ICANN | Transcript - GNSO New gTLDs and IDN Working Group, 25 March 2007, ICANN Meeting, Lisbon Portugal

ICANN Meetings in Lisbon Portugal

Transcript - GNSO New gTLDs and IDN Working Group

25 March 2007

Note: Although transcript output is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you. Let's just briefly introduce ourselves again, just so that for the recording we know who we have in the room. So starting -- we'll start with Neal on that side. Do you want to just introduce yourself, Neal, just for the purpose of the recording?

>>NEAL BLAIR: Neal Blair, observer from the BC.

>>MARIA FARRELL: Maria Farrell, GNSO policy officer with the ICANN staff.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Glen de Saint Gery, the GNSO secretariat.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Bruce Tonkin, chair of the new gTLD committee.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: Mike Rodenbaugh, GNSO Council.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Philip Sheppard, BC, GNSO Council.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Chuck Gomes, registry constituency.

>>CRAIG SCHWARTZ: Craig Schwartz, ICANN staff.

>>PATRICK JONES: Patrick Jones, ICANN staff.

>>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Dirk Krischenowski, dot Berlin and BC member, observer.

>>JOHANNES LENZ-HAWLICZEK: Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek, dot Berlin, observer.

>>NORBERT KLEIN: Norbert Klein, council member, noncommercial user constituency.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you, Norbert.

Okay. So just picking up where we left off yesterday, Chuck, do you want to just take us through the geographic and geopolitical reserved names?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Oops. Better turn my mic on.

Okay. Good morning to everybody.

The geographic and geopolitical, as I indicated at the end of the day yesterday, is one that it's really helpful to read through the full report and the appendix for this one, because quite a lot of research was done, in particular, with WIPO II, and the recommendations actually tend to follow some conclusions that were made in that effort. You can see this is a much more lengthy recommendation, but because of the importance of it, I will go through and read it.

First of all, if you do have the document, you'll probably find it helpful to look at that, and the recommendations are in Section E, again, of the document, and then the full report can be found in -- I'm looking at the list of tables, and it -- where is that one? How come that one's not on there? Is that one missing? Apparently that one is missing.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Page 24?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Okay. 24 sounds about right for the table in the document. Page 24. It's not on the list of tables.

But it's also, then, in Appendix H. You can find the full report of the subgroup in Appendix H. And I didn't mention this yesterday, but you can see in the full report the people who actually made up the subgroup of this, and then of course their report was presented to the full group for consideration.

So for top-level ASCII and IDN, here's the recommendation:

In order to approve the introduction of new gTLDs using geographic identifiers, ICANN shall require the solicitation of input from GAC members and/or governments associated with the potential geographic string, whether it's ASCII or the IDN.

And of course we were hoping to get that feedback from them this week.

No. 2: Additionally, registries incorporated under the laws of those countries that have expressly supported the guidelines of the WIPO standing committee on the law of trademarks, industrial designs, and geographical indications, as adopted by the WIPO general assembly -- the member states -- or have other related applicable national laws must take appropriate action to comply with those guidelines and those national laws.

Registries incorporated under the laws of those countries that have not expressly supported the guidelines of the WIPO standing committee, et cetera -- and I won't read all of that -- must take appropriate action to comply with any related applicable national laws.

So the approach taken by the working group is basically to require compliance with the WIPO procedures, in case of those states that comply with WIPO, or that are member states in that and have agreed to that, and in other cases with local laws of their jurisdiction.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So Chuck, just to sort of translate that legalese, so let's take the country name "Australia," and maybe people who understand some of those laws could explain this to me a little bit further, but does that basically mean that in the United States you couldn't have a product called "Australia"? Is that effectively what that's talking about? Where does that come from, that --

You're saying that there's laws on trademark, industrial design, and geographical indications.

>>CHUCK GOMES: No. That's all the title of that standing committee.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. But what's the actual underlying law on that? That's what I'm asking, I guess.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Well, it's not not law, as I understand it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. That's where I'm getting a bit lost here, because I don't understand why it's got anything to do with the guidelines of the WIPO standing committee. I mean, either there's treaty, like there's the Paris convention -- because that doesn't mean anything to me, I really must admit.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Let me go over to the report.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Because you're talking about guidelines of the committee, and then you're saying, "other related applicable national laws." A committee isn't law, and guidelines -- so basically, there must be some underlying law there that you're requiring to comply with, and my question is, I'm asking: What's that underlying law?

>>CHUCK GOMES: No. I believe the only actual laws that are referenced in this is the alternative, if a country has not signed on board with the WIPO guidelines.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's what I'm struggling with. I don't understand. A country wouldn't sign onto guidelines. There would be a treaty.

Jon, can you elaborate on that?

>>JON BING: Well, I'm not a specialist in this field, but as far as I understand, it is the WIPO treaty, on the recognition of geographical names as typical for certain products, and so on.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Typical for?

>>JON BING: Certain products.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think that's what needs to be referenced, Chuck, the actual treaty.

>>JON BING: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay.

>>JON BING: So Australia probably won't be the main example, but Champagne would be a good example. And they're certainly thrashing this out, because many of these geographical names have become typical and used across borders. Like the Dutch [inaudible] which is no more protected under [inaudible], which is a town in Holland, but, on the other hand, [inaudible] is protected.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. So that's quite specific, isn't it. So you're talking -- yeah. So talking about the concept of champagne and --

>> [inaudible].

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think there just needs more work, that wording of that whole second section.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And again, I think I'd refer to an actual treaty, rather than talking about guidelines of a committee, because countries wouldn't sign onto guidelines. They'd be signing onto a particular treaty, and we need to identify that. And then we need to give some examples of some of the things that are protected under that treaty.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. And you'll see that all of the recommendations follow this same pattern. This unfortunately was one that was completed late in the seven weeks or so that we met, and so it was kind of -- it was wrapped up in the very last week.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if I kind of paraphrase that -- and I just want to sort of get the gist of it -- so there are some laws that either ICANN needs to obey, because it's in the U.S. and a court has jurisdiction over it, or where the registry is located it needs to obey the law, and that's kind of a status quo that's applying there.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Uh-huh, right. Nothing revolutionary there.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, yeah. So really what we need to identify, from an ICANN perspective, is: Is there laws that are generally adopted by lots of countries and that it would make sense to have a dispute resolution process that we could use as part of a streamlined dispute process in terms of the introduction of a TLD, as opposed to something that we're just saying, okay, that's very specific to that particular country or law, and we're going to leave it to that law, but -- so we need to kind of -- yeah, that's why it's very important to sort of pull out what the actual underlying treaty is, and it's a treaty signed by a lots of countries, as the Madrid, Paris convention and the trademark stuff.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So it's kind of a similar thing, and I'm not sure whether that's of the same standing or not.

And then the other thing is then to try and translate that into what is our ICANN process going to be.

So just taking no. 1, are you saying that's input that we receive to create a reserved names list, or you're saying that when we -- when somebody applies for a geographic name, we go and get advice after -- you know, after they've applied for it? Is it before application that we're getting this advice?

>>CHUCK GOMES: I don't think it's -- I think it's up to the individual registry, is the way this is being written.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No. I'm talking about Recommendation 1.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Oh, okay. Oh, this -- no, no. That is simply -- oh, I understand your question. We need to make that clear.

My understanding on that -- now that I understand your question, I could be off base. I'll check this with the committee members. Avri will be in here in a minute. She's running a little bit late. And Mike Palage was the primary author here.

And the -- my understanding was, that was consulting up front, like we're doing right now with the GAC.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. With the intention to form a reserved names list? So we're basically --

>>CHUCK GOMES: There's no intent to consult with the GAC on a particular application with regard to geographical identifiers.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Okay. But if -- let me understand the process. Are you suggesting that ICANN says, "Okay, we're going to go ahead with new gTLDs, governments have got 30 days to submit names that they want to put on a reserved word list"? Is that the kind of process you're envisaging? I'm just trying to understand how you translate this.

>>CHUCK GOMES: No, we're not.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: What we're suggesting is that the applicant that is going to apply for the gTLD will abide -- will be required to -- if they're from a country that has signed on to the WIPO requirements, then they would comply with those. If they haven't, then they're just responsible, like always, of complying with their local laws. So we're not -- we're not putting -- we're not looking at having a list of geographical, you know, reserved names.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. Because that's basically got to be the recommendation, then, because --

>>CHUCK GOMES: What's got to be the recommendation?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Well, that you're not having a list, because this is the working group for reserved names, and so --

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Can I just help here?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yes, Alistair. Please do.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: My understanding was that it's not the applicant -- if an applicant is applying for a string that's a geographic name and that string relates to a country that has signed up under the WIPO convention, then they would have to -- basically, their application would have to comply with the convention. And equally, the applicant would have to ensure that they comply with relevant law. So it wouldn't be possible, for example, for somebody from the United States to go and seek, say, dot China unless they have the agreement of the government of China. That was my understanding of what was being proposed.

>>CHUCK GOMES: And Alistair, just some clarification there. And Avri, feel free to jump in here. I know you're just coming in, but we're trying to clarify the recommendations on the geographic and geopolitical names.

So if the U.S. is a country that supported the WIPO standing committee guidelines, and China is as well, then are you saying that it's your understanding that a registry operator from the U.S. would not submit a name dot China? Is that what you're saying?

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Well, they would have to submit -- they would have to comply with the requirements of the WIPO guidelines.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right. Okay.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: So if the WIPO guidelines allows them to submit a name dot China, then it would be fine. But if they didn't allow a non-Chinese entity to submit a dot China name, yeah, then they would be outside the guidelines. I mean --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: -- that was my understanding of what was proposed.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think -- because fundamentally, Alistair, I'm trying to identify, we have a process for dealing with applications, and there's the -- you know, they need to meet a set of string criteria, and then there's objections to that. So that's a process we have.

And part of our process is, we have this reserved name list, and at the moment, at the second level, in some registry agreements there is some text relating to the second level. And can someone sort of just explain that a little bit? Maybe I've jumped to it, but currently a registry operator for a lot of the new TLDs is restricted at the second level, isn't it? Or it needs to get some approval from governments or something? What's the --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right. Well, there are, what, a half a dozen or so agreements that have requirements for geographical identifiers or reserved names.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So let's just go to one of those. It might sort of help a bit. I'm sort of struggling to sort of translate what your recommendation is.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Let's get through the difficulty of calling a name a reserved name, Bruce, because it's a reservation but it's not necessarily -- in not all cases with reserved names is the reservation absolute.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right.

>>ALISTAIR DIXON: Only in some cases, in terms of the recommendations, is the reservation absolute.

There was some terminology -- and it's escaped me at the moment -- that people have come up with for dealing with names where the reservation might have restrictions but it would not be absolute, and in fact, an applicant could actually use the name, provided that they met the requirements of the policy. So it's not an absolute reservation like, for example, a single number at the top level or, for that matter, say a symbol at the top level.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So if we look -- I'm just looking -- I've just displayed the text that's at the second level, just as a starting point.

So it basically says that -- this is out of the dot mobi agreement. It says, "All geographic and geopolitical names contained in the ISO 3166-1 list shall initially be reserved," and then it says, "The registry operators shall reserve names of territories, distinct economies, and other geographic and geopolitical names as ICANN may direct from time to time." So that's effectively saying that ICANN creates this list and it's maintained --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Let me interrupt just a second. If everyone wants to refer to Page 142 in the document, you'll see there a summary of the requirements, including what Bruce is reading right now, that are in registry agreements. Okay? And he's referring to the dot mobi one.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And then it's saying that, "Upon determination by ICANN of appropriate standards for registration, following input from interested parties, such names may be approved for registration."

So the way I would read that is, basically it's saying that as part of the string check process, we're going to say, is it a geographic or geopolitical name, yes or no, and it might be on a list that ICANN maintains, which would be effectively a reserved list of -- maybe it's a, you know, separate list.

So in your flow, you'd be saying, is it a geographic or geopolitical name? And then you're saying, if so, then use this process.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. And we're not talking about this process that's in the existing agreements.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No. But I'm just -- sorry. You're correct.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right, right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if I could just kind of map it, I think there's a flip chart down there. I think ultimately we've got to have something that's practical.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if we just think about the process we're using for string checks, we're basically saying that we have applications come in, those applications are posted, and then we go through a series of string checks, and some of the string checks, we're saying that if there are technical issues, is there sort of a moral issue, is there [inaudible] of rights [inaudible]

>>CHUCK GOMES: Controversial and --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: [inaudible] moral [inaudible]

[Phone beeps]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Just those things. If we say -- depending upon which ones of these, they go into different types of dispute processes effectively.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Uh-huh.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if you look at the way geopolitical names are handled at the second level, if you like, essentially what we're waying is, is it geopolitical, which really -- sorry. Is it on a reserved list? What it might be that we're trying to design here is maybe getting political names out on a reserved list, but then this thing [inaudible]. So you might say I have a reserved list and it has these categories as -- so that's [inaudible] categories like dot example, let's say, [inaudible] ICANN, IANA and we say, no, you can't have any of those names.

And then we have another category, which is geopolitical, and we have some sort of list, preferably some ISO list that we can use, so that it basically says if it's on that list, then it's on the reserved list. And then we're saying if it's on that list, then there's a process for deciding whether to release it. And that, to me, is --

>>CHUCK GOMES: I'm not following you there. Go ahead.

>>AVRI DORIA: That's specifically what the group decided not to recommend.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right.

>>AVRI DORIA: And as it decided specifically not to recommend creating of such a list, it was basically saying this is something that is governed by national agreement and national law, signatories to, you know, the WIPO agreement, et cetera. This was not controlled by a list because different countries, different agreements, different whatevers might have different lists.

So it's basically saying the rule is an implicit rule, not a explicit rule. You have an implicit list by virtue of what agreements you've made and what national laws you have.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So then, Avri, that is not in the reserved list so we take it off that category, but now we're talking about a new category here and we're saying one of the string checks is political and that's one of the grounds for objection, so then that becomes the objection process.

>>AVRI DORIA: Exactly, yes.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes. So have I captured that correctly?

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So that then has implications for the new gTLD policy because unlike some of the other categories that you talked about early on yesterday --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- we're actually saying we need a new type of string check, and this string check, basically -- it's a complaints process, effectively, and so a person would complain and they'd say, "because this string is protected under this law," and then we have a dispute process we'll have that's dealt with. And the reason why I'm saying "a dispute process," there are two ways you can do it. You could have -- I'm just trying to get the concept [inaudible], okay?

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: There are two options in the process. You have a check, a dispute resolution, which is called -- let's call it "fast," and then it goes in the root, and then after that, it could be pulled from the root. Okay?

And this could happen at any time because there's laws in various countries that can do this at any time.

And so what I'm trying to say is, rather than end up with a situation where we have a bunch of stuff that's in here that runs for some period of months and gets pulled out, what we're saying is, let's try and deal with most of these fairly efficiently in this ICANN approval process. And, you know, using courts of law is not a way of doing an application process. So we need to sort of identify what are the main categories, and then we have some sort of dispute mechanism, but fairly clearly defined.

>>AVRI DORIA: Right. Which we called the slow path, when we were talking about it in the --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. It's the slow path, that's right. But it's not years. It's a slow path, but it's not years.

>>AVRI DORIA: Right. Yeah. The slow path is faster than that, right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, yeah. And also, names that we haven't -- by the time it gets here, it's got a pretty good chance of [inaudible] if you like.

>>AVRI DORIA: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So I think what we're -- if I interpret the recommendation, it is that we're saying one of the checks or one of the areas of objection can be geographic. The basis for that objection is, you know, the text that Chuck was saying: It's part of this treaty or whatever it is. And therefore, we could have a dispute provider of some sort that basically says, you know, does this meet the treaty requirement or not, basically. Yeah, Jon.

>>JON BING: Excuse me. Just for clarification, but does these geographical names also contain the lists which has been agreed under the WIPO convention as regional origins? Because they are, as you know, rather similar to trademarks, only they do not apply to a certain product but to their geographical origins of a product like Champagne or like [inaudible] and so on, and if they are not respected by countries which are not bound by them, you may have some sort of immigration of domains to --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Exactly. So what I think we're saying here, if I get this correctly, let's identify specifically what the treaties are, rather than a WIPO committee; that we actually need to refer to the treaties. And what we're saying is because I'd like to see that these treaties are signed by more than just, you know, two countries or something -- because obviously you could have a bilateral agreement, but if this is a treaty that's pretty widespread, you know, has a lot of signatories in a broad range of countries, then I think what we're saying, just like we're doing with UDRP, we're saying that the applicant will be bound by a dispute process that's based on that. So we're -- let's say we have a dispute process --

So the applicant could live in the Cocos Islands or something and he's not a signatory, but what we're saying is ICANN is going to recognize the fact that that's an international treaty and is going to have a dispute process. And one of these areas that are -- just the way we sort of do it with trademarks, effectively, because not all countries are signatories to the trademark law either.

>>JON BING: It will be interesting, will it not. For instance, one of the -- one of the issues now is "vodka," whether that should be reserved, and we might easily see that this process has become part of the sort of trade policies.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And also, when you look at those trade things, I think, you know, this is where we've got to be careful with the law. And I agree, I think we need to identify specifically what the law --

>> [inaudible] joins.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- but it might well be that you could have "champagne," if it wasn't referring to a drink, for example. Because "champagne" in some areas is a color. And, you know, you can see clothing that's, you know, [inaudible] but it's used as a color and maybe you have dot champagne [inaudible] interested in the color and nothing at all to do with the drink. It probably isn't in violation of, you know, that trademark, or whatever it's called.

So I think you'd have to look at that as part of that dispute process that, you know, that's the sorts of elements that would be looked at.

>>AVRI DORIA: I mean on the dispute resolution, I mean in the thing, that's one of the places where we said the work was yet to be done, indeed, of how that was done. I don't know that we made the jump that you made in the recommendations that everyone, even if not signatory, would be governed by the same rules as those that signed it, but --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Well, if you don't do that, so what?

>>AVRI DORIA: Yes. Then if you don't do that, then you create havens. I understand.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I just want to be very clear what we're trying to do here. We're trying to design this. We're not dealing with that. That exists anyway.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And that's where, obviously, if there's a law in Iraq or something that says you can't have something, then, you know, the law of -- the government of Iraq will do whatever it does, right?

But we're trying to say, here's a process that's streamlined, applies to all applicants. They agree to it up front as part of their application, and whatever is in here should be a reasonable common denominator. In other words, it's something that is broadly supported internationally, picking up the sorts of concepts we're saying, yeah, international legal norms, you know, widely recognized international law.

So all I'm saying in this area of the geopolitical, let's actually identify whether that is in that category. Is it widely recognized international law? Let's get the specific treaty. Let's see how many countries are signatories to it. Let's get a sense of that before we decide to put it in here versus down there.

>>AVRI DORIA: No, that seems like a good idea for where the additional work needs to be done on this, yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Bruce, just for clarification -- and we could probably do with some better expertise than I'm about to offer, but my understanding is that the 2002 WIPO general assembly -- so still talking only at the agency level, in United Nations terms -- passed a resolution which was resisted by certain countries related to country names, and they wanted reservation of country names. The decision there was specifically not to go for treaty, because they realized there was no support for a treaty and, indeed, the time scale for that was inappropriate. And the action that WIPO has since taken -- the WIPO secretariat has since taken has been overtures to ICANN to say, "Can you help us implement this?"

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And that's where I think we're --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: So, we're at the moment in danger of having a rather circular argument here. We're assuming something has happened that hasn't.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: And on geographical indicators -- the champagnes, et cetera, of this world -- the decision of that WIPO assembly, if I recall correctly -- and I just had a quick look at the text of it -- was to say to the lower trademark committee, "Have a look at that again and get back to us," and I don't think that "getting back to us" has yet happened.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: So that's where the status is, I believe. I may stand corrected, but that's where it is.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think that's very important, the way you articulated that, and I don't think ICANN is the place to replace doing treaties. That's sort of saying "Because it's too hard ever here, we just want you to go and do it here in ICANN," and that's trying to make us an international legislator or an international law body. I think that's dangerous.

I think if we stick to our principles there, and say, "You know, we will obey applicable international law" -- but to actually sort of say, "Oh, because it was hard to create this international law, ICANN why don't you just say yes," then that's -- where is that in our mandate? You know, that's not part of ICANN's mission, to be doing that. We're a technical coordinator. We abide by the laws of the land or the laws of the world. So I don't think we should be used as a repository, unless it's a technical issue, which is in our area. So I think, you know, whether we want to ban dot exe or something, I think that's entirely within ICANN's scope, if that's what the technical community thinks is important. But if we then sort of are saying, "Hey, we want to ban a word" or "We want to change a word" that's not supported by law, then where does that fit with our mission? You know, I think that's mission creep, essentially. But we just have to be careful what we're actually --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Mike Palage has joined us and, Mike, you may want to jump in here. We're obviously talking about geographic and geopolitical names. And so, Mike, it might be helpful if you walked us through how the recommendation would work if an application came in with a geographic or geopolitical name.

First of all, how would you identify whether it's geographic or geopolitical? And then secondly, what would happen in the application process with regard to this particular category?

And the group has seen the recommendation for the top level.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Okay. With regard to the top level --

There was, if you will, a lot of consensus at the second level. Regarding the top level, within the group we said -- if you will, we referenced it to the GAC members. That was the consensus statement that we had agreed upon.

>>CHUCK GOMES: And explain what you mean by "referenced to the GAC members."

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Well, I'll sort of -- I'll let the words speak for themselves.

>>CHUCK GOMES: We already went through the words, but --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So essentially what we're saying, Mike, though, is, we're trying to design a process here.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Uh-huh.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So we're saying it's part of a dispute process. We could create a category of geographic names as being an area where we could have a dispute, but it should be granted in international law.

And so our question is: What is the international law in this area? Is there a treaty? Is there something that we can reference that -- where, like with trademark law, I can say "Here's the law, here's the treaty, you know, that applies in each country."

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: If I didn't have ICANN there, I could actually go to a law, a court of law, and get a decision on a trademark.

So my question is: What is the law in the geographic area that exists today that's protecting the geographic names?

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: As Philip was articulating, the WIPO general assembly there was, I believe, 174 member states that agreed with the recommendations regarding the protection of country names. The four countries which did not adopt that were the United States, Canada, Australia, and a reservation by Japan.

So one of the things --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So then, Mike, is it then in the laws of those countries now?

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: There are -- yes. If you read the WIPO II report, there are certain countries which do provide for the protection of geographical identifiers in national law.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: In national law.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: In national law.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So that's what I think we need to try and identify, is what are those national laws that exist today.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: And if you look at our recommendation, one of the things that we tried to always do is look at the national law. And the key indicator that we tried to do was where the applicant was potentially incorporated under those national laws or --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And one of the things I want to be clear on the national law, so within Australia, it may have some restrictions on the use of the word "Australia" within Australia, but do these national laws actually protect the names of other countries? In other words, if I was in Australia, is there an Australian law saying I can't use "United States"? Because I'm pretty sure there's not, but -- that's what I kind of wanted -- when you're clarifying by saying there's national laws -- there might be national laws protecting their own country name, the question is: Does it protect other country names in their country?

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Jon Bing had a question.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Jon?

>>JON BING: Well, I certainly wouldn't know the nature of national laws around the world, but it is typical that national law will protect the state name of other states, as well with some --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Of their own states, yeah.

>>JON BING: Yeah. Some of the things like the call to arms and the other things.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, exactly. So the question we're trying to do here, Jon, is identify -- the concept here, I think, is basically saying that somehow a country name or geographic name is protected outside of that region, and I'm trying to say what -- what laws exist today that do that. Because obviously, a law will typically protect its own name within that region, so names of governments, names of states, whatever. But it's when you start to say, "I'm going to protect the law -- these names in these other parts of the world" is where there's a big jump.

>>JON BING: And regrettably, it is not a unique name. There's a well-known fridge in the United States called Norge and Norge is a Norwegian form of our own country.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Well, I believe there's a town called Nike as well.

>>JON BING: Yeah. And there would be a rather larger number of towns, if you go down to that level.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Exactly, yeah. So clearly it's not protected in --

>>JON BING: But my point was that even if you're protecting the name of the country, that country may have several versions of the names.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>JON BING: Some of them which are not recognized, and some of them actually being part of a political struggle in what type of country it should be.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So I think basically the extra work here, it sounds like it's not ready to be brought up to a new gTLD committee recommendation, because I think we need to identify the underlying laws here, because the default position basically, there's some legal processes that can occur after the fact, but what we're trying to do is to say does it need to be elevated into our dispute process as a streamlined way of -- of dealing with the issue, and then what I'm saying is the criteria for that is, can we identify some national laws or laws in multiple countries that are -- that are fairly similar that meet this concept or not.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Bruce, one of the problems, though, that you will run into -- and before getting to that point, Paragraph 261 of the WIPO 2 report actually lists those laws of ccTLD operators that haven't acknowledged the protection of geographical identifiers. To my knowledge, though, I know of no country that provides protection for another geographical identifier.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: The only caveat to that, however, would be, for example, certain regions. For example, Champagne, stuff like that. Geographical identifiers. So there are --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And I think -- and that's what my guess would be, too. So in that case, that's why I'm treating that the same as saying, well, there's a particular word that means something in that country that's probably just going to be dealt with under the laws of that country, rather than an ICANN process.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Correct. Now, the one potential shortcoming in our recommendation here where we tried to focus on looking at national law as being the guiding principle, a potential way of gaming the system with the guidelines that we have set forth here would be potentially someone who would want the name of South Africa, dot South Africa as a top-level domain, who would seek to incorporate in the U.S. --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes, exactly.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: -- where that protection -- where they would not be barred from doing that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So I think the way I'd deal with it under our current process -- and maybe we need to --

As I understand it, in our current recommendations, this would be covered under the one that came in since Marina del Rey, which is basically saying that if it's an established institution that relates to that name -- and a country would be an established institution -- then they would have standing to object to an applicant.

So using your South Africa scenario, the way I'd work it through our current process is basically to say, someone applies for South Africa and they live in the United States. The South African government says, "Hey, we are the South African government and we are an established institution that relates to this name South Africa. We don't believe this person in the U.S. is representative of South Africa. Here's our evidence. Basically, we are the government." And that would be enough for that applicant then to be knocked out as part of that applicant criteria. So that's how I'd deal with that currently.

>>AVRI DORIA: Bruce? And that's exactly the reason for, you asked before, the notification to the GAC of there being such a name in progress, to make sure that South Africa is aware that this is happening at that time.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And so I -- I just want to be clear that our mechanism in the new gTLD currently is that that's dealt with as being an established institution that's related to that. So in other words, if the Cocos Islands say, "I don't like the fact that this guy in the United States wants South Africa," that wouldn't be enough. It would have to be the South African government who's actually complaining about that. Yeah, John.

>> Thanks, Bruce. I mean I headed up, as you know, the WIPO II committee, and it was absolutely impossible to reach any kind of consensus, notwithstanding the involvement of half a dozen countries from the GAC, for the simple reason that trademark law, as some of you may know, would not only permit, but now you will find registration of country names as trademarks around the world. You'll find the names of various countries registered in -- the same mark registered in 50 countries right now.

So it becomes very, very difficult to understand how you're now going to prevent that mark as a domain name simply because it contains a country name --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>> -- traveling around the world.

So all I can tell you is after a year of working with people from every constituency in a whole cross-section of countries, we could reach zero consensus, and I think you're going down the same path.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thanks, John. Okay. I think let's move on to the next area: Three character reserved names.

>>CHUCK GOMES: All right. The three character reserved names -- now, you didn't want to go over the second level for geographic?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think the principles are pretty --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah, it's pretty similar, except for the GAC step there, so...

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So, well, actually maybe I'll just try and clarify it. So is this -- are you recommending a change to the status quo at the second level?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Well, there is no status quo for this category --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right.

>>CHUCK GOMES: -- because there are some agreements that have a requirement for geographic reserved names and many that don't.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. Okay.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay? So I don't think we can talk about status quo here.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's fair. Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: So in the case of agreements that do have a geographic reserved name requirement, we are recommending a change.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And what's that?

>>CHUCK GOMES: To the process we just talked about. You'll see the same language, with the exception of that first step.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. But at the second level, it's a little different, so the process we're talking about is a process that happens before the name goes into the --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Uh-huh.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- zone.

For the second level, are you proposing -- just explain how that would work. Is there some way that that happens before it goes into the zone or --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Go ahead, Mike.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- or is it an after-the-fact decision?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Let Mike jump in there.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Yeah. Thanks, Chuck.

What we're looking at here is, this recommendation would not only apply to new TLDs, but existing TLDs. This is the recommendation.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: And what we are proposing to do here is to respect the sovereign laws and rights of those 174 member states that had, in fact, supported the recommendation of the WIPO general assembly. So what we were looking for would be WIPO would have to go back and come up with a dispute mechanism, based upon the principles set forth by the general assembly.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. But I think that's where you're going -- I think we'll have exactly the same comments as where I went before.

I think we could use the same method we were talking about by the established institution thing, and we could have a -- I guess a dispute process around that. But if we're going to go down your path, I think basically it's got to be based on what's the underlying law there.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Well, that's exactly it, Bruce. What we're looking at here is those companies -- so for example, if you look at the current gTLD registries that would potentially be bound by this recommendation, you'd be looking at Afilias.info located in Ireland, Mobi located in --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But -- hang on. Tell me how -- I still don't understand this "bound" bit, because unless it's in the law of Ireland that it's part of the treaty, which I think you just basically said it's not, I think you basically said that it's -- the law of Ireland would only protect the word "Ireland." And so I don't see how -- if I'm in -- so Afilias is in Ireland, right?

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Correct.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And I apply for South Africa.info, how would the law of Ireland bind Aflias?

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Because what we're looking at is we're looking at the work that WIPO had done over the years and the recommendations that were adopted by the general assembly of WIPO did not make that distinction. They sat there and said that country names shall be protected.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, but that's WIPO. I'm saying what does the government -- what's the law say? What's the underlying law in Ireland?

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Uh-huh.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Because ultimately, that's what you're referring back to. You know, if it's a trademark dispute, there is a trademark law in Ireland, and that's what you're referring to.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think we just have to be careful how we word this, you know. Philip?

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Bruce, if I can try again. We're, at the moment, talking about the creation of a -- ultimately, a creation of a reservation list, huh? To my mind, this is out of scope, is the simple answer, in relation to this particular work at the moment. Huh?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: What we've said, in terms of the top level, is that we believe one of our existing processes in the TLD process, as you said, a body with standing can object to a process.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: So essentially we're giving countries a veto, if anybody comes up with their name in a TLD, huh?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: On the basis they're an established institution related to that name, yeah.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah.

At the second level and the third level, to my mind, we're back precisely where we have been for the last six years, with WIPO having made a request to ICANN and no action having been taken yet.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's right. So the same with the pharmaceutical names and with other things, yeah.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Right. And WIPO, I think, are expecting at some point ICANN's policy body -- which sounds like us -- to be addressing that, in one way or the other.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think that's probably a good summary, yeah.

>>MICHAEL PALAGE: But just to go back, the WIPO II, the guidelines adopted by the general assembly, was not a veto. And that's an important distinction. Because the GAC draft principles basically called for -- at least at the second level, they said they wanted the name blocked or they wanted a block, for fear of the right to register.

That is different than what the general assembly said, and particularly, Point 2 said the protection should be operative against the registration or use of any name which is identical or misleadingly similar to the country name where the domain name holder has no right or legitimate interest in the domain name and is of the nature to likely mislead users into believing that there is some association between the domain name holder and the constitutional authorities of that country.

Now, I agree that the potential application of that may result in a high probability where, if the South African government was to object, they would succeed, but those words do not say they get an automatic veto, and I think that's very important. And one of the things that we tried to, if you will, hone in on, in our work, is to focus the GAC on what the work of the general assembly had done over the many years that they've particularly looked at this topic. So that's what we were driving at.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Thanks, Mike. Let's try and move -- I want to get to the -- just hold on a second.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Okay. The --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: There was another controversial one or something, was there?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I just want to sort of -- can you sort of move through the ones that are -- move through these ones rather quickly?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. The three-character reserved names at the third level, we didn't recommend any changes in terms of the way those are handled. That's unique to one particular registry, right now, and we just tried to be inclusive of everything that came under this category.

This one is so unique that we thought that the way it's handled on a contractual basis was fine.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Let's keep moving. This one? gTLD names?

>>CHUCK GOMES: gTLD names. We didn't come to agreement on this one. In fact, when surveying multiple gTLD registries, we got quite a mixed view on whether this requirement is important or not. It becomes harder to manage as you go forward. And what it is, this is -- this has nothing to do with the top level. This is second level or third, if applicable, and it's basically requiring that gTLD registries can't register names for other TLDs at the second level. So biz can't do dot info -- info.biz, for example. Okay? There's not agreement, even among registries, whether this requirement is important or not.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Keep moving through, because you're not really making any recommendation on some of these, are you?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Now, this one?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Now, controversial names is -- first of all, the -- and you notice we presented this very differently, in terms of the presentation.

First of all, a definition is provided for what a controversial name is, and you can see the bullets here. First of all, the name has to qualify as a TLD under existing string criteria. Nothing big there. And it can't fall under another reserved name category.

Third, it's disputed for reasons other than it falls under any other reserved name category and it infringes on the prior legal rights of others.

So it's not going to -- we're not calling controversial names names that fall under those other -- those two categories.

Go ahead and move forward.

Now, so the recommendation -- and this is going to go over several slides because there's four parts to it. And this is for top-level ASCII, okay? And the proposal is to create a category called "controversial names" used for the top level only, and you'll see how that fits in with a totally different approach for the second level. A label that is applied for would be considered controversial if, during the public comment phase of the new gTLD application process, the label becomes disputed by a formal notice of a consensus position from an ICANN advisory committee or ICANN supporting organization and otherwise meets the definition of "controversial names" as defined above.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So what were some examples?

>> Right.

>>CHUCK GOMES: I'm sorry. What was that?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: What's an example of a controversial name?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Go ahead, Marilyn. Jump in.

>>MARILYN CADE: So a controversial name, Bruce, might be the name of a country that has a law that prohibits the registration -- the use of its name except by express permission of the government. It might be --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. But we covered that under the geopolitical, so give me another one.

>>MARILYN CADE: But it could be also be, I guess, one of the -- you referenced yesterday perhaps the concept of a nasty word. It could --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. But aren't we covering that under the other new gTLD process, under the sort of that there's laws and moral public order and we have some sort of dispute process for that? I'm not quite sure why this is in that reserved names category.

>>MARILYN CADE: In proposing -- and I was one of the folks who worked on this. I see that Tim is not here. Right? So in proposing this, I think we were looking at this as a process by which you might take a name out of the active process and figure out a way to deal with the dispute and potentially put a name back in.

So I'm -- I don't mean to pick on geocities as an example, but let's say that geotownships, for instance, is a category.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But that's a totally separate hot topic. We've talked about geo, so give me a -- I don't know -- bomb. Dot bomb. We're going to blow something up.

>>MARILYN CADE: Okay. Or dot Mohammed.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Okay. That's another one.

>>MARILYN CADE: Or dot Nazi.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So those ones -- we're not trying to create a magic list of those words.

>>MARILYN CADE: No.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So what we are doing, then, in our new gTLD process is we're saying that there is this category which is -- you know, whether it's public order or morality, so if you're creating a domain space entirely for, you know, Web sites for how to build bombs and blow things up, as generally would fit into that public order category, and then what we'd say is as an outcome of that process -- I think what we talked about in the new gTLD discussions on these things is, when something gets disputed like that, at that point the name gets reserved. So that it's not just a mechanism of saying, "Hey, I actually really want this name so I'm going to dispute this guy and then I'm going to apply for it in the next round myself." So that was kind of the context where we were talking about that. So if it was sufficient to be able to prove that it was in this category that one person couldn't have it, then effectively we're saying, well, no one else can have it either, unless there was some other -- as Avri gave the other example yesterday, that maybe someone is using that TLD solely for the purpose of, I don't know, something good about it -- how to dismantle bombs -- and that would then presumably be a contractual condition on being able to have that.

>>MARILYN CADE: So you might take the phrase "cluster bombs" as an example of something that is very controversial.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>MARILYN CADE: There's a U.N. commission. If you were to register to put up a Web site on how to deal with cluster bombs, that might be a good use, but it might be highly disputed initially when you applied for the name.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. So just sort of conscious that we keep the actual reserved names work fairly focused on things that, up front, you're telling the applicant "This is a name that you shouldn't have," and then there's other parts of our process to deal with objections or disputes and it could be, I guess, as part of our recommendations that names that are disputed and those disputes are successful, that they get added to a list. Maybe it's just the disputed names list or something. And names could be removed from that disputed names list via an appropriate process. But the default would be, as a new applicant, you check to see are my names on a disputed names list. That's probably not a good idea to apply for that.

>>MARILYN CADE: Right. And actually, Bruce, in the discussion that the subgroup had, we toyed with changing the name to "disputed/controversial" because that was the very concept that we were thinking about.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, yeah. That might be a better way of using -- I'm just -- what I'm trying to do, the reason why I'm pushing on these things is I'm just trying to align it with we've done in the new gTLD work --

>>MARILYN CADE: Right, exactly.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- and see how we can incorporate the ideas.

Okay. Anything else, Chuck?

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. There are other steps there. Do you want to go through those, or do you want to --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Probably not for now. I think --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I was just trying to get the concept.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Now, let me get -- make sure I have the sense, Bruce, of what you're suggesting here.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Is the sense that I'm getting that controversial names should be handled through the new gTLD process, rather than through the reserved name process?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes. In other words, unless you're going to create a list, which I'm assuming you're not --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. Yeah. That's correct.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- what we're saying is that the new gTLD process effectively creates a list on the fly, because as names are disputed and kicked out, that they then get added to this list of --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- here's a list of ones that were rejected, if you like.

>>CHUCK GOMES: No, no. I understand that. I just want to be very clear on that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: And I don't have any problem with that. What we tried to do as a working group is work on every possible type of --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: -- reserved name that could exist, if you went that direction.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: And so that's why we covered this area here, because we knew that it was one that had been brought up.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. Yeah. No, I'm not criticizing the work. I'm just trying to --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. So this is really one, then, that the reserved name working group probably wouldn't need to pursue further.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, I think that's right.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. Actually --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Other than just in our guidelines in our new gTLD report, just indicating that as part of the guidelines when a dispute happens and a name is kicked out for that reason, it goes on a disputed names list and, you know, we --

>>CHUCK GOMES: And that kind of backs up to another question in the previous category. You don't need to roll back there. The other reserved names at the second level was one that was unique to particular registries, and I would -- and I'm trying to get your guidance in this regard.

It's one that I think -- it doesn't apply to all registries. It was unique. Certain elements of it were unique to just particular registries in their negotiations. Premium names is an example. Some of the things like that. They really aren't on the reserved names list, and if I extend what you're saying to that, I would think also that that's probably not an issue for reserved names.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think that's right, yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Because it's not a global list. I mean, I think obviously a registry for the purposes of that TLD -- I mean, a classic example is dot jobs. There's probably some words you don't want in front of that, and -- starting with "b," potentially -- that, you know, might be something you want to reserve, because you're trying to create this TLD for the purposes of jobs or whatever.

So I could see that an individual registry operator, for its own reasons, might want to prevent certain words. But that's not a contractual requirement coming from on high saying, you know, "You must" --

>>CHUCK GOMES: That's good. No, that's helpful direction.

>>MARILYN CADE: But -- would you take a -- after Avri, would you put me in the queue to comment on that?

>>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to go back to the one thing you were talking about before, of the disputed names, and I think that's not something that perhaps the RN group should be working on, but I think we have more to do with the whole getting on that list, getting off that list, living with that list. I think it's something that we're sort of hand-waving about, still, and --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, I think so, although --

AVRI DORIA: -- and need to put some focus on it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think some of that will evolve. I'm not sure that we can get everything done at once, but I understand what you're saying. I think that's an area that needs to be thought through a bit more, yeah. But mostly from a staff implementation point of view, I think.

>> May I just ask a question on this, Bruce? And thanks, everyone, for the discussion that has been going on. I've been taking detailed notes about where I think there could be agreement from recommendations from the group. But can I check that the next stage of the process is to include the reserved names working group agreed recommendations in the new TLDs report?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No, it's not. No.

>> No.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: What we need to do is --

>> Are you sure?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's a separate, report, right?

>>MARILYN CADE: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And we then need to sort of say, "Okay, now that we've received that report, what conclusions do we want to actually -- or changes do we want to make to the new gld work?" And that's a decision made by that new gTLD committee.

So the working -- this is effectively the equivalent of an issues report. It's basically saying "Here's a bunch of input and materials." We're now -- what -- and this is a meeting of the new gTLD committee here, and we're saying, "Okay, we've received this report from the working group. We're trying to say, okay, is this something we've already covered, or it fits into our existing process, or is it something we've missed, and we need to incorporate?"

So I think a lot of the scenarios that Chuck has given -- especially, you know, going through them yesterday -- we're able to say, "Yeah, that fits into this flow of our existing process, so basically no change. You know, we acknowledge this and no change to the new gTLD report."

>> Yeah. Got it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Because we acknowledge that this is what it is.

The only thing I would do in the discussion in the new gTLD report is refer back, and then you can say, "The issue raised by the" --

>> By the group.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- "by the working group for geopolitical names fits in here in our process," effectively. So that's kind of --

>> Sure.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It's an edit of the content --

>> Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- it's not a grab this and just chuck it in.

>> Just in that case -- I'm sorry to ask a supplementary question. Chuck, is it your intention to do any further amendments to the report, and -- because I need that to be stable. That report needs to be finished. And so the logical question then to ask is: Is there any more work that's going be done, and then when will the report be final so it becomes an input into this process and then I can use it to determine where things would change and how things would change and if they would change, and then use it as a reference document, just like Bruce has referred to?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think what we -- that's probably a discussion for the council, but --

>> Okay.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: -- essentially what I'd be saying is -- and, you know, let's seek the agreement of the council on Wednesday. But I think it is worth doing one more edit of the document, based on the discussions the last couple of days.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah, right. That's exactly what I was going to say, yeah.

If we're extended for another 30 days, then there would be some more edits, more input into the report.

>> Super. Thanks.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Okay. I think we've --

>>CHUCK GOMES: Marilyn wanted -- has been trying to get in here.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Sorry. Go ahead, Marilyn.

>>MARILYN CADE: I -- my comment is -- so I support everything you've said so far, but my comment goes back to the discussion about registries, reserving names, and making it very clear that when a registry reserves a name, that is a reserved name; it is not a form of parking a name and releasing it later without notice to the community.

So the idea of premium names is a marketing strategy; that's not a reserved name category.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah, right.

>>MARILYN CADE: And I think we've all agreed with that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>MARILYN CADE: But there is an issue where I see that a registry might register 5,000 names. Many of those names are names that are suitable to be released and used, and I -- I'm -- you know, I guess the question I have is: Let's be careful that the reserved name process is not creating a harbor for names that are then later going to be released by the registry without some public process to release them and allocate them.

So I think we were -- this idea that there may be names just stored was a topic of discussion among the working group. So making the distinction that when a -- if a registry has a business model that creates a premium name strategy, that's a part of their initial launch, it's public, it's open to public comment, et cetera, et cetera. That's not reserving -- that's not a reserved name category; that's a marketing -- that's a part of their contractual conditions, including getting agreement at the time of launch on how that's going to happen.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Are there contractual conditions currently around first come, first served? Is that something that's -- I suppose it partly comes under the framework of the agreement, but is that -- is there actual rules about allocation in the contracts?

>>CHUCK GOMES: That varies by the contract.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: By the contract, yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: And keep in mind we're only talking about a small subset of the gTLDs that have these kind of provisions.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: And it's all, you know, described in the report.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I guess what I'm trying to understand is, I hear there is -- I agree with you -- a distinction, Marilyn. I'm just questioning what role do we have necessarily in that. You know, like if a gTLD has a -- this is part of the diversity, if you like -- but wants to try something different, I'm not sure what the policy implication of that is, I guess. Why would we need to be involved?

>>MARILYN CADE: I'm just saying -- I'm focused on: What is the definition of a reserved name and what can one do with a reserved name, and what is the process to --

So, you know, I don't think reserved name ought to become something other than it is a prohibited name --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right.

>>MARILYN CADE: -- and that's --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. I understand. Okay. If that's the point, I agree with you. I think we -- in terms of our terminology, we're actually effectively creating a framework agreement here, and two things happen.

One, we could be reserving names at the top level, so that's obviously an ICANN issue. But in terms of our framework agreement, we may reserve other names, and an example at the second level, the word "example" is an example.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So basically, what we're saying is, it doesn't matter what registry it is, you can't have example dot whatever, and that sets a mandated reserved name.

The things you're talking about is different business models. That's not reserved names, I agree with you. That might be their release strategy or whatever.

>>MARILYN CADE: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It's not the same thing.

>>MARILYN CADE: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Okay.

>> Marilyn, just on that one, in that case, the reserved word in the contract is an existing definition within the existing contracts, and I will include that.

If we -- there's a distinction there between the contractual definitions and what you've actually just described, and I think that needs a bit further discussion in the document.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I think what it needs is -- yeah. That's probably worth putting that description in the reserved names section of the document. From a framework agreement point of view, I guess what we're saying is the framework agreement should clearly perhaps redefine that or improve the definition of "reserved word" or something.

>>MARILYN CADE: Yeah. So today, in the Annex 6, Appendix 6, whichever one it is. Appendix 6?

>> Appendix 6.

>>MARILYN CADE: Okay. In Appendix 6, there are categories of names that are prohibited, and then there are categories of names that are prohibited but can be released if you step through four hoops, so to speak.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So this is -- I'm just putting it up on the screen now. This is the Appendix 6 of mobi, so it's got reserved at all levels, which is the dot example I was talking about, then the things about single-character labels and things. And then at the bottom is that category.

So this is an example that hasn't really reserved anything specific here. Which is interesting, actually. So the dot mobi premium names isn't in this appendix, obviously.

>>CHUCK GOMES: No. In fact, that was an issue that was discussed in the working group is that, again, we tried to be really comprehensive in our first cut at all of the things, and that's how some of these got in there. There certainly were those in the group that thought that this did not fit in the same category as the others --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: -- as has been pointed out here.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: But again, we tried to cover all bases that we thought might come up, and then we can -- you know, later then we can trim it down to what really fits.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So essentially, what we need to do from the gTLD report is have some specific guidelines about what are reserved words and what are the categories we've agreed to so far. And I think, you know, a lot of the work that we talked about yesterday, the -- you know, the dot examples and things like that, we're saying we've got enough, effectively, to create an Appendix 6, I think, based on the report, and we should probably create that, and then people can review that as part of the -- you know, the review. So I think we need to create an Appendix 6, basically.

>> Sure. That will also serve two purposes. One, it's an instruction to applicants about what not to apply for, and we've discussed this previously, because that gets us out of some of the string contention issues. You know, don't bother putting this in. In addition to providing guidance for potential new registry operators about what they might be able to do when they're up and running. Because that's where I thought the Appendix 6 actually made sense. That could be a contractual condition.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: That's right. That's how I explained it to the GAC yesterday: This is a contractual condition.

>> Yes, exactly.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So we are creating that contractual condition at the second level, and we're also separately creating a list, which is not Appendix 6, which is the -- I don't know, the top-level reserved list or something. We can call it what we like.

All right. I'm conscious of time, so let's perhaps conclude this discussion and thank Chuck and his working group colleagues for obviously a huge amount of work in a short period of time, so that's great.

>> Bruce, one question I would have in regard to that: Has there been any work conducted in regard to how to get a name that is on a reserved list off that list again? I mean, times are changing, so after maybe 50 years, you know, you might want to register that name, and rightly so.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Right. No. And just time. Just plain time. It was one of the possible topics that was listed on the statement of work, and we actually have a section in there of issues that we did not have time to get to. And there's also another section that actually we added in there that Tim Denton, the consultant who supported us, added in there that talks about that very issue; that some -- it would be good for some work to be done on that. But the group did not have time to do that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. An example of something that has dropped off is DNSO, for example. So in older agreements, that was there; in new agreements, it's not. But, yeah, I don't think there was a process for that, though. That just happened.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And I guess that's your point.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: We don't really have a process for managing those things.

Okay. Thanks, Chuck.

I'd suggest we now enter into a discussion on IDN working groups, so if Ram is available. Do you have a presentation, Ram?

>>RAM MOHAN: Yes, I do.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Do you want to run it off my machine or your machine or...

>>RAM MOHAN: You should have it in your e-mail.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: In my e-mail.

>>RAM MOHAN: You should have it in your e-mail as well.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: When did you send it, Ram?

>> How are you?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: "My slides for today's presentation."

>>RAM MOHAN: There you go.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. I'm thinking it's probably worth doing a bit of a roll call around the room, since we've filled in a bit more. Do we have a roving mic at all?

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: We should have one.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if we can perhaps -- we're just starting a new topic, which is the report from the GNSO IDN working group. This is a meeting of the new gTLDs committee, which I'm chair of. Bruce Tonkin.

Jon, do you want to just, at the corner there, introduce yourself? Or Norbert? I just want to do it for the purposes of the recording, if people could just state their name. Just work up, Jonathan, next to you.

>>NORBERT KLEIN: My name is Norbert Klein. I'm a GNSO Council member and I'm in the noncommercial users constituency.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So we're -- just for everyone in the room's purposes, this is a recorded meeting, and so for the purpose of the recording, we're just stating who is actually present for this meeting.

>>WERNER STAUB: My name is Werner Staub. I'm a member of the IDN working group. I work for Core.

>>GREG RUTH: Greg Ruth, GNSO Council rep of the ISPCPs.

>>JON BING: Jon Bing, NonCom appointee to the GNSO Council.

>>AVRI DORIA: Avri Doria, NonCom appointee to the GNSO Council and member of the IDN working group.

>>CARY KARP: Cary Karp, registry constituency representative on the GNSO Council and member of both the working group and the whatever-it-is other group.

>>STUART DUNCAN: Stuart Duncan, ICM registry, observer.

>>TOM KELLER: Tom Keller from the registrar constituency, member of the council.

>>MARIA FARRELL: Maria Farrell, ICANN staff.

>>KURT PRITZ: Kurt Pritz, ICANN staff.

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Glen de Saint Gery, GNSO secretariat.

>>DAN HALLORAN: Dan Halloran, ICANN staff.

>>RAM MOHAN: Ram Mohan, Afilias, and chair of the IDN working group.

>>LIZ WILLIAMS: Liz Williams, ICANN senior policy counselor.

>>OLOF NORDLING: Olof Nordling, ICANN staff.

>>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Kristina Rosette, GNSO Council, IPC.

>>MIKE RODENBAUGH: I'm Mike Rodenbaugh, GNSO Council, from the business constituency and member of the IDN working group.

>> BAHER ESMAT: Baher Esmat, ICANN staff.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Philip Sheppard, GNSO Council, BC.

>>CRAIG SCHWARTZ: Craig Schwartz, ICANN staff.

>>PATRICK JONES: Patrick Jones, ICANN staff.

>>TINA DAM: Tina Dam, ICANN staff.

>>DAVID MAHER: David Maher, registry constituency, observer.

>>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: Dirk Krischenowski, dot Berlin, business constituency, observer.

>>JONATHAN COHEN: Jonathan Cohen, IDN working group, IPC.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thanks, Jonathan. And could we just those around the room just stand up and announce yourself? We're trying to organize a mic, but just speak loudly for the moment.

>> [inaudible], ICANN staff.

>> [inaudible], VeriSign

>>STEVE CROCKER: Steve Crocker, SSAC.

>> [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] Mexico.

>>ROSS RADER: Ross Rader, Council, [inaudible]

>> [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] Free Speech Coalition.

>> JEREMY DOUGLAS: Jeremy Douglas, Free Speech Coalition.

>> [inaudible]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Thank you. Thank you all.

Go ahead, Ram.

>>RAM MOHAN: Thank you.

I'm Ram Mohan, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share the outcomes of the IDN working group's work with you.

I wanted to take just a few minutes to talk about what it is we were chartered to do and how we went about doing it. Our mission was to identify and explore policy issues related to IDNs, internationalized domain names, at the top level, that should be considered by the GNSO for policy development for the creation of a PDP.

Now, we had specific tasks. They're on the slides in front of you. But we had four specific documents to review: The new gTLD draft recommendations, the lab test outcomes, the ICANN staff issues report, and the IAB document, which we did.

We were also due to research what policy implications might exist for IDN gTLDs, and finally come out with a report.

Now, the team itself was quite diverse. We had participation from over 30 members. Liaisons included liaisons from the ALAC and the SSAC, and there were five observers. There were 37 to 40 participants in the working group, and at -- if memory serves me right, the longest -- or the most number of people on a single conference call was almost 20 to 22 people sitting on a single conference call.

Our method of working, the methodology was to have some face-to-face meetings. We've held 14 teleconferences, there was a robust e-mail discussion list, and we created a Wiki. There was a draft issue list that got sent out from the first working group meeting that was held in Sao Paulo. I was not at that meeting. And issues were reorganized. There was a list of issues, about 14 or 15 issues that got together, and we reorganized them into seven general issue areas, and what we did was, among -- in our first calls, we prioritized these issues. Not in terms of importance, but in terms of which topics needed more time to be allocated.

And the first five bullets that you see on the screen in front of you -- introduction of new IDN gTLDs, geopolitical details, existing strings, existing SLDs, second-level domain name holders, and techno and policy details -- were the major areas of our attention. We did not spend a great time of time on privacy, WHOIS, or other legal aspects.

Now, what we did was we -- one of the first things we did was to actually get together and say, "Let's create a working definitions list because we found that the same words were being used in multiple different ways by multiple different people, so we came to agreement on a set of definitions, so when you see -- in this report, when you see the working group outcomes report talk about the word "variants" or you hear us talk about IDN strings, you should refer to the glossary which is in the outcomes report. It is used specifically with that context, rather than any other context that may exist outside of what the working group actually did.

Now, we adopted the following conventions to express views. We said that we were going to categorize views that had broad agreement within the working group. There was almost no dissenting view, or if there were, they were very minor dissenting views. We categorized them as agreement, and, in general, we equated them to the concept of rough consensus as used in the IETF.

We also -- at a second level, if you will, we categorized another set of views as "support." Now, support views do not represent the views of the entire working group, but they represent the views of a set of individuals in the working group, some of whom spoke for themselves and some of whom spoke on behalf of their constituencies, but we were not able to arrive at broad agreement without any dissent.

And alternative views are -- consider them as they could be support if only they had more support. So that's really what an alternative view is, and you will find those represented as well.

The focus for today's discussions with you, I'm going to try and spend a little bit more time on the areas of agreement than on the areas of support. We have about 10 areas of agreement, and the plan is the following: Where the IDN working group has come together and said, "We agree," those would be probably the prime areas for the GNSO Council to then consider whether existing policy already covers these areas of agreement or whether new policy has to be created.

In the areas of support, we certainly suggest that the council review all the areas of support, not only the ones that are presented here, because of the vast number of statements of support. There are almost 25 or 30 statements there. I've only chosen to bring a few experts here in front of you, but please keep in mind that when you see something that says "support," that means that there is some gathering of positive opinion, but there are competing positions. They either have been stated or they may not be stated, but we certainly were not able to arrive at broad agreement, and therefore, are potentially still areas that require further discussion and thought and certainly no concept of agreement is there for those areas, as yet.

So with that said, I'm going to move on to a summarization of the main areas of agreement.

The first area that we agreed upon was what we're calling the avoidance of ASCII squatting. What this really means is that where applications for new non-IDN gTLD strings, if they're accepted for insertion in the root at an earlier stage than IDN gTLDs, to ensure that these non-IDN gTLDs do not preempt later applications for IDN gTLDs, then we have an example -- for example, the non-IDN gTLD dot caxap, if accepted, would prohibit the acceptance of a later application for an IDN gTLD also dot caxap which in Cyrillic script means sugar in Russian.

So the idea here is that when looking to apply and agree to accept new gTLD strings, to ensure that they don't -- these new strings don't squat, if you will, on equivalent IDN strings.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So one of the things that's going to be our challenge, Ram, is how we incorporate these ideas into our current process. So taking that -- and I like the fact you're using a specific example. So you're saying there is a string -- just run that example by us again. So dot c --

>>RAM MOHAN: Dot caxap.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So if I -- let me just try and bring something up to display then.

>>RAM MOHAN: Go to Slide 12 and you'll see it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Oh, okay. Yeah. I guess it's how you want to go through these. So, are you going to go through each one in more detail or --

>>RAM MOHAN: I'm happy to go through more detail. I figured I'd run through the main agreements and --

12 is where you want to be. You're on 15.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Oh, Slide 12.

>>RAM MOHAN: There you go. That's the first one.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So you're saying dot caxap means sugar in Russian.

RAM MOHAN: So what we're saying is that if you have a string like that -- now, clearly there is going to be a public, you know, consultation process when a new TLD comes in. We're not saying take it away from that public consultation process, but what we're saying is that when a new gTLD string is being applied for, to take into consideration that should such a string that is applied for as, quote-unquote, non-IDN, should it have something that -- a direct equivalent, if you will, in IDN then such a non-IDN application, you should try and avoid.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Ram, did you discuss how that determination would be made?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I can't see how --

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Because at the moment, our process would be very happy to have caxap and there would be no connection made to dot (speaking in Russian) which would be the Russian equivalent, huh?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So I think my -- yeah. Go ahead, Olof.

>>OLOF NORDLING: Well, first of all, this is in the situation when there is a first round which doesn't include IDN top-level domains. That's sort of the framework for what -- for this statement, really. If they're on a par --

Well, and all IDNs and non-IDN gTLD applications are accepted at the same time, well, this would -- well, there is first come, first served. But, well, if there is first ASCII -- or non-IDN gTLD round, well, at least it could be considered that if objections are raised from the IDN community, if you like, that this particular string would preempt a later IDN string, that would be a valid ground for objection. I think that's the way -- a way to approach it, for the first round.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. But that's -- but that's like -- if I take IDNs out of that, I'm going to apply for ASCII in Round 2, and someone applies for the name I want in Round 1, and I say that's preempted me, you know. I don't -- I just don't understand the logic.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Could I jump in here, because I think --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Again, I think Olof said it very well, in that this particular recommendation only applies if ASCII names are introduced in a round prior to the first IDN round. Correct?

>>RAM MOHAN: That's correct.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. If they're introduced together, our string contention process will deal with it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yes.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Okay. If they're not, I think the point's well taken that the ASCII players have an advantage, in cases where there might be a contention over the IDN. Couldn't a fairly simple challenge process be put in, like we're doing in other ways, if this particular situation exists, so that somebody could say, "Hey, that would preempt me," so we make sure that the contention's dealt with later, and not -- and then not giving the advantage to the ASCIIs over the IDN?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But why would you use an IDN script if you can represent it in ASCII? I mean, that's where I'm losing in this argument. So surely, using that one you've just given as an example, why wouldn't I actually apply for dot caxap? It's going to be used in a lot more software than the Cyrillic version.

I mean, as a decision that -- if that's generally what you want, and that generally is the issue, you don't actually need IDNs. You might as well just use the ASCII.

>>OLOF NORDLING: No. Because I mean you're talking about a user here. The user is sitting with a Cyrillic keyboard, and I mean there's not -- it's not easy for him to --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: To enter the ASCII.

OLOF NORDLING: -- make the ASCII caxap.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right.

>>OLOF NORDLING: So it's a user convenience. Well, the main reason for introducing IDN in the first place.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So you're saying at the new gTLD level, we add a grounds for complaint -- if we are having an IDN round coming, you know, at a different time, that a grounds for complaint is that it may interfere with an IDN application? And so if someone has paid a hundred thousand dollars to be in the round and they get knocked out at that point --

>> Because someone may apply.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Someone may apply in the future.

>>CARY KARP: And that's the concern.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CARY KARP: I mean, the concern is that there is speculative potential in understanding the fact that if I get this ASCII label, some entity at some future point may so wish to have the IDN correlate to it, that I will be able to turn a profit.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CARY KARP: I mean that's where the squatting comes into this.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No, I understand, yeah. Yeah.

>>CARY KARP: And don't on focus what we're using in exemplification there because we could easily have manana and manana or banana and banana.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>CARY KARP: I mean, the concern has nothing to do with the way we're trying to exemplify it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So one of the ways of dealing with that, I suppose, is to say -- I think we had some discussions about this in the new gTLD committee -- that what is the issue? Is it a release state of the IDNs or is it a process issue? You -- you may well allow people to apply for the IDN TLD in the first round, in terms of getting the string contention issues sorted out, but it may be that the date of release is different into the root, depending on the -- on other matters.

>>CARY KARP: Right.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: But I just sort of -- I'm very wary of something where you're sort of able to complain about something you may or may not do in the future, but your -- and I understand -- I'm just giving the opposite of your view, I guess, Cary, and I -- yours is equally valid that someone can cyber squat, but I'm also just trying to look at it from a process point of view that I think you obligate both parties to put in and pay their fee, and if there's contention, there's a way of dealing with that contention. And then the introduction of IDNs, if for some reason, you know, the technical community's chosen a different launch date for inserting in the root, would be different to the application process.

>>CARY KARP: Right.

>>RAM MOHAN: Yeah. There was support in the working group to ensure that a hostage situation would not occur; that new gTLDs that are non-IDNs would not get prioritized in the application process; to really consider all applications together --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Together, yeah.

>>RAM MOHAN: -- rather than, say, you know, exclude IDNs at the start of the application process.

As to when they get prioritized and get into the root, that's kind of a different issue altogether.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It's a different issue, yeah.

>>RAM MOHAN: But if there was to be a case where IDN TLD strings were not allowed to be applied at all, then you have this issue here.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Yeah. So I think our objective is to try and at least be able to apply -- you know, I think the timing that I'm envisaging here -- and I don't know whether the IDN people in the technical community can comment, but I think from a new gTLD process point of view, it's unlikely to be launched before first quarter of '08, and so the question is: Is the technical testing and stuff likely to be complete by then, that it would align, or are you talking, you know, '09, if you like, for IDNs?

>>RAM MOHAN: Well, I mean here we really didn't consider implementation and launch considerations. What we did consider was application and consideration of applications, rather than actual implementations.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So let me just give me a bit of a queue, since there's a few comments on this.

So one of the -- what we did with the reserved name working group is we -- each time someone was putting in a recommendation, we're trying to just test how we'd actually incorporate it into the work that we've done, so that's kind of why I'm questioning these things. I'm trying to see how we'd implement them.

Okay. So there were a few hands up before. There's Avri. I think I saw Subbiah. Anyone else? Werner? Tom? Anyone else?

Okay. Go ahead, Avri.

>>AVRI DORIA: Thanks.

I think in some ways, it's almost covered in some of the new gTLD, because -- but it's an extension in concept. What you've got is communities being able to challenge something. So let's say sugar was a community. The caxap comes through, and then it's challenged by the sugar growers, who say, "That is in an IDN."

So what we're really adding is not so much that somebody may want to apply for -- okay. That's one criterion. I'm not saying it's invalid. But someone can actually say, "When you look at that as if it were an IDN, that does belong to a community and, therefore, it could fall under that basis." It's already been sort of cleared out within the gTLDs, similar to "bank."

In other words, it's sort of very similar to that category, but a slight extension of it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Right. Okay. Subbiah?

>>SUBBIAH S.: [Speaker is off microphone]

>>GLEN de SAINT GERY: Switch it on.

>>SUBBIAH S.: [Speaker is off microphone]. I just wanted to add a point that it's actually a little bit more complicated than that. [inaudible] but I think the best way to think about this is, just like [inaudible] address this problem [inaudible] actual complication because it's [inaudible] whatever [inaudible] every single aspect of IDN, and it all stems from probably this thinking. I think the general thinking is that there are two languages, English and non-English, and that doesn't work.

And I'll give you an example right here, which is that if two language -- if, initially, some Unicode tables, some script tables are not ready, some community is not ready, so we launch some languages first. I mean, ASCII and then in another round we launch some ready languages first. Then you launch another round, other ready languages.

Well, you know, the conflict that would happen between two languages that are non-ASCII. The similar type of thing we've talked about. I mean, so this could be an ongoing thing and it's not just an initial round thing followed by the next thing. I'm just pointing out complications.

But that's going to be how it's going to be with almost every issue because we're not talking about just ASCII and non-ASCII. We really are talking about lots of languages and it just -- you know, I just wanted to point that out.

I mean, this would be some -- this extra point I pointed out in context with this -- and it can be quite easily covered by adding some extension to what we're discussing right now, but that may not be so easy in things that come up later, so...

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Werner?

>>WERNER STAUB: Okay. I think it's actually important to have this requirement as an agreement [inaudible] separately, even though we may probably have a process that will address it almost entirely, thanks to what was just explained in terms of a cycle where IDN could even apply if the introduction date were supposed to be later, pending some clearing of technical or other things.

However, it will not be totally sufficient because there could be cases, for instance, of a link to ccTLDs. I can give you an example. If somebody applied for dot moh, m-o-h, that could probably be a string that Mongolia, m-o-n -- and the Cyrillic H looks exactly the same as our -- no. The Cyrillic N looks exactly the same as our N. H. Sorry.

[Laughter]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Point taken.

>>WERNER STAUB: The problem is that dot mon in Cyrillic looks like dot moh in ASCII. So it would be confusingly similar if dot mon in Cyrillic came later than dot moh in ASCII.

So there would probably have to be some ability to challenge it just, you know, even though they'd probably design a process that would avoid the thing in the first place.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. Tom?

>>TOM KELLER: Thank you. Well, I have some kind of a problem with that notion you made that the two applications could be at the same time, but it's -- it depends on, you know, what kind of TLD is it when it is put to the root.

I think it is a bad and unfair business practice for people kind of applying for a TLD, paying the money, but getting a promise to get it sometime somewhere. Right?

So I'm just saying it would be a very [inaudible] thing that would kind of tick off maybe the IDN community, you know, if you would -- kind of telling them that everything is starting, but only to a certain point, and then they have to wait for another couple of years, which isn't closely described. I don't think that would be a way to go.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. I think -- certainly, I'm not -- I think the clarity we can get at the end of this meeting, I guess, on the timetable for IDNs would be very helpful, I think, in terms of trying to synchronize the timing. But I think I agree with what Subbiah and others are saying, that once you start ending up with things happening at different times, it, you know, adds a lot of complexity. And I hadn't even thought about the language issue, the fact that you're introducing scripts at different times as well, rather than aligned all at once, yeah.

Okay. Anyone else wanting to talk on this particular one?

Okay. Next one, Ram?

>>RAM MOHAN: If we could go to Slide 5, Bruce.

The second area of general agreement was that -- was to recommend consultation with the GAC on areas of geopolitical impact. The specific statement that the working group came out with was agreement that within the process for new gTLD consideration, the process for determining whether a string has geopolitical impact is a challenge, and that GAC consultation may be necessary but may not provide comprehensive responses.

So what we're saying here is that especially for strings with geopolitical impact, there is a -- this is not something that is -- this is probably merely a superset of an application that has come in in normal just ASCII application, rather than an IDN application.

The differences are not dramatic here, but what we're saying is that especially when it comes to the name of a country or a region, et cetera, that has geographic or geopolitical impact, as represented in a local script or in multiple local scripts, some consultation with the GAC might be necessary.

But we also underline that you may not get the answers you want or you may not get to a final resolution on this area.

>>TOM KELLER: Okay. Ram, just one question. In what respect do you think it is different to make a judgment on an IDN TLD string in regard to an ASCII TLD string? I mean, it should be the same problem, right?

>>RAM MOHAN: Yeah. I think the principle is the same, Tom. The difference is that you may have a given string that may be represented -- that you may have a government, for example, saying that a string ought to be represented more than one way; that there is not --

I think the difference is that in IDNs, you don't -- you often will not have a one-to-one mapping, while you probably more likely have a one-to-one mapping in ASCII.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So the way -- just picking up on what Tom has said, and we've just discussed geographic names in the context of new TLDs, that the way they're currently going to be handled, you know, as, you know, current recommendations, is that one of the criteria relating to the applicant and one of the mechanisms for objection is, if there are established institutions that relate to the name -- or let's call it "relate to the string" -- then those established institutions can file a complaint, saying that they don't believe the applicant represents that established group.

So, for example -- and we talked about some of these last night -- but we're saying that if the string is in use as representing that established institution, which could be a country or geographic region, then that would be grounds for -- you know, if some entrepreneur, you know, small country somewhere was applying for it.

What you wouldn't be allowed to be would be -- and we talked about the example of something like the word "OPoC" and saying, well, some -- if, in your particular country, you're not using that in any other script, that wouldn't be grounds because you're saying in your country you're not using the script in that language to represent that word, and someone else has applied for it and you can't show, "Look, I've got -- this is what -- all my government documents, you know, use that word in that way, and I'm the institution representing that."

So that's how that would be handled as a complaint process. So as Tom says, it is no different whether it's an IDN or ASCII. The process is the same. But you'd have to show that you are the established body associated with that particular string, written in whatever script that is.

>>RAM MOHAN: Right. And I don't -- I think from the working group's perspective, we're not recommending treating it as unique or different from ASCII.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Just pointing out it's more complex. Yeah.

>>RAM MOHAN: It's more complex than just a one-to-one mapping that often exists in ASCII.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. Yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Bruce?

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Chuck, yeah.

>>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. I'd like to call attention to a statement made -- I think it was by Bill Dee -- in the GAC GNSO meeting we had at the end of the Sao Paulo meetings, and it relates to the suggestion here of consulting the GAC on a particular string. As I recall, Bill said pretty clearly -- and we know that the IDN -- or that the GAC guidelines for new TLDs aren't finished yet, but the GAC did not expect to have an operational role, and I think this gives them an operational role in it.

And we also know that the GAC -- it's very challenging for the GAC to respond in a timely manner.

So it's my opinion that we probably don't want to go down a direction where we consult the GAC. Not that their input is not important. It just operationally won't work and they don't want to have an operational role.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. So the way to handle that, Chuck, I think -- and I've, you know, had some further discussions with the GAC over lunch yesterday and also yesterday afternoon, but basically I think we're both aligned, in the sense of the GNSO and the GAC, in that the GAC's input should be on the broader policy principles at the front, not sort of commenting on whatever the TLD is, after the fact, as the GAC. So the consultation we're taking is what we're doing here. This is the consultation at this meeting. And basically, we have sort of -- I think in our session tomorrow, I will elaborate a bit more on the geographical stuff in the context of what we were talking about earlier this morning, but how we're currently dealing with the geographical things and how we propose to deal with it and then get GAC input on that process proposal, or how we're going to handle it. And if that matches their current principle or they have some suggestions, that's how to deal with it. But we're not asking for the GAC to, as part of the process, say, "Hey, have a look at these strings and come back with a GAC consensus on whether you like the string or not."

What we are saying is that as part of our process, an established institution -- which could be one of the GAC members -- of the country can complain about their string, but it's only their string. They can't complain about someone else's string. Yeah.

Philip?

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Bruce, I think both the earlier point we had on ASCII squatting and this same one here I think probably underlines that we have a belief in our existing process, which is objection by the relevant community, but I think it probably underlines that we need to make more specific reference to that in our existing Recommendation 14A, because at the moment, all we're saying is that a process will be put in place to enable efficient resolution, and then we mention, later on in notes, we've had discussion about this community, [inaudible] community support. So I think if we are now talking around also the IDN issue being factored into that, we need to be very explicit that that is exactly what we mean, because we haven't actually said that yet in our report.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And this is the sort of thing I was talking about before, that what we need to now do is almost have a -- it's a bit similar to the way the IETF writes its documents, is they normally have a section on security, which is sort of a part of every IETF RFC. It's, you know, one of the security implications. And so, Avri, what we probably need to do with discussion, at least, and possibly some of the guidelines, is almost have what's the IDN implication here, or what's the bit that adds a bit more complexity, just so people are aware that we've taken into account there is some issues here and this is how we're dealing with it.

Let me just find that one you talked about. This is the one here I'm thinking of, 14C. Based on --

>> 14A is --

>> A.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: And what's -- that's to do with contention, though.

>> Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Contention is when two people apply for the same string.

So 14C is where we're talking about someone complaining about an applicant not being the appropriate body to run that string, and that is there substantial opposition to it from among significant established institutions of an economic sector, cultural or language community. What we should probably add there is geographic.

>> Yeah.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I'm not exactly sure of the word, but at least the geo something. "Geo" followed by some other letters.

>> The cultural or linguistic risk community might cut it.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: It could, but I don't think people necessarily -- I think we need to be more explicit. I agree you can read it that way, but I think I'd be more explicit in there and add geographic.

It has to be an established institution representing that geography, essentially.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yeah, but you also need to -- the reference -- I was happy with that wording for the basic objection to the name, per se, although our process has actually taken that off the list, which then presupposes the question "How do you get it back on again," but the reference I was making to 14A was the potential for contention.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So this is two parties wanting the same string.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Yes, exactly.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>PHILIP SHEPPARD: And it may be that the grounds then -- one grounds for awarding it may be the fact that it has an IDN equivalence and that can be based on the idea of the community's vote for that.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. And that's where the comparative -- so basically, what you're saying is, we need to clean this section up, obviously, but effectively we're taking this concept on the significant established institutions, and I was going to go through, later today -- I've worked with Liz on a process diagram for explaining this a lot more clearly, but essentially what we're saying is one of the triggers is, when you've got contention, one of the triggers in the process is, does it fit in this category, and if it does, it triggers a comparative evaluation process, and part of that evaluation process would incorporate the elements you're talking about. And we talked about this a little bit. I can't remember whether it was yesterday or last night. But you might start looking in the comparative evaluation on, you know, the language community aspects and the degree of support there and experience and all that sort of things, yeah.

>>LIZ WILLIAMS: Bruce, I think the other interesting piece of this -- even through, Philip, we just add a layer of complexity to an application process -- it seems to me that there is no reason for -- yeah, thanks very much for that. There's no reason for an IDN applicant to be subject to two different dispute resolution procedures, and I think again, it is likely that we need to instruct applicants that they are likely to receive an opposition, and this is the way in which it would be resolved --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah.

>>LIZ WILLIAMS: -- and the publication, the paying of a fee -- and we'll go through it later, but it's very important that we establish the same systems for dealing with contention between applicants for the same string, because one wants them to -- one wants to operate, but doesn't want the other person to do it.

So that's going to require some very significant thinking because it's very, very political and contentious. And we have to have evaluators that can make those decisions.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Okay. No. 3?

>>RAM MOHAN: Thank you. The third area of agreement was that a suitable process for consultation including with relevant language communities is needed when considering IDN -- new IDN gTLD strings. The -- again, the concept isn't far different from what you have in an ASCII TLD application, in a non-IDN TLD application. The difference here -- or the addition here that is being suggested is that when evaluating whether an IDN string is appropriate, et cetera, do not forget the language community that the -- that that string is written in. So if it is written in a particular script that represents a language, then to make sure that community gets an opportunity to provide input. This might very well be through the already-established common processes and other processes.

So we're not suggesting a new process. In this case, we're simply underscoring the fact that the language community has a specific interest because it is represented in that string used by that community.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So one of the things we talked about in Marina del Rey and we had some of the ICANN staff present, including Paul Twomey, we are talking about what constitutes enough notice to an affected community. And kind of what he was suggesting, which I thought was sensible, was who say that as part of the standard application fee, ICANN would undertake a certain degree of outreach, and that might be advertising in major newspapers around the world, the "Wall Street Journal" in the U.S., the "Times," whatever it is, some sort of publications that are widely read in different parts of the world. Obviously, ICANN can't afford to bring every single person in the world to tell them about a new TLD.

The concept was where it was a specific language community that would not potentially receive those communications -- let's say it is on some specific script in some part of Africa -- that there would be additional outreach done. And it is quite likely that ICANN would charge a fee to the applicant for actually doing that outreach because there is a standard fee that covers just a broad brush -- as much publication as you can. But for a particular language community, there might be an additional fee and ICANN would then advertise, pay the government, put notices in the newspaper of that particular community; and that language community might be distributed, too. It might be in multiple countries.

But there is a real outreach effort to inform the community of that string. That's some of the concepts that have been talked about.

>>RAM MOHAN: I have two comments. I think the concept has a tremendous amount of value. However, I worry about the slippery slope of have you had adequate consultation because no real standard exists for what is the language community and do you actually cover the entire diaspora. I would suggest that -- certainly, further thought has to be given here. I think it is an excellent idea to have some funding that allows for a broader outreach into the language community. Just so -- as long as ICANN doesn't get itself into a bind of saying we've adequately consulted the community because you then open yourself up to saying --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I don't think that's what you'd do. I think What you're saying our standard process is we give notice, and I think what we are doing in terms of fairness is some additional effort in some of those communities. You're right, we have to be careful you are not exposing to liability what you are doing there.

Kurt, are you pointing?

>>KURT PRITZ: Somebody over there.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Let me take a queue then. Anyone else? I have got you, Werner.

>>SUBBIAH S.: I just wanted to stress that the challenges that will be faced in this -- because I look around, even in this committee meeting, which isn't talking for the first time a lot about IDN TLDs. I think mostly about IDN TLDs now, I think, we are not talking really about the Latin script in particular because a lot of that has been taken care of previous rounds of IDN.ASCII, for the most part does solve that problem in the past. Really we are talking about the really different scripts, IDN TLD scripts.

From that perspective, if you look around the room, pretty much I can see, except for a German masquerading -- sorry, an Mongolian masquerading as a German over there, there are very few non-Latin people in the room. It will be a challenge to communicate with them, to get them to participate.

As for the notion that Bruce suggested that, perhaps, you add the fee itself, to add to the 50 or $100,000 -- I heard $100,000. Most communities -- one of the things we did discuss -- There was no agreement on this, is that financial -- the cost of applying should be reduced.

In fact, one of our committee meetings, one of the Russian people that is part of the RuNIC, which is a TLD that has been run for many years by Russians, dot RU, it that has several hundred thousand names, they claim they only spend 40, $50,000 a year running it. Whereas, application fees -- So, you know, as it is there is a talk about the application fees being too high, otherwise, you will not get participation from the communities themselves.

I think the GAC also made a recommendation that there should be more diversity in registries that open up in general. So this would be a way to do that.

But if the fees are so high and now you want to talk about adding more fees to advertise and so on and so forth, I think it is going the wrong way.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Chuck?

>>CHUCK GOMES: First of all, I think we need to look at the operational issue again. I really don't think this makes operational sense in terms of the process of approving new TLDs. It be would be terribly time consuming and expensive and so forth. At the same time --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: I'm not understanding. Sorry?

>>CHUCK GOMES: What I am getting at, if part of the process for an IDN TLD is to have to go out after the application has come in and consult with a language community --

>>BRUCE TONKIN: No, that's not what I suggesting.

>>CHUCK GOMES: I know that's not what you are suggesting, but that's what I am reading into the recommendation. By the way, I think consulting with the language community is a very good idea, but I think it should be the responsibility of the applicant to do that and that we could in the application process encourage applicants applying for new TLDs to consult with language experts for the particular script that they are applying for much better than having this as part of the evaluation process after it's been submitted.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: So, Chuck, the suggestion I was making, context, is purely the notice part, which is something that happens in seven days or whatever it is. That's just advertising in appropriate publications. It is not a timely process. It is just saying that ICANN will do a certain degree of effort to publish a notice of strings. We are saying if it is a particular language community, it should also identify some publications in that community and publish them. That's not a time-consuming process. It is just posting and giving notice.

>>WERNER STAUB: Chuck said most of what I wanted to say about the applicant being in the best position to consult the language, academies and so on.

I might want to add that in terms of can we trust this, a good-faith applicant is going to do a good job certainly in doing that. And the bad-faith applicant would have a very hard job to fake this. It is almost impossible immediately. I don't think it would be possible for an applicant to kind of pretend that they have the support of a fake language academy. This would be visible immediately.

>>BRUCE TONKIN: Yeah. But not all languages or scripts have a structured academy, though.

>>WERNER STAUB: Indeed. This depends for every country. English doesn't have something like that. Whereas, especially weaker languages usually got somehow their act together and start to regulate it because it is needed for the strength of the language.

But, still, if there was none and somebody pretends -- I just created a committee, you would immediately see it if you contacted other people in the context of the country, these p

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