Board Minutes - 18 November 2005

Public Version
Meeting of the .au Domain Administration Board

18 November 2005 - 1.00pm
Maddocks. Level 7, 140 William Street. Melbourne VIC 3000

Present:
Greg Crew, Chris Disspain, Brett Fenton, David Goldstein, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Jo Lim, Bennett Oprysa, Josh Rowe, Peter Shilling and Tony Staley

Observers:
John Higgins

Apologies:
Roger Dean and Greg Watson


1. Welcome New Directors

The board welcomed new directors Roger Dean, Brett Fenton and David Goldstein.

2. Vote of Thanks to Retiring Directors

The board thanked Larry Bloch, Kim Davies and Peter Nissen for their contribution to auDA.

3. Continuous Disclosure

BF is an employee of NetRegistry Pty Ltd, an auDA accredited registrar.

DG is contracted by auDA, ICANN and Maddocks to provide a regular news monitoring service.

4. Election of Chair

TS (nominated GC, seconded JR) was elected Chair unopposed.

5. Election of Deputy Chair

KH (nominated GC, seconded JR) was elected Deputy Chair unopposed.

6. Appointment of Board Committees

Finance Committee: membership to be confirmed at the next board meeting.

Constitution Committee: KH (chair), BF, JR, GC with assistance from CD and Craig Ng (Maddocks). The purpose of the Committee is to review auDA's Constitution and make recommendations to the board about what changes (if any) should be made. Any changes to the Constitution will require approval by auDA members at the 2006 AGM or an earlier EGM.

7. Confirmation of Minutes

The minutes of the 10 and 28 October 2005 meetings were confirmed.

8. Policy

    Geographic names update

Commercial names: The second round ballot was held on 27 October, and names that no one applied for will be released on 20 November.

Community names: Leonie Parkinson has been appointed General Manager of the new organisation, commencing 28 November. She will be employed by auDA initially until the new organisation is set up.

    Domain traffic capture

An ad hoc meeting of board members and other interested parties was held in October to discuss the emerging trend of "megarants" - people who register thousands of domain names to generate revenue by capturing web traffic. auDA will hold a public consultation on the issue in early 2006.

9. Membership

The members below were accepted in the classes indicated:

Seamless Technology Services (Demand)
Creative Digital TV (Supply)
Alex Portnoy (Demand)
Peter Somogyi (Demand)

10. auDA Foundation

The Foundation will issue the first call for submissions in February 2006. The board intends to hold two funding rounds per year. No targets or limits have been set at this stage, but it is expected that each grant will be between $5,000 and $20,000 depending on the nature of the project. The board is still pursuing deductible gift recipient status through the ATO.

11. Board Correspondence

No correspondence was received.

12. Other Business

    GST ruling

CD advised that Maddocks has lodged a formal complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the ATO's failure to respond to auDA's request for a private ruling on whether overseas-based accredited registrars are required to charge GST.

    WSIS update

CD advised that the WSIS meeting in Tunisia agreed to maintain the status quo in relation to Internet governance, a position advocated by the Australian delegation.

13. 2006 Meeting Schedule

The board will meet on 13 February, 10 April, 13 June, 14 August, 9 October 2006.