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GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2023 held on 24 Aug 2023  

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

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2023 held on 24 Aug 2023

Full Agenda  |  Documents  | Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Approval of the 2023 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Slate
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - SubPro Small Team Clarifying Statement
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Recommendations Report on Review of the Statement of Interest (SOI) Requirements 
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Chartering the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (“SPIRT”)
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Pending Recommendations - Expected Non-Adoption 
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Closed Generics
• Item 9: AOB
  • 9.1 Update from NIS2 Outreach Team 
  • 9.2 ICANN78 Planning
  • 9.3 Discussion Paper on .Quebec
  • 9.4 Grant Program Implementation update to Chartering Organizations

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 14 June were posted on 01 July 2023.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 July were posted on 06 August 2023.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Approval of the 2023 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Slate - In accordance with Section 17.2 (d) of the ICANN Bylaw and per the CSC Charter, the full membership of the CSC must be approved by the GNSO Council. The Council approves the full slate of members and liaisons, noting that the SSAC has declined to appoint a liaison. 
  • The ALAC's Liaison for term 2023-2025 is Holly Raiche, with the alternate being Ejikeme Egbuogu
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - SubPro Small Team Clarifying Statement
  • During its informal session at ICANN76 and the subsequent Council meeting, 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 a comprehensive review of the issues chart, with Board member input on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status. Council discussed the main output of that triage effort, the proposed paths forward for each pending recommendation, during an Extraordinary Meeting on 4 May. During that meeting, Council agreed to further task the small team with taking interim steps (e.g., provision of clarifying information, developing speaking points) in order to support the Council’s dialogue with the ICANN Board on 22 May. Council debriefed after the dialogue with the ICANN Board and discussed next steps. 
  • During ICANN77 Day 0 Session, Council heard from members of the Board regarding the Board’s views on potential “landing spots” on the pending recommendations. Following this discussion, the Small Team has drafted clarifying statements for items in landing spot one (“Provision of Clarifying Statement to the Board”). During its meeting in July, Council received an update from the Small Team on the proposed clarifying statement.
  • 24 Aug update: I have just been informed that the Board has requested more time because "[t]he Board would like to propose a small tweak to the language [in the clarifying statements for Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13, 30.1, 31.16 and 31.17 (all regarding the enforceability of PICs and RVCs) to ensure that it is crystal clear". Hence the recommendations where there is an expectation that the GNSO Council can resolve the ICANN Board concerns via a Clarifying Statement are now:
    • Topic 3: Applications Assessed in Rounds - Recommendations 3.1, 3.2, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7
      • The SubPro Final Report recommendation envisions that “the next application procedure should be processed in the form of a round” and “Application procedures must take place at predictable, regularly occurring intervals without indeterminable periods of review”. However, the GNSO Council confirms its willingness to engage with the ICANN Board to explore a shared vision for the long-term evolution of the program, which could be materially different than what is envisioned for the next round of the New gTLD Program in the Topic 3 recommendations.
    • Topic 6: Registry Service Provider Pre-Evaluation - Recommendation 6.8
      • The GNSO Council confirms its understanding of the Implementation Review Team (IRT) Principles & Guidelines that state that, “the IRT is convened to assist staff in developing the implementation details for the policy to ensure that the implementation conforms to the intent of the policy recommendations.” The Council therefore recognizes that ICANN org will be responsible for establishing the fees charged for the RSP pre-evaluation program, in consultation with the IRT, as is consistent with the roles and responsibilities captured in the IRT Principles & Guidelines. The language used in Recommendation 6.8 is not intended to alter the respective roles and responsibilities of staff and the IRT.
    • Topic 9: Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments - Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13, 9.15
      • Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13 - The GNSO Council confirms that in respect to any new Public Interest Commitments (PICs) and Registry Voluntary Commitments (RVCs), PICs/RVCs entered into must be contractually enforceable, and in respect of RVCs, enforceability is determined by both ICANN org and the applicant. And further, the Council observes that among the purposes of PICs / RVCs is to address public comments, in addressing strings deemed highly sensitive or related to regulated industries, objections, whether formal or informal, GAC Early Warnings, GAC Consensus Advice, and/or other comments from the GAC.
      • Recommendation 9.15: The GNSO Council confirms that this recommendation does not require any implementation nor creates any dependencies for the Next Round of the New gTLD Program.
    • Topic 26: Security and Stability - Recommendation 26.9
      • The GNSO Council confirms that the “any level” language referenced in the recommendation should be interpreted to only be in respect of domain names that are allocated by the registry operator.
    • Topic 29: Name Collision - Recommendation 29.1
      • The GNSO Council believes that Recommendation 29.1 can be adopted by the Board on the understanding that it does not need to be acted on until such time any next steps for mitigating name collision risks are better understood out of the Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) Study 2.
    • Topic 30: GAC Consensus Advice and GAC Early Warning - Recommendation 30.7
      • Please see the Council’s clarifying statement for Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13.
    • Topic 31: Objections - Recommendations 31.16, 31.17
      • Please see the Council’s clarifying statement for Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13.
    • Topic 34: Community Applications - Recommendation 34.12
      • The GNSO Council confirms its recommendation that terms included in the contract between ICANN org and the CPE Provider regarding the CPE process must be subject to public comment. This recommendation however is not intended to require ICANN org to disclose any confidential terms of the agreement between ICANN org and the CPE Provider.
    • Topic 35: Auctions - Recommendations 35.3, 35.5
      • The GNSO Council confirms that the references to private auctions in Recommendations 35.3 and 35.5 merely acknowledge the existence of private auctions in 2012 and should NOT be seen as an endorsement or prohibition of their continued practice in future rounds of the New gTLD Program. The Council notes that there were extensive discussions on the use of private auctions in the SubPro working group. To the extent that draft recommendations were developed as to private auctions, these did not receive consensus support in the working group but did receive strong support with significant opposition.
  • Council will vote on the clarifying statement to be submitted to the ICANN Board.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Recommendations Report on Review of the Statement of Interest (SOI) Requirements 
  • The GNSO Framework for Continuous Improvement Pilot was initiated in June 2021 to determine whether the framework, as outlined here, could serve as an approach for dealing with the various projects that are focused on improvements to GNSO processes and procedures.

  • The CCOICI tasked the GNSO Statement of Interest (SOI) Task Force to address the following questions:

    1. Is the original objective of the SOI, as stated in the BGC WG Report, still valid? If not, why not and what should the current objective be?
    2. Based on the response to question 1), is the requested information to be provided as part of the SOI still fit for purpose? If not, why not, and what would need to be changed to make it fit for purpose?
    3. Are there any further measures that should be considered from an enforcement / escalation perspective, in addition or instead of those already included in the requirements?
  • The CCOICI submitted to  Council for consideration its Recommendations Report following its review of the Recommendations Report submitted to the CCOICI by the GNSO Statement of Interest Task Force based on their review of the GNSO Statement of Interest (SOI) Requirements as well as their review of the input received in response to the public comment forum.
  • Council will receive an overview of the CCOICI Recommendations Report on the SOI Requirements.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Chartering the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (“SPIRT”)
  • In its Final Report, the Subsequent Procedures Working Group recommended “the formation of a Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (‘SPIRT’) (Pronounced ‘spirit’) to serve as the body responsible for reviewing potential issues related to the Program, to conduct analysis utilizing the framework, and to recommend the process/mechanism that should be followed to address the issue (i.e., utilize the Predictability Framework). The GNSO Council shall be responsible for oversight of the SPIRT and may review all recommendations of the SPIRT in accordance with the procedures outlined in the GNSO Operating Procedures and Annexes thereto.”
  • Council will hear on the issue of SPIRT chartering.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Pending Recommendations - Expected Non-Adoption 
  • Further to Item 4: SubPro Small Team Clarifying Statement which addressed 22 of 38 SubPro recommendations marked as "pending", the Council SubPro Small Team has also looked at proposing paths for the remaining 16 recommendations the Board is not expected to adopt.
  • Council will hear an update on the proposed path. In addition, the small team is requesting Council for further instructions now that it has reached the solution building stage; as well as input on whether or not it is time to invite the GAC to participate more formally in the small team's work and how that would work practically.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Closed Generics

  • In March 2022, the ICANN Board requested that the GAC and GNSO Council consider engaging in a facilitated dialogue to develop a framework for further GNSO policy work on the issue of Closed Generics. The GAC and GNSO Council agreed to the Board’s suggestion and each appointed six participants for the dialogue. One participant and one alternate from the ALAC were also appointed. Should the GAC-GNSO facilitated dialogue result in an agreed framework, the agreements will be further developed through the appropriate GNSO policy process.

  • Following an initial, informal meeting at ICANN75 in Kuala Lumpur, 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.

  • During its meeting 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.

  • The GNSO Chair, GAC Chair, and ALAC Chair plan to send a separate communication to the ICANN Board that reflects the decision they took and, as stated in the letter, expressing the collective view that:
    • (1) closed generic gTLDs should not be viewed as a dependency for the next round;
    • (2) until there is community-developed policy, the Board should maintain the position from the 2012 round (i.e., any applications seeking to impose exclusive registry access for "generic strings" to a single person or entity and/or that person's or entity's Affiliates (as defined in Section 2.9(c) of the Registry Agreement) should not proceed; and
    • (3) should the community decide in the future to resume the policy discussions, this should be based on the good work that has been done to date in the facilitated dialogue.
  • Council will discuss the current state of work and the proposed communication to the Board.
• Item 9: AOB
  • 9.1 Update from NIS2 Outreach Team 
  • 9.2 ICANN78 Planning
  • 9.3 Discussion Paper on .Quebec 
    • Discussion Paper about “.québec” Challenges
    • ALAC correspondence on DotQuebec
  • 9.4 Grant Program Implementation update to Chartering Organizations
    • Update on the progress of ICANN org’s implementation of the CCWG-AP Final Report and preview upcoming work
    • Letter to SOAC Chairs from ICANN org
    • Email exchange from  Tripti Sinha, Chair, ICANN Board of Directors, Anne Aikman-Scalese, GNSO Councilor, and Xavier Calvez, ICANN Org, SVP Planning and CFO

Records of 24 Aug 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 24 Aug 2023 Meeting to ALAC

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

1. Consent Agenda Item - 2023 Customer Standing Committee (CSC)

• Council approved the slate of 2023 CSC Members and Liaison, which include the liaison and alternate appointed by ALAC, Holly Raiche and Ejikeme Egbuogu, respectively, for the 2023 - 2025 term.

2. Next Round of New gTLDs / Subsequent Procedures 38 Pending Recommendations & "Other Dependencies"

• To recap, the ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution had requested the GNSO Council to submit 3 of 4 deliverables. 
• For convenience, the 3 of 4 deliverables are replicated as follows:
  • a. 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 38 Pending Recommendations);
  • b. A working methodology and Implementation Review Team (IRT) work plan and timeline as agreed upon by ICANN org and the GNSO Council;c. 
  • c. 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; and
  • d. A project plan from the GNSO Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Working Group (WG) identifying all charter questions that will impact the next Applicant Guidebook, along with considerations to ensure a consistent solution on IDN Variant TLDs with the ccPDP4 on IDN ccTLDs (in accordance with prior Board Resolution 2019.03.14.09), and a timeline by when the IDNs EPDP WG will deliver relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council.
• Immediately after ICANN77, Council submitted to the Board on 15 Jun 2023 the SubPro ICANN77 Deliverables: Workplan and Timeline which addresses the 3 requested deliverables.
• As of now, the situation with a. and c. are as follows. The status with d. is as reported in my Jul 2023 report.

a. The 38 Pending Recommendations 

• Since after ICANN77, the GNSO Council Small Team on SubPro has continued to work with the Board SubPro Caucus co-leads, Avri Doria and Becky Burr, in developing the Council's 2 next sub-deliverables in respect of the 38 Pending Recommendations. This involves bifurcating the 38 recommendations into 2 broad groups: 

• • Group (1) covers Recommendations on the following SubPro Topics which were assessed and are understood to merely require clarifying statements by Council for the Board's consideration in context of the Board's concerns, in order to facilitate adoption by the Board.  
  • Due to a late request by the ICANN Board for more time as "[t]he Board would like to propose a small tweak to the language [in the clarifying statements for Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13, 30.1, 31.16 and 31.17 (all regarding the enforceability of PICs and RVCs) to ensure that it is crystal clear", the recommendations where there is an expectation that the GNSO Council can resolve the ICANN Board concerns via a Clarifying Statement was amended to cover:
    • Topic 3: Applications Assessed in Rounds - Recommendations 3.1,3.2, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7
    • Topic 6: Registry Service Provider Pre-Evaluation - Recommendation 6.8
    • Topic 9: Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments - Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13, 9.15
    • Topic 26: Security and Stability - Recommendation 26.9
    • Topic 29: Name Collision - Recommendation 29.1
    • Topic 30: GAC Consensus Advice and GAC Early Warning - Recommendation 30.7
    • Topic 31: Objections - Recommendations 31.16, 31.17
    • Topic 34: Community Applications - Recommendation 34.12
    • Topic 35: Auctions - Recommendations 35.3, 35.5
  • The resulting Clarifying Statement as at 23 Aug which was adopted by Council  for Group (1) recommendations is found at this link.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • •  To continue participating in Small Team to ensure clarifying statement captures existing ALAC positions, as relevant/needed.

• • Group (2) covers the remaining pending recommendations for which the Council Small Team will continue to work on in light of the clear signal by the Board SubPro Caucus co-leads that the Board will very likely decline to adopt as they currently read. The Small Team's scope of work here includes considering whether such recommendations should be revised, and if so, how - either through the 'GNSO Operating Procedures section 16' path (which would involve reconvening the SubPro PDP WG), or through a 'Supplemental Recommendation' path for which Council will need to determine the mechanism to produce such supplemental recommendation.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • •  To continue participating in Small Team to ensure clarifying statement captures existing ALAC positions, as relevant/needed, or to advocate for the inclusion of input outside of GNSO where Council opts for the 'Supplemental Recommendation' path.

c. Closed Generics Framework

• • Council received a substantive update on the status of the Closed Generics Framework produced by the GAC-GNSO-ALAC Dialogue small team, post a review of community comments received in response to the request for comments on the Draft Closed Generics Framework which closed on 15 Jul 2023. 
  • The Chairs of the GAC, GNSO and ALAC convened to discuss what should happen with this Closed Generics Framework, namely whether there was sufficient community consensus for it to move to a GNSO policy development process. They concluded there was not and that there was not sufficient demand to take it further through a policy process. As a result, the GNSO Chair, GAC Chair, and ALAC Chair plan to send a separate communication to the ICANN Board that reflects the decision they took and, as stated in the letter, expressing the collective view that:

    • (1) closed generic gTLDs should not be viewed as a dependency for the next round; 

    • (2) until there is community-developed policy, the Board should maintain the position from the 2012 round (i.e., any applications seeking to impose exclusive registry access for "generic strings" to a single person or entity and/or that person's or entity's Affiliates (as defined in Section 2.9(c) of the Registry Agreement) should not proceed; and

    • (3) should the community decide in the future to resume the policy discussions, this should be based on the good work that has been done to date in the facilitated dialogue. 

3. Next Round of New gTLDs - Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (SPIRT) (pronounced as "spirit")

• In its Final Report, the Subsequent Procedures Working Group recommended “the formation of a Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (‘SPIRT’) (Pronounced ‘spirit’) to serve as the body responsible for reviewing potential issues related to the Program, to conduct analysis utilizing the framework, and to recommend the process/mechanism that should be followed to address the issue (i.e., utilize the Predictability Framework). The GNSO Council shall be responsible for oversight of the SPIRT and may review all recommendations of the SPIRT in accordance with the procedures outlined in the GNSO Operating Procedures and Annexes thereto.”
• Council discussed the task of chartering (not constituting) the SPIRT and concluded that it would be useful to set up a chartering team to include participation from the At-Large/ALAC, GAC and other parts of the community.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To alert the ALAC on timing of the call to form the SPIRT chartering team, in due course.

4. Discussion Paper on .Quebec 

• The GNSO Chair led the commentary on this issue which essentially concluded that the issue of .quebec (TLD) not being a variant of “.québec” did not require an immediate resolution and one that did not squarely sit in the remit of the Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP on IDNs).

5. GNSO Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Recommendations Report on Review of the Statement of Interest (SOI) Requirements 

• Council received an overview of the CCOICI Recommendations Report on the SOI Requirements which concluded that no consensus was reached on the ability to exempt participants from declaring in their GNSO SOI who they represented whenever they participated in a PDP in case of professional ethical obligations preventing complications
• Although it was recommended that the GNSO SOI format be updated to form two parts (see below), the existing SOI language in relation to exemption is to remain as is.
  
  • a) General Statement of Interest which contains general information about a participant (parent).
    
  • b) Activity Specific Statement of Interest which contains information that is provided specific to the activity, for example, motivation for participation (child)

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2023 held on 20 Jul 2023  

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

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2023 held on 20 Jul 2023

Full Agenda  |  Documents  | Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team Recommendations #1 and #2 – extending deferral of consideration by six months
  • GNSO Review of GAC Communiqué 
  • GNSO Non-Registry Liaison to the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) - Milton Mueller; [GNSO Non-Registry Liaison Alternate to the CSC - [candidate under review]]
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy 
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Operational Design Phase and Operational Design Assessment Liaison & Small Team Survey Feedback
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Small Team Update on Pending Recommendations - Clarifying Statement
• Item 7: Follow up on IGO Curative Rights IRT and Other Work Necessary to Achieve Release of the IGO Acronyms  Under Interim Reservation
• Item 8: IDNs EPDP Timeline
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.1 ccNSO Liaison update
  • 9.2 Closed Generics Update

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 Extraordinary Council meeting on 05 June 2023 were posted on 19 June 2023
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 14 June 2023 were posted on 01 July 2023
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team Recommendations #1 and #2 – extending deferral of consideration by six months
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy 
  • During Council’s extraordinary meeting on 5 June 2023, Thomas Rickert introduced an area for potential discussion at a future GNSO Council meeting.
  • Specifically, the European Union's Second Network and Information Systems Directive (“NIS2”) entered into force on 16 January 2023. Article 28, subsection 3 provides, "Member States shall require TLD name registries and the entities providing domain name registration services, those are registrars, resellers and privacy and proxy services, to have policies and procedures, including verification procedures in place to ensure that the databases referred to in paragraph 1 include accurate and complete information. Member States shall require such policies and procedures to be publicly available." Additionally, the corresponding recital number 111, provides, in part, “Those policies and procedures should take into account to the extent possible the standards developed by the multi-stakeholder governance structures at the international level." 
  • There was a suggestion to consider informal options of responding to the recital text to highlight the standards that are currently applicable.
  • Council will discuss if further work is needed on this topic, and if the GNSO is the appropriate venue for further work at this time.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Operational Design Phase and Operational Design Assessment Liaison & Small Team Survey Feedback
  • Council will receive an overview of the feedback provided in the surveys issued to two GNSO Liaisons to the ODP (Janis Karklins and Jeff Neuman) and the members of both ODA review teams, and consider potential next steps such as sharing this feedback to ICANN org to help inform the upcoming community consultation.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Small Team Update on Pending Recommendations - Clarifying Statement
  • Since ICANN76, the Council SubPro Small Team has met several times and has completed a comprehensive review of the issues chart, with Board member input on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status. The Council discussed the main output of that triage effort, the proposed paths forward for each pending recommendation, during an Extraordinary Meeting on 4 May, in order to support the Council’s dialogue with the ICANN Board on 22 May. 
  • During the ICANN77 Day 0 Session, Council heard from the members of the Board regarding the Board’s views on potential “landing spots” on the pending recommendations. Following this discussion, the Small Team has drafted clarifying statements for items in landing spot one (“Provision of Clarifying Statement to the Board”). Immediately after ICANN77, Council submitted its ICANN77 Deliverable Work plan & Timeline SubPro Related Activities as requested by the ICANN Board in its 16 Mar resolution.
  • Council will receive an update from the Small Team on the proposed clarifying statement to the Board as well as the work that is ongoing in relation to the recommendations for which the Board has indicated likely non-adoption.
• Item 7: Follow up on IGO Curative Rights IRT and Other Work Necessary to Achieve Release of the IGO Acronyms  Under Interim Reservation
  • On 14 April 2013, the Board passed a resolution placing certain IGO acronyms under temporary reservation. In recent correspondence, the Board confirmed that its intention in passing this resolution was to “withhold these IGO acronyms from registration at the second level on an interim basis, pending resolution by the community of the inconsistencies between GAC advice and GNSO policy recommendations from the GNSO’s 2012-2013 Policy Development Process (PDP) on IGO-INGO Protections in All gTLDs.” 
  • Since the April 2013 Board resolution, the GNSO has completed two PDPs specific to curative rights protections for IGOs: (1) the PDP on IGO-INGO Access to Curative Rights Protection Mechanisms that was completed in 2019 and (2) the Expedited PDP (EPDP) on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs that was completed in 2022.
  • On 30 April 2023, the Board voted to adopt all four recommendations that the GNSO Council approved from the 2019 PDP and all five Full Consensus recommendations from the 2022 EPDP. The Board also directed ICANN org to proceed with implementation “as soon as feasible; and to develop and submit to the Board an implementation plan … to inform the Board as to how the implementation of these recommendations fit into ICANN org’s operational planning and prioritization of its ongoing work to implement other community-developed recommendations that the Board has adopted.” 
  • Council will discuss whether it wishes to take any steps to request that ICANN org implementation of these Consensus Policy recommendations remains a high priority, understanding the need to resource this work appropriately in the context of other ongoing implementation work.
• Item 8: IDNs EPDP Timeline
  • In accordance with ICANN Board request (16 Mar resolution), the EPDP Team delivered an updated project plan by the last day of ICANN77.  It identifies that almost all of its charter questions will impact the next Applicant Guidebook, and determines that its timeline for the EPDP Team’s delivery of relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council remains unchanged, which is November 2025. 

  • Nevertheless, the EPDP Team made a commitment to reconsider its delivery date shortly after ICANN77 by taking into consideration: 

    • Closure of the Phase 1 Initial Report Public Comment period and gaining a better understanding of the breadth and quantity of comments received; 
    • A better sense of progress made on Phase 2 charter questions in advance of the schedule; and
    • More certainty of approval for the EPDP Team’s request for its dedicated face-to-face workshop, etc.  
  •  Council will hear an update on the EPDP Team’s revised schedule.
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.2 Closed Generics Update 

Records of 20 Jul 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 Jul 2023 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Jul 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Jul 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Next Round of New gTLDs / Subsequent Procedures 38 Pending Recommendations & "Other Dependencies"

• To recap, the ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution had requested the GNSO Council to submit 3 of 4 deliverables. 
• For convenience, the 3 of 4 deliverables are replicated as follows:
  • a. 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 38 Pending Recommendations);
  • b. A working methodology and Implementation Review Team (IRT) work plan and timeline as agreed upon by ICANN org and the GNSO Council;c. 
  • c. 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; and
  • d. A project plan from the GNSO Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Working Group (WG) identifying all charter questions that will impact the next Applicant Guidebook, along with considerations to ensure a consistent solution on IDN Variant TLDs with the ccPDP4 on IDN ccTLDs (in accordance with prior Board Resolution 2019.03.14.09), and a timeline by when the IDNs EPDP WG will deliver relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council.
• Immediately after ICANN77, Council submitted to the Board on 15 Jun 2023 the SubPro ICANN77 Deliverables: Workplan and Timeline which addresses the 3 requested deliverables.

a. The 38 Pending Recommendations

• Since after ICANN77, the GNSO Council Small Team on SubPro has continued to work with the Board SubPro Caucus co-leads, Avri Doria and Becky Burr, in developing the Council's 2 next sub-deliverables in respect of the 38 Pending Recommendations. This involves bifurcating the 38 recommendations into 2 broad groups: 

• • Group (1) covers Recommendations on the following SubPro Topics which were assessed and are understood to merely require clarifying statements by Council for the Board's consideration in context of the Board's concerns, in order to facilitate adoption by the Board. *  
    • Topic 3: Applications Assessed in Rounds - Recommendations 3.1,3.2, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7
    • Topic 6: Registry Service Provider Pre-Evaluation - Recommendation 6.8
    • Topic 9: Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments - Recommendations 9.1, 9.4, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.12, 9.13, 9.15
    • Topic 26: Security and Stability - Recommendation 26.9
    • Topic 29: Name Collision - Recommendation 29.1
    • Topic 30: GAC Consensus Advice and GAC Early Warning - Recommendation 30.7
    • Topic 31: Objections - Recommendations 31.16, 31.17
    • Topic 34: Community Applications - Recommendation 34.12
    • Topic 35: Auctions - Recommendations 35.3, 35.5
  • The complete Clarifying Statement produced for Group (1) recommendations can be viewed via this link.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • •  To participate in Small Team to ensure clarifying statement captures existing ALAC positions, as relevant/needed.

• • Group (2) covers the remaining pending recommendations for which the Council Small Team will continue to work on in light of the clear signal by the Board SubPro Caucus co-leads that the Board will very likely decline to adopt as they currently read. The Small Team's scope of work here includes considering whether such recommendations should be revised, and if so, how - either through the 'GNSO Operating Procedures section 16' path (which would involve reconvening the SubPro PDP WG), or through a 'Supplemental Recommendation' path for which Council will need to determine the mechanism to produce such supplemental recommendation.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • •  To continue to participate in Small Team to ensure clarifying statement captures existing ALAC positions, as relevant/needed, or to advocate for the inclusion of input outside of GNSO where Council opts for the 'Supplemental Recommendation' path.

• • *To note that I have previously reported, that the list of recommendations in group (1) versus group (2) continues to evolve over time; compare with as at ICANN77

c. Draft Closed Generics Framework

• • Council received a cursory update on where the Draft Closed Generics Framework stands and informed that the GAC-GNSO-ALAC Dialogue small team will reconvene to review the community comments received in response to the request for comments on the Draft Closed Generics Framework which closed on 15 Jul 2023. 

d.  Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP)

• • As reported in Jun 2023, the IDNs EPDP WG was already taking steps to improve its timeline to expedite completion of its work well ahead of its original Nov 2025 target.
  • The WG Chair presented a revised project plan which shaves 13 months off the earlier timeline. The key milestones for this EPDP are now as follows:
    • Phase 1 Final Report remains expected to be delivered to Council in Nov 2023
    • Council then considers this Phase 1 Final Report and decides on the adoption of report and recommendations
    • Phase 2 Initial Report is expected to be published for public comment in Apr 2024 (vs May 2025 earlier)
    • Phase 2 Final Report is expected to be delivered to Council in Oct 2024 (vs Nov 2025 earlier)
    • Council then considers this Phase 2 Final Report and decides on the adoption of report and recommendations
  • Assumptions for this revised project plan must hold for the EPDP to meet the new milestone dates:
    • Progress to be achieved via multiple sessions during ICANN78 (similar to ICANN77)
    • A planned F2F workshop scheduled for early Dec 2023
    • No change to the EPDP Charter / scope of quarter questions

• Update: Following this 20 Jul meeting, Council submitted an updated ICANN77 Deliverable Workplan & Timeline SubPro Related Activities to provide further clarity to its 15 Jun submission.

2. Data Accuracy in the context of NIS2 & Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team

      Accuracy

• Council continued to discuss what should or could be done in light of the European Union's Second Network and Information Systems Directive (“NIS2”) entered into force on 16 January 2023, particularly regarding Article 28, subsection 3 referencing the need for Member States to require that "(accuracy) policies and procedures should take into account to the extent possible the standards developed by the multi-stakeholder governance structures at the international level." 
• There was no clear agreement on matters of protocol - ie. whether it would be more appropriate for ICANN org or ICANN Board to address the EU or for GNSO Council to address the GAC, and the EC representative specifically, to inform of the work already or being undertaken by ICANN in this area. This was to be referred to Council's communication small team for consideration.

     Data Accuracy Scoping Team

• Council continues to await an update on the status of negotiations Data Processing Agreement (DPA) negotiations between ICANN org and Contracted Parties and resolved to extend deferral of consideration of recommendations #1 and #2 of the Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team write up for another six months or at an earlier date if the DPA negotiations have been completed before six months have passed and/or there is feedback from ICANN org if/how it anticipates the requesting and processing of registration data will be undertaken in the context of measuring accuracy.

3. Operational Design Phase (ODP) and Operational Design Assessment (ODA)

• Council was given a presentation on the results of a survey conducted with the 2 GNSO liaisons to 2 completed ODP (SSAD and SubPro) as well as members of the 2 small teams (SSAD and SubPro) and was informed that ICANN org will be conducting an upcoming community consultation to obtain feedback on the ODP process.
• To note that ICANN org intends to incorporate (possibly formalize) the ODP process into the CPIF - Consensus Policy Implementation Framework. 

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To alert the ALAC/At-Large on details of ICANN org's upcoming community consultation when they become available.

GNSO Council Meeting #6 of 2022 held on 15 and 16 Jun 2022 during ICANN 74 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #6 of 2022 held on 15 and 16 Jun 2022 during ICANN 74 

Full Agenda  |  Motions  

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda - None
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Final Report and Recommendations From the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs 
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Impact of SSAD Light on Other Work
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro GGP
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro ODP Update 
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Closed Generics Small Team
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO PDP Improvements - Tracking and Coordination Discussion Paper
• Item 10: Any other business

Under Council Wrap-up

• Item 1: Council commitments document
• Item 2/9: Next steps on GNSO PDP Improvements Tracker
• Item 3: Thomas Rickart’s AOB Item - implementation preview during the PDP WG work (prior to the  consensus call)
• Item 4: GAC Communique - GNSO response
• Item 5: Impressions from the hybrid ICANN74 meeting
• Item 6: AOB

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 14 April 2022 were posted on 29 April 2022.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 19 May 2022 were posted on 03 June 2022.
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Final Report and Recommendations From the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs 
  • Council to vote on a motion to approve the recommendations in the Final Report
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Impact of SSAD Light on Other Work
  • Council will discuss next steps for the SSAD Light Design Concept post receiving additional information from ICANN Org that indicates that the impact to the SubPro ODP,  ZDS 3.0 and the EBERO Program and DEA improvements projects/initiatives would not be equal. Specifically, CZDS 3.0 and the EBERO Program and DEA improvements would be paused while the SubPro ODP would be delayed but not paused. Further information is expected to better understand the impact, including whether the delays would mean missing key milestones.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro GGP
  • Council will consider the potential GGP Initiation Request and discuss next steps

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  To review in due course an 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 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro ODP Update
  • Council will receive an update from the liaison and discuss Question Set #4
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Closed Generics Small Team
  • By way of background,
    • On 6 March 2022, the ICANN Board sent a letter to both the GNSO and the GAC, inviting them to “explore a mutually agreeable way forward, for which the Board could facilitate a dialogue to formulate a workable framework to identify and handle closed generic applications for the immediate next round of new gTLDs.” Shortly thereafter, and as requested by the Board, ICANN org prepared a draft Framing Paper to support the potential collaboration between the GNSO and the GAC. 
    • The Council established a small team to consider both the letter and framework, to determine next steps. To support this work, Council leadership and staff developed an assignment form, which helps make clear the narrow ask of the small team (i.e., whether the GNSO Council is open to working with the GAC to seek to develop a framework on closed generics). 
    • On 27 April 2022, the Council responded to the Board affirmatively, that it is willing to pursue next steps. Subsequently, the Council tasked the small team with preparing for the next step, of mutually agreeing with the GAC on the parameters, processes, and procedures for the facilitated dialogue. 
    • On 19 May 2022, Council received a reply from the Board, inter alia encouraging GAC and Council to confer on the question of ALAC's participation in the consultative process.
    • The small team has provided its recommendations to the Council on 11 June 2022.
  • Council will discuss the recommendations of the small team

Action by ALAC Liaison

•  To monitor developments and to ensure role for ALAC/At-Large in resulting process.

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

• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO PDP Improvements - Tracking and Coordination Discussion Paper
  • Council had discussed the discussion paper and agreed that to better understand the concept, it would be helpful to have an example of what the tracker may look like. Council will receive a preview of the potential GNSO PDP Improvements tracker.

Records of 15 and 16 June 2022 Meetings at ICANN72

Special Summary Report of 15 Jun 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 Jun 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Jun 2022 Meeting Records.

1. EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protection for IGOs Final Report

• Council resolved unanimously to approve all 5 recommendations in the Final Report.

2. SubPro ODP

• Council to set up a drafting team to assist the GNSO Council’s liaison to the ODP with preparing answers to the ICANN org SubPro ODP Team's question set #4 and SubPro Topic Assumptions. Paul McGrady and Justine Chew have volunteered for the drafting team. 

3. GNSO Guidance Process for Subsequent Procedures (SubPro GGP)

• Council will proceed with a motion in its Jul meeting to establish a GGP to work just on Applicant Support through a Steering Committee (of a representative+observer model) with ultimate oversight by Council. The scope for this GGP on Applicant Support will reflect what is currently set  out in the draft SubPro GGP Initiation Request.

4. GNSO-GAC Dialogue on Closed Generics

• Council has agreed to relay its recommendations to the Board and GAC as the next step leading to the start of the GAC-GNSO Dialogue, with ALAC participation as a third party, through 1 ALAC-selected member (+ 1 alternate).