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

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

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

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 21 September 2022 part 1 and part 2 were posted on 15 October 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 October 2022 were posted on 04 November 2022.

• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Acknowledgment of John McElwaine to serve as Council liaison to the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Implementation Review Team (IRT)
  • Acknowledgment of the Expedited PDP on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Project Change Request (PCR)
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Whois Disclosure System (WDS) Next Steps
  • The proposed design of the WDS 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.
  • The small team has continued to meet to determine whether
    • 1) does the WDS align with the expectations as set out in the small team’s preliminary report,
    • 2) will implementation of the WDS 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 WDS.
  • Since Council's October meeting, the small team completed the addendum to the preliminary report, which was circulated on 7 November 2022 for the Council’s review. 
  • Council will vote on a motion to adopt the addendum to the report from the small team on the Whois Disclosure System.  (voting threshold: simple majority)
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team - Adoption of Recommendation #3
  • The RDA Scoping Team was initiated by Council in July 2021, and tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors such as the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts. These considerations are to help inform the team’s deliberations and development of recommendations to Council on whether any changes are recommended to improve accuracy levels, and, if so, how and by whom these changes would need to be developed (for example, if changes to existing contractual requirements are recommended, a PDP or contractual negotiations may be necessary to effect a change)
  • The Scoping Team has 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). Council will need to consider the proper timing for identifying a new Chair for this effort, given the resignation of the previous Chair.
  • Council had at its October meeting discussed whether to approve recommendations #1 and #2 put forward by the Scoping Team (e.g., registrar survey and/or registrar audit) or instead, to defer consideration of recommendations #1 and #2, pending resolution of recommendation #3 (pausing the work on proposals that require access to registration data until there is clarity from ICANN org on if/how it anticipates the requesting and processing of registration data to be undertaken in the context of measuring accuracy). 
  • Council will vote on a motion on how to proceed with recommendations of the RDA Scoping Team.  (voting threshold: simple majority)
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE - DNS Abuse Small Team Report
  • At ICANN72, Council agreed to establish a small team to consider and recommend next steps for 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 to better understand what DNS abuse related issues need to be addressed specifically via gTLD policy development. The outreach targeted members and respective SG/Cs, also ALAC, GAC, SSAC, and the DNS Abuse Institute, from which input was received and considered.
  • The team then arrived at 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 and the report was discussed during the October Council meeting.
  • Council will vote on a motion to accept recommendations #2 (bulk registrations), #3 (reporting of DNS Abuse), and #4 (action & enforcement) as contained in the report. Council will also vote to commit to considering the requested actions under recommendation #1 (malicious registrations), after assessing the impact from recommendations #2, #3, and #4.  (voting threshold: simple majority)
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Review Next Steps
  • On 21 January 2021, Council approved the recommendations from the Phase 1 Final Report of the GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP) on the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in All gTLDs, covering RPMs applicable to gTLDs launched under the 2012 New gTLD Program. Council discussed the need to review the RPMs charter in advance of launching Phase 2 of the PDP, which is focused on the UDRP. 
  • Council discussed the best path forward and determined that a Policy Status Report (PSR) should be requested to understand if new issues or information have emerged that could be relevant to a comprehensive policy review. After discussions between Council and ICANN org's Global Domains & Strategy (GDS) team on the scope and purpose of the PSR, GDS completed the draft PSR and published it for public comment on 3 March 2022; the revised PSR was shared with Council on 18 July 2022 and Council then received a briefing from GDS during the July meeting.

  • Based on discussion during that meeting, there seemed to be support from a number of Councilors to delay next steps for various reasons, including the considerable amount of existing Council work competing for attention.

  • Council will consider appropriate next steps for the review of the UDRP, which could include delaying work currently and identifying a triggering mechanism to recommence the work in the future.

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy Next Steps
  • In October 2020, Council considered when to request a Policy Status Report (PSR) to conduct a review of the (1) Expiration Policies, the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and (2) Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP). Given concerns about capacity, along with the general perception that no known issues have presented themselves, Council agreed in November 2020 to delay the request for the PSR that had been identified as requiring consideration; the deferral was for a period of 24 months, necessitating consideration in November 2022.
  • In July 2022, the Council agreed that it would be helpful to check with the registrars and ICANN Compliance to help determine if there are any known issues or concerns with either of the two Expiration Policies which could warrant requesting a PSR. A report from Contractual Compliance was shared with Council on 1 November 2022 and feedback from the registrars has been shared in the past on previous Council calls. 
  • Council will receive a briefing on the report from ICANN Compliance and time permitting, consider potential next steps.
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) - Work Stream 2 (WS2)
  • Council received a brief update on WS2 from ICANN org during its September 2021 meeting and received a more detailed update in February 2022, to better understand the level of progress it has already made via already completed work (e.g., the development of guidelines and templates to support the GNSO as a Decisional Participant in the Empowered Community) and the limited set of remaining WS2 tasks.
  • Council then considered the best path forward to complete the remaining work and agreed to extend the CCOICI pilot to include the WS2 work. The CCOICI has now completed this assignment and shared its WS2 Recommendations Report on 4 November 2022.
  • Council will receive an update on the report, in advance of a potential vote on the report in December 2022.
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SPS planning
• Item 11: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 

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 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.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council acknowledged John McElwaine as the GNSO Council Liaison to the RPMs IRT.

2. Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (part of Consent Agenda also)

• Council approved the EPDP's Project Change Request (PCR) wherein the EPDP sought:
  • To facilitate the implementation planning of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures by bifurcating its work into two phases, with Phase 1 covering topics related to top-level IDN gTLD definition and variant management, and Phase 2 covering issues pertaining to second-level IDN variant management, and
  • Due to the diversity and complexity of IDN issues, additional data collection needs, review of ICANN org input for draft recommendations, and public comment-related processes, a 31-month extension to the original project plan, with projection of the following key milestone dates:
    • Publish Phase 1 Initial Report for Public Comment by April 2023
    • Submit Phase 1 Final Report to the GNSO Council by November 2023
    • Publish Phase 2 Initial Report for Public Comment by April 2025
    • Submit Phase 2 Final Report to the GNSO Council by November 2025

3. Whois Disclosure System (WDS) Next Steps / EPDP Phase 2

• Council accepted the EPDP Phase 2 small team findings and recommendations as outlined in the small team's addendum.
• Council also confirms confirmed that pending the implementation and subsequent running of the WDS for a period of up to two (2) years, the SSAD recommendations should remain paused for consideration by the ICANN Board.

4.  Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team 

     In relation to the Scoping Team's write up which recommended:

1) pausing the work in relation to proposals that require access to registration data,
2) encouraging ICANN org to proceed with their outreach to the EDPB as well as the Data Protection Impact Assessment in connection with the scenario(s) in which the request and processing of registration data takes place as a matter of urgency, and
3) requesting that ICANN org and Contracted Parties finalize the negotiations on the Data Processing Agreement (DPA) as soon as practicable as the absence of a completed DPA may act as a roadblock for policy work before Council

• Council adopts adopted recommendation #3
• Council defers deferred consideration of recommendations #1 and #2 until such time the DPA negotiations between ICANN org and Contracted Parties have completed and there is feedback from ICANN org on if/how it anticipates the requesting and processing of registration data will be undertaken in the context of measuring accuracy, or for six months, whichever is the shorter
• Once the DPA negotiations are completed and the feedback referred to at paragraph 2 is received from ICANN org, Council will review the formation and instructions to the Scoping Team to ensure these are still fit for purpose and request the Scoping Team to further consider potential proposals that require access to registration data as well as how these impact the existing recommendations #1 and #2 (e.g. should these still be considered by Council for adoption, or in the context of proposals that require access to registration data these may no longer be relevant or a priority?). If, after 6 months from this resolution, the DPA negotiations are not completed and/or the required feedback referred to at paragraph 2 has not been provided by ICANN org, Council will discuss and determine whether or not to continue deferring the consideration of recommendations #1 and #2.
• Taking into account the delay with which the write up was delivered, as well as some of the challenges that were shared with the Scoping Team’s Chair during his briefing to the Council, Council leadership will reach out informally to Scoping Team members to better understand the issues encountered to help inform the Council’s review of the formation and instructions.
• Council leadership is requested to send a communication to ICANN org in relation to recommendation #3 (as well as Contracted Parties in relation to the DPA) as well as communicateCouncil’s decision to non-GNSO groups participating in this effort (ALAC, GAC and SSAC) as well as the Scoping Team.
• Council thanks Michael Palage, outgoing Chair, and Olga Cavalli, outgoing Council liaison, for their efforts. As part of its review of the formation and instructions to the Scoping Team, Council will consider next steps for finding new leadership for this effort.

5. DNS Abuse Small Team Report

    In relation to the small team's report, containing 4 recommendations, delivered to Council on 10 October, which in summary are:           

1) Recommendation #1 re Malicious Registrations: After the community has been able to process the community outreach and other suggestions made in this report, if further tools are considered necessary, the small
team recommends that Council considers requesting the development of a Preliminary Issue Report on the topic of malicious registrations,
2) Recommendation #2 re Bulk Registrations: The small team recommends that Council requests RrSG and others (for example, ICANN org, the RySG and the DNSAI) to further explore the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary,
3) Recommendation #3 re DNS Abuse Reporting: With an eye towards outreach, the small team recommends that Council encourages continued discussion between Contracted Parties and DNS Abuse reporters/potential reporters with the goal of further fine-tuning and promoting existing tools and initiatives, and/or those under development, to further work towards easier, better and actionable reporting of DNS Abuse. Take into consideration additional pipelines that might be helpful, and
4) Recommendation #4 re Action & Enforcement: The small team recommends that Council reaches out, via a letter, to the RrSG and RySG to share the findings of the small team and requests feedback on how these
potential gaps can be best addressed. This letter should request that Contracted Parties initiate work on the “Suggested Standards” document in consultation with ICANN Compliance.  Based on the feedback received to this letter, Council will determine next steps, but at a minimum, Council would expect to be kept up to date on any further work that would be undertaken by Contracted Parties in consultation with ICANN Compliance.

• Council accepts the recommendations as outlined in the report and requests that the leadership of the small team works with Council leadership on developing the respective communications as foreseen under recommendations #2, #3 and #4.
• In relation to recommendation #1, Council commits to considering requesting the development of a Preliminary Issue Report on the topic of malicious registrations after the outreach and communication as foreseen under recommendations #2, #3 and #4 have taken place and Council has had an opportunity to consider the progress made from efforts related to that outreach. If Council determines that a Preliminary Issue Report is needed, it must be undertaken in a way that avoids overlap and/or duplication of efforts.
• Council thanks the small team for its efforts, as well as the community groups that contributed to it.

6. Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) (Phase 2 of Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all New gTLDs)

• After Phase 1 of the RPMs PDP (i.e. review of the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS)) was completed in January 2021, Phase 2 (i.e. review of the UDRP) was deferred for a number of reasons, including need to redraft its charter, need to prioritise other work so as not to overwhelm the community with more work, Council once again revisited the options on what to do with this review of the UDRP which are:

1) Go forward with the review with a to-be-redrafted charter, or
2) Defer the work for a set period of time (eg 12 or 18 months) or until triggered (eg by completion of Phase 1 RPMs IRT's work which would then free up community and staff resources), or
3) Terminate the RPMs PDP (requiring a super-majority vote) (which effect is thought to be equivalent to a long deferral & re-chartering since all policies needs to be reviewed repeated and periodically).

• There was some support for option 2 in deferring 12-18 months and also the possibility of constituting an 'expert group' to alleviate pressure on the community, and to recharter the PDP to reflect reliance on such a smaller group. No formal decision taken.

7. Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy 

• At Council's request, Contractual Compliance presented on their report to Council of 1 November 2022. Noting that the general perception that no known issues have presented themselves, and that a request for a Policy Status Report (PSR) has already be deferred for 2 years (from November 2020 to November 2022).
• There were suggestions that (1) registrars could be tasked with better handling the ambiguity mentioned as between resellers-registrants on the role of registrars/resellers, and (2) to examine the need for clear policy to address the ambiguity in order to safeguard registrant interests. No formal decision taken.

8. Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) - Work Stream 2 (WS2)

• Council is looking at adopting WS2 Recommendations Reportreceived on 4 November 2022 in its December meeting.