Dear Council Members: I apologize for the delay in posting my normal recap of the ICANN Board meeting resolutions. The following resolution was passed by the ICANN Board by a majority of the Board with I believe 2 abstentions and 1 no vote. I am sure of the 1 no vote that I cast (reason set forth below), the 2 abstentions (Peter Dengate Thrush and Raimundo Beca). However, I am not sure of the exact affirmative votes because there were some directors that were dropping in and out of the call during the teleconference because of connectivity problems. RESOLUTION - Approval of Amendment to .NET Registry Agreement Whereas, ICANN and VeriSign have entered an agreement concerning the operation of the .NET registry effective 1 July 2005. Whereas, the community of ICANN-accredited registrars, along with other members of the ICANN community, have voiced complaints concerning the content of the .NET agreement at the Luxembourg meetings and in postings thereafter. Whereas, VeriSign issued a statement during the Luxembourg meeting agreeing to renegotiate terms relating to the wholesale price of names to registrars and the terms Registry-Registrar agreement (RRA). Whereas, ICANN staff has spent several months engaged in discussions with VeriSign and the registrars community concerning appropriate revisions that could be made to the agreement in an attempt to address some of the community concerns. Whereas, updates on the status of consultations and negotiations have been posted to the ICANN website on 9 August 2005 and 22 September 2005. Whereas, these discussions have led to a proposed agreement between VeriSign and ICANN to amend the .NET Registry Agreement, as posted on the ICANN website for public comment on 22 September 2005. Whereas, a public comment forum on the proposed amendment was opened on 22 September 2005 and closed on 10 October 2005. Whereas, the Board has reviewed and considered the five comments that were submitted to the public comment forum <http://forum.icann.org/lists/net-amendment-comments>. Whereas, the Board has determined that entering the proposed amendment would be in the best interests of ICANN and the Internet community. Resolved (05.___) the Board authorizes the President and the General Counsel to enter the proposed amendment to the .NET Registry Agreement, and to take such actions as appropriate to implement the agreement as amended. There was a lengthy discussion on this topic (over 1 hour). I provided a supplementary statement on the record as to why I opposed the resolution which will appear in the formal minutes. I do not have a copy of the exact wording but from memory I believe it involved the following. I thanked the Registrars, VeriSign and Staff for their negotiations. I talked about the differing viewpoints regarding volume discounts within the registrar constituency. My opinion is that the final language is the best possible solution given that it has enough ambiguity to be construed in favor of either position. I also opposed the removal of the registrars ability to approve the full allocation charged to them under the RAA, now that the registry has the ability to collect 15 cents out of the 25 cent variable registrar fee through the registry. I believe this coupled with the removal of the registry fee cap that was previously in the .net contract removes important contractual safeguards to limit the overall growth of ICANN. Similar to how the new registry service process was incorporated into the .TRAVEL and .JOBS agreements, I believe this sets a dangerous precedent to boot-strap this provision in future registry contracts and thus removing the historic role that registrars have played in approving the budget. Staff denied that this was an attempt to boot-strap anything and that they were actively soliciting the support of registrars like last year to approve the budget. I had a different perspective on this outreach effort based upon the feedback I have heard from registrars. I then advocated delaying the passage of this resolution for one month to allow for further discussions. One director then asked the staff what would be the down side of waiting a month. The response to the best of my recollection was that there was no obligation for VeriSign to negotiate in these discussions, and that the registrars would be disappointed if we did not implement these agreements based upon their hard work. I will copy those staff that participated on the call on this email so that they can clarify or object to any of my recollections regarding this discussion. That being said, I believe that it is of growing importance for the whole Board teleconference to be audio recorded for the community to understand the depth of discussion taking place on our calls. I greatly appreciate the level of questioning that more directors are asking which is a very positive sign that they are listening to the issues. In other action items: ICANN appointed a new CFO Melanie Keller; appointed Olof Nordling as the branch manager of the Brussels office; deferred on the creation of ICANN Board Compensation Committee until the Board had further time to review that documentation; approved the redelegation of .TK; directed General Counsel to approve an analysis regarding the proposed by-law changes from the GNSO; approved the Board Governance Committee to move forward with the selection of the new Non-Com chair prior to the annual meeting in Vancouver, this was in an attempt to start the Nom-Com process earlier in the year to provide more time for the review and analysis of candidates. The staff provided an update on the status regarding the VeriSign litigation, however, there is nothing to report there. No discussion took place in connection the .xxx and .asia sTLD applicants. We also did not get to the GNSO PDP on new registry services or the IDN update. So that is the quick summary of a three hour marathon Board Call. I hope you find this information update informative. Best regards, Michael D. Palage