gTLD-MoU

GTLD-MOU POLICY OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE

NOTICE-97-04

ACTION: REQUEST FOR COMMENTS

ANNOUNCEMENT DATE: December 16, 1997

CLOSING DATE: January 31, 1998

SUBJECT: Proposed Modification/Expansion of the gTLD-MoU Policy Oversight Committee (POC) and Amendment Process of the gTLD-MoU

ADDRESSES: Electronic comments should be sent to notice-97-04@gtld-mou.org. Comments should be submitted (in order of preference) in ASCII, HTML, Microsoft Word or WordPerfect formats. Non-ASCII formats will not be visible in the mail archives until an index of submissions is built after the closing date for the request for comments. The original mail archive of submissions can be found at http://www.gtld-mou.org/notice-97-04/.

Written comments or comments submitted on diskette can be sent to:

gTLD-MoU/Notice-97-04
ITU
Place des Nations
1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland

All comments received are made public

If further information is required on this notice, please contact poc-submit@gtld-mou.org.

A. BACKGROUND

From the inception of the International Ad Hoc Committee (“IAHC”) in October 1996, the IAHC and its successors, the interim Policy Oversight Committee (POC), and now the POC have explicitly and publicly recognized the need for evolutionary growth and development of the entire program for expansion of the generic Top Level Domain name system, including the composition of the POC.

The IAHC was formed and chartered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (“IANA”) and the Internet Society (“ISOC”) to develop this expansion program. The original eleven members of the IAHC were chosen to represent as broad as possible a range of interests in the Internet community, as to be geographically distributed. The selection of members succeeded in bringing together a diversity of views and a geographically well-distributed group, but the limitation to eleven members, and the selection process, directed initially by IANA and ISOC, has been criticized as not giving explicit recognition to some interest groups. Recognizing this, POC issued a first request for comments Notice-97-01: Review of Representation of Constituencies in the gTLD-MoU Policy Oversight Committee soliciting suggestions on how to improve the representation of stakeholder constituencies in the gTLD-MoU Policy Oversight Committee.

The gTLD-MoU (see http://www.gtld-mou.org/gTLD-MoU.html) now provides that the POC consists of twelve members appointed as follows:

IANA - two appointments
ISOC - two appointments
Internet Architecture Board (“IAB”) - two appointments
Council of Registrars (“CORE”) - two appointments
International Trademark Association (“INTA”) - one appointment
World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) - one appointment
International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”) - one appointment
Representative of the Depository of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Generic Top Level Domain Name Space of the Internet Domain Name System (“gTLD-MoU”) (the ITU) - one appointment

The POC has agreed to an amendment to the gTLD-MoU to provide for the appointment of two additional members to be appointed by the gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body (“PAB”), made up from signatories to the gTLD-MoU (see http://www.itu.int/net-itu/gtld-mou/signat.htm). Pending the formal amendment, which requires action by IANA and ISOC, PAB has appointed two observers to POC.

The terms of the above appointments are for three years, except that the organizations appointing two members initially appoint one for a one year term, and the other for a three year term. The gTLD-MoU directs each appointing group to endeavour to achieve equitable geographic distribution.

Further explanation of the identity and composition of the appointing bodies referred to above may be found at the gTLD-MoU web site - see http://www.gtld-mou.org.

B. PROPOSAL

In fulfillment of the promise of an evolutionary process, the POC has reached consensus on an expansion of POC to be achieved over a period of eighteen months, with an appropriate transitional structure to ensure stability in the administration of the gTLD-MoU program.

The POC is now soliciting public comments on the proposal below.

Effective upon formal adoption by POC of this expansion program, and for a period of eighteen months thereafter, the gTLD-MoU will be amended to provide that POC shall have twenty members as follows:

The gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body (PAB) will have the power to elect nine members of the Policy Oversight Committe (POC). Nominations may be made by any member of PAB; each PAB member may nominate not more than one nominee; nominees need not necessarily be connected or affiliated with the nominating organization. Each nomination shall include a designation of the nominee as falling within one of the following classifications:

Operators and service providers - three
Business organizations other than operators and service providers - two
Consumers - one
At large members distributed geographically:

Americas - one
Europe, Africa and the Middle East - one
Asia-Pacific - one

Nominations by PAB shall be completed within one month following adoption of this expansion program by POC, and elections of members shall be conducted not later than three months following adoption. Each PAB member must select one and only one of the first three classifications in which it will cast one vote, and must select one and only one of the three geographic areas in which it may cast one additional vote. The nominees receiving the highest number of votes in each category will be elected.

The following shall continue to be members of POC:

Two persons appointed by ISOC
Two persons appointed by IANA
Two persons appointed by IAB
Two persons appointed by CORE
One person appointed by INTA
One person appointed by WIPO (with non-voting, advisory capacity status)
One person appointed by ITU (with non-voting, advisory capacity status)

Prior to the expiration of the eighteen month transition period, the POC shall further determine, by a vote of not less than two-thirds of the voting members of POC, the composition of the POC thereafter in whatever form the POC may so determine.

Furthermore, the gTLD-MoU shall further be amended to provide that, effective at the expiration of the eighteen month transition period, the gTLD-MoU may thereafter be amended by a vote of at least two-thirds of the voting members of POC. This would replace the current amendment process defined in the gTLD-MoU where amendments are entered into force by IANA and ISOC.

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