the board meeting ended roughly an hour
ago so we want to thank both you rub
beckstrom and you Peter dengue thrush
for talking to us helping us get a feel
for the actions of the board and help
summarize what those active actions were
Peter let's start with you it was widely
thought that the ICANN board would
finally approve the launch of new
generic top-level domains of this
meeting yet again much to the dismay of
many of your own community members that
didn't happen why well we're talking
about the live running internet and
making very dramatic changes to it and
that's something we're going to do right
rather than fast we've had a lot of
concern from members of the community
including governments of the world that
there's still some concerns that they
want sorted out before we go live now
the only responsible thing for us to do
in the face of that message from our
community that there are still matters
of concern is to come up with a process
for looking at that and resolving it and
we've done that we have arranged a
meeting with the government's in
February which will hopefully resolve
their remaining issues but I think most
the communities are it pleased we've
actually closed off or signal the
closing off a whole lot of issues which
they can now put behind them as they're
settled and the fact that we're closing
in on the remaining issues and that
we've got a process for dealing with
those with the government's I think the
reaction I've had since the meeting is
the most people are pleased with the
progress we've made let me follow up
there that the the decision of the board
not to move forward with the launch of
new gTLDs occurred against a backdrop of
ICANN having received a very critical
letter from the US Department of
Commerce how big of a factor was that in
the Board's decision to kick this down
the road well that was one of the
comments that came in as part of the
community comments in relation to the
new gTLD program that's a feature of the
way I can't does things we put material
out for comment and the comment comes
back when it comes back of course we
that we then have to take it very
seriously and that's what we're doing
that's going to be part of the process
as we move forward to that meeting in
February considering those issues and
looking at the materials looking at the
community response and eventually making
a proper decision on that Peter will the
februari meeting be open well we haven't
actually resolved the rules of
engagement with the GAC on this
particular meeting but the standard
position for all organizations and I can
is that they are open that's
our commitment to transparency and part
of our accountability obligations on the
other hand if there's any at any point
one of the parties thinks that the
negotiation would be assisted by a
period of discussing things in private
you know I guess we could consider that
your gak seems to be sing to the Lord
we've been talking you want our input
we've been given you our input you say
you're listening to us but at the end of
the day you make decisions that seem to
indicate you didn't hear us at all is
there a break down here no but look I
think that is a feature of I can we get
public comment from enormous range of
institutions and people and we think we
could probably do a better job of
explaining our decisions and so one of
the things we've we've tasked the staff
without this meeting is to is to spend a
bit more time publishing the rationales
criticisms because everybody wants to
know you know why we've made the
decisions we have and I I think we've
always taken a lot of trouble to to
explain ourselves but I think we could
probably do a bit better right let me
ask you assuming let's take a
hypothetical here that the board says in
San Francisco at the next public meeting
yes we're good go ahead and launch new
gTLDs you're the man in charge of
implementation is I can't read sure as
long as the program is largely as it's
been outlined so far and there's not
major structural changes to what would
be approved by the board the answer is
yes you both have said that most of the
major issues have been resolved you're
going to be in February to resolve some
of the few remaining issues
characterized as minor what type of
issues exactly well they're not all
minor so that there's only the list is
smaller than it ever was one of the one
of the issues for example as we've been
tasked the communities call on us to do
economic studies and in fact we've done
five economic studies so one of our
decisions we're not going to get any
more useful information from further
economic studies what we now need to do
is spend a lot of time doing
analysis of those studies so we're
closing off the prospect of further
studies I mean you could keep we could
do study always do more but we've
reached that we think the point of
diminishing returns on that well we now
need to concentrate is on the analysis
similarly with the other issues we've
done a lot of work and trying to protect
the interests of trademark owners one of
the fundamental policy positions when we
started this was we was that the new
gtld program should not infringe the
rights of others and one of the very
important rights in that area is that as
the trademark rights we've spent a lot
of time with the trademark community and
we've done up three new independent
mechanisms for protecting trademark
rights on the internet and so the sense
of the board of the sense of the
community is is that that's probably a
sufficient effort in developing
mechanisms what we now might look at is
how can we enhance or tweak or improve
those processes but we're not going to
we're not going to convene another
process to look at yet another kind of
solution for intellectual property
rights let me ask both you gentlemen I
don't think it's an overstatement to say
after every I can meeting there is a
certain period of digestion by the
community where the community digests
the board's actions the resolutions do
you foresee at the end of that sort of
assimilation of the actions of the board
parce criticism
it's difficult to forecast I think
actually you know part of a healthy
nature of our multi stakeholder
communities there's a lot of people to
have strongly held opinions and and it's
often the case that a simple consensus
isn't reached and the board has to make
tough decisions those often are not
popular so criticism is somewhat par for
the course given the important mandate
of the organization and the fact that in
many cases these decisions are zero some
decisions one party gets what they want
and another doesn't so and that's why
the board is important to have a body
that's been elected from the multi-state
trouble holder community to make those
final decisions rod we constantly hear
the expression multi-stakeholder in the
context of I can what does that mean in
terms of icons function sure what it
means is it the people that are coming
to the table represent different
stakeholders from the Internet at large
at large and particularly the domain
name industry and the addressing
industry so they have expertise it means
they bring in knowledge they bring in
subject matter expertise they bring in
their financial interest and they bring
in technical acumen and many other
capabilities so that the quality of
policies developed is much higher
because the level of the knowledge of
the participants is is so pointed and so
capable so and then how do you balance
that and how do you facilitate that
process to come out with decisions
policies and actions that are consistent
with the global public interest is the
exciting part of the challenge but
that's the real benefit of multi
stakeholder in one word is just
expertise let's jump over to da xxx the
other hot issue at this meeting the
resolution which the board approved
clearly states the board intends to
enter into a registry agreement with the
ICM registry for the dot xxx sponsored
TLD but once again that
appears to have kicked this one down the
road one of the rules that I can is that
we have to take the advice from
governments very seriously and you'd
expect that this is the governments of
the world coming together their
obligation and I can their commitment to
our counters to provide us with advice
either government advisory committee
they give us advice on matters of public
policy of conservative governments which
is their domain they are the experts in
this area this is an application which
they think has raised some area at some
issues of public policy comment and
they've given us advice as to what we
should do about that application on the
other hand we get advice from other
parts of the community and we have to
take our own advice legal advice and
various other things that advice looks
like it may be that we are about to
depart from gac advice written of the
bylaws we have an obligation if that's
to happen as do we have to have a good
faith and timely consultation with a gap
to try and bridge the gap it may be that
if we get together we can resolve the
issues and proceed together it may be
that having gone through that process we
can't at that stage provided we can our
reasons to the government advisory
committee about why we're not taking
their advice we're free to move forward
on the path that the community has
chosen so that resolution is just part
of their prices Peter summarize for us
if you will Gaetz feelings about da XXX
and the role that please and the
decision-making process will appear
there's a number of views from different
members of the gag the GAC hasn't ever
reached a unanimous position I'll there
and has done a number of things it's
asked for further information about how
the contractual performance will be
guaranteed it's complained about some
other aspects so there's a range of
opinion and in the gut
advisory committee we think that we'll
be able to negotiate with them get get
clarity on what the difference is
between us and will either come to some
compromise on that or we'll have to
dispatch is on this occasion to disagree
with the government advisory committee
and I don't have any problem with that
as a matter of principle the principle
itself appears and the bylaws and it's
one of the really strong features and
it'll be a sign of the maturation of I
can when we can have a disagreement get
over it and move on the reality as many
people think that I can would be afraid
not to listen to the gap you seem to be
indicating that's not the case it's not
a question of fear it's a question of
making sure that we've taken all
relevant views into consideration it's
true that on previous occasions we've
taken the advice of the GAC into
consideration and that's largely a
testament to the quality of advice that
you'd expect as we get from the
governments of the world ever now then
we're going to disagree it's not because
we don't like each other it's because
we've the community has one view and the
government's who you might expect to be
conservative or cautious exactly if I
can contributor what Peter is saying you
know we have the government advisory
committee or what we call the GAC we
also have the at-large advisory
committee call a lack we already had
also have the root server Advisory
Committee call our SEC we also have the
security and stability advisory
committee called the s sac and then
we've got many other constituencies in
stakeholder groups so there's many
different voices here and I think that
that i can has really done its best to
balance those voices and to find a
constructive consensus in the middle
it's been stated repeatedly that i can
considers doc XXX as a sort of for lack
of a better word a test case of its
accountability procedure procedures and
measures is it passing that test
I think it is I think I said earlier
it's very clear this is an applicant who
came forward in a program was voted down
by the board felt that it had a case to
make went away used one of our processes
to make its case one that case has come
back and has now gone back into the
process again it was moving forward so
that seems to be a perfect example of
the processes working in favor of you
know particular applicant right let me
put this question to you there's been
some criticism among people walking the
hallways during the card on your meeting
questioning ICANN's true commitment to
transparency and accountability what's
your response sure we're extremely
committed ever ever since the day that
you know a moment I sign that contract
with the US government committed both
those parties in the ICANN board staff
and community to working on the
principles of accountability
transparency and I've started both a
top-down effort in the organization took
one of my vice presidents and made her
directly an advisor to me to the CEO on
accountability transparency showing my
top down commitment and then we started
a bottom-up process to the organization
and we have dozens of projects and
initiatives we've done one of which we
just launched here which is that we've
taken every single board resolution in I
can history and believe it or not
there's more than 900 and cited what
actions have been taken to fulfill those
resolutions and linking related
documents exactly the kind of thing the
affirmation of commitments itself asked
for so I think that we can always get
better every organization can improve
and we continue to focus on that and at
the same time though one has to
recognize the tremendous accomplishments
of this board staff and community and
what they've built over the last 12
years gentlemen thank you very much
thank you thank you very