non-open forum raises anti-trust and unfair competition concerns in particular. To reiterate, meetings are fine, but to the extent that groups come together to address issues that can be seen as restricting competition, and the fact that they are exclusive (i.e., not open to all to participate) raises concerns. I am not your counsel, but I would encourage each of you that participate in such meetings to review that concept with your own respective general counsels. The repercussions of participation in such a process could be severe (at least here in the US). -----Original Message----- From: Antonio Harris [mailto:harris@cabase.org.ar] Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 11:41 AM To: Neuman, Jeff; 'Bruce Tonkin'; council@gnso.icann.org Cc: jeffrey@icann.org; twomey@icann.org; ebroitman@register.com Subject: Re: [council] Attendance at Council meetings Jeff, The practice of having cross-constituency meetings between the BC, IPC and ISPCP constituencies has been routine over the last couple of years at ICANN meetings. Much as I can romanticize about being a character in a cloak and dagger secretive encounter, the meetings are organized to avoid having certain "leading" topics (and presentations related to these topics from relevant specialists), repeated in three different rooms on the same day, as well as leveraging the various viewpoints that can emerge from a larger group. As far as I know, no other constituency ever indicated any desire to participate, and the meetings have always been announced and everyone has been aware of them. Hope that can ease your misgivings! Tony Harris ----- Original Message ----- From: "Neuman, Jeff" <Jeff.Neuman@Neustar.us> To: "'Bruce Tonkin'" <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>; <council@gnso.icann.org> Cc: <jeffrey@icann.org>; <twomey@icann.org>; <ebroitman@register.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 11:22 AM Subject: RE: [council] Attendance at Council meetings

Bruce,

The gTLD Registries Constituency will be participating in the call tomorrow. I believe Cary will not be in attendance, but that he has given his proxy to Jordyn and if he is not there, to me.

However, our earlier concerns and reservations still apply. Our participating in this call should not be viewed in any way as waiving any of those concerns or reservations. If we believe that the discussion takes a turn towards what we believe are anti-competitive or discussions that have anti-trust implications, we will have no choice but to leave the call.

In addition, I would like to raise another concern involving openness and transparency. It has come to our attention that the Business Constituency has attempted to arrange a private meeting during the Tunisia meeting with several other constituencies (including the ISPs, the Registrars, the ALAC, etc.) to discuss the Wildcard Service and introduction of registry services in general.

While meetings on ICANN-issues should certainly be encouraged, meetings that exclude certain groups from participating (including the Registries and the Noncommercial Constituency) are, in our view, in violation of ICANN's Bylaws and not in line with the notion of transparency and openness.

While we see no problem with one constituency having closed meetings to formulate policy positions and handle internal constituency matters, when more than one constituency gets together to discuss topics, then those meetings should be required to be open to all constituencies to attend. This type of activity goes to the core of our concerns about anti-trust and unfair competition.

By this note, I have also put the ICANN General Counsel on notice of our concerns. I trust that this type of exclusionary practice will not occur at the Tunisia meeting or any other ICANN-sponsored event.

Jeff Neuman, Chair, gTLD Registries Constituency