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REPORT FROM IFWP

DRAFT WORKING GROUP REPORTS

IFWP: International Forum on the White Paper - EUROPE
Geneva, Switzerland - July 24-25, 1998
Palexpo Hall 1 - Rooms A, B, C
 

IFWP: Geneva Report on this Site

Other IFWP: Geneva Links

DRAFT WORKING GROUP REPORTS
 
Workshop A - A Profile of the Future Entity
Workshop C - The Process of the New Entity (Part I)
Workshop C - The Process of the new Entity (Part II)
Workshop E - Names Council
Workshop F - Domain Names and Trademarks

 

ICANN

DNS in Congress

Policy statements and Congressional testimony on private sector implementation of the U.S. government Internet White Paper.

 

 

IFWP

International Forum on the White Paper

Meetings in Summer 1998 which culminated with the creation of ICANN.

 

 

WORKSHOP A: A PROFILE OF THE FUTURE ENTITY

Saturday, July 25, 1998

Moderator: Larry Lessig, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School
Scribe: Ben Edelman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School
Recorder: Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School

Redrafted Notes from Final Geneva Session

Consensus About Powers

  1. The board shall have the power to set policy regarding IP numbers through a bottom-up procedure where entity councils make proposals that the board may accept or veto.
  2. The board shall have the power to set policies and procedures to maintain a coherent root zone system.
  3. The board shall have the power to set policies and procedures for delegating TLDs, including ccTLDs and gTLDs.
    • No consensus was reached about the board's ability to modify the current structure of ccTLDs, including their relation to ISO 3166. There was no consensus that the board has the power to set policies to ensure the sovereignty or independence of the ISO 3166 ccTLDs.
  4. The board shall have the power to set policies and procedures to assign technical parameters.
  5. The board shall have the power to set technical policies and procedures including the coordination of the Internet domain name system and the oversight of registrars and registries.
    • Except for the consensus expressed elsewhere in this statement, there was no further consensus reached about the scope of the board's ability to determine policies with respect to TLDs.
    • There was no further consensus about the board's power with respect to the management of any specific TLD.
    • There was no consensus about the board's power to consider uniform standards for the stable operation of TLDs.
  6. The entity shall have the power to set policies and procedures to determine its own organizational structure and finances.
    • No consensus was reached about whether this power shall be exercised by the board or by the members.

Consensus on Structure of the Entity

  1. Entity shall have councils with their supporting organizations.
  2. Entity shall have a board.
    1. Decisions about technical policies must be approved by a relevant council prior to the board's decision to accept or reject. (Strong support but not full consensus.)
    2. The board may propose matters to be considered by the councils.
     
  3. Issues of membership will be addressed by Workshop B.

Consensus About Objectives / Principles

  1. The entity shall be limited to its enumerated powers.
  2. The entity shall strive to minimize barriers to entry.
  3. The entity shall work to assure the stability of Internet.
Issues to Be Considered by Other Groups or in the Future
  1. Whether a supermajority of the board should be required to change constitution (to be considered by Workshop C)
  2. Whether the entity should have the power to change the location of the entity, as agreed by the ccTLD BoF on 7/23.
  3. How to minimize the significance of the laws of the jurisdiction in which the entity sits relative to other international legal regimes.
  4. Whether the entity should consider the relationship of Internet telephony to its powers and duties.
  5. Whether the entity should consider issues of security, privacy, free expression, or other issues of human rights.
  6. Whether the entity should adopt principles about which interests -- commerce, non-commerce, etc. -- should be paramount.
Other Issues On Which No Consensus Was Reached
  1. There was no consensus reached either about:
    1. Which dispute resolution mechanisms the board should adopt, or
    2. Whether the board should have the power to set dispute resolution mechanisms at all, or
    3. The issues that dispute resolution procedures would cover (for example, disputes between parties versus disputes between a party and the entity).
  2. There was no consensus reached about whether the board should have the power to adopt "best practices" for registrars.

WORKSHOP C: THE PROCESS OF THE NEW ENTITY (PART I)

Friday, July 24, 1998

Rapporteur: David S. Weitzel, Mitretek Systems
Recorder: Anne-Kathrin Orth
Board scribe: Robert Cannon
 
Agenda topics
 
First, possible topics for an agenda were collected:
- Starting points and base proposals
- Development, definition, ratification and implementation of policies
- Online process discussion, representation of all the different groups of
stakeholders --> legitimacy
- Opening of the minutes and the mailing lists
- Relative powers between and of the councils and the Board
- Powers of the interim/initial Board
- Transparent, accountable, open and on the record process
- Implementation of an interim Board at all?
- Revolutionary or evolutionary process, what stages, what ending points?
 
Discussion
 
After the topics were raised, "Powers of the Interim/Initial Board" was chosen as the first topic for discussion. Several questions were addressed, some of them are:
- The powers of the interim/initial Board
- Definition of the interim/initial nomenclature
- Differences of the powers given to the Board as opposed to the final board,
justification of these differences
- Possibility of restricting the powers of the interim Board
- The proposed structure already in place within the IP-address registries
--> Quick identification of possible Board members
- Revision of the IANA proposal or starting from scratch?
- Initial charter, how to insure continuity
- Tax exemption maintenance: organisation, operation as first steps
- Members not necessarily internet specialists, skills of the interim board
- Definition of stakeholders
- Avoiding mixture of technical and business experts
- Fee for membership which gives right to vote?
And many others...
 
More than once, participants also stressed to keep to the topic of the process of the new entity and to leave other questions to be debated by the other sessions.
 
Consensus Calls
 
A. After the following discussion:
- The medium of the Internet to be used in the open, transparent process of the new entity - to consult with wide end user groups
Objections:
- Question of legality --> accountability
- Inefficiency
- Too little time -> unpractical
- Where is the trust in the interim Board to do a good job?
The following consensus was reached:
(Consensus) The process of the new entity shall be open and transparent, utilising the internet to this end to the fullest extent possible.
 
B. (Consensus) There will be in interim Board implemented.
For discussion:
- Clear definition of the Board's powers to avoid ambiguity
- Should the members be professionals / appointed or elected?
 
C. Other proposals for consensus vote:
(No Consensus) The interim board shall be chosen by a membership-based organization.
- It shall have defined limited, and different powers from the initial board
- Should user communities organise themselves during the interim period to gain the possibility of assigning board members? --> qualification process. Practicality issues?
 
Notes from the rapporteur
 
These are draft notes only. If you are aware of errors in these notes or errors of omission please contact me directly.
 
The definition of consensus used during the session was one of a rough consensus of generally greater than 75% of those in attendance. Often the consensus was over 90% and thus near unanimity. The bullets following the consensus calls are an important part of the record. They attempt to include points noted by those not join the consensus or joined with the point noted as part of their understanding.
 
During the course of the discussion there were between fifteen (early) and fifty people (near the end) involved in the Friday evening discussion. The results were immediately reported to the Friday evening plenary and was therefore available to the legal session meeting Friday night.
 
Session C reconvened on Saturday morning, 25 July, the report from that session will come under separate cover.
 
The highly capable recorder/scribe for the session was Anne-Kathrin Orth (ao@anwalt.de) from Germany and the equally capable board scribe was Robert Cannon, Esq., of Washington D.C. (cannon@dc.net)
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
David S. Weitzel
Mitretek Systems
"Innovative technology in the public interest"
dweitzel@mitretek.org
(703)610-2970
 

WORKSHOP C: THE PROCESS OF THE NEW ENTITY (PART II)

Saturday, July 25, 1998

Rapporteur: David S. Weitzel, Mitretek Systems
Recorder: Anne-Kathrin Orth
Board scribe: Robert Cannon
 
Agenda Proposals
 
1) Mission of the Interim Board
2) Selection of the Interim Board
3) Process of Interim Board Decision Making
4) Stakeholder Membership re Interim Board
 
Discussion
 
1) Mission of the Interim Board (IB)
a) Interim Board will Establish the New Entity (Consensus)
b) Interim Board Validate the Membership (Consensus)
- While validating the membership, the Interim Board should take into account the membership definition of the IFWP process and other relevant processes (NO consensus)
- While validating the membership, the Interim Board should understand that there may be other parties incorporating the Initial Board (NO consensus)
c) Interim Board Validate the Election Process (Consensus)
d) Interim Board Oversee the Election of the Initial Board (Consensus)
- Group C does not mean this phrasing in legal terms, just conversational (clarification)
e1) No Actions of the Interim Board Not Revocable by Initial Board (NO consensus) e2) All Actions of the Interim Board are Revocable by Initial Board (NO consensus)
- Question of whether revocable by the membership of the Entity or by the Initial Board
f) Termination of the Interim Board (Consensus)
- Six Month target
- Extension Possible
- No Later than 30 September 2000
- Definition of the Powers is still open (comment)
g) Members of the Interim Board Should Not Be on the Initial Board (NO consensus)
- Full disclosure of board members affiliations and interests (suggestion)
 
At this time in the discussion there were less than five minutes left. Rather than have debate on the issues, points were raised to get them on the table and attempt to reach consensus if time permitted. Since time was short, a parenthetical categorization has been added next to each of the following items.
 
h) Interim Board should conduct the day to day business of the Entity (Point raised. No discussion on the merits.)
i) Dr. Postel should be the CTO of Interim Board (Point raised. No discussion on the merits.)
 
2) Composition / Selection of Interim Board
a) The Interim Board should have nomination and election by the Names Council and the IP address constituencies (Point raised. No discussion on the merits.)
 
The session ended at approximately 11:20 AM local time.
 
Notes from the rapporteur
 
These are draft notes only. If you are aware of errors in these notes or errors of omission please contact me directly.
 
The definition of consensus used during the session was one of a rough consensus of generally greater than 75% of those in attendance. Often the consensus was over 90- 95% and thus approaching unanimity. The items following the consensus calls are an important part of the record. Non-consensus items are included. We have also attempted to include points noted by those not joining the consensus or joining with the point noted as part of their understanding.
 
This report is of a session that ran approximately 80 minutes. Thus, the speed at which the assembled IFWP participants can work is clearly shown.
 
To assist in focusing the group's activities, the on-line agenda for sessions A, B, and C, was displayed during almost the entire session.
 
The results of this session were immediately reported to the pre-lunch Saturday plenary. These notes are a revision of that report as reviewed by the conference co-chairs.
 
As these session notes indicate, no one in session C presumed to speak for the entire Internet or entire DNS stakeholder community. These minutes should act as nothing more than a snapshot of the views of those assembled during the second part of session C in Geneva. That said, by almost any measure, the business, legal, structural, technical, and other DNS expertise assembled in the room was not insignificant.
 
Session C began on the afternoon of Friday, 24 July 1998. The report from that session has been made under separate cover.
 
The highly capable recorder/scribe for the session was Anne-Kathrin Orth (ao@anwalt.de) from Germany and the equally capable board scribe was Robert Cannon, Esq., of Washington D.C. (cannon@dc.net)
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
David S. Weitzel
Mitretek Systems
"Innovative technology in the public interest"
dweitzel@mitretek.org
(703) 610-2970
 

WORKSHOP E: NAMES COUNCIL (v2)

Saturday, July 25, 1998

Rapporteur: David S. Weitzel, Mitretek Systems
Recorder: Anne-Kathrin Orth
Board scribe: Glenn Kowack, iPass Inc.

Draft minutes (attendees encouraged to e-mail recommended revisions to the Rapporteur)

Agenda Items for Names Council Workshop

  1. Do we need a names council?
  2. specific powers in/and relation to the Board -> accountability, oversight
  3. functions
  4. requirements of the stakeholder groups
  5. how is the Council appointed --> qualifications of the members
  6. originally published workshop agenda:
    1. structure
    2. relationship to the new corporation's Board (see 2))
    3. Is council chair ex-officio board member?
After creating the agenda the group agreed to move to the itemization of specific functions for the names council. Thus a brainstorming session occurred. Once the brainstorming session was complete, the group decided to go through the function list, item by item, and see if consensus could be reached on the functions. Other alternatives that were considered and did not reach consensus were to 1) itemize the functions into groups or to 2) move past functions to other names council activities and relationships.
 
Note: We have chosen not to edit each of the function descriptions below, and possibly lose the context meant by the proposer. Thus, many of the following Items should be read in the context of "The Names Council shall/will/should . . ."
 
Specific Functions for Name Council (brain-storm list)
  1. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Recommendation of new gTLDs
  2. DELETED: Right to establish new gTLDs
  3. NO CONSENSUS: Recommendation to retire (i.e., decommission and remove) old TLDs
  4. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Recommendation to propose all policies.
    - Point noted - In context of adding "in all TLD related issues" to the above sentence
  5. DELETED: Right to decide policies in TLD-related issues.
  6. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Point of advice and recommendation to the Board for all TLD matters
  7. CONSENSUS: Limitations consistent with Board powers (council does not have more power than the Board)
  8. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Non-Exclusive Nomination of Board Members.
  9. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Provide a forum for discussion among gTLD and ccTLD registries and registrars, and a forum for dispute resolution between and among them.
  10. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Recommendation of general and specific conditions for operation and management of TLDs, existing or new
  11. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): The council will have the function to propose best practices for registrars.
  12. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): Non-Exclusively Recommend changes to the Board's functions and powers
  13. CONSENSUS (w/ point noted): That the council exercise all of its functions with respect to specific registries, consonant with the business practices and law of the countries of the registries
    - (Point noted #1) The council should not be constrained by the business practice of a specific registry. If it was this consensus may be inconsistent with items 4, 10, and 11
  14. REMOVED BY PROPOSER Deal with disputes within the community of the TLD
  15. NON-CONSENSUS: Responsible for development of mandatory policies for TLDs, for proposal to the Board.
  16. NO CONSENSUS: The Names Council will recognize that the collective domain name holders will be used to represent a class of membership for NewCorp (contingent upon later consensus on existence of classes)
  17. CONSENSUS: Assess demand for and recommend creation of new TLDs
  18. NO CONSENSUS: Assess demand for and may recommend competition within countries with respect to their ccTLD(s)
  19. NO CONSENSUS: Assess demand for, and recommend creation of, new ccTLDs (e.g,. FR, and FR2, FR3, etc)
    THE REMAINING BRAINSTORMING POINTS WERE NOT REACHED IN TIME TO REVIEW FOR CONSENSUS
  20. Assess demand for and recommend creation of new Names Council functions
  21. Assess need for specialized TLDs that do not fit within either category (ccTLD and gTLD), for any other 'regions' that do not fit within existing categories
  22. Forum for discussion and clarification of domain names and TLDs as Intellectual property
  23. To propose a common international conflict-resolution policy for all gTLDs
  24. Forum for clarification of the legislative framework within which each TLD operates
  25. A forum for discussion of matters of common interest to ccTLD managers
  26. Maintain on-line record (available to all, via the Internet) of all meetings, documents, and discussions that come up, including on-line discussion capability
  27. Maintain and further develop an abundance of TLDs for the Internet
  28. Maintain and further develop the Internet's economical character with Respect to Names
  29. Maintain open Internet discussion group and have available E-mail addresses for anyone on the Council or any sub-council
  30. END LIST
Notes from the rapporteur
 
These are draft notes only. If you are aware of errors in these notes or errors of omission please contact me directly. Also, if you have other points noted to be included please contact me directly.
 
The definition of consensus used during the session was one of a rough consensus of generally greater than 75% of those in attendance. Non-consensus Items are included. Withdrawn items are included for the purpose of maintaining a record of events. The points noted items following the consensus calls are an important part of the record. We have also attempted to
include such points noted by those not joining the consensus or joining with the point noted as part of their understanding. Others chose only to record The fact that they raised a point noted, without asking for it to be made part of the record.
 
This report is of a session that ran approximately three hours.
 
The results of this session were immediately reported to the final Saturday plenary in Geneva. These notes are a revision of that report.
 
No one in session E presumed to speak for the entire Internet or entire DNS stakeholder community. These minutes should act as nothing more than a snapshot of the views of those assembled during the Workshop E in Geneva. That said, by almost any measure, the business, legal, structural, technical, and other DNS expertise assembled in the room was not insignificant.
 
The highly capable recorder/scribe for the session was Anne-Kathrin Orth (ao@anwalt.de) from Germany and the equally capable board scribe was Glenn Kowack of iPass Inc. (gkowack@ipass.com)
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
David S. Weitzel
Mitretek Systems
"Innovative technology in the public interest"
dweitzel@mitretek.org
(703) 610-2970
 

WORKSHOP F: DOMAIN NAMES AND TRADEMARKS

Saturday, July 25, 1998

Moderator: Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School
Scribe: Ben Edelman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School
Recorder: Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Berkman Center, Harvard Law School
 
Redrafted Notes from Final Geneva Session
 
Consensus Items
  1. New entity should cooperate with TLD registries to form databases of up-to-date registration and contact information for all SLDs. Rough consensus, with a single strong dissent.
  2. New entity should recognize that individuals and organizations have concurrent and legitimate rights in names that are not based in trademark. Consensus.
  3. The entity should encourage the rapid development of various trademark dispute resolution mechanisms. Rough consensus with a dissent.
  4. The entity itself does not resolve trademark / domain name disputes. Consensus.
  5. The trademark/domain names working group supports the creation of a names council and recommends additional discussion focused solely on its creation. Consensus.
  6. The group recommends the following processes for decision-making by the board:
    • Councils may make recommendations to the board. The board will then have the authority to ratify/approve the recommendations. Consensus.
No Consensus
  1. Whether the entity may develop uniform dispute avoidance / resolution procedures for use by TLD registries.
  2. New entity should gather and disseminate general trend information regarding domain name trademark disputes +(involving cyber-pirates and trademark owners).
Items for Discussion
  1. What distinguishes cyber-pirates from legitimate domain name resellers? Should entity be involved in this kind of decision?
  2. Distinction between dispute policy and dispute resolution policy?
  3. WIPO process.
  4. Process exclusively limited to trademark issues, or to other issues also?
  5. Dispute avoidance.
  6. Data collection re registrants and registry history. (Done by entity? Mandated by entity? Some opposition to this. Done independently by registries?)
  7. Creation of additional gTLDs diminishes trademark infringement problem?
  8. Should there be a statement in founding document about taking trademark concerns into consideration (effect on consumers and trademark holders)? Some suggest: Consensus impossible on this matter.
  9. Internet is a new context in which traditional IP principles to be reexamined.
  10. No one nation's laws should govern all domain name trademark disputes.
  11. Mandate uniform standards across TLDs re trademarks. Contested, no consensus.
  12. Consider WIPO recommendations.
The following was presented to the group by a representative from WIPO about their response to the White Paper's call to convene discussions on dispute resolution proposals to go before the new entity:
 
WIPO Process
  1. Broadest possible participation: Geographic, sectoral diversity.
  2. All relevant information provided via Internet and physical means (regional consultation hearings).
  3. Convening panel of experts.
  4. Independent.
  5. Accelerated.
WIPO Goals
  1. Focus IP issues.
  2. International forum.
  3. Achieve consensus.
  4. Make recommendations to new organization.

- END REPORT -

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