Next Steps for a New gTLD Round 2023 (post Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA))  

2023 - Post ODA

• 5 Jun: GNSO to hold extraordinary meeting to discuss completion of outstanding SubPro-related work.
• 22 May: GNSO Council meets with the ICANN Board on pending SubPro recommendations.
• 4 May: GNSO Council holds extraordinary meeting to discuss the Proposal of SubPro Small Team Triage Exercise and determine next steps on the 38 pending recommendations.
• 23 Mar: GNSO Council received letter from GAC in respect of GAC input on GAC Priority Topics relative to SubPro Recommendations marked as "pending" 
• 22 Mar: GNSO Chair sends letter to ICANN Board and Sally Costerton noting Council's appreciation on progress made during recent weeks and at ICANN76 towards "getting things done".
• 21 Mar: GNSO Council constitutes a Council Small Team to conduct Council triage for the 38 Pending SubPro Outputs, comprising Anne Aikman-Scalese (NCA), Bruna Martins dos Santos (NCSG), Jeff Neuman (GNSO Liaison to SubPro ODP), Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to GNSO), Nacho Amados (RySG), Paul McGrady (NCA-NCPH), Sebastien Ducos (RySG), Stephanie Perrin (NCSG), Susan Payne (IPC) and Tomslin Samme-Nlar (NCSG).
• 16 Mar: GNSO Council receives letter from ICANN Board in respect of Board's action on SubPro Final Report

   *16 Mar: ICANN Board resolves during its Board Meeting at ICANN76 to adopt the SubPro Outputs in Section A of its "Scorecard on Subsequent Procedures PDP" (Scorecard); marking 38 Outputs in Section B of the Scorecard as "pending" and noting ongoing community discussions relating to Topic 17: Applicant Support, Topic 23: Closed Generics, and Topic 25: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), as well as additional dependencies concerning specific Review Team Recommendations, the Name Collision Analysis Project Study 2 Report (NCAP2), and other items noted in Section C of the Scorecard.

Additional Work on Subsequent Procedures  – TO MONITOR THIS for ALAC/At-Large participation.

2022

• 21 Nov: GGP on Applicant Support kicks off.
• 20 Oct: Mike Silber was confirmed by Council as the Chair for the GGP.
• 25 Aug: Council resolved unanimously to initiate the GGP using a "Representative + Observers" WG model with each SG/C/AC to be invited to nominate a representative. The GGP will start with Applicant Support first, with the possibility of adding further topics down the line.
• 12 Aug: Council is expected to consider and vote on a new version of the GGP on Application Support. In brief, this version of the GPP on Application Support proposes as follows: 
  • A (smaller) Working Group employing a “Representative + Observers” model, to conduct and conclude its work, and oversight activities, in an efficient/effective manner while allowing for inclusive community participation. GNSO Council retains oversight, as with any GNSO WG.
  • Each AC/SG, ASO and ccNSO may appoint 1 Member to the WG, who are expected to represent the view of their appointing organization and may be called on to provide the official position of their appointing
    organization and will be responsible for participating in GGP consensus calls. Appointing organizations may replace their Member(s) at their discretion.
  • Members must either possess a level of expertise in previous deliberations and/or knowledge that may have been lacking during those initial deliberations.
  • The WG has the flexibility/discretion to rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in specific fields to aid in deliberations for certain tasks, but these SMEs will not be considered as Members of the WG.
  • The GNSO Liaison to the ODP may serve as an non-voting member of the WG to advise on issues discussed within the SubPro PDP.
• 21 Jul: Council considered a late proposed amendment to the substantive motion to establish a GGP to work just on Applicant Support. The amendment received some support and it was decided to defer this issue to Council's August 2022 meeting to allow opportunity to incorporate supported element(s) into the substantive motion for Council's consideration.
• 15 Jun: Council to 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. This GGP is the proposed mechanism to address SubPro Implementation Guidance 17.5, which suggests the creation of a dedicated IRT and it be charged “with developing implementation elements of the Applicant Support Program. In conducting its work, the Implementation Review Team should revisit the 2011 Final Report of the Joint Applicant Support Working Group as well as the 2012 implementation of the Applicant Support program.” This dedicated IRT was to be charged with making substantive decisions on outreach activities and allocation of scarce resources (e.g., when there are more qualified applicants than available funds), among other activities.
• 19 May: Council to explore (intersessionally) the Draft New gTLD Subsequent Procedures GNSO Guidance Process (GPP) Initiation Request.
• 5 May: Council received a Draft New gTLD Subsequent Procedures GNSO Guidance Process (GPP) Initiation Request for its consideration. This will likely be discussed at Council's May 2022 meeting.
• 9 Mar: Based on GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Question set #2, Council discussed options for the way forward to deal with a number of areas possibly considered as incomplete in terms policy-development: including on Applicant Support, SPIRT, challenges and appeals. But Council has yet to determine the mechanism to adopt. 

RE: Closed Generics, specifically

2023

• End May: Draft framework for Closed Generics  expected to be delivered to the ALAC, GAC, GNSO and other SOACs for community input.
• 11 Mar: (CG) GNSO-GAC-ALAC Dialogue face-to-face meeting
• 31 Jan: (CG): GNSO-GAC-ALAC Dialogue face-to-face meeting.

2022

• 2 Sep: (CG): Council leadership initiates selection by SGs for their representatives for the dialogue.
• 9 Aug: (CG): ALAC receives invitation to formally join GNSO and GAC as parties to the Dialogue on Closed Generics.
• 21 Jul: (CG): Still awaiting convening of the Dialogue, which is inter alia subject to the identification/nomination of representatives from the GNSO and GAC.
• 29 Jun: (CG): Council has sent a letter to the Board and the GAC relaying its recommendations on the GAC-GNSO Dialogue; cc-ed to ALAC Chair, appending the Jun 2022 report of the Council Small Team on Closed Generics.
• 15 Jun: (CG): 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.  
• 19 May (CG): Council Chair Philippe Fouquart received a reply from Maarten Botterman to Council's 27 Apr letter; inter alia encourages GAC and Council to confer on the question of ALAC's participation in the consultative process.
• 5 May (CG): Council's reconstituted Small Team now comprises Paul McGrady (NCA-Non CPH), Kurt Pritz (RySG), Manju Chen (NCSG), Jeff Neuman (GNSO Liaison to GAC), Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to GNSO), Greg Dibiase (RrSG), Desiree Miloshevic (NCA-CPH), and Marie Pattulo (CSG); also Council leadership comprising Philippe Fouquart, Sebastien Ducos, and Tomslin Samme-Nlar.
• 27 Apr (CG): Council replied to the ICANN Board, accepting the invitation for a facilitated dialogue with the GAC on Closed Generics.
  • In its reply, Council noted there being no SubPro recommendation to change current policy on Closed Generics, the approach for the immediate next round of New gTLD applications would be out of harmony with GAC Advice on Closed Generics (namely that closed generics ought to serve a public interest goal).
  • Council stated that Council will pursue next steps for the dialogue (a) on the basis of the Board having asked that its facilitated dialogue be limited to making Closed Generics available with restrictions, including for eg. that they serve a public interest goal; (b) subject to mutual agreement with the GAC on conditions for that dialogue.
  • Council also noted to the Board, NCSG's opposition to the limited dialogue party approach. 
  • (NB. The earlier convened Council small team will now be reconstituted with a larger/more representative membership of Councillors to develop conditions for the dialogue)
• 22 Apr (GC): GAC responded to the Board's 6 Mar and 10 Mar letters, raising points on the ICANN Org's Framing Paper.
• 6 Apr (CG): Council CGs Framing Paper Small Team convened with narrow remit of "proposing to Council next steps in responding to the Board proposal (i.e., whether or not the Council is open to working with the GAC on developing a framework for closed generics)" – Council to decide.
• 30 Mar (CG): Board replied to GAC's 10 Mar letter, acknowledging GAC’s willingness to have ALAC participate in the consultation process; encourages GAC and GNSO Council to consider this matter as part of the discussions regarding the proposed dialogue.
• 15 Mar (CG): Council to convene small team to review the ICANN Org's framework paper regarding the Board-facilitated dialogue between GNSO-GAC, and to suggest next steps.
• 10 Mar (CG):  Further to the 7 Mar correspondence, the Board forwarded ICANN Org's Framing Paper for the dialogue on Closed Generics.
• 10 Mar (CG): GAC replied to the Board's 6 Mar letter, agreeing to participate in dialogue and welcomed participation from the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) in this consultation process.
• 6 Mar (CG): ICANN Board wrote to the GAC and Council requesting for facilitated dialogue on way forward with Closed Generics (CG).

Transfer Policy Review Policy Development Process (TPR-PDP)

2023

• 11 Jan: In the course of Phase 1 work conducted to date, the WG discovered that certain Phase 2 topics must be addressed before Phase 1 recommendations can be fully developed. As a result, the PDP leadership team alerts Council to Project Change Request (PCR) to update its work plan to consolidate all work into a single phase and change the order in which topics are considered. This will impact the timeline for key deliverables.

2022

• 21 Jun - 16 Aug: WG conducts public comment for its Phase 1A Initial Report 

2021

• 16 Dec: Council approved a Project Change Request (PCR) to update charter topics considered in Phase 1 of the TPR-PDP by moving the topic of NACK (rejection of transfer request) of an unauthorized transfer to Phase 1a scope from Phase 2.
• May: WG begins meeting
• Feb: Council initiated the two-phased Transfer Policy Review PDP

Internationalized Domain Names EPDP

2023

• 25 May: GNSO Council received a presentation from the EPDP Chair in response to the ICANN Board's request to Council noted in the Board's 16 Mar letter to Council.
• 16 Mar: GNSO Council receives letter from ICANN Board in respect of Board's action on SubPro Final Report; item 4 pertains to the work of the IDNs EPDP.

2022

• 17 Nov: Council approved the EPDP's Project Change Request (PCR). With this PCR, the EPDP seeks to facilitate the implementation planning of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures by bifurcating its work into two phases, with Phase 1 covering topics related to top-level IDN gTLD definition and variant management, and Phase 2 covering issues pertaining to second-level IDN variant management, which also requires a timeline extension due to the diversity and complexity of IDN issues, additional data collection needs, review of ICANN org input for draft recommendations, and public comment-related processes. The timeline now contemplated is:
  • Publish Phase 1 Initial Report for Public Comment by April 2023
  • Submit Phase 1 Final Report to the GNSO Council by November 2023
  • Publish Phase 2 Initial Report for Public Comment by April 2025
  • Submit Phase 2 Final Report to the GNSO Council by November 2025
• 10 Oct: Council is alerted to an impending Project Change Request (PCR) which seeks significant changes to the EPDP's project plan. 

  * 22 Sep: ICANN Board has approved the IDN Guidelines version 4.1 except the deferred guidelines 6a, 11, 12, 13, 18 and associated Additional Notes, and directed these to be published as IDN Guidelines version 4.1 and to supersede version 3.0.

• 20 Jan: Council to send letter to ICANN Board responding to the Board’s 20 Oct letter regarding the IDN Implementation Guidelines v4.0.

2021

• 16 Dec: Council Leadership to draft a response to the ICANN Board’s 20 Oct letter regarding the IDN Implementation Guidelines v4.0.
• 18 Nov: Council has yet to discuss its approach for the response to the ICANN Board’s 20 Oct letter regarding the IDN Implementation Guidelines v4.0.
• Aug: The Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP on IDNs) commenced work on its Charter Questions.

Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team

2023

• 20 Apr: Council considered the RDA Scoping Team Survey Summary Results and ICANN org's 14 Mar input.
• 14 Mar: ICANN org replies to Council's 1 Dec 2022 letter for an update on outstanding issues related to registration data accuracy and the pending work of the Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team.

2022

• 1 Dec: Council sent letter to ICANN org requesting an update on outstanding issues related to registration data accuracy and the pending work of the Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team.
• 17 Nov: Council adopted recommendation #3 and deferred consideration of recommendations #1 and #2 as contained in the Scoping Team's write up to the Council of 5 September 2022. For more specific details on the recommendations and action, refer to the 17 Nov Special Summary Report.
• 10 Oct: The Scoping Team has completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022. In the write up, the group is suggesting 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). Council is seeking a new Chair for the Scoping Team.
• 10 May: The RDA Scoping Team submitted a Project Change Request (PCR) to Council. 

18 Nov 2021

• Council received notice that the ICANN Board has selected two Board members to serve as liaisons to this Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team. They are Becky Burr and Harald Alvestrand (alternate).
• Council has acknowledged the Registration Data Accuracy - Scoping Team (RDA_ST) Project Plan

Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data / System for Standardized Access/Disclosure Operational Design Phase (SSAD ODP);  See: https://www.icann.org/ssadodp for more official info

2023

• 22 Mar: GNSO Chair sends letter to ICANN Board and Sally Costerton noting Council's appreciation on progress made during recent weeks and at ICANN76 towards "getting things done".
• 11 Mar: GNSO EPDP Phase 2 (SSAD) - Implementation of Whois Disclosure System at ICANN76 - Whois Disclosure System (WDS) now known as Registration Data Request Service (RDRS).
• 6 Mar: Council receives ICANN Board's reply to Council's 17 Nov 2022 letter on Council’s recommendations for how to proceed with the WHOIS Disclosure System (WDS).
• 27 Feb: ICANN Board adopted a resolution directing ICANN org to proceed to develop and launch the WDS as soon as possible. The Board also authorized the use of the Supplemental Fund for the Implementation of Community Recommendations to support this work. In addition, the Board has directed ICANN org to continue to engage with the Phase 2 Small Team throughout the development and operation of the System, and ensure periodic publication of the collected usage data, once operational.

2022

• 17 Nov: Council sent letter to ICANN Board alerting on Council’s recommendations for how to proceed with the WHOIS Disclosure System (WDS).
• 17 Nov: Council accepted the EPDP Phase 2 small team findings and recommendations as outlined in the small team's addendum and confirmed that pending the implementation and subsequent running of the Whois Disclosure System (WDS) for a period of up to two (2) years, the SSAD recommendations should remain paused for consideration by the ICANN Board.
• Oct: Council is to further discuss next steps on the Whois Disclosure System (WDS) in November.
• Sep-ICANN75: Attention on SSAD has now been redirected to ICANN Org's proposal for the Whois Disclosure System (WDS). Design for this WDS was published prior to ICANN75 and ICANN org provided a presentation of the system design to the EPDP Phase 2 small team during ICANN75. Subsequently, the small team and Council held initial discussions amongst themselves, as well as with the Board during their joint session on Tuesday. The Council discussed during its meeting on Wednesday and the small team met informally on Thursday of ICANN75.
• Mar: Council Small Team seated (comprising Members: Paul McGrady, Sebastien Ducos, Marc Anderson, Stephanie Perrin, John McElwaine, Olga Cavalli, Thomas Rickert, Laureen Kapin (GAC- shared membership), Chris Lewis-Evans (GAC- shared membership), Alan Greenberg, Sarah Wyld, Steve DelBianco, Becky Burr, Steve Crocker, Philippe Fouquart (GNSO Council Observing) , Tomslin Samme Nlar  (GNSO Council Observing); and Alternates: Gregory DiBiase).
• 1 Feb: GNSO Council Chair invited GNSO SG/Cs, ALAC, GAC to nominate their EPDP Phase 2 representatives for a Council Small Team led by Sebastien Ducos to analyse the SSAD ODA to develop recommendations on next steps.  On 4 Feb, the ALAC Chair nominated Alan Greenberg (being one of the 2 ALAC EPDP Phase 2 representatives) for this Council Small Team.
• 27 Jan: Council and ICANN Board Consultation on SSAD ODP
• 18 Jan: SSAD ODP Project Update Webinar #5
• 12 Jan: A follow up discussion is held for Council and and GNSO-appointed EPDP Phase 2 members to discuss next steps ahead of Council's meeting with the ICANN Board on 27 January on concerns around financial sustainability of the SSAD (wiki)
• 5 Jan: A 4 Jan 2022 summary paper was circulated to Council members ahead of a 12 Jan call

2021

• 20 Dec: A closed session is held for Council and GNSO-appointed EPDP Phase 2 members only with the SSAD ODP Project Team focusing on the SSAD Cost Model information (presentation)
• 16 Dec: Council did not discuss GAC's letter of 15 Dec 2021 to Council regarding SSAD ODP
• 3 Dec:  ICANN's SSAD and Governmental Accreditation Authorities Webinar
• 18 Nov: ICANN Webinar: SSAD ODP Project Update Webinar #4 on the Business Process Design
• 2 Nov: ICANN Update: Contractual Compliance and Identity Verification Methodology
• 28 Oct: ICANN72 Webinar: SSAD ODP Project Update #3
• 24 Sep: ICANN Webinar: SSAD ODP Project Update #2  
• 13 Jul: ICANN Webinar: SSAD ODP Project Update

Concluded Issues / PDPs

• Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Phase (SubPro ODP) & Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA) (2022-2003)
• Specific Curative Rights Protection for IGOs EPDP (2022)

Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Phase (SubPro ODP) and Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA);  See: https://www.icann.org/subpro-odp for more official info.

2023 - Post ODA

   *16 Mar: ICANN Board resolves during its Board Meeting at ICANN76 to adopt the SubPro Outputs in Section A of its "Scorecard on Subsequent Procedures PDP" (Scorecard); marking 38 Outputs in Section B of the Scorecard as "pending" and noting ongoing community discussions relating to Topic 17: Applicant Support, Topic 23: Closed Generics, and Topic 25: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), as well as additional dependencies concerning specific Review Team Recommendations, the Name Collision Analysis Project Study 2 Report (NCAP2), and other items noted in Section C of the Scorecard.

   *12 Mar: Subsequent Procedures: Issues and Next Steps at ICANN76

   *1 Mar: SubPro ODP Status Update at ICANN76 Prep Week

2023 - ODA

• 28 Feb: ICANN Board Chair replies to GNSO Chair's letter of 20 Jan on GNSO Council review and input for the SubPro ODA
• 28 Feb: ICANN Board and GNSO Joint Meeting on SubPro discussion.
• 16 Feb: GNSO Council to prepare for a joint meeting with the Board. 
• 20 Jan: GNSO Chair letter on the SubPro ODA input sent to ICANN Board Chair
• 19 Jan: Council Small Team on SubPro ODA prepares input concentrating on identifying areas of ICANN org analysis that may not be true to the intent of the SubPro Final Report, as well as developing impressions of Option 2 contained in the ODA. Given the tight timelines, there will not be adequate time for the small team to provide draft input to Council by it January meeting. Accordingly, the expectation is that the input, delivered on [date], shall be sent to the Board, but include the caveat that it was not formally adopted by Council.

2022

• 15 Dec: Council constitutes a Small Team comprising Anne Aikman-Scalese (NCA), Jeff Neuman (GNSO Liaison to SubPro ODP), Thomas Rickert (ISCP), Sebastien Ducos (RySG), Susan Payne (IPC) and Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to GNSO) to establish if there were questions or clarifications needed to be relayed to the ICANN Org SubPro Team; and likely comments to be relayed to the ICANN Board.

   *14 Dec: ICANN org (SubPro ODP Team) to host a community webinar on the SubPro ODA on Wed 14 Dec 2022 at 13:00–15:00 and 20:00–22:00 UTC

   *12 Dec: SubPro ODP Team delivers SubPro ODA to ICANN Board

• 8 Dec: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 9: Overarching Considerations 
• 7 Dec: SubPro ODP Team to conduct a SubPro ODA GNSO Council Specific Webinar (prior to release of the ODA)
• 7 Dec: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 8: Finance 
• 2 Dec: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 7: Resource Staffing, Logistics 
• 12 Nov: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Relay of Question set #6

   *8 Nov: SubPro ODP Team releases Assumptions Subsequent Procedures ODP v.6

• 2 Nov: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 6: Communications and Outreach

   *14 Oct: SubPro ODP Team releases SubPro ODP Community Status Update #4 (last of four planned updates). The output of this ODP (i.e. the ODA - Operational Design Assessment)  is now expected to be completed on 9 Nov and delivered to the ICANN Board on 12 Dec.

• 6 Sep: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 5: Vendor Procurement

   *15 Aug: SubPro ODP Team releases SubPro ODP Community Status Update #3 (the 3rd of four planned updates) which refers to Assumptions Subsequent Procedures ODP v.5. The last update is scheduled for 15 Oct.

• 25 Aug: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison submits Question set #5 REPLY
• 2 Aug: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Reminder on Question set #5
• 29 Jul: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison submits Question set #4 REPLY
• 20 Jul: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Question set #4 finalization and Relay of Question set #5
  • Question set #5 sought clarity on the Predictability  Framework
• 12 Jul: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 4: Systems & Tools
• 8 Jul: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison submits Question set #3 REPLY
• 30 Jun - 15 Jul: Council Small Team comprising Jeff Neuman (GNSO Liaison to SubPro ODP), Paul McGrady (NCA-Non CPH), Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to GNSO), Desiree Miloshevic (NCA-CPH), and Flip Petillion (IPC) worked on replies to Question set #4.
• 30 Jun: Question set #3 REPLY finalized
• 26 May: SubPro ODP Team blogs on Work Track 3: Operational Readiness
• 26 May: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison submits Question set #2 REPLY

   *25 May: SubPro ODP Team releases Assumptions Subsequent Procedures ODP v.4

• 19 May: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Relay of Question set #4 and SubPro Topic Assumptions
  • Question set #4 sought clarity on 10 topics

   *16 May: SubPro ODP Team releases SubPro ODP Community Status Update #2, the 2nd of four planned updates. The next update is scheduled for 15 Aug.

• 12 Apr: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Relay of Question set #3
  • Question set #3 sought clarity on String Similarity

   *29 Apr: SubPro ODP Team releases Assumptions Subsequent Procedures ODP v.3  

   *28 Mar: SubPro ODP Team releases SubPro ODP Community Status Update #1, the 1st of four planned updates. The next update is scheduled for 16 May.

   *23 Mar: SubPro ODP Team releases Initial & Overarching Assumptions Subsequent Procedures ODP v.2

   *28 Feb: SubPro ODP Team releases Initial Assumption Subsequent Procedures ODP v.1

• 14 Feb: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Relay of Question set #2
  • Question set #2 sought clarity on the Dedicated IRT for Application Support Program
• 25 Jan: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update #5 - Third call with ICANN's SubPro ODP Team
• 21 Jan: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison submits Question set #1 REPLY
• 18 Jan: SubPro ODP Team blogs on SubPro ODP Work Tracks 
• 9 Jan: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update #4 - Second call with ICANN's SubPro ODP Team
• 3 Jan: Actual SubPro ODP Launch date

2021

• 20 Dec:  ICANN org announces that ICANN GDS has informed ICANN Board that it is beginning this ODP in January 2022.
• 16 Dec:  Council mainly considered the process for SubPro ODP interactions between the GNSO ODP Liaison and the ICANN Org's SubPro ODP Team - Councillors are meant to take suggested responses of the GSNO ODP Liaison to SubPro ODP Team's preliminary questions (Question Set #1) back to their respective SG/C for feedback to enable finalization and timeous relay of agreed responses to the SubPro ODP Team. ICANN Org has a public archive of engagement on the topic. 
• 1 Dec: SubPro ODP Team blogs on answers to questions regarding the SubPro ODP
• 1 Dec: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update #3 - First call with GDS (ICANN's SubPro ODP Team)
• 22 Nov: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update #2. ICANN Org is still in internal project organization mode although GDD has posed a first set of questions to the GNSO ODP Liaison, Jeff Neuman. Formal kick-off of the ODP only expected at end of Nov 2021, thereafter proceeds for an approximate 10 months.
• 18 Nov: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update - Relay of Question set #1
  • Question set #1 sought clarity on (i) Applications Assessed in Rounds, (ii) RVCs & PICs, specifically on DNS Abuse Mitigation (iii) Applicant Reviews, and (iv) Auctions.
• 16 Nov: GNSO SubPro ODP Liaison update #1

Specific Curative Rights Protection for IGOs EPDP

2023

• 11 Jan: ICANN Board & GNSO Council joint meeting took place.

2022

  * 28 Nov 2022 - 16 Jan 2023: The ICANN Board seeks community input on the GNSO Council’s June 2022, supermajority adoption of the EPDP Team’s Final Report on Specific Curative Rights Protections for International Governmental Organizations (IGOs). The inputs received will help inform the ICANN Board’s deliberations as they consider the GNSO’s adopted recommendations.

• 15 June: Council resolved unanimously to approve all 5 recommendations in the Final Report.
• 19 May: Council was meant to consider and vote on a motion to approve the recommendations in the Final Report but eventually resolved to defer the vote to Council's June 2022 meeting to allow the RrSG time for further consideration prior to the vote.
• 14 Apr: Council was informed that this EPDP Team reached full consensus on its five recommendations and delivered its Final Report on 4 April 2022. Council also received an overview of the five recommendations of the EPDP. Council will be voting on those five recommendations in May 2022.

2021

• 16 Dec: Council approved a Project Change Request (PCR) to extend this EPDP WG's project timeline to 4 Apr 2022 to deliver its final report, while noting RrSG concerns around the EPDP moving out of the scope of its charter
• 18 Nov: EPDP WG currently reviewing comments received on its 6 recommendations, for purposes of producing its Final Report. Project plan is expected to be extended from end 2021 to some time in Q1 of 2022
• 24 Oct: Public Comment on the EPDP WG's Initial Report closed 

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

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• 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
  • ....

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 25 May 2023 were posted on 09 June 2023.
  • 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 TBD

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2023 held on 20 Jul 2023 at 21:00 UTC:   

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

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/97891627902?pwd=RURCTitiNEVwd2UySEk1QkRESmlFZz09 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #6 of 2023 held on 14 Jun 2023 during ICANN 77 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #6 of 2023 held on 14 Jun 2023 during ICANN 77

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Motion to Commemorate Pam Little

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Non-Objection of SubPro Timelines

• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS ABUSE
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Consideration of Accuracy Scoping Team recommendations in light of 6 month timeline originally established (factoring in April meeting discussion and input received from ICANN org)
• Item 7: GNSO TOWN HALL 
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 8.1 ccNSO & GAC Liaisons updates

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 20 April 2023 were posted on 07 May 2023.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 25 May 2025 were posted on 09 June 2023.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Extraordinary Council meeting on 05 June will be posted on 19 June 2023.

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Non-Objection of SubPro Timelines

  • At ICANN76, the Board resolved to adopt the majority of the recommendations from the Final Report of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP. The Board also resolved that the Outputs in Section B of the Scorecard be designated as pending.

  • Further, the Board resolved that several deliverables be completed by the last day of the ICANN77 Public Meeting (15 June 2023):

    1. 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;
    2. A working methodology and IRT work plan and timeline as agreed upon by ICANN org and the GNSO Council;
    3. 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
    4. 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.
  • For item 2, the GNSO Council agreed upon a methodology (Open + Representative) at ICANN76 which effectively completed that item from a Council perspective. However, for items 1, 3, and 4, Council has diligently worked on the each of the items, in conjunction with the respective teams as necessary (e.g., the IDNs EPDP leadership team). 
  • During the Council’s Extraordinary Meeting on 5 June, Council had an initial discussion on all of the work plans and timelines. The work plans and timelines will have been further discussed during Council’s pre-ICANN77 sessions on 11 June, which will likely have been supplemented by Board input on how to resolve the pending recommendations.
  • Council will acknowledge the three work plans and timelines (i.e., for the pending recommendations, IDNs EPDP Phase 2, and closed generics EPDP) and agree to their submission to the ICANN Board.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS ABUSE
  • In February 2022, the GNSO Council formed a small team of interested Council members to consider what policy efforts, if any, the GNSO Council should consider undertaking to support the efforts already underway in the different parts of the community to tackle DNS abuse. 
  • On 7 October 2022, the DNS Abuse Small Team transmitted its Report to the GNSO Council. Recommendation #2 from the Report recommended the GNSO Council to request, et.al., the Registrar Stakeholder Group “to further the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.”

  • The DNS Abuse Small Team received input from the following groups:

    • Contractual Compliance, ICANN Org
    • DNS Abuse Institute
    • gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group
    • Registrar Stakeholder Group
  • Upon reviewing the feedback, the DNS Abuse Small Team preliminarily concluded that there is not enough information available for bulk registrations to be the subject of further policy work at this time.
  • Council will receive an update from the DNS Abuse small team.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Consideration of Accuracy Scoping Team recommendations in light of 6 month timeline originally established (factoring in April meeting discussion and input received from ICANN org)
  • 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 including the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts. 
  • The Scoping Team completed:
    • Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022.
    • In the write up, the group 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). 
  • In November 2021, Council adopted recommendation #3 of the Scoping Team’s write up, which recommended;
    • (i) pausing the work in relation to proposals that require access to registration data,
    • (ii) encouraging ICANN org to proceed with their outreach to the EDPB as well as the Data Protection Impact Assessment in connection with the scenario(s) in which the request and processing of registration data takes place as a matter of urgency, and
    • (iii) requesting that ICANN org and Contracted Parties finalize the negotiations on the Data Processing Agreement (DPA) as soon as practicable as the absence of a completed DPA may act as a roadblock for policy work before Council.
    • In response to the Council’s requests, ICANN org provided the following written update to the GNSO Council on 14 March 2023.
  • ICANN org provided a verbal update to Council during the 20 April meeting. Six months has now passed from the Council’s initial deferral of the Scoping Team’s recommendations 1 and 2. 
  • Council will consider whether a further six month deferral is appropriate or if other next steps are timely e.g., the consideration of the Scoping Team’s recommendations 1 and 2.
• Item 7: GNSO TOWN HALL 
  • To encourage GNSO community engagement with Council, Council is inviting the community to engage directly with it during the ICANN77 meeting. The objective is to have an open and frank discussion with the GNSO Community during which any topics or questions can be raised.
  • One particular topic that Council would like to draw your attention to is the recent trend of attrition in GNSO Working Group participation - a topic discussed during the recent GNSO Policy Webinar. Council is interested to hear from the community on how it can best address this trend.
  • Additional topic prompts will be included closer to the session.

Records of 14 Jun 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 14 Jun 2023 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 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Jun 2023 Meeting Records.

ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Meeting on 6 Jun 2023 

• Agenda 
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Meeting held on 6 Jun 2023

1. Opening and Welcome (3 mins)

- Eduardo Diaz, Moderator
- Jonathan Zuck, ALAC Chair
- Sebastien Ducos, GNSO Chair 

2. Next Round of New gTLDs / Subsequent Procedures 38 Pending Recommendation & Other Dependencies (45 mins) 

GNSO Speakers: Paul McGrady (GNSO Council Small Team lead)
ALAC Speaker: Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to the GNSO) 

(2a) The GNSO plan requested by the Board in respect of the 38 pending recommendations; 
(2b) ALAC's response to draft Closed Generics Framework and ensuing policy process.

3. DNS Abuse (with reference to GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse) (20 mins)

ALAC Speaker: Jonathan Zuck (ALAC Chair)
GNSO Speaker: Greg DiBiase (GNSO Council Vice-Chair)

(3a) ICANN-CPH Contractual Amendment Negotiations Public Comment Proceedings, 29 May - 13 Jul
(3b) ALAC's response to the GNSO DNS Abuse Small Team's draft findings on bulk registrations.

4. Next Steps (5 mins)

- Sebastien Ducos, GNSO Chair 
- Jonathan Zuck, ALAC Chair

5. Adjourn

Records of ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Meeting held on 6 Jun 2023

• 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 6 Jun 2023 ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Meeting to ALT-PLUS

For brevity, I will just highlight a few key outcomes on the 2 topics that were discussed at this bilateral call. 

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

(2a) The GNSO plan requested by the Board in respect of the 38 pending recommendations;

• As the GNSO Council Small Team lead on the Subsequent Procedures 38 Pending Recommendations, Paul McGrady provided a high level update on where Council stood on these pending recommendations post its Extraordinary meeting yesterday on 5 Jun 2023 ( see report ). He noted that the dialogue between the small team/Council and the Board SubPro caucus / full Board was ongoing as both sides work towards either resolution with the Board, or in some cases, non-adoption, of the pending recommendations by the Board. At present, Council is still considering the positions suggested by its small team on how to approach each of the grouped recommendations. More details of the groupings and corresponding approaches can be found at the small team's wiki (see link the small team's work sheet )
• I responded to Paul's queries about where the ALAC/At-Large stood on these pending recommendations, based on the consultation that was conducted with CPWG on 31 Mar 2023, wherein the ALAC's priority - even from past statements to the SubPro PDP WG and advice to the ICANN Board - concentrated on a handful of topics among the 38 pending recommendations. Those priorities revolve around the enforceability of PICs/RVCs (including the Board-mooted limited Bylaw amendment to fully guard against potential legal challenges against ICANN on questions of mission creep), completion of the Applicant Support implementation guidance work, and possibly the issue brought up by the Board on a possible case-by-case waiver of DNS Abuse obligations on single-registrant TLD registry operators per the RA Spec 11 3(a) and 11 3(b).  
• I made it a point to note that the following in-principle remarks:
  • The ALAC remains respectful of the multi-stakeholder model of policy development, wherein we would respect recommendations derived out of clear community consensus unless new information arises (which were not considered during the PDP) such as the concerns raised by the Board on Rec. 9.2 (i.e. which calls for a blanket waiver on DNS Abuse obligations on single-registrant TLD registry operators per the RA Spec 11 3(a) and 11 3(b) as mentioned above.
  • For topics or issues where no recommendation exists (or where recommendations were not approved by Council, and therefore does not go to the Board of adoption), then the ALAC will continue to socialize its positions on the same. As an example, the issue of Auctions, which bears a composite of 2 parts: (1) the permissability of vs ban on private auctions, and (2) the Vickrey Auction model as a better alternative to the existing ICANN Auctions of Last Resort.  
  • The ALAC and the At-Large are prepared to consider the above-mentioned limited Bylaw amendment approach if that is what the Board deems as the best way to guard against potential legal challenges if ICANN were to enforce contractual PICs/RVCs which a registry or a third party mounts a case for the PIC/RVC being unenforceable for falling outside of ICANN's mission.
• While there wasn't significant divergence on how ALAC's position sat with GNSO's on these pending recommendation, I did touched on one area where both AC and SO might want to collaborate, during implementation perhaps, which is work on ensureing that the mechanism by which PICs/RVCs as submitted/considered and eventually framed and transformed into contractual obligations will enable the formulation of objective commitments with clear criteria for evaluation/enforcement purposes.

(2b) ALAC's response to draft Closed Generics Framework and ensuing policy process

• John McElwaine, GNSO Council Vice-Chair and the GNSO Council Liaison to the Closed Generics Dialogue, spoke on the latest development to the work of the small group for the Dialogue and indicated that a version of the draft Closed Generics Framework would be released very soon (targeting after the small group call on Wed, 6 June). He also reminded us that whatever the framework read, it would still need to undergo some policy development process to actually generate policy recommendations. An EPDP is being mooted by Council as the policy vehicle for this purpose, although it has yet to be decided by Council. John however confirmed - in response to my request - that the policy vehicle ought to be of a cross-community nature, involving the ALAC and the GAC and others. 

2. DNS Abuse (with reference to GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse)

(3a) ICANN-CPH Contractual Amendment Negotiations Public Comment Proceedings, 29 May - 13 Jul

• Jonathan Zuck, ALAC Chair, expressed satisfaction that the question of clarity needed for DNS Abuse obligations on the part of Contracted Parties is finally being attempted to be addressed through the ICANN-CPH contractual amendment negotiations as this has been long requested by the community.
• Greg DiBiase, GNSO Council Vice-Chair, echoed Jonathan's sentiment and reiterated that this was something that the Contracted Parties also felt was a necessary step, especially to help provide some clear minimum standards which ICANN Contractual Compliance can effectively enforce.
• We need to examine the proposed amendments and the ICANN Advisory which are are the subject of the public comment proceedings and provide inputs there.

(3b) ALAC's response to the GNSO DNS Abuse Small Team's draft findings on bulk registrations.

• Jonathan queried the GNSO DNS Abuse Small Team's draft findings on bulk registrations and asked after the rationale for the same. If it's a question of definition of bulk registrations being the stumbling block, GNSO or the community could designate one or even adopt one that has been used in past research (eg. in ). It seems that putting in abeyance the issue of investigating the relationship between bulk registrations and DNS Abuse is not desirable in the context of the continual fight to mitigate DNS Abuse.
• Both Greg and Sebastien Ducos, GNSO Chair assured us that the proposed investigation into bulk registrations has not been rejected, but merely that GNSO didn't have sufficient information at this point to pursue any attempt at policy development on it, and because  of this, it cannot be prioritized along with other streams of work already being undertaken by GNSO Council (eg. Closed Generics, the pending SubPro recommendations etc etc). 
• Both Greg and Sebastien would be happy to carry on this conversation with ALAC Leadership to gain an understanding and ideas on how GNSO might progress such an investigation.

GNSO Council Extraordinary Meeting on 5 Jun 2023 

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

GNSO Council Extraordinary Meeting held on 5 Jun 2023

Full Agenda  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List.
• Item 3: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro - Progress Update on Recommendations Marked as Pending
• Item 4: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 15 March 2023 were posted on 30 March 2023.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 April 2023 were posted on 07 May 2023.

• Item 3: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro - Progress Update on Recommendations Marked as Pending
  • During its informal session at ICANN76 and the subsequent Council meeting, the 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 an initial run through of the issues chart, with an update from Board members on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status.
  • Council then 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 is 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. The small team has continued to consider what the “landing spots” are for each recommendation, though the Council and small team are still awaiting input from the Board on where they believe the “landing spots” are; ideally, there will be mutual agreement in as many places as possible, which among other things, helps facilitate the development of a more accurate work plan and timeline (i.e., the key deliverable for ICANN77 in respect of the pending recommendations).
• Item 4: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 4.1 Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (“SPIRT”) 
  • 4.2 Data accuracy in the context of NIS2

Records of 5 Jun 2023 Extraordinary Meeting

• Presentation
• 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 5 Jun 2023 Extraordinary Meeting to ALT-PLUS

1. Subsequent Procedures: Outstanding Work, in particular the 38 Pending Recommendations

• Since ICANN76 where the ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution was adopted, Council's SubPro Small Team has completed a triage of the issues with Board member input on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status. The most recent Council discussions on moving the Small Team's work forward are captured during Council's Extraordinary Meeting on 4 May ( see report ), the Council’s dialogue with the ICANN Board on 22 May, and Council's Meeting on 25 May ( see report ), which were summarily reported on during the At-Large CPWG call of 31 Mar 2023.
• Afterwards, some further tidying up led to 5 landing spots which more or less mirrors the 4 earlier groups of recommendations. These 5 landing spots are:
  1. Provision of clarifying statement
  2. Board non-adoption (meaning that the Board declines to approve recommendation in its current form and would trigger a process to generate a GNSO supplemental recommendation aimed at addressing the Board's concern while attempting the preserve the core intention of the original recommendation)
  3. Confirmation that issues can be address as part of implementation
  4. Exploring need for a limited Bylaw amendment
  5. Modification of recommendations (GNSO Section 16 PDP, which would involve consultation with a reconstituted SubPro PDP WG)
• Council was briefed on an indicative path for each of these 5 landing spots ( best to see presentation for details )
• Council also asked to consider a draft combined project plan, which attempts to address the 4 deliverables requested of Council by the ICANN Board. For convenience, the 4 deliverables are replicated as follows, as drawn from the ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution:

1. 1. 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;
   2. A working methodology and Implementation Review Team (IRT) work plan and timeline as agreed upon by ICANN org and the GNSO Council;
   3. 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
   4. 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.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and keep sharing updates regarding progress of the Council Small Team work on the 38 Pending Outputs
  • To maintain ALAC positions on the 38 Pending Outputs for purposes of the pre-ICANN77 ALAC-GNSO Bilateral.

2. Closed Generics Draft Framework for onward policy process

• There remains no firm indications at this point on when the draft framework will actually be released. It was mentioned that a close-to-complete version could be released after the Closed Generics Dialogue call on Wed, 7 June, prior to ICANN77 GNSO Day Zero.
• Staff generated a very conservative project plan of 96 weeks assuming an EPDP is used as the policy development mechanism to produce consensus policy out the framework. Several councilors against pushed back against either the 96-week time frame as being too long or the use of an EPDP as the optimal mechanism.
• Discussions will continue at the Day Zero session on 11 June.

3. Data accuracy in the context of NIS2

• NIS2 has a provision on registration data accuracy: Article 28 subsection 3, "Member States shall require the TLD registries and the entities providing domain registration services - those being registrars, resellers, and privacy proxy services - to have policies and procedures including verification procedures in place to ensure that the database as referred to in paragraph 1 include accurate and complete information. Member States shall require such policies and procedures to be publicly available." Then there's a corresponding recital, i.e. recital no. 111, "Those policies and procedures should take into account to the extent possible, the standards developed by the multi-stakeholder or governance structures at the international level." (in other words, ICANN). There is something on accuracy in the RAA version 2013, but it is possible that that isn't good enough for the European lawmakers.
• The question then arose as to whether GNSO could take some onward action, given that European national lawmakers are already in the process of drafting laws to transpose this to international laws, and this applying equally to gTLDs / GNSO and ccTLDs / ccNSO, to: (a) avoid fragmentation in the DN marketplace; (b) address potential divergence in national laws, and (c) avoid friction or major differences in user experience between generic side and the country-code side when registering for DNs.
  
• Council is to take this discussion further in its June 2023 meeting.

GNSO Council Meeting #5 of 2023 held on 25 May 2023

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

GNSO Council Meeting #5 of 2023 held on 25 May 2023

Full Agenda  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List & Action Item List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda: None
• Item 4: Board request for Council input on Nominating Committee (NomCom) rebalancing
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro - Progress Update on Recommendations Marked as Pending 
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) EPDP Timeline
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Work to Prepare Draft Timeline for Closed Generics Policy Process
• Item 8: EPDP Phase 2 Small Team Progress Update 
• Item 9: State of Progress from DNS Abuse Small Team

• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 15 March 2023 were posted on 30 March 2023.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 April 2023 were posted on 07 May 2023.

• Item 4: Board request for Council input on Nominating Committee (NomCom) rebalancing
  • On 26 April 2023, the ICANN Board requested the input of the GNSO Council on the issue of NomCom rebalancing. 
  • The NomCom is a committee tasked with selecting key ICANN leadership positions, including some members of the ICANN Board of Directors and the Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) Board, as well as other positions within the ICANN community. The NomCom functions independently from the Board, the Supporting Organizations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs). NomCom delegates act on behalf of the interests of the global Internet community and within the scope of the ICANN mission and responsibilities assigned to the NomCom under the ICANN Bylaws – they do not act in furtherance of the group that appointed them to the NomCom. 

  • The ICANN community has been discussing the issue of rebalancing the NomCom for over 10 years, and the ICANN Board resolved to engage with the ICANN community to better understand community views on the rebalancing.

    Specifically, the Board is seeking input on the following questions:

    1. What does it mean to have a balanced NomCom at a point in time? For example, what criteria would you apply to measure or assess whether the NomCom is balanced? And further, how can one test whether or not the NomCom is balanced?
    2. Do you support the view that the current composition of the NomCom needs to be rebalanced? Please explain why or why not.
    3. How frequently does the balance need to be measured or assessed?
    4. How do you suggest that the NomCom’s composition be rebalanced?
    5. Who should conduct this work, and how should it be conducted?
    6. How would your community group prioritize consideration of this issue within your planning efforts? 
  • Council will discuss this issue and determine next steps.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro - Progress Update on Recommendations Marked as Pending 
  • Since ICANN76 where the ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution was adopted, Council's SubPro Small Team has now completed a triage of the issues 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 ( see report ). During that meeting, Council agreed to further task the small team with taking interim steps (e.g., provision is clarifying information, developing speaking points) in order to support the Council’s dialogue with the ICANN Board on 22 May.
  •  Council will debrief after the dialogue with the ICANN Board and discuss next steps to ensure that the Council is able to deliver its plan and timeline to resolve the pending recommendations.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) EPDP Timeline
  • On 20 May 2021, the GNSO Council approved the initiation request for the EPDP on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and adopted its charter. 
  • On 24 April 2023, the EPDP Team published its Phase 1 Initial Report for Public Comment.
  • On 16 March 2023, the ICANN Board requested the EPDP Team to deliver an updated project plan by the last day of ICANN77 that identifies all charter questions that will impact the next Applicant Guidebook, as well as a timeline for the EPDP Team’s delivery of relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council. While the Public Comment proceeding is ongoing, the EPDP Team started discussion of its Phase 2 work, which focuses on issues pertaining to second-level IDN variant management, as well as the review of its project plan in accordance with the Board request.
  • Council will receive an update on the EPDP Team’s analysis of its Phase 2 charter questions in relation to the impact on the next Applicant Guidebook, as well as a draft project plan and timeline for the EPDP Team’s delivery of relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Work to Prepare Draft Timeline for Closed Generics Policy Process
  • In March 2023, 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 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.
  • This Dialogue has been progressing and is hoping to deliver a draft framework around the end of May 2023 to the ALAC, GAC, GNSO and other SOACs for community input. Groups are expected to have approximately four weeks to review that document. 
• Item 8: EPDP Phase 2 Small Team Progress Update 
  • In February 2023, the ICANN Board directed ICANN org to develop and launch the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) (formerly  WHOIS Disclosure System), as requested by Council. The Board requested the RDRS be launched within 11 months, and, prior to the launch, the Board recommended Org continue its engagement with Council on the implementation. The ICANN Board also requested Council to establish success criteria for the RDRS. In response, Council updated the assignment of the EPDP Phase 2 small team to reflect these new work items. 

  • The small team is expected to engage with ICANN org throughout the development and operation of the System, and in particular consider:

    • The other topics identified in the addendum that the small team did not consider gating factors but for which it would be interested to have further discussions with ICANN org during the implementation phase to consider if/how some of these aspects could be considered to be added in the current implementation of [the RDRS] or a future version;
    • Success criteria for this System, which should include analysis of relevant usage data;
    • How to best promote and secure comprehensive use of the system, both by potential requestors as well as ICANN accredited registrars.
  • The small team is also expected to provide Council with a recommendation on the approach and format through which, following implementation of the system, data should be reviewed and analyzed to help inform subsequent decisions on how to proceed with the SSAD recommendations. The small team is expected to provide regular updates to Council on the state of its progress.
• Item 9: State of Progress from DNS Abuse Small Team
  • In February 2022, Council formed a small team of interested Council members to consider what policy efforts, if any, the GNSO Council should consider undertaking to support the efforts already underway in the different parts of the community to tackle DNS abuse. 
  • On 7 October 2022, the DNS Abuse Small Team transmitted its Report to Council. Recommendation #2 from the Report recommended Council to request, et.al., the Registrar Stakeholder Group “to further the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.”

  • The DNS Abuse Small Team received input from the following groups:

    • Contractual Compliance, ICANN Org
    • DNS Abuse Institute
    • gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group
    • Registrar Stakeholder Group
  • The small team shared its initial feedback regarding the input received on 15 May.
  • Council will hear an update on the Small Team’s preliminary conclusions regarding the feedback it received on bulk registrations.

• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

  • 10.1 ICANN77 Day 0 SubPro Session Planning 

  • 10.2 Accuracy

  • 10.3 WS2 Framework of Interpretation for Human Rights Proposed updates to GNSO Council templates 

  • 10.4 Next Round Policy Implementation - Council liaison to the IRT

  • 10.5 Launch of new Periodic Working Group Survey for IDN EPDP

  • 10.6 Non-Registry Liaison to the CSC and Alternate

Records of 25 May 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 25 May 2023 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 May 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council May 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Next Round of New gTLDs - Subsequent Procedures

• Since ICANN76 where the ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution was adopted, Council's SubPro Small Team has now completed a triage of the issues 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 ( see report ). During that meeting, Council agreed to further task the small team with taking interim steps (e.g., provision is clarifying information, developing speaking points) in order to support the Council’s dialogue with the ICANN Board on 22 May.
• The important thing to note here is that this Council dialogue with the ICANN Board SubPro caucus and/or ICANN Board is ongoing as the goal is to try and resolve as many of those 38 pending recommendations as possible without resulting in the ICANN Board rejecting them.  This inevitably necessitates rather regular updates because information may change quickly.

Action by ALAC Liaison

          To monitor and keep sharing updates regarding progress of the Council Small Team work on the 38 Pending Outputs

• • To assist in formulating ALAC positions on the 38 Pending Outputs in time for the pre-ICANN77 ALAC-GNSO Bilateral.

2. Closed Generics

• The GNSO-GAC-ALAC Closed Generics Dialogue is expected to deliver a draft framework, if agreed, around or just after 31 May 2023. It should be noted that this draft framework is meant to draw some boundaries on how to introduce closed generics in the next round and it will have to go through a GNSO policy development process to produce actual consensus policy, which is expected to take 18 months.
• GNSO Council leadership has proposed that EPDP be the policy development mechanism to take the framework forward, and although not confirmed, will likely be cross-community in nature. The proposition of an EPDP drew some apprehension from several councilors.
• So far, the Dialogue has adopted Chatham House Rule so we will not know the actual contents of the framework until it is released circa end May.
• However, I understand that the framework will likely include some reference to application questions, evaluation, post delegation - registry agreement aspects, and can be easily morph into a charter for the policy development process. 

3. DNS Abuse

• Council ran out of time at its call, so the adoption of the Council's Small Team on DNS Abuse's next output i.e. feedback on bulk registrations will be done on Council's mail list by around 5 Jun.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To assist in establishing ALAC's positions the Council Small Team's output (if any) in time for the pre-ICANN77 ALAC-GNSO Bilateral.

4. EPDP Phase 2 - Registration Data Request Service (RDRS)

• The EPDP Phase 2 Small Team has formulated success criteria for RDRS but these are not set in stone. They need to remain flexible as and when the RDRS is implemented and tested so they can be adjusted to meet market needs.
• The small team has pushed back against the Board's suggestion to have a policy process to compel mandatory adoption of usage of the RDRS by registrars.  

5. Registration Data Accuracy

• Seeing no progress on this, Council will defer consideration of this till the June meeting. This is also in light of some work being attempted at the European Union level with a survey and a report but the meeting for that had just been cancelled.
• Some councilors expressed concern with indefinite delay / inaction on this area of work.

6. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) EPDP

• This EPDP has submitted a project plan (see presentation) which identifies all its charter questions that will impact the next Applicant Guidebook (AGB), along with considerations to ensure a consistent solution on IDN Variant TLDs with the ccPDP4 on IDN ccTLDs, and a timeline by when the IDNs EPDP will deliver relevant recommendations to the GNSO Council (this was 1 of 4 requests made by the Board, as a result of the adopted ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution,
• In short, the EPDP has analysed their Phase 2 charter questions and found no significant efficiency if it were to further break down Phase 2 work in order to deliver some recommendations which would impact the AGB and Registry Agreement update.  Adding any  additional public comment process would prolong the project timeline unnecessarily. As such, the expected timeline is, conservatively:
  • Phase 1 Final Report: 10 Nov 2023
  • Phase 2 Initial Report:  18 Apr 2025
  • Phase 2 Final Report: 24 Oct 2025
• In the meantime, the EPDP will continue to find ways to achieve greater efficiencies through more preparatory work, considering foundational issues, and securing more sessions at ICANN F2F meetings and a dedicated F2F meeting in Nov-Dec 2023, while bearing in mind the need to minimize churn/burnout/drop in participation. As it is, this EPDP is already meeting 2 hours per week and already seeking ICANN org GDS input on draft recommendations and implementation guidance as deliberations go on instead of waiting until the ICANN Board approves them.

7. Nominating Committee rebalancing

• Council will set up a small team to consider Council's response to the issue of NomCom rebalancing.

GNSO Council Extraordinary Meeting on 4 May 2023 

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

GNSO Council Extraordinary Meeting held on 4 May 2023

Full Agenda  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Proposal of SubPro Small Team Triage Exercise
• Item 3: 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 15 March 2023 were posted on 30 March 2023
• Item 2: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Proposal of SubPro Small Team Triage Exercise

  • During its informal session at ICANN76 and the subsequent Council meeting, the 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 an initial run through of the issues chart, with an update from Board members on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status. Now that its review is complete, the Small Team discussed proposals on how to respond to these items.

  • Council will receive a comprehensive update from the Small Team regarding its proposed responses to the pending Board items, and discuss next steps.

Records of 4 May 2023 Extraordinary Meeting

• Presentation
• 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 4 May 2023 Extraordinary Meeting to ALT-PLUS

The GNSO Council May 2023 Extraordinary Meeting had been convened for a single purpose, which is to receive a comprehensive update from the GNSO SubPro Small Team regarding its proposed responses to the pending 38 Board items, and to discuss next steps.

Outcome: Council adopted the small teams proposed responses which can be summarized as follows:

• After having discussed with Avri Doria and Becky Burr at a string of small team calls, the small team came up with 7 categories of suggested responses to the Board's concerns.
• Of the 7 categories, responses to the 38 pending recommendations were found to be fall within 4 - which essentially avoids taking any immediate route that:
  • (1) would involve a need to modify or amend any approved recommendations (because Section 16 of the GNSO PDP Manual requires that SubPro PDP WG (or, possibly some form of the same) be reconstituted (category "c"); or
  • (2) having Council generate any "Supplemental Recommendation" in the event the Board "determines that such policy is not in the best interests of the ICANN community or ICANN" (category "d"); or
  • (3) call for a GNSO Guidance Process (GGP), GNSO Input Process (GIP), or GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP) (category "f").
• Instead, the 4 buckets selected and their corresponding SubPro Topics & recommendations are: 

To understand the specific nature  of the concerns and responses please read: proposed responses

This means that the GNSO SubPro Small Team still has work to complete for the purpose of the Council meeting with ICANN Board on 22 May at 1300-1500 UTC.

GNSO Council Meeting #4 of 2023 held on 20 Apr 2023 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #4 of 2023 held on 20 Apr 2023

Full Agenda  |  Motions  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action Item List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy - Results of Scoping Team’s Self-Assessment Survey + Update from ICANN org
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Council SubPro Small Team
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from EPDP Phase 2 Small Team
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on Closed Generics
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on DNS Abuse
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 16 February 2023 were posted on 03 March 2023.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 15 March 2023 were posted on 30 March 2023
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • GNSO Review of GAC Communiqué 
  • GNSO Council Agreement on next steps for Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP)/Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) 
  • Deferral of Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Phase 2 for 18 months (clock to begin in April 2023) 
  • GNSO Council Adoption of the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Effectiveness Review Report 
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy - Results of Scoping Team’s Self-Assessment Survey + Update from ICANN org
  • The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by the GNSO Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. The Scoping Team was tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors including the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts. 
  • The Scoping Team completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022. In the write up, the group 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). 
  • During its November meeting, Council adopted recommendation #3 of the Scoping Team’s write up, which recommended (i) pausing the work in relation to proposals that require access to registration data, (ii) encouraging ICANN org to proceed with their outreach to the EDPB as well as the Data Protection Impact Assessment in connection with the scenario(s) in which the request and processing of registration data takes place as a matter of urgency, and (iii) requesting that ICANN org and Contracted Parties finalize the negotiations on the Data Processing Agreement (DPA) as soon as practicable as the absence of a completed DPA may act as a roadblock for policy work before Council. In response to the Council’s requests, ICANN org provided the following update to the GNSO Council on 14 March 2023. 
  • Taking into account the delay with which the write up was delivered, as well as some of the challenges that were shared with the Scoping Team’s Chair during his briefing to the Council, Council leadership reached out informally to Scoping Team members to better understand the issues encountered to help inform the Council’s review of the formation and instructions.
  • Council will receive an update from ICANN org on its recent letter and discuss the Survey Summary Results of the Scoping Team’s Self-Assessment Survey.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Council SubPro Small Team
  • During its informal session at ICANN76 and the subsequent Council meeting, the 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 an initial run through of the issues chart, with an update from Board members on why the Board placed specific recommendations into a pending status. Following this review, the Small Team will begin discussions of how the Council should respond to these items.
  • Council will receive an update on the Small Team's efforts.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from EPDP Phase 2 Small Team

  • During ICANN76, the EPDP Phase 2 Small Team met with ICANN org to receive an update on the status of implementation of the Whois Disclosure System (WDS) and continue its consideration of some of the aspects identified as requiring further discussion in the addendum.

  • Following ICANN76, the Small Team has been meeting to discuss the additional suggestions made during the ICANN76 session and how to define the success criteria for the system.

  • Council will receive an update from the Small Team and will also discuss the outstanding action item from its last meeting, Council to consider response to the ICANN Board request to consider a PDP or other means to require, or strongly encourage, registrars to use the WDS (now known as RDRS - Registration Data Request Service), noting that the small team has already been assigned the task to how to best to promote and secure comprehensive use of the system, both by potential requestors as well as ICANN-accredited registrars.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on Closed Generics
  • Following an initial, informal meeting at ICANN75, 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.
  • 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. By 15 June 2023, the Board expects to receive “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.”
  • Council will discuss its anticipated approach to reviewing the draft framework as well as consider next steps in preparing for subsequent policy work.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on DNS Abuse
  • Following Council's DNS Abuse Small Team's 7 Oct 2022 report to Council, where Recommendation #2 advised Council to request, et.al., the Registrar Stakeholder Group “to further the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.”

  • The DNS Abuse Small Team has now received input from the following groups:

    • Contractual Compliance, ICANN Org
    • DNS Abuse Institute
    • gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group
    • Registrar Stakeholder Group
  • Council will discuss next steps for the DNS Abuse small team, including potentially reconstituting the Small Team to review the input received.
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

  • 9.1 ICANN77 Day 0 SubPro Session Planning

  • 9.2 ICANN77 Planning

  • 9.3 Appointment of Council Liaison to the SubPro Implementation Review Team

Records of 20 Apr 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 Apr 2023 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 Apr 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Apr 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda Items

• Council agreed to defer consideration of a Policy Status Report (PSR) for the Expedited Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and Expedited Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) for 6 months from the date additional requested information from ICANN org is received.
• Council agreed to defer next steps on Phase Two of the RPMs PDP for an 18-month period beginning on 20 April 2023.
• Council approved the Final Report of the CSC Effectiveness Review Team. 

2. Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) & Next Round of New gTLDs

    Recap: ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution

• ICANN Board had resolved during its Board Meeting at ICANN76 to adopt the SubPro Outputs in Section A of its "Scorecard on Subsequent Procedures PDP" (Scorecard); marking 38 Outputs in Section B of the Scorecard as "pending" and noting ongoing community discussions relating to Topic 17: Applicant Support, Topic 23: Closed Generics, and Topic 25: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), as well as additional dependencies concerning specific Review Team Recommendations, the Name Collision Analysis Project Study 2 Report (NCAP2), and other items noted in Section C of the Scorecard.

   Section A Outputs: Next Steps

• The SubPro Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT) will be constituted: call for volunteers has gone out, criteria apply.
• This IRT will take on the Open + Representative model and is expected to start work in the week of 14/15 May.

   Section B Outputs: 38 "Pending" Outputs

• The Council's SubPro Pending Recommendations Small Team has been discussing with Avri Doria and Becky Burr (from the Board SubPro Caucus) to seek clarification on the Board's concerns on the 38 Pending SubPro Outputs, in order to conduct a triage of the outputs.
• The small team - comprising Anne Aikman-Scalese, Bruna Martins dos Santos, Jeff Neuman, Justine Chew, Nacho Amados, Paul McGrady, Sebastien Ducos, Stephanie Perrin, Susan Payne and Tomslin Samme-Nlar - is working towards discussing the outcomes of its triage exercise with the full Council at an GNSO Extraordinary Council meeting on 4 May. This is a step towards meeting Deliverable #1 in ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution for "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 4 May extraordinary meeting is also expected to determine whether the current small team will continue beyond the triage exercise or will be reconstituted for next steps.
• There is a high expectation that (a small team or) the full Council will, prior to ICANN77, meet with either the full Board or the full Board SubPro Caucus to iron out/resolve many, if not all, hindrance to the Board approving these 38 pending outputs.

Action by ALAC Liaison

          To monitor and keep sharing updates regarding progress of the Council Small Team work on the 38 Pending Outputs

• • With the CPWG SubPro Prioritization Sub-Team; and
  • To assist in formulating ALAC positions on the 38 Pending Outputs (if any) in time for the pre-ICANN77 ALAC-GNSO Bilateral.

3. Closed Generics : Next Steps 

• Closed Generics is a Board SubPro PDP Scorecard Section C Dependency.
• Council received an update from John McElwaine, its Liaison to the GNSO-GAC-ALAC Dialogue on Closed Generics who indicated that a draft framework is anticipated to be ready around 28 April for community comment, and that the work of the group will continue into Q3 of 2023 beyond ICANN77, but still meet Deliverable #3 in ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution for "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."
• Notwithstanding, John hinted that because the framework will require a policy process for it to become policy, the suitable path would be a tightly scoped EPDP.
• More and better details will be forthcoming through the draft framework expected next week. More and better details should also be sought from the ALAC representative and/or alternate to this Dialogue.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates on the proposed framework for Closed Generics
  • To coordinate with ALAC's rep & alternate and At-Large staff on consultation for the proposed framework for Closed Generics.

4. DNS Abuse: Next Steps

• Following Council's DNS Abuse Small Team's 7 Oct 2022 report to Council, where Recommendation #2 advised Council to request, et. al., the Registrar Stakeholder Group “to further the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.”
• Council has determined that this small team should continue its work reviewing the replies received from gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group, Registrar Stakeholder Group, ICANN Contractual Compliance and DNS Abuse Institute to its 6 Jan letter.
• This Council small team now has a refreshed membership of Thomas Rickert (ISCP), Mark Datysgeld (BC), Wisdom Donkor (NCSG), Theo Geurts (RrSG), Sebastien Ducos (RySG), Greg DiBiase (RrSG), Tomslin Samme-Nlar (NCSG), Paul McGrady (NCA-NCPH), Nacho Amadoz (RySG) and Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to the GNSO).
• NB. The deliberations of the issue of bulk registrations are running parallel to the ICANN org - Contracted Parties ongoing contractual amendment negotiations on RAA section 3.18 (and perhaps, less on RA Spec 11 3(a))

5. Registration Data Accuracy (RDA)

• Council considered the Survey Summary Results and Council Leadership alluded to inputs from these results being taken into consideration in relevant fora - in this case, the re-charter of the RDA Scoping Team, but also any relevant GNSO processes in future.
• Council also received an update from ICANN org on the 4 scenarios that have been identified to review the accuracy of registration data and the data protection questions that arise from these scenarios. I believe this input is for the RDA Scoping Team (or successor) to consider once it is reconstituted.

6. Registration Data Request Service (RDRS)

• ICANN org has informed that it is ready to start development of the RDRS. A demo could be expected in the ICANN77 June time frame. 
• This is while the EPDP Phase 2 Small Team continues work (1) to establish success factors for the RDRS - eg. on how to ensure wide participation/usage of the RDRS especially by non-RrSG registrars (if it were kept as voluntary); and (2) what can be extracted from the data collected via the RDRS. 

GNSO Council Meeting #3 of 2023 held on 15 Mar 2023 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #3 of 2023 held on 15 Mar 2023

Full Agenda  |  Motions  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda: None
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Working Group Self-Assessment (WGSA) Recommendations Report
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps for Consideration of Expired Domain Deletion Policy (“EDDP”) and Expired Registration Recovery Policy (“ERRP”)
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Review GNSO-owned projects that may impact SubPro timeline
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Continuation of Informal GNSO Council SubPro Discussion
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 19 January 2023 were posted on 02 February 2023.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 16 February 2023 were posted on 03 March 2023.
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Working Group Self-Assessment (WGSA) Recommendations Report
  • Council had resolved on 16 June 2021 to initiate the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) as a pilot, which included the review of the Working Group Self-Assessment as one of the two areas of focus.
  • The CCOICI started the Working Group Self-Assessment assignment in October 2021, concluding in February 2022. However, the CCOICI deferred conducting the public comment until it could be combined with recommendations related to the GNSO Statement of Interest (SOI). The consolidated public comment proceeding on Proposed Updates to the GNSO Operating Procedures was conducted from 09 September - 14 November 2022.
  • The CCOICI integrated public comments received as appropriate and submitted its Recommendations Report to the Council on 5 January 2023; Council will vote on this Recommendations Report which is limited to just the WGSA. (The portion on the GNSO SOI is still pending)
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps for Consideration of Expired Domain Deletion Policy (“EDDP”) and Expired Registration Recovery Policy (“ERRP”)
  • In July 2022, Council agreed that it would be helpful to check with the registrars and ICANN Compliance to help determine if there are any known issues or concerns with either of the two Expiration Policies which could warrant requesting a Policy Status Report (PSR).
  • A report from Contractual Compliance was shared with Council on 1 November 2022 and feedback from the GNSO Councilors from RrSG has been shared on previous Council calls. 
  • During Council's Nov 2022 meeting, ICANN Org Contractual Compliance Team provided a briefing of the report, and Council briefly considered potential next steps.
  • Following the meeting, Nacho Amodoz, Greg DiBiase, and Susan Payne volunteered to closely review the report from ICANN org and determine if any of the issues raised warrant a PSR request. Council will receive an update on this small team’s recommendation.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Review GNSO-owned projects that may impact SubPro timeline

  • During Council’s Strategic Planning Session (SPS), a recurring theme emerged. Taking into consideration the possible timelines surrounding the implementation of the SubPro recommendations, especially if Option 2 or similar were to be pursued, Council should take care to ensure that any SubPro related work within its control should be carefully managed for timely delivery. The Council does not want its work to serve as an impediment to the timely implementation and launch of the next round of new gTLDs.

  • In order to address this recurring theme,, Council agreed that it would like to receive frequent updates on the work that is connected to the next round of new gTLDs. Presumably, those projects include:

    • IDNs EPDP Phase 1 (top-level charter questions)
    • GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
    • Closed Generics Facilitated Discussion
    • Small Team review of SubPro recommendations likely pending Board action
  • Council will receive a brief update on the above-referenced projects.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Continuation of Informal GNSO Council SubPro Discussion

  • On 12 September 2021 the ICANN Board directed the ICANN President and CEO to organize the resources required to begin work on the Operational Design Phase (ODP) for the GNSO’s New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Final Report and the Affirmations, Recommendations, and Implementation Guidance contained in that report. On 20 December 2021, ICANN org announced that the SubPro ODP had formally launched, starting at the beginning of January 2022. The ODP Team has shared numerous updates to the community and sent several sets of assumptions/questions to the GNSO Council via the Council’s liaison to the ODP.

  • ICANN org published the SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) on 12 December, and Council received a briefing on it during a webinar on 7 December.

  • Council formed a small team to review the ODA in detail and provided its input to the ICANN Board on 20 January, in advance of the Board's workshop in January 2023. As discussed in the Chair's blog, the ICANN Board spent a full day reviewing the SubPro Outputs and ODA.

  • On 28 February 2023, the Council and ICANN Board had a joint meeting on SubPro, and Council plans a follow-up informal discussion on 7 March 2023.

  • Council will discuss the joint meeting with the Board and the informal discussion, and consider appropriate next steps

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps

  • ICANN org published the Whois Disclosure System design paper in September 2022, presenting it to Council and the EPDP Phase 2 Small Team during ICANN75.

  • The small team subsequently reviewed the design paper and continued its consultations with ICANN org, resulting in an addendum to its preliminary report. Council accepted the addendum and communicated to the ICANN Board its support for the request that the ICANN Board proceed with the implementation of the Whois Disclosure System, provided that the updates identified by the small team in the addendum are made.

  • On 27 February 2023, the Board directed ICANN org to develop and launch the Whois Disclosure System (System) as requested by Council within 11 months from 27 February 2023. The Board also directed ICANN org to operate the System for up to two years from the date of launch, and collect and report on usage data. Furthermore, the ICANN Board has urged “the GNSO Council to consider a Policy Development Process or other means to require registrars to use the System”.

  • During ICANN76, on 11 March 2023, the EPDP Phase 2 Small Team will meet with ICANN org to receive an update the status of implementation of the Whois Disclosure System and continue its consideration of some of the aspects identified as requiring further discussion in the addendum.

  • In addition to receiving an update from the Small Team on its meeting with ICANN org, Council will consider if/how the instructions to the Small Team should be updated to reflect Council’s expectations of the Small Team during the implementation phase as well as post-implementation, in addition to the ask from the Board to consider a Policy Development Process or other means to require registrars to use the System. 

• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.1 GNSO Chair Election Timeline Announcement
  • 9.2 Policy Status Report on Policy and Implementation Working Group Final Recommendations Report

Records of 15 Mar 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 15 Mar 2023 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 Mar 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Mar 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA), Implementation and other Next Steps, Dependencies 

    ICANN Board 16 March 2023 Resolution

• ICANN Board resolved during its Board Meeting at ICANN76 to adopt the SubPro Outputs in Section A of its "Scorecard on Subsequent Procedures PDP" (Scorecard); marking 38 Outputs in Section B of the Scorecard as "pending" and noting ongoing community discussions relating to Topic 17: Applicant Support, Topic 23: Closed Generics, and Topic 25: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), as well as additional dependencies concerning specific Review Team Recommendations, the Name Collision Analysis Project Study 2 Report (NCAP2), and other items noted in Section C of the Scorecard.
• ICANN Board has communicated this development to GNSO Council via their 16 Mar letter. In particular, the Board said:- 
  • The Board has adopted all Outputs contained in Section A of the Scorecard and designated the Outputs in Section B as pending. The Board has also committed to resolve the dependencies noted in Section C of the Scorecard in a timely manner. 
  • The ICANN Board has directed ICANN org to submit a comprehensive implementation plan no later than 1 August 2023, containing a work plan, relevant information for the Infrastructure Development stream, timelines, and anticipated resource requirements to announce the opening of the next round of new gTLDs (Implementation Plan).
  • The Board acknowledges that the delivery of the Implementation Plan requires the satisfactory completion of four deliverables by 15 June 2023, the last day of the ICANN77 Public Meeting. These deliverables are:

1. 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.
2. A working methodology and Implementation Review Team (IRT) work plan and timeline as agreed upon by ICANN org and the GNSO Council.
3. 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.
4. 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.

• • The Board is prepared to work closely with the GNSO Council on the first deliverable. The Board appreciates that the GNSO Council has already begun a conversation with ICANN org on a working methodology for the Subsequent Procedures Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT).

   Section A Outputs    

• Section A Outputs will now proceed to implementation; ICANN org is liaising with Council on constituting the SubPro IRT for this purpose.
• While the SubPro IRT is to be driven by ICANN org, its constitution and membership is determined by Council.
• Council is in the process of determining the membership model for this SubPro IRT; Council is currently leaning towards an Open model per the PDP 3.0 framework.
• While an Open model IRT will makes participation open to anyone and without limit on the number of participants, it is likely that the corresponding call for volunteers would express a preference for active former members of the SubPro PDP WG on account of the need for familiarity/expertise on the Section A Outputs in order to be able to adequately guide their implementation by ICANN org. Newcomers will be at a severe disadvantage if they do not get up to speed with the SubPro PDP Final Report.
• Timeline for the call for volunteers for the SubPro IRT, workplan etc are all pending.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding the SubPro IRT constitution

    Section B Outputs: 38 "Pending" Outputs

• Council has constituted a Council Small Team to conduct a triage for the 38 Pending SubPro Outputs. The Small Team comprises Anne Aikman-Scalese (NCA), Bruna Martins dos Santos (NCSG), Jeff Neuman (GNSO Liaison to SubPro ODP), Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to GNSO), Nacho Amados (RySG), Paul McGrady (NCA-NCPH), Sebastien Ducos (RySG), Stephanie Perrin (NCSG), Susan Payne (IPC) and Tomslin Samme-Nlar (NCSG).
• The purpose of the triage exercise to examine the Board's concerns on the 38 Pending Outputs, how they can be grouped for varying onward action.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding progress of the Council Small Team work on the 38 Pending Outputs

    Section C Outputs: Ongoing Community Work, Reviews & Dependencies

    These are listed as follows:

2. Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) (formerly known as Whois Disclosure System (WDS)) 

• Following the ICANN Board's 27 Feb resolution directing ICANN org to proceed with development and launch of the WDS as soon as possible, a meeting of the GNSO EPDP Phase 2 (SSAD) took place at ICANN76 on 11 Mar, where the Whois Disclosure System (WDS) was proposed to be renamed to Registration Data Request Service (RDRS).
• Hereon, Council is to consider the use of a PDP or other means to require, or strongly encourage, registrars to use the RSRS, noting that the small team has already been assigned the task to how to best to promote and secure comprehensive use of the system, both by potential requestors as well as ICANN accredited registrars.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding Council's deliberations on the RDRS

3. Expired Domain Deletion Policy (“EDDP”) and Expired Registration Recovery Policy (“ERRP”)

• Council was asked if it was timely to request a Policy Status Report (PSR) for the EDDP and the ERRP. There was tentative agreement within Council that whilst it was important, there were other ongoing and important topics, so the review of the policy was postponed. Following this, ICANN Compliance put together a report which showed registrants having issues with renewals, confusion with the terms of the policies.
• A small team of councilors (Nacho Amadoz, Greg DiBiase, and Susan Payne) reviewed the report as well as the recommendation to review the PSR. Incremental work could be done to improve on clarity of the policy language and in this respect, support staff is to reach out to ICANN org colleagues to request further information on the educational materials relating to the EDDP and ERRP.
• The PSR will be reviewed in 6 months.

4. Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)

• By way of background, the work of the CCOICI (a GNSO pilot) covers several areas of focus, including Updates to GNSO Operating Procedures; which covers (a) Working Group Self-Assessment (WGSA) and (b) GNSO Statement of Interest (GNSO SOI), which were part of the public comment proceeding on Proposed Updates to the GNSO Operating Procedures which ran from Sep-Nov 2022.
• With respect to (a), Council has adopted WGSA Recommendation Report (which incorporates the ALAC's input in respect of the existing WGSA survey)
• With respect to (b), the CCOICI is still grappling with public comments received on the GNSO SOI update. The key issue with the GNSO SOI update revolves around transparency of ICANN PDPs, in particular the proposed allowance for a PDP WG member to claim confidentiality as the ground for not revealing the entity that stands to benefit from that member's participation (client-solicitor privilege was cited as an example for claiming such confidentiality). Council discussed this issue briefly and will revisit this issue at a future meeting when the CCOICI is ready to present its recommendation(s) on the GNSO SOI update.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding the GNSO SOI with ALAC

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2023 held on 16 Feb 2023 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2023 held on 16 Feb 2023

Full Agenda  |  Motions  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the Amended Charter for the Transfer Policy Review PDP and Approval of the Policy Change Request
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Board's Consideration of the Subsequent Procedures Recommendations and Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA)
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)’s Working Group Self-Assessment Recommendations Report and Update from the Statement of Interest (SOI) Task Force
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - ICANN76 Meeting Planning
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements item #8 (Review of the Policy & Implementation recommendations)
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Review Next Steps
• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 
  • 9.2 - Update on Closed Generics Facilitated Dialogue

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 15 December 2022 were posted on 03 January 2023.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 19 January 2023 were posted on 02 February 2023.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Nomination of a Mentor for the ICANN Fellowship Selection Committee - Taiwo Peter Akinremi
  • Motion for the Adoption of the Revised Charter for the Budget and Operations Townhall
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the Amended Charter for the Transfer Policy Review PDP and Approval of the Policy Change Request 
  • Council initiated the two-phased Transfer Policy Review PDP in February 2021. Since it began meeting in May 2021, the WG has made steady progress on its Phase 1 charter questions, including publishing its Phase 1A Initial Report for public comment.  The WG conducted preliminary deliberations on Phase 1B topics during the Phase 1A Initial Report public comment period, then reviewed public comments on the Phase 1A Initial Report, and is now completing revisions to preliminary recommendations, taking into account public comment received. 
  • In the course of Phase 1 work conducted to date, the WG discovered that certain Phase 2 topics must be addressed before Phase 1 recommendations can be fully developed. As a result, the leadership team is preparing a Project Change Request (PCR) to update its work plan to consolidate all work into a single phase and change the order in which topics are considered. This will impact the timeline for key deliverables.
  • Council to consider the amended Charter and approval of the PCR for the Transfer Policy Review PDP.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Board's Consideration of the Subsequent Procedures Recommendations and Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA)
  • Council will receive an update from Becky Burr/Matthew Shears on the SubPro related discussions during the Board workshop and what has transpired since the the Board's workshop in January 2023. As discussed in the Chair's blog, the ICANN Board spent a full day reviewing the SubPro Outputs and SubPro ODA.
• Item 6:  COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)’s Working Group Self-Assessment Recommendations Report and Update from the Statement of Interest (SOI) Task Force
  • Council had resolved on 16 June 2021 to initiate the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) as a pilot, which included the review of the Working Group Self-Assessment as one of the two areas of focus.
  • The CCOICI started the Working Group Self-Assessment assignment in October 2021, concluding in February 2022. However, the CCOICI deferred conducting the public comment until it could be combined with recommendations related to the GNSO Statement of Interest (SOI). The consolidated public comment proceeding on Proposed Updates to the GNSO Operating Procedures was conducted from 09 September - 14 November 2022, after which the CCOICI integrated public comments as appropriate and submitted its Recommendations Report to the Council on 5 January 2023.
  • Council will receive an update on both the CCOICI’s Working Group Self-Assessment Recommendations Report. In addition, an update will be provided on the work of the GNSO SOI Task Force (TF).
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements item #8 (Review of the Policy & Implementation recommendations)
  • GNSO Council established a PDP Improvements Tracker in order to provide an aggregated view of the various proposed improvements that have been identified from a number of different initiatives., which include:
    • Council Strategic Planning Session (SPS) Action Item – how to improve support for and follow up on policy recommendations post-Council adoption
    • Operational Design Phase
    • Modifying Consensus Policies
    • PDP 3.0 Parking Lot Items
    • Review of Policy & Implementation Recommendations
  • For item #8 (Review of the Policy & Implementation recommendations) and the agreed next step (“Staff support team to provide further detail on what a policy status report (PSR) would be expected to cover”), staff circulated a background note on a possible PSR on the Policy & Implementation Recommendations on 20 January 2023.

  • Council will discuss the background note and consider next steps.

• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Review Next Steps
  • After the approval of the Phase 1 Final Report of the GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP) on the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in All gTLDs in January 2021, the Council discussed the need to review the RPMs charter in advance of launching Phase 2 of the PDP.
  • Council determined that a Policy Status Report (PSR) should be requested from ICANN org to better understand if new issues or information has emerged that would be relevant to a comprehensive review of the policy.
  • ICANN org’s Global Domains and Strategy (GDS) team completed the draft PSR and published it for public comment on 3 March 2022; the revised PSR was shared with Council on 18 July 2022 and Council then received a briefing from GDS during the July meeting, at which Council delayed next steps based on a number of reasons, primarily though because of the amount of competing work. Council agreed during its November 2022 meeting that because of the launch of the Phase 1 RPMs Implementation Review Team (IRT), which would likely have overlapping community support with a Phase 2 PDP, that the delay for next steps should be tied to the completion or key milestones for the IRT.
  • Council will receive an update from the Council’s liaison to the RPMs IRT to better understand precise timing for delaying Phase 2 next steps.
• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 
  • 9.2 - Update on Closed Generics Facilitated Dialogue

Records of 16 Feb 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 16 Feb 2023 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 Feb 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Feb 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council confirmed Taiwo Peter Akinremi as a Fellowship Selection Committee member for six consecutive ICANN meetings, beginning with ICANN78.
• Council adopts the revised Charter for the Budget and Operations Townhall (formerly known as the GNSO Standing Committee on Budget and Operations (SCBO)).

2. Transfer Policy Review PDP

• Council approved the Transfer Policy Review PDP amended Charter and Project Change Request (PCR), which following recent developments, are designed to update the PDP WG's work plan to consolidate all work into a single phase and change the order in which topics are considered.

3. Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA)

• Council received an update on SubPro related discussions during the recent Jan 2023 Board workshop from the one of the GNSO appointees to the ICANN Board, Becky Burr (Matthew Shears was an apology).  As discussed in the Chair's blog, the ICANN Board spent a full day reviewing the SubPro Outputs and SubPro ODA.
• Becky indicated:
  • That the Board is expected to proceed with decision on many of the SubPro Outputs but mentioned that there were still a small number of questions/issues which the Board is looking to work through with Council and the GAC.
  • That one of the key question that the Board wishes to discuss with Council is on the issue of rounds - linked to Option 2 in the SubPro ODA which suggested "4 annual rounds" - particularly on how quickly we might be able to get to "a first-come-first-served" basis instead of rounds.
    • (Ed. I believe Becky meant "on a rolling basis" in context of SubPro Output 3.5.)
    • SubPro Output 3.5 says, "Absent extraordinary circumstances application procedures must take place at predictable, regularly occurring intervals without indeterminable periods of review unless the GNSO Council recommends pausing the program and such recommendation is approved by the Board. Such extraordinary circumstances must be subject to the Predictability Framework under Topic 2 of this Report. Unless and until other procedures are recommended by the GNSO Council and approved by the ICANN Board, ICANN must only use “rounds” to administer the New gTLD Program."
  • While the full list of issues is being finalized by the Board and will be shared with Council in the near future, and that a Board SubPro Caucus-Council meeting will be convened to discuss them, it includes auction proceeds and mostly, a handful of questions; also, the matter of GAC's role with regards to applications in the next round. 
  • With GAC, there is the matter of the GAC's expectation on how the Board would handle GAC Advice on applications, following guidance from the Independent Review Panels (IRPs) that came out of the last round; also a piece of advice which doesn't have a lot to do with SubPro but which the Board would have to defer action on until they have been worked through.  
  • However, there was nothing precluding an Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT) from being created as soon as the Board has voted on the bulk of the SubPro Outputs
• Council will consider whether this Board SubPro Caucus-Council meeting should include not only SubPro PDP WG co-chairs but also active members of that PDP WG.  

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding this Board SubPro Caucus-Council meeting arrangements.

4. Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)

• By way of background, the work of the CCOICI (a GNSO pilot) covers several areas of focus, including Updates to GNSO Operating Procedures; which covers (a) Working Group Self-Assessment (WGSA) and (b) GNSO Statement of Interest (GNSO SOI), which were part of the public comment proceeding on Proposed Updates to the GNSO Operating Procedures which ran from Sep-Nov 2022.
• Council received an update on both (a) and (b), and while the work on (a) WGSA has more or less concluded (where I can confirm that action has been taken to incorporate the ALAC's input in respect of the existing WGSA survey), the CCOICI is still grappling with public comments received on the GNSO SOI update. 
• The key issue with the GNSO SOI update revolves around transparency of ICANN PDPs, in particular the proposed allowance for a PDP WG member to claim confidentiality as the ground for not revealing the entity that stands to benefit from that member's participation (client-solicitor privilege was cited as an example for claiming such confidentiality). Council discussed this issue briefly and will revisit this issue at a future meeting when the CCOICI is ready to present its recommendation(s) on the GNSO SOI update.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding the GNSO SOI with ALAC

5. Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) 

• Council considered the need to review the GNSO Policy Development Process on the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs (RPMs PDP) charter in advance of launching Phase 2 of this RPMs PDP.
• Council had agreed during its Nov 2022 meeting that because of the launch of the Phase 1 RPMs Implementation Review Team (IRT), which would likely have overlapping community support with a Phase 2 PDP, that the delay for Phase 2 should be tied to the completion or key milestones for the IRT. Council concluded that completion of the Phase 1 RPMs IRT would be a sensible trigger for Phase 2 work.

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2023 held on 19 Jan 2023 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2023 held on 19 Jan 2023

Full Agenda  |  Motions  |  Documents

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)’s  Working Group Self-Assessment Recommendations Report
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Review Action Items From Strategic Planning Session
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Acknowledgment of Council Input on the SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) for the ICANN Board
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council Work Related to SubPro
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Transfer Policy Review PDP 
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 17 November 2022 were posted on 01 December 2022.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 15 December 2022 were posted on 03 January 2023.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Motion to confirm Osvado Novoa as GNSO Council Liaison to the Transfers Policy Review
  • Motion to nominate Arinola Akinyemi as a Mentor for the ICANN Fellowship Program
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)’s  Working Group Self-Assessment Recommendations Report
  • Council had resolved on 16 June 2021 to initiate the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) as a pilot, which included the review of the Working Group Self-Assessment as one of the two areas of focus.
  • The CCOICI started the Working Group Self-Assessment assignment in October 2021, concluding in February 2022. However, the CCOICI deferred conducting the public comment until it could be combined with recommendations related to the GNSO Statement of Interest (SOI). The consolidated public comment proceeding on Proposed Updates to the GNSO Operating Procedures was conducted from 09 September - 14 November 2022, after which the CCOICI integrated public comments as appropriate and submitted its Recommendations Report to the Council on 5 January 2023.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Acknowledgment of Council Input on the SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) for the ICANN Board
  • ICANN org published the SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) on 12 December and in advance of the publication of the ODA, Council received a briefing on 7 December. During Council’s December meeting, it agreed on the benefit of providing Council input on the ODA, if any, to the ICANN Board in support of the Board workshop taking place around 20 January.
  • Council established a small team to review the ODA in detail, concentrating on identifying areas of ICANN org analysis that may not be true to the intent of the SubPro Final Report, as well as developing impressions of Option 2 contained in the ODA.
  • Given the tight timelines, there will not be adequate time for the small team to provide draft input to Council by the document and motions deadline. Accordingly, the expectation is that the input, delivered on [date], shall be sent to the Board, but include the caveat that it was not formally adopted by Council.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council Work Related to SubPro

  • During Council’s Strategic Planning Session (SPS), a recurring theme emerged. Taking into consideration the possible timelines surrounding the implementation of the SubPro recommendations, especially if Option 2 or similar were to be pursued, Council should take care to ensure that any SubPro related work within its control should be carefully managed for timely delivery. The Council does not want its work to serve as an impediment to the timely implementation and launch of the next round of new gTLDs.

  • In order to address this recurring theme,, Council agreed that it would like to receive frequent updates on the work that is connected to the next round of new gTLDs. Presumably, those projects include:

    • IDNs EPDP Phase 1 (top-level charter questions)
    • GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
    • Closed Generics Facilitated Discussion
    • SubPro ODA Small Team
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Transfer Policy Review PDP 
  • Council initiated the two-phased Transfer Policy Review PDP in February 2021. Since it began meeting in May 2021, the WG has made steady progress on its Phase 1 charter questions, including publishing its Phase 1A Initial Report for public comment.  The WG conducted preliminary deliberations on Phase 1B topics during the Phase 1A Initial Report public comment period, then reviewed public comments on the Phase 1A Initial Report, and is now completing revisions to preliminary recommendations, taking into account public comment received. 
  • In the course of Phase 1 work conducted to date, the WG discovered that certain Phase 2 topics must be addressed before Phase 1 recommendations can be fully developed. As a result, the leadership team is preparing a Project Change Request (PCR) to update its work plan to consolidate all work into a single phase and change the order in which topics are considered. This will impact the timeline for key deliverables. In order to ensure that Council fully understands the potential changes prior to being asked to accept the PCR, the changes and potential implications will be shared with Council.
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.1 - ICANN76 Planning

Records of 19 Jan 2023 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. See both tabs on recording page)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 19 Jan 2023 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 Jan 2023 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Jan 2023 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council confirmed Osvado Novoa as GNSO Council Liaison to the Transfers Policy Review.
• Council approved the appointment of Arinola Akinyemi as a Mentor for the ICANN Fellowship Program.

2. Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA)

• Council's Small Team on SubPro ODA (in which I also participated) - which was tasked with reviewing the SubPro ODA in detail, concentrating on identifying areas of ICANN org analysis that may not be true to the intent of the SubPro Final Report, as well as developing impressions of Option 2 contained in that ODA - produced input which formed/resulted in the letter of 20 Jan from the GNSO Chair to the ICANN Board Chair.
• Essentially, Council is urging to the Board to approve the SubPro Outputs (i.e. the recommendations and implementation guidance that were approved by Council) and proceed swiftly with implementation. Despite some misgivings in the assumptions made by ICANN Org in producing the SubPro ODA, Council thinks that any outstanding implementation issues raised in the ODA by ICANN Org can be resolved during implementation in collaboration with the (to-be established) Subsequent Procedures Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT). 

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding the SubPro IRT with ALAC

3. GNSO Council Work related to Subsequent Procedures (SubPro)

• During Council's Strategic Planning Session (SPS) (in which I do not participate), it was concluded that Council should take care to ensure that any SubPro related work within its control should be carefully managed for timely delivery. The Council does not want its work to serve as an impediment to the timely implementation and launch of the next round of new gTLDs, In line with this, Council is to receive frequent updates on the work that is connected to the next round of new gTLDs, including: 
  • IDNs EPDP Phase 1 (top-level charter questions)
  • GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
  • Closed Generics Facilitated Discussion

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding the above processes with ALAC

4. Transfer Policy Review Policy Development Process (PDP)

• Work by this 2-phased PDP has been progressing steadily, with its Phase 1A Initial Report having undergone public comment and impending completion of revisions to preliminary recommendations from that Initial Report. 
• In the course of Phase 1 work conducted to date, the WG discovered that certain Phase 2 topics must be addressed before Phase 1 recommendations can be fully developed. As a result, Council has been alerted to an upcoming Project Change Request (PCR) to update its work plan to consolidate all work into a single phase and change the order in which topics are considered. This will impact the timeline for key deliverables.

5. Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)

• By way of background, the work of the CCOICI (a GNSO pilot) covers several areas of focus, mainly on:

(1) Work Stream 2 (WS2) recommendations, which has been dealt with by Council at its Dec 2022 meeting. (I drew fleeting attention to it but subsequently concluded this to be of no specific interest to ALAC and therefore did not report on it in more detail.)

(2) Updates to GNSO Operating Procedures; which includes (2a) Working Group Self-Assessment (WGSA) and (2b) GNSO Statement of Interest (GNSO SOI)

• The agenda item on the WGSA was deferred to Council's Feb 2023 meeting, but in the interim, I can confirm that action has been taken to incorporate the ALAC's input in respect of the existing WGSA survey.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and share updates regarding the GNSO SOI with ALAC

6. ICANN76 Planning

• I was informed that the ALAC-GNSO bilateral meeting at ICANN76 has to be displaced from the meeting schedule but that Council remains prepared to meet with ALAC virtually vide a pre-meeting call. 

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To seek input from ALAC Leadership on topics for ALAC-GNSO pre-ICANN76 bilateral call 

GNSO Council Meeting #12 of 2022 held on 15 Dec 2022 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #12 of 2022 held on 15 Dec 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adopting the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)’s Work Stream 2 (WS2) Recommendations Report 
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy Next Steps
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Debrief From Council-Specific SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) Webinar and Q&A
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Review Implementation Prioritization Supplemental Fund for Implementation of Community Recommendations (SFICR) Request - Council Role?
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 20 October 2022 were posted on 04 November 2022.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 17 November 2022 were posted on 01 December 2022.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Motion to approve GNSO Standing Selection Committee (SSC) Leadership for 2022-2023
  • Motion to confirm CCOICI Chair and GNSO Council representative to the WS2 Community Coordination Group
  • Acknowledgment of the GNSO Council liaison to the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) for Applicant Support
  • Acknowledgment of the Work Plan for the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) for Applicant Support
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adopting the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI)’s Work Stream 2 (WS2) Recommendations Report 
  • Motion to adopt the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) WS2 Recommendations Report
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy Next Steps
  • In July 2022, Council agreed that it would be helpful to check with the registrars and ICANN Compliance to help determine if there are any known issues or concerns with either of the two Expiration Policies which could warrant requesting a Policy Status Report (PSR).
  • A report from Contractual Compliance was shared with Council on 1 November 2022 and feedback from the registrars has been shared in the past on previous Council calls. 
  • Council received a briefing on the report from ICANN Compliance and the Council briefly considered potential next steps. One suggestion may be to task a Councilor member to review the report from Contractual Compliance in detail and determine if any of the issues raised warrant further work at present. That analysis will help inform the Council overall and allow the Council to formally record its determination as appropriate.
  • Council will consider appropriate next steps
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Debrief From Council-Specific SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) Webinar and Q&A
  • On 12 September 2021 the ICANN Board directed ICANN org to organize the resources required to begin work on the Operational Design Phase (ODP) for the GNSO’s New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Final Report and the Affirmations, Recommendations, and Implementation Guidance contained in that report.
  • On 20 December 2021, ICANN org announced that the SubPro ODP had formally launched, starting at the beginning of January 2022. The ODP Team has shared numerous updates to the community and sent several sets of assumptions/questions to the GNSO Council via the Council’s liaison to the ODP. 

  • ICANN org is expected to publish the SubPro Operational Design Assessment (ODA) on 12 December. In advance of publication of the ODA, Council will receive a briefing during a webinar on 7 December. While it is unlikely that there is adequate time for Councilors to have reviewed the ODA in detail, there may be initial impressions from council-specific webinar. ICANN org staff that supported the SubPro Operational Design Phase (ODP) will be available to answer questions and engage in dialogue.

  • Council will hold a debrief from the council-specific SubPro ODA webinar and engage with ICANN org staff that supported the ODP/ODA.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Review Implementation Prioritization Supplemental Fund for Implementation of Community Recommendations (SFICR) Request - Council Role?
  • On 16 November 2022, the Board resolved to approve, “the use of US$5,800,000 from the SFICR to fund implementation of community prioritized reviews.” Of note, the Board’s resolution is in direct relation to Specific Reviews (ATRT3, CCT, SSR2, RDS-WHOIS2). Nevertheless, the topics referenced in the recommendations may be of interest to Council. As an example, line item 9 in the prioritized set of recommendations is related to DNS abuse, a subject which is of relevance to the Council. While Council’s remit is specific to the development of gTLD policy development, a question was raised as to whether Council has a role or input, or should appropriately have a role or input, towards the implementation of Specific Review recommendations.
  • Council will consider if it has a role in the prioritization and implementation of Specific Review recommendations.
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 8.4 - Update on RPMs IRT timeline.
  • 8.5 - DNS abuse draft letters.

Records of 15 Dec 2022 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 15 Dec 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 Dec 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Dec 2022 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council approved the GNSO Standing Selection Committee (SSC) leadership team for 2022-2023: Arinola Akinyemi (BC) to remain for a second term as Chair, and Alan Woods (RySG) to serve as Vice Chair.
• Council confirmed Manju Chen (NCSG) as Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Chair and GNSO Council representative to the WS2 Community Coordination Group.
• Council approved Paul McGrady for the position of Liaison from the GNSO Council to the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) for Applicant Support (i.e. Applicant Support Working Group).
• Council approved the Work Plan for the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) for Applicant Support.

2. Debrief from Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Assessment (SubPro ODA)

• Councilors were encouraged to read the SubPro ODA, and to review the recordings for the ODA GNSO Council Specific Webinar (or transcript), and the Community Webinar #1 and Community Webinar #2.
• (sic) Council will rely on the Council Small Team comprising Anne Aikman-Scalese (NCA), Jeff Neuman (GNSO Liaison to SubPro ODP), Thomas Rickert (ISCP), Sebastien Ducos (RySG), Susan Payne (IPC) and Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to GNSO) to establish if there were questions or clarifications needed to be relayed to the ICANN Org SubPro Team; and likely comments to be relay to the ICANN Board. 

3. DNS Abuse Small Team

• Following the approval of the Small Team's report by Council on 17 Nov 2022, the Small Team's Leadership comprising Mark Datysgeld (BC) and Paul McGrady (NCA-Non CPH) worked with GNSO support staff to draft letters to the Contracted Parties, pursuant to recommendations #2 (bulk registrations), #3 (reporting of DNS Abuse), and #4 (action & enforcement) of its report.  (NB. #2 bulk registrations was based on ALAC's input)
• In particular, there are 2 letters - one regarding bulk registrations and the other regarding DNS Abuse Reporting / Action & Enforcement.
  
• Upon feedback from Kurt Pritz (RySG) that the term "bulk registrations" may require defining, I proposed that the first letter on bulk registrations be amended to include a request that the recipients include as context, a description of their respective bulk registration categorization and procedures.
• Otherwise, the draft letters appear to be in order. I also asked that Council be notified when these letters are sent out so that Council is kept aware of this exercise's progress.

4. Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy 

• Given earlier raised concerns about capacity, and the fact that no one/group has raised any serious concerns about the (1) Expiration Policies, the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and (2) Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP), which are dual policies around the renewal of domain registrations. As such, there continues to be reservations on the need for a Policy Status Report (PSR) to be undertaken for a review of the EDDP and ERRP.
• It was suggested that the issue of confusion mentioned in the report from Contractual Compliance could be something that could be adequately resolved between ICANN Contractual Compliance and the RrSG.
• In the end, it was suggested and decided that a small team comprising Greg DiBiase (RrSG), Susan Payne (IPC) and Nacho Amadoz (RySG) will work with ICANN org's Caitlin Tubergen to analyse the Contractual Compliance report then report back to Council afterwards on next steps (if any).

5. Review Implementation Prioritization Supplemental Fund for Implementation of Community Recommendations (SFICR) Request - Council's role?

• Doubts were expressed that Council had a specific role in the SFICR Request. Forty-five Board-approved recommendations that have been prioritized for USD 5.8mil SFICR funding will be implemented by the groups at which each of those recommendations are targeted. 

6. Rights Protection Mechanisms for All New gTLDs Implementation Review Team (RPMs IRT)

• Council did not discuss this at length; it was merely reported that this IRT has just commenced its work / meeting calls.

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2022 held on 17 Nov 2022 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2022 held on 17 Nov 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Adoption of Recommendation #3
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE - DNS Abuse Small Team Report
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Review Next Steps 
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy Next Steps
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) - Work Stream 2 (WS2)
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SPS planning
• Item 11: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 

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 21 September 2022 part 1 and part 2 were posted on 15 October 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 October 2022 were posted on 04 November 2022.

• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Acknowledgment of John McElwaine to serve as Council liaison to the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Implementation Review Team (IRT)
  • Acknowledgment of the Expedited PDP on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Project Change Request (PCR)
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Whois Disclosure System (WDS) Next Steps
  • The proposed design of the WDS was published prior to ICANN75 and ICANN org provided a presentation of the system design to the EPDP Phase 2 small team during ICANN75. Subsequently, the small team and Council held initial discussions amongst themselves, as well as with the Board.
  • The small team has continued to meet to determine whether
    • 1) does the WDS align with the expectations as set out in the small team’s preliminary report,
    • 2) will implementation of the WDS deliver the information to help inform Council-Board consultations on the cost-benefit of the SSAD recommendations,
    • 3) does the small team recommend to the GNSO Council that it requests the ICANN Board to proceed with the implementation of the WDS.
  • Since Council's October meeting, the small team completed the addendum to the preliminary report, which was circulated on 7 November 2022 for the Council’s review. 
  • Council will vote on a motion to adopt the addendum to the report from the small team on the Whois Disclosure System.  (voting threshold: simple majority)
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team - Adoption of Recommendation #3
  • The RDA Scoping Team was initiated by Council in July 2021, and tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors such as the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts. These considerations are to help inform the team’s deliberations and development of recommendations 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 has completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022. In the write up, the group is suggesting 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). Council will need to consider the proper timing for identifying a new Chair for this effort, given the resignation of the previous Chair.
  • Council had at its October meeting discussed whether to approve recommendations #1 and #2 put forward by the Scoping Team (e.g., registrar survey and/or registrar audit) or instead, to defer consideration of recommendations #1 and #2, pending resolution of recommendation #3 (pausing the work on proposals that require access to registration data until there is clarity from ICANN org on if/how it anticipates the requesting and processing of registration data to be undertaken in the context of measuring accuracy). 
  • Council will vote on a motion on how to proceed with recommendations of the RDA Scoping Team.  (voting threshold: simple majority)
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE - DNS Abuse Small Team Report
  • At ICANN72, Council agreed to establish a small team to consider and recommend next steps for Council related to DNS abuse, if any. An assignment form was drafted and the team held its first meeting 9 February 2022.
  • The team performed outreach to interested community groups to better understand what DNS abuse related issues need to be addressed specifically via gTLD policy development. The outreach targeted members and respective SG/Cs, also ALAC, GAC, SSAC, and the DNS Abuse Institute, from which input was received and considered.
  • The team then arrived at a set of 4 recommendations by thinking of DNS abuse as taking place in phases (e.g., malicious domain registration/domain being compromised, DNS abuse being reported, action being taken by a well-positioned party). These phases helped the small team to better understand which elements are best addressed via policy development versus another mechanism. To that end, the small team has concluded that improvements in DNS abuse mitigation can be sought via three buckets: through education / communication / outreach, through contractual negotiations, and/or policy development
  • The small team delivered its report to Council on 10 October 2022 and the report was discussed during the October Council meeting.
  • Council will vote on a motion to accept recommendations #2 (bulk registrations), #3 (reporting of DNS Abuse), and #4 (action & enforcement) as contained in the report. Council will also vote to commit to considering the requested actions under recommendation #1 (malicious registrations), after assessing the impact from recommendations #2, #3, and #4.  (voting threshold: simple majority)
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Review Next Steps
  • On 21 January 2021, Council approved the recommendations from the Phase 1 Final Report of the GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP) on the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in All gTLDs, covering RPMs applicable to gTLDs launched under the 2012 New gTLD Program. Council discussed the need to review the RPMs charter in advance of launching Phase 2 of the PDP, which is focused on the UDRP. 
  • Council discussed the best path forward and determined that a Policy Status Report (PSR) should be requested to understand if new issues or information have emerged that could be relevant to a comprehensive policy review. After discussions between Council and ICANN org's Global Domains & Strategy (GDS) team on the scope and purpose of the PSR, GDS completed the draft PSR and published it for public comment on 3 March 2022; the revised PSR was shared with Council on 18 July 2022 and Council then received a briefing from GDS during the July meeting.

  • Based on discussion during that meeting, there seemed to be support from a number of Councilors to delay next steps for various reasons, including the considerable amount of existing Council work competing for attention.

  • Council will consider appropriate next steps for the review of the UDRP, which could include delaying work currently and identifying a triggering mechanism to recommence the work in the future.

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy Next Steps
  • In October 2020, Council considered when to request a Policy Status Report (PSR) to conduct a review of the (1) Expiration Policies, the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and (2) Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP). Given concerns about capacity, along with the general perception that no known issues have presented themselves, Council agreed in November 2020 to delay the request for the PSR that had been identified as requiring consideration; the deferral was for a period of 24 months, necessitating consideration in November 2022.
  • In July 2022, the Council agreed that it would be helpful to check with the registrars and ICANN Compliance to help determine if there are any known issues or concerns with either of the two Expiration Policies which could warrant requesting a PSR. A report from Contractual Compliance was shared with Council on 1 November 2022 and feedback from the registrars has been shared in the past on previous Council calls. 
  • Council will receive a briefing on the report from ICANN Compliance and time permitting, consider potential next steps.
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) - Work Stream 2 (WS2)
  • Council received a brief update on WS2 from ICANN org during its September 2021 meeting and received a more detailed update in February 2022, to better understand the level of progress it has already made via already completed work (e.g., the development of guidelines and templates to support the GNSO as a Decisional Participant in the Empowered Community) and the limited set of remaining WS2 tasks.
  • Council then considered the best path forward to complete the remaining work and agreed to extend the CCOICI pilot to include the WS2 work. The CCOICI has now completed this assignment and shared its WS2 Recommendations Report on 4 November 2022.
  • Council will receive an update on the report, in advance of a potential vote on the report in December 2022.
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SPS planning
• Item 11: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 

Records of 17 Nov 2022 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 17 Nov 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 Nov 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Nov 2022 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council acknowledged John McElwaine as the GNSO Council Liaison to the RPMs IRT.

2. Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (part of Consent Agenda also)

• Council approved the EPDP's Project Change Request (PCR) wherein the EPDP sought:
  • To facilitate the implementation planning of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures by bifurcating its work into two phases, with Phase 1 covering topics related to top-level IDN gTLD definition and variant management, and Phase 2 covering issues pertaining to second-level IDN variant management, and
  • Due to the diversity and complexity of IDN issues, additional data collection needs, review of ICANN org input for draft recommendations, and public comment-related processes, a 31-month extension to the original project plan, with projection of the following key milestone dates:
    • Publish Phase 1 Initial Report for Public Comment by April 2023
    • Submit Phase 1 Final Report to the GNSO Council by November 2023
    • Publish Phase 2 Initial Report for Public Comment by April 2025
    • Submit Phase 2 Final Report to the GNSO Council by November 2025
• Action Item: Policy support staff to update the IDNs-EPDP Team’s project plan, timeline, and other materials according to the Project Change Request (PCR), and post them on the EPDP wiki project space.

3. Whois Disclosure System (WDS) Next Steps / EPDP Phase 2

• Council accepted the EPDP Phase 2 small team findings and recommendations as outlined in the small team's addendum.
• Council also confirmed that pending the implementation and subsequent running of the WDS for a period of up to two (2) years, the SSAD recommendations should remain paused for consideration by the ICANN Board.
• Council thanks the EPDP Phase 2 small team for its work and requests it to remain available to continue work on this topic as part of the next steps in this process which aims to inform the further consideration of the SSAD recommendations by the ICANN Board.

4.  Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team 

     In relation to the Scoping Team's write up which recommended:

1) pausing the work in relation to proposals that require access to registration data,
2) encouraging ICANN org to proceed with their outreach to the EDPB as well as the Data Protection Impact Assessment in connection with the scenario(s) in which the request and processing of registration data takes place as a matter of urgency, and
3) requesting that ICANN org and Contracted Parties finalize the negotiations on the Data Processing Agreement (DPA) as soon as practicable as the absence of a completed DPA may act as a roadblock for policy work before Council

• Council adopted recommendation #3
• Council deferred consideration of recommendations #1 and #2 until such time the DPA negotiations between ICANN org and Contracted Parties have completed and there is feedback from ICANN org on if/how it anticipates the requesting and processing of registration data will be undertaken in the context of measuring accuracy, or for six months, whichever is the shorter
• Once the DPA negotiations are completed and the feedback referred to at paragraph 2 is received from ICANN org, Council will review the formation and instructions to the Scoping Team to ensure these are still fit for purpose and request the Scoping Team to further consider potential proposals that require access to registration data as well as how these impact the existing recommendations #1 and #2 (e.g. should these still be considered by Council for adoption, or in the context of proposals that require access to registration data these may no longer be relevant or a priority?). If, after 6 months from this resolution, the DPA negotiations are not completed and/or the required feedback referred to at paragraph 2 has not been provided by ICANN org, Council will discuss and determine whether or not to continue deferring the consideration of recommendations #1 and #2.
• Action Items:
  • Council leadership will reach out informally to Scoping Team members to better understand the issues encountered to help inform the Council’s review of the formation and instructions, taking into account the delay with which the write up was delivered, as well as some of the challenges that were shared with the Scoping Team’s Chair during his briefing to the Council, 
  • Council leadership to send a communication to ICANN org in relation to recommendation #3 (as well as Contracted Parties in relation to the DPA) as well as communicateCouncil’s decision to non-GNSO groups participating in this effort (ALAC, GAC and SSAC) as well as the Scoping Team.
  • Action As part of its review of the formation and instructions to the Scoping Team, Council will consider next steps for finding new leadership for this effort.
  • Council to revisit status in May or June 2023.
• Council thanks Michael Palage, outgoing Chair, and Olga Cavalli, outgoing Council liaison, for their efforts. 

5. DNS Abuse Small Team Report

    In relation to the small team's report, containing 4 recommendations, delivered to Council on 10 October, which in summary are:           

1) Recommendation #1 re Malicious Registrations: After the community has been able to process the community outreach and other suggestions made in this report, if further tools are considered necessary, the small
team recommends that Council considers requesting the development of a Preliminary Issue Report on the topic of malicious registrations,
2) Recommendation #2 re Bulk Registrations: The small team recommends that Council requests RrSG and others (for example, ICANN org, the RySG and the DNSAI) to further explore the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary,
3) Recommendation #3 re DNS Abuse Reporting: With an eye towards outreach, the small team recommends that Council encourages continued discussion between Contracted Parties and DNS Abuse reporters/potential reporters with the goal of further fine-tuning and promoting existing tools and initiatives, and/or those under development, to further work towards easier, better and actionable reporting of DNS Abuse. Take into consideration additional pipelines that might be helpful, and
4) Recommendation #4 re Action & Enforcement: The small team recommends that Council reaches out, via a letter, to the RrSG and RySG to share the findings of the small team and requests feedback on how these
potential gaps can be best addressed. This letter should request that Contracted Parties initiate work on the “Suggested Standards” document in consultation with ICANN Compliance.  Based on the feedback received to this letter, Council will determine next steps, but at a minimum, Council would expect to be kept up to date on any further work that would be undertaken by Contracted Parties in consultation with ICANN Compliance.

• Council accepts the recommendations as outlined in the report and requests that the leadership of the small team works with Council leadership on developing the respective communications as foreseen under recommendations #2, #3 and #4.
• In relation to recommendation #1, Council commits to considering requesting the development of a Preliminary Issue Report on the topic of malicious registrations after the outreach and communication as foreseen under recommendations #2, #3 and #4 have taken place and Council has had an opportunity to consider the progress made from efforts related to that outreach. If Council determines that a Preliminary Issue Report is needed, it must be undertaken in a way that avoids overlap and/or duplication of efforts.
• Council thanks the small team for its efforts, as well as the community groups that contributed to it.
• Action Item: Leadership of the small team to work with Council leadership on developing the respective communications as foreseen under recommendations #2, #3 and #4 in the report

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and report to ALAC as needed.

6. Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) (Phase 2 of Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all New gTLDs)

• After Phase 1 of the RPMs PDP (i.e. review of the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS)) was completed in January 2021, Phase 2 (i.e. review of the UDRP) was deferred for a number of reasons, including need to redraft its charter, need to prioritise other work so as not to overwhelm the community with more work, Council once again revisited the options on what to do with this review of the UDRP which are:

1) Go forward with the review with a to-be-redrafted charter, or
2) Defer the work for a set period of time (eg 12 or 18 months) or until triggered (eg by completion of Phase 1 RPMs IRT's work which would then free up community and staff resources), or
3) Terminate the RPMs PDP (requiring a super-majority vote) (which effect is thought to be equivalent to a long deferral & re-chartering since all policies needs to be reviewed repeated and periodically).

• There was some support for option 2 in deferring 12-18 months and also the possibility of constituting an 'expert group' to alleviate pressure on the community, and to recharter the PDP to reflect reliance on such a smaller group. No formal decision taken.
• Action Item: Staff to request from ICANN GDS staff an estimate as to the duration of the RPMs Phase 1 implementation.  Once that is received John McElwaine to send to the Council list the options – deferral for either for 18 months or until the IRT is complete.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and report to ALAC as needed.

7. Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy 

• At Council's request, Contractual Compliance presented on their report to Council of 1 November 2022. Noting that the general perception that no known issues have presented themselves, and that a request for a Policy Status Report (PSR) has already be deferred for 2 years (from November 2020 to November 2022).
• There were suggestions that (1) registrars could be tasked with better handling the ambiguity mentioned as between resellers-registrants on the role of registrars/resellers, and (2) to examine the need for clear policy to address the ambiguity in order to safeguard registrant interests. No formal decision taken.
• Based on (2), Action Item:  Council leadership to form a small team to review information provided by ICANN Compliance in view of deciding next steps which could include 1) concluding that no acute issues are present and no Policy Status Report is needed, and that the two policies will be added to the “end” of the pipeline for consideration at a future date, or 2) concluding that there is reason enough to request a PSR to obtain further information on the basis of which the Council can decide whether additional work in the form of policy development or implementation guidance is necessary.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and report to ALAC as needed.

8. Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvements (CCOICI) - Work Stream 2 (WS2)

• Council is looking at adopting WS2 Recommendations Report received on 4 November 2022 in its December meeting.

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2022 held on 20 Oct 2022 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2022 held on 20 Oct 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Assignments #1 (Enforcement and Reporting) and #2 (Measurement of Accuracy) Write Up
• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Discussion of GAC’s request for additional members in Applicant Support GGP Working Group
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team Report 
• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE - Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SPS planning
• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS 

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 25 August 2022 were posted on 07 September 2022.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 21 September 2022 part 1 and part 2 were posted on 15 October 2022.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda

  • Approval of the updated standard term for the GNSO liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC).

  • Reappointment of Jeffrey Neuman to serve as the GNSO liaison to the GAC for a two-year term ending AGM 2024.

  • Confirmation of Greg DiBiase, GNSO Council Vice-Chair as the GNSO representative to the Empowered Community Administration.

  • Confirmation of Mike Silber to serve as the Chair of the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support.

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System Next Steps
  • The proposed design of the Whois Disclosure System was published prior to ICANN75 and ICANN org provided a presentation of the system design to the EPDP Phase 2 small team during ICANN75. Subsequently, the small team and Council held initial discussions amongst themselves, as well as with the Board during their joint session on Tuesday. The Council discussed during its meeting on Wednesday and the small team met informally on Thursday of ICANN75.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Assignments #1 (Enforcement and Reporting) and #2 (Measurement of Accuracy) Write Up
  • The RDA Scoping Team submitted a Project Change Request (PCR) to Council on 10 May 2022. The Scoping Team has since completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022. In the write up, the group is suggesting 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).
  • As has been communicated previously, Michael Palage will be confirming his resignation as Chair of this group to the Council. The Council will need to consider the proper timing for identifying a new Chair for this effort.
  • Council will discuss how to proceed.
• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Discussion of GAC’s request for additional members in Applicant Support GGP Working Group

  • On 25 August 2022, the GNSO Council voted to initiate a GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support. Shortly thereafter, GNSO support staff sent messages to the SO/AC/SG/Cs, inviting them to identify Members for the Working Group, following the Working Group composition described in the initiation request.

  • In the GAC’s ICANN75 Kuala Lumpur Communique, the GAC communicated that its desire for the Council to, “allow broader participation from interested GAC participants, as well as other members of the community, beyond the single member per Advisory Committee presently envisioned by the call for volunteers communicated to the GAC.” The GAC also sent correspondence to the GNSO Council, requesting that membership be expanded from a single member to two (2) members and two (2) alternates from the GAC.

  • Council has noted that it has intentionally kept the membership narrow in order to better ensure an efficient and effective outcome. In that regard, the Council has noted that beyond the Working Group membership, external subject matter expertise can be pursued.

  • Council will discuss the GAC’s request and seek to agree on the appropriate outcome.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team Report 
  • At ICANN72, the GNSO Council agreed to establish a small team to consider and recommend next steps for the Council related to DNS abuse, if any. An assignment form was drafted and the team held its first meeting 9 February 2022. The team performed outreach to interested community groups (ALAC, GAC, SSAC, the DNS Abuse Institute, SG/Cs) to better understand what DNS abuse related issues need to be addressed specifically via gTLD policy development.

  • The small team carefully considered all input received and has reached agreement on a set of 4 recommendations, by thinking of DNS abuse as taking place in phases (e.g., malicious domain registration/domain being compromised, DNS abuse being reported, action being taken by a well-positioned party). These phases helped the small team to better understand which elements are best addressed via policy development versus another mechanism. To that end, the small team has concluded that improvements in DNS abuse mitigation can be sought via three buckets: through education / communication / outreach, through contractual negotiations, and/or policy development.

  • The small team delivered its report to Council on 10 October 2022. Council will receive a briefing on the report and consider next steps.

• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE - Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
  • The EPDP Team has been meeting weekly and making progress against its charter, but the complexity of the subject matter and the charter questions, as well as the implications on the New gTLD Program processes and other ICANN policies and procedures (and thus, the need to adequately understand all of these elements) has challenged agreed upon timelines in the work plan. The EPDP Team is anticipating submitting a Project Change Request (PCR) in November, but the Chair and the EPDP believes that it is important for the Council to understand the need for a project plan update, what is changing, and the implications of those changes, prior to being asked to make a decision on the PCR.
  • Council will be provided with an update on the EPDP on IDNs and an overview of the expected PCR.

Records of 20 Oct 2022 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 Oct 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 Oct 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Oct 2022 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Approval of the updated standard term for the GNSO liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC).

• Reappointment of Jeffrey Neuman to serve as the GNSO liaison to the GAC for a two-year term ending AGM 2024.

• Confirmation of Greg DiBiase, GNSO Council Vice-Chair as the GNSO representative to the Empowered Community Administration.

• Confirmation of Mike Silber to serve as the Chair of the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support.

2. Whois Disclosure System (WDS) Next Steps

• Council received an update on the EPDP Phase 2 small team's progress post its preliminary report, that it is considering 3 remaining questions:-
  1. Does the Whois Disclosure System align with the expectations as set out in the small team’s preliminary report,
  2. Will implementation of the Whois Disclosure System deliver the information to help inform Council-Board consultations on the cost-benefit of the SSAD recommendations,
  3. Does the small team recommend to the GNSO Council that it requests the ICANN Board to proceed with the implementation of the Whois Disclosure System.
• Council can expect recommendation(s) from the small team for Council's Nov 2022 meeting.
• In the mean time, Council will decide subsequently how it wishes to convey its decision on the WDS to the Board. 

3. Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team

• Council is supportive to pause next steps on the Registration Data Accuracy pending more information from the European Data Protection Board, and when DPA is executed between ICANN and contracted parties, then reassess the assignment and see if anything needs to be modified, and then go forward for a new chair. Council  retains concerns that we should not lose sight of the need to complete the relevant work.
• Council also thought it prudent to proceed with identifying a new Chair for the Scoping Team in the mean time.

4. Applicant Support GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) Working Group

• Council weighed the GAC's request to allow broader participation from interested GAC participants beyond the single member per Advisory Committee per Council's resolution to initiate the GPP, and appeared to be in favour of GAC - and every other group - having an alternate also, if they so choose, provided that the alternate would not be counted in any consensus call.
• GNSO Council leadership team will inform the GAC leadership team of the Council’s decision with respect to the GAC’s request for additional members, specifically, to revise the membership to allow each group to designate an alternate member; as well as to notify the SGs, SOs, and ACs of the change in membership structure.

5. Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names

• Council received notice of a Project Change Request (PCR) to amend the EPDP's Project Plan. Essentially, a number of underlying factors have made it necessary for the project plan to be amended significantly but the leadership of the EPDP have made concerted effort to re-organise the EPDP's work in a conservative manner.
• The impact suggested in the pending PCR is to split the EPDP's work into 2 phases, which would result in 2 initial reports and 2 final reports (one each for TL and SL charter questions), and a significant extension of the timeline for concluding the EPDP's work. 
• Council is to confirm whether the suggested path is acceptable when the PCR is submitted for Council's Nov 2022 meeting. 

6. DNS Abuse Small Team

• The Small Team on DNS Abuse's report and 4 recommendations remains as discussed at ICANN75.
• Some Councilors sought clarity on next steps for recommendations #1, #2, #3 to which the answer was specific approaches had yet to be ascertained at this point and that more data was needed for that.  The Small Team was essentially seeking support for the Small Team to regroup to draft the letter to Contracted Parties (CP) for such a purpose, and asking CPs how best to address the gaps identified in the RA (namely, in Spec 11 3(b) and RAA (namely, in s. 3.18.1) which is the subject of recommendation #4.
• Council is expecting a motion to consider how to proceed on the report and recommendations.

ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Session during ICANN75 on 21 Sep 2022

The ALAC and the GNSO Council will meet during ICANN 75 to discuss two issues of mutual interest.

Draft Agenda:

1. Introduction and Housekeeping - Staff 
2. Welcome - Maureen Hilyard, ALAC Chair and Sebastien Ducos, Incoming GNSO Chair) (remote) 
3. Introduction to Topics - Justine Chew (ALAC Liaison to the GNSO)

a. DNS Abuse 
- Update by GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse Co-Chairs Mark Datysgeld & Paul McGrady 
- Open discussion

b. Operational Design Phase (ODP) 
- Observations and open discussion on the ODP concept based on experiences with the SSAD ODP and SubPro ODP (composition, effectiveness, challenges, improvements etc) 

4. Closing remarks - Justine Chew 

For notes, click on SUMMARY tab above

Records of Bilateral Session at ICANN75 on 21 Sep 2022

• Zoom Webinar Archive
• English audio archive
• Archive audio en français
• Archivo de audio en español

ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Session during ICANN75 on 21 Sep 2022

Re: DNS Abuse Mitigation

• GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse acknowledged and thanked ALAC for input/response to the Small Team's limited outreach exercise; in particular the ALAC's comment regarding consideration of DNS abuse preventive measures, specifically on the possible use of predictive analysis for purpose of identifying and halting abusive DN registrations and promotion of Know-Your-Customer (KYC) as good general practice for Contracted Parties, especially in relation to bulk registrations.
• At this point the Small Team's draft report and recommendations are still subject to GNSO Council's consideration/decision (at its Oct 2022 meeting), in brief, the Council Small Team have structured inputs received through the outreach exercise to identify potential mitigation steps across 5 phases of the DNS abuse life cycles, being:
  • Phase 0 - measures to help CPs identify DNS abuse earlier or even prevent a malicious registration
  • Phase 1 - ensuring harmed parties know how AND to whom a complaint should be reported
  • Phase 2 - report should be well-formed and actionable
  • Phase 3 - well-positioned party (CPs, but could also be web-host, website owner/operator, etc) takes action
  • Phase 4 - enforcement by ICANN compliance, where best positioned party is a CP
• As for the draft recommendations, these are: (with important context contained in the draft report):
  • DNS Abuse targeted by Small Team is as what has been generally adopted by CPs in order to progress work on combating abuse and not to be bogged down by re-defining DNS Abuse.
  • 3 buckets of 'Policy', 'Outreach', 'Contractual Negotiation' are not mutually exclusive and nothing prevents the pursuit of an issue via more than one path, but still all potential in nature.
  • Recommendation #1 - Malicious Registrations (Phase: 0,3,4; Bucket: potentially, tightly focused policy development)
    After the community has been able to process the community outreach and other suggestions made in this report, if further tools are considered necessary, the small team recommends that the Council  considers requesting the development of a Preliminary Issue Report on the topic of malicious registrations. The objective is to prepare the ground for tightly scoped policy development that would consider malicious registrations used for the distribution of malware, phishing or the operation of Botnet command and control systems. The goal of the tightly scoped policy would be to explore whether it is possible to identify indicators of malicious registrations that would trigger actions from Contracted Parties either at the time of registration or shortly after. Any policy development is expected to anticipate that the theme of malicious registrations may not be as clear cut in practice. As such, care must be taken that any proposed measures are balanced and proportional.
  • Recommendation #2 - Bulk Registrations (based on ALAC's submission) (Phase: 0; Bucket: community outreach)
    The small team recommends that the GNSO Council requests the Registrar Stakeholder Group and others (for example, ICANN org and the DNSAI) to further explore the role that bulk registrations play in DNS Abuse as well as measures that Registrars may have already put in place to address this vector. Based on the feedback received, the GNSO Council will consider whether further action on bulk registrations is deemed necessary.
  • Recommendation #3 - DNS Abuse Reporting (Phase: 1,2; Bucket: community outreach)
    With an eye towards outreach, the small team recommends that the Council encourages continued discussion between Contracted Parties and DNS Abuse reporters/potential reporters with the goal of further fine-tuning and promoting existing tools and initiatives, and/or those under development, to further work towards easier, better and actionable reporting of DNS Abuse. Take into consideration additional pipelines that might be helpful.
  • Recommendation #4 - Action & Enforcement (Phase: 3,4; Bucket: community outreach, contract negotiation)
    The small team recommends that the Council reaches out to the RrSG and RySG to share the findings of the small team and requests feedback on how these potential gaps can be best addressed. In addition, this letter should request that Contracted Parties initiate work on the “Suggested Standards” document , in consultation with ICANN Compliance. Based on the feedback received to this letter, the Council will determine next steps, but at a minimum, the Council would expect to be kept up to date on any further work that would be undertaken by Contracted Parties in consultation with ICANN Compliance.
• ALAC/At-Large comments: Must acknowledge that DNS Abuse landscape could and probably would evolve over time, so must ensure definition of "DNS Abuse" can still evolve.

Re: Operational Design Phase (ODP) Concept

• Preliminary GNSO Council discussion appears to reveal an early general opinion that while the ODP has been useful in practice - specifically the SubPro ODP but less so with the SSAD ODP - but that much of the work undertaken during the ODP should be done much earlier, either during the policy development process (PDP), or very shortly after the PDP. This could potentially be achieved by having ICANN org's Global & Domain Strategy send a liaison to each PDPs or WGs to provide input, on a rolling basis, on feasibility, costs etc.
• It is opined that the SSAD ODP presented more weaknesses and offered less consultation, than the SubPro ODP.

GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2022 held on 21 Sep 2022 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Records

GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2022 held on 21 Sep 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions - None 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda - None
• Item 4: COUNCIL UPDATE - Update From Public Technical Identifiers
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Assignments #1 (Enforcement and Reporting) and #2 (Measurement of Accuracy) Write Up & Process for Finding a New Chair
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Proposed updates to the GNSO Operating Procedures - Working Group Self-Assessment & GNSO Statement of Interest Procedures
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements Tracker - Review of Format
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from the UASG
• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 21 July 2022 were posted on 05 August 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 25 August 2022 were posted on 07 September 2022.

• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team - Assignments #1 (Enforcement and Reporting) and #2 (Measurement of Accuracy) Write Up & Process for Finding a New Chair
  • The Scoping Team, initiated in July 2021, was tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors such as the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts. These considerations are expected to help inform its deliberations and the development of recommendations 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 has since completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to the Council on 5 September 2022 where the group is suggesting moving forward with 2 proposals that would not require access to registration data, namely a registrar survey and a possible registrar audit that may help further inform the team’s work on Assignment #3 (effectiveness) and Assignment #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.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements Tracker - Review of Format
  • During the ICANN73 wrap up, the Council discussed a number of parallel conversations that have emerged since implementing PDP 3.0, identifying other aspects of the PDP where improvements could be considered. In addition, there are a number of projects on the Council’s Action Decision Radar (ADR) related to PDP improvements which will need to be addressed at some point in the future.
  • Following a staff discussion paper, a draft of the PDP Improvements Tracker was reviewed during a series of Council meetings.
  • Thereafter, a survey is being done to obtain initial input from Council members as well as SG/C leadership that will help inform the substantive review of the proposed improvements and next steps.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Whois Disclosure System
  • The proposed design of the Whois Disclosure System will have been published prior to ICANN75 and will be presented on Saturday of ICANN75, and the small team and Council will have had an initial discussion during the session immediately following the ICANN Org presentation in order to review the proposed design and consider next steps.
  • Council will seek to distill and discuss the conversations with ICANN org, the small team, GAC, and the Board and determine next steps.
• Item 10: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

  • 10.1 – Confirmation of approach for term limits for the GNSO liaison to the GAC

  • 10.2 – Update - Potential changes to the Standing Committee for ICANN Budget & Operations (SCBO) 

  • 10.3 – Farewell to outgoing Councilors (Flip Petillion, Juan Manuel Rojas, Maxim Alzoba, Olga Cavalli, Philippe Fouquart) 

Under Council Wrap-up on 22 Sep 2022

• 3/Item 8. Whois Disclosure System - Discuss potential next steps, which will be dependent on small team discussion

• 7/Item 6: GNSO Council Standing Committee on ICANN Budget & Operating Plan (SCBO) - potential evolution

• 8/Item 7: PDP Improvements - Confirm next steps, to review all recommendations in detail during a dedicated call/ webinar

Records of 21 September 2022 Meeting at ICANN75

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2022 held on 25 Aug 2022 

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

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2022 held on 25 Aug 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Commitments Document
• Item 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Preparation for Joint Meetings at ICANN75
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements Tracker - Review of Format 
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Revised Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Policy Status Report (PSR)
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 15 June 2022 were posted on 01 July 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 21 July 2022 were posted on 05 August 2022.

• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
  • Approval of the 2022 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Slate, the full membership of which must be approved by the GNSO Council, in accordance with Section 17.2 (d) of the ICANN Bylaw and per the CSC Charter. The ALAC Liaison nominated for the term 2021-2023 is Holly Raiche.
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
  • In the course of Council's consideration of the ICANN Org SubPro ODP Team's work in February 2022 - and although specifically about the topic of Applicant Support at that point - broader procedural concerns arose about whether the level of substantive work receommended by SubPro to be conducted by an IRT, would be beyond the commonly understood scope of the IRT.
  • Council agreed to explore finding avenues to complete that level of substantive work in advance of the expected IRT that would be convened upon ICANN Board adoption of the SubPro Outputs. The potential model to address this work is the GNSO Guidance Process. ICANN org staff worked with Jeff Neuman and Council leadership to prepare a draft GGP Initiation request, which was shared on Council list on 4 May 2022.
  • The potential GGP was discussed further during the Council’s June meeting, with general agreement it should be limited to the singular topic of Applicant Support. There was however discussion that additional topics should be able to be added to the existing GGP, at the discretion of the Council.
  • The updated GGP, with Applicant Support as the only topic, was shared with the Council on 13 July 2022. 
  • The vote was deferred and after additional discussion, the Council agreed that more time was needed to refine the Initiation Request, especially the membership structure; the overall sentiment seemed to be that membership structure needed to be reduced both in terms of complexity and number of members. A new version that seeks to address these concerns was circulated on 12 August 2022. In brief, this new version proposes:
    • A (smaller) Working Group employing a “Representative + Observers” model, to conduct and conclude its work, and oversight activities, in an efficient/effective manner while allowing for inclusive community participation. GNSO Council retains oversight, as with any GNSO WG.
    • Each AC/SG, ASO and ccNSO may appoint 1 Member to the WG, who are expected to represent the view of their appointing organization and may be called on to provide the official position of their appointing organization and will be responsible for participating in GGP consensus calls. Appointing organizations may replace their Member at their discretion.
    • Members must either possess a level of expertise in previous deliberations and/or knowledge that may have been lacking during those initial deliberations.
    • The WG has the flexibility/discretion to rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in specific fields to aid in deliberations for certain tasks, but these SMEs will not be considered as Members of the WG.
    • The GNSO Liaison to the ODP may serve as an non-voting member of the WG to advise on issues discussed within the SubPro PDP.
  • Council will discuss and vote on this new proposed version of the GGP on Applicant Support, which to be carried requires a Voting threshold of an affirmative vote of more than one-third (1/3) of each House or more than two-thirds (2/3) of one House)

• • • The resolved portion of the motion to be voted on reads, 

1. The GNSO Council approves the GNSO Guidance Process Initiation Request and initiates the GGP.
2. The GNSO Council directs staff to:

a. communicate the results of this motion to the GNSO SG/Cs as well as ICANN SO/ACs and invite them to identify Members for the Steering Group following the Steering Group composition described in the initiation request;
b. communicate the results of this motion to the ICANN Org GDS Team and invite them to identify at least one (1) staff liaison for the Steering Group; and
c. launch a call for expressions of interest seeking interested candidates to Chair the Steering Group.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor 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 6. COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Preparation for Joint Meetings at ICANN75
  • The GNSO Council is scheduled to meet with the ICANN Board, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), and the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) during the course of ICANN75. Council is to review the topics proposed by each of these groups, as follows:
    • Board: “What collaborative actions should the Community, Board and Org be undertaking to further progress achieving our strategic priorities?”
    • ALAC: (1) The GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse's work; and (2) The terms of reference for the proposed pilot Holistic Review, being a recommendation of the ATRT3.
    • GAC: (1) SSAD Light; (2) Subsequent Rounds of New gTLDs; (3) DNS Abuse; (4) Accuracy.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To confirm/amend proposed topics for joint meeting with ALAC.

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Revised Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Policy Status Report (PSR)
  • Council had, in January 2021, approved the recommendations in the Phase 1 Final Report of the GNSO PDP on RPMs (which was limited to the review of the URS which is applicable only to new gTLDs).o
  • Subsequently and more recently, Council has discussed the need to review the RPMs charter in advance of launching Phase 2 of the PDP, which is focused on the UDRP. This led Council to request a Policy Status Report (PSR) to help inform next steps.
  • ICANN org’s Global Domains & Strategy (GDS) team has since completed the draft PSR and published it for public comment on 3 March 2022. The revised PSR (redline) was shared with the Council on 18 July. 
  • Council will be briefed by GDS on updates made based on public comments received.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor and report to ALAC as needed.

• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.1 – Update on action items related to the Policy Status Report (PSR) for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy
  • 9.3 – Closed Generics facilitated dialogue - Proposed approach for identifying the GNSO members

Records of 25 Aug 2022 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 25 Aug 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 Aug 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Aug 2022 Meeting Records.

1. GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support 

• GNSO Council resolved unanimously to initiate the GGP using a "Representative + Observers" WG model. Each SG/C/AC will be invited to nominate their respective single representative. The GGP will start its work on the Applicant Support Program first, with the possibility of adding down the line, such topics which were identified in the SubPro Outputs as requiring further work.
• The "Representative + Observers" WG model was selected because it allows participation from beyond GNSO's SG/C to include ACs (in particular, ALAC and GAC who have significant interest in the topic). The limitation of one representative per group is to keep the WG not only representative but sufficiently small to perform efficiently. 
• An invitation will be issued to all SG/C/ACs soon to nominate their respective representatives who should meet given criteria.  A call for EOI to chair the WG will also be made separately.

2. Preparation for ALAC-GNSO Joint Meeting at ICANN75 

• Two topics had been earlier proposed: (1) The works of the Council's Small Team on DNS Abuse; and (2) Pilot Holistic Review Terms of Reference.
• I was subsequently requested to withdraw Topic (2) which I did and proposed that it be replaced with a brief open discussion on observations to the SubPro ODP/ODA.
• GNSO Councilors seem to prefer that the new Topic 2 be generalized on the ODP concept as opposed to specifically on the SubPro ODP/ODA.

3. Closed Generics Dialogue between GAC-GNSO-ALAC

• We were informed that this Dialogue will likely not commence during ICANN 75.

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2022 held on 21 Jul 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Policy Status Report for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy - Next Steps
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements Tracker - Review of Format 
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Commitments Document 
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 19 May 2022 were posted on 03 June 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 15 June 2022 were posted on 01 July 2022

• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
  • Confirmation of the Recommendations Report to the ICANN Board regarding adoption of recommendations 1-5 contained in the Final Report from the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs. 
    
    • The resolved portion of the motion to be voted on reads, "The GNSO Council approves the Recommendations Report and instructs the GNSO Secretariat to transmit the report to the ICANN Board and communicate the outcomes from the GNSO Council’s decisions as appropriate."
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support
  • In the course of Council's consideration of the ICANN Org SubPro ODP Team's work in February 2022 - and although specifically about the topic of Applicant Support at that point - broader procedural concerns arose about whether the level of substantive work receommended by SubPro to be conducted by an IRT, would be beyond the commonly understood scope of the IRT.
  • Council agreed to explore finding avenues to complete that level of substantive work in advance of the expected IRT that would be convened upon ICANN Board adoption of the SubPro Outputs. The potential model to address this work is the GNSO Guidance Process. ICANN org staff worked with Jeff Neuman and Council leadership to prepare a draft GGP Initiation request, which was shared on Council list on 4 May 2022.
  • The potential GGP was discussed further during the Council’s June meeting, with general agreement it should be limited to the singular topic of Applicant Support. There was however discussion that additional topics should be able to be added to the existing GGP, at the discretion of the Council.
  • The updated GGP, with Applicant Support as the only topic, was shared with the Council on 13 July 2022.
  • Council to discuss and vote on the initiation of the GNSO Guidance Process on Applicant Support, which to be carried requires a Voting threshold of an affirmative vote of more than one-third (1/3) of each House or more than two-thirds (2/3) of one House)

• • • The resolved portion of the motion to be voted on reads, 

1. The GNSO Council approves the GNSO Guidance Process Initiation Request and initiates the GGP.
2. The GNSO Council directs staff to:

a. communicate the results of this motion to the GNSO SG/Cs as well as ICANN SO/ACs and invite them to identify Members for the Steering Group following the Steering Group composition described in the initiation request;
b. communicate the results of this motion to the ICANN Org GDS Team and invite them to identify at least one (1) staff liaison for the Steering Group; and
c. launch a call for expressions of interest seeking interested candidates to Chair the Steering Group.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To monitor 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 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Policy Status Report for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy - Next Steps
  • During the Council’s meeting in November 2020, it voted to approve a deferral for the request of a Policy Status Report (PSR) for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP). The EDDP defines a uniform delete practice that registrars must follow at the time of domain name expiry, as well as specific requirements for registrar handling of expired names that are subject to a UDRP dispute. The ERRP sets minimum renewal notification requirements for registrars before and after domain names expire, as well as certain requirements for renewal and restoration of expired domain names. In taking this action, the Council was careful to note that it recognized the importance of the PSR for these two expiration related Consensus Policies, but did not see the PSR as urgent at that time. After approximately 1.5 years, the potential PSR has again risen to the 0-1 month range of the Action Decision Radar.
  • Council must consider again whether a PSR is necessary and if it is timely to request a PSR from ICANN org’s Global Domains and Strategy (GDS) function. Council could consider interim steps prior to determining whether a full PSR is needed, such as reviewing ICANN Compliance data and/or requesting an update on expiration related complaints from ICANN Compliance, to help determine if there are known issues with either of the two policies.
  • Council to discuss appropriate next steps for the potential PSR for the EDDP and ERRP.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To review for direct relevant to end-user (registrants), and to inform if need arises for a role for ALAC/At-Large in any resulting process. 
    
    
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - PDP Improvements Tracker - Review of Format
  • During the ICANN73 wrap up, the Council discussed a number of parallel conversations that have emerged since implementing PDP 3.0, identifying other aspects of the PDP where improvements could be considered. Council 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. A draft of the PDP Improvements Tracker was prepared and discussed during the Council’s June meeting. While substantive review of the items in the tracker will take place in the near future, this agenda item is to help ensure that the format of the tracker meets the needs of the Council; a series of six questions are included in the PDP Improvements Tracker for consideration by the Council, to help make that determination.
  • Council will continue its review of the proposed format of the GNSO PDP Improvements tracker

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To review for direct relevant to At-Large, and to inform if need arises for a role for ALAC/At-Large in any resulting process. Answer: No. 

• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 8.1 – Last call for input on the Council’s response to SubPro Question Set #4

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • Participated in the Council Small Team on SubPro Questions Set #4

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

• • 8.2 – ICANN75 Planning

Action by ALAC Liaison

• • To establish if there is a need for an ALAC-GNSO Bilateral Meeting at ICANN75 

Records of 21 Jul 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Zoom Chat
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 21 Jul 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 Jul 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Jul 2022 Meeting Records.

1. GNSO Guidance Process (GGP) on Applicant Support 

• Council discussed the draft GGP Initiation Request to establish a GGP to start with Applicant Support using a Steering Committee (of a representative+observer model) with ultimate oversight by Council, given that it received a proposed amendment to the said GPP from Kurt Pritz (RySG), primarily regarding the composition of the Steering Committee.
• Discussion revealed some support for a smaller Steering Committee (or Small Team) which does not require strict representation from GNSO SGs/Cs but may also invite participation from beyond GNSO (ALAC and GAC who have significant interest in the topic) and still call upon any required expertise referred to in the SubPro Outputs. 
• Council deferred voting on the submitted motion to its Aug meeting to allow opportunity to rework the GPP Initiation Request to take into account points from the discussion.

2. Policy Status Report for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy 

• Council agree to pursue a light approach to a request for the Policy Status Report (PSR) for the Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) and the Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP), by first requesting for ICANN Compliance data and/or requesting an update on expiration related complaints from ICANN Compliance, and feedback from the RrSG on the EDDP and ERRP, to help determine if there are known issues with either of the two policies.
• These 2 policies affect registrants, so, further understanding is needed on whether At-Large's involvement is needed and if so, in what form.

3. SubPro ODP

• Council received the ICANN org SubPro ODP Team's question set #5

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).

GNSO Council Meeting #5 of 2022 held on 19 May 2022 

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 - Adoption of the Revised Charter for the Standing Selection Committee 
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Final Report and Recommendations From the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs 
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO PDP Improvements - Tracking and Coordination Discussion Paper
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Impact of SSAD Light on Other Work
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro ODP Update 
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro GGP
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team Update
• Item 11: Any other business
  • 11.2 SOAC Chairs Roundtable Update
  • 11.3 ICANN74 Planning

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 09 March 2022 were posted on 24 March 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 14 April 2022 were posted on 29 April 2022.

• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Final Report and Recommendations From the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs 
  • Council will consider and vote on the motion (put by GNSO Council liaison to the EPDP, John McElwaine) to adopt the EPDP Team’s Final Report of 4 April 2022.
  • Council voting threshold: Supermajority (per GNSO Operating Procedures)
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO PDP Improvements - Tracking and Coordination Discussion Paper
  • Council will discuss a staff support team-developed discussion paper aimed at improving PDP tracking and coordination, which;
    • provides an overview of the different initiatives and projects,
    • suggests a possible approach for managing these different initiatives by focusing on 1) which elements could be implemented with relatively minimal effort, 2) which elements could be implemented with some effort, 3) which elements need careful planning and consideration before these can be implemented.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Impact of SSAD Light on Other Work
  • Council had met with the ICANN Board on 8 March during ICANN73, just prior to the March Council meeting and discussed the ODA and the efforts of the Council small team set up to review the ODA in detail.
  • The small team delivered its preliminary report to Council on 4 April 2022.

  • As part of the small team’s consultations with ICANN org, the org provided an SSAD Light Design Concept overview, guided by the proof of concept contained in the preliminary report. The paper anticipates a six week effort to produce the SSAD Light Design Concept paper. Notably, the resources needed to produce that document are responsible for other areas of work and developing the document will delay the timelines for each of the following projects/initiatives by 1.5 months:

    • SubPro ODP
    • CZDS 3.0
    • EBERO Program and DEA improvements
  • While ICANN org resources are directed by the ICANN Board, Council may want to provide input to the Board if there are concerns about the impact to these projects.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro ODP Update
  • Council will receive an update from the liaison and discuss next steps.
  • Question set #4 and SubPro Topic Assumptions was shared with Council by its liaison to the ODP just prior to this meeting.
  • Question set #3 had been informed to Council on 11 April 2022.
• Item 9: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro GGP
  • The ICANN org SubPro ODP team had shared question set #2 with Council’s liaison to the ODP on 11 February 2022,  While question set #2 was specifically about the topic of Applicant Support, it introduced broader procedural concerns, about whether the level of substantive work recommended by SubPro to be conducted by an IRT, would be beyond the commonly understood scope of the IRT.
  • Council agreed that it should explore finding avenues to complete that level of substantive work in advance of the expected IRT that would be convened upon ICANN Board adoption of the SubPro Outputs. The potential model to address this work is the GNSO Guidance Process (GGP).
  • Council will discuss the draft 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 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team Update
  • Council will receive an update on the progress of the Scoping Team.
  • Scoping Team Chair - Michael Palage has submitted a Project Change Request (PCR) for Council's consideration; the PCR seeks to extend the timeline of the Scoping Team's work in order to deliver the write up for assignments #1 and #2 at the latest shortly after ICANN74. The write up for assignments #1 and #2 may include recommendations for further work to be undertaken to gather data to help inform the group’s deliberations on assignments #3 and #4. This work is expected to focus on data gathering that does not involve access to registration data as further clarity on that aspect is being pursued separately. If the Council supports these recommendations, this work could continue.
• Item 11: Any other business
  • 11.2 SOAC Chairs Roundtable Update
  • 11.3 ICANN74 Planning

Records of 19 May 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Zoom Chat
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 19 May 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 May 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council May 2022 Meeting Records.

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

• Council was meant to consider and vote on a motion to approve the recommendations in the Final Report but eventually resolved to defer the vote to Council's June 2022 meeting to allow the RrSG time for further consideration prior to the vote.

NB. Yrjo Lansipuro and I had presented on the substance of the Final Report to CPWG on 23 Mar, and Yrjo has provided updates re its consensus designation thereafter.

2. Impact of SSAD Light on other work

• Council noted that ICANN org resources were likely being directed by the ICANN Board towards designing SSAD Light, and considered concerns on the impact of this on other ongoing work, including the Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Phase. 
• Council discussed the concerns but did not arrive at a clear conclusion; Council opined that the Board would not do anything until ICANN 74 at the earliest. 

3. SubPro ODP

• The ICANN org SubPro ODP team had shared question set #4 and SubPro Topic Assumptions with Council’s liaison to the ODP who notified Council of the same on 19 May 2022 just before Councils' meet. So, Council is to consider this further through its usual process.

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

• GNSO support staff had prepared a draft SubPro GPP Initiation Request for Council's consideration. If approved, it would be the first GPP ever. Key points to note for the proposed GGP:
  • A GGP does not require a separate charter. Things like scope, working mechanism, and method of operation should all be contained in the initiation request.
  • The draft contains a concept of Group 1 versus Group 2 topics. Group 1 is where the SubPro Final Report specifically called out substantive work that it envisioned would be completed during the Implementation Review Team phase. Group 2 will be topics that are identified by the ODP Team, where they are able to determine that additional guidance is needed to support the presumed eventual implementation. The specifics for Group 2 are currently to be determined, as we await input from the ODP Team.
  • Relevant Outputs from the SubPro Final Report are reproduced, with Tasks identified or TBD. These tasks are envisioned as the specific scope of work for the GGP. Per the previous bullet, the tasks for Group 2 are still TBD.
  • The suggested working model for this group is proposed as a representative steering group, which can do the work itself, but it can also delegate the work to sub-teams where it is evident that the work is best performed by those with specific expertise in a certain field.
• Council did not come to a decision on the draft initiation request.

5. Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team

• Michael Palage, Chair of this Scoping Team reported that it was informed that the Board had requested ICANN org to submit a list of questions to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to gain some insight on 4 different scenarios and for org to do a data privacy impact assessment in connection with one of those scenarios. This was to to better prepare ICANN for onward engagement with the EDPB. All stakeholders in the Scoping Team were to consult their groups on the scenario(s).
• Michael had also submitted a Project Change Request (PCR) for Council's consideration; the PCR sought to:
  • extend the timeline of the Scoping Team's work in order to deliver the write up for assignments #1 and #2 at the latest shortly after ICANN74. The write up for assignments #1 and #2 may include recommendations for further work to be undertaken to gather data to help inform the group’s deliberations on assignments #3 and #4. This work is expected to focus on data gathering that does not involve access to registration data as further clarity on that aspect is being pursued separately.
• No objection was raised to the PCR.

6. ICANN74 planning

• There will not be an ALAC-GNSO Council bilateral session at ICANN74; due to brevity in length of ICANN74 and associated challenges of insufficient resources (suitable time, room and staff support). Instead, a meeting to progress any intersessional work between the 2 groups may be called if needed.

GNSO Council Meeting #4 of 2022 held on 14 Apr 2022 

Full Agenda   

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda - None
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Small Team Reviewing the System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Assessment Preliminary Draft Report
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Overview of the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protection for IGOs Final Report
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team Update
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Closed Generics Small Team Update
• Item 8: Any other business
  • 8.1: ICANN74 update and planning
  • 8.2: Council expertise survey reminder

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 17 February 2022 were posted on 07 March 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 09 March 2022 were posted on 24 March 2022 .

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Small Team Reviewing the System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Assessment Preliminary Draft Report
  • The small team delivered its preliminary report to Council on 4 April 2022.
  • Council will discuss the small team’s preliminary report and discuss next steps, including providing an update to the ICANN Board on the status of work and expected timing
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Overview of the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protection for IGOs Final Report
  • This EPDP Team reached full consensus on its five recommendations and delivered its Final Report on 4 April 2022

  • Council will receive an overview of the five recommendations contained in the EPDP Team’s Final Report.  Presentation

  • While the Council will not be voting on the Final Report during this meeting, a draft motion was also shared on 4 April 2022, which continues a recent practice of the Council reviewing and discussing PDP/EPDP final reports in detail prior to voting on them, generally at the subsequent meeting.

• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team Update

  • Council sent outreach letters to the ALAC, GAC, SSAC, and the DNS Abuse Institute, with input due on 4 April 2022 (after an extension was granted).

  • The small team has worked to more precisely understand its work, developing and discussing a draft work plan. The work is broken into several phases, starting with the aforementioned outreach to the community, understanding the current landscape of DNS abuse, considering which elements of DNS abuse appear inadequately mitigated AND are in scope for GNSO policy making (if any), then making recommendations on next steps to the Council.

  • The small team will provide an update on its efforts and explain expected next steps.  

Action by ALAC Liaison

• To ensure ALAC input is understood by DNS Abuse Small Team.

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

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Closed Generics Small Team Update
  • 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.” ICANN org's draft Framing Paper to support the potential collaboration between the GNSO and the GAC followed so after.
  • Council established a small team to consider both the letter and framework, to determine next steps, relying on an assignment form to help 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). All of the more substantive steps, both to  determine the parameters and modalities for a potential GNSO/GAC joint group, as well as seeking to establish a framework for closed generics, are out of scope for this small team.
  • Council will received an update on the small team's work.

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. 

Records of 14 Apr 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Zoom Chat
• Transcript
• Minutes 

Special Summary Report of 14 Apr 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 Apr 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Apr 2022 Meeting Records.

1. SSAD ODA

• Council SSAD ODA small team lead Sebastien Ducos spoke to the small team's preliminary report and essentially asked Council for support to provide ICANN Board with an update (in response to concerns as to the SSAD's financial sustainability) and to pursue further work on the recommended "proof of concept" referred to in the said report.

NB. Alan Greenberg has presented on the preliminary report to CPWG on 6 Apr.   

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

• Council received a presentation of the 5 recommendations from this EPDP's Chair, Chris Disspain, which he noted as having had full consensus within the EPDP (ALAC included). As per normal practice, Council will only vote on a motion to the recommendations at Council's May 2022 meeting (i.e. the meeting following which a motion on a final report is submitted).

NB. Yrjo Lansipuro and I had presented on the substance of the Final Report to CPWG on 23 Mar, and Yrjo has provided updates re its consensus designation thereafter.

3. DNS Abuse

• Council DNS Abuse small team co-lead Mark Datysgeld spoke to the team's draft work plan comprising several phases, starting with outreach to the community, to understand the current landscape of DNS abuse, considering which elements of DNS abuse appear inadequately mitigated AND are in scope for GNSO policy making (if any), and ultimately to make recommendations on next steps to the Council.
• Small team has received initial inputs from ALAC, GAC, SSAC and DNSAI; followed by BC, and is currently awaiting submissions from other SG/Cs.

NB. In other words, there is nowhere near any concrete output yet.

4. Closed Generics

• To be clear, the GNSO Council Small Team on Closed Generics wasn't charged with substantive content-specific tasks, but instead it had only been charged with recommending whether GNSO should accept the Board's invitation to dialogue with the GAC. Also, there were remarks on the unrepresentative nature of the small team even though it was open to any councilor to volunteer for.
• The small team has had one meeting so far, which was spent attempting to resolve NCSG's objection to the Board-proposed GNSO-GAC Dialogue mechanism based on several grounds, inter alia - 
• unconventional and not provided for within GNSO processes or the ICANN Bylaws, 
• sets precedent for opening settled PDP for re-litigation, 
• gives GAC undue influence over Closed Generics (or any matter under the remit of GNSO per the Bylaws).
• Council discussed NCSG's objection and informally resolved to ask the small team to continue its work, on the assumption that Council will accept the Board's invitation to dialogue with GAC and specifically, in particular on how Council should approach the dialogue.

NB. Do note that (a) GAC has accepted the Board's invitation to dialogue with GNSO and Manal's letter to Maarten of 10 Mar 2022 clearly welcomed ALAC's participation in a consultation process on Closed Generics; (b) Philippe had also suggested that the small team may wish to consider the feasibility of ALAC's participation in the dialogue.

5. ICANN74 planning

• I raised the question whether there might be an ALAC-GNSO Council bilateral at ICANN74; due to brevity in length of ICANN74 and associated challenges of insufficient resources (suitable time, room and staff support) it is now thought that a meeting between the Leaderships of ALAC and GNSO Council would be a better approach to continue any intersessional work between the 2 groups.

ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Session during ICANN73 on 9 Mar 2022

The ALAC and the GNSO resumes the practice of having a bilateral session during ICANN meetings and which now involves the full GNSO Council.  At ICANN73, the conversation will commence on four pre-identified topics and which are expected to progress into intersessional exchanges and/or bilateral session at future ICANN meetings.

Presentation

Agenda:

1. Introduction and housekeeping - Staff (2 min)
2. Welcome - Maureen Hilyard, Philippe Fouquart (1 min) 
3. Overview of session - Justine Chew (2 min)
4. Conversation Topics
   1. System for Standardized Access/Disclosure Operational Design Assessment (SSAD ODA) (5 min intervention by Sebastien Ducos)
   2. Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Phase (SubPro ODP) (10 min intervention by Jeff Neuman)
   3. DNS Abuse Mitigation (5 min intervention by Mark Datysgeld & Paul McGrady)
   4. Priorities for 2022 
      1. GNSO priorities - Philippe Fouquart, Sebastien Ducos & Tomslin Samme-Nlar (10 min intervention)
      2. ALAC/At-Large approach to member/volunteer engagement and expectations - Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Alan Greenberg & Roberto Gaetano (10 min intervention)
5. Discussion (15 min)
6. Closing remarks - Justine Chew 

For notes on highlighted items click on SUMMARY tab above

Records of Bilateral Session at ICANN73 on 9 Mar 2022

• Audio Archive Download
• Zoom Webinar Archive
• English audio archive
• Archive audio en français
• Archivo de audio en español
• Meeting Notes

ALAC-GNSO Council Bilateral Session during ICANN73 on 9 Mar 2022

• Topic 1 (4a): System for Standardized Access/Disclosure Operational Design Assessment (SSAD ODA) 
  • ALAC: How does Council intend to proceed with its recommendations on the SSAD given the concerns raised by the ICANN Board, which also reflect concerns contained in the ALAC's Statement of 24 Aug 2020?
    
  • GNSO Council SSAD ODA Small Team:
    • Noted that community has raised that the SSAD ODA does not provide all the answers in considering SSAD recommendations for implementation.
    • SSAD is a big project, there are questions on the financial sustainability, usage, etc. Possibility of a pilot in order to test a few hypotheses.
    • Still early days for GNSO and small team to review. Small team will go back to the GNSO Council and then to the Board. 
• Topic 2 (4b): Subsequent Procedures Operational Design Phase (SubPro ODP)
  • ALAC: Could Council provide an update on the SubPro ODP process, including questions being discussed with the ICANN Org SubPro ODP Team? What is Council doing within the ODP process to address known issues for the next round?
  • GNSO Council Liaison to SubPro ODP: 
    • ICANN Org is responsible for implementation of SubPro Outputs (i.e. affirmations, recommendations, implementation guidance). ICANN Org SubPro ODP team is led by the Global Domains and Strategy department.
    • Noted that two sets of questions have been received from SubPro ODP team
    • GNSO submitted answers to the first set and are working through the second set. GNSO Council discussed set #2 questions over two meetings: recognition that there is much work to be done still regardless of whether the work is classified as policy or implementation. GNSO Council is exploring if some of the work can be done now. 
• Topic 3 (4c): DNS Abuse Mitigation
  • ALAC: Has Council arrived at any next steps regarding DNS Abuse? How would Council take on board inputs/efforts from other parts of the ICANN Community on such next steps? Would Council be able to share an indication of its plan and timeline for such next steps?
    
  • GNSO Council DNS Abuse Small Team: 
    • GNSO council has sent outreach forms to the community (including ALAC). with responses expected by end of March.
    • No agreement reached yet on definition(s) of DNS Abuse; looking for community input to arrive at aspects that can be addressed by policy/policy development so that a more complete policy action can be scoped towards something attainable.
    • Will regroup at the end of March, they will have a meeting. 
• Topic 4 (4d): Priorities for 2022
  • i. GNSO: SSAD, SubPro, DNS Abuse, IDNs, IGO, and Scoping Team on Data Accuracy
  • ii. ALAC: Member Engagement - implementation of recommendations from (a) the ALS Mobilization Working Party Final Report, and (b) the Unaffiliated Individual Members Mobilization Working Party Final Report

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large

• Item 1: Administrative Matters

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 January 2022 were posted on 03 February 2022.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 17 February 2022 were posted on 07 March 2022.

• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Reappointment of Becky Burr to seat 13 on the ICANN Board. The CPH has reappointed Becky Burr for Seat 13 on the ICANN Board of Directors. This agenda item is intended to acknowledge the selection and confirm that the notification process as outlined in Section 7.25 of the ICANN Bylaws will be completed subsequently.
  • Motion to extend the GNSO Framework for Continuous Improvement Pilot Project by adding implementation of specific WS2 items.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Small Team Reviewing the System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Assessment / Debrief From Meeting With the ICANN Board
  • Council will receive an update on the status of the small team set up to review the ODA in detail, focusing on:
    • Whether the ODA has correctly interpreted the intent of the SSAD recommendations in the proposed implementation;
    • Whether the ODA has overlooked any key aspects of the SSAD recommendations that should be factored in by the ICANN Board when it considers the recommendations;
    • Its view on the concerns identified by the ICANN Board and potential options that could be considered, either in the form of changes to the proposed implementation or the policy recommendations themselves, to address these concerns(note, these are expected to be high level suggestions at this stage);
    • Any other aspects that help inform the Council’s deliberations and consultation with the ICANN Board.
  • Council will also hold a debrief from the 08 March meeting with the ICANN Board.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the SubPro ODP / Debrief From Meeting With the ICANN Board
  • Council will receive an update from the liaison, as well as hold a debrief from the meeting with the ICANN Board
    • Potential GNSO-GAC dialogue on way forward for Closed Generics suggested to be kept separate to Additional SubPro Work.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - DNS Abuse Small Team
  • Council will receive an update from the small team on its efforts
    • Outreach has been made first to ALAC, GAC, SSAC and DNS Abuse Institute to obtain input on what DNS abuse issues are best mitigated via policy development specifically, if any, as a mechanism to help determine the Council’s next steps on DNS abuse.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• To ensure ALAC is notified of outreach by Council / DNS Abuse Small Team.

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

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Dialogue With ICANN’s Global Domains and Strategy (GDS) Department
  • Council will receive a high-level update on GNSO-related work being performed by GDS, as well as look ahead to work on the horizon, including the impact on resources. The dialogue is also expected to include discussion on how the shared portfolio of work can be executed more effectively and efficiently.

Under Council Wrap-up

• Item 2 / 8: PDP 3.1/PDP 4.0: improving engagement with the Board; improving engagement with GDS; modifying Consensus Policies - pulling the threads together

Action by ALAC Liaison

• To review in due course draft discussion paper prepared by staff to highlight specific areas, and assess for impact to ALAC/At-Large (if any) 

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

• Item 3: Additional SubPro Work

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. 

Records of 9 and 10 Mar 2022 Meetings at ICANN73

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2022 held on 17 Feb 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions  

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Pilot 
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on GNSO Council Implementation of Workstream 2 (WS2)
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - ICANN73 Planning
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps for Strategic Planning Session Action Items
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 16 December 2021 were posted on 03 January 2022.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 20 January 2022 were posted on 03 February 2022.
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) Pilot 
  • Council will receive an update on the CCOICI and consider any potential next steps Slide deck
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on GNSO Council Implementation of Workstream 2 (WS2)
  • Council will receive and discuss an update on the GNSO Council’s Implementation of WS2 by ICANN org staff Slide deck
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - ICANN73 Planning
  • With ICANN73 approaching, the GNSO Council will discuss its upcoming meetings, which includes a public Council meeting, a wrap-up meeting, and several bilateral meetings. The Council will first receive a brief update from GNSO Support staff, then proceed to prepare for its discussions with the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), the ICANN Board, and the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC).
    • GAC - Anticipated topics are likely to include the Operational Design Phase (ODP) for the System for Systemized Access/Disclosure (SSAD, DNS abuse, and the ODP for New gTLD Subsequent Procedures (SubPro).
      
    • ICANN Board - The GNSO Council will have suggested topic(s) by 17 February, The Board has suggested the following topics:
      • What are your key priorities for ICANN work in 2022, how do these priorities help achieve ICANN’s common objectives as expressed in the FY 2021-2025 Strategic Plan, and how do you see Community, Board and org moving forward together on a way to achieve these?
      • If any, what suggestions would you have to enhance ICANN’s effectiveness and efficiency with regards to the process of implementation after adoption of a PDP or Review recommendations?
    • ALAC - Anticipated topics are the ODP on the SSAD, ODP on SubPro, DNS abuse, and modifying consensus policy. Full list of topics submitted by ALAC
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 8.1 – EPDP Phase 2 small team update
  • 8.2 – DNS abuse small team update
  • 8.3 – SubPro ODP Update - 14 Feb update. (SubPro ODP Timeline) 
  • 8.4 - GNSO Chair 2022 Election Timeline
  • 8.5 - GNSO council Representative WS2 Community Coordination Group - Olga Cavalli

Records of 17 Feb 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Zoom Chat
• Transcript
• Resolutions 
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 17 Feb 2022 Meeting to ALT-PLUS

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. You can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Feb 2022 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Feb 2022 Meeting Records

ALAC-GNSO Counciil Bilateral at ICANN73

• The final list and text that were submitted for consideration by Council are found here, namely:
• (1) SSAD ODA; 
• (2) SubPro ODP; 
• (3) DNS Abuse Mitigation; and 
• (4) GNSO Priorities - Work Stream 2, impact of GDS Paper on Modifying gTLD Consensus Policies
• While Council Members did not specifically react to our submission, Council Chair noted that there is significant overlap between the issues raised by the ALAC and the GAC - i.e. SSAD ODA, DNS Abuse next steps, and SubPro ODP, and invited councilors to provide comments post meeting for the separate Prep calls with the ALAC, GAC (and the Board), respectively.

(1) SSAD ODA 

• GNSO Council small team has had 2 calls, with limited progress to report (Council small team lead is Sebastien Ducos)
• So far have focused on the remit of the small team - answering Board's letter to Council vs. in-depth analysis of the SSAD ODA vs. possible outcomes
• Small team resolved to come up with a list of clarifying questions for ICANN org by next week

(2) SubPro ODP

• Latest update by GNSO Liaison Jeff Neuman is available: 14 Feb update. (SubPro ODP Timeline) 
• To note especially is ICANN SubPro ODP Team's questions regarding SubPro recommendations on a dedicated IRT for Applicant Support 
• Context: Apart from the more general IRT for SubPro following (any) Board approval of the SubPro Outputs (which in turn is now only expected after the SubPro ODP is concluded), SubPro PDP WG had recommended for a dedicated IRT for Applicant Support with requisite skill sets relating to program grant-type work 
• While ICANN SubPro ODP Team doesn't have an issue with such a dedicated IRT, it appears that such a dedicated IRT is being tasked with non-regular implementation work which likely involves or encroaches into policy-making, so, in effect empowering this dedicated IRT with policy-development functions normally held exclusively by GNSO
• Jeff suggests that if Council believes there is policy development is involved then it may be useful for Council to initiate work by community in this area specifically without waiting for Board's decision on the SubPro Output as a whole and overcoming the delay of starting work which needs to happen anyway  
• It is for Council to determine whether it makes sense to convene a special community group to include GAC and ALAC (but not a PDP) to do the required work
• There will be a SubPro ODP Team update during ICANN73 to present updated assumptions based on work done so far

(3) DNS Abuse Next Steps

• GNSO Council small team had initial call last week (Council small team co-leads are Mark Datysgeld and Paul McGrady)
• Small team resolved to recommend outreach by Council to groups most interested in topic i.e. ALAC, GAC, SSAC, DNS Abuse Institute to ask for help in defining what they think are the problems that need to be solved, in particular to identify issues which could be solved by policy development, and to bring those back to Council

So, ALAC can expect to receive a request/letter from Council on this in due course and we might want to set up our own ALAC/CPWG small team to develop a response

(4) GNSO Priorities

• Just to note that councilors have been asked to consider a staff-generated approach for GNSO Council Implementation of Workstream 2 (WS2)

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2022 held on 20 Jan 2022

Full Agenda  |  Motions  

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda - None
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Recurring Update on the SubPro ODP
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Phase, Next Steps and Preparation for Consultation with the ICANN Board
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps for Strategic Planning Session Action Items
• Item 7: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 18 November 2021 were posted on 03 December 2021.
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Recurring Update on the SubPro ODP

  • Council will receive and discuss an update on SubPro ODP, having had notice of:

    • a 12 September 2021 ICANN Board direction that ICANN CEO organize resources to begin the SubPro ODP off the GNSO’s New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Final Report and the Affirmations, Recommendations, and Implementation Guidance contained in that report;
    • a 20 December 2021 announcement by ICANN Org;
    • ICANN org having provided a set of preliminary questions for consideration by the liaison and Council;
    • a 18 November 2021 request by the GNSO Chair on input to the liaison's proposed responses to said questions, with an extended deadline of 13 January 2022
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Phase, Next Steps and Preparation for Consultation with the ICANN Board
  • Council to reflect on previous meetings on the SSAD ODP and any potential next steps, taking into account the following:
    • GNSO Council Recommendation Report to the ICANN Board off the EPDP on TempSpec EPDP Phase 2 Final Report,
    • a 20 December 2021 discussion with the SSAD ODP Project Team focusing on the SSAD Cost Model information (the recorded part of call),
    • a 4 January 2022 summary paper,
    • (Ed) a 12 January 2022 follow up discussion call; 
    • a 18 January 2022 general webinar on the SSAD ODP; and
    • Presentation slide deck
  • Council is to meet with the ICANN Board on 27 January as the next step in its consultation related to concerns around financial sustainability of the SSAD.
• Item 7: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 7.1 - Update on ICANN73 planning: ICANN73 GNSO Draft schedule
  • 7.5 - Update from Small team on Modifying Consensus Policies (18 Jan 2022 draft draft letter)

Action by ALAC Liaison

• 7.1 - To liaise with ALAC Leadership and Council Leadership on format and topics for a joint GNSO Council meeting with ALAC at ICANN73 (and future meetings)

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

Records of 20 Jan 2022 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Zoom Chat
• Transcript
• Resolutions - N/A
• Minutes

GNSO Council Meeting #12 of 2021 held on 16 Dec 2021

Full Agenda  |  Motions  

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Phase and Next Steps
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the SubPro ODP
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council ODP Input Review Process
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - ICANN73 Planning and Evolving Council Planning for ICANN Meetings
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on Council Consideration of the ICANN Board’s Letter Regarding the IDN Implementation Guidelines v4.0
• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 meetings part I and part II on 27 October 2021 were posted on 12 November 2021.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council meeting on 18 November 2021 were posted on 03 December 2021.

• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
  • 3.1 - Motion to confirm Transfer Policy Review PDP (TPR_P1) Project Change Request
  • 3.4 - Confirmation of the Recommendations Report to the ICANN Board regarding adoption of recommendations 1-4 contained in the Final Report from the EPDP Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data – Phase 2A

Removed from Consent Agenda and added to Main Agenda instead

• 3.2 - Motion to confirm Specific Curative Rights Protections for Intergovernmental Organizations EPDP (EPDP_SCRP_IGO) Project Change Request  

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Operational Design Phase and Next Steps
  • Council will discuss the proposed approach and schedule and seek to ensure that the upcoming conversations around the SSAD ODP are constructive and effective.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on the SubPro ODP
  • Council will receive and discuss an update on SubPro ODP

Action by ALAC Liaison

• To monitor for developments. See TAB under 'POST GNSO COUNCIL MEETING DEVELOPMENTS' section for easier tracking. 

• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council ODP Input Review Process

No further action needed

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - ICANN73 Planning and Evolving Council Planning for ICANN Meetings

Action by ALAC Liaison

• To draw ALAC's attention to Council's interest in (re-)initiating a joint GNSO Council meeting with ALAC at ICANN73 and likely, future ICANN meetings. 
• To liaise with ALAC Leadership and Council Leadership on format and topics for such joint meeting(s).

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on Council Consideration of the ICANN Board’s Letter Regarding the IDN Implementation Guidelines v4.0
  • Council agreed that the RySG would consider and recommend the best manner to proceed and respond to the letter from the ICANN Board.
  • Council will receive an update from RySG Councilors. Presentation.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• To review Council's response to the ICANN Board when draft becomes available, for implications to IDNs.

• Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 9.3 - Update on the Consideration of the ICANN Board’s Letter on EPDP Phase 1, Rec. 12 
    • Council small team was established to consider the ICANN Board’s letter regarding EPDP Phase, Rec. 12 and have prepared clarifications/questions to be submitted to Becky Burr ahead of a clarification call.

No further action needed

Records of 16 Dec 2021 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Zoom Chat
• Transcript
• Resolutions
• Minutes

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2021 held on 18 Nov 2021

Full Agenda  |  Motions  

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List
• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Revised GNSO Councilor Job Description for the Nominating Committee (Motion Withdrawn)
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update From the Universal Acceptance Steering Group
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Thought Exercise Paper Modifying Consensus Policy
• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS

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 23 September 2021 were posted on 09 October 2021.
• Item 3: Consent Agenda 
  • 3.3 Motion to adopt the GNSO Review of the GAC ICANN72 Virtual Annual General Meeting Communiqué for submission to the ICANN Board
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update From the Universal Acceptance Steering Group
  • Dr. Ajay Data, Chair of the UASG, will provide an update on the progress of the UASG and explore the role the GNSO might play in enhancing universal acceptance.

No further action needed – GNSO Council was asked to consider Dr Data's request for a liaison to the Universal Acceptance Steering Group.

• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session
  • Council to discuss highlights from its (recently) concluded Strategic Planning Sessions (SPS).

No further action needed

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Thought Exercise Paper Modifying Consensus Policy
  • On 25 October 2021, Philippe Fouquart shared a thought paper drafted by the ICANN org, which has been developed “considering what procedures are in place for modifying consensus policies, and where there may be gaps, ambiguities, or opportunities for additional collaboration.” The Council has since convened a small team, which will also seek volunteers from all SG/Cs, as the topic is of importance beyond just the Council. As this team is being convened, it is perhaps nevertheless helpful to seek impressions from Councilors that could feed into the small team’s deliberations.
  • Council to receive ICANN Org presentation on the paper and to discuss the same.

Action by ALAC Liaison

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

• Item 8: ANY OTHER BUSINESS
  • 8.1 Update on the approach for the response to the ICANN Board’s letter regarding the IDN Implementation Guidelines v4.0.
  • 8.2 Acknowledgement of the Registration Data Accuracy - Scoping Team (RDA_ST) Project Plan
  • 8.3 Report on the SubPro ODP - circulated on 16 November 2021 
  • 8.4 Report on the SSAD ODP - circulated on 17 November 2021

Action by ALAC Liaison

• Item 8.1 - Monitor for developments. Is issue carried forward to Council's Dec 2021 Meeting? Yes.
• Items 8.3 and 8.4 - TABS created under 'POST GNSO COUNCIL MEETING DEVELOPMENTS' section for easier tracking.

Records of 18 Nov 2021 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording
• Transcript
• Chat Transcript
• Resolutions
• Minutes

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2021 held on 27 Oct 2021 during ICANN 72, over 2 parts, and including a Council Wrap-up Session on 27 Oct 2021:

Part 1 Full Agenda  |  Motions