GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - VERY IMPORTANT INFO

polish_aristocrat · 02-15-2007, 05:17 PM

part 1.....

Quote:

Consideration of Proposed .XXX Registry Agreement and recent public comment period

John Jeffrey introduced this item. John asked the board to consider a decision-making process on the pending issues along the following three issue areas: 1) community review and public comment of the agreement and the sufficiency of the proposed agreement; 2) the status of advice from the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) and a clarification of the letter from the GAC Chair and Chair-Elect, and whether additional public policy advice had been received or was expected following the Wellington CommuniquĂ? ; and 3) how ICM measures up against the RFP criteria.

John noted in relation to community input that since the initial application on the proposed application and revised contract, there had been over 200,000 emails sent to ICANN and additionally over 1300 separate comments had been received in the public comment forums established by ICANN.

John noted a summary of the most recent public comments on the revised agreement posted from 5 January 2007 to 5 February 2007 was provided to the board and was to be posted, publicly. John reported that Staff received over 600 public comments and approximately 55,579 emails (from an email campaign on a website) during and since this period. Of the comments posted to the public forum, 488 (77%) were opposed and 107 (16%) expressed support, with the others not indicating a view. Of the emails, nearly all were written on the same form opposing the introduction of the sTLD.

John also noted that it was important that the Board in making any decision on this matter should take into account the extensive public comments on this issue and the Board's review of this information should be noted.

Vint Cerf asked whether in the breakdown of comments, it was possible to determine what fraction of the adult online content community supported the creation of the domain. John noted that the support of the adult online content community was an issue area that had been raised in various comments, but indicated that it would be difficult to measure the participation of the larger community in this manner, since only those that wished to participate in the forum would do so. Rita Rodin indicated that a note in the Board materials prepared by staff indicated that during the 5 January through 5 February 2007 public comment period, 88 commentators identified themselves as web masters of adult content of whom 65 were opposed to the development of the .XXX domain and 23 were in favor. Kurt Pritz said that in relation to the issue of establishing whether there was support for domain creation amongst a sponsorship community that ICM had provided extensive evidence for a sponsorsed community and that documentation of this could be found in the application. Kurt also pointed out that, at the Board's request, additional information had been presented to them during ICANN's Mar del Plata Meeting.

Vint Cerf noted that he had been notified by email that there was a meeting of the adult online community that had recently taken place to discuss the creation of the new .XXX domain, and that the meeting was attended by ICM. John Jeffrey noted that he was informed that the meeting had taken place approximately one week earlier, and that Stuart Lawley of ICM had participated in a panel discussion. John also indicated that he was informed that it was sparsely attended and that there was no transcript of the panel discussion at this point. Vint Cerf asked whether by inference that meant there was no groundswell of support for the creation of the domain at that meeting. John Jeffrey reflected that he did not believe that there was enough information about the conference to support that conclusion. Vint Cerf advised that a transcript of the meeting had been offered to him, but it was not yet available.

Vint Cerf asked for an update on the status of the agreement that was posted. John Jeffrey said that subsequent to the posting of the agreement on 5 January Susan Crawford amongst other Board Members had asked for clarification of language in the posted version of Appendix S. Upon review of the agreement with ICM's attorneys both sides negotiated additional clarifying language into a new version of that Appendix.

These discussions and relevant changes to the Appendix were finalized last week on 8 February. Vint Cerf asked whether these modifications needed to be subject to a public comment period. John Jeffrey advised that ICM believed the changes were non-substantive and that ICM would rather not have a further comment period. ICM indicated a clear preference for the Board to act as soon as possible on the existing proposal based on documents that had already been available for public comment since 05 January 2007. John's view was that the Board's position had been consistent since the .NET agreement that any change should be posted for a public comment period. However, John believed that it was the Board's task to evaluate the posted 5 January version and that only if the Board did not agree that this was sufficient should the Board discuss whether or not to post a revised Appendix S for public comment.

There was some discussion by a variety of Board members and Liaisons including Vint Cerf, Sharil Tarmizi, Rita Rodin, and Steve Goldstein suggesting that the new version should be posted highlighting the revised Appendix S, which would show the differences between the version of Appendix S posted on 05 January 2007 and the new version of Appendix S. Vint Cerf said that he viewed the changes in Appendix S as being centered on ICANN's ability to enforce conditions on ICM. There was not similar concentration upon what ICM can do to enforce conditions on Registrants. However, Susan Crawford indicated there was a section of the proposed contract that provided for ICM to enforce some conditions on Registrants.

Paul Twomey made a procedural point that the Board at its Luxembourg meeting (July 2005) decided that any document that may affect a third party, would always be posted for a comment period of 21 days.

Rita Rodin asked if there was a consensus that the Board should post the revised Appendix S for comment. John Jeffrey agreed that if the Board wanted to discuss the new Appendix S, that a sufficient a case for posting seemed to be established.