Colleagues; By way of this message, the working group on inter-registrar transfers concludes its work. Pursuant to Council resolution 20050512-03, this group had a mandate to "...review the staff Transfers report in order to seek clarification, further information and provide guidance for the 6 month review and to report back to the Council..." This working group conducted its work through mailing lists and teleconferences sporadically held throughout 2005-2007. The working group, with much assistance from ICANN staffer Karen Lentz, has produced the following three reports: 1. Advisory Concerning Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (Transfer-Advisory-23aug07.pdf) This is submitted by the WG to the Council as a suggestion for an advisory to be posted and distributed to the community. It is intended to provide clarifications and reminders on some common questions. The items covered in this document are those raised by the WG and believed to be not generally well-known or understood. 2. Points of Clarification Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (Transfer-Denial-Clarifications-23aug07.pdf) This is submitted by the WG to the Council as a suggestion for tightening the language on 4 areas within the list of reasons for which a registrar may deny a transfer request - to modify these requires policy development work, but this document may be helpful as a starting point to reduce the time necessary to be spent on this work. The purpose is to move toward tighter wording of some key points in the existing policy to remove loopholes/provide clarification. The suggestions included in this document are based on available references to the intent of the original policy work. 3. Communication to GNSO on Policy Issues Arising from Transfer Review (Transfer-Policy-Issues-23aug07.pdf) This is submitted by the WG to the Council as a suggestion for areas in which further policy development work may be desirable. This list came from issues identified by the members of the working group. The recommendation of the working group concerning these reports is as follows, in the form of a resolution that may be considered by the GNSO Council; "i) Whereas the GNSO Working Group on Inter-registrar Domain Transfers Policy Review (Transfers WG) has completed its work, and; ii) Whereas, the Transfers WG has provided a series of reports to the GNSO Council for its consideration, Be it resolved that; i) The GNSO Council will issue the working group report entitled "Advisory Concerning Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy" for constituency and community review and comment for a period of no less than 14 days, and; i.a) pursuant to this comment period, all material commentary will be summarized and reviewed by Council i.b) pursuant to the review by Council that the current, or an amended form of this report be provided to Staff for posting to the ICANN web site as a community advisory. ii) Pursuant to section 1.b of Annex A of ICANN's Bylaws, that the GNSO Council initiate the formal GNSO Policy Development Process by requesting the creation of an issues report evaluating issues raised by the working group document "Points of Clarification Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy". iii). That the GNSO Council form a short-term planning group to analyse and prioritize the policy issues raised in the report "Communication to GNSO on Policy Issues Arising from Transfer Review" before the Council further considers a PDP on any of the work discussed in the report." I would personally like to thank the participants of this working group for their time and effort. I would also like to specifically thank Karen Lentz of ICANN for doing all of the heavy lifting and the incredible patience she had with our rather laid back scheduling. We will review these documents at the next Council meeting, but I am available for questions via email beforehand. Thank you all. -- Regards, Ross Rader Director, Retail Services Tucows Inc. http://www.domaindirect.com t. 416.538.5492