Page History

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2023 held on 25 and 26 Oct 2023 during ICANN78

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

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2023 held on 25 Oct 2023 during ICANN 78, over 2 parts, and including a Council Wrap-up Session on 26 Oct 2023:

Under Part 1 Agenda

Full Agenda  |  Documents  | Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - GNSO Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Recommendations Report on Review of the Statement of Interest (SOI) Requirements 
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Optional Topics for Potential Council Response
  • (i) Pilot Holistic Review Revised Draft Terms of Reference 
  • (ii) Proposed Process for the Retirement of Non-Policy Recommendations 
  • (iii) Continuous Improvement Program Community Coordination Group (CIP-CCG)
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Annual Report
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Diacritics Issue in Latin Script
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

  • 8.1 – Farewell to outgoing Councilors

  • 8.2 – Update - Open Contracted Party House DNS Abuse Calls

  • 8.3 – GNSO Framework for Continuous Improvement Pilot Review

  • 8.4 – Open microphone (Continuation of anniversary session discussion / input)

Under Part 2 Agenda

Full Agenda

• Item 1: Seating of the 2023-2024 Council
  INCOMING COUNCILORS:
  • Jennifer Chung: SOI Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG)
  • Lawrence Olawale-Roberts: SOI Commercial Stakeholder Group (CSG - BC)
  • Damon Ashcroft: SOI Commercial Stakeholder Group (CSG - IPC)
  • Taiwo Peter Akinremi: SOI Non-commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG)
• Item 2. Election of the Chair
  • One nomination was received for this position from Gregory DiBiase of the Contracted Party House. Gregory circulated his candidate statement to the GNSO Council on 5 October 2023.
• Item 3. Election of GNSO Council Vice Chair 2022-2023

  • Non-Contracted Party House - Tomslin Samme-Nlar

  • Contracted Party House - Nacho Amadoz

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 24 August 2023 were posted on 09 September 2023.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 21 September 2023 were posted on 08 October 2023.

• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Confirmation of Appointment of Ashley Heineman as GNSO-appointed Co-Chair of the IANA Naming Function Review Team
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - 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?
  • During the meeting in August 2023, CCOICI Chair Manju Chen presented an overview of the CCOICI Recommendations Report on the SOI Requirements, but the vote on the recommendations was ultimately deferred in last month's Council meeting due to some last minute concerns from the CPH.
  • As it turned out, no changes are being proposed to the CCOICI Recommendations and Council will proceed with the vote on these recommendations as they are written - which maintains 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. The motiononly requires a simple majority for it to be carried.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Optional Topics for Potential Council Response

(i) Pilot Holistic Review Revised Draft Terms of Reference 

• • The ICANN Board is currently seeking the community's input on the proposed Pilot Holistic Review Revised Draft Terms of Reference. This is an update to the first version posted for Public Comment in August 2022 and has been modified to reflect community input. The primary focus of the Pilot Holistic Review Draft Terms of Reference (ToR) is to address the four primary issues raised during the first Public Comment proceeding:
    • The scope of Holistic Review is unclear
    • There is a lack of independent examination in the Holistic Review
    • There is a lack of identified dependencies
    • The community might not have the ability to support the Pilot Holistic Review work
  • The ToR Development Team also shortened and revised the ToR document to include more direct language and clearer deliverables.
  • Considering the potential implications on the ICANN structures and work, the Board is seeking input on whether the revised Draft ToR seems fit for purpose, and whether it sufficiently addresses the issues identified in the first Public Comment proceeding.
  • The following questions are designed to aid responders in formulating their views:

1. 1. 1. Do you support the Pilot Holistic Review Revised Terms of Reference as drafted?
      2. Does the Pilot Holistic Review Revised Terms of Reference sufficiently address the four primary issues identified in the first Public Comment proceeding?
      3. Does the Pilot Holistic Review Revised Terms of Reference sufficiently clarify the deliverables for the Pilot Holistic Review?
      4. Do you support the next steps for the Pilot Holistic Review (as noted below)?

• • For more background information, Councilors are invited to listen to the webinar on this topic. 
  • Deadline for feedback is 27 November 2023.

(ii) Proposed Process for the Retirement of Non-Policy Recommendations 

• • To implement the Board-approved Third Accountability and Transparency Review (ATRT3) Recommendation 5, and considering the numerous times the ATRT3 Final Report stresses the procedural gap of not having a process to retire approved recommendations, ICANN org is proposing a process for the retirement of community-developed Board-approved non-policy recommendations in exceptional cases and according to specific criteria. 
  • Non-policy recommendations refer to community recommendations developed outside of a policy development process, such as Specific Reviews or Cross-Community Working Groups. The process will be publicly documented in the planning prioritization framework, and referenced in relevant documentation, such as the revised version of the Operating Standards for Specific Reviews. 
  • Council will discuss the Proposed Process and determine whether input on the proposed process is needed. 
  • The deadline for input is 30 November 2023

(iii) Continuous Improvement Program Community Coordination Group (CIP-CCG)

• • The Third Accountability and Transparency Review (ATRT3) Recommendation 3.6 calls for Organizational Reviews to be evolved into a Continuous Improvement Program (CIP). The recommendation to create a Continuous Improvement Program states that ICANN org shall work with each Supporting Organization (SO), Advisory Committee (AC) and their stakeholder groups, and the Nominating Committee (NomCom) to establish a Continuous Improvement Program. It will include an annual satisfaction survey of members/participants, and a regular assessment, including a summary of continuous improvements published at least every three years. 
  • As the ICANN Community considers the implementation of ATRT3 Recommendation 3.6 as it relates to each community structure and for the ICANN Community overall, the CIP Community Coordination Group is intended to serve as a forum to exchange best practices, lessons learned, as well as for sharing information and progress related to already existing community continuous improvement activities. The representatives in the CIP-CCG will share best practices and collaborate on community-wide implementation of ATRT3 Recommendation 3.6, while relaying information back to their constituencies to inform the process and voice decisions. 
  • ICANN org plans to proceed with the approach outlined in its letter by the end of November; however, if there are objections, concerns, or further feedback/questions, input is due by 30 November 2023.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Diacritics Issue in Latin Script
  • PointQuébec, CORE Association, and the At-Large Advisory Committee raised an issue to the GNSO Council attention with regard to the challenge affecting future applied-for strings in the Latin script containing diacritics that may be confusingly similar to ASCII strings and are non-variants. 
  • For background, an applied-for IDN gTLD string in the Latin script containing diacritics, which is NOT an allocatable variant label of the base ASCII string (existing or applied-for) according to RZ-LGR, is widely recognized by users as its “equivalence” and may be determined to be confusingly similar (i.e., in which case, it would not pass the String Similarity Review).
  • One notable example of this problem known to the ICANN community is the string “québec”. PointQuébec Inc, the Registry of .quebec, has long held an interest in applying for this string, but it may face challenges obtaining it. PointQuébec regards the string “.québec” a necessity for serving the French speaking community in Quebec, Canada. Quebec is the only province in Canada whose sole official language is French; 71.2% of Quebecers are first language francophones. In the 2012 round, PointQuébec was advised not to apply for “.québec” due to considerations for technical readiness and financial predictability for an IDN gTLD. Hence it applied for the ASCII string without diacritics “.quebec” first, but has been waiting to submit an application for the IDN string in the next round.

  • A similar problem could happen to other existing Registries that currently manage ASCII gTLDs but may wish to apply for their IDN equivalence that are not deemed as allocatable variant labels according to the RZ-LGR. Future applicants may also be affected by this challenge.

  • To consider the development of an exception procedure for handling the consequence of String Similarity Review and create a potential path for future applications such as the “.québec” string, a GNSO Policy Development Process is likely the necessary avenue to do so. Understanding the seriousness of the issue and the potential harm to the interests or needs of the intended language committees, the GNSO Council agrees that requesting an Issue Report to thoroughly research and scope the problem is the appropriate step forward. The Issue Report will serve as the basis for launching a dedicated PDP on this topic, should the GNSO Council consider this path in the future. 

• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

  • 8.1 – Farewell to outgoing Councilors

  • 8.2 – Update - Open Contracted Party House DNS Abuse Calls

  • 8.3 – GNSO Framework for Continuous Improvement Pilot Review

  • 8.4 – Open microphone (Continuation of anniversary session discussion / input

Records of 25 and 26 Oct 2023 Meetings at ICANN78

Special Summary Report of 25 and 26 Oct 2023 Meetings 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 Oct 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Oct 2023 Meeting Records.

1. GNSO Council Leadership 2023/2024

• Greg DiBiase, Tomslin Samme-Nlar and Nacho Amadoz, were elected by acclamation as GNSO Chair, GNSO Council Vice-Chair (NCPH), and GNSO Council Vice-Chair (CPH), respectively.

2. Diacritics Issue in Latin Script

• Following a staff presentation and after much discussion, Council settled on asking for a Study (and not an Issues Report as Councilors did not want to potentially trigger a subsequent PDP) in order to be able to make a better informed decision on subsequent next step.

3.  DNS Abuse Mitigation by Contracted Party House (CPH)

• The CPH (i.e. the Registry SG and Registrar SG) has opened their meetings, and plan to invite SOACs to share information with them, to inform on projects and develop possible inputs to such meeting.

    Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  As the ALAC's designated contact point, to liaise with CPH on such outreach opportunities.

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

• In August, 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 which allows for the exemption was to remain as is. Further, it is proposed that the SOI be organised into 2 parts:
  
  • 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)
• The vote to adopt these CCOICI recommendations was withdrawn at Council's Sep 2023 meeting as CPH were not prepared to vote on the one recommendation, as written, to retain the exemption. Hence this matter went back to the CCOICI for further consideration. CCOICI could not come to agreement to change the relevant recommendation.
• Following this, the vote to adopt these CCOICI recommendations was put without any amendment at this Council meeting, requiring only a simple majority to pass.
• The vote failed, with the CPH voting nay and the NCPH voting yay. As a result, none of the CCOICI recommendations were adopted. No change to the GNSO SOI is effected.

5. Topics for Potential Council Response

• Pilot Holistic Review Revised Draft Terms of Reference - Council is considering drafting a comment to this.
• Proposed Process for Retirement of Non-Policy Recommendations - Council is also considering drafting a comment to this.
• Letter regarding Continuous Improvement Program (CIP) Community Coordination Group - it appears that Council does not have any reaction to this.