ICANN|ARCHIVES

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

>>VINT CERF: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I'd like it call the board meeting to order and ask the board members to be seated.

My name is Vint Cerf.

I'm chairman of the board of ICANN.

This is our 27th meeting, face-to-face meeting, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

We have a very full board agenda today, and I've allocated a substantial amount of time for the actions before us and an opportunity to have some discussions about some of the more complex matters that we're undertaking today and in the future.

Let me begin by asking Hagen Hultzsch to introduce motions to approve the minutes of 18 and -- 18 October and 22 November.

Hagen.

>>HAGEN HULTZSCH: I'm asking to approve the minutes of the board meetings of 18th October 2006 and of 22nd November.

And that's the motion.

Somebody seconding? And is there discussion?

>>VINT CERF: Thank you.

Alex is seconding.

Let me find out whether there are any modifications to those two minutes from any of the board members.

You've all read the minutes, I hope.

I see no discussion, no modifications.

So let me call for a vote.

All those in favor, please say "aye."

>> Aye.

>>VINT CERF: I don't think we need to have a hand vote on what is apparently a unanimous decision.

So thank you, Hagen.

I will say something in general about the minutes.

As you see, we're approving minutes from, in some cases, over a month ago.

One of the high priorities of this board in the next year is to -- is to actually execute on several board motions which we've made in the past, which is to get our minutes done in a timely way, not only for our own benefit so we can keep track of what we've done, but for the benefit of those who care deeply about what the board decisions are.

And along those lines, I expect that we'll see a fuller content in the minutes, outlining what the issues were and what the basis was for reaching some of the conclusions that the board reaches.

I hope that that will find favor in the ICANN community.

Let me move on to a very important matter.

That's the issue of the .biz, .info, and .org registry agreements, which have been out for public view for quite some time and about which there has been a great deal of discussion.

I'll call on the president, Paul Twomey, to introduce this motion.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint.

I wish to propose the following resolution.

Whereas, proposed new registry agreements between ICANN, the operators of the .biz, .info, and .org registries were posted for public information on the 27th of June, 2006,.

Whereas, the complete proposed agreements with appendices were posted for public comment on the 28th of July, 2006.

Whereas, a summary of the public comments was posted on 11 September 2006 and reviewed by the board.

Whereas, on the 12th of October, 2006, ICANN posted responses to the public comments from the registry operators.

Whereas, on the 24th of October, 2006, ICANN posted revised proposed registry agreements, including a new restriction on the use of "traffic data" and the acceptance of 10% caps on price increases by the .biz, .info, and .org registry operators.

Whereas, the board has carefully considered the revised proposed agreements and the public comments and the registry responses and finds that approval of the proposed new agreements would be beneficial for ICANN and the Internet community.

It is resolved that the proposed .biz, .info, and .org registry agreements are hereby approved, and the president is authorized to take such actions as appropriate to implement the agreements.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Paul.

Is there a second for this motion?

I see Rita seconds.

I'd like to introduce some discussion about these three agreements.

The first one is to observe that there was a great deal of public comment on the initial agreement -- text of the initial agreements.

And the board responded and staff responded by renegotiating some terms of those agreements.

There had been a request from the GNSO Council that we delay coming to any conclusions on these three agreements, pending the completion of a policy development process regarding the gTLDs in general.

I want to make for the record an observation that the board is obligated to carry out its work in accordance with the current policies of the board.

When those policies change, then the board should carry out its work in accordance with the changed policies.

But with regard to the gTLD PDP, many of us had the opportunity to participate in the discussions about that PDP during the Sao Paulo meeting.

And they were illuminating to say the least, but also demonstrated how complex and difficult the whole question of GDP policy is -- sorry, GDP -- gTLD policy is.

And so I'm glad that the board recommended that we delay making a decision until we had a chance to be here in Sao Paulo, but it's my observation that the GNSO still has some distance to go before it converges on recommendations to the board.

So I think it's timely at this point for us to vote on these three proposals.

It seems to me that we have a responsibility to serve all of the ICANN community.

And that includes registries and registrars as well as members of the at-large community and the other constituencies that make up ICANN.

These three proposals have been pending for quite some time and have been exposed to public comment, and have been responded to.

So I appreciate the board's patience in letting me make this long preamble.

Let me ask if there are any other comments or discussion points that any other board members wish to make.

I have Rita and I have Paul.

Sorry, Susan -- I beg your pardon.

Susan.

Apologies.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: They all look alike.

The gTLD PDP that is now pending was prompted by deep concern over the net and com agreements entered into by the board.

And I -- I have -- I understand that people sometimes come into ICANN not understanding the history or context of the decisions that are made here.

And so I want to make clear that there's a deep background here, coming from com and net.

So there was outrage, frankly, over what had happened with net and com, and the GNSO started to do its work, working on standardized contractual terms that they wanted the board to consider in connection with org, biz, and info.

I was one of the board members who supported waiting until this meeting here in Sao Paulo to see what the GNSO came up with in case it might be useful to us in considering whether the terms of org, biz, and info should change.

I was here for the GNSO meeting, the open public forum, during which the status of the particular PDP on contractual arrangements was discussed.

And it was apparent to me that they were not yet ready to advise us as to terms they would like to see in these agreements.

Given the existence of the com and net agreements and the board's entering into them on behalf of ICANN, it seems to me unfair to hold up the operators of .org, .biz, and .info, who are seeking to be treated equally with the operators of com and net, and would like to see the same terms in their agreements.

And so I see no basis to get in the way here with respect to these renewal agreements, even though they are coming before the term of the renewal of these agreements is actually on us.

In one case, one of these agreements is not up for renewal for a couple of years.

In two other cases, both operators would have to start making their case to us right now about why they should be renewed, why they should be put in place.

So it seems rational to allow these operators to go forward and not be held up by any considerations right now from the -- coming from the board.

I don't want to underplay, though, the great concern that underlay the GNSO's effort here to work on standardized terms of these contracts.

And as I've said many times in the past and I'll continue to say, it seems to me that these contracts should be focused on the core idea of adhering to future consensus policies necessary for the security and stability of the Internet and otherwise pretty lightweight, with pricing terms that are acceptable to the ICANN community.

And I look forward to seeing standardized terms along those lines being proposed for the new round of gTLD applicants that I hope we will initiate sooner rather than later.

So bottom line here, I see no reason for the board to stand in the way of these three operators, given the existence of the com and net agreements, and given their desire to be treated equally and our contractual obligation not to single out any registry operator for disparate treatment.

On the other hand, there is deep disappointment in the way that we have proceeded with com and net in the past and concern that we -- on my part -- that we change our behavior and have a single standardized agreement for all gTLD operators that is not subject to individual negotiation that might be viewed as favoring ICANN's need for revenues in some way.

So thank you for the opportunity to make these comments.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Susan.

Paul.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint.

I wanted, if I may, to -- I potentially have several times I'd like to talk to these agreements.

But I would like to start with go through in some greater detail, if you like, the history of where we are today, just to, I think, put on the record some detail of the steps and, I suppose, to reinforce some of the things that -- in process steps that Susan has just gone through and what is, I think, a somewhat summarial summary in the whereases for the resolution.

After the approval of the dot net agreement, ICANN was approached by the three registries to discuss whether the agreements could be reformed into what they saw as a more streamlined version than in the dot net contract.

And coming to the question of standard contracts, I think a lot of work had gone -- taken place by the board that was involved with the dot net considerations to actually try to develop this sort of more standard or what would look more like a boilerplate contract in order to do the work in preparation for the dot net contract.

The current agreements that are in place prior to if we were to approve this resolution provide that the registry operator -- well, first of all, they, like every contract I think ICANN has, quite open about the ability of one of the parties to approach the other party to look for the opening and renegotiation of the contract.

And that's a fairly standard procedure around contracts.

And so I think there's potentially discussion in the future about -- to come to Susan's point -- actually talking about standard contracts, as to whether there's a provision which says you can't reopen the contract until a certain period of time.

I'm not saying we're doing that here.

But the contracts at the moment are quite silent and quite open on whether one of the other parties can come and say, "I wish to renegotiate or raise a point."

>>VINT CERF: Paul, just for clarification, I assume both parties would have to agree in that instance, unless there's a term requiring the parties to negotiate.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: That's right.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: But quite specifically, the current agreements provide that the registry operator may, no later than 18 months prior to the initial expiration date, submit a written proposal to ICANN for the extension of the agreement for an additional term.

And to give you some sense of the dates of those, for .biz, the due date for the renewal proposal was the 25th of March 2006.

For .info, it was the 19th of March, 2006.

And for .org, which has a similar sort of agreement, it is the 1st of July, 2007.

Because -- partly because of those proposal dates, and also as the registries themselves made, because in response to the change in the form of the agreement, which they saw as being more streamlined and a better agreement than the ones they had, I think it's -- and they were asking if they could then open up now the discussions, particularly seeing that registries start investment in the renewal process at least three months before the proposed date.

So by the end of 2005, certainly for two of these, they were going to have to wind up a lot of investment to start the renewal discussions, the renewal proposals.

So they stated that they would be coming to us under the current agreements to look to get negotiations completed by January 2006.

Now, the negotiations themselves did not start by January 2006, partly also because the -- certainly the ICANN staff were waiting for the completion of the PDP on new registry services, which they considered to be an important activity of the community.

But after the commencement of negotiations on the 10th of January 2006, the board extended the renewal proposal due dates by up to six months.

And staff presented a proposal to allow the current group of gTLD operators that would require renegotiation of the agreements to have the renewal proposals extended to allow the current registry negotiations to continue in good faith.

And those dates were extended to .biz for the 25th of September, .info to the 19th of September, 2006, and dot ORG, the 1st of January.

So they were all pushed back six months to allow these negotiations to take place.

On the 27th of June -- so the negotiations already started on the 10th of January and went through the 27th of June -- they were -- the proposed agreements were posted for public information.

Not yet for comment.

And members of the board may remember that there was a lot of keenness in this board to try to get the information out into the public arena as soon as we could and as long as we could.

And there was recognition that public comment was -- had a specific meaning in the sense that it went for a period of three weeks and then -- or 21 days or 30 days, I've forgotten exactly which number, and actually was then to initiate an action.

So we -- the agreements were posted for public information.

And on the 18th of July, the board then provided the staff with a sense of the board relating to the posting of the proposed agreements, for a public comment period this time of no less than 30 days and requested the staff provide summary documents at the time of posting.

On the 28th of July, the proposed agreements were posted for public comment, with description of key terms.

The term of the agreement, presumptive renewal, lifting of price controls, fees payable to ICANN, consensus policy implementation, process for approval of new registry services, data scope revisions and other terms.

And that posting was from then through to the 28th of August.

On the 7th of September, the board discussed the summary of public comments posted in response to the .biz, .info, and .org agreements.

And at the staff request -- and that was quite a long discussion.

That was quite a -- I recall that as being quite an in-depth discussion of the -- of all the points that had been raised.

At the staff request and the board's -- the board directed the staff to post a summary of public comments for review by the public.

And the board agreed to discuss the agreements further at the next meeting.

So we had a long discussion about the comments we had received.

The board asked for a summary to be done and for that summary to be shared back with the community.

On the 11th September, that draft summary of public comments on proposed agreements was posted.

And there were some key elements which were described in that summary: Lack of price controls, potential for differential pricing related to single names or renewals, use of traffic data by registries, concerns about renewal provisions, and process concerns, for instance, that the public comment period had been too short, there was insufficient information, suggestion that ICANN should wait for PDP 06 policy recommendations to be made before new agreements made with registries.

So that was a summary of the public comment we had received to that date.

On the 25th of September.

So another three weeks, again -- not three weeks, but 14 days later, the board discussed the public comments.

Various board members expressed concerns that the issues raised had been appropriately responded to by the registries.

And the board discussed the need for additional information and specific desire for communication from each of the registries to respond to these public comments and to put their case.

And I think there was a lot of sense at the board -- I think that's been one of our sort of learnings of experience of when we discuss issues and when we have issues in front of us to discuss, that the community not think that we were, therefore, the advocates, per se, of the proposals.

And so I think the board members were very keen to see the registries themselves respond to these concerns and for the registries themselves to put forward their positions and their arguments on those particular points.

On the 10th of October 2006, the -- ICANN received responses to a request for information by registry operators regarding the public comment.

The registry operators reiterated their commitments to abide by consensus policies and provide legal and economic arguments for presumptive renewal.

I think they also provided other strong arguments for presumptive renewal in the security and stability sense.

They also agreed to language prohibiting variable pricing with regard to renewals, with exceptions made for certain specific conditions.

On the 18th of October, the board, at its meeting, considered those public comments, considered the responses from the registries, and then gave directions to staff to try to renegotiate the proposed agreements relating to several terms that the board were uncomfortable with: Competition-related concerns, in particular, price increase restrictions, looking for price increase restrictions; traffic data; and review mechanisms resulting from the direction of new studies or additional information.

The board also at that -- at that meeting culminated a series of discussions that the board has been having for quite some time about the need for -- the board felt, for a much broader understanding and a broader study of the economic marketplace, the marketplace around domain names.

The board has had a long discussion about -- which reflects a lot of the discussion that the community itself has been sharing concerning workshops on the domain name market, on issues like the five-day redemption grace periods, extensions of those -- of new players in the marketplace.

And so there's been quite a discussion about that.

And in building upon that discussion, the board at the time also then said it wanted to commission an independent study by an economic organization to get findings on economic questions concerning the domain name registration market.

But I want to emphasize, that was a product of a very broad discussion and a long discussion inside the ICANN board about having a much better grasp, looking for a much better economic analysis of the full -- the full market.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Paul.

I'm not cutting you off at all.

I want to make an observation precisely about that marketplace study.

It was one of our liaison members, Steve Crocker, who was passionate about the need to understand more deeply what this domain name market is and how it's evolving and who the players are.

So the reason I bring this up in part, not only to give some credit to Steve, but also to observe that our liaisons, though they don't have a vote, have strong influence on the board thinking.

And it led to this specific resolution.

Please go ahead, Paul.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint.

So after that resolution of the board on the 18th of October, the staff went back and continued to renegotiate with the registries through to the 24th of October.

And on the 24th of October, the product of those renegotiations was posted for public comment again.

And there were revised agreements with terms specifically addressing the concerns that the board had had.

So the revised agreements contained price control terms, terms addressing concerns about price differentiation, and new provisions relating to traffic data.

They were then posted again.

And the -- then posted public comment.

The public comment that was received, the key elements of the public comment received after the posting on the 14th of November did not -- were -- had a lot of similarities with the previous public comments.

And that included general criticism of ICANN or opposition to the revised agreements.

We had a number of agreements of, "I'm opposed to these agreements as written."

Concern that they lacked adequate price controls or may lead to differential pricing, concerned that additional time should be allowed for public comment and ICANN should wait for the PDP February 2006 recommendations, belief -- February '06 recommendations or wait until the Sao Paulo meeting.

Belief that the registries should have to compete through a rebid process.

And concern over the use the traffic data by the registries.

I think certainly several of those points about looking for -- as I think Susan pointed out, and I agree with Susan's position about waiting to see if there was going to be progress on the February '06, waiting here for Sao Paulo.

But the board discussion was, well, we should certainly do that.

And here we are today.

Sorry for taking such time, Chairman, but I thought it was useful to put in the record and explain to the community just the full length of the consultation process and the discussions.

And I think, very importantly, to give some flavor, at least as I see it, of the discussions that have taken place in the board and the degree to which there has been change and request for change and pressure brought to bear, if you like, on the original negotiations to try to be responsive to some of the concerns received.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Paul.

Are there any other comments from other board members? I see Rita and Peter.

Rita.

>>RITA RODIN: Thanks, Vint.

I'm going to keep this short.

I think everyone's heard a little bit about the substance of the deliberations about these contracts.

And as a new board member coming in, to some extent, I had the easiest job and the hardest job.

We needed to look at these contracts and make sure that the process really had been served.

And I think you have heard and I am very appreciative of Paul reading into the record, I think you have heard the process that was undergone in connection with these contracts. And I think it's important that everyone realize that this board really had some very robust discussions about this. And as Vint said, tried to look at all the constituencies as a whole and really try to understand some of the concerns on both the registry and the other constituency side.

But the other thing is that this board really tried to take action and move forward. And they tried to seek a compromise. Tried to think of as many -- get as many comments as they could from the community, hear as many concerns as they could, synthesize those. But in a very important way, try to take action and move these contracts forward to give certainty to the community.

As you also heard, I think this board very much looks forward to discussion and dialogue with the GNSO and any consensus policies that would come out of that policy. But I think that the board also felt very strongly that we should not be delayed in our ability to act here pending any kind of policy in the background.

Thanks, Vint.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Rita. Just a reminder to all native language English speakers to speak a little more slowly than usual so we can capture the transcripts.

Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Chairman. I would like to take a slightly different view from the retrospective that we have had. And I am supporting all the comments that other board members have made in putting the record clear on this.

I'd just like to see where we move on from here to. And my concern is that one of our strategic objectives, our second strategic objective after our first one, which is operational excellence, is to be achieving excellence in policy-making. And that's really what we do at these meetings and is about, is policy-making.

What we have got here is a difficulty and a potential disconnect in our policy-making process.

I agree with Susan's description of outrage as the description of the community after the dot com contract, and the way that the GNSO then set about a PDP to make sure that these things were -- couldn't happen again.

We have waited, I think, now, for some time, and I have been a board member who has urged the board to hold making a decision on these contracts at the last three or four times I have come forward and have supported the idea of waiting for the GNSO policy development process and for obtaining the economic advice, which is also a part of, I think, our strategic plan, to be able to give good economic input into our strategic planning.

But at the same time, we have been faced with these commercial imperatives that our contracts require us to give equal treatment to the other registry operators. And the time line that's been moving forward.

What we need to do is make sure we don't get into this kind of policy disconnect again, if we can. And what I would like to take forward is how do we make sure the GNSO is properly resourced, if it's a resourcing question for it to go through its policy development process as quickly and efficiently as possible. How do we make sure we have the right information, including economic information, always available for making she is decisions so we don't have to wait for long surveys to be done.

And what else can we learn from this process so that as we go forward, we can achieve our strategic objective of excellence in policy-making.

I think part of that may come from the GNSO review without considering the LSE report. And there may be an opportunity in terms of public consideration of our discussions about that review to make sure that we are getting our objective of organizational and policy excellence.

Thank you, Chairman.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Peter. Are there any other -- I see Susan.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Just briefly here. I'm glad Peter has raised the issue of the disconnect on the scope of policy-making, and I want to make my understanding clear of the GNSO scope here.

What I was personally waiting for from the GNSO was advice about what should be in these contracts. Consensus policy is a defined term in these registry contracts, and consensus policy is constrained to list of topics on which it is appropriate for the GNSO to provide draft policies to the board and for the board to adopt them unless, by vote, it overrides them.

This is the core of ICANN's policy-making. I want to make sure people in the audience understand, it's quite dramatic. The idea that a commercial actor would, in advance, decide to comply with policies on a constrained list of topics in the future as a binding matter to the extent that the GNSO adopts a policy on one of those topics and the board ratifies it.

The tradeoff here is that the list of policies that can be adopted as consensus policies is constrained. Not every topic can be a subject for a consensus policy-making.

So the GNSO's action in this PDP now pending on contractual terms isn't consensus policy-making. It is policy advice to the board about what should be in contracts.

So as we go forward, it will be the board's job to decide what is in the standardized contracts I'm dreaming of for the new gTLDs in the future. But the consensus policy development of the GNSO remains crucial. Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Let's see, I see Alex and then Paul.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Chair.

Several aspirational items have come up during this part of the discussion, and I would like to express a very specific position here.

I mean "aspirational" because I think it's a kind of aspiration that probably will never be completely reached, to have uniform contracts with the gTLD registries, for example.

There will always be adjustments. The fact that they are not negotiated at the same time, the fact the policy development processes in the GNSO are rolling on continuously. Adapting to the changes of reality in the market and provisioning and so forth.

So I think the goal that we have always to keep in mind is to have the best alignment possible within a given time frame. Waiting to have a completely developed policy and then work on the contracts, assuming that those contracts could be worked out instantly is really not realistical in my mind. And I am pretty satisfied that what we are achieving fits well within this aspiration.

I therefore have been less critical of the -- of the decoupling, because I think that this decoupling goes in the nature of ICANN and the practicalities of our work.

The same applies for large aspects of the negotiation of contracts.

I don't think that we will ever find a party that is willing to negotiate completely in the open, that is willing to set up a table in the middle of the room with ICANN council and staff and its clients and its suppliers, and negotiate fully in the open all the terms of those contracts. Most of these parties will -- And certainly if you find one, it's sure that it could not be guaranteed that this negotiation is to all parties' advantage. Some parties will take more than its equitable share.

So again, I think we have to be as open, as transparent in the negotiations of contracts, of contractual terms with businesses as possible, but remember that the whole community may lose if one of the negotiating parties is put in a position that it cannot move forward without losing face, without creating broader alternatives, or alternatives in a broader space.

So again here I would -- I personally am less anguished you by the fact that some alternatives have to be found out in a negotiation which is not hidden, which is not hidden in any negative sense, but which has to be held within discreet conditions. And then, of course, the ICANN environment is of unusual openness even for these kind results, to have them discuss, to wait for comments before moving forward. And this is something that both parties, in organizations like this in which there are two, will continue to have to learn to use to their advantage and see the common good of their community.

I therefore have had a lot less qualms about the exact terms and timing of these interactions.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Alex.

Paul, you had your hand up.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint.

I have, I suppose, two roles in some of these discussions. One is the, as the president, is in helping, working with the staff to try to bring such requests and negotiations to a stage where, in some sense at the staff level, that they are ready for consideration by the community. And to a certain quality or state that, in judgment, the board is likely to want to receive and discuss. That's one of my roles. And I try very hard to do that in a judgment of service for all of the board or service for the broader community.

In other words, looking to the others.

There then comes a time when I actually put my own board member hat on and have to then look at the thing in terms of my own personal thinking.

And they are not the same thing, I have to say.

So I want to now talk a little bit about my own personal thinking as a board member here.

And in particular, about the challenges of evaluating a mix of objectives that I feel we're charged with.

We are charged with transparency, we are charged with process, we are charged with full participation from the community, we're charged with some responsibility for bottom-up process.

But we're also charged as a board with responsibility for more choice and for registrants, the competition element which has been there in our founding documents. But we're also, very importantly, and I think primarily or more equal than others, if you like, charged with a security-and-stability responsibility for the core functions that we coordinate.

And in that sense, when I look around the world, there is no other group but this group that has that responsibility. If I look around all of the world or in national elements, we are probably the key instrument that's been charged with this security and stability responsibility.

It is not the sole thing that we have to balance. I don't want to give the impression that I think everything gets justified in the names of security. Indeed, I think in the present international and political environment, there's too much of that. Way too much of that. It's a lot of humbug in the name of security.

But I have to say I have thought -- With that sort of introduction, I have been thinking very much about presumptive renewal, presumption of renewal in these contracts.

First of all, I think it's very important, and in the word of these contracts, quite explicitly makes it clear that if the registry operator is in breach, substantive breach of the contracts, then we can say the contracts are terminated. So these are not perpetual licenses at all.

They are what the phrase means. Presumption renewal. There is a presumption that if they are being operated well and if there's no substantive breach -- and I'm not trying to use specific legal wording there, so my apologies to my general counsel if I have got the wording wrong about exactly that, but if there is no substantive breach, these contracts will be renewed.

My concern -- I have to say personally it's my growing concern, is that there are clearly forces who are beginning to mobilize attack capacity on the network that are looking for targets.

And in my previous life, and in the last three years where I am here, I have watched that. And it's clear to me that it's increasing very significantly and the capacity of it is increasing very significantly.

We saw already this year the first of the amplified denial of service attacks. And as I described to friend of mine once, recently after that, I said if your normal service is like a ripple on the beach and a DDOS is like a wave crashing on the beach, than an amplified DDOS is like a tsunami.

The capacity is clearly increasing. And again, as I said, I'm nervous about a lot of the humbug of things said in the name of security. But even this past week we saw a public warning concerning certain political actors looking to utilize these sorts of cyber attacks.

What does this really mean when I think about this presumption of renewal?

I think for the stake of the stability of the registrants in these TLDs, my conclusion has been it is good to have an incentive for the registry rarity to be putting capital investment into stable operations of the registry, and in particular into what I see as big increases in investment for security.

Now, I do not pretend to be the security expert. I do not pretend to be the security advisor to these registries. That's not where I am from.

But when I think about my own responsibility and I think about this particular presumptive renewal, I have come down -- on that basis, I have come down on the side of thinking that, all these things are a balance, but on balance, I think there's a benefit to the registrant of a presumptive renewal term.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Paul. Oh, I'm sorry, Alex. I wonder if I could get a word in for just a second. Put myself in the queue.

On that particular point, the presumptive renewal clause which, as Paul points out, is no guarantee, does have the character that it will help a registry operator justify expenditure of capital. And that may be a very important issue.

If the expectation is that there will be a lightweight and high probability of rebidding or other sorts of things, when it might be very hard to justify putting capital in that's needed to create the stable environment that Paul is advocating.

Alex.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: When Paul started talking about the attacks, what was foremost in my mind that this organization has to care about this layer 8. Worse things are happening in layer 8.

>>VINT CERF: I hope everyone understands that in the seven-layer architecture, layers 8 and 9 are political and religious in that order.

I want to make one other observation. For some time during the course of the dot biz, dot info, and dot org discussions, there was an unknown that hadn't been resolved. And that was whether the dot com agreement itself, which contained terms not unlike those in these three contracts would, in fact, be approved by the Department of Commerce. And it was only recently that that approval was forthcoming.

But that helped me, anyway, come to the conclusion that the elements in the -- in these three contracts were, in fact, consistent with the evaluations done by the Department of Commerce in consultation with the competitive authorities to which it turned. So that happened me, anyway, reach the conclusion that these contracts were ripe for approval.

Are there any other comments from board members.

Dave Wodelet.

>>DAVE WODELET: Thanks, Vint. I will be brief. Some people have echoed my comments already. But I want to say I think it's important to reiterate that, indeed, it has been a very difficult and protracted discussion with the board on these agreements.

And I view that as a good thing.

One area of concern that I had in particular with these agreements was the presumptive renewal section. But at the same time, that had to be balanced with putting all the registries on a common and competitive footing with respect to the com and net agreements and maintaining long-term stability of the Internet.

And I would like to say that no matter how we vote here today, that it's still important that we, as a community, via the GNSO, work hard to create standardized contracts and to create the appropriate balance between creating a fair competitive playing field between all of the registries and the needs of the larger community.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, David. Any comments from any of the other board members? Demi?

>>DEMI GETSCHKO: I will also be brief, more or less in the same way. I noted also some difference between these renewal proposals and the other contracts we have dealt with. And I'm not sure that we are coming closer to have uniform contracts with our counterparts. But I want to stress the urgent need to converge to the even-handling of these contracts and to have the standard sets to the other things that we do have in front of us.

The other point that worries me a little bit is the renewal process that is not -- I don't see any clear way to make economical improvements in the contracts except if there is a breach in the technical part.

But anyway, I agree that we need to strive for the stability of the registrant community. And we look forward to accomplishing this.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Actually, I think for the record, the breach notion that Paul mentioned covers more than just technical matters. If performance is, in fact, unsatisfactory, if we have evidence that the registry is failing in the performance of its duties and isn't able to cure that, that would also be grounds.

So it's a fairly substantive issue.

One point of clarification I would like from Susan. You mentioned the term "consensus policy," and said, as I agree with you, that it is a specific term.

I would assume that things like pricing would not be subject to consensus policy because that has the potential for producing a kind of collusion among the registries or the registrars as to pricing.

And I understand that's not considered appropriate in competitive circles.

So have I got that right?

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Vint, just to make the big picture very clear here, there is a disconnect between the bylaws, which say the GNSO works on policy, broadly understood, and these commercial contracts with registries, which provide for acceptance of consensus policies, mandatory, binding on registries on a constrained list of topics.

Pricing is not on the constrained list of topics set forth in these existing contracts, and so we couldn't, through a consensus policy, create a binding, mandatory, global policy for gTLD registries that we would call a consensus policy.

On the other hand, policy advice as to pricing coming from the GNSO I would find to be appropriate. And it will be up to the board to decide what to do with that advice. Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: All right. I would like to take this off-line because I have a feeling I need to learn more about my understanding of these matters.

I think that we have probably gone -- exhausted this topic, although frankly I appreciate very much the board's taking time to lay out some of the thinking that has led up to this moment to decide whether or not these contracts should go forward.

So let me -- assuming there are no other comments from the board, let me ask that we call the vote. All those that are in favor of approving the contracts and instructing the staff to take actions necessary to conclude these agreements with the three registrars, please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

Veni, are you on the line? Veni, can you hear me?

Why do I feel like a telephone commercial, "Can you hear me now?"

Wait a minute, he may be online on the net, and that might count.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: He is in the jabber room.

>>VINT CERF: Well, he was. There he is.

Okay. Veni, we cannot hear you, but can you vote in the jabber room, please.

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Yes, I vote.

>>VINT CERF: Yes, but which way do you vote?

Are you voting in favor?

Oh, yes. He says yes in the jabber room.

So that means it's unanimous with regard to all board members participating.

So thank you very much for that. This has been quite a long process but I am glad we finally got to where we are.

We go on now to another important step and one which has proven to be a challenge itself and that is to identify a chair of the nominating Committee. And would I like to ask Alex Pisanty who is the chair of the Board Governance Committee to introduce this particular resolution.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Chair.

This is a resolution to appoint of the chair of the next cycle Nominating Committee which nominates members of the ICANN board and other organizations within ICANN.

The resolution reads, as you can see on screen. It calls as president Article VII, section 2(1) of the applause which called for the nonvoting chair of the Nominating Committee to be appointed by the ICANN board.

It also cites as present. WHEREAS, the Board Governance Committee has recommended that George Sadowsky be appointed to chair the 2007 Nominating Committee and he has indicated a willingness to so serve.

The text of the resolution then says, resolved that George Sadowsky is appointed as Chair of the 2007 Nominating Committee, to serve until the conclusion of the ICANN annual meeting in 2007, or until his earlier resignation, removal, or other disqualification from service.

So moved.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Alex. Is there a second?

Peter seconds.

Is there any discussion of this resolution?

I have some. Well, so does Alex.

First of all, I want to note that George Sadowsky is sitting in the audience there.

George, would you wave your hand.

George has served twice in the past in this role, unexpectedly in this last, most recent round. He had to step in when the elected or selected NomCom chair had to resign for business reasons.

So I can only guess that this may be evidence of Mr. Sadowsky's mental instability because anyone who would do this for a third year in a row is clearly unusual.

It is deeply appreciated that he would accept the possibility of nomination to this position once again.

But I do want to say it is very difficult to find qualified people who are capable of spending as much time as is required to do this task. And so I just draw to the board's attention that this is a continuing problem that we may need to find a way to deal with it.

Peter, I saw your hand and I saw Alex and Susan.

So let's start with Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's not so much about this resolution which I obviously am going to vote in favor of. I just wanted to confirm to the community that during the course of the report from the Nominating Committee chairman, a couple of points were made.

One of them was that there seemed to be a difficulty when members of an existing council, for example, are on the Nominating Committee and possibly achieve an unfair advantage or the balance that we sought to create in that committee may be upset by having people who are already holding an existing position are on the Nominating Committee. As a member of the Board Governance Committee, in the course of discussing this, I had to talk to help general counsel look at the bylaws. So George, just to make sure, we have heard that point and we will be looking at the rules under which Nominating Committee members are appointed to make sure that, at least that difficulty is looked at. I can't promise that we will get everything right on the Nominating Committee, but we will at least look at that one.

The other point that came out of this was that part of the difficulty in finding good people to serve here and elsewhere is remuneration. And I have taken again a look at pars of the BGS to have a look at remunerating this position and other positions because it is a very complicated and sensitive topic. But we need to start, in my view -- and I have expressed this publicly and privately -- in my view, we need to be looking at remunerating people, compensating them in some reasonable way for the efforts that they go. We can no longer expect an organization of this size and complexity and the responsibilities that it holds to operate on a volunteer basis.

So now seemed to be a good time to talk about those sorts of issues in relation to at least the Nominating Committee.

>>VINT CERF: I hope that whoever chairs the board finance committee will consult with you, and vice versa, about the potential side effects of remunerating what would otherwise be volunteers.

Susan, did I see your hand up?

Alex. Okay, Alex.

Oh, Alex yields to Susan.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: All right.

Thank you.

Again, as with the issue that was just discussed, there's a deep history here.

The original idea was that the board would be made up of half individual users.

There's a sense that direct elections are difficult.

I won't go into that in more detail.

And so the compromise was to create a Nominating Committee structure that would bring new blood onto the board, not necessarily coming through the constituencies of the -- of ICANN.

The credibility of this Nominating Committee is central to ICANN's legitimacy and to the continued health and diversity of this board.

I'm privileged to have been nominated by the Nominating Committee.

But that doesn't mean I don't worry about its continued health.

I'm very grateful to George for continuing in this role.

There is some risk that the committee becomes something of an echo chamber with the same chair and leadership.

I am confident that George will do everything he can to bring in new people into this process.

But I'm very glad about two things: One, that as we'll discuss in a moment, we'll be reviewing the Nominating Committee shortly; and, two, that we are beginning a concerted search for a new Nominating Committee chair, starting right away.

And I urge the community to help us identify people who can play this role, whether compensated or not.

Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Susan.

Alex.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Vint, it's indeed a serious concern how to populate the Nominating Committee, how to keep attracting very high-caliber, innovative, fresh candidates to the board and to supporting organization councils.

I need to report that in -- as part of my responsibilities in the Board Governance Committee and together with you as -- for me as vice chair and you as chair, we have undertaken every year that there has been a nominating -- since the Nominating Committee was instituted, we have undertaken from very early in the yearly cycle to explore what people are available in order to put them forward as candidates to the positions that the board has to designate, particularly the position of chair.

We have received from board members a large -- a long list of names of extremely valuable people with prestige, with credibility, with impeccable integrity credentials, with knowledge of the field.

We have interviewed by e-mail or by phone several tens of these candidates.

And we have had a mixed bag of luck in this.

Some of these people were already on the verge of accepting the position when they were called to some extremely serious commitments, which proved their caliber, actually, within their companies or in changing jobs.

We did run into the fact this year, particularly with two candidates which we would have been very proud to present to the board, to the full Board Governance Committee first, and then if it's passed, to the board, who, unfortunately, could not take the responsibility on their shoulders, among other things, because of the loss of revenue that the work would have implied.

There I will call on George to underplay the workload.

Maybe, George, you'll have to tell them that it's all fun and travel and neat conversations with brilliant people.

There does seem to be an effect that we'll have to review how to streamline the conditions of the work for the Nominating Committee chairs so that it doesn't appear as an insurmountable amount of work.

So we have to ask again all the community to go around their communities, their constituencies, especially regional, professional environments, and find the people who can really populate the whole committee.

I would make a call here, if you may allow me, also to go back to the spirit of the bylaws that we gave ourselves in this community when we created the Nominating Committee -- there's a lot of history here, as Susan has said -- and remind ourselves that -- and here I'll quote first Amadeu Abril.

Amadeu was very concerned that if there was any horse-trading, as the colloquial expression in English goes, in some part of our community around trading positions of power or positions of influence, positions of impact on the contractual language and so forth, which have economic and political consequences within the community or for the people in their own environments, if there were any suspicion of horse-trading in any part of the community, if we didn't get the Nominating Committee well, all this horse-trading would go straight to the Nominating Committee and all of the politics in the community would go to the Nominating Committee, without necessarily being excluded or moved away from the parts of this community where these politics were already playing.

There has already been mentioned in the public forum yesterday of the concern about people who are serving in too many positions simultaneously, which sort of interlink, like being in a supporting organization council and on the Nominating Committee, which sort of gives people two avenues for influencing very directly the designation of directors and other people.

You have a vote in a constituency, and you have a vote in the Nominating Committee.

And that sort of strikes me as a little unholy.

So we have to call again on the community to look to their elders, to look to the people who are of moral authority and knowledge but are not directly involved in the day-to-day transactions of this business to create a more credible authority that works functionally, that doesn't have to see people in the Nominating Committee watching their backs and seeing how (inaudible), to be exempt of any opportunity for suspicion that someone is trying to pass a goal, as we say in Mexico, to surprise them in some way.

Further, I think that Peter has emphasized again the need for -- at least his perception of the need for compensation for some of the volunteer activities, including the Nominating Committee.

For myself, and we did a round of consultations with Vint and Hagen, with his experience in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations and boards, and we didn't find that it was the ripe moment yet, if ever, to propose this compensation.

This kind of compensation raises a number of issues, which are -- some of them could be really destructive for ICANN.

Having compensation for some of the positions and not for all raises serious questions of equitability.

The position and the possible reality that compensation for the NomCom chair, for example, could somehow be linked with satisfaction or dissatisfaction of part of the board with the result could -- or with staff, management, with the result -- could lead to a very disastrous moral, ethical situation for ICANN.

Compensation raises issues of taxes and tax law.

There's a number of people for whom receiving money for this activity would actually be poison, so they would refuse it.

But then, of course, there would be huge incentives for substituting them for people who would actually go after the compensation.

So I think that there's huge structure here that would have to be worked out before we even enter the public proposal for compensation, even for this one position.

Peter has graciously accepted in a discussion yesterday to try to put together a proposal that has more structure and more -- at least more -- let's say if not a appropriate, at least, I guess, it will be a list of issues and what to -- what to discuss, a discussion guide for this.

And I think that's a fair result at this stage, which is fallout from this resolution that we are going to discuss.

Or maybe stop discussing.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Alex.

Let me ask if there are any other comments on this resolution.

If not, I'll call for a vote.

All those in favor of the resolution -- and if you pass it, then George Sadowsky will be appointed once again as chair of the 2007 Nominating Committee -- all those in favor, please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

Veni Markovski, are you on?

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Yes.

I vote "yes."

>>VINT CERF: Veni votes "yes."

Professor Qian, are you on the line also?

>>HUALIN QIAN: Yes.

>>VINT CERF: How do you vote?

>>HUALIN QIAN: I vote "yes."

>>VINT CERF: Thank you.

I apologize for forgetting that you were on the line earlier, Professor Qian.

So we neglected to capture your vote on the other matter.

>>HUALIN QIAN: Earlier, I also vote in favor.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you.

Then, Secretary, would you note that in the vote on the first resolution, that Professor Qian also voted in favor on the .info, .org, and .biz matter.

All right. Thank you very much.

George, thank you again for undertaking this very difficult task.

But we appreciate it deeply.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: We now move on to another important step in the ICANN relationship with its Governmental Advisory Committee.

And I'd like to call on Peter to introduce a resolution with regard to the board and the GAC working group.

Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Vint.

I have the pleasure of serving on the board-GAC joint working group on improving relations and efficiencies between ICANN and the GAC.

Mr. Chairman, would you like me just to read the motion into the record?

>>VINT CERF: Yes, I would.

Thank you.

This is partly for the benefit of people who may not be able to read that which is on the screen, and also, it becomes part of the transcript, which I think will be useful.

So please do.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:It also helps people habituate themselves to my strange accent.

Whereas, after its 25 June 2006 face-to-face meeting in Marrakech --

>>VINT CERF: Remember that in addition to strange accents, Peter, that speed is important.

So slow down for the transcript.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: -- the ICANN board-GAC joint working group cochaired by Alejandro Pisanty, brackets, vice chair, board, close brackets, and Janis Karklins, chair of the GAC's working group on the future of the GAC, continued its program of inter-sessional activities through two conference calls and e-mail.

Whereas, the joint working group has been functional as an instrument for making communications between the board and the GAC more effective.

Whereas, on 6 December 2006, the working group held its third face-to-face meeting during the ICANN meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where it discussed the GAC work program for 2007, joint outreach efforts, permanent solution for the GAC secretariat, contingency planning, and the role of the GAC within the ICANN framework.

Whereas, the working group will continue its support to outreach strategies and the sustained synchronization of GAC's priorities with ICANN's work program and strategic plan.

Whereas, in its XXVI Communique, the GAC endorsed its 2007 work program and provided input to the transparency and accountability management operating principles for ICANN: Resolved, and the resolution number, to recognize the progress made by the joint working group and express its appreciation to the GAC for its 2007 work program and its input to comments to the transparency and accountability management operating principles.

Further resolved to request the joint working group to report on progress made on the further implementation of its work program and progress made on outreach at the ICANN meeting in March 2007.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Peter.

Is there a second for this motion? I see Vanda.

Is there further discussion of this resolution?

Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Can I just say, having subjected you all to that, that hidden in there is a very good message, and that this committee is, although it's a large one and it has difficulty sometimes, as we all do, with its work program, it is making really good progress on what is an essential pillar of ICANN, and that is governmental support.

So as I say, if you read carefully through all that diplomatic language as we tend to talk to the GAC, this is a good thing.

>>VINT CERF: I would like to make an observation about the working group and some of the documents emerging from it.

I have occasion to participate in those discussions.

And one of the things which emerged was, in fact, a proposal that the GAC produce a calendar of plans for its next year, and to schedule topics of interest and to know when and which of the face-to-face meetings these topics would be addressed.

This actually is a really good idea, because calendars are planning tools.

And it seemed to me that we would like all of the parts of ICANN to be able to have a common calendar so we can begin to see when issues are going to be addressed by various parts of ICANN, and perhaps more importantly, to align those so that we actually come to a timely common agreement about particular topics.

So we've already had some significant benefit from this effort working together with the GAC.

Other comments? Sharil.

>>SHARIL TARMIZI: Thank you, Vint.

All I'd like to say is that the intention of having that particular calendar, if you like, is to also assist governments, which usually have a longer planning cycle.

Typically, when government officials decide that they want to come for a particular meeting, they need to know in advance when something will happen, you know, budgetary constraints and travel requirements.

So in this regard, we -- by putting up this calendar, it's not cast in stone.

We hope you all understand that.

That is a plan.

This plan may change as and when, depending on the circumstances and the situation.

But we hope by sharing this all of you in the community know where we're headed, at least in 2007, where we'd like to go.

And if we can all work together to synchronize our priorities, we can probably also, you know, revise that calendar, if some part of the committee feels something else is more important.

But we've given that as an indication to share.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Sharil.

Just for the record, Sharil is the current chairman of the GAC, unless you -- yes, the current chairman.

So if there are no other comments, I'll call for a vote on this.

All those in favor, please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11.

Do we have -- I'm sorry.

Did I get that right? Please raise your hand again.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

Thank you.

Veni, how do you vote?

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: I vote yes.

>>VINT CERF: Professor Qian, how do you vote?

>>HUALIN QIAN: In favor.

>>VINT CERF: In favor.

Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, the resolution passes unanimously.

The next item on the agenda is another extremely meaty subject.

It has to do with Internationalized Domain Names.

And unless you've been out on mars for the last several years, you probably are well aware that this is a hot topic, one which is of major importance to the future use of the domain name system.

So we have an important set of resolutions to consider, and I'd like to ask Rita if she would make this motion.

>>RITA RODIN: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Whereas, the board expresses its gratitude to the volunteers, in particular, from the technical community, including the IETF, IAB, RSSAC, the TLD registries working group, and the IDN president's advisory committee, for their work related to the insertion of internationalized top-level labels.

Whereas, the preliminary laboratory test conducted by Autonomica and development of root zone and application test plans are significant steps toward the stable deployment of IDNs.

Whereas the TLD registries working group has met regularly on the IDN guidelines revisions and a best practices document.

Whereas the ccNSO, GNSO, and the GAC have active working groups considering policy aspects related to the introduction of internationalized top-level labels.

Whereas the community has had considerable discussions regarding the development of a process by which internationalized labels corresponding to territories could be developed through a joint effort involving the ccNSO and GAC.

It is resolved that the ICANN board acknowledges the significant work performed by the members of the community working on this important topic and urges this work to continue to move forward in a manner that emphasizes the security and stability of the Internet and enhances the usability of and accessibility to the Internet.

It's resolved that the ICANN board respectfully requests that all volunteers work closely together in their continued work to ensure that the introduction of IDNs proceeds in a coordinated and timely manner.

And, finally, it is resolved that the ICANN board requests the ccNSO and the GAC, through a joint collaborative effort, and in consultation as needed with the relevant technical community, to produce an issues paper relating to the selection of IDN ccTLDs associated with the IS0 3166-1 two-letter codes.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Rita.

Is there a second? I see Hagen seconds.

This -- hiding behind this particular resolution, I think, is a great deal of complexity.

And it's probably worth exposing some of that for -- so that it's clear that the board is aware of how complicated this is.

Just to give one example, the 3166-1 codes which are established by the United Nations statistics group, statistics organization, which, by the way, just as a matter of history, George Sadowsky worked in some time ago, that list is not a list of countries, even though we make reference to country codes when we use them.

It's a list of places, sometimes countries, but otherwise areas of economic interest.

Because the statistics office is trying to keep track of what's happening in the world and needs to identify different locations or regions through these codes.

We adopted the use of these well before ICANN was in existence, in part, to avoid having to answer the question, "What's a country? Or what's an appropriate thing to have a top-level domain?"

The first immediate question that comes up with regard to internationalized domain names associated with those two-letter codes is who should have the opportunity to choose additional non-ASCII strings to be associated with the codes.

The second problem is, who should be able to object to the choice? A third problem is, how would you resolve a disagreement about a particular choice? A fourth question is, what strings are actually allowed technically? Well, I could go on and on.

But the reason I want to just render a little bit of color in this is that it's not going to be an easy matter to decide what to do.

And to be very honest, in earlier months, I had the naive thought that this was an easily confined problem, that we could go to Sharil and say, "Why don't you ask your members to pick some strings, and, you know, then we won't have to worry about it here."

The fact of the matter is, it's a lot more complicated than that.

So I don't envy the task that the ccNSO and GAC are undertaking here.

And I hope as a very first step that they can produce a list of questions along the lines of the ones I attempted to suggest to you so that we can understand in concrete terms the scope and depth and complexity of the use of IDNs as top-level country codes.

Are there other comments? Sharil.

>>SHARIL TARMIZI: Thank you, Vint, for your elaboration on the topic.

We appreciate this opportunity, in fact, because I don't think anyone's kidding anybody here and thinking that this is an easy effort.

But at the same time, I think this actually shows, number one, increased GAC participation with the community.

And I think if there's anybody within the community who could kick-start some of the discussions, it's probably the ccNSO and the GAC together with the technical community.

We have the people here, so we should start documenting some of these things.

Because I think very often everyone has got their own notion of what the elephant looks like, but no one's documented it down.

So let's start doing that.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Sharil.

Joi.

>>JOICHI ITO: Yeah.

I remember during the board discussions, we had a lot of discussion about this.

And while I sympathize greatly with those people who are involved in the social, political complexities as well as the security and technology complexities, I think this is a challenge, but also something very important for ICANN to move quickly and get right.

Because it's exactly these kinds of problems that used to deadlock a lot of the older multistakeholder meetings where every single problem had to be anticipated and worked out before we tried it.

And it was the kind of rough consensus running code of the IETF which makes the Internet something that can evolve and move forward.

And I think that if we fail this challenge, we risk breaking up, one, the Internet as the local groups start coming up with solutions on their own, which are already well along; and also turning ourselves into those -- the same kind of "we don't move until we have everything right" kind of entities that we were sort of designed -- or the Internet was sort of designed to solve.

So while I sympathize with everyone, I think this is an important challenge that we need to get right, but we need to keep moving on this.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Joi.

Susan, and then Peter.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Happy to defer to Peter first.

>>VINT CERF: Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I was going to say some of the things that Joi just said, but he said them so much better than I could.

My last point, then, will just be to say what a good thing this is going to be, we have such expertise in this IDN area in the country codes.

Some of them are so far advanced with some of this that tapping into this expertise and taking this forward is going to be a good response to this challenge.

>>VINT CERF: Susan.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: I just want to acknowledge and align myself with Joi's remarks.

I think we run a risk here inside ICANN of allowing our conservatism to override our ability to innovate in this area.

I think it's very important for us to move forward here and not run the risk of splitting the Net by our inactivity.

I also want to note that this resolution, although it refers to collaborative work between the ccNSO and the GAC, in no way cuts off or undermines other work going on with respect to IDNs throughout the ICANN community.

Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Susan.

I'll take Paul and then Alex.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Chairman.

I'm sorry, just to -- for point of precision, just for the record, in your explanation, you talked about our drawing the codes from United Nations Statistical Bureau.

Formally, they come from the International Standards Organization 3166 Maintenance Agency.

That agency sets the codes.

But it itself draws information from the U.N. sources.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you for that clarification, Paul.

Alex.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: A quick correction to the record would be that it's -- it should say "formally" and not "formerly," if you can put that back.

>>VINT CERF: When we're editing the real-time transcript, now we're in a real spiral.

Thank you very much for that, Alex.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Sorry.

And my substantial -- trying to also add a substantial comment here.

I think that this -- the implications downstream from this resolution can be very --

>>VINT CERF: Speak -- you need to be vigorous in your speaking into that microphone, because the people on the telephone can't hear you.

Go ahead.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: The potential fallout from this resolution is significant.

It can lead in many different ways.

I have had some qualms during the drafting that I think it's worth expressing here for the record.

I'm prepared to vote in favor of this resolution since it has been worded in such a way that I expect to carry as respectful of the huge effort that ccTLD managers have made during the years to establish proper, responsible, highly participative ccTLD management, that in many countries, in many communities, the ccTLD manager is responsible and enacts very active participation of all stakeholders, from civil society, academic institutions, business, government, and all walks of life, and that we have to be careful that this model continues to be preserved in the administration of whatever comes out from this resolution, that it's not clear that this resolution will lead to something that will be put into operation.

But whatever goes into the consultation and the issues paper, of course, has to include respectfully preserving the ability of ccTLD managers to continue to work for the sake of the community, as they have been doing until now.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Alex.

Other -- Demi.

>>DEMI GETSCHKO: I want to take the opportunity also to thank the great work John Klensin and the technical team is doing in this area.

And as one of the ccNSO representatives, to congratulate the cc community for being very active on this also and urge them to go forward.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Demi.

I certainly would echo that thanks.

And for many others, Cary Karp, PATRIK Faltstrom and many others in the community interested in IDNs.

I think if we have no other comments, we're prepared to vote on this.

So let me ask, all those in favor of these three resolutions, please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

Veni Markovski, how do you vote?

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Vote yes, in favor.

>>VINT CERF: And Professor Qian, how do you vote?

>>HUALIN QIAN: Vote yes.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Professor Qian.

So, Mr. Secretary, the resolutions pass unanimously.

The next item on the agenda is another major milestone for ICANN.

And that is approval of the strategic plan of 2007 to 2010.

So let me ask Raimundo Beca to introduce this resolution.

>>RAIMUNDO BECA: Thank you, Vint. I am really pleased to introduce this resolution, which reads like this.

Whereas ICANN July 2007 through June 2010 strategic plan is based on consultation with the community through workshops held in multiple languages at ICANN meetings, through Supporting Organizations and advisory committees, and through public forums on the ICANN Web site.

Whereas the 2007-2010 strategic plan gives a brief description of challenges and opportunities that ICANN is likely to face in the next years and outlines five strategic objectives for the ICANN community.

Whereas the strategic objectives in the plan will form the framework around which the July 2007 through June 2008 operational plan and the associated budget are constructed.

Whereas members of the community have been very generous with their time and the board appreciates the work they have done.

Resolved, the board approves the 2007-2010 strategic plan and directs the president and staff to move forward with the community-based operational planning process based on the strategic objectives as set forth in the plan.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Raimundo.

Is there a second?

I see Paul and Peter and lots of hands.

We'll record Paul as the seconder on this one.

I'd just like to make an observation on this. Although I think, Raimundo, I should give credit to you for my observation. And that is that we are on schedule, at last, in terms of our strategic planning and operational planning cycle.

I know Raimundo has especially been a strong advocate of getting ourselves aligned with our plans.

So this is a very important point for us to reach. And I hope now that we can stay on schedule with regard to our strategic and operational planning.

So congratulations to Paul and staff for the effort required to get there.

Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thanks, Vint.

The other thing, apart from us being timely, is that the community support for this is pretty comprehensive. When we started this process, it was very difficult trying to do a strategic plan while we were already running. We had an operational plan already related to a budget and we were mid cycle. Introducing the strategic plan took a lot of work, the staff did a lot of work throughout on this process but the original one generated a lot of community, let's say, interest.

What happened progressively is through the consultations people have felt -- my sense is the community feels its input has been appreciated. It's appearing in the plan. We now have a very clear set of strategic objectives, and they can now be traced through the operating plan which is coming and down through the budget and the other dependent plans.

So not only are we on time but we seem to be carrying the community or be supported by the community in this process, which is excellent.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Peter.

I see Raimundo has his hand up.

Yes, Raimundo.

>>RAIMUNDO BECA: Thank you, Vint.

I have been saying all through this two or three years, in the strategic plan, the process is as important as the content. And now we have a process which is in schedule. So it takes a long time.

Now our effort has to be -- has to be assure that the train gets to the place where we want.

But that's a new challenge.

Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Raimundo.

Vanda.

>>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Thank you. Just to acknowledge that how important it is in this process to have some community not English speaking that is participating in these sections, allowing Spanish and French people to express more easily their points and their concerns about the process really makes the strategic plan really the answer of the community.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Vanda.

Susan, did I see your hand up?

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Just briefly, Vint. Thank you.

I appreciate Vanda's comments very much about the involvement of the community and the other things that my colleagues here on the board have said about the importance of the bottom-up nature, the drafting of the strategic plan. It's a crucial document, a really important initiating point for the rest of our planning process for the next three years.

And I appreciate particularly the community's comment that they wanted to see prioritization of ICANN's plans for these next years.

And Kurt Pritz's efforts to make sure that those comments were well reflected in the plan are warmly acknowledged by me.

I want not to throw water on this -- cold water on this entire process. I think it's gone very well.

I am often concerned about ICANN's need to focus on its narrow mission and stay concentrated on its interior job of doing policy-making well and working with its community in an effective way.

I think that at this meeting here in Sao Paulo, we have had some very positive steps in that direction and I look forward to approving the strategic plan.

Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you. Paul.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint. In the spirit of the conversations in the last couple of days about scripting, and particularly this meeting, I'd like to make an observation directed to conspiracy theorists, particularly in the Asia-Pacific in the last 12 hours.

>>VINT CERF: Paul, you are off script. I'm sorry, this is a serious matter. Go ahead.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: But it's a key process point.

The process for this strategic planning has been laid out for some time, and the timetable was confirmed again earlier this week.

A key part of that process was that, yesterday, a final version of the plan would be finalized, and today, this board would vote by resolution on that document.

So the final version that was posted 12 hours ago or so was the document that would be the longstanding document.

I make that point because on page 7 of this document posted 12 hours ago, it does say the plan was adopted by the ICANN board in December 2006 at the Sao Paulo meeting.

Nobody should interpret it as being somehow or other 12 hours ago there was some secret thing happened. This text is just there, and the actual resolution -- this resolution is the one that actually adopts the plan.

So I have had conversations with conspiracy theorists over the last couple of hours and I just wanted to make that quite clear.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Paul. One could argue that the document reads that way on the presumption that it will be approved, and if it was not approved, presumably that would have to be edited.

So -- but thank you for that clarification.

Other comments?

Seeing none, Vanda is rubbing her hands because she wants to vote.

So all those in favor of adopting the strategic plan, raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12. Veni, how do you vote?

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: I vote in favor.

>>VINT CERF: Professor Qian, how do you vote?

>>HUALIN QIAN: I vote in favor.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, the strategic plan has been adopted by the board, and it is now up to the staff to transform that document into an operational plan with the help of the community.

All right. We need to move on now to a very important area of concern for ICANN and that the periodic examination of its structures and how they work, how they are constituted.

So I would like to ask Susan to introduce this resolution.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Thank you, Vint.

Our bylaws call for the board to organize a series of reviews of ICANN's operations. This was done, again, to give you some historical context, this came out of the evolution and reform process in 2002. And so we set for ourselves several detailed tasks, and this resolution is an attempt to carry out those tasks in some coherent order.

So here we go.

Whereas Article IV, section 4 of ICANN's bylaws calls for the board to cause periodic reviews of the performance and operation of each Supporting Organization, each Supporting Organization council, each advisor committee, other than the Governmental Advisory Committee, and the Nominating Committee by an entity or entities independent of the organization under review.

Whereas these reviews are intended to ensure an independent examination of the role and operation of key elements of ICANN, and are part of ICANN's ongoing commitment to its evolution and improvement.

Whereas the Board Governance Committee has determined that, although not required by the bylaws, a review of the board would be appropriate and consistent with ICANN's commitment.

Whereas the Board Governance Committee considered the age, responsibilities, and activities of each entity to be reviewed, and considered the operational limitations for managing and implementing reviews, and approved a comprehensive review schedule.

Whereas the Board Governance Committee approved a proposed plan for the review of the Nominating Committee as the next entity to be reviewed, and recommended that the board post proposed terms of reference for this review for public comment.

The next item is a list of the reviews to be undertaken in the coming year.

Nominating Committee, estimated launch December 2006. At-Large Advisory Committee, estimated launch February 2007.

Corporate administration, including the ICANN board, estimated launch July 2007.

Root-Server System Advisory Committee, estimated launch October 2007.

Security and Stability Advisory Committee, January 2008.

ccNSO Supporting Organization, July 2008.

Address Supporting Organization, December 2008.

Whereas after four cycles, the Nominating Committee and its critical role in selecting individuals for ICANN leadership positions is a priority candidate for independent review.

Resolved. The board asks the general counsel to examine the bylaws provisions relating to periodic review, and to recommend any appropriate changes to reflect the new schedule recommended by the Board Governance Committee.

Resolved, the ICANN board agrees with the comprehensive review schedule and the proposed plan for the review of the Nominating Committee approved by the Board Governance Committee, and directs staff to execute the reviews as scheduled, and to post proposed terms of reference for the Nominating Committee review for public comment and further consideration.

Thank you, Vint.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Rita.

Is there a second?

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: My name is Susan.

>>VINT CERF: You know, I need to do something about my brain after drinking all this lemon juice.

Thank you very much, Susan. My name is Frank.

Is there discussion of this resolution? Peter.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Well, the observant members of the community will have noticed the reference to the bylaws. And I think we need to confess that we have fallen behind in our bylaw obligations in relation to review. And I just want to make it clear that, personally, and I think I speak for the rest of the board, this is in no way intended to be any kind of a withdrawal from the recognition of the importance of the principle of review.

I think we are absolutely committed to the idea of a necessity of regular review of the function -- the structural components of ICANN.

However, we got behind.

But an indication of our commitment can be found in the fact that we have done the review of the GNSO, even though that was not required by the bylaws. And the schedule that we have created, by the time we have completed it, should have got us back on track and caught up.

So as I say, that's the reason for the reference to the bylaws. We need to get this back on track.

>>VINT CERF: Actually, thank you for bringing this up, Peter. It's even more complicated than that because the bylaws, much to my surprise, because I had forgotten this, actually specify the order in which these things would be done as well.

And looking back on that, one imagines that it would be better to simply say that these all have to be reviewed, but one wants to make sure that you review those which look like they need the most attention first.

So that's exactly right, that the bylaws will be examined by the staff general counsel to reword them so that they give the flexibility, while also ensuring that we do follow our instincts and that we do review all parts of ICANN in a periodic way.

Are there any other comments on this resolution before we take a vote?

Alex and Susan.

I got that right this time, Susan.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Vint.

I would like to reemphasize the fact that practical concerns are here as important as the principle of the review, unfortunately. And the intension between our -- very, very strong intention and meaning to perform these reviews well, to do them radically deep and exhaustive in their considerations in trying to get the continuous improvement in the organization has to be balanced with the fact that they actually take a lot of work.

GNSO review, both the council and the more extensive done by the LSE have shown us that we have to really create a pipeline for these things.

The community has to know or be reminded, maybe, of a few aspects of this. This is a continuous improvement program that is embedded in the bylaws of ICANN from the reform process, in order to avoid and, as much as possible, for ICANN to get into a situation where it has stalled and it has no way except for a revolution to change.

There is also an expense of energy, of time from staff and board, and an economic expense to be made here.

We have looked at the budgetary implications of this program, and they seem to be very well placed within the needs of continuous improvement of an organization.

More over, one of the complexities of ICANN in particular.

People who are newer to the community may actually be asking themselves why this has to be done, why the expense, why the attention, why the effort.

It's part of what any organization would be doing to continue as part of its strategic plan, as part of continuous improvement. And here, we have to be responsive to many different communities, many different interests, in many different fields. This is a particularly reasonable structure.

We are not committing to unrealistic goals in the sent that the schedule presented is extremely aggressive, but progress will be reviewed and assessed in a year, and maybe on that basis we will know better how to adjust it.

I think in a year we will have a very good position, however, because we will have management processes in place for the reviews, which have been had to set up for the council and the global GNSO review.

So that will make this less beyond possible expectations than it could seem for some now.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Alex.

Are there any other comments on this resolution?

In that case, I'll call for a vote.

All those in favor of the new plan nominating -- I'm sorry, specifically for the plan to schedule a review of the Nominating Committee and to examine the bylaws, please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

Veni Markovski, how do you vote?

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Yes, in favor.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you. And Professor Qian, how do you vote?

>>HUALIN QIAN: Yes.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, the motion passes unanimously.

All right.

Next item on the agenda is something which has created a great deal of pleasure for many of us, especially, I think, for our colleagues here in Latin America, and most especially for Alex Pisanty who has worked very hard in reforming the structure of ICANN, and for Roberto Gaetano who has worked very hard with the at-large community.

I am going to ask Vanda to introduce this resolution.

Vanda.

>>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Okay. My pleasure.

WHEREAS, the ICANN bylaws, Article XI, section 2, part 4, provides a process that allows individual Internet users to participate meaningfully in the work of ICANN, as the community known as "at-large."

Whereas groups representing individual Internet users throughout the Latin America and Caribbean, the LAC, geographic region has finalized work on organizing themselves as a Regional At-Large Organization, RALO, as the local accent, by creating a Memorandum of Understanding, an MOU, between themselves and the ICANN.

Whereas the LAC Regional At-Large Organization will serve as the main forum and coordination point for input from the individual Internet users in this region for ICANN on issues that affect individual's use of the Internet's domain name system.

Whereas the LAC region is the first region of the global at-large community to conclude work on a Regional At-Large Organization, an achievement which represents a considerable milestone in the development of the multistakeholder process that is so fundamental to the work of ICANN.

Whereas the LAC user groups have concluded their work on the MOU during the 27th international ICANN meeting in Sao Paulo, allowing for the diverse communities engaged in ICANN to be present here to recognize this achievement.

Whereas the parties to the MOU, composed of ICANN and 14 representatives of the Terry Clark structures in the LAC region, signed it at a public ceremony at the Sao Paulo ICANN meeting, with the execution of the agreement on ICANN's part contingent upon final approval by the ICANN board following completion of a public comment period.

Resolved, the ICANN board applauds the community of Latin America and the Caribbean Internet users and recognizes the achievement of this important milestone.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Vanda.

I take it that is a motion on the table.

Is there a second?

Well, I was hoping to see -- all right, Alex seconds. Good man. All right.

Is there further discussion of this resolution?

Alex.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: I don't know if there is a lot of discussion of tearing it apart or opposing it and then reconciling views, but certainly there is an obligation, I feel, that we thank very explicitly all the people that made this possible who may not appear to be explicitly mentioned here.

And a whole new effort from ICANN that has been behind this.

First, we are -- the at-large has been one of the most painful parts of ICANN to organize. We have had several attempts of getting global user representation into a system. The discussion has even gone as deep as asking why there has to be this representation, who has to be represented, and so forth.

The concept of a web of trust, a concept of building on existing organizations within which there is trust among the individuals, and knowledge of who they are, where they are coming from, what their agendas are, and then trust among organizations, which happens very much inside regions, this concept has been slow -- we have been slow in our capacity to actually enact it, to build with it.

But the fact that we have been able to now formalize these organizations is really a milestone for many of us.

ICANN's parties slowly but firmly are coalescing, they are getting together and being able to act.

As has been mentioned before in this public forum and in the public forums yesterday, the at-large community has already made significant contributions into shaping the agenda of ICANN. And the fact that we get the structures working now will be even -- make them even more effective.

This has also happened in particular with the contribution of the regional liaison and outreach efforts that we have these organizations working in several different regions.

It's also an effect of this outreach activity and of the people that ICANN has put out there in the regions, people who know the organizations, the people, the legal culture, the structures, the language, the hidden languages and agendas of most people in the region.

And that's an effort that has to continue.

This outreach, this reaching out into the community, this communicating and calling the community together is a very demanding effort. There will always be obstacles to surmount.

One of them is the perception that ICANN matters are being solved, so why should I take part, which some people have.

There has to be a continuous effort against any notion of capture by specific small groups. All the people who feel that not being insiders, they don't have anything to look for in ICANN have to be convinced, as has happened here in the region, that they do have an impact. That we are honestly and frankly opening roles for this perhaps and for changing and shaping the future of ICANN.

And as a final word, and I also have to express a thankful word to the people from ICANN staff and the community, like Pablo Hinojosa and many others who have been doing the very, very heavy load carrying work in the everyday effort that brought us here.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Alex.

I see Vanda has her hand up. I'm sorry, Vanda, actually Roberto asked to speak next.

The gentleman yields to the lady from Brazil.

Vanda. Vanda, you can go ahead.

>>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Thank you, Roberto.

Just a general comment that I have been for many years dealing with non-profit organizations in Latin America. I would like to recognize how changes -- how the things have changed with the Internet community, and how is, was now -- used to be in that, in the past, how difficult it used to be to get together communities around Latin America.

And after this Internet community movement in this region, how easy it is to get together and achieve common goals and the organized, self-organized community to get together.

For the people of this region, it is really amazing to look back and see how far we could reach with the net facilities and all the effort of Internet community.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Vanda.

Roberto.

>>ROBERTO GAETANO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I'm particularly glad that this -- this resolution is passed and that the LAC regional at-large regional organization -- well, the LAC RALO is formed just a few minutes before my stepping down as ALAC member. And so I can put on my C.V. that I participated in this process, and I achieved result.

In fact, we had an early start in Europe and in Asia-Pacific, and we were betting on who of the two would have been the first RALO to be organized. And we were watching each other like opponents in a game in Russia. And as usually happens, while you watch who you think is your direct opponent and the third party comes in and gets the jackpot.

I think this is not something that has happened by chance. The Latin American region has proved over the years to be very concrete when the matter needs to be doing rather than talking. Doing the talking as much as is necessary to get to a common understanding, but then go to the doing phase, instead of continuing talking and trim all details which probably we are doing too much in Europe and maybe also in Asia-Pacific, although I don't want to speak to another region.

That brings to mind another element in the ICANN history, which -- the pre-ICANN history, which is the IFWP period. When there was the plan to have three meetings in the three most important, then, region of the world, which is the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

And there was -- we planned to have one meeting in every region.

One was in Reston, Virginia, the second one in Geneva, and the third one in Singapore.

And then all of a sudden the Latin Americans entitled that they were going to play -- have a bigger role in the game and decided that they wanted to have a meeting in Buenos Aires, which was not part of the original plan.

I had the immense honor and pleasure at that time to be in the steering committee, and I have favored this believing that this could happen. And it turned out that it was what I consider still the most successful of the IFWP meetings of the whole series.

We had for the first time a meeting that was not conducted in English, but with simultaneous translation, covering Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and set the stage for the formation of ICANN as an organization that had two characteristics: First of all, that is ready to accept -- when the people want to have something to happen, to accept that this happens, even if it's not in the plan.

And to establish this organization with a commitment to multiculture and multilanguage.

And I think that I have to personally thank the Latin Americans for being so effective and for sometimes telling us clearly where we should go and where -- and to act rather than spend a lot of time only talking.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Roberto.

Veni Markovski is on the phone and wanted to make a statement.

I hope that he will be audible to our transcribers.

Veni, would you like to go ahead?

Veni, we're not hearing anything.

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Hello, can you hear me?

>>VINT CERF: Yes, we can hear you now.

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: So I just wanted to say for the record that I will vote in favor and thanks to the people from the Latin American countries.

And I am actually a little bit envious of what they achieved, because I was hoping very much that we will be able to launch the European RALO first.

But now that we have the good example of the LAC, I hope that the next step will be for us in Europe to organize.

And I commit ISOC Bulgaria as a member of the European at-large to contribute as much as we can to make that happen.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Veni.

Certainly pleased to hear about that commitment.

Susan, I think you had your hand up also.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Thanks, Vint.

Just a brief comment.

I join in the joy over the creation of the LAC RALO.

It's a great moment.

It is a milestone in terms of opening participation and lowering barriers to being part of ICANN for people all around the world, and the ALAC is working very hard in that direction.

It is often not obvious to people what the entry point into ICANN processes is and how, as civil society groups or individual users, they can be part of policy-making for names and addresses.

The London School of Economics report on the functioning of the GNSO makes this point many times in the course of analyzing how the GNSO functions, and suggests as part of its coherent vision of the future of the GNSO that we deemphasize barriers among groups and emphasize dialogue, ease of entry, and participation.

I think those values are crucial to the future success of ICANN, and I urge the board, as I said yesterday at our public forum, to exercise leadership and move towards adoption of the LSE report in short order.

Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Susan.

Alex, I see your hand up.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: While Susan and I may have a discrepancy in the exact way to take points from the LSE review, I can't but agree with her in emphasizing the lowering of entry barriers into all the activities of ICANN where there can be perceived to be one.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Alex.

Are there any other comments on the proposed resolution? If not, may I suggest to the board that we adopt this resolution by acclamation.

[ Applause ]

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Acclamation (inaudible).

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Thank you.

Veni and Professor Qian, we have a room full of people standing and clapping.

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Yeah, we were doing -- I was doing the same.

>>VINT CERF: Veni was doing the same.

Good.

>>HUALIN QIAN: Yes.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Professor Qian.

All right.

Well, that was a wonderful resolution to pass.

Thank you all for that.

I would like to -- since we actually have time, and I hope everyone has the patience, I would like to put something on the agenda which wasn't there.

It's just a discussion item, which I would ask Susan to lead.

And it has to do with meetings, in the middle of which we are in now.

There's been a long-term discussion about the shape, nature, frequency, and location and organization of ICANN meetings.

And there was a very well-attended workshop that Susan led earlier this week.

And so, Susan, I'd like to ask you, if you could, to give us a kind of summary of what the outcomes were.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Thank you so much, Vint.

For my colleagues on the board, this was an hour-and-a-half- long workshop about several topics having to do with meetings, loosely connected to meetings.

And I'd ask for your patience as I summarize it briefly.

It would be terrific if we could have a discussion of this among ourselves.

People have lots of positive things to say about ICANN meetings.

The scribes are wonderful, the healthy culture of debate is appreciated, hallway networking opportunities are very fruitful and our staff meeting coordinators do a good job.

We spent a good deal of time during this workshop talking about communications, as we did yesterday during the public forum, concerns about translation of key documents, making them available in major languages.

And I accept and understand my colleague Hagen Hultzsch's concern about not doing legal business with translated documents.

But it might help ICANN's processes to have major documents in translated form.

And there is a project underway along this vector.

Lots of interest in agendas being made available in advance.

A theme that arose several times was the need for cross-cutting dialogue-oriented meetings about single issues.

People find it very helpful to come together not necessarily inside their constituencies to discuss issues of common concern.

It was suggested concretely that during each ICANN meeting we set aside a swath of time for an issue, not in a workshop format, not panels presenting to us, but actually an opportunity for cross-group dialogue.

Might be interesting for us to discuss that.

Obviously, the need to get basic information out before the meeting.

Setting goals about leaving footprints in each place we meet.

We should be able to point to new people who joined the ICANN process in each -- as part of each meeting that we hold and have goals in that direction and try to keep up with people, help them join these policy-making processes.

I want to note a concrete comment made that some of the most interesting meetings inside these very large ICANN meetings are small in size, meetings, let's say, between the board and individual constituencies.

These meetings aren't necessarily made public.

Minutes from them don't exist.

They're not broadcast out to the Web.

So there is some interest in figuring out how we could make more available these small meetings that are part of ICANN meetings.

Another concrete suggestion was having a daily update or news service about what's going on at the ICANN meetings, giving people an overview of key documents, the context in which particular issues are arising, and sort of leading people into the process so they can be substantively part of the ICANN discussion.

Focusing still on communications, we really need to speak more slowly.

And Vint has done a masterful job at trying to slow us all down.

My suggestion for yesterday's public forum was that we have someone in the front row holding up a big sign saying, "Slow down" for each one of us who speeds up.

Apparently, the -- Steve Crocker made the sign, but it didn't show up in the front row.

So we're hoping for that for another ICANN meeting.

And, of course, another key concrete comment is, why are we communicating? What's the purpose of our communication strategy? What are these meetings for? We need to do a better job of tailoring our communications strategy to the purpose of meetings.

And the great interest in the revisions to the Web site that Paul Levins is working on.

So that's a whole swath of issues having to do with communications, centering on meetings.

And if my colleagues had comments to make about those concrete proposals, I think that would be a good subject of discussion.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Susan.

Do I see hands going up? Vanda.

>>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Thanks, Susan.

It was very, very good meeting, really.

And I would like to bring some feedback from the audience in that time, in talking with the people that came here in Brazil for the first time.

So one thing that most of the people were looking after is understand the business behind Internet.

So I believe that we must think about to have sessions from the business community to explain business, how to expand business for those regions, especially in those regions where the business is not so developed.

So it's one point.

The other point that people reach me to complain about is, in the first moment, we have this introduction section, this time here.

Well, it's a good step forward.

But, anyway, there is need to be more explicit about how to participate and how to get involved and even how to attend meetings in these meetings.

So it's a lot of people lost around ask me, "Where should I go?"

And "to whom talk about that?"

And a lot of demands from the community that has no response from the meetings in ICANN.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Vanda.

Are there any other comments?

I have a question for Susan.

Was there -- Since we tried a somewhat different format this week, was there any -- it's early to ask -- but was there any response or reaction to the reformatting of this week's meetings in the course of your workshop?

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: I would say, in general, that starting off with a public forum was viewed very favorably.

This particular public forum on Monday wasn't terribly interactive.

It was a report from the president, report from IGF activities, a report from the President's Strategy Committee.

Those were all very important activities not necessarily giving people a chance to talk among each other.

I worry that public forums are dedicated too much to talking up to the board rather than cross discussions.

>>VINT CERF: Okay.

Thank you, Susan.

I see Sharil and Alex.

>>SHARIL TARMIZI: Susan, thank you.

I think just as an input, one of the things that we did in the GAC this time was, we actually did not go ahead with our sessions.

Rather, what we did was we took the opportunity to interact with the community on Monday.

We found that the -- having the reports early on in the week actually helped us in our deliberations, and we also found that sitting in and talking to the community, listening to the various presentations that were made, helped us, again, understand and interact better with the community.

So I would very much like to support that sort of approach.

As a possible forward step, what I'd like to suggest is that -- and this is -- this leads to the master calendar arrangement that we were suggesting -- is to see whether we could also build in an opportunity for different constituents to meet one another.

Because we found that, for example, with the GNSO, it's a regular feature at every meeting that we meet.

We are trying to do that with the ccNSO.

But then there are other meetings all around that.

So if we did have a master calendar, it might just help us find some time to talk to one another and then meet in a bigger environment.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Sharil.

Alex.

>>ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Without entering into any self-complacency, I think that we do have -- well, I -- report it differently.

I received a large number of positive comments about yesterday's public forum, about the frank, open exchanges of widely differing views, yet a very positive and constructive format of those discussions.

So that -- whether that is due to the -- to the whole previous structure or the fact that the dot com agreement is already approved, which has -- creates the contentiousness of some of the issues here.

But we do see signs of a more positive feeling and a proper productive setting for these meetings.

>>VINT CERF: Other comments? Susan.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Alex, I agree that yesterday's public forum was quite positive, constructive, interactive, and interesting.

The format still of people coming to the mike individually doesn't always lend itself to cross-cutting dialogue and discussions, which people also find very interesting.

It's very difficult to figure out how to fit this all in together in the time we have.

And another concrete comment I want to convey to the board is that the board is often perceived to be not adequately available, and so there becomes some anxiety about making sure you reach the board with your constructive concerns of whatever stripe.

And so sort of two problems on both sides: Board not available leads to atmosphere of talking up to the board, perhaps not enough dialogue cross constituencies, which is where the work of ICANN actually takes place.

So I very much take on board Sharil's comment about needing to actively schedule more cross-constituency meetings that don't necessarily involve the board.

>>VINT CERF: So as a recovering or latent or former mathematician, I have to confess as I think about the desire for these interactions, that if you take "N" different components of ICANN and they all want to interact with each other in various ways, it's not just "N" squared, because as Marilyn Cade has put this cross-constituency thing together, we could get the power set of all possible combinations of "N" things, which is, you know, two to the Nth, which is even worse than "N" factorial.

So I'm really worried a little bit about the way in which we try to structure these interactions.

If nobody else mentioned it, is it -- I wonder if we should at least give some thought to the idea that part of our ICANN meetings be focused on particular topics.

We've done this in the past with various workshops on IDNs and on other matters, on WHOIS, for example, in which all of the various interested constituencies are able to participate.

There's an efficiency that you can get out of that kind of interaction.

So I -- if it hasn't already been included in the thinking about modifications to the way we work, I hope you'll take that into account to avoid the explosion of possible meetings that might have to be undertaken.

Susan.

>>SUSAN CRAWFORD: Yes, I apologize if I wasn't clear.

That was one of the key concrete suggestions coming out of the workshop, that we should focus more on cross-cutting single-issue discussions, not necessarily phrased as "workshops."

These could be policy development discussions across constituencies.

There were many other suggestions made in this workshop about meeting protocol, meeting structure, location of meetings, number of meetings, you know, a lot of focus on the need for dialogue, but also some concern about making clear what we're trying to accomplish through these meetings, what the goal is of them, and trying to tailor our activities during them to these goals and purposes.

>>VINT CERF: One last observation.

In seeing some of the exchanges about meetings and their purpose and location and structure, one group is saying, "Well, we ought to just hold the meetings in three major hubs every year and that way we'll all know where to go, we'll have the visas to get there, we will have facilities that we know about, hotels that we can get.

And that will make it a lot easier."

And the other side of that equation is, well, there are a whole lot of people who would never be exposed to ICANN's activities and people if we didn't go there.

It's possible that we should consider creating different kinds of meetings, the ones like this, that are policy development-oriented, and the ones that are intended for outreach, and they might not actually be the same meeting.

They might have very different objectives, possibly different people would attend.

I think it would be helpful if we did not imagine that every meeting that ICANN holds necessarily has to be exactly the same structure and content so as to try to resolve that tension between the two different views.

Okay.

Are there any other comments or can we go on now to the last bit of the board session for this morning? I remind everyone that there are actually two board meetings in the annual meeting, the one that we're in now, and then the one which constitutes the newly seated board.

I will take a 15-minute break in between those two.

At this point, I'd like to turn the floor over to Peter Dengate Thrush, who asked for some time to say a word.

So, Peter, please take the floor.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Vint.

I just wanted to say thank you to the community.

Most of you will know that when I was in Marrakech, I got the news that my wife and three other members of my family had been killed in a car crash.

And I just wanted to say thank you for the enormous instant heart. Response from all of you and from the staff and the board.

I don't want to pick out too many people, because everyone was so good, but just to let you know the sort of reaction that I got.

First of all, Diane instantly managed to rebook me home under some difficult conditions.

Vint came and sat with me through the first difficult few hours.

And then Bart, who's a colleague of mine from ccTLD days, flew back with me to London so that I didn't have to travel alone.

Another colleague, Keith Davidson, the president of InternetNZ, then flew all the way home with me to New Zealand.

And Susan Crawford flew out and attended the funeral.

So just some of the immediate responses, for which I was very grateful.

People have wanted to know, obviously, how we're getting on.

And the answer is we're getting by as best we can.

But we're much supported by the enormous say heart. Support from the board, the staff, and from all of you.

So thank you very much.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Peter.

Actually, Peter, I think I have to call on you now for a more pleasant chore.

And that's to thank one of our outgoing members, Veni Markovski, at least I think I got this right -- I'm sorry.

No, I am ahead of myself.

Apologies.

Here we are.

It's actually something that I've asked Dave Wodelet to introduce.

So, Dave, I wonder if you would introduce a resolution thanking Daniel Dardailler, who is completing his term as liaison.

David.

>>DAVE WODELET: Thank you, Vint.

Yes, I'd be very pleased to and it would be my honor to do so.

Whereas Daniel Dardailler was appointed liaison of the ICANN board by the W3C on behalf of the technical liaison group to serve during the year of 2006.

Whereas Daniel has provided excellent insight, leadership, and expertise in this role.

Whereas, Daniel has provided unique perspective to the board on the technical application of the Internet in the context of the Worldwide Web.

And, whereas, Daniel has provided valuable counsel on matters of policy that are the responsibility of the board.

Whereas, Daniel has conducted his term as liaison by the W3C on behalf of the Technical Liaison Group at the Sao Paulo meeting.

The ICANN board resolves that Daniel Dardailler has earned the deep appreciation of the board for his term of service and that the board wishes Dr. DARDAILLER well in all his future endeavors.

Thank you, Daniel.

>>VINT CERF: I move -- David moved but I suggest that we adopt this resolution by acclamation.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Daniel, if you'll come up here.

This is a photo op.

I enjoy doing these things, but I sort of hate to do it because it means somebody is departing from the board.

But, Daniel, thank you so much for all of your contributions to us over the time that you've been here.

I hope you'll accept this small token of your appreciation for your work, and I'll offer you a moment to say, if you wish, a few words.

>>DANIEL DARDAILLER: Well, you know, I want to thank the board for welcoming me for a short year.

And it was -- part of the year was learning curve and the other part was preparing my leave, so it wasn't that long.

And I actually mentioned to the board that the process of the TLG may not be ideal and we may work on that in the future.

But it was really interesting for me as W3C to get a better sense of what's going on in this kind of area, you know, that are not in the same layer as we do but still in the Internet family.

So it's very interesting for me.

Thanks.

>>VINT CERF: Thanks Daniel.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: All right.

Well, I get to do this one.

And this is a thank you to Roberto Gaetano, who is leaving as liaison and reincarnating himself soon as a voting board member.

And the problem is, I took my glasses off and I don't know where I put them.

There we are.

Whereas, Roberto Gaetano was selected as nonvoting liaison to the ICANN board by the At-Large Advisory Committee to serve first during the year 2003 and continued through 2006.

Whereas, Roberto has provided excellent insight, leadership, and expertise in this role.

Whereas, Roberto has represented a voice of reason and even-handedness during his long service as liaison and has provided sage advice and counsel in all matters coming before the board.

Whereas, Roberto has been a strong advocate of the at-large community and its involvement in ICANN.

Whereas, Roberto Gaetano has concluded his term as liaison on behalf of the At-Large Advisory Committee at the Sao Paulo meeting.

Whereas, Roberto Gaetano has been selected by the Nominating Committee to serve a three-year term on the board beginning at the Sao Paulo meeting.

Resolved that Roberto Gaetano has earned the deep appreciation of the board for his term of service as liaison and the board welcomes him to his new voting position as a director of ICANN.

I move that we adopt this resolution by acclamation.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: And if you'll join me on the stage.

Shall we move right to the middle here?

Thank you, Roberto.

A small token to remember your long service as liaison.

And an opportunity to address the assembled crowd.

>>ROBERTO GAETANO: Thank you, Vint.

I was first thinking to come here and do some of the shows that Amadeu likes, with multiple casket and multiple hats and change hat in the middle.

But then I changed my mind.

I'm just making the remark that it's very difficult to get rid of me.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Obviously, we don't want to.

You can stay, Roberto. You don't have to go yet.

The next thank you goes to Hagen Hultzsch, and I would like to ask Paul Twomey to address this resolution.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint, and I am very pleased to introduce this next contribution, not least because I'm -- probably contrary to some people's expectations, Hagen Hultzsch has been one of the most demanding and exacting and even -- I'm trying to find the right word without sounding like a schoolteacher. But even to a degree of punishing board members, which I know myself and the staff have had to work to. And Hagen has been, certainly in, I think, many of his dealings in the part of interactions between the board and the staff, a very exacting task master who has in the allowed staff to get away with very much at all, and who has certainly been a strong voice for discipline and efficiency in work.

And I make that point because I know Hagen also in public tends to be very -- have a certain position about how he thinks board members, you know, from his background, tend to communicate.

But I would like to reinforce just how not only bruising he can be with staff but to a degree, in a strange way, how much we have appreciated that.

So I would like to move the following resolution.

Whereas Hagen Hultzsch was appointed to the ICANN board by the Nominating Committee and began his term on the 26th of June 2003.

Whereas Hagen has served the board with considerable energy and skill. He has served as chairman of the ICANN finance committee and chairman of the ICANN board conflict-of-interest committee, and as a member of the ICANN Board Governance Committee, and has provided excellent insight, leadership, and expertise in these roles.

Whereas Hagen as facilitated the successful conduct of ICANN's mission with skill and diplomacy, most especially if a wide range of international fora.

Whereas Hagen has persistently promoted teamwork and an ever-optimistic outlook for the board and staff of ICANN.

Whereas Hagen Hultzsch has concluded his term as director of the ICANN board at the Sao Paulo meeting. It is resolved that the ICANN board resolves that Hagen Hultzsch has earned the deep appreciation of the board for his term of service, and the board wishes Dr. Hultzsch well in all future endeavors. The board sincerely hopes that Hagen will continue to be available to ICANN for advice and counsel in all matters of common interest in the future.

>>VINT CERF: Sorry. I didn't want to do what my T-shirt says.

Have you finished your reading --

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Your timing was perfect. The resolution is in front of the table.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Paul, for reading this resolution.

I suggest that the board adopt it by acclamation

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Mr. Board member. Hagen, it is really sad to see you leave our midst in the formal role that you have on the board. But my guess is that Hagen will make himself available for consultations and perhaps other roles to serve ICANN in the future.

So we hook forward to that. We offer a small token for you to remember us all by. And I offer you an opportunity to make some parting remarks.

>>HAGEN HULTZSCH: Thank you, Vint, for these kind words, and also especially for Paul's words.

As all of you know, I think you are familiar how much I enjoyed to work together with you. And I am really grateful for this opportunity, which I was offered -- or actually I was asked more than three years ago to learn more about ICANN and the ICANN-related future of the Internet and the global society.

ICANN, during these last three and a half years while I was part of this great team, ICANN has really enhanced its appreciation or its recognition globally. The WSIS process, which has been a kind of difficult part initially, which has been mastered excellent by the chairman, by the president, by the whole team, including legal counsel and everybody. I shouldn't, let's say, try to even count the number of people.

ICANN has also evolved its operational structure. It has achieved, let's say, operational stability, which I would call it overall.

But there's more to do.

The experiment of running such a major global task on a multistakeholder, or whatever, public/private partnership, or whatever word you choose, continues to be an experiment. ICANN is the organization which will try out this global task of finding ways that the people of the Internet are more and more evolving into being the sovereign of this Internet through the structure of ICANN. And this may be an example for other arenas of running global tasks.

So I wish you all the best, and occasionally you may see me on ICANN meetings because I like this organization.

All the best to you. All the best to the team.

Thank you

[ Applause ].

>>VINT CERF: I hope everyone notices that Hagen is wearing a three-piece suit.

I have been hoping to infect everyone with this practice, but so far I have had only modest success.

But thank you so much.

>>HAGEN HULTZSCH: Over time you will be successful with this, too.

>>VINT CERF: All right. The next item on the agenda is a thank you to a board member who is out there in telephone-land. It is Veni Markovski who has completed his term. And I would like to ask period of time Dengate thrush enter this resolution.

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's sad to see someone go, and the pleasure of reading this is tinged with sadness at losing Veni. Veni is one of those popular board members, I think. He has an inexhaustible supply of funny stories and has posted photographs. And it was his photograph of my wife that we used throughout all the ceremonies in relation to her funeral English so Veni, thank you for that.

But on to more happy things, Veni is also one of the participants in one of those very good things, an ICANN wedding. Veni came to ICANN and found himself a spouse.

So let me read the formal resolution.

Whereas Veni Markovski was appointed to the ICANN board by the Nominating Committee and began his term on 26 June 2003.

Whereas Veni has served the board with considerable energy and skill. He has served as chairman of the ICANN board meetings committee, and as a member of the board governance and finance committee and has provided excellent insight, leadership and expertise in these roles.

Whereas Veni's inexhaustible store of funny stories has become a legend in ICANN history.

Whereas Veni Markovski has strongly supported and defended ICANN's role and responsibility in the security, stability, and integrity of the Internet.

Whereas Veni Markovski and his wife, Elana, have recently had their first daughter, Nina Milena.

Whereas Veni Markovski has concluded his term as director of the ICANN board at the Sao Paulo meeting.

It's hereby resolved, the ICANN board resolves that Veni Markovski has earned the deep appreciation of the board for his term of service, and the board wishes Mr. Markovski every happiness for himself and his growing family in the future and success in all his future endeavors. The board hopes that Mr. Markovski will continue to make himself available for advice in matters of common interest.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Peter.

I suggest that we adopt this by acclamation

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Lots of people are clapping and they are standing up now.

Veni has asked me to read his response only because of his concern that the quality of the telephone connection might be limited.

What he didn't anticipate when he asked me to do this is that the quality of my voice might be worse than the quality of the telephone line. But I will read Veni's response.

"dear colleagues and friends of the board. I call you friends because I have been with you for quite a white now and I built great feelings of respect for you.

"The last three ICANN years of my life have been among the most interesting ones. They brought me a number of positive emotions, great experience, and many new ideas. I have been constantly inspired by the strong characters I met. Each of you has some unique features. I believe that thanks to those features I managed to fix some of my bugs. Well, except for my sense of humor and the jokes I keep on telling you, which is a bug with no fix discovered.

"The ICANN board is not the beginning and the end of the world, as some people think. I have accepted the position of an ICANN director not as an honor but as a responsibility. The temptation is strong to believe that being a member of the ICANN board gives you some power over the Internet. That's a fake feeling.

"The ICANN board gives you 50% less time for your normal eight-hour working day. It gives you also angry people who believe their business is influenced by your decision. The truth is, their businesses are influenced by themselves, and sometimes by the business models they have developed. People forget that if businesses make their money because of glitches in the system, when someone tries to fix the glitches, the businesses complain they are being deprived of their opportunities.

"but enough about the businesses, interests and special interests around ICANN. We have all seen a lot of that.

"I want to make a point about personalities. The ICANN world is full with great people, and many of them are great personalities as well. We used to say in Bulgaria, some people are just faces, and some are personalities.

"I will always remember in alphabetical order, Raimundo Beca for his spirit always to defend the RIRs, or was it the NRO? Susan Crawford for her never-ending desire for change. At least in her first year. Steve Crocker for his in depth knowledge of security, and hopefully we can use some of that in .EG.

Daniel Dardailler for his quiet expertise, which has been quite helpful. Peter Dengate Thrush for his incomprehensible English -- or, rather, New Zealandish -- for his hospitality and his strong character. Roberto Gaetano for his Italian spirit which reminds me so much of Bulgaria. We southern people have to support each other; right?

Demi Getschko for his precise observations and commitment to work, and yes, for his Bulgarian origin and Greek language.

Hagen Hultzsch for his German discipline and great spirit always to take the most difficult tasks upon himself.

Joichi Ito for his endless enthusiasm and business approach, but also for his contributions in key moments as well as for making the Bulgarian foreign minister start his own blog.

Thomas Narten for making the world of standards more clear to me. Alejandro Pisanty for devotion and contribution to ICANN, ISOC, and many other "I" organizations, but also for the fact that he is the third person with some Bulgarian origin on the board.

Hualin Qian for his quiet approach and making me understand how important it is to think in long-term perspectives.

Njeri Rionge for her audit skills that made me understand how important it is to keep an organization accountable.

Rita Rodin for her balanced views as a newcomer, and for her dancing skills of Bulgarian folk dances.

Vanda Scartezini for providing me with knowledge about all different places we'd go, and for being a very balanced person.

Mohammed Sharil Tarmizi for his great hospitality, understanding of cordial greetings, and for being our master of ceremony for the complex world of the GAC.

Dave Wodelet for his decision to follow the Markovski model of counting the days he spends working on ICANN work, but more importantly, for all his contribution to the work of the board.

"I want also to mention Ivan Campos, aka Ivan the Godzilla, who managed financing when there were little or no finances.

My ISOC colleagues, Lyman Chapin and Tricia Drakes, the unique Mouhamet Diop, John Klensin the IDNer, who could describe the fall of the Internet in Technicolor and Dolby stereo.

Mike Palage the man who knows all the bylaws, documents and mails going through the ICANN servers by heart.

Thomas Niles for his diplomatic skills and knowledge of policy and for all his understanding of Russian jokes.

Francisco Da Silva for his character and understanding of ICANN issues, and Richard Thwaites of the ITU who showed that the ITU experts are also human. Special thanks go also to Paul Twomey, ICANN president and CEO, whom I will remember not only for his Australian, even more incomprehensible than Peter Dengate, but as someone who is leading in defending the staff with commitment not seen in my previous experience.

I saw him acting with excellence during the meeting last October with my foreign minister, and I know what he can achieve during a TETE-a-TETE conversation. And for Vint Cerf who has been a true leader in difficult times.

He has given me some of the priceless lessons in my life, and I have learned a lot from him.

"thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I will miss you all.

"I will also miss the usual suspects from the ICANN community. Yes, I have you in mind, and you -- no, not you. The one next to you.

"i have met great people, and I found out a lot about the international world of politics, policy-making, bottom-up processes, multistakeholder approach, enhanced cooperation, and so on.

"To all of you, thank you. And if I have bugs to be fixed, that's still okay. I'm only human, regardless of what you thought.

"Sincerely, Veni Markovski."

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Lots of applause, Veni.

Thank you for letting me read that, Veni. It was extraordinarily well written.

>>VENI MARKOVSKI: Thanks for using your voice, or whatever, the rest of it. I really appreciate that.

>>VINT CERF: You're welcome. And definitely I can report that even my gravelly voice is better than the connection you have right now.

I have one more thank you -- actually, two more thank yous to read.

This one is for Professor Hualin Qian who is on the line right now in China.

Whereas Professor Hualin Qian was appointed to the ICANN board by the Nominating Committee and began his term on 26 June 2003.

Whereas Professor Qian has served the board with considerable energy and skill. He has served as a member of the ICANN board meetings committee and the ICANN board conflict-of-interest committee, and has provided excellent insight and leadership in these roles.

Whereas Professor Qian has contributed with extraordinarily expertise to the technical effort to create new internationalized domain names and has given invaluable guidance to the board regarding the use of Internet in China.

Whereas Professor Qian has concluded his term as director of the ICANN board at the Sao Paulo meeting.

It is resolved the ICANN board resolves that Professor Hualin Qian has earned the deep appreciation of the board for his term of service, and the board wishes Professor Qian well in all future endeavors.

The board looks forward to advice and counsel from Professor Qian in the future, especially in the implementation of Internationalized Domain Names and other matters of technical importance to ICANN.

I put this motion on the table and ask that it be acknowledged by acclamation

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Professor Qian, if you are still on the line, do you wish to address the assembled audience here in Sao Paulo?

>>HUALIN QIAN: Yes, can you hear me?

>>VINT CERF: Yes, we can. Please go ahead.

>>HUALIN QIAN: Okay. Just a few words. First, it's my great experience working together with all of you, with the board members and the staff and the ICANN communities, and the different Supporting Organizations, and the people from all over the world come together, working on the infrastructure.

The second thing, during this more than three years, I am really feeling that it's very, very important for the ICANN missions and the ICANN functions, it's very, very important for the stability of the Internet.

The third thing, I think the Internet, may I read the word Internet as internationalized network, connecting all over the world, people from all over the world. And this is very important. So that's why I'm very, very interested still in the Internationalized Domain Names. Since the IE version 7 has been published, many, many users are now using Chinese domain name, dot CN.

This is a chance for the users.

And the second thing is in regard to the e-mail address. The IDN will be used in the e-mail address, that's very, very easy for people not speaking English. So now John Klensin and some other people working together with China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, and many other countries. Together they are drafting. As I know, eight draft documents have been published working on the e-mail address and internationalized name. That's very important. And that's also based on the IDN system.

So ICANN has done quite a lot, great job, IDN. And I hope it will still continue its work to make the great progress and to facilitate the internationalized network and afford the people that don't speak English and they can freely and easily use the Internet.

Thank you all. Thank you, Vint. Thank you all other board members.

Thank you.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you so much, Hualin.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: I see that Paul Twomey also wanted to make a comment.

Paul.

>>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, Vint.

I wanted to, usually for these circumstances when we say farewell to a board member, I wanted to put on the record my personal great admiration and thanks to Hualin Qian.

He has been, to use a phrase from that incomprehensible Australian environment, an incredible quiet achiever.

I would like particularly to note his very careful and deft advice he has provided to me as president over the last several years. He is an invaluable source of information as to what is happening in China.

I think we need to recognize that when one is -- especially with northeast Asia, that to a degree for many of us in the Internet national community and in the Internet community, it can be a little bit of a one-way mirror. People there can look out but we don't necessarily do well looking in.

And I think Professor Qian has been invaluable in giving us insights as to what some of the things that are happening in the fastest growing Internet environment in the world.

I'd like to particularly recognize his leadership and courage in promoting and developing the Internet model in China, and more broadly in the Asia-Pacific, particularly with his work in APNIC.

And I think we heard again today his particular commitment to a single global interoperable Internet.

And I think having that commitment and that leadership has been incredibly important and will continue to be so.

I am very pleased that he will keep to be involved in the president's committee on IDNs. I know IDNs is very important to Professor Qian, and I certainly hope he will be available for future advice and wisdom for the ICANN board and staff.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Paul.

>>HUALIN QIAN: Thank you, Paul.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: We have just a few more of these, and then we can take a break.

I'd like to put on the table a resolution to thank all of the participants who have been here for this week.

Whereas the ICANN meeting in Sao Paulo included several highly informative workshops that provided valuable opportunities for discussion and progress on a variety of significant issues affecting the ICANN community.

Resolved, the board expresses its gratitude to the organizers, participants, and attendees of the public workshops on IPv6, IDNs, the domain name marketplace, and the future structure of ICANN meetings.

I ask the board to approve this resolution by acclamation

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: The next resolution is a thank you to the sponsors, the staff, the describes, and the event teams.

The board extends its thanks to all sponsors of the meeting including Telefonica, Afilias, PIR, VeriSign, LACNIC, Foundry Networks, Microsoft, Cisco, Nomer.com, Locaweb, NIC Chile, NIC.MX, CABASE, BrasilTelecom, IG, LogicBoxes, Skenzo, and ICANNWiki. The board would also like to thank TIVIT, EMBRATUR,and SaoPauloTurismo for their support.

The board expresses its appreciation to the scribes Laura Brewer, Teri Darrenougue, Jennifer Schuck, and Charles Motter, to ICANN staff present here in Sao Paulo, and to the rest of the ICANN staff for their efforts in facilitating the smooth operation of the meeting.

The board also wishes to express its appreciation to Caroline D'Vo, Katia Avilez, and Vicente Landim for staff coordination; Frederico Neves, Milton Kashiwakura and NIC.br Team for Network Coordination; Goldnet and Teleasifor Network Infrastructure Services; Infoview for audio/video and translation equipment; Interacao for registration services; Pride for broadcasting equipment and services; Passagio for receptionist services; Patrizia Coppola for translation services; Hospital Sao Luiz for medical services; and CBM for stage and booth construction.

Additional thanks are given to the hotel TransAmerica for this fine facility and to their event support team.

I ask the board to approve this resolution by acclamation.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: And finally, I will ask Vanda Scartezini to offer a thanks to our local hosts.

Vanda.

>>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Mr. Chair, I would like to address in two language, in the honor of the hosts, I start in Portuguese.

(in Portuguese).

The board wishes to extent its thanks to Comite Gestor da Internet no Brasil - CGI.br - the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee - and the "Brazilian Network Information Center - NIC.br," and the following members of the local organizing committee: Hartmut Glaser, Antonio Tavares, Marcelo Fernandes, and Cassio Vecchiatti, and all the volunteers for hosting the ICANN meeting. The board would also like to thank Augusto Gadelha Vieira, the secretary for information technology policy from the minute industry of science and technology for supporting the December 2006 Sao Paulo meeting.

>>VINT CERF: Thank you, Vanda. I ask the board to approve this resolution by acclamation

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: Antonio and Hartmut, please join us on the stage.

I think there must be a certain magic in this part of the world because these gentlemen looked like they were having fun while all hell was breaking loose.

The two of you and your teams deserve enormous credit for making this event successful. It's going to be hard for your colleagues in Lisbon to top this but I want to express the appreciation of the board for everything you and your colleagues have done to make this such a constructive and productive meeting.

We have two very modest gifts for you to remember us by.

I got them backwards. Actually, it doesn't matter but you might as well have the right tag.

So once again, let me ask everyone here to thank the two of you, especially, for making this possible.

[ Applause ]

>>HARTMUT GLASER: Probably most of you know that I am assistant professor in the university in Sao Paulo, and myself, as a bad student, I need to do this work twice. The first time in Rio I was bad student, so I have the second chance to do it again here in Sao Paulo.

I hope I learned, but for sure I will wait some years more to do it for the third time.

I can tell you it was a pleasure to serve you, to work with you, to have you here. We do it really as an ICANN family. We are together, the same mission. We are looking to use the Internet to put our world together and to avoid the digital divide.

My dream is to see in some years, I hope I will be alive, that we are all connected, and ICANN and we as Brazilians will be a big part of this process.

Thank you for staying here and for supporting us

[ Applause ]

>>ANTONIO TAVARES: Vint, Paul, board members, dear friends. I have no words to say to you. We are very happy. When the meeting goes to the end, we can really appreciate all things have been successful or not.

We are really glad to be recognized for our effort. And we will be helping people in Lisbon do at least the same thing.

So the Portuguese people can count on us.

So my last -- my last -- I will ask Vint, you are always very elegant in your suit. Can you please put our shirt just to be with us in our --

[ Applause ]

>>ANTONIO TAVARES: Because the great success of all these meetings is mainly due to you. You start all of this.

Thank you very much.

[ Applause ]

>>VINT CERF: All right. We will now take a 15-minute break. I will ask that the board members who are departing from the board to please, in fact, remove yourselves from the stage. And the new board members and liaisons, please join us on the stage. Vittorio Bertola and Francisco Da Silva, and Steve Goldstein.

So we will reconvene in 15 minutes.