This summary covers the DNSO GA mailing list’s discussions during the 4th week of 2002. List archives are available online at [www.dnso.org]. Please feel free to forward this summary as you believe to be appropriate.
Votes
No formal votes are going on. However, signatures are being collected for (and against) a possible GA minority position to the .org task force’s report. See below for details.
Task Force News
In a private message sent last Tuesday, the former chair of the GA, Danny Younger, indicated that he would not continue to participate in any task forces where he was representing the GA in his property as the GA chair.
As a consequence of that, Alexander Svensson will represent the GA on the IDN task force (in his capacity as the GA’s alternative chair), and Thomas Roessler will represent the GA on the WHOIS task force (in his capacity as the GA’s chair). For the whois task force, Abel Wisman and Kristy McKee have offered their valuable help (this task force has to wade through a lot of questionnaires). Thomas and Kristy both participated in a WHOIS task force telephone conference held on January 28.
Topics
(i) WLS and deleted domain handling. This topic lost a lot of momentum last week. The most notable posting on this came from Ron Wiener of Snapnames, who posted a “speculator-specific pricing analysis” of the WLS proposal. According to this paper’s conclusion, “the evidence shows that, like all rational actors, speculators do pay the market rate for secondary domain names, for subscriptions to the WLS-like SnapBack service, and for preferential access to registrars’ connections – on average, about $40-$80. The WLS will have little impact on the price speculators pay”. [www.dnso.org]
Abel Wisman has volunteered to set up and lead a drafting group to try to formulate a GA consensus position on this topic. [www.dnso.org]
(ii) dot-org. The dot-org task force’s report has been accepted by the names council, and a public comment period starting January 18, and ending on February 1, was announced. Comments are to be sent to . Also, minority views on the report are invited from DNSO constituencies during the same period. Comments will be forwarded to the ICANN board along with the report. [www.dnso.org]
Bret Fausett asked whether this is the last opportunity to comment on the report before the ICANN board decides on dot-org, replacing the normal ICANN-wide comment period, or whether it augments that opportunity for comment. [www.dnso.org]
Marc Schneiders, who represented the GA on the dot-org task force, posted a slightly revised version of his supplementary report, which emphasizes that the task force’s decision of making .org unrestricted for new and old registrants alike is supported. There were no follow-ups to this message. [www.dnso.org]
Based on this, Alexander Svensson produced a proposal for GA members’ comments on dot-org, which can be signed until Friday, 15:00 CET. Please send statements of support (or opposition) to Thomas. [www.dnso.org]
(iii) The GA representative on the transfer task force, Dan Steinberg, sent out a call for input (and, if needed, participation) for a telephone conference with Louis Touton. The teleconference will deal with the problem of “apparent authority”: Who has “apparent authority” to bind a registrant when registrant’s domain is to be transferred? Questions and wishes for participation were to be submitted until midnight Eastern time, Sunday, January 27th. The actual telephone conference will happen on Friday, February 1, noon EST.
[www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org].
(iv) Chuck Gomes sent in a thoughtful article on working groups vs. task forces as tools in the DNSO consensus process. Recommended reading. [www.dnso.org]
(v) Andy Duff (of new.net) pointed to some Business Constituency charter revisions. [www.dnso.org]
(vi) NC chair period of office. In a posting to the GA and others, Jeff Neuman (acting on behalf of the gTLD constituency) expressed concern on the “recent suggestion that the NC rules of procedure should be amended to (a) extend the six-month period that each NC chair is in office, and (b) allow the chair in office to continue to serve until a successor is appointed”. The gTLD constituency demands that “the Names Council should not proceed at this time on this expeditious time frame. […] The current election should and must proceed, regardless of the action the NC decides to take in connection with th emotion.” Jeff also argues, it seems, that any new rules should not be applied to the NC chair who is currently being elected. [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org], [www.dnso.org].
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