Preliminary Report

Special Meeting of the Board
14 October 2002
(Posted 14 October 2002)

The ICANN Board of Directors held a meeting by teleconference on 14 October 2002. Directors Vint Cerf (chairman), Amadeu Abril i Abril, Karl Auerbach (joined meeting while in progress), Rob Blokzijl (participated in the beginning and end parts of the meeting, but not in the .org part), Ivan Moura Campos, Lyman Chapin, Masanobu Katoh, Hans Kraaijenbrink, Sang-Hyon Kyong, Stuart Lynn, Andy Mueller-Maguhn, Jun Murai, Alejandro Pisanty, Nii Quaynor, Helmut Schink, and Linda S. Wilson participated. The Board adopted the following resolutions:

Approval of Minutes

Resolved [02.106] that the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 23 August 2002 are hereby approved and adopted by the Board as presented.

(The Board approved the above resolution by a 14-0-1 vote, with Dr. Schink abstaining.)

Resolved [02.107] that the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 17 September 2002 are hereby approved and adopted by the Board as presented.

(The Board approved the above resolution by a 10-0-5 vote, with Dr. Blokzijl, Dr. Campos, Mr. Kraaijenbrink, Dr. Murai, and Dr. Schink abstaining.)

2002 Annual Meeting

Resolved [02.108] that the ICANN annual meeting for 2002 will be held on 14 December (Public Forum) and 15 December (Board Meeting) 2002 in Europe, at a location to be selected by the President.

(The Board approved the above resolution by a 15-0-1 vote, with Mr. Auerbach abstaining.)

March 2003 ICANN Meeting

Resolved [02.109] that the President is authorized to make arrangements for the March 2003 ICANN meeting to be held in Rio de Janero, Brazil, during 23-27 March 2003.

(The Board approved the above resolution by a 15-0-1 vote, with Dr. Campos abstaining.)

Successor Operator for .org Registry

Whereas, the May 2001 .org registry agreement between VeriSign, Inc., and ICANN provides that VeriSign will cease being the registry operator for .org top-level domain as of 31 December 2002;

Whereas, in resolutions 02.36 through 02.39 the Board directed the President to make arrangements for soliciting proposals from organizations seeking to become the successor operator of the registry for the .org top-level domain;

Whereas, a detailed request for proposals, including a statement of criteria for assessing the proposals, was developed and, after public comment, comments from the ICANN Board, and comments and questions from prospective bidders, finalized and posted on the ICANN web site;

Whereas, in response to the solicitation, eleven organizations submitted proposals;

Whereas, a Public Forum was held on the evening of 28 June 2002 in Bucharest, Romania, during which the eleven applicants gave presentations to the Board and community on their proposals;

Whereas, numerous public comments concerning the applications were received electronically through ICANN's e-mail and web-based comment forums and were posted;

Whereas, applicants provided responses to various requests for clarifying data, with both the requests and responses posted on the ICANN web site;

Whereas, a preliminary staff evaluation of the proposals was prepared and posted based on preliminary evaluations (also posted) prepared by Gartner, Inc., an Academic CIO team, a team from the DNSO Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency (NCDNHC), and the ICANN General Counsel, each of which evaluated various criteria in its area of expertise;

Whereas, comments from the applicants and the public on these preliminary evaluations were invited, received, and posted;

Whereas, responding to those comments, the Gartner, NCDNHC, General Counsel, and staff evaluation teams prepared finalized evaluation reports, which were posted on the ICANN web site;

Whereas, each applicant was afforded the opportunity to submit final explanations as to the merits of its proposal;

Whereas, the eight explanations that were received were posted on the ICANN web site;

Whereas, several public comments on the finalized evaluation reports were received by e-mail and ICANN's web-based comment forum and were posted;

Whereas, the Board has reviewed the applications, the evaluation reports, and the various the comments and other materials received;

Resolved [02.110] that the Board selects the proposal of the Internet Society for negotiations toward an agreement with ICANN to become the successor operator of the .org top-level domain;

Further resolved [02.111] that the President and General Counsel are authorized to negotiate a registry agreement with Public Interest Registry consistent with the model .org Registry Agreement posted as part of the final Request for Proposals, supplemented as appropriate according to the proposal submitted by the Internet Society;

Further resolved [02.112] that, in the event that negotiations are not completed by 23 October 2002 the President and General Counsel are directed to report the circumstances to the Board;

Further resolved [02.113] that the Board shall be notified of the complete posting of the .org registry agreement and appendices and after that notification seven days shall be allowed for Board members to make any additional comments to the President and General Counsel;

Further resolved [02.114] that in the absence of the request of any Board member to the contrary based on policy considerations, the President is authorized to sign the posted agreements for .org after the conclusion of those seven days; and

Futher resolved [02.115] that, upon signature of the .org registry agreement, the President is authorized to take such actions as appropriate to implement the agreement, including causing reports to be made to the United States Department of Commerce.

(The Board approved the above resolutions by a 11-1-3 vote, with Mr. Auerbach voting in opposition and Mr. Mueller-Maguhn, Dr. Pisanty, and Dr. Quaynor abstaining. Dr. Blokzijl was not present for this portion of the meeting.)

Other Matters

The Board also discussed arrangements for the Shanghai meeting.

Page Updated 02-Jun-2003
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