Page History

Motion to initiate the Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names and adoption of the EPDP on IDNs Charter 

Submitted by: Maxim Alzoba 

Seconded by: TBD 

Whereas,

1. On 14 March 2019, the ICANN Board approved a set of recommendations developed by ICANN org on how to allocate Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) variant TLD labels. The ICANN Board requested that the GNSO and ccNSO take into account those IDN variant TLD recommendations while developing their respective policies to define and manage IDN variant TLDs for the current TLDs and future TLD applications, while keeping each other informed of the progress in developing the relevant details of their policies and procedures to ensure a consistent solution for IDN variant gTLDs and IDN variant ccTLDs.
2. On 26 June 2019, the GNSO Council established a Scoping Team to develop recommendations for the GNSO Council’s consideration on how to address the IDN variant TLD recommendations, as well as issues in the Final Proposed Draft version 4.0 of Internationalized Domain Name ("IDN") Implementation Guidelines (“IDN Guidelines v. 4.0”), for which the ICANN Board had agreed to the GNSO Council request [gnso.icann.org] to defer its adoption. The Scoping Team met between 15 August 2019 and 12 December 2019.
3. On 23 January 2020, the GNSO Council discussed the Final Report [gnso.icann.org] from the Scoping Team, which suggested tackling IDN related issues in two tracks: Operational Track and Policy Track. The Policy Track would be tasked to deliberate on: i) the definition and management of IDN variant TLDs, and ii) the change process of the IDN Guidelines and any policy issues related to the IDN Guidelines v. 4.0 identified by the Operational Track Team (consisted of members in the GNSO Contracted Parties House) and agreed upon by the IDN Guidelines Working Group.
4. On 26 January 2020, the ICANN Board approved the Recommendations for the Technical Utilization of the RZ-LGR on how to employ the RZ-LGR to determine valid IDN TLDs and their variant labels. The ICANN Board requested that the GNSO and ccNSO take into account those RZ-LGR Technical Utilization recommendations while developing their respective policies to define and manage IDN variant TLDs for the current TLDs and future TLD applications.
5. On 21 October 2020, the GNSO Council agreed to establish a Drafting Team to develop both a draft charter and an Initiation Request for an EPDP on IDNs. The GNSO Council agreed with the Scoping Team’s suggestion that an Issue Report is likely not needed in order to initiate the Policy Track work, and an EPDP is the desired approach. The Drafting Team met between 8 December 2020 and 4 May 2021.
6. On 10 May 2021, the Drafting Team submitted the draft EPDP charter and the Initiation Request for the GNSO Council’s consideration.
7. On 20 May 2021, the Drafting Team Chair provided a briefing to the GNSO Council on the content of the draft charter prior to the Council vote to initiate the EPDP and adopt the charter.

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