Special Meeting of the Board Minutes 22 November 2006

A Special Meeting of the ICANN's Board of Directors was held via teleconference on 22 November 2006 and was called to order at 1:00 P.M. PDT US.

Chairman Vinton G. Cerf presided over the entire meeting. The following other Board Directors participated in all or part of the meeting: Raimundo Beca, Susan Crawford, Hagen Hultzsch, Joichi Ito, Veni Markovski, Alejandro Pisanty, Hualin Qian, Rita Rodin, Vanda Scartezini, Peter Dengate Thrush, Paul Twomey, and David Wodelet. Board Members Demi Getschko, and Njeri Rionge were not present.

The following Board Liaisons participated in all or part of the meeting: Steve Crocker, Security and Stability Advisory Committee; Daniel Dardellier, TLG Liaison; Roberto Gaetano, At Large Advisory Committee Liaison; Thomas Narten, IETF Liaison; and Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi, Governmental Advisory Committee Liaison.

John Jeffrey, General Counsel and Board Secretary; Kurt Pritz, Vice President, Business Operations; Paul Levins, Executive Officer and Vice President, Corporate Affairs; Barbara Roseman, IANA Operations Manager; Theresa Swinehart, Vice President of Global and Strategic Partnerships; Melanie Keller, Chief Financial Officer; and, Dan Halloran, Deputy General Counsel also participated in the meeting.

The following topics were covered during the Board Meeting:

Approval of Minutes

Vint Cerf called for a vote on the approval of minutes for 15 August, 7 September, and 25 September 2006.

The following comments were made on the record during the vote relating to the minutes:

Susan Crawford stated in voting against the minutes approval that: "We are obligated by our bylaws to operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner. The meeting of August 15th took place more than three months ago, and yet the minutes of it haven't been posted until now. The other minutes are also delayed. But that's not my chief problem with these minutes. I find them to be insufficiently informative. It's clearly feasible to produce much more detailed minutes and important to ICANN's credibility that the board do so. In my view, we are not complying with our own bylaws, and thus, on principle, I can't approve of these minutes.

Rita Rodin, Peter Dengate Thrush, Joichi Ito, Veni Markovski, and Dave Wodelet all stated their support of Susan Crawford’s comments but elected not to vote against the minutes. Peter Dengate Thrush stated support for Susan Crawford’s comment but abstained rather than voting against the minutes.

Paul Twomey stated that this issue has been the subject of ongoing discussion, and is one which is part of a set of issues relating to a review of transparency and accountability and that he will be able to come back with proposals which will be considered around that general topic.

Resolved (06.81), the minutes of the Board Meeting of 15 August 2006 are approved.

Resolved (06.82), the minutes of the Board Meeting of 7 September 2006 are approved.

Resolved (06.83), the minutes of the Board Meeting of 25 September 2006 are approved.

The Board Approved each resolution by a vote of 9 affirmative with 2 negative votes from Susan Crawford and Rita Rodin, and one abstention from Peter Dengate Thrush.

Approval of New Registry Service by PIR - Excess Deletion Fee

Kurt Pritz presented the issues, RSTEP Report, and introduced the process relating to the proposed new registry service from PIR Registry relating to an excess deletion fee. Vanda Scartezini moved for a vote on the resolution to approved the service and Veni Markovski seconded.

The following comments were offered on the record relating to this matter:

Susan Crawford stated: "I'm glad to see that on the agenda for the Sao Paulo meeting, or at least being considered for the agenda for that meeting is a discussion of whether the board should request the GNSO to initiate a consensus policy process with respect to the five-day add grace period. The initiation of such a process doesn't indicate that we think a consensus is likely to emerge, but just that we want to ask the question about whether a mandatory global policy is necessary in this area."

Alejandro Pisanty stated: "I think there is much good in this measure. It attends to problems that are vexing to registrants in the noncommercial space, which is the actual dot org space. The practice that's going to be potentially abated is particularly damaging, because it turns to commercial use names that are, and expectations of the users that are, essentially, noncommercial in nature. So that for this community, I think, it's particularly a favorable agreement."

Veni Markovski stated: "I think since I'm on the board of ISOC and ISOC is the owner of the PIR, so I don't want to have any, like, even remote distance allusion that there is something in my vote. And the second is that I would like to see -- in the amendment of the dot org registry agreement to see some protection of misusage of this. I would be happy to talk to the PIR, and I will tell them what I have in mind. And I am happy to talk to the president and the general counsel about my abstention on this matter. But, basically, it is that somebody may be misusing this rule and cause damages to a legitimate registrar."

Whereas, PIR is concerned about the growth of domain tasting in the .ORG registry, and has proposed a “restocking fee” on certain .ORG domain names deleted during the 5-day add-grace period.

Whereas, PIR discussed the proposal at the ICANN Meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, consulted with the Non-commercial Users Constituency, the At-Large Advisory Constituency, and with a number of ICANN-accredited registrars.

Whereas, PIR submitted a request for a new registry service called excess deletion fee under the Registry Services Evaluation Policy .

Whereas, ICANN conducted its review of the request and determined that there are no significant competition, security or stability issues.

Resolved, (06.84), the President and the General Counsel are authorized to enter into an amendment of the .ORG Registry Agreement to implement the proposed excess deletion fee service.

The resolution was approved 10-0 with one abstention by Veni Markovski. In addition to the board members who were not present during any of the meeting, Hagen Hultzsch and Rita Rodin were not present for the vote.

Approval of New Registry Service by NeuLevel - Bulk Transfer of Partial Portfolio

Kurt Pritz presented the issues, the RSTEP Report, and introduced the process relating to the proposed new registry service from NeuLevel titled Bulk Transfer of Partial Portfolio. Susan Crawford moved for a vote on the approval of the proposed new registry service and Joichi Ito, seconded.

Whereas, Register.com and CSC Corporate Domains, two ICANN-accredited registrars, approached NeuLevel to request approval of a registry service called bulk transfer of partial portfolio, in order to assist with the completion of CSC’s acquisition of Register.com’s corporate services division

Whereas, NeuLevel submitted a request for a new registry service called bulk transfer of partial portfolio under the Registry Services Evaluation Policy .

Whereas, ICANN conducted its review of the request and determined that there are no significant competition, security or stability issues.

Resolved (06.85) the President and the General Counsel are authorized to enter into an amendment of the .BIZ Registry Agreement to implement the proposed bulk transfer of partial portfolio service.

The resolution was passed 11-0 by a voice vote with all members present voting in favor. In addition to the board members who were not present during any of the meeting, Hagen Hultzsch and Rita Rodin were not present for the vote.

Review of .TRAVEL Wildcard Proposal

Vint Cerf introduced the proposed new registry service from Trailliance and reviewed the findings of the RSTEP Report. The Board members discussed the report. Kurt Pritz raised the issue that the public comment period had commenced but had not completed and noted the previous public comment periods relating to the matter.

Following the board’s discussion of this matter, Alejandro Pisanty moved for a resolution to disapprove the proposed service, and Susan Crawford seconded.

Whereas, Tralliance Corporation submitted a request for a new registry service called search.travel under the Registry Services Evaluation Policy . The proposed service would insert a wildcard into the .TRAVEL zone.

Whereas, ICANN conducted its review of the request and determined that although there were no significant competition issues, the proposal might raise significant security and stability issues and referred the proposal to the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel for further evaluation.

Whereas, on 2 November 2006, the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel review team completed its report on the search.travel proposal. The report was posted for public comment.

Whereas, based on the report of the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel, input from the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, At-Large Advisory Committee and other public comments, ICANN has concluded that the proposal creates a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on security and stability.

Resolved, (06.85) that the Board agrees that the Tralliance Corporation search.travel wildcard proposal creates a reasonable risk of a meaningful adverse effect on security and stability and directs staff to inform Tralliance that the proposal is not approved.

The resolution was received the unanimous support of all 11 board members present, with no abstentions. In addition to the board members who were not present during any of the meeting, Hagen Hultzsch and Rita Rodin were not present for the vote.

Approval of Supplement to IETF-ICANN MOU

Vint Cerf introduced the issue indicating that the board was to consider the ICANN/IANA-IETF supplemental agreement. The agreement, if the board approves, would establish a documented relationship between IANA and the IETF, servicing the needs of the IETF with regard to protocol parameters and other matters that have to come to the IANA attention as a consequence of IETF activity. Barbara Roseman and Thomas Narten provided additional comments on the agreement in favor of the board approving. Other Board Members provided comments in support of the agreement as well. Susan Crawford moved and Peter Dengate Thrush seconded a motion to approve the resolution below.

The following comments were made on the record during the vote:

Vint Cerf stated: “I would like to make one comment for the record, that this represents a substantial amount of work by both staff and the IETF and the IESG participants and represents a very important step in making concrete the relationship between ourselves and the IETF. So I think it's a very worthwhile effort."

Paul Twomey stated that he recognized that this has been a substantive and in-depth discussion between representatives of the IETF and ICANN, and that he would like to thank all involved for their efforts. He also recognize that it's a very important step in furthering the commitment of both parties towards service to the Internet community, and noted that in public statements during hearings and at the time of the announcement of the joint partnership agreement with the United States Department of Commerce, Acting Assistant Secretary John Kneuer, pointed to the memorialization of the support of the ICANN model by members of the Internet community. He stated that he thinks this sort of an agreement is an important step towards that sort of memorialization

The resolution reads as follows:

Whereas, ICANN and the IETF signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2000 detailing ICANN's responsibilities in supporting IETF-related activities through its performance of the IANA function.

Whereas, Section 4.1 of the ICANN-IETF MOU provides "The IANA will work with the IETF to develop any missing criteria and procedures over time, which the IANA will adopt when so instructed by the IESG.

Whereas, ICANN staff and the IETF have developed a Supplemental Agreement that finalizes the criteria and procedures mutually agreed upon. The processes and scope of work outlined in the Supplemental Agreement document work that ICANN staff already performs, and adds specific timelines for satisfactory performance of that work, as well as reporting metrics designed to allow the public to assess ICANN's performance of the IANA function.

Resolved (06.86), the Supplemental Agreement to the ICANN-IETF MOU is approved.

The resolution was received the unanimous support of all 11 board members present, with no abstentions. In addition to the board members who were not present during any of the meeting, Hagen Hultzsch and Rita Rodin were not present for the vote.

Sydney Business License Approval

The General Counsel presented a proposal to the Board to permit staff to initiate a foreign business license and to open an office in Sydney, Australia in order to make more efficient the handling of our staffing and facilities in that part of the world. The board generally discussed the proposal and staff provided human resource, contractual relationships and outreach information relating to the regional presence of ICANN. Paul Twomey noted for the record that he will continue to maintain his offices in the main, Marina del Rey office.

Whereas, it is important for ICANN as it globalizes its operations to be able to both employ staff from different countries and to put into place the ability to operate on a 24/7 timeframe for operational and logistical support. In 2003, ICANN opened an office in Brussels, Belgium, which has helped ICANN to become more efficient and responsive.

Whereas, ICANN already has a significant presence in Australia, and obtaining a foreign business registration in Sydney will enable ICANN to further increase its operational efficiency and responsiveness, reducing administrative inefficiencies created by the lack of a formal business presence there.

Resolved (06.87), the Board authorizes the President to establish a foreign business license and an office for ICANN in Sydney, Australia.

The resolution was received the unanimous support of all 11 board members present, with no abstentions. In addition to the board members who were not present during any of the meeting, Hagen Hultzsch and Rita Rodin were not present for the vote.

The Board went on to consider issues that are redacted consistent with ICANN's Bylaws at Article III, Section 5.3.

The Board Meeting was adjourned at 3.30 PM PST.