This time the GNSO agenda did not provide time for the constituencies' statements, but most of the statement below was presented by Norbert and Robin in the pertinent discussions at the open meeting. Any suggestions on how to improve it? Our council reps should circulate it in the GNSO list, but first let us catch the opinion of our fellow NCUCers. rgds --c.a. ==== NCUC statement 28-March-06 ICANN meeting, Wellington NZ On the Whois Service for gTLDs NCUC supports current Formulation 1 regarding the purpose of the Whois service: "The purpose of the gTLD Whois service is to provide information sufficient to contact a responsible party for a particular gTLD domain name who can resolve, or reliably pass on data to a party who can resolve, issues related to the configuration of the records associated with the domain name within a DNS server." This is consistent with the narrow technical mission of ICANN, as well as ICANN's core values, in particular values 1 to 3: Value 1 -- security and stability of the Internet Value 2 -- respecting creativity and flow of information by limiting ICANN's activities to matters within ICANN's mission. Value 3 -- delegating to and respecting the policy role of responsible entities which reflect the interests of affected parties. Regarding Formulation 2 (supported by the IPC, ISPC, and BC constituencies), there is need to clarify what "other issues related to the registration or use of a domain name" really mean, as "other issues" and "use of a domain name" may encompass everything, thus going beyond ICANN's mission. NCUC's New Website NCUC is deploying a new Web site, developed with the support of Brazil's CGIbr technical staff. The site is based on free and open source software, is W3C-compliant, and contains content management facilities and collaborative tools, as well as a workflow system for managing memberships. It is expected it will become an effective tool to enhance the work of NCUC and bring new members. The site is already running experimentally at http://ncuc.icann.org.br. Comments and suggestions are very welcome. On New TLDs GNSO has created a Task Force to discuss possible ways in which to restrict the allocation and assignment of new gTLDs and to decide between competing applications for the same gTLD. NCUC supports opening up the creation of new gTLDs as quickly and as broadly as is practicably possible. NCUC supports employing lotteries (for non-commercial purposes) and auctions (for commercial purposes) as a fair and reasonable mechanism for deciding between competing applications. NCUC believes that in evaluating applications for new gTLDs, ICANN should limit its role to a purely technical inquiry in line with ICANN's core value of promoting competition. On ICANN's Operational Plan NCUC acknowledges the extension and complexity of the Operational Plan currently drafted, and is not prepared at this point to make detailed comments. However, NCUC, as an ICANN constituency, would like to point out that ICANN's operational plan includes US$200,000 as a contribution to the upcoming Internet Governance Forum (IGF), as well as US$300,000 just for travel expenses of ALAC members, besides staff time for both. As in the past, it does not include any support (in-kind or otherwise) for NCUC. As a constituency of non-commercial non-profits with significant contributions to the development of ICANN, NCUC is drastically underpowered to fulfill its mission. A proposal is to be made to ICANN to include resources for NCUC in its operational plan and budget. ==== -- Carlos A. Afonso diretor de planejamento Rits -- http://www.rits.org.br ******************************************** * Sacix -- distribuição Debian CDD Linux * * orientada a projetos de inclusão digital * * com software livre e de código aberto, * * mantida pela Rits em colaboração com o * * Coletivo Digital. * * Saiba mais: http://www.sacix.org.br * ********************************************