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Minutes for Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors
18 June 2007
A Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors was held via teleconference on 18 June 2007 and was called to order at 2:05 P.M. U.S. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).
The following Directors participated in all or part of the meeting: Raimundo Beca, Chairman Vinton G. Cerf, Susan Crawford, Peter Dengate-Thrush, Roberto Gaetano, Demi Getschko, Steven Goldstein, Joi Ito, Rita Rodin, Vanda Scartezini, Bruce Tonkin and Paul Twomey. The following Board Liaisons participated in all or part of the meeting: Vittorio Bertola, ALAC Liaison; Steve Crocker, SSAC Liaison; Janis Karklins, GAC Liaison; Thomas Narten, IETF Liaison; Francisco da Silva, Technical Liaison Group Liaison; and Suzanne Woolf, RSSAC Liaison.
The following staff participated in part or all of the meeting: John Jeffrey, General Counsel and Secretary; Paul Levins, Executive Officer and Vice President, Corporate Affairs; Doug Brent, Chief Operating Officer; and, Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President, Business Operations, Denise Michel, Vice President, Policy, David Conrad, General Manager IANA, and, Barbara Roseman, Operations Manager, IANA.
Approval of 15 May 2007 Board Minutes
The Chair introduced the minutes of the meeting of 15 May 2007 and asked for Board approval.
Steve Goldstein moved and Rita Rodin seconded the following resolution:
Resolved (07.39) the minutes of the Board Meeting of 15 May are approved.
The Board approved the resolution with a voice call vote, with one abstention. Bruce Tonkin abstained citing his non-attendance at the meeting.
Discussion of Ombudsman’s Report 6-317
The Chair provided a brief summary of the key points of Ombudsman Report 6.317 that has been provided to the Board. The complainant was the proponent of the application for the establishment of an At-Large Structure, which was rejected by the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC). The applicant made the application on 08 February 2006, and the application was rejected by the ALAC in October, 2006. The applicant was informed of the decision by email on October 5, 2006. The applicant has, through correspondence to the ALAC on October 7, requested a review by the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman’s investigation lead him to believe that the applicant was treated in an unfair manner on both an individual and systemic basis.
On November 21, 2006, the Committee advised the applicant in an email that they would be in contact following the Sao Paulo meeting (December 2006).
The Ombudsman has made 12 recommendations. Among them was a recommendation that the applicant be given “interim status”, but the Chair noted that there was no status of that kind to be awarded. The Ombudsman also asked the Board to declare ALAC membership to the applicant.
The Chair suggested that a response be developed before the next meeting of the Board at San Juan with staff support. Additionally, Roberto Gaetano asked that staff advise the Ombudsman that the report had been considered and notify him that a response would be forthcoming.
Review and Approval of banking relationship change from Board Finance Committee.
Doug Brent spoke to this item. The Audit Committee has approved a recommendation from staff to change their current banking relationship and commence a new relationship with Union Bank of California.
Doug advised that the key points in making this change are:
- ICANN’s former banking relationship is more oriented to larger businesses;
- The total cost of the relationship is lower;
- The speed of processing of wire transfers would be increased within the new banking relationship;
Doug noted the advice of some Board members that a relationship with an overseas bank may be required and beneficial. Questions were raised by other board members regarding the potential risks involved with opening multiple relationships in different locations. Doug indicated that ICANN Staff would review the benefits and risks regarding additional banking relationships in different locations and would provide a report to the Board’s Audit Committee.
Vanda Scartezini moved and Demi Getchko seconded the following resolution:
Resolved (07.40) that ICANN staff is hereby authorized to enter into a new banking relationship with Union Bank of California.
The resolution was unanimously passed.
Review of status of Board Governance Committee’s GNSO review process
The Chair asked Denise Michel to speak to this item.
She advised that a discussion draft had been prepared by the GNSO Improvements Working Group. The Group is intending to post the draft for discussion at the upcoming San Juan meeting.
Denise made it clear that there was no action required of the Board. She further pointed out that the draft did not in anyway represent a final position.
A number of Board members requested that the posting make it clear that it felt it was entirely appropriate that this working draft be published for information but that the Board would not take action to endorse or officially comment on it until it was reported formally in final form to the Board by the GNSO review working group.
Denise advised she would work with John Jeffrey in drafting an appropriate clarification of the posting.
Review of Status of ccTLD redelegation requests from IANA
David Conrad gave an update on the status of a proposed .KP ( North Korea) delegation request and advised that information required to process the request had been received and was being reviewed.
Discussion of Review of various business units
Paul Twomey advised that it was his intention to ask ICANN department managers to provide a report to the Board on their activities.
He said this would commence at next meeting.
Other Business
Four items were raised:
- Raimundo Beca asked that a formal resolution be adopted, asking the staff to start the drafting of the Early Awareness Reports concerning two global policies currently under discussion at the Regional Internet Registries. He recalled that according to the Board's procedures about the ratification of global policies, as soon as the Board becomes aware that a global policy is in development it can decide, when appropriate, to ask staff to draft Early Awareness Reports. He noted that for IPv6 global policy the Board had adopted a resolution of this sort. He advised that the Address Council adopted on June 6, 2007, a resolution qualifying IPv6 uptake and IPv4 exhaustion as global policies. Given the concerns regarding the exhaustion of IANA's reserve pool of IPv4 addresses, it seemed to him appropriate to start the tracking of the policy regarding the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses. The Chair advised asked that a resolution to this affect be prepared by staff in association with Raimiundo for San Juan meeting.
- Paul Twomey provided information that ICANN will be undertaking a public consultation on representations that it has received from the ITU on .INT and accompanying policies. The US Department of Commerce has written to ICANN asking for advice from on the steps being taken to advance the issue and ICANN will be replying separately. ICANN currently administers .INT as part of the IANA function.
- Steve Goldstein noted staff was organizing an ICANN booth at the upcoming meeting in San Juan. He encouraged Board members to nominate a time to attend the booth so that they can interact with individual participants.
- Rita Rodin asked for information concerning the proposed reforms to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement that may be presented at the San Juan meeting. Susan Crawford advised that there was to be a session at the public forum on the Monday of the meeting and that materials were being prepared by Kurt Pritz for that session.
Conclusion of Meeting
The Chairman moved for an adjournment of the Meeting at 3.11 PM PDT. The Chair noted the improved preparation of materials by staff that was assisting the expeditious consideration of items.