At-Large Session Reports from ICANN78.

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

Saturday, 21 October 2023

09:00-10:00 CEST

10:30-12:00 CEST

Monday, 23 Oct 2023

16:30-17:30 CEST

In the first session, the EPDP Team took stock of the state of Consensus of the Phase 1 report. It was announced that the final report will be handed over to the GNSO Council in early Nov 2023.

For the rest of the two sessions, the team continued to examine the Phase 2 Charter Questions, revisiting the question of the definition of the source domain and variant domain set (which had to include variants at the top- and second-level labels). The meeting also discussed the question of defining the "entity" for the "same-entity" principle to apply, and also the question of transaction fees for registration and activation of variant domain names.

Sebastian Ducos, the GNSO Chair, attended the third session on Monday, and congratulated the EPDP on IDNs team for the successful completion of the Phase 1 process. Later, the session continued discussions on the question whether a fee was required for activation/registration of variant labels.

While there are no At-Large-specific action items, the entire policy on IDN Variants has a strong end-user component.

Saturday, 21 October 2023 

10:30-12:00 CEST

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

Sunday, 

10:30-12:00 CEST

Hall Y 5-8 (ALAC)

Update on EPDP on IDNs:

The EPDP on IDNs develops policy for managing IDN Variants at the top (Phase 1) and second (Phase 2) levels.

The four major principles derived by the EPDP on IDNs Phase 1 work are (a) RZ-LGR as the sole source of variants; (b) The integrity of the variant set; (c) The Same Entity Principle; and (d) The principle of Conservatism. The EPDP Team’s work since ICANN77 included Processing the public comments from the Phase 1 Report, and working on the Charter Questions for Phase 2

While processing the public comments from the Phase 1 report, ALAC and RySG arrived at a consensus although they had started out with different positions on Rec 8.1, where ALAC urged caution in opening up too many variant labels, while RySG did not want any ceiling. Two specific points that were discussed in this context were: (a) Justifying the need for the number of variants gTLDs applied for; and (b) How the applicant plans to mitigate the potential risk of confusability to end-users, given the number of variants.

It was announced that as of early morning on 22 Oct 2023, the Phase 1 report achieved “full consensus” designation, indicating the successful closure of Phase 1. Since Phase 1 deals with the top level, it is important to note that the resolution of one of the dependencies of the new round of gTLDs has been achieved

The Phase 2 discussions were around how the principles were re-oriented for the second level. Specifically:

• At the second level, RZ-LGR is not used. Instead, a registry-level mechanism called IDN tables is used. In order to achieve uniformity, a further step called harmonization would be required
• There are discussions about whether harmonization should be registry-level or across registries for a given script(s)
• Also, the same-entity principle is applicable and the second level, but may work differently, as there are no mechanisms currently in place that make the identification of an “entity” feasible within or across registries
• The definition of the variant set may need to be expanded to include the second-level variants of all the top-level variants of the gTLDs
• Grandfathering would be required for some cases of existing/delegated gTLDs
• Examining how legal/contractual would change at the second level when variants are to be accommodated

In order to fast-track the work on Phase 2, a face-to-face meeting
of the EPDP participants (subject to an attendance cut-off) is
being planned in Kuala Lumpur in the first week of December

At-Large Operations, Finance and Budget (OFB-WG) - Overview and Year Ahead

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At-Large Consolidated Policy WG (CPWG) - Overview and Year Ahead

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Joint Session: ALAC & SSAC

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Sunday, 22 October 2023

09:00-10:00 & 10:30-12:00

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

Joint Meeting: Government Advisory Committee (GAC) and GNSO Council 

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Five-year Planning for UA and Governance of UASG

This session examined the current governance practices of the UASG and the need for changes with a view to ensure transparency, openness, and accountability. The Statement of Interest (SoI) for all members of the list in order that every member is identified. The processes for election/selection of leaders, including UASG Chair and Vice Chair as well as Working Group leaders. Selection processes for Local initiatives and UA Ambassadors were also discussed.

The leadership team presented the draft 5-year Strategic Plan for UASG. The promotion of UA Adoption was the key message, moving from awareness building to Universal Acceptance.

The Community was requested to provide inputs to these Governance issues.

IDN Implementation Round-table

This session announced a plan for implementation of the IDN Implementation Guidelines 4.1. The 4.0 version of the IDN Implementation Guidelines was released in May 2018. The GNSO Council asked the Board to defer the implementation of these guidelines. After discussions, the ICANN Board decided to defer the implementation of guidelines 6a, 11, 12, 13, 18 in version 4.0 as they overlapped with the ongoing work of the EPDP on IDNs. The session presented a plan of action for the publishing of the remaining guidelines which was labeled as version 4.1 by the ICANN Board.

The guidelines will be tested using automated tests from Nov 2023, and by Q3 2024, the 4.1 version of these guidelines will be in effect.

Subsequent presentations included a presentation on the current status of additional reference Label General Rules (LGRs). Prof Yudho presented the Balinese script and its readiness for being considered as a script for Internationalized Domain Names.

Finally, speakers from the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language communities presented the question of single-character TLDs. It was concluded that no new rules were required in the CJK script for single-character TLDs.

Planning for Universal Acceptance (UA) Day 2024

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?

What happened?

What are the At-Large specific takeaways from this session? 

What are the At-Large specific action items (next steps)?