Domain Name Commission Limited Board Minutes - October 2016

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

In Attendance: Debbie Monahan, Josh Cookson, Steven Heath.

  1. Register of interests

No conflicts were noted for this meeting.

  1. Minutes of the last meeting

The minutes of the last DNCL Board meeting were passed as true and accurate, with the addition of the date. There were no matters arising.

  1. WHOIS policy review

The DNC summarised submissions received so far, and advised that a summary of the submissions and the recommended option would be prepared for the December Board meeting.  Following a decision on what option to proceed with, a draft policy will be presented to the board at the January meeting for review before going out for public consultation.

The DNC outlined the Provisional Address Masking Option and the process the office would be implementing for this.

  1. Second level registrations policy review

A summary of the process and matters for consideration as part of the two year review of the conflicted names process was presented to the Board for discussion. 

It was noted by the Board that there is no set timeframe for resolving conflicted names. It was also noted that to date of the 36,771 conflicted names comprising 15,759 strings only 5,903 have lodged a preference and that our review indicates that around 35% of the conflicted parties are “self conflicted”. 

It was agreed that ideally all .nz domain names should either be registered or available for registration, except where specifically prohibited such as government.nz.  It is considered preferable to explore ways to amend the policy around the conflicted names process to encourage engagement with a view to resolving as many conflicts as possible in as short a time frame as practicable.

Following discussion it was agreed that some changes to the process be proposed and subject to a public consultation.  The proposed changes are that:

  • Registrants involved in a conflict should be required to take action to lodge a preference within 12 months from a policy change, and if they do not they will be removed from the conflict set
  • The second level conflict preference of “it should become its own second level” be removed as an option, as it has not been useful and will clear up confusion
  • Conflict facilitation will continue to be offered by DNCL for the 12 month period that lodging conflict preferences are able to be lodged within, after which data will be analysed to determine whether to continue facilitation beyond this time
  • Parties which are self conflicted should be required to resolve the conflict.

There is no plan to change the overall tenet of agreement being required to allow the name at the second level to be registered and also no plan to introduce any timeframe on the conflicts being resolved.  The only timeframe proposed is on the action of lodging a preference.

The Board agreed to review the Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) sub-domains clause as part of the DRS review, not as part of the WHOIS review.

  1. Internal Policies – Health and Safety; Professional Service Providers

The Health and Safety internal policy was approved with minor amendments.

It was agreed that the Professional Services Providers policy be terminated as the information on the providers used is available.  It was noted that, where appropriate, DNCL is using the same provider as others in the Group, for example auditors.

  1. InternetNZ matters

It was noted that the Board had received a letter from the InternetNZ council regarding group financial reporting.  They agree and support a more integrated approach to group financial reporting, and have authorised the DNC to work with the other CEs to do this.

Some of the board will be attending a meeting with InternetNZ about the 2017/18 Statement of Expectations.

  1. DNC Reports

The DNC reports were taken as read.

  1. DNC work plan

The Board noted the work plan.

  1. .nz update

It was noted that NZRS has employed a new channel manager.

  1. Chair update

Chair David Farrar will be unavailable for part of November; Kenneth Johnston agreed to be acting chair over this time.

  1. Audit and Risk matters

The DNC advised the preliminary audit was in progress, and the Board will be updated when it is complete.

  1. Health and Safety

DNCL has had no incidents or hazards to report to the Board.

  1. Any other business

There was no other business.

  1. Dates future meetings

The next Board meeting will be 9 December 2016.

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