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GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2024 held on 18 July 2024 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2024 held on 18 Jul 2024

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • GNSO PR Officer - Roles & Responsibilities
  • Confirmation of GNSO nominees to the Pilot Holistic Review
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP on Temporary Specification Phase 1 Urgent Requests
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy Check-in
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Review of GAC Communiqué
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Small Team Supplemental Recommendations - Non-Adopted Recommendations
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration
• Item 10: Any Other Business

  • 10.1 - Aspirational Statement

  • 10.2 - SPS Actions Follow-up

    • Recommendations Report
    • Public Comment Review
    • Board Readiness

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

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large Large 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 16 May 2024 were posted on 01 June  2024.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 12 June 2024 were posted on 01 July 2024.
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP on Temporary Specification Phase 1 Urgent Requests
  
  • On 18 May 2019, the ICANN Board adopted the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data to enable contracted parties to continue to comply with existing ICANN contractual requirements and community-developed policies as they relate to registration directory services. GNSO Council initiated a one-year policy development process to confirm whether or not the Temporary Specification should become a consensus policy, and whether it provided an enduring framework for complying with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 
  • The EPDP Team sent its Phase 1 Final Report to Council on 20 February 2019, and Council voted to approve the Final Report on 4 March 2019. The Board subsequently adopted the Phase 1 Final Report on 15 May 2019, with the exception of Recommendation 1, Purpose 2, and Recommendation 12, which the Board did not adopt in full. The Board directed the ICANN President and CEO or their designee(s) to implement the policy recommendations. 
  • ICANN org convened an Implementation Review Team, which began meeting in May 2019. ICANN org published the draft Registration Data Policy for public comment on 24 August 2022. Several commenters expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of Recommendation 18, specifically around the issue of the response timeline for urgent requests. The relevant portion of Recommendation 18 reads, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered [sic] for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].”
  • Following the public comment period and subsequent discussion by the Implementation Review Team, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) wrote to the Board about the topic of urgent requests on 23 August 2023. The Registrar Stakeholder Group wrote to the Board on 8 September 2023 in response to the GAC’s letter.
  • Following the receipt of these letters and further communication amongst Board members, the Board sent a letter to the GNSO Council on 3 June 2024, expressing its concerns with the text of Recommendation 18 related to urgent requests. 
  • Council will discuss the concerns raised in the Board’s letter and discuss next steps in light of the concerns.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy Check-in
  • The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. The Scoping Team was tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors such as the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts before making a recommendation 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 completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to Council on 5 September 2022. In its write up, the Scoping Team 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). 
  • On 19 October 2023, ICANN org provided an update on Registration Data Accuracy efforts, and Council discussed the update during its 16 November 2023 meeting. During that meeting, some Councilors noted that, barring (i) completion of the Data Processing Agreement, (ii) implementation of the NIS2 directive, or (iii) publication of the Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains (INFERMAL) Study, it may not be the appropriate time to reconvene the Accuracy Scoping Team.  Council voted to extend the deferral of the Accuracy Scoping Team’s recommendations by another six months during its meeting on 15 February 2024. During this meeting, Council agreed to check in on the progress of these items during its June 2024 meeting.

  • Following the ICANN80 GNSO Council Wrap-Up, the GNSO Council Chair asked Councilors to consider the following questions: 

    1. Evaluation of Proposed Alternatives: In its write-up, ICANN noted limitations in processing data for the purpose of assessing accuracy and proposed two alternatives (analyzing historical audit data and engagement with Contracted Parties on ccTLD practices – see detail below). Is pursuing these alternatives worthwhile? If not, are there other alternatives for obtaining data Council should consider?
    2. Consideration of Scoping Team Restart: Given the limitations with respect to access to data, would there be value in restarting the Scoping Team at this time?
    3. Advancing the Topic: If restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not deemed advisable, what other ideas do you have to advance this topic given its importance to the ICANN community?
  • Council will discuss the above questions and determine next steps.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
  
  • In March 2023, the ICANN Board approved the majority of the recommendations contained in the Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP, but also placed some recommendations into a pending status. Council convened a small team that worked collaboratively with the ICANN Board to resolve all pending recommendations. While the majority of the pending recommendations were able to be adopted by the ICANN Board, recommendations across six Topics were non adopted by the ICANN Board. 

  • Council tasked the Small Team Plus with developing Supplemental Recommendations on five of the six Topics, i.e., Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments, Applicant Support, Terms and Conditions, String Similarity Evaluations, and Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanisms. Based on the expected implementation as it relates to the Continued Operations Instrument (COI), the Small Team Plus determined it was unnecessary to develop a Supplemental Recommendation for Topic 22: Registrant Protections. The Small Team Plus developed Supplemental Recommendations for all five topics and shared them with the Council.

  • Because of information received just prior to Council consideration in April 2024, Council elected to defer consideration of the Supplemental Recommendation related to String Similarity Evaluations, or more specifically, singular/plurals. The new information received was a strawperson developed by ICANN org, which provided a potential path forward for singular/plurals. The Council asked to consider whether it felt that the strawperson was promising enough to task the Small Team Plus considering whether strawperson, or and amended version, could be agreed upon.

  • Council will receive an update from the  Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Small Team Supplemental Recommendations - Non-Adopted Recommendations
  • As mentioned above, the ICANN Board had not adopted recommendations across six topics from the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP (i.e., Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments, Applicant Support, Terms and Conditions, String Similarity Evaluations, and Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanisms. Based on the expected implementation as it relates to the Continued Operations Instrument (COI)).
  • At Council's direction, the Small Team Plus developed Supplemental Recommendations for five topics and shared them with Council and on 18 April 2024, Council voted to approve these Supplemental Recommendations for the non-adopted SubPro recommendations. The Small Team Plus determined it was unnecessary to develop a Supplemental Recommendation for Topic 22: Registrant Protections.  
  • On 8 June 2024, the ICANN Board adopted the following scorecard, wherein it approved the Supplemental Recommendations related to Topic 17: Applicant Support and Topic 32: Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanism. The Board did not adopt the Supplemental Recommendations related to Topic 9: Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments and Topic 18: Terms & Conditions. 
  • Council will discuss whether any further actions should be pursued for any of the non-adopted Supplemental Recommendations.
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration

  • On 22 November 2023, the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) filed a Request for Reconsideration  of the ICANN Board Resolutions 2023.10.26.11 and 2023.10.26.122, regarding (i) the actions and inactions that led to (a) the ICANN Board’s public comment of 6 December 2018 on the Initial Report of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), (b) the organization of the public comment phase on the Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group, (c) the ICANN Board Resolutions 2022.06.12.13 to 2022.06.12.16 , and (ii) the actions and inactions involving the implementation of the ICANN Grant Giving Program.

  • During its meeting at ICANN80, a few GNSO Councilors volunteered to draft a letter to the Board regarding the Request for Reconsideration.

  • Council will hear an update on the draft letter and discuss potential next steps for the Council, if any.

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2024 held on 18 Jul 2024 at 13:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/mud7kn9k

06:00 Los Angeles; 09:00 Washington DC; 14:00 London; 15:00 Paris; 16:00 Moscow; 23:00 Melbourne

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/92283565389?pwd=QnlHK1JSbzdiSFFZSjRjamxMTkNGdz09

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the meeting or call as listen-only observers.