2019-01-22 New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP WG - Sub Group B

Notes/ Action Items

Actions:

2.7.1.e.1: INTA, Fairwinds, and Valideus (Lines 43, 44, and 46) ACTION ITEM 1: Mark as divergence and bring to full WG (DONE).

Notes:

1.  Updates to Statements of Interest (SOIs): No updates provided.

2.  Discussion of Public Comments on 2.7.1 Reserved Names (starting with General Comments, line 3)

General Comments:

-- All have been added into the relevant sections.

2.7.1.c.1:

Lines 10-11: Agreement -- Valideus and Neustar

Lines 12-13: New Ideas: RySG and Brand Registry Group -- Lineupports reserving only those names where there are stability or security risks.  Take to the full WG.

2.7.1.c.1.1:  Summary -- All Agreement.

2.7.1.c.1.2:

Lines 19-21, Brand Registry Group, Neustar, Valideus -- Agreement

Line 22, RySG -- Agreement, New Idea: Similarly if a name is not reserved, it should not be added to the list after ICANN receives/processes applications absent a material change in circumstances.

Line 23, SSAC -- Agreement: More recently, the IETF has placed a small number of potential gTLD strings into a Special-Use Domain Names Registry.21 As described in RFC 676122, a string that is placed into this registry is expected to be processed in a defined “special” way that is different from the normal process of DNS resolution.  Concerns: Related to the question Should ICANN formalize in policy the status of the names on these lists?

-- Bring to the full WG to discuss.

From the Chat:

Anne Aikman-Scalese: COMMENT:  Certain aspects of SAC 90 were officially adopted by the ICANN Board and they sent notice to Sub Pro of the items they adopted.  This should be noted in the summary of public comments just after "Take to full WG to discuss".

2.7.1.c.2:

Lines 25 & 26, Fairwinds & Brand Registry Group -- Agreement

Line 27, RySG -- Agreement, New Idea

Line 28, Valideus -- Agreement New Idea Concerns

-- Bring both RySG and Valideus comments to the full WG.  They essentially say the same thing.

-- Re: Valideus concerns are noted as out of scope (IGO acronyms), but might be helpful if we can expand what we mean by that.  [Staff have deleted that comment.]

Line 29, ALAC -- [Does not seem relevant to this recommendation]

2.7.1.c.3:

Line 31, ALAC -- Concerns: Avoidance of end user confusion is a paramount consideration to the ALAC. All practicable, reasonable measures must be considered and implemented to safeguard this end user protection principle..

Line 32, Brand Registry Group -- Agreement, Concerns: The BRG supports this recommendation but also acknowledges the concerns raised regarding confusing strings, such as a number “5” being misread as an “S”, which must be avoided. Suitable measures should be employed to identify risk of confusion and, where risks are identified, reserve these strings.

Line 33, INTA -- Agreement, New Idea

Line 34, RySG -- Agreement, Concerns: The RySG supports the proposal with further review of technical considerations absent any security or stability risk and if there is strong support within the community.

Line 35, Valideus -- Agreement, New Idea: we would support their release.  Regarding numbers which might be confused with letters, this would appear to be limited to the numbers zero and one.  If there is to be any continued reservation on this basis it should be limited only to those combinations which "match" an actual country code.

2.7.1.e.1:

Line 27, Jamie Baxter, dotgay LLC -- Agreement, New Idea: I think there should be some flexibility in this area for those who have demonstrated constituent support to employ elements of the registry business model that offer benefit to either the community members or Internet users...It is important however that any registry operator request to exceed 100 strings should be supported with endorsement of some nature that encompasses more than the interests of the registry itself. In the case of community applications, it could be the endorsing organizations that offer support for the request

Lines 38-40, geoTLD.group, dotBERLIN GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg Top-Level-Domain GmbH -- Agreement, New Idea: We request that the number of Reserved Names be lifted to 1,000 in order to accommodate the special circumstances of geoTLD namespaces.

Line 41, Brand Registry Group -- Agreement, New Idea: removing this limit for dotBrands operating under Specification 13, where registrations are only permitted by the registry operator, its affiliates and trademark licensees.

Line 42, Neustar -- Agreement, New Idea: Neustar supports amending the limit on Registry Operator self-allocated domain names to allow for greater flexibility and promote innovation. At a minimum this limit should be changed from cumulative (over the life of the TLD) to rolling, to allow Registry Operators to change their operational and promotional domain names as their operational and promotional needs changes without exceeding the overall limit.  Neustar also supports removing this limit for single-registrant TLDs such as Specification 13 or Specification 9 exempt TLDs.

Line 43, INTA -- Agreement, New Idea: The 100- name limit therefore seems meaningless for .Brand.

Line 44, Fairwinds Partners -- Agreement, New Idea: FairWinds supports the removal of the limit of 100 names for .BRAND TLDs as the only potential registrants are the Registry Operator, its affiliates, or trademark licensees.

Line 45, RySG -- Agreement, New Idea [see details]

Line 46, Valideus -- Agreement, New Idea:The 100-string limit in irrelevant for single-registrant TLDs (ie Spec 9 code of conduct exempt and Spec 13 .Brands) since all names are allocated by the registry to itself or closely-related entities.

Line 47, IPC -- Concerns, Divergence: The IPC generally believes that the limit of reservation up to 100 names for promotion of the registry worked well in the previous round. The IPC does not see a need to increase or decrease this amount. However, caution must be taken if these names are released to be registered by a party other than the registry.

Line 48, LEMARIT -- Divergence: 100 strings are reasonable and sufficient.

-- INTA, Fairwinds, and Valideus (Lines 43, 44, and 46) comments don't really agreement with lifting the limit of 100 names, but that it is irrelevant for .brand or single registrant situations.

-- Don't think we have anyone saying it should be decreased.

-- Note INTA, Fairwinds, and Valideus -- could indicate them as concerns or divergence.

-- Don't have concensus, but have responsive answer.  Indicate divergence and bring it back to the WG.

-- ACTION ITEM: Mark as divergence and bring to full WG.

From the chat:

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): It could still DIVERGENCE in GREEN of course  just because the question was 'poorlly written to fit withour catagories ;-)

Kristine Dorrain: Yes, and to be clear, I think the full WG should consider all of the comments here in making a recommendation.  Including geos/IPC etc. 

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): Yes  I agree @Krisitine, but note your observations on the divergent nature can stand as the advice in that sending when we send everything from the SG to the Full WG  as oppossed to send it as an Urgent  because you can't make any determination(s)

2.7.1.e.2:

Line 50, Valideus -- Divergence: See response to 2.7.1.c.3.

Line 51, Brand Registry Group -- Agreement: The BRG supports this recommendation.

Line 52, RySG -- Agreement: Yes, it should be removed. Why would there be a distinction if the technical, obstacle doesn't exist? No additional analysis is needed.

Line 53, INTA -- Agreement: INTA notes that the 2007 policy recommendations on reserved names appear to have envisaged that combinations of letters and numbers, such as single-letter-single-number combinations would be permitted as TLDs, however these were excluded under the AGB. A number of brands consist of combinations of letters and numbers. Provided there are no technical concerns, INTA therefore supports removing the reservation of combinations of letters and numbers at the top level, including two-character or more letter-number combinations.

Line 54, RySG -- New Idea: As such, we recommend the following:

> For all those combinations, require an acknowledgment from the applicant that those TLDs might inccur more universal acceptance challenges than other ASCII new gTLDs.

> For the letter/digit and digit/letter combinations, require applicants to pay for both halves of possible string confusion objections panel fees coming from ccTLD operators.

Lines 55- 83 -- Divergence -- See Line 66, LACTLD for examples.  Consumer confusion and security concerns. ("opposes to the release of 2-character strings at the top level consisting of one letter and one digit due to the technical, security and confusion issues described above.")

2.7.1.e.3:

Lines 85-86, RySG and Neustar -- Agreement

Line 87, RySG -- Concerns: The problem is that this isn't happening. In many cases, the rights to the name are being sold direct to a customer with an expectation that the registrar will help manage/resolve the domain. This is counter to the allocation of domain names via the registrar (Spec 9).

Lines 88-92 -- General comments.  related to 2.7.1.e.3.3. More accurate to mark as concerns.