I'm in Mar del Plata. Arrived on Saturday after a fairly long trip: 3 hours to Dallas, 10 hours to Buenos Aires, and another 5 hours to Mar del Plata. But the city is lovely and well worth the trip. I'll post some pictures later in the week. It's a beach community, but without the beach weather. Think Cape Cod in September.

Last night I gathered with my ALAC colleagues for dinner. The meeting organizers were kind enough to provide those of us who speak English with an easy guide to Argentina's menus. I'm always grateful for the efforts made to make English-language speakers comfortable, but I feel bad for those who don't speak English or Spanish well. I'm certain that I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if ICANN conducted its meetings in German, French or Mandarin.

Much buzz here about .NET and the Telecordia report (e.g., see here and here). What I didn't understand in reading the report was how the word "Sitefinder" didn't show up once. Can anyone explain that? How is it that all of this wasn't relevant to the .NET rebid?

And what other company awards a significant contract to a company that is suing it?

Interesting .TRAVEL-related post from Edward Hasbrouck: "...the TTPC-Tralliance agreement raises many more question than it answers...."

The GNSO Council held a meeting this afternoon to discuss the "GNSO Operational Plan." I brought along one of my new ALAC colleagues, attending her first ICANN meeting, to allow her to watch what happened in the GNSO. And what an introduction it was. Marilyn Cade reported that the meeting was closed. I countered that all GNSO Council meetings were open. A thirty minute discussion ensued, much too long, in which the Council finally voted 7-6, with 1 abstention, to hold an open meeting. The vote split along the usual lines.

During the discussion on whether the meeting was open or closed, my new ALAC colleague politely left. Welcome to the GNSO.

Having now reviewed the bylaws and the GNSO's own rules of procedure, it's now clear (to me, at least) that all GNSO meetings are presumptively open, though a majority of the Council may vote to close it. You can see the Council thread on this issue here.

On substance, the Council set some rough priorities for the coming months:


(Link here). Big agenda. More to come.