Hi there NCUC'ers: I thought I'd post a few words to the list about the Sao Paulo ICANN meeting. 1. LSE Report on GNSO Reform Our constituency should get its comments in regarding the recommendations in the LSE Report on GNSO reform within 2 weeks. Milton has already provided some comments and I don't mind making the next edit to his comments and then posting that to the list. Our statement should be in within 2 weeks. 2. New gTLDs and Draft GNSO Recommendations Our constituency should submit its comments on the draft proposal for the new gTLDS within the next few weeks also (due 20 Dec). The current proposal is terrible. It would model speech for the Internet on ancient 19th century treaty language (trademarks) and forbid any words in new gTLDs that have religious, sexual, or political connotations. It would put ICANN in a position to engage in massive censorship and choose between competing standards of morality and religions. Besides being wrong on pure censorship grounds, the proposal is completely unworkable and would put an enormous burden on ICANN staff to evaluate "worthiness" between competing claims, evaluate business plans, review financial statements, etc of new gTLD applicants. It would also put a lot of legal liability on ICANN and open it up to numerous lawsuits from any party who felt ICANN wrongfully awarded a gTLD to a competitor. I can post more detailed comments on this issue to the list so we can begin to prepare our constituency statement. Its very important we provide comments on this issue. Also at our meeting with the GAC, we were told the GAC wants to be mostly content-neutral and isn't pushing for the same level of restrictions as the current GNSO draft recommendations are. But GAC is clearly concerned about controlling geographical terms in new gTLDs. 3. Contractual terms This was discussed on the list and I believe Mawaki submitted NCUC's comments. 4. WHOIS The NCUC workshops on whois were interesting. I estimate about 40 people in the room at the end of the 1st workshop. Martin Boyle of the UK was not able to attend after all due to the GAC vote on whois (GAC could not reach an agreement on whois). A representative from the FTC attended and asked a lot of questions. Rodin did not have much to say to indicate what her views on the whois issue are. Vittorio joined the panel and described the situation in Italy. I wasn't able to attend the 2nd workshop because I had to go to the GAC-Board open meeting. But I was told it was a very engaging discussion (although with less people). Avri, Wendy, and I submitted a proposal to waive publication of whois data - except the DNS technical contact. The proposal is in line with the Wellington GNSO vote confirming the narrow technical purpose for the whois database. The proposal is in response to the new IPR/Biz Const. "special circumstances" proposal that attempts to over-ride the compromise OPOC proposal. The "special circumstances" proposal puts enormous barriers in front of anyone who wants or needs to protect their privacy. 5. NCUC Elections ** Important: We need to have elections - like now. We need to have re-elections for our executive committee and a GNSO seat. Who is in charge of elections around here? 6. ALAC won the ICANN soccer tournament. That's all I can remember at the moment. What else? Norbert? Mawaki? Carlos? ..... Bueller? :-) Robin