Domain Name Commission Limited Board Minutes - February 2017

Present: David Farrar (Chair), Adam Hunt, Lucy Elwood, Kenneth Johnston, Dave Moskovitz.

In Attendance: Debbie Monahan, Cristy Cable, Steven Heath, Amber Craig (for Audit and Risk item only).

1. Register of interests

No conflicts were noted for this meeting. The Register of Interests was updated.

1. Minutes of the last meeting

The minutes of the last DNCL Board meeting were accepted as true and accurate. There were no matters arising.

1. WHOIS Review Proposed Policy Changes

At the December 2016 Board meeting, it was agreed that a draft policy would be prepared for consideration by the Board. The nature of the proposed amendments meant that changes were required to both the Principles and Responsibilities policy (PR) and the Operations and Procedures policy (OP).

The Board considered the amended policies, a draft consultation policy and discussed these in some detail. A number of minor changes were agreed.

When the DNC has amended the policies, the final documents will be emailed to the Board for their approval. Once approved, the draft consultation policy will go out for public consultation, with the Board to consider comments and make a final decision on the final policy changes at their May meeting.

1. Conflicted Names Process Review

The Board noted the 181 submissions received from a large range of organisations and people, and considered all of the issues raised.

This review was around the Conflicted Names Process, not of the conflicted names policy itself. There were a number of comments received around who should get priority.  These comments were noted but this was not part of the review.  The policy will be up for review sometime in the future.

Of the submissions commenting on the proposed changes to the process, the majority were in favour with many people requesting a shorter timeframe to lodge a preference.

The Board agreed to adopt the proposed changes with one amendment being to require a preference to be lodged in 6 months, rather than the proposed 12 months.

The DNC will send an email with the updated policy to the Board for approval before giving formal notification of the changes.

1. Proposal for Independent Review

The Board agreed to conduct an Independent Review to look at how well DNCL is performing as a regulator. A Board subcommittee was agreed on to oversee this project.

1. Risk Register

The Board approved the updated Risk Register and thanked the team for their work.

1. Internal Policies – International and Conference Attendance

The Board approved the policy after noting one small addition.

1. Monthly Reports

The monthly reports were tabled and discussed.

1. DNC Work Plan

The Board noted the work plan.

1. .nz Update

It was noted that this area is well covered by other topics and so will be removed as a standing agenda item.

1. Chair Update

The Chair raised no updates that had not already been discussed in board alone time.

1. Audit and Risk

Amber Craig from InternetNZ Audit and Risk Committee attended the meeting to outline what they were doing and discuss sharing of resources and information.

There is an upcoming DNCL audit in May, but no issues are expected.

1. Health and Safety

The Health and Safety Report was tabled and discussed.

1. Other Business

There was a discussion around possible changes to propose as part of the planned 2017 review of the DRS that the DNC was asked to consider.  Staff input into the InternetNZ Organisational Review was also briefly discussed.

1. Dates of Future Meetings

The next Board meeting will be 25 May 2017.

1. Meeting closed

The Chair closed the meeting at 2:30 pm.