[At-Large] Board Liaison Report from Sydney

[Wendy Seltzer]

Hi At-Large,

I hope you've all recovered well, whether from travelling to and from
the Sydney meeting or from trying to follow its action remotely.  I can
confirm that there's little public Internet access on the Daintree Coast.

I'd like to share notes on a few of the subjects I saw discussed in Sydney:

* Welcome to Rod Beckstrom, Thanks to Paul Twomey.
ICANN's new President and CEO was welcomed on Friday, and officially
began the job July 1.
<http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-26jun09-en.htm>
Paul Twomey was recognized with a gala and a place on the Special People
Numbers Registry.

* IRT Report.  The Trademark Implementation Recommendations Team (IRT),
was given a huge amount of time to discuss their final report on
proposed trademark protections for new gTLDs.  The Board asked them to
produce this report in Mexico City, and thanked the team for its work --
but has not made any decisions about responses. ALAC and NCUC's joint
statement at the Public Forum was among many strong expressions of
opposition to elements of the IRT report.

At this point, the IRT is conducting a "road-show" in New York, July 12,
and London, July 15.
<http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/consultation-outreach-en.htm>
If you are able to participate, pre-register by July 10.
Please continue to help the Board hear that the IRT report is not
acceptable to the entire ICANN community.

* Board Meeting:
Adopted resolutions,
<http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun09.htm>
Transcript,
<http://syd.icann.org/files/meetings/sydney2009/transcript-board-meeting-26jun09-en.txt>

* ALAC Review. The Board accepted the report of the ALAC Review Working
Group and requested that the At-Large community begin planning
implementation of its recommendations -- "the Board directs ICANN Staff
to assist the At-Large community in developing a proposed implementation
plan and timeline for the recommendations in the report (except for the
recommendation to provide At-Large with voting seats, which will be
discussed by the Board at its next meeting)."

Regarding Board seats, the initially proposed resolution contained
further reference to Board seats, but the Board struck this during
discussion, saying that the question was too deeply intertwined with
those of other reviews (particularly the BCG Board Review's
recommendation that the Board be reduced in size).  This deferral is not
necessarily a negative, it simply reflects great uncertainty.  The Board
is far from uniform in its thinking on this subject -- members differ on
whether ALAC should have any seats, whether ALAC or the At-Large
Community should be responsible for the selection if there is one, and
how ALAC seats would be met by other ACs.

The resolution specifically sets the matter for the next Board meeting,
which will be July 30.  I understand that the ALAC strongly supports
voting board seats, and have made that point in these and prior
discussions. For the July meeting, I will gather the prior ALAC comments
on Board seats, and will gladly include any further points you'd like to
add, having heard or read the current state of discussion.

* Synthesized DNS responses.  The Board accepted a SSAC report and
resolved that new gTLDs should not adopt Sitefinder-like wildcard
services.  "New TLDs, including ASCII and IDN gTLDs and IDN ccTLDs,
should not use DNS redirection and synthesized DNS responses."  It found
this practice harms Internet security and stability and recommended
against its use in existing TLDs as well.

* GNSO Improvements.  Revised draft charters for stakeholder groups are
now public.  Applications for recognition of new constituencies are
under consideration at the conclusion of public comment.

As always, please let me know if you have questions.

--Wendy

-- 
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.org
Visiting Professor, American University Washington College of Law
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html
http://www.chillingeffects.org/
https://www.torproject.org/