Minutes of the Meeting of .nz Oversight Committee
Held at InternetNZ on Monday 25 November 2002
Chair welcomes those present.

Attendance
Present
Frank March, Keith Davidson, Roger Hicks, Richard Currey, Colin Jackson, Jennifer Northover, David Russell, Debbie Monahan
In Attendance
Sue Leader and Peter Dengate-Thrush joined the meeting for the International section.
Chris Wild

Agenda as per Appendix 1.

DNC Report

The DNC report to NZOC for October 2002 was classified as "Confidential to NZOC members only" as it included information about the number of domain names potential registrars may transfer across upon connecting to the SRS. Debbie explained that she did not want this information public until there had been consultation with registrars about the publication of market information. Reports to Council from NZOC incorporate most of the information from the DNC reports and these are publicly available at http://www.internetnz.net.nz/public/committee-reports/ctte-nzoc/index.html

The implementation of the SRS went according to plan and, as at the date of the meeting, the SRS has had no unscheduled downtime since it went live.

The status of applications was updated from the report. To date, the DNC has received 16 applications to become a registrar, with eight of those having been successfully authorised. It is expected that there will be registrars connecting on 7 December 2002.

Report was discussed and received.

International

Sue Leader and Peter Dengate-Thrush joined the meeting for this discussion.

Frank went through a breakdown of the proposed budget to cover international matters for the 2003/2004 financial year. It was agreed that the budgeted figure, at the same level as the current year, was sufficient.

Discussion surrounding international matters showed that there was still some confusion and disagreement about who should be responsible and involved in various aspects. Peter commented that he believed the budget should not be with the DNC at all, whilst Frank commented that Council had made managing the international budget a requirement of NZOC.

It was agreed that a formal request should be submitted to Council proposing that a review of international matters, chaired by NZOC, be undertaken. This review should be a strategic and integrated look at all aspects of InternetNZ's involvement internationally and the review team should incorporate representatives from InternetNZ groups and committees that have a legitimate interest in, and experience of, international affairs. The review should commence in January 2003 and look to have an initial report by 31 March 2003.

The paper proposing this will be going to the December Council meeting.

Policy on Setting .nz Policy

The latest version of the policy on setting .nz policy was presented. The paper had been amended, in line with comments at the NZOC meeting on 5 August 2002, to include a reference to the InternetNZ objects in their constitution.

NZOC accepted the policy. Given the document outlines the approach NZOC will take to their policy making, the policy will be referred to the December Council meeting for Council to approve it.

Policies review and Projects / DNC Workplan

Priorities and plans, additional to the operational requirements of the DNC office, for the DNC/NZOC were discussed.

It was agreed that

• The review of the Second Level Domains policy should be undertaken. This will be chaired by the DNC and involve a NZOC representative plus four others. Expressions of interest will be sought and the nominations put to NZOC to decide the composition of the review team.


• At the same time as expressions of interest are sought for the 2LD review team, people will be reminded that comments or issues with policies can be sent at any time to policies@dnc.org.nz . Any issues that are raised will be considered and any that are causing major problems for people will be worked through as a priority.


• The DNC would be added to the membership of the Dispute Resolution Working Group that is already established and produced a report. The DNC will provide resources to this group. NZOC expressed concern about workload and agreed to the work being done on this but allocated it a lower priority than the other reviews. It was agreed that the DNC would work with the Chair of the working group, Rick Shera, to agree an approach and timetable to advance the project.

Registry/Registrar Committee

Under the provisions of the SRS, a registry/registrar committee is to be established. This is an advisory group to be chaired by the DNC. NZOC accepted in principle that:

• The group be called the Registrar Advisory Group


• It should consist of the DNC, the NZRS Manager and six registrars.


• Whilst Domainz is the Stabilising Registrar, they should be one of the registrar representatives.


• All other representatives should be appointed by the authorised registrars

More discussion on the process for selecting the registrar representatives is required. The DNC will consider options and put the matter back to NZOC.

InternetNZ Policy on Confidentiality of documents

InternetNZ has a current policy titled Confidentiality of Society Documents Policy. This policy includes an addendum that provides more detail as to the application of the policy to the various groups of InternetNZ.

As currently written, this policy is rather broad and not entirely workable for an operational office such as the DNC. Also, the NZOC operates under different Terms of Reference to other InternetNZ committees and the policy should reflect the operation of NZOC also.

It was agreed by NZOC not to seek any amendment to the policy itself, but to advise Council of an additional section that will be added to the existing Addendum to the policy to cover NZOC and the DNC. This addendum is attached to these minutes as Appendix 2.

NZOC discussed whether the policy should include a statement about asserting copyright and make reference to the ability to reproduce information. It was agreed that this issue was wider than NZOC and should be referred to Council for them to look at in the context of the whole policy. Keith is to take the matter up.

Service Level Agreement with NZRS

A draft version of the SLA with the registry was discussed. The general content was agreed to but NZOC discussed the need for more detail regarding Backup policy, recovery standards and other technical measures. Roger is to talk to NZRS about some of the things he would like to see incorporated as service standards.

Delegations to the DNC

The DNC is expected to operate within budget and within legal requirements. Other specific delegations were agreed to:

• Staff - DNC to employ and manage staff as required


• Media - DNC delegated to make statements to the media, and to respond to media inquiries


• Financial - DNC delegated to sign off any specified budget item, and unbudgeted items up to $5,000


• Financial - DNC may operate the budget as required to effectively perform the requirements of the position, as long as the overall budget is met


• Travel - domestic travel can be undertaken by the DNC in line with the budget and the operational requirements of the office. All international travel requires the approval of the NZOC Chair


• Expenses - NZOC to sign off on any DNC expenses

Draft Budget for 2003/2004 Financial Year

Draft budget for 2003/2004 was accepted by NZOC. This maintains the management fee payable by NZRS at the same level as the current year.

It was noted by NZOC that the budget included a contingency to cover possible litigation and investigation costs.

Roger asked about the money budgeted for promotional work. Debbie explained that this is intended to be used to promote knowledge of the DNC office and the complaint process registrants can utilise in certain situations. A communications plan will be developed surrounding this and this will be submitted to NZOC.

NZOC stated that they would like a .nz fee review to be undertaken by the end of the 2003 calendar year so that any changes can come into effect from 1 April 2004.

General Business

• .geek.nz proposal - timetable agreed to. This had the Request for Discussion commencing early December, with the Request for Votes likely in March 2003. If the proposal gets through the straw vote, Request for Submissions will take place up till May with an interim decision likely sometime in June 2003.

• Next NZOC meeting - will be a tele-conference the last week of January 2003. Date and time to be confirmed. A date for the next face-to-face meeting will be discussed then.

• SRS go-live for competitive registrars - on track for 7 December. No outstanding issues at this time. Still not known exactly how many registrars will connect on that day but likely to be at least two.

 
 
Appendix 1

NZOC November Meeting
4.30pm, Monday 25 November at InternetNZ

 
AGENDA

 
 
Appendix 2

 
NZOC and Office of the Domain Name Commissioner

(Section to be incorporated into Confidentiality of Society Documents Policy — Addendum)

The default Policy will be assumed unless the NZOC specifies otherwise.

The default policy is:

• All formal documents are public domain. All working documents are confidential to the members of the NZOC and staff of the Office of the DNC.

• Documents will be designated public or confidential at the time they are assessed for release following a request for information, unless they are already designated Confidential. Note: the principles set out in the Official Information Act will be used as the basis for decisions on the confidentiality of information.

• Where information is received on the basis of confidentiality, the documents will be designated Confidential at that time.

• Any material marked as Confidential in a report to NZOC or to Council remains Confidential after the report's adoption unless a unanimous vote determines otherwise.

• Drafts of documents prepared remain confidential unless they are specifically published.

• The internal NZOC mailing list is confidential, including working papers circulated on the list.

• The archive of the internal NZOC mailing list is confidential.

• Agendas and formal minutes are public. NZOC reserves the right to suppress any confidential information from the publicised minutes.

• NZOC and the DNC will respond to specific requests for information. Where they consider the request to be too broad they will seek clarification before processing the request. Where a significant staff effort is required to comply with the request, a charge may be made to cover costs. The person making the request for notification will be advised of this in advance of the work being undertaken.