Board Minutes - 8 August 2005
Public Version
Meeting of the .au Domain Administration Board
8 August 2005 - 1.00pm
Maddocks. Level 7, 140 William Street. Melbourne VIC 3000
Present:
Larry Bloch, Greg Crew, Kim Davies, Chris Disspain, Kim Heitman, Jo Lim, Peter Nissen, Bennett Oprysa, Josh Rowe, Peter Shilling, Tony Staley
Teleconference:
Cheryl Langdon-Orr and Craig Ng (Maddocks)
Observers:
Andrew Maurer (DCITA)
Apologies:
Greg Watson
1. Continuous Disclosure
There were no matters to be disclosed.
2. Confirmation of Minutes
The minutes of the June 2005 meeting were confirmed.
3. Finance Report
The board noted the July accounts.
4. CEO Report
The board noted the CEO Report.
5. Policy
Commercial geographic names ballot
The ballot closed on 31 July. Participating registrars are in the process of submitting their applications to the registry. Initial data shows that over 13,500 applications have been submitted for approximately 3,000 geographic names.
org.au policy
auDA staff are concerned at an apparent increase in the number of non-legal/non-identifiable registrants in org.au since the eligibility criteria were relaxed in April.
Action: auDA staff to continue to monitor org.au registrations and report back to the board.
Community geographic names
The board agreed the following:
The new organistion will be set up as a trust (similar to the auDA Foundation).
The trust will be managed by a trustee company governed by a board of 4-6 directors, including at least one auDA director.
There will be a funding agreement between auDA and the trustee company, including appropriate KPIs and milestones.
The board noted that auDA may need to employ someone on a short-term contract to set up the organisation and develop a business plan.
The board considered a request from the University of Wollongong for funding to develop a community web site development project. The board decided that the scope of the project falls outside auDA\'s constitution, however the new organisation may decide to contribute funding from within its own budget. LB, PN and CLO suggested that the project may be of interest to their own organisations, or those they represent.
Action: LB, PN and CLO to consider following up directly with the University of Wollongong, or referring the proposal to the organisations they represent.
7. AGM 2005
The 2005 AGM will be held on Friday 18 November at 10am in Melbourne (venue tba).
8. Membership
The members below were accepted in the classes indicated:
Ben Mc Ginnes (Demand)
Nigel Phair (Demand)
Shaun Tipson (Demand)
Warren Hudson (Demand)
Action: LB to ask VeriSign to consider submitting an application for Supply Class membership instead of Demand Class.
9. Board Correspondence
No correspondence was received.
10. Other Business
Proposed board resolution from VeriSign
LB tabled a proposed board resolution from VeriSign regarding the registry tender process. The board reaffirmed its commitment to conducting a tender process that will give prospective tenderers certainty in relation to evaluation criteria and weightings, and will meet all probity requirements. The board noted that there are significant differences between auDA and ICANN, and agreed that it would not be appropriate for auDA to adopt the same process that ICANN used for the .net tender. In particular, the board agreed that it would not be appropriate for the tender evaluation panel to be completely independent of auDA.
Action: (1) CEO to respond to VeriSign. (2) CEO to seek legal advice about whether individual tender bids should be disclosed.
Carriage and content forum
CLO advised the board of a Convergence Forum to be held on 19 August in Sydney.
.hm
JR advised that there have been complaints about service in .hm, which is administered by former accredited registrar Capital Networks. The board noted that auDA\'s consitution specifically excludes Australian external territory ccTLDs from auDA\'s purview.
11. Next Meeting
The next board meeting will be held on Monday 10 October 2005 at auDA.