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

At-Large Representatives (ALAC Team)

ALAC Members: Satish Babu, Hadia Elminiawi (replaced Lianna Galstyan in Dec 2022), Abdulkarim Oloyede

ALAC Participants: Justine Chew (stepped down in Nov 2023)

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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 (EPDP) 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.

Remark on Project Plan of the EPDP

On 17 Nov 2022, GNSO 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

On 20 Jul 2023, GNSO Council received a revised project plan  from the IDNs EPDP Working Group which shaves 13 months off the earlier timeline. The key milestones for this EPDP are now as follows:

• Phase 1 Final Report remains expected to be delivered to Council in Nov 2023
• Council then considers this Phase 1 Final Report and decides on the adoption of report and recommendations
• Phase 2 Initial Report is expected to be published for public comment in Apr 2024 (vs May 2025 earlier)
• Phase 2 Final Report is expected to be delivered to Council in Oct 2024 (vs Nov 2025 earlier)

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 resumed meetings 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:

• The ALAC team resumed sharing updates on the EPDP Team's work:

9. With CPWG on 18 May 2022, in particular, the EPDP Team draft outcomes for CQs a9 and a10 (presentation)

• Post-ICANN74, the ALAC team presented:

10.  An update to CPWG on 6 Jul 2022 on the overall progress of EPDP Team's work and revisited the draft recommendation text for CQs a7 part 1 and a10 (post 2nd reading) (presentation)
11. An update to CPWG on 20 Jul 2022 regarding a 'Virtual Office Hour' chat between some members of the ALAC Team and the EPDP Leadership/Staff Team regarding the workings and progress of the EPDP (no presentation).

• Post-ICANN75, the ALAC team presented:
  12.  And discussed with CPWG on 12 Oct 2022 the role of variants in string similarity review which impinges on many charter questions (eg. b4a, e1, e3, e3a, e4) (presentation); introducing and ascertaining support for the proposed Hybrid Model.

13. To CPWG on 2 Nov 2022 on the contemplated Project Change Request (PCR) which would affect the timeline and issuance of the EPDP's Initial and Final Reports, and how those reports would be split into 2 phases. The team also discussed CQ B4 and CQ D1(b) which deals with establishing the processes by which (i) new applications could apply for a new IDN gTLD and allocatable variants, and (ii) existing ROs could apply for allocatable variants of their existing IDN gTLDs (presentation).
The team conducted several polls in relation to these to CQs, the results of which are:

2023 Deliberations

• The EPDP Team resumed meetings on 5 Jan 2023.
• The ALAC Team presented: 

           14. And discussed with CPWG on 1 Feb 2023 the draft recommendation and rationale text for CQs A7, B4, D1b, E5 and E6 (presentation)

Phase 1 Initial Report

• The ALAC Team presented to and consulted with CPWG (Phase 1 Initial Report):

           15. On 3 May 2023 - overview, structure, underlying principles, sec 4.1, sec 4.2 and sec 4.3 (presentation)
           16. On 10 May 2023 - role of variants in Limited Public Interest Objection and Community Objection, possible outcomes (presentation)
           17. On 17 May 2023 - modifications to String Similarity Review (Hybrid Model) & exceptions, outcomes for contention resolution (presentation)
           18. On 24 May 2023 - call for inputs to PR 3.6 & IG 3.6 on factors related to absence of ceiling value for variants (presentation)
           19. On 31 May 2023, the ALAC Team discussed the draft ALAC Statement to the Initial Report

.Quebec and Latin Script RZ-LGR discussion on variant labels

• Post ICANN77, the ALAC Team presented:
  20. On 12 Jul 2023 - an update, alluding to the ALAC letter to the GNSO Council Chair (22 June 2023)
  21. On 6 Sep 2023 - an update, alluding to the Discussion Paper about “.québec” Challenges to GNSO Council (24 August 2023)

Phase 1 Draft Final Report

• The ALAC Team presented:
  22. On 6 Sep 2023 - reconsideration of the Conservatism principle and impact to Recs 8,1, 3.5, 3.7 and IGs 3.6, 3.8 and 3.9.
  

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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