CMAP Meeting - 28 February 2001
Corrs Chambers Westgarth
Level 32, Governor PhillipTower
1
Farrer Place, Sydney
Present: Philip Argy, Larry Bloch, Matthew Hall, Tony Hill, David Howarth, David Lieberman, Jo Lim, George Michaelson, Bruce Tonkin, Galen Townson, Andrew van der Stock
Teleconference: Evan Arthur, Alan Chalmers, Ian Johnston, John Lindsay, Tania Wickman
Apologies: Sonja Bernhardt , Eugene Clark, Roberto Colanzi, Matt Healy, Allan Horsley, Geoff Huston, Amanda James, Bill O’Chee, Jonathon Potter, Andrew Robertson, Pauline van Winsen, Karina Warnest
Actions:
- JL to draft minutes from meeting.
- GM to draft discussion paper on technical standards and circulate to Panel via closed lis
- DL to draft discussion paper on consumer safeguards and circulate to Panel via closed list.
Decisions:
Discussion of registrar requirements
1.George Michaelson will
coordinate a discussion paper on technical standards. The paper will be
circulated to the Panel via the closed list, ahead of the next meeting.
2. David Lieberman will coordinate a discussion paper on consumer safeguards. The paper will be circulated to the Panel via the closed list, ahead of the next meeting.
Next meeting
3.The next Panel meeting will be at auDA in
Melbourne on 28 March 2001.
Discussion:
1 Confirmation of 31 January minutes
Panel members confirmed the
minutes from the meeting on 31 January 2001, previously circulated via the
closed list.
2 Preliminary report on public responses to Stage 3 report
Panel
members discussed public response to the draft Stage 3 report, released on
16 February. To date, one submission had been received.
Panel members advised that they had circulated the report to their constituencies and interest groups, including ISOC-AU, IIA, AIIA, AIMIA, SAGE-AU, SETEL, ACCC small business, education sector, privacy advocates.
Panel members were advised that an informal public consultation session will be held during the ICANN meeting in Melbourne on 12 March, for members of the public to discuss their views with members of both Panels.
3 Discussion of registrar requirements (section 4.4 of Stage 3 report)
At the request of the secretariat, Panel members considered a proposal to call
for early expressions of interest from potential new registrars for an
upfront, non-refundable fee, as a way of meeting auDA’s transitional funding
requirements. The Panel was of the view that this activity would pre-empt
the Panel’s final recommendations and distort the policy development process
by forcing the Panel to specify a small part of its work in isolation from
the whole. Panel members suggested that auDA could source its transitional
funding by way of a loan from government or industry. Panel members
emphasised the need for auDA’s budgetary processes to be transparent, to
avoid public suspicion and criticism.
In its discussion of technical standards, the Panel noted the following points:
- the more onerous the requirements on registrars, the higher the barrier to entry (eg. there are approximately 2,000-3,000 registrars in the UK registrar requirements are relatively low);
- there are minimum technical standards that must be complied with to ensure DNS stability, but these should be specified at the lowest possible level to allow for innovation and competitive difference between registrars technical standards should be specified for front-end interfaces only, not for back-end operations; and
- appropriate technical standards can be sourced from elsewhere (eg. ICANN).
In its discussion of data requirements, the Panel noted the following points:
- the registrant is responsible for maintaining correct contact information, and the Name Panel’s recommendation regarding domain name licence renewal periods should help to enforce this responsibility;
- the registry should be able to de-list or de-register a domain name if the registrant does not maintain correct contact information (or deliberately provides incorrect information);
- WHOIS is not a directory service or an audit trail, it is merely a tool to help trace the holder of a domain name licence;
- there is no standard WHOIS data set (eg. ICANN’s WHOIS data set includes more information than Nominet’s);
- should there be a public interest requirement on the registry to provide WHOIS data for all 3LDs?
Panel members also discussed the possibility that the competition model will need to be authorised under the Trade Practices Act. It was the view of some Panel members that this is an unlikely outcome, however if authorisation was required, it would be the responsibility of auDA to obtain it, not the Panel.
4 Dispute resolution
Panel members were advised that
Philip Argy has agreed to chair a small working group to develop a
comprehensive dispute resolution framework that covers disputes between
registry and registrar, registrar and registrar, registrar and registrant,
registrant and registrant.
Other members of the working group are David Lieberman, Derek Whitehead, Alan Chalmers, Daniel Rechtman and Patrick Fair. A representative from the small business/consumer sector will be invited to join. The working group will undertake public consultation on its proposals.
In relation to disputes between registrants, the Name Panel has received public support for its recommendation that Australia adopt the ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure (UDRP) (or a modified version). A briefing session on the UDRP, conducted by Francis Gurry of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), will be held on Thursday 29 March, 9.30-11am, at the auDA office in Melbourne. All interested Panel members are invited to attend.
5 Coordination with Name Policy Advisory Panel
Panel members
were advised that the Name Panel released its second public consultation
report on 16 February, and is due to make its final report to the auDA Board
in April.
The auDA Board has approved a 3 month extension to the Name Panel’s Terms of Reference, to consider the introduction of new 2LDs.
Last Updated: 07/03/2006 09:03
