Preliminary Report | Meeting of the New gTLD Program Committee 5 April 2013

Note: On 10 April 2012, the Board established the New gTLD Program Committee, comprised of all voting members of the Board that are not conflicted with respect to the New gTLD Program. The Committee was granted all of the powers of the Board (subject to the limitations set forth by law, the Articles of incorporation, Bylaws or ICANN's Conflicts of Interest Policy) to exercise Board-level authority for any and all issues that may arise relating to the New gTLD Program. The full scope of the Committee's authority is set forth in its charter at http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/new-gTLD.

Formal Minutes are still to be approved by the New gTLD Program Committee. This has not been approved by the New gTLD Program Committee and does not constitute minutes but does provide a preliminary attempt setting forth the unapproved reporting of the resolutions from that meeting. Details on voting and abstentions will be provided in the Minutes, when approved at a future meeting.

NOTE ON ADDITIONAL INFORMATION INCLUDED WITHIN PRELIMINARY REPORT – ON RATIONALES -- Where available, a draft Rationale for each of the Board's actions is presented under the associated Resolution. A draft Rationale is not final until approved with the minutes of the Board meeting.

A Special Meeting of the New gTLD Program Committee of the ICANN Board of Directors was held in Beijing, China on 5 April 2013 at 8:00 pm local time.

Committee Chairman Cherine Chalaby promptly called the meeting to order.

In addition to the Chair the following Directors participated in all or part of the meeting: Chris Disspain, Bill Graham, Olga Madruga-Forti, Erika Mann, Gonzalo Navarro Ray Plzak George Sadowsky, Mike Silber, Judith Vazquez, and Kuo-Wei Wu. Fadi Chehadé (President and CEO) sent apologies.

Thomas Narten, IETF Liaison and Francisco da Silva, TLG Liaison, were in attendance as non-voting liaisons to the committee.

Heather Dryden, GAC Liaison, was in attendance as an invited observer.

ICANN Staff in attendance for all or part of the meeting: Akram Atallah, Chief Operating Officer; John Jeffrey, General Counsel and Secretary; Megan Bishop, Michelle Bright, Samantha Eisner, Dan Halloran, Karen Lentz, Cyrus Namazi, Amy Stathos, and Christine Willett.

This is a preliminary report the Meeting of the New gTLD Program Committee, which took place on 5 April 2013.

  1. Committee Timeline/Workplan
  2. "Closed" Generics
  3. Functional Audit of New gTLD Program

 

  1. Committee Timeline/Workplan

    The New gTLD Program Committee had a brief discussion of the timeline for the Committee's work in Beijing, including the expectation that "closed" generics and reservation of names of IGOs will be discussed later in the week in Beijing.

  2. "Closed" Generics

    The Committee received an update on the "closed" generic issue, noting that the term "exclusive use" is more descriptive of the issue. The Committee noted that detailed discussion should wait until after GAC advice is received, in the event that there is advice that needs to be addressed on this topic.

  3. Functional Audit of New gTLD Program

    The Committee discussed an item raised by one of the Committee members regarding whether it is feasible or necessary to perform a functional audit of the Program at this time. The Committee agreed that initiating an audit is not optimal while the final operational details of the Program are being prepared for implementation. The discussion of an audit will be revisited after new gTLDs start getting delegated into the root. The Committee and staff also discussed how staff could better share information with the Committee.

    The Chair called the meeting to a close.

Published on 16 April 2013