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GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2022 held on 17 Nov 2022 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2022 held on 17 Nov 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Adoption of Recommendation #3
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE - DNS Abuse Small Team Report
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Review Next Steps 
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy Next Steps
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) - Work Stream 2 (WS2)
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SPS planning
• Item 11: ANY OTHER BUSINESS TBD

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Meeting Details; non-Council members are welcome to observe the meeting

GNSO Council meeting on Thursday, 17 November 2022 at 05:00 UTC https://tinyurl.com/eff6e79n 

(Wednesday) 21:00 Los Angeles; (Thursday) 00:00 Washington DC; 05:00 London; 06:00 Paris; 08:00 Moscow; 16:00 Melbourne 

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/92399217049?pwd=WU1GZmlaOTh6NzJ1NndkRVF0MnJEUT09

Records of 17 Nov 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes
• Special Summary Report

Special Summary Report of 17 Nov 2022 Meeting to ALT-PLUS

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Nov 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Nov 2022 Meeting Records.

• TBD

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2022 held on 20 Oct 2022 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2022 held on 20 Oct 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Assignments #1 (Enforcement and Reporting) and #2 (Measurement of Accuracy) Write Up
• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Discussion of GAC’s request for additional members in Applicant Support GGP Working Group
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team Report 
• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE - Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SPS planning
• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 25 August 2022 were posted on 07 September 2022.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 21 September 2022 part 1 and part 2 were posted on 15 October 2022.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda

  • Approval of the updated standard term for the GNSO liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC).

  • Reappointment of Jeffrey Neuman to serve as the GNSO liaison to the GAC for a two-year term ending AGM 2024.

  • Confirmation of Greg DiBiase, GNSO Council Vice-Chair as the GNSO representative to the Empowered Community Administration.

  • Confirmation of Mike Silber to serve as the Chair of the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support.

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
  • The proposed design of the Whois Disclosure System was published prior to ICANN75 and ICANN org provided a presentation of the system design to the EPDP Phase 2 small team during ICANN75. Subsequently, the small team and Council held initial discussions amongst themselves, as well as with the Board during their joint session on Tuesday. The Council discussed during its meeting on Wednesday and the small team met informally on Thursday of ICANN75.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Assignments #1 (Enforcement and Reporting) and #2 (Measurement of Accuracy) Write Up
  • The RDA Scoping Team submitted a Project Change Request (PCR) to Council on 10 May 2022. The Scoping Team has since completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022. In the write up, the group is suggesting moving forward with two proposals that would not require access to registration data, namely a registrar survey (recommendation #1) and a possible registrar audit (recommendation #2) that may help further inform the team’s work on assignment #3 (effectiveness) and #4 (impact & improvements), while it awaits the outcome of the outreach to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) by ICANN org in relation to proposals that would require access to registration data (recommendation #3).
  • As has been communicated previously, Michael Palage will be confirming his resignation as Chair of this group to the Council. The Council will need to consider the proper timing for identifying a new Chair for this effort.
  • Council will discuss how to proceed.
• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Discussion of GAC’s request for additional members in Applicant Support GGP Working Group

  • On 25 August 2022, the GNSO Council voted to initiate a GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support. Shortly thereafter, GNSO support staff sent messages to the SO/AC/SG/Cs, inviting them to identify Members for the Working Group, following the Working Group composition described in the initiation request.

  • In the GAC’s ICANN75 Kuala Lumpur Communique, the GAC communicated that its desire for the Council to, “allow broader participation from interested GAC participants, as well as other members of the community, beyond the single member per Advisory Committee presently envisioned by the call for volunteers communicated to the GAC.” The GAC also sent correspondence to the GNSO Council, requesting that membership be expanded from a single member to two (2) members and two (2) alternates from the GAC.

  • Council has noted that it has intentionally kept the membership narrow in order to better ensure an efficient and effective outcome. In that regard, the Council has noted that beyond the Working Group membership, external subject matter expertise can be pursued.

  • Council will discuss the GAC’s request and seek to agree on the appropriate outcome.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team Report 
  • At ICANN72, the GNSO Council agreed to establish a small team to consider and recommend next steps for the Council related to DNS abuse, if any. An assignment form was drafted and the team held its first meeting 9 February 2022. The team performed outreach to interested community groups (ALAC, GAC, SSAC, the DNS Abuse Institute, SG/Cs) to better understand what DNS abuse related issues need to be addressed specifically via gTLD policy development.

  • The small team carefully considered all input received and has reached agreement on a set of 4 recommendations, by thinking of DNS abuse as taking place in phases (e.g., malicious domain registration/domain being compromised, DNS abuse being reported, action being taken by a well-positioned party). These phases helped the small team to better understand which elements are best addressed via policy development versus another mechanism. To that end, the small team has concluded that improvements in DNS abuse mitigation can be sought via three buckets: through education / communication / outreach, through contractual negotiations, and/or policy development.

  • The small team delivered its report to Council on 10 October 2022. Council will receive a briefing on the report and consider next steps.

• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE - Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
  • The EPDP Team has been meeting weekly and making progress against its charter, but the complexity of the subject matter and the charter questions, as well as the implications on the New gTLD Program processes and other ICANN policies and procedures (and thus, the need to adequately understand all of these elements) has challenged agreed upon timelines in the work plan. The EPDP Team is anticipating submitting a Project Change Request (PCR) in November, but the Chair and the EPDP believes that it is important for the Council to understand the need for a project plan update, what is changing, and the implications of those changes, prior to being asked to make a decision on the PCR.
  • Council will be provided with an update on the EPDP on IDNs and an overview of the expected PCR.

Records of 20 Oct 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• MinutesSpecial Summary Report

Special Summary Report of 20 Oct 2022 Meeting to ALT-PLUS

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Oct 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Oct 2022 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Approval of the updated standard term for the GNSO liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC).

• Reappointment of Jeffrey Neuman to serve as the GNSO liaison to the GAC for a two-year term ending AGM 2024.

• Confirmation of Greg DiBiase, GNSO Council Vice-Chair as the GNSO representative to the Empowered Community Administration.

• Confirmation of Mike Silber to serve as the Chair of the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support.

2. Whois Disclosure System (WDS) Next Steps

• Council received an update on the EPDP Phase 2 small team's progress post its preliminary report, that it is considering 3 remaining questions:-
  1. Does the Whois Disclosure System align with the expectations as set out in the small team’s preliminary report,
  2. Will implementation of the Whois Disclosure System deliver the information to help inform Council-Board consultations on the cost-benefit of the SSAD recommendations,
  3. Does the small team recommend to the GNSO Council that it requests the ICANN Board to proceed with the implementation of the Whois Disclosure System.
• Council can expect recommendation(s) from the small team for Council's Nov 2022 meeting.
• In the mean time, Council will decide subsequently how it wishes to convey its decision on the WDS to the Board. 

3. Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team

• Council is supportive to pause next steps on the Registration Data Accuracy pending more information from the European Data Protection Board, and when DPA is executed between ICANN and contracted parties, then reassess the assignment and see if anything needs to be modified, and then go forward for a new chair. Council  retains concerns that we should not lose sight of the need to complete the relevant work.
• Council also thought it prudent to proceed with identifying a new Chair for the Scoping Team in the mean time.

4. Applicant Support GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) Working Group

• Council weighed the GAC's request to allow broader participation from interested GAC participants beyond the single member per Advisory Committee per Council's resolution to initiate the GPP, and appeared to be in favour of GAC - and every other group - having an alternate also, if they so choose, provided that the alternate would not be counted in any consensus call.
• GNSO Council leadership team will inform the GAC leadership team of the Council’s decision with respect to the GAC’s request for additional members, specifically, to revise the membership to allow each group to designate an alternate member; as well as to notify the SGs, SOs, and ACs of the change in membership structure.

5. Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names

• Council receivednotice of a Project Change Request (PCR) to amend the EPDP's Project Plan. Essentially, a number of underlying factors have made it necessary for the project plan to be amended significantly but the leadership of the EPDP have made concerted effort to re-organise the EPDP's work in a conservative manner.
• The impact suggested in the pending PCR is to split the EPDP's work into 2 phases, which would result in 2 initial reports and 2 final reports (one each for TL and SL charter questions), and a significant extension of the timeline for concluding the EPDP's work. 
• Council is to confirm whether the suggested path is acceptable when the PCR is submitted for Council's Nov 2022 meeting. 

6. DNS Abuse Small Team

• The Small Team on DNS Abuse's report and 4 recommendations remains as discussed at ICANN75.
• Some Councilors sought clarity on next steps for recommendations #1, #2, #3 to which the answer was specific approaches had yet to be ascertained at this point and that more data was needed for that.  The Small Team was essentially seeking support for the Small Team to regroup to draft the letter to Contracted Parties (CP) for such a purpose, and asking CPs how best to address the gaps identified in the RA (namely, in Spec 11 3(b) and RAA (namely, in s. 3.18.1) which is the subject of recommendation #4.
• Council is expecting a motion to consider how to proceed on the report and recommendations.

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2022 held on 25 Aug 2022 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2022 held on 25 Aug 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Commitments Document
• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Preparation for Joint Meetings at ICANN75
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements Tracker - Review of Format 
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Revised Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Policy Status Report (PSR)
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large

• Item 1: Administrative Matters

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 15 June 2022 were posted on 01 July 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 21 July 2022 were posted on 05 August 2022.

• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
  • Approval of the 2022 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Slate, the full membership of which must be approved by the GNSO Council, in accordance with Section 17.2 (d) of the ICANN Bylaw and per the CSC Charter. The ALAC Liaison nominated for the term 2021-2023 is Holly Raiche.
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
  • In the course of Council's consideration of the ICANN Org SubPro ODP Team's work in February 2022 - and although specifically about the topic of Applicant Support at that point - broader procedural concerns arose about whether the level of substantive work receommended by SubPro to be conducted by an IRT, would be beyond the commonly understood scope of the IRT.
  • Council agreed to explore finding avenues to complete that level of substantive work in advance of the expected IRT that would be convened upon ICANN Board adoption of the SubPro Outputs. The potential model to address this work is the GNSO Guidance Process. ICANN org staff worked with Jeff Neuman and Council leadership to prepare a draft GGP Initiation request, which was shared on Council list on 4 May 2022.
  • The potential GGP was discussed further during the Council’s June meeting, with general agreement it should be limited to the singular topic of Applicant Support. There was however discussion that additional topics should be able to be added to the existing GGP, at the discretion of the Council.
  • The updated GGP, with Applicant Support as the only topic, was shared with the Council on 13 July 2022. 
  • The vote was deferred and after additional discussion, the Council agreed that more time was needed to refine the Initiation Request, especially the membership structure; the overall sentiment seemed to be that membership structure needed to be reduced both in terms of complexity and number of members. A new version that seeks to address these concerns was circulated on 12 August 2022. In brief, this new version proposes:
    • A (smaller) Working Group employing a “Representative + Observers” model, to conduct and conclude its work, and oversight activities, in an efficient/effective manner while allowing for inclusive community participation. GNSO Council retains oversight, as with any GNSO WG.
    • Each AC/SG, ASO and ccNSO may appoint 1 Member to the WG, who are expected to represent the view of their appointing organization and may be called on to provide the official position of their appointing organization and will be responsible for participating in GGP consensus calls. Appointing organizations may replace their Member at their discretion.
    • Members must either possess a level of expertise in previous deliberations and/or knowledge that may have been lacking during those initial deliberations.
    • The WG has the flexibility/discretion to rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in specific fields to aid in deliberations for certain tasks, but these SMEs will not be considered as Members of the WG.
    • The GNSO Liaison to the ODP may serve as an non-voting member of the WG to advise on issues discussed within the SubPro PDP.
  • Council will discuss and vote on this new proposed version of the GGP on Applicant Support, which to be carried requires a Voting threshold of an affirmative vote of more than one-third (1/3) of each House or more than two-thirds (2/3) of one House)

• • • The resolved portion of the motion to be voted on reads, 

1. The GNSO Council approves the GNSO Guidance Process Initiation Request and initiates the GGP.
2. The GNSO Council directs staff to:

a. communicate the results of this motion to the GNSO SG/Cs as well as ICANN SO/ACs and invite them to identify Members for the Steering Group following the Steering Group composition described in the initiation request;
b. communicate the results of this motion to the ICANN Org GDS Team and invite them to identify at least one (1) staff liaison for the Steering Group; and
c. launch a call for expressions of interest seeking interested candidates to Chair the Steering Group.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To monitor initiation of the request for the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP), and to ensure role for ALAC/At-Large in resulting process.

    See TAB under 'POST GNSO COUNCIL MEETING DEVELOPMENTS' section for easier tracking. 

• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Preparation for Joint Meetings at ICANN75
  • The GNSO Council is scheduled to meet with the ICANN Board, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), and the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) during the course of ICANN75. Council is to review the topics proposed by each of these groups, as follows:
    • Board: “What collaborative actions should the Community, Board and Org be undertaking to further progress achieving our strategic priorities?”
    • ALAC: (1) The GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse's work; and (2) The terms of reference for the proposed pilot Holistic Review, being a recommendation of the ATRT3.
    • GAC: (1) SSAD Light; (2) Subsequent Rounds of New gTLDs; (3) DNS Abuse; (4) Accuracy.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To confirm/amend proposed topics for joint meeting with ALAC.

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Revised Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Policy Status Report (PSR)
  • Council had, in January 2021, approved the recommendations in the Phase 1 Final Report of the GNSO PDP on RPMs (which was limited to the review of the URS which is applicable only to new gTLDs).o
  • Subsequently and more recently, Council has discussed the need to review the RPMs charter in advance of launching Phase 2 of the PDP, which is focused on the UDRP. This led Council to request a Policy Status Report (PSR) to help inform next steps.
  • ICANN org’s Global Domains & Strategy (GDS) team has since completed the draft PSR and published it for public comment on 3 March 2022. The revised PSR (redline) was shared with the Council on 18 July. 
  • Council will be briefed by GDS on updates made based on public comments received.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To monitor and report to ALAC as needed.

• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.1 – Update on action items related to the Policy Status Report (PSR) for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy
  • 9.3 – Closed Generics facilitated dialogue - Proposed approach for identifying the GNSO members

Records of 25 Aug 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• MinutesSpecial Summary Report

Special Summary Report of 25 Aug 2022 Meeting to ALT-PLUS

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Aug 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Aug 2022 Meeting Records.

1. GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support 

• GNSO Council resolved unanimously to initiate the GGP using a "Representative + Observers" WG model. Each SG/C/AC will be invited to nominate their respective single representative. The GGP will start its work on the Applicant Support Program first, with the possibility of adding down the line, such topics which were identified in the SubPro Outputs as requiring further work.
• The "Representative + Observers" WG model was selected because it allows participation from beyond GNSO's SG/C to include ACs (in particular, ALAC and GAC who have significant interest in the topic). The limitation of one representative per group is to keep the WG not only representative but sufficiently small to perform efficiently. 
• An invitation will be issued to all SG/C/ACs soon to nominate their respective representatives who should meet given criteria.  A call for EOI to chair the WG will also be made separately.

2. Preparation for ALAC-GNSO Joint Meeting at ICANN75 

• Two topics had been earlier proposed: (1) The works of the Council's Small Team on DNS Abuse; and (2) Pilot Holistic Review Terms of Reference.
• I was subsequently requested to withdraw Topic (2) which I did and proposed that it be replaced with a brief open discussion on observations to the SubPro ODP/ODA.
• GNSO Councilors seem to prefer that the new Topic 2 be generalized on the ODP concept as opposed to specifically on the SubPro ODP/ODA.

3. Closed Generics Dialogue between GAC-GNSO-ALAC

• We were informed that this Dialogue will likely not commence during ICANN 75.