Domains

NANCY LUPIANO: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to begin our RAA and WHOIS validation workshop. Please welcome Volker Greimann and Kurt Pritz who will act as our moderators.

KURT PRITZ: Good afternoon, everyone. And thanks, Volker. This is really a bifurcated session. First, Volker from the constituency and I will provide an update as to the status of the RAA negotiations where we're seeking to amendment the RAA, the registrar accreditation agreement. The session is meant as a brief update. It will reflect the material in the status report that's provided, identify next steps. And then at the close of that we'll go into what we think is the most important and, frankly, very interesting part of this session where we have ‐‐ we ‐‐ the registrars and us and the committee ‐‐ have put together a panel, a very esteemed panel who is going to describe different WHOIS validation models for us. The effectiveness of them, the cost, the benefits.

So it's not so much a session to debate whether WHOIS validation or verification should be undertaken, but, rather, how. And this panel will present models to us. And I think it's going to be fabulous.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be starting our next session, new gTLDs, program update, in two minutes. If you could kindly take your seats.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would be kind enough to take your seats, we'd like to start our program.

All right. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you're not in this meeting to listen to it, there are lots of places to go and talk, so we are going to begin this meeting.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kurt Pritz, senior vice president, ICANN.

KURT PRITZ: Good morning, everyone. So I'm just going to give us a second to, like, close the door, because I'm vain.

So I was listening to President Chinchilla's speech, and two points. One is that it's remarkable that people can be emotionally moved by a speech where they're reading the translation of it. Kind of remarkable.

And two, that she characterized the Internet as a "hope" rather than a "threat." And I think in our own small way, that's how we chose to characterize the new gTLD program.

ICANN’s decision to create batches of gTLD applications by using a target time variance system has left policy-makers both shocked and concerned.

Process for breaking up applications into groups will be crucial for many

If the number of applied-for strings “significantly” exceeds 500 – the maximum number that can be evaluated at once – ICANN must fairly organise batches. For some applicants, particularly those running open registries that focus on maximising sales, being in that first batch is crucial.

Under the proposal, applicants who opt-in will pick a “target time” – a date and time in the near future. They have to visit ICANN’s website on that date and click a “submit” button as close to the time as possible. The closer they are to the time, the higher they will rank.

STEVE CROCKER: Good afternoon. We're going to open the public session here. And I want to take care of two or three pieces of business before we plunge into the real work.

One, trying to raise our game a bit and part of that is civilized behavior. We have an expected standards of behavior posted as part of our whole self-examination of conflicts of interest and other aspects. We are going to take a look at this part, too, so it may get modified a little bit but only in the positive direction. Let me bring that to your attention and ask that everyone adhere to it.

Coordinator: Excuse me, this is the operator. Just need to inform all parties today's conference is being recorded, if there are any objections you may disconnect your line at this time.

Stephane Van Gelder: Hello everyone. Welcome to the GNSO Council Wrap-Up. Can I ask councilors that are in the room to try and grab some lunch as quickly as they can so that we can start the meeting and we'll look to start in about five minutes.

So GNSO councilors please start getting some lunch. Thank you. And everyone else obviously.

Okay GNSO councilors can I ask you to get to the table as soon as you can please and we'll start the meeting. I know there are other meetings that people want to get to afterwards so I'd like to start as soon as possible. Thank you.

((Crosstalk))

Stephane Van Gelder: Okay welcome everybody. Can I please ask the operator to start the recording? Can I ask the GNSO councilors to take a seat and we will start his wrap-up. As a reminder the wrap up is more of an informal discussion than something with a set agenda.

With less than a month to go until the window closes for new Internet extension applications, we have combined what statistics are available with industry expert conversations to arrive at an estimate of what market size we are looking at.

What we've used:

• ICANN TAS registrant number (as a foundation number)
• Public statements by various registries, registrars and applicants
• Private conversations with those in the industry
• A refined form of our own database of applications

First off, a caveat. Although we have used intelligent extrapolation, what we have produced should be considered no more than a best guess. We will be pleasantly surprised if we get close to the final figure.

Our foundation estimate of TAS registrations. Click for larger pic.

CHAIR – HEATHER DRYDEN: Hello again, everyone. If we can begin to take our seats again, we'll continue with our work.

Let's restart our meeting. So what I propose to do this afternoon is continue the discussion about new gTLDs. And then, at the very end, we have some GAC business to take care of. And we can go back into a
short closed session just to deal with those items. Regarding new gTLDs, let's see whether, at this point, we are able to begin exchanging about some of the topics that we just heard about and had questions
about before the break and see whether it's possible for us to formulate thoughts or the beginnings of advice that we might want to give on those topics that would go into our communique this week. We did
have a fair number of questions around process and timing for current elements. But I would like to see whether we're in a position to begin formulating on some advice on those same topics at this point. So we
can see how that develops.

GNSO Working Session, ICANN 43, 10:00-18:00, Saturday 10 March 2012

[Copy of transcript, chat transcript and audio available on 10 March 2012 GNSO working session page]

Ongoing and Pending Projects (10:00-10:30)

Stephane van Gelder: So welcome everyone to Costa Rica. Welcome to the new council members joining us for the first time for this meeting. Welcome to the - I'm not going to say old - existing council members. Nice to see you all once again. Look forward to a week of productive work with you all. Welcome to our excellent staff support and welcome to everyone else in the room obviously who are joining us for these meetings.

I will probably have some housekeeping issues as we get into the morning but let's try and get the meeting started now as swiftly as we can and we'll come back to those throughout the day.