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GNSO Council Meeting #4 of 2023 held on 20 Apr 2023 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #4 of 2023 held on 20 Apr 2023

Full Agenda  |  Motions  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action Item List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy - Results of Scoping Team’s Self-Assessment Survey + Update from ICANN org
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Council SubPro Small Team
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from EPDP Phase 2 Small Team
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on Closed Generics
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on DNS Abuse
• 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 16 February 2023 were posted on 03 March 2023.
  • Minutesof the GNSO Council meeting on 15 March 2023 were posted on 30 March 2023
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • GNSO Review of GAC Communiqué 
  • GNSO Council Agreement on next steps for Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP)/Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) 
  • Deferral of Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Phase 2 for 18 months (clock to begin in April 2023) 
  • GNSO Council Adoption of the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Effectiveness Review Report 
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy - Results of Scoping Team’s Self-Assessment Survey + Update from ICANN org
  • The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by the GNSO Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. The Scoping Team was tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors including the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts. 
  • The Scoping Team 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 suggested 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). 
  • During its November meeting, Council adopted recommendation #3 of the Scoping Team’s write up, which recommended (i) pausing the work in relation to proposals that require access to registration data, (ii) 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 (iii) 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. In response to the Council’s requests, ICANN org provided the following update to the GNSO Council on 14 March 2023. 
  • 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 reached 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 will receive an update from ICANN org on its recent letter and discuss the Survey Summary Results of the Scoping Team’s Self-Assessment Survey.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Council SubPro Small Team
  • During its informal session at ICANN76 and the subsequent Council meeting, the Council discussed and agreed to task a small team of interested councilors to review the recommendations that the Board placed in a pending status and suggest to the full Council how the underlying concerns that caused the pending status can be best addressed (i.e., a limited triage exercise).
  • Since ICANN76, the Council SubPro Small Team has met several times and has completed an initial run through of the issues chart, with an update from Board members on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status. Following this review, the Small Team will begin discussions of how the Council should respond to these items.
  • Council will receive an update on the Small Team's efforts.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from EPDP Phase 2 Small Team

  • During ICANN76, the EPDP Phase 2 Small Team met with ICANN org to receive an update on the status of implementation of the Whois Disclosure System (WDS) and continue its consideration of some of the aspects identified as requiring further discussion in the addendum.

  • Following ICANN76, the Small Team has been meeting to discuss the additional suggestions made during the ICANN76 session and how to define the success criteria for the system.

  • Council will receive an update from the Small Team and will also discuss the outstanding action item from its last meeting, Council to consider response to the ICANN Board request to consider a PDP or other means to require, or strongly encourage, registrars to use the WDS (now known as RDRS - Registration Data Request Service), noting that the small team has already been assigned the task to how to best to promote and secure comprehensive use of the system, both by potential requestors as well as ICANN-accredited registrars.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on Closed Generics
  • Following an initial, informal meeting at ICANN75, the dialogue participants have since been meeting regularly via Zoom and held a substantive two-day face-to-face meeting in Washington, D.C. in late January 2023.
  • The dialogue is hoping to deliver a draft framework around the end of April 2023 to the ALAC, GAC, GNSO and other SOACs for community input. At this stage, groups are expected to have approximately four weeks to review the document.
  • At ICANN76, the ICANN Board passed a resolution adopting a substantial portion of the outputs from the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP, setting in motion the start of the implementation process for the next round of new gTLDs. As part of the resolution, the Board established deadlines for key deliverables that will impact the development of the implementation plan. By 15 June 2023, the Board expects to receive “A GNSO Council project plan and timeline for policy work, or an alternate path, on how to handle closed generics for the next round of new gTLDs.”
  • Council will discuss its anticipated approach to reviewing the draft framework as well as consider next steps in preparing for subsequent policy work.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on DNS Abuse
  • Following Council's DNS Abuse Small Team's 7 Oct 2022 report to Council, where Recommendation #2 advised Council to request, et.al., the Registrar Stakeholder Group “to further 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, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.”

  • The DNS Abuse Small Team has now received input from the following groups:

    • Contractual Compliance, ICANN Org
    • DNS Abuse Institute
    • gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group
    • Registrar Stakeholder Group
  • Council will discuss next steps for the DNS Abuse small team, including potentially reconstituting the Small Team to review the input received.
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

  • 9.1 ICANN77 Day 0 SubPro Session Planning

  • 9.2 ICANN77 Planning

  • 9.3 Appointment of Council Liaison to the SubPro Implementation Review Team

Records of 20 Apr 2023 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 20 Apr 2023 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 Apr 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Apr 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda Items

• Council agreed to defer consideration of a Policy Status Report (PSR) for the Expedited Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and Expedited Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) for 6 months from the date additional requested information from ICANN org is received.
• Council agreed to defer next steps on Phase Two of the RPMs PDP for an 18-month period beginning on 20 April 2023.
• Council approved the Final Report of the CSC Effectiveness Review Team. 

2. Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) & Next Round of New gTLDs

    Recap: ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution

• ICANN Board had resolved during its Board Meeting at ICANN76 to adopt the SubPro Outputs in Section A of its "Scorecard on Subsequent Procedures PDP" (Scorecard); marking 38 Outputs in Section B of the Scorecard as "pending" and noting ongoing community discussions relating to Topic 17: Applicant Support, Topic 23: Closed Generics, and Topic 25: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), as well as additional dependencies concerning specific Review Team Recommendations, the Name Collision Analysis Project Study 2 Report (NCAP2), and other items noted in Section C of the Scorecard.

   Section A Outputs: Next Steps

• The SubPro Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT) will be constituted: call for volunteers has gone out, criteria apply.
• This IRT will take on the Open + Representative model and is expected to start work in the week of 14/15 May.

   Section B Outputs: 38 "Pending" Outputs

• The Council's SubPro Pending Recommendations Small Team has been discussing with Avri Doria and Becky Burr (from the Board SubPro Caucus) to seek clarification on the Board's concerns on the 38 Pending SubPro Outputs, in order to conduct a triage of the outputs.
• The small team - comprising Anne Aikman-Scalese, Bruna Martins dos Santos, Jeff Neuman, Justine Chew, Nacho Amados, Paul McGrady, Sebastien Ducos, Stephanie Perrin, Susan Payne and Tomslin Samme-Nlar - is working towards discussing the outcomes of its triage exercise with the full Council at an GNSO Extraordinary Council meeting on 4 May. This is a step towards meeting Deliverable #1 in ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution for "A plan and timeline as agreed upon by the ICANN Board and the GNSO Council for consideration and resolution of all Outputs contained in Section B of the Scorecard".
• The 4 May extraordinary meeting is also expected to determine whether the current small team will continue beyond the triage exercise or will be reconstituted for next steps.
• There is a high expectation that (a small team or) the full Council will, prior to ICANN77, meet with either the full Board or the full Board SubPro Caucus to iron out/resolve as many as possible any many, if not all, hindrance to the Board approving these 38 pending outputs.

Action by ALAC Liaison

          To monitor and keep sharing updates regarding progress of the Council Small Team work on the 38 Pending Outputs

• •  With the CPWG SubPro Prioritization Sub-Team; and
  •  To assist in formulating ALAC positions on the 38 Pending Outputs (if any) in time for the pre-ICANN77 ALAC-GNSO Bilateral.

3. Closed Generics : Next Steps 

• Closed Generics is a Board SubPro PDP Scorecard Section C Dependency.
• Council received an update from John McElwaine, its Liaison to the GNSO-GAC-ALAC Dialogue on Closed Generics who indicated that a draft framework is anticipated to be ready around 28 April for community comment, and that the work of the group will continue into Q3 of 2023 beyond ICANN77, but still meet Deliverable #3 in ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution for "A GNSO Council project plan and timeline for policy work, or an alternate path, on how to handle closed generics for the next round of new gTLDs."
• Notwithstanding, John hinted that because the framework will require a policy process for it to become policy, the suitable path would be a tightly scoped EPDP.
• More and better details will be forthcoming through the draft framework expected next week. More and better details should also be sought from the ALAC representative and/or alternate to this Dialogue.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To monitor and share updates on the proposed framework for Closed Generics
  •  To coordinate with ALAC's rep & alternate and At-Large staff on consultation for the proposed framework for Closed Generics.

4. DNS Abuse: Next Steps

• Following Council's DNS Abuse Small Team's 7 Oct 2022 report to Council, where Recommendation #2 advised Council to request, et. al., the Registrar Stakeholder Group “to further 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, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.”
• Council has determined that this small team should continue its work reviewing the replies received from gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group, Registrar Stakeholder Group, ICANN Contractual Compliance and DNS Abuse Institute to its 6 Jan letter.
• This Council small team now has a refreshed membership of Thomas Rickert (ISCP), Mark Datysgeld (BC), Wisdom Donkor (NCSG), Theo Geurts (RrSG), Sebastien Ducos (RySG), Greg DiBiase (RrSG), Tomslin Samme-Nlar (NCSG), Paul McGrady (NCA-NCPH), Nacho Amadoz (RySG) and Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to the GNSO).
• NB. The deliberations of the issue of bulk registrations are running parallel to the ICANN org - Contracted Parties ongoing contractual amendment negotiations on RAA section 3.18 (and perhaps, less on RA Spec 11 3(a))

5. Registration Data Accuracy (RDA)

• Council considered the Survey Summary Results and Council Leadership alluded to inputs from these results being taken into consideration in relevant fora - in this case, the re-charter of the RDA Scoping Team, but also any relevant GNSO processes in future.
• Council also received an update from ICANN org on the 4 scenarios that have been identified to review the accuracy of registration data and the data protection questions that arise from these scenarios. I believe this input is for the RDA Scoping Team (or successor) to consider once it is reconstituted.

6. Registration Data Request Service (RDRS)

• ICANN org has informed that it is ready to start development of the RDRS. A demo could be expected in the ICANN77 June time frame. 
• This is while the EPDP Phase 2 Small Team continues work (1) to establish success factors for the RDRS - eg. on how to ensure wide participation/usage of the RDRS especially by non-RrSG registrars (if it were kept as voluntary); and (2) what can be extracted from the data collected via the RDRS.