Page History

PROPOSED AGENDA

Draft Agenda: 

1. Welcome and Updates to Statements of Interest
2. Review of summary document: (continued):
   1. Applicant Freedom of Expression (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15rwviHM6AYtqDqyB6_5Yij2dTL6iuou8z7A32yzc7sE/edit?usp=sharing) – start at Input on Implementation Guidelines – General, top of page 10;
   2. Universal Acceptance (time permitting), page 11
3. AOB

Note, in relation to agenda item 2, WG leadership and staff have tried to prepare summary documents for each topic that seeks to help you review some of the background material, consider a high-level summary of what we believe the WG is seeking to accomplish for the topic, a high-level summary of public comment received, and finally, a catch all at the end of each section (e.g., follow-up, parking lot, next steps).

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS

Audio Recording

Zoom Recording

Chat Transcript

GNSO transcripts are located on the GNSO Calendar

Attendance

Apologies: Katrin Ohlmer, Annebeth Lange, Maxim Alzoba, Anne Aikman-Scalese

Notes/ Action Items

Action Items:

ACTION ITEM 1: Applicant Freedom of Expression - Input on Implementation Guidelines - LRO:  Work on language for the high-level agreement to reflect fairness and balance.

ACTION ITEM 2: Universal Acceptance: Rewrite the high-level agreement text.

Notes:

1. Updates to Statements of Interest (SOIs): Kathy Kleiman is now on the faculty of American University Law School.

2. Review of summary document: (continued):

a. Applicant Freedom of Expression (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15rwviHM6AYtqDqyB6_5Yij2dTL6iuou8z7A32yzc7sE/edit?usp=sharing) – start at Input on Implementation Guidelines – General, top of page 10;

-- From last week: It seemed that most commenters is that we should continue the policy that was approved in 2008 by the ICANN Board, but that we needed to try in implementation guidance more specific with respect to how that consideration should take place.

-- It’s one thing to say that Freedom of Expression should be considered, but another to put that into practice.  Give more concrete guidance in the AGB wherever possible.

1) Input on Implementation Guidelines - General

-- ICANN Org: Be as specific as possible.

-- Provide practical examples to evaluators.

-- Balance with freedom of expression with all users.

-- Not sure we have agreement to change from the 2008 policy approved by the ICANN Board.

-- Providing consistency and clarity is a step forward.

-- There are examples where we consider the use or intended use of a string in these types of evaluations.

-- Questions: What were the original rules?  What were the problems in the 2012 round?  Answer: There were no rules that you couldn’t apply for a particular string, but based on evaluation of string contention.  Found that there were no clear guidelines and up to the independent objector to use his/her analysis, and evaluators based it on their own beliefs.  Most of the comments were that to the extent possible we need to be more clear and provide more guidance.

2) Input on Implementation Guidelines - LRO

-- From Kathy Kleiman: Then we must expressly reference the Morality and Public Order findings and standards in referencing the new Applicant Freedom of Expression.
I don't see material reference anywhere in our materials here.
It all has to be balanced

-- But there was evolution between the original references and what went into the AGB.  We could reference the AGB.

-- Should change the high-level agreement to include references to Morality and Public Order findings.  Protecting applicants’ Freedom of Expression rights should be balanced with other recognized rights.

-- Should be considered when deliberating on the Objection section.

ACTION: Work on language for the high-level agreement to reflect fairness and balance.

3) Suggested criteria to ensure that denial of an application does not infringe on FX rights:

-- Should be considered when deliberating on the Objection section.

-- Question: ICANN org's comment before the start of 2.3.4. suggests that some of the assumptions about evaluation were incorrect and criteria was applied. do we know what the criteria was that was applied?

b. Universal Acceptance, page 11

Outstanding Items - New Ideas/Concerns/Divergence

Suggestions for additional work on this topic: 

-- Section 1.2.4 of the AGB talks about ”Notice concerning Technical Acceptance Issues with New gTLDs”

-- Not even primarily and issue of registrar acceptance but much more needs to be done to resolve this issue.  Came up midstream in the last round, as in name collisions.

-- Seek clarification on ALAC comment: New Idea: ALAC - Registries and Registrars, if they are owned by the same entity, should be Universal Acceptance (UA) ready as part of their application. This means that their systems should be ready for IDN registrations, ready handle IDN and non-IDN New gTLDs consistently on nameservers and other machines and able to manage any Email Address Internationalization (EAI), i.e. <nativelanguage>@<idn>.<idn>, as part of the contact information and be able to send and receive emails from these type of addresses. In addition, Registries and Registrars should take affirmative actions to ensure that their suppliers are also UA ready.

-- What they were saying is if you are offering registrations in the Chinese language, you should be able to get and have email that is in that language about your registration -- such as support questions, web site tools, third party suppliers of services, etc.

-- Should the WG in its recommendations be urging some specific steps to address the problems?  Answer: Will rewrite the high-level agreement text.

-- Good to get an update from the USAG/ICANN on the state of UA and in particular on their progress.  Include a link to the USAG work in the Final Report.

-- This isn’t about TLDs not working, but third party applications working or not.  ICANN has addressed the IDN issues from 2012, but some third parties have not.

-- What more can the SubPro WG do that the USAG is not already doing.  There is a new idea from the ALAC with respect to registries and registrars that we need to decide whether to include.

-- So maybe one solution is stronger language from ICANN elaborating on the potential problems IDN applicants could face with usage of their domains.  Clearly ICANN knows it’s a problem.  Thy have spent millions on UASG efforts.  But the last communication was not good for new applicants and players in the gTLD space.