ICANN Public Forum, Part 2

 Thursday, 1 November 2007

 ICANN Meeting - Los Angeles

 

 >>VINT CERF:   Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll take your seats, we'll 
try to get the public session started.

 First order of business for board members, please make sure you have 
your translation headsets handy.

 English -- let's see -- I'm sorry.  I would like to get some 
clarification on which channel has English.  Because the earlier 
document I had said channel 1 was French to English, channel 2 was 
Spanish to English, and channel 3 was Russian to English.  Is that 
still correct?

 >> No.

 Channel 1 is the English into French.  Channel 2 is Spanish into -- 
English into Spanish.  Channel 3 is English into Russian.  Channel 5 is 
now the clear channel for all languages to go into English.

 >>VINT CERF:   Okay.  Thank you.

 >> Anytime any other than English speaker is up here, if the English 
speakers will keep their headsets on channel 5, will you hear 
translation into English from any language on channel 5.

 >>VINT CERF:   Very good.  Thank you.  So for people who need 
translation into English, stay on channel 5.

 Thank you very much.

 (Translation).

 >>VINT CERF:   Kieren?

 >>KIEREN McCARTHY:   Can I just say, with regard to interpretation, 
there's a few things that I've picked up over the course of this.

 One, if you are getting a lot of buzz ongoing your headset, that's 
probably because you've got your mobile phone on.  And that causes 
interference.  So if you've got buzzing, either take your mobile phone 
out of your pocket or turn it off.

 Two, with the headsets, a lot of people are wearing the wrong way 
around, which means they can't hear properly.  They get bad 
interferences.  That causes ambient noise.  If you have the two bubbles 
at the front.

 Three, if you can announce what language you're going to speak in, 
that gives a very useful couple of seconds in which the interpreters 
and the scribes can get used to it.

 >>VINT CERF: Thanks very much, Kieren.

 First of all, I have to report that the planned ombudsman's report 
will have to be struck from the agenda.  Frank Fowlie had to return 
home yesterday.

 However, his report is available online.  So we will invite you to 
look at that at the ICANN Web site.

 Second item on the agenda is the Nominating Committee report.  And if 
George Sadowsky is ready to offer that, I invite him to the lectern.

 Thank you, George.

 >>GEORGE SADOWSKY:   Thank you, Vint.

 I am pleased to present the report of the Nominating Committee for 
2007.

 The outline -- sorry.

 The report consists of four parts.  A little bit about the Nominating 
Committee, the results of our work, the processes that we used, and 
some recommendations for the future.

 The composition and the charge to the Nominating Committee are defined 
in the bylaws.  I'm not going to read all this.  This report is being 
posted to the ICANN Web site.  And you'll find this text in the bylaws.

 But, basically, the Nominating Committee acts not with respect to 
whoever appointed them to the committee, but on the basis of the 
welfare of the global Internet, with no personal commitments, and a 
requirement to adhere to a code of ethics established by the committee 
for its members.

 It functions independently of ICANN.

 Here is a list of the 2000 [sic] Nominating Committee.  We have 22 
members this year, 17 of whom vote.  And the voting members -- the 
members are identified by the constituencies from which they come.

 The voting members are identified by underlining under their 
constituency abbreviations.

 The basic principles under which we operate are, we try to come to 
consensus decisions.  We have an issue of a balance between openness 
and transparency and, privacy and confidentiality, and we try to be 
fair and consistent with respect to our treatment of all candidates.  
All of our members' affiliations are disclosed.  We focus on developing 
the best possible slates over all of the appointments we make for 
ICANN.

 So coming to the results, here is the ICANN structure with respect to 
the contributions to the board of directors.  There are liaisons, five 
liaisons, coming to the committee and serving on the board.  Each of 
the constituent organizations appoints two members to the committee and 
the NomCom appoints eight -- the NomCom -- to the board.  And the 
NomCom appoints eight members of the board over a three-year cycle.

 This year, we've selected three people, Harald Alvestrand from Norway, 
Dennis Jennings from Ireland and the U.K.  He's a dual citizen.  And 
Jean-Jacques Subrenat from France.

 And they're serving for a three-year term, ending at the 2010 annual 
meeting.  And I'd like to make the point that the committee recognized 
specific skill sets that we felt needed to be strengthened on the 
board, and each of these people strengthens one of those specific skill 
sets.

 The GNSO Council consists of 21 members, three of whom are appointed 
by the NomCom, and this year, we appointed Olga Cavalli from Argentina 
and renominated Avri Doria of the United States to the GNSO.  You may 
recall that Avri was a NomCom appointment on an interim basis two and a 
half years ago.  And the NomCom of 2005 recommended her continuation 
for two years.

 The At-Large Advisory Committee, no longer called the interim At-Large 
Advisory Committee, is -- has provision for the NomCom to select seats 
to it.  And this year, we selected three seats on a regional basis.  
From Africa, from Asia, and from Latin America and the Caribbean.  And 
the selections are Vanda Scartezini, from Brazil; Fatimata Seye Sylla, 
from Senegal; and Nguyen Thu Hue from Vietnam.

 Those are two-year terms.

 And you might wish to notice that Vanda Scartezini is a current and 
soon to be former board member.  And we suspect that her appointment to 
the ALAC will provide considerable strength for an organization which 
is now in the -- a different stage, a second stage of maturation and 
growth.

 The ccNSO Council also benefits from three appointments over a three-
year cycle from the Nominating Committee.  And this year, we selected 
Nashwa Abdel-Baki from Egypt, director of the Egyptian university's 
network, for a three-year term, until the conclusion of the annual 
meeting at 2010.

 Here are some summary statistics for the candidates.  We had 93 
candidates.  You can see the regional breakdown for the -- both the 
distribution of candidates and the distribution of nominees.

 You can also note the gender breakdown between male and female 
candidates and nominees.

 There's an anecdote I'd like to repeat of what happened during our 
selection meeting.

 We started considering and chose nominees for the GNSO, ccNSO, and the 
ALAC, and left the board nominations to the last.

 And at the end of our deliberation for the first three sets of 
positions, one of the members of the committee said, "My God, do you 
realize we've just nominated six women?"

 And, in fact, we hadn't.  Nobody had recognized this.  And so I see 
this as perhaps the best form of gender balancing.  And I would call it 
gender blindness.

 The ratio, by the way, in the last three -- thank you -- in the last 
three years, is interesting, because the -- I've been chair of the last 
three nominating committees.  And what we find is, often, it's 
difficult to satisfy all of the balance requirements, culture, gender, 
region, et cetera, because we don't have the degrees of freedom.  It's 
too granular a space.

 And so -- so what we did the first year was to appoint six women and 
two men.  The second year, the overwhelming preponderance of nominees 
were men.  And the third year, we have a considerable number of women.

 We did an analysis of the -- all of the nominations of the nominating 
committees from the beginning to look at balance, regional, gender, et 
cetera.  And over a five-year period, it turns out to be surprisingly 
good, well-balanced.  But in any one year, it's going to be -- it has 
been lopsided.  And it's likely to be lopsided in the future.

 We had people apply from 46 countries.  That's considerably higher 
than previous years.  I think we were at 34 or 35 countries before.  I 
think that's a good sign.

 Our timeline was -- is as follows:  We started immediately after the 
Sao Paulo meeting in December of 2006, an excellent -- the earliest 
we've started, and, really, the best in terms of our ability to 
function well.

 We had our first face-to-face meeting there.  We issued a formal call 
for statements of interest in February, deadline May 1st.  We extended 
the deadline.  We met in July in Toronto.  We arranged earlier to have 
telephone interviews with 24 candidates whom we felt we needed more 
information about in order to make good decisions.  We announced, 
finally, the results on the 25th of September because of a fairly long 
due diligence period, which I suspect can be gotten rid of, due to a 
change in process.

 And the nominees, I've mentioned, will all assume their office at the 
close of the annual general meeting tomorrow morning.

 We recruited using the ICANN family fairly heavy, because the outreach 
by this community and the committee is just essential.  The people who 
know about ICANN and -- are the best salespeople, the best people to 
tell others, their professional colleagues, people they know about it.

 We attended a number of meetings, made representations, we built a 
flier in four languages describing the NomCom appointments and the 
processes, distributed them heavily.

 And we had earlier, two years ago, we had what I considered a 
"discouraged candidate" effect, that is, people, after being refused 
once, wouldn't reapply.  And we were losing -- essentially losing 
interest from our most promising set of candidates, our most promising 
catchment area.

 That seems to have been averted and aborted this year.  We got good 
interest from a large number of people.

 We select according to detailed bylaw criteria.  They're in the -- 
they're listed there.  I won't read them.  But they're the obvious 
criteria for getting good board members and good council members, good 
members of the ALAC.

 We do have these dimensions of -- which -- which we have to pay 
attention to, gender, cultural, functional, geographic.

 This year, we tried, as best we could, to identify the specific 
selection criteria which we were aiming for for all of the 
organizations which we nominated candidates for.

 There were three subcommittees formed to evaluate all the candidates 
in depth.  We met in Toronto.

 We had more proactive use this year of third-party contacts, under 
conditions of strict confidentiality.  We've expanded our search for 
information about candidates from previous years simply because we 
weren't -- we felt we weren't getting enough detail, enough sense of 
the candidate from the statements of interest and from the reference.

 We did have informal meetings with candidates at ICANN in Puerto Rico.

 The fact that somebody was not at Puerto Rico -- at the Puerto Rico 
meeting did not bias us against their possible selection.

 And we had the full -- fairly long telephone interviews with 24 
candidates whom we felt we needed more information from.

 We hope we built a slate of the best qualified candidates based upon 
what we saw as the needs.

 We -- I'm going to let this slide speak for itself, because I think 
I've covered most of the points on it.

 So we have four classes of recommendations -- five classes of 
recommendations, all of which may be modified by the result of the 
external NomCom evaluation.  If you were in this room at 5:00 
yesterday, you would have heard a full discussion of the major points 
made in the evaluation.  And if you weren't, there's a transcript 
available.  And the review is posted online.  And I would encourage you 
to read it.

 So in terms of scheduling, we will continue to start early, in fact, 
the 2008 NomCom, under the leadership of Hagen Hultzsch, who, 
unfortunately, is not able to be here until tomorrow, will meet 
tomorrow and Saturday.  We expect to schedule a selection meeting 
immediately after the summer ICANN meeting.  And we may well use the 
ICANN meeting to meet with candidates in a more formal and 
comprehensive way.  That's Hagen's decision.  But I think that could 
happen.

 And I think we have developed a potential mechanism for drastically 
accelerating public announcement of the results, which we may be able 
to use, based upon ensuring that it is legally appropriate to do so.

 With respect to process, we need to improve our understanding of the 
needs of the constituencies for which nominees are selected.  There are 
a variety of ways in which we are likely to do that.  I should note 
that all the constituencies are represented.  Although the people don't 
represent their constituencies, they understand the needs better than 
those who aren't in the constituency, except the board.  And the board 
is perhaps the most opaque in terms of the Nominating Committee being 
able to identify very specific needs.

 We need to find a way to counsel out clearly unacceptable candidates.  
At the moment, we don't distinguish between people who were almost 
selected because they are very good, and people who are not selected 
because they really weren't appropriate at all.

 We've made consistent improvement in our computer support over the 
years.  We need to improve that a little bit more.  And we also need 
somehow to improve teleconference mechanisms.  We're still back in the 
technology of the 1970s and 1980s with respect to teleconferences, 
except for fidelity, which digital transmission has brought.  And we 
know that there are systems which allow out-of-band signaling using 
computers, computer screens, which would help to make more efficient 
what we do.  And I think this is potentially a recommendation for ICANN 
as a whole, because we are not the only ones who use teleconferences.

 With respect to recruitment, we are starting to roll over the 
candidate pool from year to year.  Previously, every year stood on its 
own.  At the end of the year, we had a huge bonfire and burned 
everything, with all the -- all the information with respect to the 
year.

 This is inefficient from a number of points of view.  It's a result of 
the history of the NomCom.  And this year, we've told candidates that 
if they were not nominated in 2007 and they want to be nominated in 
2008, just let us know.  We'll keep you in the pool.  And I think, 
clearly, that's the chairman's -- Hagen's responsibility for 2008.

 But he's quite aware of this.  And I think this is a start toward a 
more permanent way of keeping a volunteer base for ICANN.

 As a result, the people who want to be rolled over into this year's 
pool will provide a good candidate base for 2008, and we expect no 
extension of the deadline this year, although, you know, time will 
tell.  But that's the likelihood.

 So we need to expand the NomCom presence at related professionalism 
events to improve our ability to talk to people who are likely to serve 
on our -- in our volunteer leadership positions.  And my own 
recommendation is to re-evaluate the use of professional search help, 
which we have not used in past years.

 In terms of evaluation, we always can improve the process for 
obtaining additional candidate information.  It would -- I'm 
recommending that we try to implement a two-stage evaluation process so 
that we can quickly go to a shorter list of -- a shorter pool, a 
smaller pool of candidates, and investigate them more thoroughly, based 
upon telephone interviews and in-person interviews.

 With respect to post selection, we've had a somewhat difficult time 
with regard to due diligence.  Due diligence, effectively, is an 
investigation saying that the candidates are who they say they are.

 They've not committed any gross crimes.  They don't have police 
records.

 They -- they're not in court being sued because of fiduciary 
improprities, et cetera.

 The.

 In the past, the firms we have used have taken our instructions 
literally and have engaged in -- let's say that they haven't thought 
totally always about what they've been doing and have drilled down for 
information that really wasn't very useful, to the discomfort and the 
irritation of candidates.  We need to manage that process more -- on a 
more micro level.  And it will pay back in terms of less work, less 
aggravation, et cetera.

 And we also need to provide more effective feedback to the candidates 
not nominated.  I hope we can do that more later.

 So that concludes my report.

 Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   We certainly --

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   I see that there are a couple of questions already.

 Peter, I see your hand first, and then Paul.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   George, thank you very -- sorry, I'm 
speaking in English.

 Thank you very, very much for an extraordinary amount of work, and 
also, as usual, a very, very clear report.

 Two things.  I'm firstly delighted that you won't be having the 
bonfire of all the CVs and other information.  Passing that forward 
into the new year seems a very sensible development.

 I am concerned at your suggestion that the board's needs are opaque.  
I don't think you suggested that the board itself was opaque.  I think 
what you're saying was that our needs from your perspective are opaque.  
Could you have any ideas about how we might fix that?  

 And I guess the question is, is that a matter of practice or is there 
something in the bylaws or the rules by which we operate that creates 
that difficulty?

 >>GEORGE SADOWSKY:   There's nothing in the rules, and the board -- 
you're right.  The board is not opaque.

 At least you are not opaque.

 The -- I think it's in part because we have a new -- half the NomCom 
turns over every year.  We have different degrees or depths of 
experience observing the board.  It's less opaque now that you have 
minutes.  Previously we had no notion of how you discuss things or -- 
Vint and other board members have come to the NomCom at the first face-
to-face meeting and have talked about the board.  It's just that I 
think the board is faced with a lot of different issues.  The board 
needs a lot of different skills and there are only 15 of you.  And we 
have trouble understanding exactly how specific selections would insert 
themselves in the board.

 I think, by the way, this is getting better.  I mention it because 
there is still room for improvement.

 >>VINT CERF:   Paul Twomey, you had your hand up also.

 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Thank you, Vint.  Just a small thing, George.  First 
of all, thank you so much for your own personal effort and I know the 
amount of time and energy and everything you have put into that but I 
just want to make a clarification question.

 In your slides you have Patrick Jones and Donna Austin listed as 
members.  I thought you might want to clarify that.

 >>GEORGE SADOWSKY:   Yes, I guess that's right.

 They are staff support, and I guess we consider them ex officio 
members.  They are there at all meetings, they are privy to all of the 
information.

 They have supported us well, by the way.

 I should say we are very pleased by what they have done for us and we 
thank them for that.

 But they do not contribute to any discussions except when asked, and 
sometimes we ask them because they have information which is useful for 
whatever process we're involved in.

 But they are staff support but they are included in all of our 
deliberations of that thank you very much for that clarification.

 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   That's all right.  And I wonder if I can also offer a 
clarification that there's a very strict Chinese wall set up within the 
ICANN staff between the work that Donna and Patrick do and other staff 
so there is no feedback loop that goes between their work for the 
committee and back into management or anything of the staff.

 >>GEORGE SADOWSKY:   That's consistent with our understanding.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you, Paul.

 If there are other questions for George, they will come up later at an 
opportunity for open questions.

 The next item on the agenda is an update on IDNs, and I'll ask Tina 
Dam to make that presentation.

 >>TINA DAM:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 The IDN status report is pretty exciting this time because we have 
some good news.

 First of all, we have IDN TLDs in the root, live, which I hope all of 
you have noticed and also that you have been to our evaluation 
facilities and tried things out.

 This is set up so that users can try out basically any kind of 
applications that you would like to have, and use IDNs within.  And it 
works under the slogan of "my name, my language, my Internet."

 There's a test station outside in case you haven't been there and 
tried it out yet.  It's not staffed quite at this moment so stay here 
and come back out at a break.

 This is what it looks like with the TLDs and the second-level domains 
we have put up under there.

 The middle column is the translation of the words example and test in 
the 11 different languages and scripts, combinations that you see up 
there.

 I also put in on this slide the "A" labels both for the second level 
and top level.  So the "A" level is what is stored in the DNS it's the 
XN dash dash versions.

 Before I go into more details about how the testing is going and some 
other activities, I just thought we could take a quick history look at 
how we made it to this point in time.

 And I started back in 2003.  I could go further back, but it would 
take a long time.

 In June 2003, we had the current IDNA protocol, the standard come out.  
And shortly after that, implementation by a number of gTLDs and ccTLDs.

 I probably should mention that we, in 2001, had a test bed for IDNs 
under com, net and org as well that then was merged into the technical 
standard here in 2003.

 Implementation continued through 2004 and, you know, forward as well.

 And in 2005, early 2005, we saw some of the first spoofing results, or 
at least the media got a lot of attention around spoofing concerns.

 And the same year, in September, we had the first revision of the 
guidelines to take care of some of those problems.

 For example, you could not mix scripts within a label anymore.

 In tic, early, we had the protocol revision initiated.  And later that 
year, we formally launched ICANN's IDN program and put some more staff 
resources into this with a very specific goal.  And that was to not 
just have IDNs at the second level but move it into the top level as 
well.

 And so here is a quote that I actually fell over by coincidence and 
it's by Vint.  And I don't know if you remember it, Vint, but this is 
about a year and a half ago, and Vint suggested that ideas like 
inventing a top-level domain called dot test or its equivalent in 
different scripts and languages and then providing a battery of 
examples of instances in URLs, e-mail addresses and other things, would 
be something that would be very useful so that people could go and try 
things out.

 And you know, I actually didn't remember it, but this was the first 
step towards what we have today with test Wikis, and so I just thought 
that would be a nice thing to share.

 We really need it, and it's been really useful to see how things have 
been going.  So again, I encourage you to take part in it if you 
haven't done so already.

 In the past year, you see lots of things have been going on.  We 
completed the laboratory test of IDN TLDs, which essentially was the 
first step to make us move forward to have IDN TLDs live.

 We revised the guidelines again.  We developed a dot test evaluation 
plan.  And along with that, we put up the IANA TLD processes for how to 
actually insert and manage these TLDs, only for the test purposes.  It 
includes an emergency removal procedure that we have set up for the 
root server operators so they can contact us at any point in time if 
anything should go wrong, and we can take things down very quickly.

 You also saw a lot of policy development going on in the middle of 
this year.

 And the root server operators advisory committee and the Security and 
Stability Advisory Committee put out statements and reviewed our test 
plans and looked at what kind of advice they could give us.

 And then in August, the board approved the dot test delegations of the 
11 dot test IDN TLDs, and the test plan as well.  And that made it 
possible for us to go and launch here in October.

 I have put in December as a potential opportunity for us to finalize 
that protocol revision that was started in early 2006.

 And as we move into next year, as you know, there's a lot of different 
policy processes being finalized, and I'll get back to that in just a 
little bit.

 So the test Wiki was launched on the 15th of October.  And within the 
first 24 hours, we had about 45,000 page requests.

 Today, after about two weeks, that number is up at 200,000.

 We have users and discussions on all Wikis.  And it's very useful.  We 
do primarily have browser feedback.  And I'm just going to show you a 
slide that I hope you can see in the back of the room as well.

 But this is how it looks in a set of different browsers.  In no 
particular order, the top one is Internet Explorer, Version 7, and this 
result is after you have set your language setting to, in this case, 
Arabic.  If you haven't set your language setting there will be a pop-
up and it will offer you to change your language settings.

 But you see there's a lot of percent signs up there after the domain 
name.  And that essentially means that the path of the URL when you use 
Internet explorer is not in UTF8.  So it's in the internationalized, if 
you want to call it that.

 The second one is opera.  Opera is, as you can see, displaying the 
whole URL in the local characters.

 This example is Arabic as well, and I have picked that particularly 
because you will note that -- well, you may or may not, but if you can 
read a little bit of Arabic you will note that this is -- the direction 
is going from right to left, so if I'm reading this from the right to 
the left it says example.test/main underscore page, and then comes the 
HTTP colon slash slash in front of that, or after that, depending on 
how you actually read that.

 The two last ones from Firefox.

 The first one you can see displays XN dash dash ASCII sequence.  And 
then the escape signs as well.

 And the second one is where the domain name is in the local 
characters.

 The difference here is that you can, as a user, change the white list 
that Firefox operations from, so if you put the TLD in the white list, 
it will display the local characters as opposed to the XN dash dash.

 All right.  So that was just a few examples.

 We do want more feedback, not just around browsers but around other 
applications as well and we have been given a lot of ideas and 
suggestions for changes during this meeting.

 The first one up is e-mail test, and it's actually up on the English 
portion of the Wikis.  And we're going to translate that and put that 
out to all the 11 different language script sites as well.

 Customer survey is something we'll set up to enable reporting to go 
back easier for us, so very specific guided questions and answers.

 SSL certificates to sign all the different Wikis.  And then very 
interestingly, because one of the things that you quickly find out is 
that in order to really go to these sites you need a keyboard to type 
the local characters in.

 And I don't have one, and we didn't have one out at the test station 
except for those users or participants who came by who had their own 
computers with different scripts on their keyboards.

 But, so suggestion to provide an online keyboard on the Wikis where 
you can click different scripts and, in that way, enter URLs in 
different languages and scripts.

 You know, in fact, something that you may find funny, it's meant as a 
joke anyway, is several people have said during this week that instead 
of "my name, my language, my Internet," it should be, "Your keyboard 
and your script and your problem."

 [ Laughter ]

 >>TINA DAM:   And of course we don't mean that, but it is a difficult 
thing.

 Clearly, it shows that domain names is not the only thing we need.  We 
need a lot of other things in addition to the domain names on IDNs.

 All right.

 I'm just going to run quickly over some other technical related 
activities.

 The IDNA revision is still aiming at finalizing within this calendar 
year.

 It is, however, following standard IETF processes and procedures, 
which means that you cannot set a specific time line for this.

 I have listed the latest Internet drafts for proposed revisions in 
case you want to go and take a look at them.

 The security study under the SSAC.  The structure is being reassessed 
because we now have live IDN TLDs, so instead of speculating and 
analyzing what would happen in different cases, some things can 
actually now be tested out live from a security standpoint.

 So we're moving that forward.

 I have mentioned previously that we want to do this detailed paper 
that describes what happens from the user phase through the application 
and the DNS.  We do not have a lot of progress on this.  We are 
essentially just lacking resources so if this is something you have 
expertise in or interest in, let me know.

 And then the guidelines.

 We have version 2.2 out, that takes TLDs into consideration for the 
first time in the guidelines.  And we are going to revise those again 
as -- primarily as the protocol is being moved forward.

 So you will see another version coming up of that also.

 My last three slides are around policies and processes.  And I'm 
conscious of the fact that both Chris Disspain, chair of the ccNSO, and 
Janis Karklins, chair of the GAC, will probably talk a little bit about 
this, so I'm not going to spend much time.

 First up, we do not have processes for allocation of IDN TLDs in the 
processes that have been used or are being used currently for 
delegation of TLDs.  They don't work for IDN TLDs.  And also, staff 
does not develop these kind of policies.  You probably have seen a lot 
of this activity this week.

 Very shortly, the process for introduction of new gTLDs, as you know, 
it aims at being -- having all the material out in mid-2008, and if the 
technical pieces are in place, then that could include IDN TLDs.

 The introduction of new gTLDs process does not really work for country 
or territory names.  You know, gTLDs and ccTLDs are very different, so 
that is why the ccNSO and the GAC have been working a lot on this topic 
as well.  There's been -- I don't know, several meetings throughout the 
week.  The ccNSO and the GAC are looking at a two-track approach.  One 
is the overall policy, which is a formal policy development process, 
and the other one is a fast track because there are some regions that 
has a stronger need for something as IDN ccTLDs that they really can't 
wait for a formal policy development process that is looking at, you 
know, finalizing between two to five or two to seven years, I think was 
the best guesses.

 So a fast track is something new that was supported this week.  And 
something that I think I'll leave to Chris and Janis to talk more 
about.

 From this standpoint, we are looking very much into what these groups 
are doing and so that we can supply adequate staff resources to support 
this kind of policy development.

 Again, that's support only, and it's not -- staff does not make these 
kind of decisions, but we do want to make sure that it can move forward 
in a fast track if that is something that these groups find out that we 
can do.

 We, indeed, to have the resources in place.

 So that was all I had for today.  And there's a couple of links so you 
can go and find some more information if you are interested.

 Thank you.

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

 I have to say, I am extremely pleased to see so much progress has been 
made on IDNs in the past year.

 And particularly in the last several months.

 I don't see questions from the board at this point, so why don't you 
take your seat.  I'm sure that if there are other questions from the 
floor, we'll get them at a later time.

 The next report comes from Doug Brent, the chief operating officer of 
ICANN, and it is on the strategic planning session, several of which 
have taken place during the course of the week.

 >>DOUG BRENT:   Good morning, everyone.  Mr. Chair, since I have had 
several opportunities to do this presentation during the course of the 
meeting, I'm going to make this presentation a bit more brief, try to 
catch us back up on track, on schedule.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you.

 >>DOUG BRENT:   The purpose of my presenting this morning really is to 
describe a high-level view of the strategic plan.

 I'll say during this session, we have had many good engagements on the 
strategic plan, met with the GNSO council, SSAC, registrar 
constituencies, registries, NCUC, ISPs, IP constituency, and 
importantly, there has been very good engagement from the members of 
the board on the strategic plan.  It's been a very good session and 
some good progress.

 Really, the purpose this morning is to remind you of the strategic 
planning process and to spark your interest to go look at the strategic 
plan that's been posted and get your comments.

 Just briefly on the process itself.  I think everyone in the ICANN 
community is well aware that we are on these two six-month planning 
cycles from July through December doing the strategic plan, then from 
January through June, the operating plan.

 Consultations on this strategic plan began in San Juan with 
multilingual consultations and taking those initial consultations and 
turned that into an issues paper which was posted in September.

 We did active consultation.  Staff performed active consultations on 
that strategic plan with several -- on the issues paper with several 
constituencies and have collected that information into a strategic 
plan draft posted on October 19th in six languages simultaneously.

 And I believe that's a first for ICANN, that that posting was done 
simultaneously in all those languages.

 The comment period extends through November 10th, so if you haven't 
yet had a chance to read the planning comment, would welcome your 
comments through that time.

 A draft will be submitted to the board in December for approval.

 Just to also point out something that was an interesting and, I think, 
a positive experience was just the other day, yesterday, we held a 
multilingual session with simultaneous translation, questions and 
answers in multiple languages, on the strategic plan, and I think it 
was a very useful session as well.

 So just to again point out why this plan is important to you and why 
you might want to take time to read the plan and comment on it.

 I'll say from an ICANN staff viewpoint, ICANN board, and I think 
community as a whole, there's a great intensity around ICANN 
operational accountability.  And with my job title being chief 
operating officer, this is something I personally take very seriously.

 Being accountable for the work plan that we set out to do in the year, 
and then what work is actually accomplished.

 Certainly important as a staff and I think as a broad community.

 What guides that action is the ICANN operating plan.  And what drives 
the operating plan is this what I like to call community roadmap or 
strategic plan for ICANN.

 So really ask you to look at it and comment.

 The strategic plan begins by taking a look at the context that ICANN 
is operating in, the environmental context and organizational context.  
This is something that has been common in the plan in prior years.  And 
if you look at this year's plan, it's much the same.  It identifies 
many of the same items.

 In terms of what's new and what you might want to focus on as a new 
item, is the advent, the imminent advent of new generic top-level 
domains and IDNs in the root.

 When we start to think about the global scale, the scale of new 
entries into the root going from 21 gTLDs to who knows how many, this 
is a major change.  And as we think of ICANN in three years from now, 
something that will undoubtedly impact the environment that we're in.

 In terms of describing the plan, I'm just going to use this single 
slide to do that.

 The current draft identifies five priorities for the plan.  I will say 
based on much of the feedback we have received, I think this will be 
updated and expanded.  But talking to, I think, almost anyone in the 
community, a number one priority for ICANN during this three-year time 
period will be the introduction of IDNs and new gTLDs.

 Continuing to improve core operations.

 I think with a comment made, a goal towards excellence in continuing 
those operations.

 Strengthening the multistakeholder model.

 And if I could just make a comment there, I think a constant theme 
throughout this meeting, and that we've heard from many constituencies, 
is as workload increases on the entire community, accountability and 
transparency is critical, but not enough.

 It's accountability, transparency, and accessibility of the work.  
Part of that is better staff support, which we have again heard, but 
part of that is factoring the work in a way that the community as a 
whole can deal with it.

 So the strengthening the multistakeholder model is key.

 Enhancing security and stability.  I think it's very clear in talking 
to the community that the new threat environment, new threats are 
increasing all the time, and that ICANN needs to develop a 
comprehensive plan with appropriate partners to deal with the aspects 
of security in the Internet that are within ICANN's domain.

 And then finally, strengthening accountability and governance, which 
has been a theme in many of the conversations this week.

 I'm not going to go through, at this time, more detail on each of 
those strategic priorities.  Again, this presentation is posted and the 
plan is posted itself for comment, but rather just go to some 
concluding remarks.

 In terms of observations on the plan, and I think this is consistent 
with the consultations we have had, there is a far-reaching impact of 
the introduction of new gTLDs and IDNs.  The focus on the community has 
been the hard work.  I looked at Tina's chart of the years of work.  I 
don't even think this goes back to the very beginning of IDN work, the 
two-and-a-half years and more of work that's gone into the introduction 
of new gTLDs.  The community focus has been on the hard work of 
preparing those processes.  In this three-year time horizon, we'll be 
looking at the implementation and the broad impacts of implementing 
these things in a global environment.

 Security and stability are at the forefront.  We see botnet attacks, 
denial of service attacks with increasing frequency.

 What's ICANN's role in ensuring that we're taking appropriate actions 
to work with partners and really come up with a comprehensive plan 
there.

 There is a conversation how we work in a world where the 
constituencies of ICANN will look different than they do today.

   Internet growing rapidly in Asia, in all parts of the world.  How do 
we continue this conversation and engage the non-English speaking 
community ever better.

 And that includes operational practices, not just communicating in a 
session like this.

 And finally, I think very importantly, the community wants the staff, 
ICANN staff, to be well run, and that's very important.  And I think 
the community as a whole to be efficient, effective in policy 
development, and in our work together.

 We've gotten some good feedback, actually, on the plan side itself and 
I would encourage you when you download the plan to read it, take a 
look at the comments that have been posted thus far.  There's been a 
variety of very useful feedback in the sessions where I presented this 
week, and again from members of the board.

 It's clear that the ICANN plan needs -- the ICANN strategic plan needs 
to identify outcomes as well as priorities.  And I think really for it 
to be a useful plan, we have to be clear in terms of these outcomes, 
and we have certainly gotten that feedback.

 How we put in context the organizational evolution towards more global 
accountability is really key.  And people are looking for some more 
meat there in terms of the strategic plan.

 The rapid pace of changes in the domain name market itself is the 
world we all live in and important for the strategic plan to identify 
how ICANN, as an institution, can continue to work in that rapid pace.

 And finally, while the operating plan is relatively easy to measure -- 
I think we need to do a better job of that in report to go the 
community, but an operating plan is easy to measure in terms of 
outcomes.

 The strategic plan in terms of its quality and its sort of consonance 
with the operating plan is harder, and I think it's an area that ICANN 
needs to work on in terms of improving how we assess the strategic plan 
itself.

 So with that, Mr. Chair, I'll pause and take questions later, if 
that's reasonable.

 >>VINT CERF:   Yes, thank you very much, Doug.

 I see Peter has his hand up.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I want to say, 
first of all, Doug, thank you very much for the work you have put into 
this.  I think the whole process by which we are developing the 
strategic plan now is so much improved on where we were a couple of 
years ago.

 And just to let perhaps members of the audience know that the staff 
and that Doug arranged for the board to participate in a meeting this 
morning at 7:00 to help with some details of this.

 That's the kind of effort that's going into this, and to say that we 
appreciate that.

 As far as the content is concerned, obviously what we are trying to do 
is create some kind of shared version of where we want to see ICANN in 
three years' time and including in some of the strategic goals, 
priorities on a shorter scale than that.

 So the work that's going into this is to prioritize, as you said, the 
goals and also to try to put time lines and more measurements around 
some of those strategies so that they can be more clearly measured in 
terms of success.

 So I look forward very much to continuation of the work that's going 
into preparing the plan, and to having it as an agreed document to 
guide ICANN into the next couple of years.

 I thank you for that.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you, Peter.

 And thank you, Doug.  I don't see other hands up, so take your seat.  
There may be other questions later from the floor.

 >>DOUG BRENT:   Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   The next topic is the report on IANA processes, and 
I'll ask David Conrad to please join us to make that report.

 >>DAVID CONRAD:   Thank you, Mr. Chair.  This will be a very quick 
update for IANA, in keeping with one of my goals to try to lower the 
profile of IANA in these sort of events.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>DAVID CONRAD:   The key points, IANA is functioning reasonably well.  
You can expect continued incremental improvements in the way IANA 
operates.

 We have no major disasters, at least that I am aware of.

 We have an increased load in the root management area.  This is 
probably due to the fact that we have increased outreach in many 
regions via the regional liaisons who are doing an excellent job.

 As a result, we have found that the routine requests that we are 
getting are actually being done more quickly.  However, some of the 
exceptional requests are taking longer.

 I suspect this is due because the low-hanging fruit has been already 
harvested and the more complicated things are starting to show up.

 We have been meeting the IETF SLAs that we have agreed to with the 
IETF community.  And with the kind help of Leo Vegoda, our manager of 
numbers.

 The RIR requests we have been receiving have generally been processed 
within one business day.

 Some of the major notable events that we have been undergoing, as you 
know, the IANA contract was renewed.

 The IDN test domains were added.  This resulted in some changes to 
IANA procedures and processes.

 The eIANA root zone management software has entered a beta testing 
phase.  If anyone is interested in parting in that beta project, please 
contact Kim Davies.

 Okay.

 And through the kind offices of Richard Lamb, we have a fairly 
elaborate DNSsec automation for the zones that IANA is responsible for.  
At this point, we're actually in -- ready for going into production, 
and we just need to find secondaries for those various zones.

 On sort of a personal note, there has been a bit of a reorganization 
within IANA.  This is actually my two-year anniversary with ICANN, this 
very day.  And in accordance with the Peter principle, my title is now 
the vice president, research and IANA strategy.  And Barbara Roseman is 
now the general operations manager.

 Barbara, if you could stand and wave.

 So any arrows, please direct them at Barbara now.

 [ Applause ]

 >>DAVID CONRAD:   So just summarizing, IANA continues to improve.  
There's always more to do.  But things are going reasonably well.

 The automation projects that we've undertaken are now in the process 
of being deployed, and I just wanted to offer my thanks to the 
excellent IANA team, ICANN, and the ICANN community for actually making 
my job fairly easy.

 And with that, I'll take any questions.

 >>VINT CERF:   Well, thank you very much, David.  Congratulations on 
your elevation to inconsequence.  Many of us have experienced the same 
thing.

 Are there any questions for David right off the bat here from the 
board?

 Evidently not.  So I'll thank you.

 It turns out -- thank you for getting us ahead of schedule.  We now 
have some time for questions from the floor.

 Before you come to the microphone, be advised that the questions 
should relate only to the topics that have been presented so far this 
morning and to the published committee reports, the audit committee 
report, the Board Governance Committee report, Conflict of Interest 
Committee, finance, meetings, and reconsideration.  Those -- you were 
all spared the pain of listening to those reports.  They've been 
published ahead of time and available to you on the Web site.

 So if there are any questions at this point for the matters thus far 
presented, now would be a good time to bring those to the floor.

 And if there aren't any, I'll be happy to schedule -- I have one.

 And I will predict that Sebastien will make his questions in French, 
so you should prepare yourselves for that.

 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   So I'm going to speak in French, Mr. 
President.  Thank you.

 I don't have a particular comment to make about what was presented 
this morning, but I would like to tell you that all the presentations 
were done in English.

 The day we'll be able to have a real international -- where we'll be 
able to have international works, I hope that we'll have presentations 
in other languages than English.  I also think that the meeting 
yesterday afternoon was very interesting and telling.  It's the meeting 
that we had about translation and interpretation topics.

 There was a very lively debate.  And I hope -- and I think that there 
will be a report about this meeting and that we'll have a chance to 
examine the report.

 Thank you for your work.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you, Mr. Bachollet.

 >>RAUL ECHEBERRIA:   Well, I'm going to speak in Spanish.  And I want 
to say that when we have translation, it's very important.  It's also 
very important to change our habits.  And to make these teams, I don't 
know why -- I've always used this equipment.  Sorry.

 I don't know why, but the people who use -- who speak English think 
that translation equipment is for everybody else, it's not for them.  
So it's very important for those who think they don't need this because 
they can understand English, it's important for them to understand that 
when someone speaks Spanish, for example, it's important that the whole 
public understands them.

 So I see that a lot of people here aren't using the equipment, and I 
don't know if they actually all have a wonderful, fluent control of 
Spanish and English and Russian and French.

 Since 1989 in the meeting at Santiago, Chile, I was the first person 
who spoke in a language which wasn't English at a level meeting.  I had 
-- I was lucky enough to beat Amadeu Abril, who was behind me in line, 
and I spoke before he did.  And I remember it was the presentation of 
the report on GAC that Paul Twomey was giving.  And it was funny, 
because he didn't have translation equipment.  So it was funny, because 
the whole world started to stand up and look for equipment.  And so now 
when I saw that Sebastien spoke and all of you had your equipment, your 
translation at hand, I was very pleased to see it.  Let's continue it 
that way.

 It's very important also for some of us to be able to express 
ourselves in more than one language, that there's no better way to 
express one's ideas than in one's own language.

 I think this is very healthy, everything we've done.  It puts us on 
the right path.  But there are strong changes that need to happen in 
the aspect of translations, and I hope that this is just a way to keep 
on bettering and promoting this in future.  Thank you.

 >>WERNER STAUB:   -- about the IDN ccTLDs.  I followed this for some 
time, and I'm very happy that at least there's consensus about the 
fast-track.

 However, I'm concerned at things that I heard in terms of what some 
people might have expected from the fast-track in terms of what could 
be included there.  I think it's important not to make the fast-track a 
slow track by adding too many things that could safely be addressed 
later, such as the ability for a given western country to have an IDN 
ccTLD in Chinese or Arabic where there's no urgent need for that in the 
country itself.  Whereas, we have other countries that have an urgent 
need in their respective education system, commerce, whatever, for the 
use of their own language on the IDN Internet addresses.  And those 
should really be given priority.

 The other thing that is of concern is an excessive restriction in 
terms of saying that this might be a fixed number of ccTLDs per country 
as a purely numerical interpretation.

 I think we know that needs are very different from one country to 
another.  We know that India, for instance, will need a fair number of 
IDN  ccTLDs for India, whereas Switzerland, for instance, my country, 
needs none.  So this doesn't have to be a fixed number, and wouldn't 
necessarily be one.

 And there are other countries, such as Iran and China, that have a 
need for technical, so to speak, or (inaudible) variants that are 
necessary not because they want many ccTLD variants, just because a 
need based on the language.

 I hope we can all find consensus on this easily and not have a fast-
track that takes until 2009.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you very much.

 I think a number of individuals believe that we can manage to find 
compromise there.  I think the number one that was proposed for the IDN 
ccTLDs was intended to be a way of simply accelerating the process.

 But I don't think it was intended to be the last word.

 In any case, your point's well taken.

 Bruce, you had your hand up, but it might have been on the translation 
question.  Is that right?

 If we could delay from the floor for a moment, Bruce, please go ahead.

 >>BRUCE TONKIN:   Thank you, Vint.  I just wanted to make the comment 
-- and I'm speaking in English, and my native language is English.  I 
just wanted to make the point between the audio translation and the 
visual text translation.

 Because some in the audience might feel that people sitting up here or 
in the audience were not listening to those speaking in French or 
Spanish, but I often find even for English speakers, quite often, 
particularly with the acoustics of this room, I find myself we have a 
screen in front of us here that is translating people speaking in 
different languages into English, and that is also displayed on the 
screen there.  So I just wanted to make the point that we are listening 
to the people speaking in different languages and we are reading the 
translations.  And often, I find if I'm trying to understand Paul 
Twomey, that I need to read the translation as well.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>VINT CERF:   I will excuse the two Australians who may wish to 
settle this matter outside of the room.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>VINT CERF:   Roberto, you had a question or a comment.

 >>ROBERTO GAETANO:   Yes.  I would like to reply to Sebastien, since 
he asked the question in French, I'll continue in French.

 Sebastien, you know that I'm always in favor of language translation, 
interpretation, the use of various languages.

 But I think that there is a problem when you offer documents in 
different languages other than English.  And that's for a very simple 
reason:  The majority of those documents are going to be submitted for 
comments.  It's a collective effort.  And it might be a limitation of 
the board, but the working language is, in the end, English.  It's much 
more practical to present documents in English.

 This doesn't mean that afterwards we shouldn't translate them in all 
the various languages, languages that are adequate to use.  But I think 
that there should be a distinction between what is practical and 
reasonable, and we should set some limits, at least for now.

 So I don't believe that in the near future we're going to see 
documents being presented in other languages than English except if 
they come from a specific constituency.  I think, for example, of 
communications from the at-large and so on.  But among the 21 of us, we 
should use a language that we all know.

 Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you, Roberto.

 I think we take the next question from the floor.

 >> JIANKANG YAO:  Good morning, everyone.  My name is Yao Jiankang, 
from CNNIC.  I would like to have some comments to the IDN report.

 As some already know, the Chinese, Japanese, Korean have some current 
variant problems.  For English, upper-case "A" and lowercase "A" is the 
same to English people.  But, similarly, in Chinese, one Chinese 
character, one can sound the same, have same meaning, there may be many 
different codepoints in the computer.

 So I already introduced this problem at ccNSO meeting.  Some already 
heard me speak about this.  Maybe someone already knows this.

 So a key problem is, RFC 3743, which is for IDN registration and the 
administration of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.

 The principle of RFC 3743 is to protect the interests of the Internet 
community.  So if the principle of RFC 3743 is not used in future IDN 
TLDs, they will introduce new phishing problems.

 So RFC 3743, this RFC has already solved the problem, second-level IDN 
TLD phishing problems.  So this maybe should be used in the future, IDN 
top-level TLD problems.

 ICANN will obey the rule of IETF-related -- IDN-related RFC.  The 
principle of this RFC should also be considered in the future when 
assigning the new IDN gTLDs.

 Now ICANN's IDN Wiki tester, there's two versions:  Example.test -- 
actually, in Chinese, there's a simplified Chinese version of 
example.tester.  Another is a traditional version of example.tester for 
Chinese.  Maybe for some Japanese, Korean, these two versions is the 
same.  Like uppercase "A" and lowercase "A," if these two domain names 
belong to different registrants, maybe they will introduce phishing 
problems.

 For example, the simplified Chinese version bank.test, and the 
traditional Chinese version, bank.test, one belongs to me.  Another is 
to the USA Bank.

 So for Chinese, is same, but one I.P. address points to U.S. bank.  
Another points to me.  And maybe someone trying to get the U.S. bank 
actually send to my computer, so they will transfer the money to me.  
So maybe I will be a billionaire.

 So, please, RFC 3743 is, as I say, a bundled name with character words 
to the same registrant.  So in the future, when you sign a simplified 
IDN gTLD -- a simple Chinese version or a traditional Chinese version, 
so these two versions maybe should -- it will be assigned to the 
registries.  So it should be assigned to the same registry.  If it 
assigned to a different registry, so it will be introduced phishing 
problems.  I think ICANN is to protect the interests of Internet 
community, is not to introduce new phishing problem.

 Thank you, everyone.

 >>VINT CERF:   Okay.  First of all, thank you very much for all of the 
very great trouble you went to to prepare your remarks.  I thank you 
very much for that.

 Tina probably should respond, because there may be a misunderstanding 
about the tests compared to the practices we intend to use in 
introducing Chinese top-level domains.

 So, Tina, if you would like to respond now, and I think I -- if I'm 
not fully satisfied with your response, I have a few other remarks to 
add to that.

 But I think that, in fact, we will satisfy you that we are not going 
to do something dangerous.

 Tina, go ahead.

 >>TINA DAM:   Okay.  So thank you very much for the comment and all 
the details of it.

 You touch on a lot of different topics, so I'm just going to try to 
provide some answers on some of all of it, anyways.

 So, first of all, when it comes to the question of what character is 
valid for an IDN, second level or top level, the first line of 
restrictions, if you want to call it that, is the protocol.  So the 
protocol will define to you what characters are valid.

 The second line of restrictions comes with the TLD policies.  So the 
TLD will then say, oh, of all of these characters, we are going to 
support, you know, a limited number of these, and some of them have 
variants, like your example illustrates with the simplified and 
traditional Chinese and Korean and so forth.

 And, of course, that is something that we need not just at the second 
level, but at the top level as well.

 So that is some work that needs to be organized from ICANN at a top-
level point in order to make sure that we review the applications for 
IDN TLDs with that information in mind.

 Now, when it comes to the Wikis, for each one of the dot test 
translations, the TLDs, there is only one string in each zone.  So it's 
only example.test, and there will not be made -- oops -- made 
registrations under those TLDs.  So you have dot test in simplified 
Chinese and dot test in traditional Chinese.

 There are separated Wikis.  We actually had an interesting experience 
with this, because we had some conversations with the two moderators -- 
there is a moderator for the simplified Chinese and one moderator for 
the traditional Chinese -- about whether they should be separate or if 
they should be combined into one.

 And the decision was to keep them separate, because those two 
languages are different.

 We had, in a short period of time, an instance where, on the 
simplified Chinese Wiki, there was a link to a document or a page with 
traditional Chinese information.  And the link said, if I remember 
correctly, it said, "Traditional Chinese for Taiwan" -- or something 
like that, but it said "traditional Chinese" on the simplified Chinese 
site.  That created, according to all moderators who are native 
speakers and are situated in Taiwan and in China, created a lot of user 
confusion for the Chinese users, because they couldn't figure out which 
site to go to.

 So that was changed, and they are now, you know, separated.

 That said, the moderators, of course, work together and share 
information about what's going on on the different sites.

 >> JIANKANG YAO:  Can I have comments?

 >>TINA DAM:   Yes, sure.

 >> JIANKANG YAO:  So, actually, in mainland China, both the 
traditional Chinese characters and the simple Chinese characters are 
national standards.  So now you -- in your Wiki, in Wiki pages, they 
have two moderators.  One is A, another, B.  

 For the Internet users, especially for Chinese, these two domains are 
different.  A simple Chinese version and a traditional Chinese version 
of example.test, they are different.  Maybe it belongs to different 
registrant.  So maybe give some mis- -- users a misunderstanding.

 So these two versions are not equal or not equivalent.  So my 
suggestion is to give some improvements.  So maybe this -- these two 
versions linked to the same page, so on the page, maybe say, "This is 
traditional Chinese version," another "the simple Chinese version."

 So first thing we should do is assign the same moderator.  So the 
moderator on the Web page, to the same link, say -- so the Web page 
maybe has two links, say "traditional Chinese link" and "simple Chinese 
link."  That may be better.

 >>TINA DAM:   Okay.  So my CEO says that he wants to try to comment on 
that.

 Can I just mention one thing?

 The Wikis -- some of the Wikis have one moderator.  Some of the Wikis 
have two moderators, and some of them have three moderators.

 They all work together.  It's -- you know, it's not about having just 
one.

 >>VINT CERF:   Could we hold off for just one second?

 Paul, let me let you intervene.

 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Thank you, Vint.

 First of all, may I just say how pleased we are not only to see you 
participating in the ccNSO, and congratulations to CNNIC on its coming 
to the ccNSO yesterday, I think that's a historic event -- but also at 
a personal level how pleased I am to see you here in your own role 
within CNNIC.  I know you've been taking the leadership a lot in IDN 
deployment within the CNNIC environment.  So we very much appreciate 
your attendance.

 I wanted to just clarify maybe a few assumptions in your intervention.

 As we already are starting the process of consideration of potential 
implementation of policies emerging through the GNSO and the ccNSO on 
IDN TLDs, be they related to territories associated in the 3166, part 
1, list, or be they generic terms, we are very, very aware that this 
issue of variants in several related scripts is a very key issue.  And 
we have been watching very carefully and been very supportive of the 
work done by the CJK group at the second level and the work that you 
and your colleagues have done on working through variants in those, as 
you say, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Japanese characters, 
et cetera, and understanding that there are these potential 
opportunities for phishing.

 So without yet making any firm recommendations, I can tell you that 
the ICANN staff are studying the process of looking at what mechanisms 
may be available for identification of variants, how to rely on others, 
for instance, members of the CJK group, to be able to give advice on 
variants, on string applications, and as Bruce Tonkin has pointed out 
to me, the actual policy on new gTLDs refers specifically to -- one 
specific part of the policy is what's called confusingly similar.   

 Confusingly similar has been left specifically vague, I understand.  
Well, not vague, but open by the GNSO council's work to cover not only 
visually and potentially sound-wise or pronunciation-wise similar, but 
also potentially as you are pointing out, character based -- character 
similar, or combinations of characters that could mean similar things, 
similarities.

 So I think we are very conscious of the issue and very conscious that 
you and your colleagues in northeast Asia have a lot of experience in 
this.

 And so we definitely want to have an engagement and dialogue.

 As you have pointed out, utilization of those several character sets, 
scripts may be a better way of putting it, throughout communities in 
northeast Asia has overlapped, and we are conscious of those overlaps.

 I think for the purposes of present test process, there's been one 
step taken to get it going.  But please do not consider anything in 
that process to be a fixed line as to how we will handle the long-term 
problem of ensuring certainty in an environment, as you point out, 
where different types of scripts have interactions across different 
communities, across a number of economies.

 So we want to be engaged with you as we try to think through that 
problem that you are posing.

 >>VINT CERF:   Chairman would like to intervene at this point and make 
several very, very simple points.

 Point number one, the example.test sequence that you see presently is 
simply to test the scripts.  This is not particularly a test of 
language.  This is simply a test to see how the various pieces of 
software and the Internet will react when they use those scripts.

 This has nothing to do with the plans and procedures for actually 
registering top-level domains.

 It has to do with the technical test of the scripts.

 It is very clear, both from what Paul has said and what you have said, 
that confusingly similar includes the variant problem, which is well 
described in the CJK work, and should be part of the process of 
assigning and delegating top-level domains, second level domains in 
those scripts.

 So I want -- I hope I can put your mind at rest that no one that I 
know of thinks that any of the example.test cases should be kept in 
permanent form.  It is merely there for a temporary test of the script.  
And we would not, I think, reasonably ever contemplate putting 
traditional Chinese strings and simplified Chinese strings distinctly 
into the root because of the overlap.

 So I hope that if there are any other issues that might be improved, 
may I invite you to work off-line with Tina to improve the quality of 
the test.

 But once again, I emphasize this is a test of the scripts.

 Thank you very much for taking the time, though, to make this 
intervention, and welcome to Los Angeles.

 >>JIANKANG YAO:   Yes, thank you.

 Thank you, Chairman, thank you CEO, and thank you Tina.

 Thank you everyone.

 >>VINT CERF:   Cary.

 >>CARY KARP:   I would like to call attention to one technical detail 
that hasn't been mentioned yet, which is both the simplified and the 
Chinese example.test are delegated to the exact same organization and 
resolve to the exact same single I.P. address and there is no means for 
averting risk for phishing that goes beyond that.

 And what is being done with these things is a matter of consensus 
among the participating -- we're calling them moderators.

 So merging any two discussion fora of the 11 is a matter of ten 
minutes reconfiguring a Wiki.

 So again, this entire example.test thing presents no phishing risk.  
One entity is operating all of the domains and it is one I.P. address 
that is being used for them all.

 >>VINT CERF:   But Cary, more to the point, none of these example.test 
domains allows any further registrations or anything else.  This is not 
an open opportunity to register anything.

 This is a test of the scripts.

 >>CARY KARP:   Well, I think there is some risk, I suppose, that some 
entity might register something in some other domain that is intended 
to look as though it were an example.test.  I'm not sure how that could 
be constructed, but there's a theoretical risk, I suppose.

 >>VINT CERF:   Okay.  I think it's unlikely, and we will take all 
these things down anyway.

 Okay.

 Next question.

 >>YISHAN FAN:   Hello, council, hello audience.  My name is Yishan 
Fan.  I am from registrar constituency.

 Just a follow-up to the previous conversation.  As a person, the 
personal opinion, that I really believe that for Chinese people, 
simplified characters and traditional characters are totally the same 
as uppercase English letters and lowercase English letters.

 So can you imagine dot anything uppercase and dot anything lowercase 
is going to mapping to totally different Web site that will be really 
problematic.

 So here is my well-organized speech here.

 All I just want to stress here is to remind the council and the 
community that different scripts of one single language is likely to 
raise some serious problems.

 The point here is we will not identify different scripts in a single 
language as different domain name from one another.

 I personally believe Chinese language community might be one of the 
victim of this issue in the future because we will not be able to -- I 
mean, as a Chinese registrar, will not be able to bear the legal 
consequence that intellectual property owners are supposed to not only 
protect their names by different IDN TLDs but also by different 
scripts, and the commercial consequence that registrants will be 
charged subject to the number of scripts in one single IDN top-level 
domain.

 So that may significantly generate an active influence to Internet 
users, brand owners, directly delivered by other local registrars.

 So I'll say again, every single Chinese letter has two scripts which 
is very similar to uppercase English letters and lowercase English 
letters.

 We -- Fortunately, I just learned from my friends that RFC 3743, the 
IETF standard, have just perfectly resolved this problem by making 
simplified and traditional Chinese character technically equivalent 
from each other.

 So what I may suggest here is what would better preserve the 
traditional character names for the simplified ones or vice versa.  
Since we all value this concept of user experience, it is really a 
reasonable solution which I believe that every registrant should be 
given the privelege of traditional Chinese domain names, which when 
they are registering are simplified Chinese domains.

 So, again, council members, please keep in mind do not let different 
script in one single language confuse Internet users.  And it also 
saves registrars costs from coping with those potential legal issues.

 Thank you very much.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you.  It's my expectation that the variant 
approach is the most likely one to be used for registration at the top 
level, as it has been proposed at second level.

 It's using that same technique.

 So I believe that the likely outcome is exactly the same as second 
level.  Namely, that you collapse any particular registration using the 
variant tables.

 Okay.  Thank you very much.

 Next question.

 And this will have to be the last one because we are over time now 
into our break.

 Well, Ram, you have relevance in the IDN space.  But Ram, you have to 
be the end of the queue.  If anyone comes behind you, kindly deck them.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>VINT CERF:   Go ahead.

 >>YU YANG:  Thank you, Chairman.  And good morning, everyone.

 This is Yu Yang from CNNIC.  I am also the representative from China's 
Internet community.

 Here are some comments regarding the election of the ICANN Board of 
Directors.

 Before my trip to this ICANN meeting, lots of members from local 
Internet communities consulted me on the composition of the ICANN 
board.

 They are wondering if the counter diversity is still a major concern, 
since it is one of the key principles set in ICANN bylaws.

 They are also concerned about the transparency of the election 
process.  For it seems less information was released since the close of 
the ICANN nomination process.

 That is also what we want to know.

 Anyway, we thank the NomCom for their hard work because we all know 
that it is quite a difficult task to deal with so many candidates in 
such a short period of time.

 And while we also expect further improvement that NomCom could make in 
the future, I believe that the people from Asia-Pacific community are 
willing to be involved more in the ICANN affairs.  And they are seeking 
for their rare opportunity.

 Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   I'm sure that if you would be so kind as to get in 
touch with Hagen Hultzsch, or with -- I'm sorry, I have just drawn a 
terrible blank -- Wolfgang Kleinw?chter, both of them would be very 
pleased to accept suggestions for candidates.

 So if you would take that initiative, you would be much appreciated.

 Ram.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Vint, could I just -- if I could just add to 
that.  If there's any difficulty that you see, and I think you 
mentioned a problem about information coming out of the process, you 
should be aware that the whole of the Nominating Committee process is 
under review.  And if you have suggestions as to how to improve the 
nominating process, please put those into the review process of the 
Nominating Committee.  Thank you.

 >>YU YANG:  Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   Ram, you have the pleasure of making the last comment 
before coffee.

 >>RAM MOHAN:   Thank you, I am Ram Mohan.  I have several observations 
and a couple of recommendations to bring to you.

 In terms of observations, when it comes to IDNs and IDN TLDs, perhaps 
it is worth noting that the issue is sometimes less about new 
opportunity as it is about protecting what already exists.

 So the IDN issue is as much about protection as it is about 
opportunity.

 And I believe that, at least from where I stand, ICANN is not really 
sending clear signals about protection.  It really, I think, allows the 
opening for what I call self-protective measures.

 So you are talking about sovereign nations.  You are talking about 
registry operators that have built brand and value.  And some of the 
voices that come out are voices about this brand-new world and new 
opportunity.  But it's almost as much about protecting what exists.

 In this ICANN meeting, I have had conversations with several 
individuals who are in positions of influence who have expressed that 
while ICANN is talking fast track, in the actions are showing a 2009-
ish time frame for something, quote-unquote, "Real" to happen.

 And here is a quote from one of the individuals I have spoken to.  The 
longer ICANN takes to communicate a defined plan, the more incentive 
there is to build alternate schemes.  Let us build schemes now so that 
when ICANN is ready to listen and take into consideration IDN TLDs, we 
will already have built up a community, and already have built up 
enough names and enough momentum that it will be almost impossible to 
ignore.

 So that's an observation.  And I think you need to consider that.

 It's -- part of it is about doing stuff and part of it is about 
communicating what you are going to do.  And the communication, 
sometimes what comes out is we're waiting on a community process, we're 
waiting on a grounds-up -- you know, bottom-up process.  But in the 
meanwhile you have sovereign nations and you have other TLD operators 
sitting there and saying, "Well, my brand is going to go away.  Let me 
go build something right now."  It may be a temporary measure, but 
clearly that is tolerable, and it's a good defense mechanism.

 That's one observation.

 The second observation is I believe that the current words that are 
going around about one territory, one script, one TLD plan, it does not 
scale.

 And in some cases it actually breaks national laws.

 Perhaps it is time to start thinking about changing a model from -- 
it's simple to think of one script, one territory, and kind of stay 
with the legacy that we have with the ISO 3166 list.  But really, the 
issues now have to do with script, with representations of script, and 
there are, I think, some core principles to consider that are different 
in the IDN world.

 We have to look at script, not language.

 We have to look at visual equivalency, not semantic equivalency.

 Television is not the same as TV.

 And somewhere, you have got to say it is not the same.

 Quite clearly, it's got to be black and white.  It's not clearly 
enunciated right now.

 And I think there is also a place to come out and say national 
sovereign names that withstands scrutiny or would have legal 
constitutional measures, that there will be some measure of protection.

 It's not so much about you will do it tomorrow.  It's about it will 
have serious consideration and protection.

 So those are two observations that I would like to make and I have a 
couple of suggestions on things that perhaps ICANN and the community 
ought to work on.

 As Paul Twomey had said, clearly work needs to be done on language and 
variant tables and building up some capability there.

 The Internet community, especially when it comes to IDNs, clearly much 
more work needs to be done on what I call a language capability.

 And I'm specifically saying "language" because countries and people of 
the world think of things as languages, not as scripts; right?

 And I think what we need to do is to actually provide some 
facilitation on how to build up this capability.  If you want to get 
something in Arabic, you better have a clear idea that you have to 
develop a table and a set of functionality that handles not the Arabic 
language but all languages that actually use the script underneath it.

 In India, there is work going on with the Devanagari script that is 
used for 12 languages to build core functionality that says here is a 
table that can work across and have variants being built.

 There's a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo that lots of folks do not 
understand.

 Policy people need and governments and influencers need clear message 
that says here is a plan.  Here is how you do it.

 I think also, something to consider, which kind of breaks some pre-
existing notions of how to sell and how to offer domain names.  With 
IDNs, perhaps it is time to consider working, maybe it's policy work, 
but it crosses constituencies, it crosses gTLD and ccTLD boundaries.  
But perhaps it's time to start thinking about working on script bundles 
that cross registry and geographic boundaries.  Because that will 
provide really commercially feasible and a convenient way for those who 
buy domain names and use domain names to think of if I have Coca-Cola, 
I can buy the Coca-Cola script bundle in the Chinese character set 
regardless of the TLDs that they are in.

 Thank you.

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

 John, you are standing there -- no, no, no.  I asked Ram to deck you.

  [ Laughter ]

 >>VINT CERF:   I said that we were done after Ram was done.  If you 
have something to say, you will have to wait until the next break.

 Sorry.

 We will take a break until -- well, the plan was to reconvene at 
10:30.

 I'll suggest we reconvene at 10:40 in view of the lateness of the 
hour.

 (Coffee break.)

 >>VINT CERF:   Ladies and gentlemen, would you kindly take your seats, 
and we will resume the public forum.

 Sebastien Bachollet has an announcement to make about the translation 
and the channels.

 Sebastien.

 >>SEBASTIEN BACHOLLET:   So for technical reasons, we are done with 
channel 1 for French.  We're now on channel 4 for French.

 Thank you very much.

 >>VINT CERF:   I had cut off John Klensin in order to allow for a 
delayed coffee break.  But I'll invite Dr. Klensin to the microphone in 
order to make his brief comments.

 >>JOHN KLENSIN:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I suppose I should comment 
that I have been decked before for causes and issues which are far less 
important than IDNs.  So I thought it was worth a try.

 I just wanted to comment on, ultimately, not what RAM said, because I 
think he and I are largely in agreement on these issues, although we 
would prioritize some things differently, but on what, based upon some 
conversations I've had with people this week and earlier, I'm afraid 
people heard.

 To emphasize that difference, while language is very important here 
and people tend to think about languages and not scripts, as he said, 
we actually know how to incorporate language information into the DNS.  
We've known all the way along, as we do internationalization.  But to 
do so vastly complicates a range of other things, and getting all the 
details close enough to right that we can deploy it and make it even 
plausibly work would set this effort back another five to ten years.

 And I, for one, thing we ought to be getting on with this rather than 
figuring excuses to delay.

 And as a consequence, given the DNS and the way it works, we need to 
accept two things, one of which is that while people think about 
language, while at the same time noting that most of the names that we 
have in the DNS, as far as I can tell, are not valid words in anything 
even now, we also have to understand that there are inherent 
limitations to the DNS, that when we start pushing very far in the 
direction of language and syntax and semantics, get us into problems 
which the DNS cannot solve.

 Human beings match things which don't quite look alike very, very 
well.  The DNS is absolutely terrible.  As far as it's concerned, at 
the bottom level, these things are bit strings, and bit strings either 
match or they don't match.

 And we need to be careful as we start talking about more advanced ways 
of doing these things that we're not making IDNs impossible in the 
interest of trying to do something which we will have to solve in other 
ways that the DNS cannot accomplish.

 Thank you.

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

 The next item on the agenda is to learn a bit more about our Asia-
Pacific meeting.  And to introduce us to that anticipated meeting is N. 
Ravi Shankar, who is secretary of the department of information 
technology in the government of India.

 So I'd like to invite Secretary Shankar to the microphone, please.

 >>N. RAVI SHANKAR:   Good morning, everybody.  Mr. Chairman, sir, and 
distinguished members of the board of directors of ICANN, ladies and 
gentlemen, it's my privilege and pleasure to say a few words about 
ICANN 2008 New Delhi.

 I must welcome you all very warmly to New Delhi with the words that we 
would like to make it a "happening place."

 New Delhi, incidentally, is the capital of India.  It's a mega city.  
And I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, it will be a very comfortable 
place to reach from any part of the world, because New Delhi is 
connected to most parts of the world through airline connections.

 The second thing I'd like to mention is about the venue of the ICANN 
meeting, which will be from 10th to 15th of February 2008.  The venue 
is the Taj Palace Hotel, which is one of the premier hotels of New 
Delhi.  I assure you again, ladies and gentlemen, it should be a very 
comfortable place for having an international conference.

 I can see some of the faces go agog when I mention the name "Taj 
Palace Hotel."  Because perhaps everyone is looking at "Taj" itself.  I 
must mention that Taj Mahal is just three hours away from New Delhi.  
The city of Agra is about 150 kilometers away from New Delhi, and it's 
approachable by road.  It's a three-hour journey from New Delhi.  

 A few things I'd just like to say is, the month of February is what we 
call winter in northern India.  It should be very pleasant as far as 
people are traveling from other parts of the world are concerned.  And 
I would say it's a salubrious climate at that point of the year in New 
Delhi.

 The India story on I.T. would be something that I'm sure all of you 
would be looking forward to.  We also feel elated about the fact that 
India matters and counts these days in the I.T. sector.  And we would 
definitely like to showcase our wide achievements in that field.

 A few of them are the technology development in Indian languages 
itself, which would be a precursor to the way in which the 
democratization of the Internet could take place.  A language should 
not be a barrier for the Internet penetration.  And as the IGF fourfold 
approach highlights -- access, diversity, openness, and security -- I 
think on these platforms of access and diversity, we are going fairly 
full steam ahead to achieve what we would call the full access under 
the national eGovernment plan of India.  With these few words, ladies 
and gentlemen, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you, 
once again, and say that New Delhi would be the venue for both ICANN in 
February 2008 and IGF in December 2008.  It will be from 8 to 11th of 
December in 2008.  And ICANN will be from February 10th to 15th.

 And so 2008 would be a happening year as far as the Internet world 
will be coming, and New Delhi is the place to be.

 Thank you very much.

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you very much.

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   I can report from personal experience that the best 
time of year to be in Delhi is between roughly November and March.  So 
the two meetings that are scheduled are in the perfect time of year, as 
far as my personal experience is concerned.

 Let's move on now to the next report, which comes from the Address 
Supporting Organization.  And I'll call on Ray Plzak to make that 
report, please.

 >>RAY PLZAK:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 First of all, before I begin our report to the board this morning, I 
would like to take the opportunity on behalf of my fellow colleagues, 
the CEOs and directors and so forth of the various RIRs, to thank you 
very much for your service.  As chairman of ICANN, we really appreciate 
what you've done, and we look forward to working with you again in the 
future.

 Also, I would like to take the opportunity to personally thank you for 
the interactions that you and I have had over the years in various 
capacities, and I would look forward to that continuing as well.  So 
thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you very much.  I take it that working with you 
in the future was a threat or something like that.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>VINT CERF:   But I look forward to that, Ray.

 >>RAY PLZAK:   Take it as you wish.  For those of you who are 
desperately seeking to find the PowerPoint presentations for this, 
don't bother.  There are none.

 I chose not to distract you from your chat rooms and e-mail and so 
forth.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>RAY PLZAK:   So it will not be there.  Or from using a certain 
proprietary search engine.

 So, on to the matter at hand.

 First thing.  Regarding the policy development process, the -- we are 
conducting a re-look at the way we manage the processing of global 
policy proposals.  There's been some little glitches along the road in 
terms of interaction and notifications.  And so to that end, the 
Address Council has undertaken a charge to work on coming up with some 
things that will enable a more -- smoother process through the various 
RIR regions.

 In addition, there's been a call for increased outreach in all the 
regions.  And so all the RIRs have done that as well.  And we are 
broadening our community, if you will, in terms of including people who 
are traditionally not considered to be a part of the RIRs, the 
addressing community.  And to that end, the Address Council conducted a 
workshop for the ASO this week.  And we had as an agenda, a person from 
the ALAC.  And we had a very good interaction and dialogue with the 
ALAC.  And we will continue to try to involve persons in the at-large 
community, the civil society community in our policy processes so that 
stronger and better policies are developed.

 Normally, I would be showing you a bunch of slides with pie charts and 
bars and statistics, and so forth.  And, actually, if you really want 
to see those, you can go to the NRO Web site and download and look at 
the latest set of statistics.  But the real thing that everyone's 
concerned about, the only statistic they're concerned about is the 
number.  And that number today is 42.  The number of /8s remaining in 
the IANA free pool.

 And there has been a lot of discussion about this, both in the RIR 
FORA, as well in other FORA.

 The -- currently, there are two policy proposals that are attempting 
to deal with this on a global basis.  But before I mention those, there 
is another global policy proposal that is on its way to the ICANN 
board, probably early next year, which deals with the allocation of 
autonomous system numbers from the IANA to the RIRs.  It's basically a 
bookkeeping exercise, if you will, in that it's going to codify 
existing practices.  And it has sailed through all the RIRs in good 
order, with no controversy or discussion.  It's just a matter of 
processes, taking care of it.

 In regards to the IPv4 depletion, currently, there are two sets of 
discussions occurring, one about the end of the IANA free pool, and 
then the other is in the individual regions as far as what they do 
individually.

 In regards to the free pool, there have been two main proposals that 
have been raised.  And in the end, it appears that community consensus 
regionally, on a global basis, is that there should be some established 
point at which the IANA free pool is ended.

 And the discussion is is that at what point do you do that?  What's 
the number?

 Currently, the number seems to be coalescing that when the IANA free 
pool reaches five /8s, that those remaining five will be distributed 
one each to each of the RIRs.

 And so that's working its way through.  And, hopefully, sometime 
through the course of next year, a firm proposal will be presented to 
the ICANN board.

 Regionally, the policy activities have focused on two areas.  One is 
the adjustments that occur to the regional policies themselves as far 
as different aspects of doing business in the regions.  And the other 
one is, in a sense, sort of global in scope.  And that has to deal with 
what does each individual region do with its allocation policies and 
other policies regarding the management of the IPv4 address space.

 Currently, this is probably the more difficult discussion, because 
there are a number of complex issues that float in and out of -- one of 
the ones that's very popular to bring up is markets and how to regulate 
them and so forth.  I'm not going to go into any details of these 
discussions, because with regard to this and with regard to the global 
proposals, there is no real universal solution to some of these 
problems.  There are a lot of regional solutions.

 There's going to be some global consensus and global trend of 
agreement.

 And while some persons would like to make simple, sound-bite 
descriptions of the problem and characterize it in very simple, sound-
bite, 30-second phrases and slogans and so forth, and then proposal 
similar 30-second, sound-bite answers, that is not that easy.

 We have asked the advisory -- the Government Advisory Council earlier 
this week that governments in some form or another acknowledge that the 
proper place for this discussion is to occur in the regional policy 
FORA and that -- and to encourage people to do so.

 Our outreach activities have been directed in this area.  It's a very 
complex issue.  And so while we can sit up here this morning and have a 
very long discussion about it, in the end, we will have to have a very 
long discussion about it, but I don't necessarily think that this 
general session this morning is the place for that.

 So lastly, I will ask the ICANN board to do the same thing that we 
requested of the GAC and that we are requesting of individual 
governments in our region, which is to acknowledge the fact that the 
place for these discussions to occur in a meaningful manner and in the 
most positive and effective manner is in the RIR policy FORA.

 And so with that, Mr. Chairman, I conclude my remarks and thank you 
very much.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you very much, Ray, for your brevity and also for 
the work of the ASO and the RIRs and the NRO on the very difficult 
process of getting IPv6 in place.

 I see one question or comment, coming from Raimundo.

 >>RAIMUNDO BECA:  In Espa?ol.

 >>VINT CERF:  Go ahead.  In Espa?ol.  All right.  Go for it.

 >>RAIMUNDO BECA:   This is simply -- just like Raul Echeberria said a 
little while ago, this is not to say anything particularly special, but 
to underline how important it is to express in one's own language.

 I take advantage of this opportunity to say two things.  With Ray, for 
many years, we have agreed that when we are in a country where Spanish 
is spoken, I use the name "Ray," which is what they call me at home, 
and his name -- he gets called "Raimundo."  And when we're in other 
countries, he's "Ray," and then I'm "Raimundo."  When we're in 
California, I don't know.  I don't know which name to use or which name 
to give him.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>RAIMUNDO BECA:   The second thing I'd like to say is that yesterday, 
the 31st of October, the day before the day of the dead, and Halloween 
and all of that, it is five years -- the (inaudible) had been created 
in five years, this is the anniversary.  I would like to take advantage 
to say this today, and another five years, the year 2012, we will be in 
hyperspace already.

 [ Applause ]

 >>RAY PLZAK:   May I make two comments, Mr. Chair?

 >>VINT CERF:   Of course, Ray.  Go ahead.

 >>RAY PLZAK:   First of all, Raimundo, Alta California, Raimundo, Ray.  
Baja, California, Ray, Raimundo.

 The second thing in regard to translations, all of the RIRs do 
translate their material.  In the ARIN region, the primary languages 
are English, Spanish, and French.  And you will find our policy process 
and many documents translated into those languages.  You will find 
similar things in the various other regions in terms of translations.

 In addition, I made an open invitation to the ALAC yesterday with 
regards to the ARIN material, that some of the material that we had 
produced had been found to be useful in other regions, and that we 
would gladly translate that into other languages other than those that 
are primarily used in our region.

 So the understanding of the languages is very, very important to us.

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

 I don't see other comments at this point.  So thank you.  You may step 
down.

 The next report comes from Jacqueline Morris, and the subject matter 
is the At-Large Advisory Committee.

 She's coming down the -- from the side there.

 And Jacqueline is rounding the corner, and she is running --

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   Welcome, Jacqueline.

 >>JACQUELINE MORRIS:   Okay.  Thank you.

 The ALAC has been undergoing a lot of change in the past year.  We are 
definitely living in interesting times.  We've add -- (inaudible) 
almost the entire ALAC, with only two members having had more than one 
years' experience in ALAC.  We've moved from working in English only to 
working consistently in English, Spanish, and French.  We've had a lot 
of cultural adjustment to make, and this is still ongoing.  Growing 
pains, we're feeling them.

 It has been painful, and I'm sure there's more pain to come.  But I 
believe the worst is already over.

 There's a need to review the mission of the ALAC and to put new goals 
in place.

 For the past year, our focus has been on ending the interim ALAC and 
forming the real, final, true ALAC.  This has finally been achieved.  
All that remains is for the AP RALO to have their signing ceremony, 
which has been postponed to February in Delhi by circumstances beyond 
our control.  But they are all up and running.

 And we really want to thank all the members of the ALAC, past and 
present, and all the members of all the ALSs who have worked so hard to 
make this a reality.

 And the ALAC would greatly appreciate continued involvement in at-
large from those of us who are moving on.  The knowledge and experience 
of the past will be invaluable to the ALAC as it moves forward.

 On Sunday, the ALAC went through a one-day strategy session, which 
included team-building and SWAT analysis.  This was very useful.  This 
meeting was designed to facilitate building the new team.  We think a 
common vision of the ALAC by its members is vital to move forward 
successfully, and as the outcome of the session, that vision was shared 
by all.

 The secretariats of the RALOs have also been meeting here in Los 
Angeles, as you may have read in yesterday's ICANN newsletter.  About 
that story, all I have to say is, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors 
of ALAC's discontent and predicted death are greatly exaggerated.

 The secretariat did have a very productive meeting.  They have set up 
systems for regional -- for cross-regional coordination and 
information-sharing.  And that's because we don't want to have regional 
silos.  We need to have a global organization.  We need them to all 
work together.

 And to this end, the at-large is currently working on a proposal to 
have a summit for all the regions sometime next year.  Despite all this 
work being done on organizational issues, we still somehow have managed 
to develop some policy positions, with the great help of some of the 
at-large members, most especially Hong Xue, Vittorio Bertola, Danny 
Younger, and John Levine.

 We developed a policy paper on IDNs for an at-large working group that 
was led by Hong.  And this has already been transmitted to the board.  
But, in brief, we want to say that the ALAC emphasizes the pressing 
need from the user community for IDNs.  We support a balanced and 
effective fast-track approach for implementation of IDN ccTLDs.  We 
welcome the new PDP proposal from the ccNSO and reiterate our strong 
commitment to bring the individual users' voices to this policy-making 
process.  ALAC has submitted to the board the status report on IDN 
ccTLD issues, which contains our recommendations on the principles, 
policies, and implementation of IDN ccTLDs.

 We primarily recommend that implementation of IDN ccTLDs comply with 
all the technical standards to ensure the interoperability and security 
and selection and accreditation of any IDN ccTLD be subjected to 
sufficient, transparent, and effective consultations in the pertinent 
user community.

 Given that the IDN test is going on and the --

 >>VINT CERF:   Jacqueline, I apologize for interrupting.  You need to 
slow down.

 >>JACQUELINE MORRIS:   Slow down.  Okay.

 Given that the IDN test is going on and the IDN protocols are being 
reviewed, we are keen to know whether there is a timeline for 
implementation of IDN gTLDs under the auspices of the new gTLD process.

 And, finally, we also organized an IDN workshop from the users' 
perspective at the IGF in collaboration with the ccNSO, GAC, and ICANN 
staff.

 Via working groups, we've developed policy positions on several other 
issues.  I'm not sure how many of you attended Danny Younger's 
excellent presentation on the RAA yesterday.

 Those are expected to be approved by the ALAC in the very near future 
and will be officially transmitted as advice to the board.

 On RAA, while the ALAC regards the synthesis of public commentary on 
registrar accreditation agreements to be a good start, we are concerned 
that a number of proposals made by the at-large community and consumer 
organizations intended to make more concrete some specific contract 
enforcement provisions between ICANN and registrars, along with 
compliance with the agreements themselves, have been classified as 
unfeasible or outside ICANN's scope.

 A number of provisions in Section F were suggested to give consumers 
assistance, direction, and help in choosing a registrar:  A means of 
redress when disputes arise, objective and public data detailing 
registrar problems, and some assignation of responsibility on 
registrars to provide security enhancing and stability.  Perhaps 
somewhat predictably, the classification of at-large and user comments 
on the RAA into what probably will be done might be done through other 
means or venues, and what probably is not going to be done seems to go 
easy on registrars while still leaving substantial gaps in the 
registrar agreements for abuse of the user community.

 Section F, item 21, states, "We ask ICANN staff to prepare a summary 
of the current practices, fees, and burdens imposed on registrants by a 
significant sample of registrars.  The ALAC is ready to ask for an 
issue report if necessary."  

 We, however, have not determined if this step is necessary.

 In response to the GNSO recommendations to the board on new gTLDs, at-
large convened the working group under Danny Younger to draft a 
response.  Working in record time, this group put together a position 
paper.  Although not yet a formal ALAC position, the ALAC, in 
conjunction with the regional organizations, is reviewing this paper 
and will be sending its formal position to the board shortly.

 With regard to the GNSO, there are three issues related to this new 
document.  First, there is a discussion on whether at-large should be 
represented on the GNSO, which ends with the statement, "The users 
could participate in the commercial or noncommercial groups, depending 
on how they viewed their registration."

 Surely, the BGC understands that not all users have their own 
registrations.  Something over one billion of them are just users.

 Secondly, the argument is made that since the ALAC and at-large exist 
to advise the board, they do not need a presence on the GNSO.

 This presumes that it is adequate to be reactive to GNSO policy 
drafts.  In reality, inputs received during comment periods do not have 
a good record of making it into next revisions unless they are strong 
advocates for it.

 The move to working groups which can include individuals may help 
this.  But a vote on the GNSO Council will still be an effective 
mechanism for helping to ensure that end user needs are addressed 
during the policy creation process instead of after.

 The new Board Governance Committee proposal does not mention liaisons, 
apparently because the BGC did not see any reason to change things.  
But the record does explicitly state that there should be regular 
contact between the various SOs and the ALAC and mentions telephone 
conference calls between the chairs.  If such calls make sense, 
certainly the corresponding liaison should also be included.

 Our issues report request on domain tasting is moving through the 
GNSO, and the ALAC has continued to put much effort into this process.

 We continue to build relationships with other groups within ICANN and 
without.  Our statement on IPv4 V6 in the ASO was well received 
yesterday, as you just heard.

 I want to repeat it here.  We are aware that sometime within a few 
years, a current pool of IPv4 addresses will expire, which may have a 
significant impact on the use of the Internet by the broad public.  We 
ask the global address allocation registries to make sure that the 
allocation of the remaining pool of IPv4 addresses be done in a fair 
and equitable manner.  We are concerned about the potential creation of 
a black market of IPv4 addresses and call for a rational way to make a 
secondary market a reality.  We also call for a reasonable way of re-
collecting the unused IPv4 address blocks.

 We also call for more outreach work initiated by the community to make 
sure that the issues are understood clearly and the solutions are 
communicated openly.

 We understand that the best solution to this challenge is to make a 
smooth and orderly transition to the brought use of IPv6.  There are 
several challenges and tasks required to make that happen.

 We need to organize an awareness campaign for the need for timely 
transition.  Avoid media scares by providing accurate information to 
the wider public.  Make sure that all public sites by government and 
commercial service providers implement IPv4/V6 capacity in a timely 
manner.

 Measures need to be taken to help developing countries prepare for the 
transition in a timely and affordable manner and prepare a timeline 
under which we can operate the transition programs, such as outreach, 
technical assistance, and other preparation, and also timely manner, so 
that suitable, reliable, and effective planning can be made.

 To wrap up, the ALAC has gone through a really very difficult 
transition and has come out ready to take on its responsibilities as an 
advisory committee to the board, with the input of the user community.  
We have, throughout ALSs, several million members now, and we are 
working to educate users on the issues, bring their concerns to the 
board, advise the board on the user perspective on policy issues, and 
work with ICANN staff to make ICANN more user friendly, including 
multilingual documents and other tools to allow users to participate 
without the need to learn English.

 This is my last presentation to you as the chair of ALAC, and I wish 
to say it's been a really interesting experience.  I learned a lot.  
And I enjoyed most of it.

 I will definitely stay involved in ICANN and the ALAC in any role that 
they need me.  And I'd also like to introduce you to our incoming chair 
on Friday, Cheryl Langdon-Orr from the Asia-Pacific RALO.  Please wish 
her a very, very successful tenure.

 Thank you very much.

 [ Applause ]

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

 I see Njeri has her hand up and Steve and also Roberto -- oh, of 
course, Vittorio and Vanda.

 My goodness.  All right.  Let's start with Njeri.

 >>NJERI RIONGE:   Mine is to thank you so much for what you have been 
able to achieve in the last year.  You have done a great job and so has 
everyone else who was working with you.  Thank you.

 >>JACQUELINE MORRIS:   Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   Steve.

 >>STEPHEN CROCKER:   I, too, want to applaud.  That was an 
extraordinary, content-full and substantive list.  Very impressive.

 I resonate and appreciate those issues.  In very large measure, 
speaking for the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, I think we 
have a lot of shared concerns, and to the extent that opportunities are 
available for us to work together, I look forward to that.

 And let me take note that Robert Guerra has joined, previously, not 
long ago, but has been very active in SSAC as the liaison from ALAC, 
and that's been a welcome addition.

 And in the interactions that I have had on the board, Vittorio 
Bertola, and I am looking forward to working with Wendy Seltzer, have 
also been substantive and content-full.

 I think all of this is extraordinarily helpful and healthy for the 
development of the community and very much needed, so I thank you a 
lot.

 >>VINT CERF:   Vittorio and then Vanda.

 >>VITTORIO BERTOLA:   I think Njeri actually stole my line, so I 
wanted to extend my personal thanks to the outgoing members and to you 
especially because you were tasked with this impossible task of herding 
cats, but not just cats but cats that like to turn themselves into 
tigers and you did it very well.

 Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   Vanda.

 >>VANDA SCARTEZINI:   Yes.  Since I am moving to ALAC, I'd like to ask 
you to be around, because we're going to need.  And you have made a 
very huge progress.  And for us, it's very good for newcomers.  It's 
much more easy to go forward right now, because it's really a great 
progress.

 I could attend a few moments in this week, and really I saw a very 
different way of touching main issues and working together and I thank 
you for this.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you, Vanda.

 Jacqueline, just one thought.

 You made a number of recommendations and suggestions in your summary 
report.

 Many of these are actionable in one way or another.

 I would ask you to be sure that your respective liaisons convey to 
their various Supporting Organizations or committees the items that you 
listed, just to make sure we don't lose them.

 >>JACQUELINE MORRIS:   Absolutely.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you very much.

 >>JACQUELINE MORRIS:   Thank you.

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   The next item on the agenda is the ccNSO, country code 
name supporting organization, report.  And I will call on Chris 
Disspain to make that presentation.

 We're running about 22 minutes late.  By the way, Chris, that's not to 
cause you to be any more -- any more brief.  Only to warn everyone that 
this session will probably run over if there are any significant number 
of comments at the end.

 Chris.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Vint.  Good morning, everybody.  My 
name is Chris Disspain and I am the chair of the ccNSO.

 I will try and be reasonably brief, although there are three or four 
things to get through.

 First of all, IDNs.

 We have launched a policy development process, or at least called for 
an issues report on the policy development process to come up with a 
full-blown, overall policy for IDN ccTLDs.

 At the same time, I'm delighted to say that we have reached -- passed 
a resolution to start implementing a fast track.

 That resolution says, based on the results of a survey of ccTLD 
managers, there seems to be a near-term demand for IDN ccTLDs in some 
territories.

 The  ccNSO Council resolves to recommend to the ICANN board that an 
Internationalized Domain Name working group be formed under the 
proposed charter for that group, which is a document we will also send 
you.

 In brief, the charter says the purpose of the working group is to 
develop and report on feasible methods, if any, that would enable the 
introduction in a timely manner and in a manner that ensures the 
continued security and stability of the Internet of a limited number of 
noncontentious IDN ccTLDs while the overall policy is being developed.  
And in considering those feasible methods, the working group should 
take into account the overarching requirement to preserve the security 
and stability of the DNS, compliance with the IDNA protocols, input and 
advice from the technical community in respect to the implementation of 
IDNs, and current practices for the delegation of ccTLDs.

 We are suggesting that the working group should comprise members of 
the Governmental Advisory Committee, including its chair, members of 
the ccNSO, including its chair, two members of the GNSO, two members of 
the ALAC, a representative of the technical community, a representative 
of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, and two ICANN staff 
members.

 The GAC communique will also address the point of setting up the IDN 
working group.

 I will be sending that request formally to the board today, and 
hopefully you will be able to discuss it in your board meeting 
tomorrow.

 Whilst I'm still on IDNs, one other thing.  The ccNSO in its meeting 
yesterday and on Tuesday discussed at some length the new gTLD policy.

 And I will be, again, formally writing to the board today to request 
the consideration of the insertion of two principles in the gTLD 
policy.

 The first is the principle on meaningful representation of the name of 
a territory listed on the ISO 3166 list in a non-U.S. ASCII script, or 
non-ASCII script and says no name of a territory listed on the ISO 3166 
or meaningful abbreviation of it, whether represented in a non-ASCII 
script or in any recognized language, should be available as a gTLD.  
But that this principle should be revisited as soon as the IDN ccTLD 
policy has been adopted by the board.

 Finally, we have two new members of the ccNSO.  Serbia and China.

 Both of these two new members are interesting for different reasons.

 In respect to Serbia, we have a brand-new ccTLD that has immediately 
joined the ccNSO, and that, I think, is very encouraging.

 In respect to China, their membership of the ccNSO I think indicates a 
willingness to engage in the process.  And in fact, they have indicated 
to us that they are going to be as active as possible in all of the 
things that we do.

 Unless there are any questions, that's it.

 >>VINT CERF:   That's an impressively brief summary.

 Peter, I see your hand is up.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 Chris, I had the pleasure of witnessing some of the work of the ccNSO.  
I was there on a couple of occasions.

 I want to congratulate you first of all on the very large numbers of 
people you had attended and the productive, spirited discussion that 
was going on, most of the time on the very complex issues that you have 
been talking about, introducing Internationalized Domain Names to the 
CC space.  So congratulations on the work going on and special 
congratulations to the ccNSO on the new members.

 That's it.

 I notice in your recommendation about the working group just a very 
minor point.  Whereas you have nominated the numbers of people from 
some categories, you have just said "members of the GAC" and "members 
of the GNSO".

 Is that code for some work that is yet to be done in terms of how that 
committee should be formed or -- 

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:  It's not code for anything.  It means in 
consultation with the Governmental Advisory Committee, we felt it was 
unwise to try to limit the number of people who are on the list, and 
work on the basis that, in reality, and for all practical purposes, a 
small number of people will do the work.

 But because of the liaison with the GNSO and the ALAC is more 
complicated, we have limited the number on that score.

 And I am not aware that anyone is uncomfortable with that, but if they 
are, I have no doubt they will tell me at some point.

 >>VINT CERF:   I don't see any other hands up, Chris.  So thank you 
very much for the brevity of your report and for its substance

 [ Applause ]

 >>VINT CERF:   The next report comes from the chair of the 
Governmental Advisory Committee, Janis Karklins.  If you feel capable.  
You're welcome to borrow another cup of my lemon and honey mixture here 
if you think it would help.

 He is suffering the same problem I am, which is losing my voice.

 I can tell you, better lose your voice than lose your mind, Janis.

 >>JANIS KARKLINS:   Thank you.

 I can assure you that the GAC is not a salt mine.  It's a very 
pleasurable experience.  Nevertheless, my name is Janis Karklins.  I am 
Chairman of the GAC, and it is my duty today to present the outcome of 
the GAC work during this meeting.

 40 members and two observers participated in the meeting, and the 
Governmental Advisory Committee expressed warm thanks to ICANN for 
hosting this annual meeting in Los Angeles.

 Mr. Chairman, on substantive issues, on IDNs, the GAC welcomes ICANN's 
progress and introduction of test IDNs in the root.

 In Los Angeles, the GAC had a brainstorm session on possible answers 
to the joint and ccNSO/GAC issue paper selection of IDN ccTLDs 
associated with the ISO 3166/1, two-letter codes.

 The discussion mainly identified basic principles of agreement and 
highlighted issues that need further discussion.

 Discussions will continue and answered with intention of producing a 
final document at the Paris meeting in June 2008 as an input to the 
anticipated ccNSO policy development process.

 The GAC reaffirms support in principle to the possibility of a fast-
track approach and welcomes the proposal of the ccNSO Council to create 
an IDN working group.

 The GAC will actively engage in the process.

 On WHOIS issues, Mr. Chairman, the GAC welcomes the opportunity to 
respond to the draft ICANN procedure for handling WHOIS conflict with 
the national privacy laws.

 Due to the complexity of the issues related to diversity of national 
policies and procedures among GAC members, the GAC does not believe a 
uniform progress is workable, and according with the interim solution 
from the GAC San Juan communique, should be the basis of resolving 
potential conflict.

 And I quote, reminder from the San Juan communique, specific cases 
should be referred to the relevant national government for advice on 
the authority of the request for delegation from the ICANN gTLD WHOIS 
policy.

 The GAC reiterates its recommendation outlined in the GAC WHOIS 
principles, and study on uses and misuses of WHOIS data should be 
undertaken by ICANN, and is prepared to contribute to the elaboration 
of the terms of reference of such a study.

 On accountability principles and definitions, Mr. Chairman, the GAC 
acknowledges ICANN's commitment to make further progress on 
transparency and accountability.  In response to ICANN board request in 
San Juan, the GAC submits a paper on definitions of accountability in 
ICANN environment, and this document is attached to communique and is 
available on ICANN site and on the GAC Web site.

 And this document is submitted as an input to an ongoing consultations 
on accountability and transparency frameworks and principles.

 On IPv4 free pool depletion and the deployment of IPv6, the GAC 
received a briefing from NRO and appreciates ongoing work within ICANN 
in raising awareness about IPv4 and IPv6 issues.

 Specifically, the GAC noted the important need for the continued good 
management of the IPv4 address space in light of the depletion of the 
free pool and urgent need for initiatives by all relevant stakeholders 
to ensure the acceleration of deployment and use of IPv6 addresses.

 In this respect, the GAC noted the particular importance of such 
matters for developing countries.

 The SSAC provided a briefing to a session of the GAC, also attended by 
the ccTLD community, which gave the useful opportunity for discussion 
of issues surrounding deployment of DNSsec and issues relevant to 
signing the root.

 The GAC will keep these issues under review.

 On the new gTLDs, Mr. Chairman, the GAC appreciates the work done by 
the GNSO council regarding the proposals for principles, 
recommendations and implementation guidelines for new gTLDs.

 As our initial analysis of the document, the GAC draws attention to 
the fact that the proposal does not properly take into account 
paragraph 2.2 in the GAC principles regarding the new gTLDs.  In 
particular, on the avoidance of country and territory names.

 In practice, some countries and territories would not be in a position 
to avail themselves in the proposed objection mechanism, especially 
those not participating in ICANN activities.

 The GAC will monitor the implementation of new gTLD policy and the new 
gTLD application round, and will provide further input as necessary.

 GAC members also agreed to reflect on the need to provide advice on 
the final report by the GNSO, on the introduction of new generic top-
level domains.

 On institutional issues, Mr. Chairman, the GAC welcomes the 
announcement of the United States Department of Commerce at the midterm 
review of the Joint Project Agreement will be conducted as planned 
through March 2008.

 GAC will consider contributing to this review process.

 Having discussed possible ways and means of implementation of World 
Summit on the Information Society outcomes, in relation to Internet 
governance relevant to ICANN's mandate and suggesting to improve 
communication about ICANN's relevant activity, GAC considers it useful 
for ICANN to include, where possible, in its annual report information 
on steps taken by the organization and its constituencies in 
implementing relevant outcomes of Tunis Agenda.

 On the working methods, taking into account that all Supporting 
Organizations and advisory committees and the board are undergoing 
reviews, the GAC revisited its current working methods.

 Following its initial reflections and, among other things, the GAC 
considers that translation of its deliberation and main documents into 
other languages would benefit the majority of GAC members, non-native 
English speakers.

 The work program for 2008.

 IDN deployment will be the major priority for the GAC in the year 
2008.

 The GAC is committed to provide written input to the ccNSO/GAC list 
officials by June 2008.

 Matters related to IPv4 and IPv6 addressing and the security and 
stability of the DNS are considered as matters of priority in year 
2008.

 The work program of course is subject to review and will be adjusted 
as challenges arise.

 We made -- We had elections and we made some nominations, Mr. Chair.

 Ms. Maimouna Diop Diagne from Senegal was reappointed in a position of 
vice chair of the GAC for year 2008.  Elections of two other vice 
chairs will take place in New Delhi meeting.

 The GAC thanks Frank March from New Zealand and Bill Graham from 
Canada for their service in capacity as vice chairs and their 
outstanding contribution to the work of the GAC.

 The following members have been designated to serve as the GAC 
representatives to Emergency Numbers and Addresses Committee, ENAC, for 
year 2008.  Namely, Ms. Suzanne Sene from United States, Mr. Sune Jin 
Christensen from Denmark, Ms. Manal Ismail from Egypt, Ms. Olga Cavalli 
from Argentina, and Mr. Brenton Thomas from Australia.

 When it comes to Nominating Committee, the GAC will provide advice 
concerning the role of the GAC liaison to the Nominating Committee in 
the course of Nominating Committee review.

 In the interim, the GAC will defer from appointing of a GAC liaison to 
the new Nominating Committee.

 The GAC warmly thanks all those among ICANN community who have 
contributed to the GAC dialogue in Los Angeles and will hold its next 
meeting in New Delhi between 9 and 15 February.

 But before closing or finishing my report, I would like to read out 
another part of it, and it is a tribute to Vint Cerf.

 The GAC acknowledges the outstanding contribution of chairman of ICANN 
board, Vint Cerf, and expresses its heart felt gratitude for his 
commitment to ICANN and development of the Internet in general.

 Particularly the GAC acknowledges his efforts in promoting 
accessibility of the Internet in developing countries.

 And therefore, the GAC decided to offer Mr. Vint Cerf a position of a 
lifetime advisor to the GAC, and this is certified in this document 
which I will now hand over to Mr. Cerf.

 [ Applause ]

 >>STEPHEN CROCKER:   Janis, did you just grant Vint a sovereign 
control over all territories outside of the planet earth?

 [ Laughter ]

 >>JANIS KARKLINS:   That is up to him to decide.

 He has a carte blanche from us.

 >>VINT CERF:   Thank you very much, Janis.  I see many hands up.

 Let me start with Raimundo and we will work our way across.

 Raimundo.

 >>RAIMUNDO BECA:   Well, I have a good reason to speak French, because 
since I joined the board, I really fought to have Spanish and French 
translation.  So I need to use it now myself.

 In my opinion, it is clear that between the ALAC statement and the 
communique from GAC, there's a lot of similarities as regards IPv4 and 
IPv6.

 They are using the same wording, the same text, I guess.  But it's not 
by chance.

 I think it's due to the fact that the members in both committees are 
the same, with underrepresentation from developing countries.

 I think we really need to take position on this before the IGF 
meeting, because it might be too late later.

 And I will do my best to make sure that we know exactly what IPv4 and 
IPv6 mean in both stakes, in the statement and in the communique.

 So I will be very active for French and Spanish, those are the only 
languages I speak, but I will defend what I just stated.

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

 Let me work my way to the left.

 Peter, did you have your hand up?

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 Janis, just a quick question about your communique where it talks 
about giving advice to the board in relation to the Nominating 
Committee review.

 And you said that pending that, you would be deferring making an 
appointment.

 I just wonder if you could give me some indication as a member of the 
working group that's doing the Nominating Committee review the time 
frame that you have in mind.  And I don't want to push you at all, but 
is this something that the working group could well wait for?

 >>JANIS KARKLINS:   I hope that it will be timely.  This is only thing 
I can say.

 I think that the issue has been discussed already informally, and it 
is, from our side, taking into account the specificity of the 
Governmental Advisory Committee as well as specific status of each 
representative who is liable to his own government.

 It is our belief that we, as government representatives, cannot 
participate in a nomination process.  And it is very sensitive, because 
one GAC representative can speak only for his government or for 
himself, but he cannot represent the GAC except in the situation when 
GAC has a concerted opinion or consensual opinion.

 So that makes participation difficult.

 Also, we need to take into account the working methods of Nominating 
Committee which do not allow communicate a lot of information.

 And therefore, we don't think that, at least at this point, that we 
can do that.

 >>VINT CERF:   Let's see.  Susan, I saw your hand up.  I hope I 
haven't missed anybody in between.  Susan.

 >>SUSAN CRAWFORD:   Just two quick comments, and both of them are in 
the nature of thanks to the GAC.

 First, back in 2003, a task force of the GNSO recommended that a 
procedure be developed to allow gTLD registry and registrars to show 
when they're prevented by local laws from fully complying with the 
provisions of ICANN contracts regarding personal data in WHOIS.

 Last year, we sent a draft ICANN procedure for handling these 
conflicts, conflicts between the WHOIS provisions of the contracts and 
national privacy laws, to the GAC for their advice.  They have now 
returned to us, saying that because it's a diverse and complicated 
world out there, they can't give a single set of implementation advice 
on this procedure.

 I believe this now can close off what has been an open question about 
implementing this procedure and that we can now move forward with this 
easily understandable process for registries and registrars to ask us 
what to do when the WHOIS provisions of the contracts conflict with 
applicable law.

 So I want to thank you for that.

 The second point, I think all of us on the board were very impressed 
with Bill Graham's work on the accountability and transparency 
frameworks that have been sent out for public comment.  And, in 
particular, I wanted to note the emphasis on both the circularity and 
the scope of appeal mechanisms within the ICANN context.

 And I personally very much appreciate that comment in the communique 
and hope that we will redouble our efforts to examine our 
accountability frameworks in the ICANN context.  Particularly as we 
begin to consider a new corporate structure for ICANN, it's appropriate 
to examine those frameworks very carefully.

 So thanks also to the GAC for that.

 >>VINT CERF:   Steve, you had your hand up.  And then I'll call on 
Paul Twomey.

 >>STEVE GOLDSTEIN:   Yes, I want to echo Susan's second point, in that 
I've read and re-read Bill Graham's and the GAC's contribution on the 
definition on accountability.  We've been wrestling with the issues 
ourselves for quite some time now.  And the guidance that is offered is 
extremely helpful.  So I just want to thank the GAC, and through the 
GAC, Bill, for that contribution.

 Thank you.

 >>VINT CERF:   And, finally, I'll call on Paul Twomey.

 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Thank you, Vint.  And just to repeat what -- or to 
follow up on the last two comments, I think as we said yesterday in the 
review session, Bill's and the GAC's three categories for 
accountability analysis will probably form t