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ICANN has finally posted Paul Twomey’s letter to the GNSO regarding new registry services. Key quote: I hereby make a formal request to the GNSO Council that it commence a GNSO Policy Development Process designed to produce recommendations to the Board for a timely, transparent and predictable process for dealing with proposed future new “services” or significant actions by TLD registries that, because of their architecture or operation, could impact the operational stability, reliability, security or global interoperability of the DNS, that registry, or the Internet.A draft for that letter was read and discussed at the GNSO Council’s telephone conference on 16 October, which resulted in the formal initiation of the policy development process requested by Twomey. What follows are the notes I took during that telephone conference.

Chris Ambler responds to Susan Crawford, and asks what a consensus policy is.It’s not consensus, but this formal thing defined in agreements. In short, you need a thumbs-up from the board, from two-thirds of the relevant supporting organization council, and a written report with a lot of supporting materials that document the community consensus, and the outreach process used.Oh, and the registries can dispute the existence of such a policy until 15 days after the Independent Review Panel has been established by ICANN.

The GNSO Council last night voted to ask ICANN for an issues report on creating a process for reviewing new registry services; this was in response to a request from Paul Twomey. At the call, a draft letter from Twomey to the council was read that contains the formal request, and makes the actual scope of the planned policy-development process more clear. That letter is expected to be published today.I’ll be posting extensive notes from the call once that letter is out and I had a chance to make sure that my notes on its content are correct.

Press release: VeriSign to Sell Network Solutions Business to Pivotal Private Equity.VeriSign is selling most of its Netwrok Solutions registrar business. The .com/.net registry is remaining with VeriSign.

Today’s presentations and statements (as far as they related to the technical side of sitefinder) fit well with what became evident at the last meeting: Verisign is trying to play nice with respect to collateral damage, they are helping people to fix what can be fixed by changing client software, but they are not moving on the wildcard itself.Two problems with that: 1. They are causing cost to others on the net by making changes at the center that have to be worked around at the edges. The side effects of the root-delegation-only BIND patch on .name are just one example. 2. Fixing the collateral damage does not give users the choices they have now (but haven’t with a wildcard).

At the DC workshop, the Q&A is going on as I type this. Verisign is being grilled about their “user survey.” Verisign tries to spin Sitefinder as a pro-user service that was accepted well. Secsac members are raising doubts about what kinds of questions were asked, and are trying to drill down to what was actually asked. Verisign refuses to release the questions asked, though.I’ve submitted two questions to the SECSAC’s comment address. Both were read; thanks!

• How many of the respondents to the surveys quoted (which included users from Germany and China) do not speak English?
  Answer: “don’t know.” I’m actually starting to wonder what language was used for the survey questions in these countries.
• Verisign says it does not use the wildcard to collect personal data. What about the third-party (Overture) web bug placed on the Sitefinder site?
  Answer: Web bug exists. Planning to do minimum information only. (?) Opt-out? No. Consistent with privacy practices. Crocker explicitly speechless.

Some interesting discussion between Crocker and Verisign people on whether this is a registry service change. Crocker insists that core of registry function was changed. Gomes emphasizes RFC compliance. Counsel to Verisign steps in and notes that some terminology (“registry service”) is loaded with legal meaning.Several people ask why a user survey is thought to be relevant for security and stability and presented at this meeting. No conclusive answer.Question about service survey conducted — can Verisign make data available? Answer: Results are in the slides; data are proprietary.Closing question from Rick Wesson: Further undisclosed testing with non-delegation records? Long silence. “If move forward, testing needed, to provide secure and stable service.” Crocker: Good. Rick: No. Crocker: Good that we understand situation.

The SECSAC’s second meeting on sitefinder is going to begin at 1 pm EST. The webcast URL has now been posted to ICANN’s web site.Presentations already available from the agenda page: VeriSign, Edelman.PS: I don’t promise to take extensive notes this time.

The delegation-only patches to BIND that have been deployed in response to Verisign’s sitefinder service happen to break e-mail to first@last.name, since the TLD server directly returns MX records. No wildcards are involved here.Global Name Registry to ICANN: Global Name Registry is disappointed to see .name customers being caught up in the crossfire between other parties on the Internet and what has perhaps been an emotional rollout of a technical countermeasure to the .com and .net zone change.

There’s another Security and Stability Advisory Committee meeting in Washington DC on Wednesday, to focus on VeriSign’s planning, data collection and analysis of its experience.The following material from the October 7 meeting is available: Morning Session Video; Afternoon Session Video; Real-time captioning; Agenda and Presentations.Later: The meeting on Wednesday will be webcast.

Unsponsred registry operators to ICANN: The unsponsored registry members of gTLD Registries Constituency (.biz, .com, .info, .name, .net, .org and .pro) are concerned that a process for the introduction of Registry Services involving a policy development process within the ICANN community may pose serious competition issues. Referral of new Registry Services through a PDP, or even community consultation, when some members of the community may be viewed as competitors with the gTLD Registries for certain Registry Services could potentially inhibit and interfere with the business of the gTLD Registries.Paul Twomey had asked the GNSO to develop a process for the approval of new registry services in the context of ICANN’s demand that Verisign stop its sitefinder service. A GNSO Council conference call to discuss this is scheduled for Thursday this week.