Special Meeting of the Board Preliminary Report 25 September 2000

At its meeting on 25 September 2000, the ICANN Board of Directors adopted the following resolutions:

Delegation of ccTLDs

Whereas, the participants in the ICANN process have for many months been engaged in discussions regarding the appropriate relationships among organizations operating ccTLDs, the relevant governments or public authorities, and ICANN, this topic having been discussed in detail in connection with the ICANN meetings in March 2000 in Cairo and in July 2000 in Yokohama;

Whereas, at the Cairo meeting the Board authorized (in Resolution 00.13) the President and staff to work with the ccTLD organizations, Governmental Advisory Committee, and other interested parties to prepare draft language for contracts, policy statements, and/or communications embodying these relationships;

Whereas, although the exact terms of the relationships are still under discussion, some progress has been made, and it is clear that ICANN and the ccTLD organizations should enter into agreements with each other describing their roles and responsibilities;

Whereas, ICANN has committed in its second status report under its Memorandum of Understanding with the United States Government and in Amendment 2 to that Memorandum of Understanding to continue its efforts to achieve stable agreements with the ccTLD organizations;

Whereas, the United States Government has indicated that completion of the transition of responsibilities for technical coordination of certain Internet functions from the United States to the private sector requires achievement of stable and appropriate agreements between ICANN and the ccTLD organizations;

Whereas, completion of the transition is a high priority and all reasonable efforts should therefore be devoted toward finalizing and entering appropriate and stable agreements with organizations operating ccTLDs;

Whereas, the IANA has received various applications for establishment of ccTLDs involving alpha-2 codes not on the ISO 3166-1 list but on the reserved list published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency;

Whereas, the IANA's practice on the delegability of such codes has varied from time to time in the past;

Whereas, the IANA staff has requested guidance as to the appropriate practice to follow regarding such codes;

It is therefore RESOLVED [00.74] that the IANA staff is advised that alpha-2 codes not on the ISO 3166-1 list are delegable as ccTLDs only in cases where the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, on its exceptional reservation list, has issued a reservation of the code that covers any application of ISO 3166-1 that needs a coded representation in the name of the country, territory, or area involved;

It is further RESOLVED [00.75] that in view of the state of ongoing discussions directed toward reaching stable and appropriate agreements between ICANN and the ccTLD organizations, delegation of additional ccTLDs should be finalized only upon achievement of stable and appropriate agreements between ICANN and the ccTLD organization, in a form approved by the Board.

Amendment to ASO MOU

Whereas, ICANN and the three current Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) entered a Memorandum of Understanding (ASO MOU) for formation of ICANN's Address Supporting Organization on 18 October 1999;

Whereas, questions have arisen under the ASO MOU about the exact terms of office of Address Council members;

Whereas, the members of the Address Council, along with the staffs of the RIRs and ICANN, have suggested that the ASO MOU be amended to align the terms so that the terms of new members of the Address Council all begin on 1 January and so that outgoing members can continue in office for up to six months after their terms in the event their successors have not yet been chosen;

Whereas, the Board has been presented with a proposed amendment to the ASO MOU that accomplishes these purposes;

Whereas, the proposed amendment has been discussed favorably by the members of the Address Council and the RIR staffs and is being presented to the RIR boards for their formal approval;

RESOLVED [00.76] that the President is authorized to enter an amendment to the ASO MOU on substantially the terms presented.

March 2001 Meeting Location

The Board reviewed plans for meeting in Melbourne, Australia, from 10-13 March 2001. By consensus, the Board gave approval to those plans.

Multilingual Domain Names

Whereas, Verisign Global Registry Services has announced a multilingual testbed under the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains to be available for all accredited registrars passing technical certification;

Whereas, ICANN recognizes that it is important that the Internet evolve to be more accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set;

Whereas, the internationalization of the Internet's domain name system must be accomplished through standards that are open, non-proprietary, and fully compatible with the Internet's existing end-to-end model and that preserve globally unique naming in a universally resolvable public name space;

Whereas, constructive experimentation with extensions to the domain name system to support multilingual names should be encouraged, provided it is done in a manner consistent with promoting responsible standardization, it avoids disrupting the stability of the Internet or the interoperability of Internet services, and its experimental character is clearly understood by all affected;

RESOLVED [00.77] that the ICANN Board calls on Verisign Global Registry Services to consult closely with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board concerning the design and implementation of the testbed, with the goal that the testbed should promote, rather than complicate, technical standardization efforts in this area;

RESOLVED [00.78] that the ICANN Board calls on Verisign Global Registry Services to conduct the testbed in full compliance with its agreements with ICANN, including by providing equivalent access within the testbed to all ICANN-accredited registrars that meet reasonable technical-qualification requirements;

RESOLVED [00.79] that the ICANN Board urges participating registrars to handle registrations within the testbed in a manner that protects the interests and expectations of both domain-name holders and affected third parties;

RESOLVED [00.80] that the President and staff are directed to investigate and report to the Board whether any addenda to the agreements with Verisign Global Registry Services are appropriate to facilitate the operation of the testbed in a manner that protects those interests and expectations, including provisions that facilitate evolution of the testbed to match evolving standardization efforts within the IETF.