At-Large Session Reports from ICANN77

What happened?

This was a GNSO Council working session to dedicated to discussing and producing a combined project plan to address 3 of 4 deliverables requested of Council by the ICANN Board. This project plan is developed based on best known information at the time (i.e. as at 11 June 2023) to cover the following:

1. Status of deliberations between the GNSO Council Small Team on the SubPro 38 Pending Recommendations and the ICANN Board SubPro Caucus Co-Leads, regarding action to resolve the 38 SubPro Recommendations that the ICANN Board have marked as pending;
2. The project plan of the IDNs EPDP WG on the completion of both its Phase 1 work (to do with variants at the TL) as well as the identification of Phase 2 work (to do with variants at the SL) which would impact the timeline for the next round of New gTLDs; and
3. The project plan for the onward policy process to develop/confirm consensus policy on Closed Generics for the next round, building on the Draft Framework on Closed Generics released by the GAC-GNSO-ALAC Dialogue on Closed Generics.

The combined project plan was put for adoption by the GNSO Council at its Council meeting of 14 June during ICANN 77 where Council did not object to 3 deliverables as contained in the combined project plan (called SubPro ICANN77 Deliverables: Workplan and Timeline).  That combined project plan has since been submitted to the Board on 15 June 2023. For more details, please refer to my summary report on the GNSO Council 14 June meeting.

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session and action items? 

At-Large needs to continue to monitor developments and participate in ongoing processes (IDNs EPDP, GGP on Applicant Support, SubPro IRT) and onward processes (EPDP on Closed Generics, actions related to the resolution of the 38 SubPro pending recommendations) 

GAC DNS Abuse Day Zero Session

Agenda/URL- TBC

Joint Session: ALAC, GAC, and GNSO Facilitated Dialogue on Closed Generics 1 

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/PIdXDg

At-Large Policy Session 1: A User Perspective: The next gTLD Application Window

What happened?

• ICANN Board Members Avri Doria and Leon Sanchez talked about how the Board is looking into different options through which support can be provided to applicants.
• Some concerns were discussed related to the providers of pro bono services and how these services could be inclusive and not limited to providers from the US and Europe.  
• Some ideas for applicant support were discussed such as having an incubator model for applicant support.
• Some ideas for promoting the new round were mentioned such as having ambassadors for the new gTLD round similar to the UA ambassadors

Thoughts included:

• The need to have a transparent eligibility process
• Possible three stage application support. Pre application (promotion and propagation of information), application support, post application support (resolving any post application issues)

• Playing a regional role in identifying possible contentions that could happen in order to eliminate or address them before taking place (like the .amazon case)

• The importance of UA for new gTLDs 
• Planning with the GSE team in terms of having outreach activities in various regions.
• The inclusion of ALSs
• Finding people in every region that are capable of providing consulting services and helping potential applicants.

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session?

Promotion is not only needed for the new round but for the services provided as well such as the pro bono services. 

Exploring ideas such as having new gTLD round ambassadors 

The need for organised collaborative promotion and awareness campaigns.

Further exploring some of the new ideas mentioned

EPDP-IDNs (1 of 4)

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/ioZXDg

What happened?

• EPDP-IDNs continued its discussions on IDN variants at the second level, proceeding with the foundational issues of what principles apply at the second level, and what principles at the second level could be analogous to the top level.

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session?

• These discussions have an impact on how registrants register their domain labels, and the effects of variants at both the top level and second levels are compounded.

What happened?

Various ICANN org departments and GNSO provided an update on the status of the ICANN77 Deliverables towards the Next Round of New gTLDs.  ICANN Org's work is done via a number of work streams, with Work Stream 1 being the only work stream having community involvement.

Org Deliverables

• Implementation Status Report 
• Implementation Review Team Methodology, Work Plan and Timeline (Work Stream: Policy Implementation, i.e. using the SubPro IRT to produce the next Applicant Guidebook)
• Overview of the Work necessary to complete Program Development (Work Stream 2: Program Design, Work Stream 3: Infrastructure and Work Stream 4: Operationalization)

Board and Community Deliverables *

• Pending recommendations timeline for resolution (Board and Community)
• GNSO Council Project Plan and Timeline for IDNs EPDP (Community)
• GNSO Council Project Plan and Timeline for Closed Generics (Community)

*See: GNSO Council Day Zero, 11 June & GNSO Council Meeting, 14 June

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session and action items? 

At-Large needs to continue to monitor developments and participate in ongoing processes (IDNs EPDP, GGP on Applicant Support, SubPro IRT) and onward processes (EPDP on Closed Generics, actions related to the resolution of the 38 SubPro pending recommendations) 

Joint Meeting: GAC and GNSO

Agenda: TBC

What happened?

Topics discussed:

• DNS abuse mitigation. GAC: does the GNSO have a sense what subject areas would be appropriate for subsequent targeted PDP's on DNS abuse? How could GAC support/participate in these activities? 
• Registration data request service. GAC: the board has agreed with the GAC on the importance of maximizing voluntary participation in the system. How does GNSO envisage such a strategy?
• New gTLD program next round.
  • GAC is considering the following elements of potential GAC advice: predictability and RVCs/PICs.
  • Applicant support: proposed GAC advice for consideration advises the Board to take steps to substantially reduce or eliminate ongoing ICANN registry fees to expand financial support for underrepresented regions.
  • GAC Consensus advice and GAC early warnings.
  • Auctions: mechanisms of last resort/private resolution of contention sets: proposed GAC advice for consideration advises the Board to 1) ensure that auctions of last resort are not used in contentions between commercial and non-commercial applications, and 2) to ban or strongly disincentivize private auctions.
  • GAC/GNSO/ALAC facilitated dialogue on closed generics.
  • Timeline of GNSO Council Work?
  • Applicant support GNSO Guidance Process
  • SubPro, Implementation Review Team.
• AOB: GAC communique "Issues of importance to the GAC" (GAC to provide feedback on GNSO Council's response to ICANN76 issues of importance).

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

• The GNSO believes that implementing some of the GAC advice (especially on private auctions) would delay the New gTLD process significantly.
• The current timeline of 96 weeks is the "best guess" according to the GNSO.

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

Joint Session: ALAC, GAC, and GNSO Facilitated Dialogue on Closed Generics 2

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/PIdXDg

What happened?

This session presented perspectives from different regions on ccTLD registration trends.

• In general, the registrations are slowly growing though the IDNs still make a small part of it.
• Some of the ccTLDs established DNS Observatory to monitor domain name evolution based on various categories.
• Others mentioned that Pandemic didn't have much impact on registration.
• Interesting observation was about artificial intelligence that might be efficient in domain industry.
• One of the presenters highlighted their new price approach enabling more quality registrations. 

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

• End-Users in a specific ccTLD to be aware of measures carried out to provide security and quality in domain registrations. 

DNS Abuse Negotiation: CPH Outreach Session

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/x4hXDg

What happened?

• Discussion of the proposed Amendments to the Contracts to address DNS Abuse 
• Discussion of the ICANN Draft Advisory from Compliance on how they will enforce the Amendments (if approved) 

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

• At last, a contractual mandate is being added to actually act to stop or mitigate reported cases of DNS Abuse.

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

• If we wish to have an At-Large comment on the proposed Contract Amendments, the deadline is July 13
• It would be good for us to review the Advisory, to see if we have any suggestions for Compliance.  (No deadline on this).

What Happened

• Senior Vice President, Engineering & Chief Information Officer of ICANN org shared ICANN’s UA readiness journey.
• UA challenges and experiences related to UA readiness, include incidents such as the inability to buy online tickets with an email address that includes a new gTLD (The example provided was Disney tickets and a .info email address)
• UA challenges include the fact that many states do not consider UA an issue of high importance or priority.
• Some strategies are currently being adopted due to previous learnings such as tackling UA readiness in stages. The UASG website has a lot of resources in that regard
• The session was moderated by Naela Sarras from ICANN Org who mentioned ICANN recent celebration and inaugural universal acceptance Day (UA Day) which occurred on the 20th of March.  
• The universal acceptance day was a very successful event. About 50 events were held over 40 countries around the world many communities participated
• Still one  third of  the world needs to be online, therefore we can look at UA readiness from a digital inclusion angle
• Despite the fact that only a few of us worldwide have english as their first or second language. The Internet still acts like we're all using English on a day to day basis.
• digital inclusion of indigenous people requires UA
• UA by design needs to be the way forward. (similar to security by design and privacy by design)

In general, the session tried to demonstrate that UA is also a digital inclusion issue and that it needs collaboration from all stake holders

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

• Continue raising awareness and educating end users about the existence and use of Internationalised domain names, creating the required demand to invest in UA readiness.
• Promoting all existing UA related resources, whether it is for adoption and implementation purposes or for raising awareness and end users education.
• The need to look at UA from a digital inclusion angle as well.
• Promoting the concept UA by design

GNSO Guidance Process for Applicant Support Working Group

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/lYZXDg

EPDP-IDNs (2 of 4)

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/ioZXDg

What happened?

• The EPDP discussed the consequences of the Same-Entity principle applies at the second level.
• There was general agreement that the registrant becomes the 'entity', and that the principle applies in general.
• There could be some edge cases when relaxations would need to be made.

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session?

• These discussions have an impact on how registrants manage the lifecycles of their primary domain name (gTLD variants + primary second-level label) and its variant domain names (gTLD variants + remaining variant second-level labels).

What happened?

• Nothing of substance to report.

EPDP-IDNs (3 of 4)

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/ioZXDg

What happened?

The EPDP Team continued discussions on "Same Entity" constraint at the second level, including:

• How is a variant label set determined for second-level variant domains?
• What does "behaving as a single set" mean in the context of the lifecycle of variant domains? Are these analogous to the "integrity of the set" principle at the top level?
• Besides in terms of ownership, does the "integrity of the set" extend into behaviour of the labels as well? For instance, if one label of the set is locked or suspended, does the entire set go into the same status?
• In cases where variants have already been delegated, how would grandfathering work? How would the source label be identified?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session?

• Several of these discussions protect the rights of the registrants even while using the potential of variant labels of their source strings.
• They also protect registrants who have already registered domains without knowing about the variant potential of their domain names.
• It is important to take care while developing these recommendations to preserve customer (registrants) choices, competition and open markets.

Naveed Bin Rais / Chokri Ben Romdhane

What happened?

This session was conducted into two part:

In the  first part  GAC members have been briefed on some initiatives to prevent and Mitigate DNS Abuse:

• Discussion on proposed DNS Abuse Contract Amendments (Specification 6, Section 4.2 of Registry Agreement):
  • The amendment makes obligation on the registry operator to take appropriate mitigation actions against domain being used for DNA Abuse activities.
  • GAC overall welcomed this amendment.

• Presentation by EURID delegate on .EU actions on DNS Abuse:
  • Presenter discussed the delayed delegation mechanism being applied at .EU to check against a requested domain to be sure that it does not have malicious intentions to be used for DNS Abuse and other malicious activities.
  • This is done via a decision engine which uses Abuse Prediction and Early Warning System (APEWS) to predict using machine learning models whether a requested domain is with malicious intent or not.
  • They have 80% success results, and for false positives, manual check is done to be sure.
  • The process resulted in drastic reduction in Abuse related domain registration since 2019.

• A status presentation on Capacity Building Workshop on DNS Abuse by GAC.
• GAC discussion to determine the next steps on Contract Amendments:
  • GAC asked the members to provides answers to a set of questions before the public comments can be put forward
  • This includes whether the amendments are a positive. development, are they clear to be enforceable, proposed DNS Abuse definition, definition of “actionable”, “reasonable”, “prompt” in the amendments, and what are the issues that are still left to be resolved around DNS Abuse etc.

In the second part of this session, GAC members have been informed about some new technologies Alternate DNS, BlockChain and Artificial Intelligence that will impact the DNS and the Internet Future, and they prospected some that could be subject for further discussion during next meetings.

A poll was conducted in order to measure the knowledges level of GAC members about this new technologies. 

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

The session highlighted interesting success story of .EU for mitigating DNS Abuse:

Discussion about Emerging Technologies where  at a basic level, and some GAC member have asked for a technical support, At-large community have widely discussed those technologies in the CPWG list, and could lead the discussion about those technologies. 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

It is in the interest of At Large to continue monitoring the proceedings around DNS Abuse,

The new  Emerging Technologies will have a huge  impact on DNS  services provided to the  End users, At large should continue the discussion already  engaged in the CPWG list about this technologies and coordinate with SSAC members in order to check the security impact on DNS services, and with GAC Members to reflects about the Governance of those Technologies.  

GNSO Council Meeting

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/zIBXDg

What happened?

• Please refer to my summary report on the GNSO Council 14 June meeting.
• Also the report on GNSO Council Day Zero on 11 June.

What happened:

• Continuation of EPDP IDNs session 3 from yesterday

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session?

• Unlike for the TL where permissibility and management of TL variants are subject to consensus policies being developed by this EPDP-IDNs, in the case of SL variants, it may be more expedient to just develop high level policies and leave implementation to the discretion of registries and registrars vis a vis registrants' choice and rights.

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)

• Continue to actively participate in this EPDP-IDNs.

What happened?

ccTLD operators presented the local legislations mainly in regards to cubersecurity. as a key area of concern both for government, and ccTLDs. 

• CIRA (Canada), for example, identified concerns and oversight of the proposed new Bill on Cybersecurity, such as information-sharing or transparency. They provided recommendations to address these concerns.
• TRBR (Vanuatu), managed by the Regulator that oversees other aspects of Telecommunications regulation, initiated a Draft Cybercrime Act that been approved. They also consult on other digital policy legislative initiatives.
• INTIC (Mozambique), the ICT Regulator, ensures development of legal framework and compliance with existing regulations.
• NIC CR (Costa Rica) ensures implementation of Cybersecurity strategy and cooperation with the National CSIRT. The established strong relationship with Law Enforcement Agencies helps to create open dialogue and update policies.

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

• Every country has its own model and level of participation in legislative process, yet there's a possibility for many to be a part of the dialogue and process to provide expertise and act in the benefit of end-users. 

RSSAC Work Session

Agenda:

1. Discuss upcoming RSSAC Caucus work party on Security Incident Reporting

2. Make recommendations to work party from an RSO perspective

3. Provide background to work party members on motivation, history, and context

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ccNSO Council Meeting

Agenda: https://community.icann.org/x/IQM5Dg

What happened?

The ccNSO Council has had its 196th meeting at ICANN77.  

• Council adopted ccPDP3 Review Mechanism Report pertaining to decisions on delegation, transfer and retirement of ccTLDs. It is now to be submitted to ICANN Board.
• Council approved the proposed timeline for the ICANN Board Seat 12 Nomination Process.
• Council approved ccNSO Council Elections timeline .
• Council approved the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) selection timeline
• Council approved ccNSO Council Roles and Responsibilities.
• Council supported to prepare ccNSO statement on rebalancing the NomCom.
• Council discussed the potential ccNSO submission regarding the PTI Bylaw Change.
• Progress drafting Terms of Reference ccNSO Universal Acceptance Committee

Joint Session: CPH and CSG Membership Meeting

Agenda:: https://community.icann.org/x/D4hXDg

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