The last teleconference of the GNSO council (in which I participated
with proxies from Jisuk Woo and Carlos Afonso) was fully dedicated to
the terms of reference for the PDP on what, I call for short, ICANN
and registries which change services. The text of the terms of
refernce was revised during the conference. The Council decided to
deal with the issue itself directly, without a task force. (In other
words: The council is the task force.) All constituencies' reps in the
council, except the registries, voted in favour for the PDP.

Background information is in the report of the ICANN staff (plus a
FAQ):

http://www.icann.org/gnso/issue-reports/registry-svcs-report-19nov03.htm

In a separate message I will send an invitation to comment on the
topic, which will include the terms of reference. The NCUC will have
to come up with a text, a summary of comments, before January 12.
Originally a date of January 5 was set, following the PDP-rules. With
support of Marilyn Cade of the Business Constituency I convinced the
chair of the council, Bruce Tonkin, to give us a week more in this
time of the year.