Singapore Report

(posted to the listservers IFWP, domain-policy@open-rsc.org, domain-policy@lists.internic.net, discuss@dnso.org, a.o.)

Dear all,

IANAR,
(I am not a reporter), but I was there and have to bear witness to you of some of the extraordinary happenings during the DNSO meetings and the open meeting with the ICANN board. (not:"open Board meeting") I apologise in advance that he viewpoint will be from the DN owners and registrants, for whom I came to Singapore and that the comments are entirely my own interpretation.

Starting with the DNSO.
The meeting was chaired jointly by Anthony vanCouvering of IATLD ("Paris draft")and David Maher of Sonnenschein, Nath and Rosenthal.("BMW-draft)

Both sides once more expounded their positions, some bitterness was exchanged, Amadeu spoke fast and a lot, and that was that. Deadlock. Esther and Joe Simms, were observing from the sidelines and answered occasional questions. Their strong message was: look, if you don't come to an agreement among yourself, we will do it for you and you may like the result even less.

In how far this was bluff, I don't know. Obviously Joe Simms, would have been unhappy with such a forced result, that could further undermine the
legal position of ICANN. Then, before lunch, Dennis Jennings of CENTR presented us with a document, a Singapore declaration of principles, if you will, that tried to establish a middle ground between the positions of the Paris Draft and the BMW draft.

Unfortunately, I cannot present you with the full text of this document right now, but I hope Kilnam will post it when he has the opportunity.
(here I missed a few hours of the proceedings, as I also wanted to attent the MAC meeting. After lunch, I went back to the DNSO) The rest of the day was spent, reviewing and expressing agreement/disagreement on the CENTR document in detail.

In effect, the Paris Draft group was making concessions to their positions, and so,seemingly, was the BMW group, in order to jointly be able to present ICANN with a declaration of agreed principles (the document could not really be called a consistent model for a DNSO).
The hottest area, from my p.o.v., was of course the bootstrap constituencies, that would be the pillars on which the Names Council would rise from the General Assembly. Dennis' document listed the ccTLD's and the gTLD's (one company) as separate constituencies,(strong objections from Amadeu) the DN holders appeared
there, right at the bottom, as 'possible constituencies'.
Jay Fenello and myself protested strongly, saying that we could not support a structure of constituencies that did not at least include the DN holders in the bootstrap setup. Our position seemed to have a lot of support.
The meeting was asked by Greg Hall, from the Canadian Ass. of Internet providers, if there were any objections to adding the individual DN Holders as an initial constituency.
Nobody spoke to that.
(so,naively, I though we had achieved agreement..)

Then to everybody's surprise, when the question was raised whether the new declaration of principles would mean that the two existing applications would be withdrawn, David Maher said, that his application remained in force, and that he would have to speak to his contituents to see what they could accept.
David re-iterated this position, that would nullify evethything that had been achieved, the next day in the open meeting with the ICANN board. Even Esther was visibly taken aback.
The Meeting with the ICANN board.

The day started with an opening address by Dave Farber, with many regional people in attendance. Not a peep about ICANN.

The rest of the day was devoted to that. The audience changed cultural colour, more reflecting the current Internet traffic.;-)
I will limit myself to the most extaordinary events. In summary, I must say that the day was at least a triumph for Free Speech.
In relation to the DNSO, Ester said that the Board would listen to all the arguments and make up it's mind by the next day , whether it would accept any or none of the applications or impose it's own will on the DNSO structure.
There was a brief discussion with Joe Simms on whether the bylaws would allow this. They would.
The plea's for all point of view were heard. IMHpov, the scariest one came from a Hollywood lawyer, with a lot of loose talk about shutting down domains.
WIPO came with a new euphemism, "taking down DN's".

Then a little bombshell: Board member Hans Kaayenbrink had not publicly disclosed his affiliation to an organisation that had expressed unmovable support to the BMW model. Doubts of course, whether an impartial judgement
could still be expected. Ah, had the interim Board Members not been handpicked for their impartiality from the positions in the DNS wars???

Then, the Board was asked if they could perhaps give the audience a little taste of an open Board meeting, by letting each Board member speak to the idea of allowing the Individual DN holders a place at the DNSO table.

Esther, (thank you again) expressed the view that ICANN could be generous and allow more initial constituencies than envisioned in the BMW draft, "if that would make these people happy."
George Conrades (having absorbed a lot of argument in the MAC) supported this and Mr Fitzsimmons of Dun & Bradstreet was also of the view that more constituencies up front would do more good than harm.
Mike Roberts and Greg Crew fudged nicely and didn't really say anything that could commit them either way.
Hans Kraayenbrink said nothing.
When I stood up and asked him, he said that he did not favour open board meetings and that he preferred his deliberations to remain in private.
Ouch!
Where were you, Dan Steinberg? (ill, please get better soon) Where were the grey ribbons?
All this, of course was broadcast on the Net.

Well, there was a lot more off-line (apparently Dennis Jennings was physically attacked by angry Europeans, for bringing Hans' compromised position to the attention of the meeting), but I rest it here.

Today we may hear whether ICANN decides to make us citizens or subjects.

Joop Teernstra LL.M.