At-Large Workspace: Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

At-Large Representatives (ALAC Team)

ALAC Members: Satish Babu, Lianna Galstyan and Abdulkarim Oloyede

ALAC Participants: Justine Chew and Hadia Elminiawi

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REPORTS/UPDATES TO & CONSULTATIONS WITH THE AT-LARGE CONSOLIDATED POLICY WORKING GROUP (CPWG)

11 Aug 2021 - ongoing

See GNSO Workspace: Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

Preliminaries

At its meeting on 20 May 2021, the GNSO Council resolved to initiate an Expedited Policy Development Process (EDPD) on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and adopted a charter for the EPDP Team to deliberate identified Policy Track issues and to provide policy recommendations on:

i) the definition of all TLD and the management of variant labels to facilitate delegation of variant gTLDs in the root zone while achieving the security and usability goal of variant labels in a stable manner; and

ii) how the IDN Implementation Guidelines, which Contracted Parties are required to comply with, should be updated in the future.

The charter questions in the charter were developed based on the following principles and framework:

• Not to revisit Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) recommendations in context of future new gTLDs, but to consider whether such recommendations should be extended to existing gTLDs (where IDNs are concerned);
• To consider the impact of recommendations out of the IDN Variant TLD Implementation Staff Paper ("Staff Paper") and Recommendations for the Technical Utilization of the Root Zone Label Generation Rules ("TSG recommendations") on both future and existing gTLDs where there is a lack of SubPro recommendation; and
• To coordinate with the SubPro Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT) on addressing implementation issues to achieve, to the extent possible, consistent solutions for new and existing gTLDs – to note that the SubPro IRT has not yet been convened at this point.

Policy Track Issues & Charter Questions (CQ)

2021 Deliberations

• This EPDP Team has its first meeting on 11 Aug 2021 and have been meeting nearly every week, on Thursdays at 13:30 UTC.
• The ALAC Team provided regular verbal updates to CPWG especially whenever there were some developments in the deliberations of this EPDP. 
• In particular, the ALAC Team, presented:

1. An update to CPWG on 1 Sep 2011 on the EPDP's third meeting of 25 Aug 2021, as an example
2. Some background to CPWG on 24 Nov 2021 and on EPDP Team deliberations for CQ a1-a3 as at 18 Nov 2021 (presentation) 
3. A follow-up to CPWG on 1 Dec 2021 on recap to CQ a1-a3 (presentation)
4. An opportunity for discussion of questions at CPWG on 8 Dec 2021 out of the ALAC Team's presentations of 24 Nov 2021 and 1 Dec 2021 

2022 Deliberations

• The EPDP Team recommenced its meeting on 6 Jan 2022.
• # At its 3 Feb 2022 call, it was determined that the EPDP Team would move forward with an updated sequence of charter questions. 
• The ALAC Team continued to provide regular verbal updates to CPWG especially whenever there were some developments in the deliberations of this EPDP. 
• In particular, the ALAC Team, presented:

5. And discussed with CPWG on 2 Feb 2022 positions and rationales for CQ a4 - a7 (presentation)
6. Some background to CPWG on 2 Mar 2022 and on EPDP Team deliberations for CQ a5 and a6 (presentation)
7. Some background to CPWG on 16 Mar 2022 and on EPDP Team deliberations for CQ b1 - b4, d1b (presentation)
8. And discussed with CPWG on 23 Mar 2022 to seek indicative positions for CQ d1b (presentation) by way of 5 straw poll questions:

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Update for 01 September CPWG:

Discussions at the third meeting of the EPDP on IDNs (25 Aug 2021)

1. The meeting started with Roll Call & SoI Updates (Edmon reported an update of his SoI on account of his induction into the ICANN Board). All members were asked to read the background documents that Edmon had shared in his welcome mail and confirm through the form.
2. The background presentation by Sarmad, which started in the previous meeting, was completed.
3. The next item was an initial review of the charter questions, and the basic strategy was presented in a document. The steps involved:
   • Consider whether the order of topics A-G as presented in the Charter is the appropriate order to work (Agreed by the group).
   • For each topic, there will be discussions in order to gain a deeper understanding of the issues and positions involved, and also consider if AC/SOs needed to be consulted. As an initial step, a poll was conducted (involving all members + participants) for two items A and B to rate the complexity of the topic ("High"-10+ hours, "Medium"-5-10 hours, and "Low"-Less than 10 hours). The poll reported both items to be 'Medium complexity'. It was decided to discuss this methodology further in the next meeting.
4. Given the clash of the EPDP Meeting Time with ALAC CPWG, the group decided to run a Doodle poll to choose between Tuesday and Thursday at the same time (13:00 UTC).

Action Items
AI #1: Members to read background documents included in Edmon’s welcome email and confirm when they have done so here. The welcome email is available at: https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-epdp-idn-team/2021-July/000002.html


AI #2: Staff to circulate and members/participants to fill out Doodle poll to schedule next week’s meeting and future meetings.

Full minutes available at: https://community.icann.org/display/epdpidn/2021-08-25+IDNs+EPDP