Please find below for your information the Minutes of the fourth ADNA Board
Meeting,with an attached Timetable for Introduction of Greater Competition
within .au

Comments on the timetable, which Luke Carruthers (Chairman, ADNA) and Mark
Hughes (Convenor of the ADNA Commercial Sector Panel) will have the prime
responsibility for implementing, will be welcome. 

Peter Gerrand
Secretary, ADNA
-----------------------------------------------------

Minutes of Fourth ADNA Board Meeting -  28 January 1998 
Held 2.00 to 6.00 pm at the offices of Phillips Fox, 255 Elizabeth St, Sydney

Present:

Name			Representing			Email address
Luke Carruthers (Chair)	Intia (IIA)	Luke§magna.com.au
Peter Gerrand (Secretary)	Melbourne IT	Ceo§MelbourneIT.com.au
Mark Hughes (Treasurer)	ECA-Tradegate	Mark.hughes§ccamatil.com
Kevin Dinn	AIA (IIA)	Kevin§zip.com.au
Stephen Baxter (by phone)	SAIA	Steve§senet.com.au
Documents Tabled (with Source):

4/1 Agenda	 							(Secretary)
4/2 Minutes of Meeting No.3 of 5/11/97				 (Secretary)
4/3 Report on Domain Names and Trade Marks seminars  	(Secretary)
4/4 Registrar Licence Conditions (Convenor, Commercial Sector Panel)
4/5 .pr.au Policies			 (Convenor, Commercial Sector Panel)
4/6 Treasurer's Report						(Treasurer)

1. Apologies:

Allan Horsley 	ATUG
Peter Cooper		WAIA

2. Minutes of Meeting No 3.

Moved Kevin Dinn: that the Minutes of Meeting No. 3 be accepted.
								Carried unanimously
3. Action Points and other Business Arising

A14 	To be discussed under Treasurer's Report
A15	Not activated as MM had agreed to host all official ADNA papers on the
existing ADNA website.
A16	Luke reported on discussions with Geoff Huston (President)	and Kate
Lance (director) of ISOC-AU. They would be receptive to an invitation to
join ADNA, if ADNA indicates the concrete actions it proposes to take.
A17	Mark reported that the meeting of the Commercial Sector Panel took
place as planned on 18 November in Melbourne, and produced initial drafts
of the papers tabled as 4/3 and 4/4 today. Valuable input had been provided
>from Doug Osborn of Melbourne IT.  These drafts were subsequently posted to
the ADNA Board for comment. 
A18	Luke reported that ACIF and IIA are currently collaborating on ways to
achieve a common dispute resolution process, using a list of external
professional agencies with appropriate competencies. It was agreed that it
would make sense for ADNA to make use of this process, if assessed as
suitable. 
A19	Peter reported that ACIF was currently allowing 60 days for public
comment on draft standards, and 30 days for comment on draft codes of
practice.

4. Membership

No new applications had been received for membership. ISOC-AU's current
approach was discussed under Item 3 (A16) above.

Action A20: It was agreed the Chairman would send a letter of invitation to
ISOC-AU to join ADNA. 

Peter reported that Prof Iain Morrison had recently indicated that AVCC
supported the concept of separation of DNS policy making from the operation
of the DNS, and would prefer to see ADNA's structures provide this
separation. He had also reported on an informal offer from the National
Office of the Information Economy to host a national workshop on resolving
the major DNS issues if ADNA found this useful.  

Action A21: It was agreed the Secretary would contact NOIE to ascertain at
first hand their interest in hosting a workshop on DNS issues. 

5. Treasurer's Report

5.1 Budget for 1998

Mark tabled a report on ADNA's current financial situation, and projected
cash-flow for 1998. It was noted that three Members are behind in paying
their 1997 subscription.

Action A22: It was agreed the Treasurer would send an urgent reminder to
those Members owing 1997 subscriptions as well as those owing 1998
subscriptions. 

It was agreed that Registrar licence fees should become the major source of
ADNA's income to cover its expenses. It was agreed that an indicative
royalty of 50 cents per domain name would be sought from all Registrars
operating under ADNA's governance. 

5.2 Payment of legal costs

Action A23: It was agreed the Treasurer would negotiate a revised fee, and
arrange payment of up to $10,000 in instalments as soon as possible. 

6. Status report on .au and .gtld
 
The Board noted that uncertainty had entered the proposed implementation of
new gTLD Shared Registration System following the White House's
intervention in the policy process.  

The Board discussed NetRegistry's marketing 3LDs under "au.com" in
competition with com.au, and decided that it fell outside ADNA's terms of
reference, which are limited to DNS policy within .au 

7. Commercial 2LDs in .au

7.1 Competition within existing commercial domains

The existing commercial domains are the domains used by Australian
businesses, and include com.au, net.au and potentially org.au, info.au and
conf.au.  

Luke reported he had been unable to contact Hugh Irvine (delegate for
net.au). However he said that Connect.com.au Pty Ltd, the DNA for net.au,
were agreeable in principle to competition within net.au, as were Melbourne
It for com.au, provided reasonable safeguards could be put in place to
protect end-users, and a robust Shared Registry System could be implemented
to support multiple registrars. 

It was agreed that
(1) a Share Registry System (SRS) was needed,
(2) ADNA would invite proposals for development of the SRS by public tender;
(3) The target date for the implementation of the SRS would be 1 July 1998;
(4) the delegates for net.au and org.au need to be formally invited to join
ADNA, and to participate in the process;
(5)  general agreement for the proposed process needs to be achieved from
the Internet business community, via public consultation. 

7.2 Proposals for new 2LDs

Peter reported on the outcomes of the public consultation forums held on 27
November in Melbourne and on 28 November in Sydney on 'Domain Names and
Trade Marks", organised by the Registrar for trade Marks (Ross Wilson) in
collaboration with ADNA. He referred to the report that he and Ross had put
together after consultation with the panelists (doc. 4/1), which he had
sent to ADNA Board Members in December.

The outcome of the public consultation sessions had been overwhelming
support for extension of the eligibility criteria for com.au to include
existing Australian trade marks. Some support was also shown at the forums
for implementation of a new 2LD tm.au specifically for Australian trade
marks (as the sole selection criterion), and that the Trade Marks Registrar
had effectively answered the well-known objection to tm.au (on the basis of
collision of co-existing trade marks) by stating that such co-existence
occurred in less than 5% of cases. 


Accordingly Peter Gerrand moved 
(1) that ADNA endorse the eligibility criteria for com.au being extended to
include existing Australian trade marks; and
(2) that ADNA endorse the creation of a new 2LD tm.au, whose sole
eligibility criterion be the existence of the name as an Australian trade
mark owned by the applicant.

Following discussion of the pros and cons, both motions lapsed for lack of
a seconder.  Peter requested that the lapsed motions be recorded in the
Minutes as evidence that he had kept faith with the public consultation
process. This was agreed.

Peter then moved 
(3) that ADNA endorse the creation of a new 2LD pr.au, designed to support
visibility of Australian products and services on the Web. It was proposed
that any names would be accepted on a first-come first-served basis
(excluding only offensive words and names known to be already trade marked
by others), the only eligibility criterion being that the applicant needed
to provide evidence that they were located in Australia, in order to
maintain marketing credibility for the '.au' domain.

Kevin moved the following amendment:
(4) that introduction of pr.au be delayed until the system can support
multiple registrars on this 2LD

This amendment lapsed for lack of a seconder.

The original motion (3) was then put, and carried. 
Luke pointed out that it was highly likely that, as a matter of practice,
the introduction of pr.au would coincide with the time-frame in which the
Shared Registry System was implemented, enabling competition within the
existing commercial 2LDs.

 Action A24: It was agreed the Chair would convey this decision, and the
other outcomes of this meeting, to the dns mailing list.

7.3 Selection of new DNAs/registrars

As document 4/4 had only been sent to Members on the previous day, Mark
asked for comments to be sent to him ASAP off-line. The meeting agreed that
once he had responded to such feedback, he should send it back by email to
the Board for final endorsement within the following two weeks, so the
revised document could be used in the public consultation process. 

7.4 Timetable for Introduction of pr.au and Multiple Commercial Registrars

It was agreed that the Convenor of the Commercial Sector Panel, Mark
Hughes, would manage the tender process, and that the Chairman, Luke
Carruthers, would produce a timetable after this meeting which would be
distributed with the Board Minutes. That Timetable is attached. July is the
target month  for introduction of the .au Shared Registry Service for all
commercial .au domains.

8. Communication Program

Luke was authorised to brief the media as well as the dns mailing list on
the outcomes of the meeting.

9. Any Other Business

Peter sought endorsement from the ADNA Board that Melbourne IT, as DNA for
com.au, proposed to increase the level of certainty in the outcomes of its
registration process, by using the Yellow Pages Index as its guide when
interpreting the com.au policy to reject "generic words describing products
(goods or services)". 

This was unanimously agreed. 

The meeting finished at 6 pm.


Attachment 1: Timetable for Introduction of pr.au and Multiple Commercial
Registrars


á 23 Feb     Tender process report to be sent to Board list (MH)

á 23 Feb     Revised pr.au policies and Registrar Licence Conditions to be
sent to Board list - deadline for comment 27 February (MH)

á 25 Feb 	Chair to write to ISOC-AU inviting them to join ADNA (LC)

á 25 Feb 	Chair to consult the .au Administrator (KRE) on pr.au, Registrar
Licence Conditions  and the proposed tender process

á 2 March     Draft of letter requesting expressions of interest from those
wishing to act as competitive DNA's sent to Board list (LC)


á 2 March	30 days of public consultation for Registrar Licence Conditions
and  pr.au policy begins (finishing 8 April), with invitation to comment
sent to DNS list (MH)

á 9 March	Send draft tender specification  for Shared Registry Software
         (SRS ) to the Board for comment (LC)

á 16 March	Tender specification for SRS to be placed on the ADNA Website,
inviting costed proposals by 6 April (MH)

á 16 Mar     Applications process for new registrars to be finalised (Board)

á 8 April    Final date for responses to tender to develop SRS

á 8 April 	Final date to receive comments on Registrar Licence Conditions  
and pr.au policy documents

á 10 April	Tender Panel set up Board to evaluate SRS tender proposals

á 24 April	Tender Board to submit confidential report to ADNA board

á 30 April	ADNA Board Meeting; considers Tender Panel recommendations, and
decides (1) tender for SRS (2) Registrar Licence Conditions and (3) new
registrars for commercial domains including pr.au.

á 8 May	Contracts to be signed with SRS tenderer and new Registrars

á 1 Jun     pr.au operations commence (with potentially initially single DNA)

á 6 July (nominally) Receive SRS software, implemented and tested by
vendor. Commence testing with existing DNAs .

á 20 July    Distribute and make operational SRS software with all
Registrars for further testing.

á 27 Jul     Competition commences in all commercial domains

[END]