Date: Monday, 03 August 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:30 UTC - For the time in various time zones click here
Zoom Room: https://icann.zoom.us/j/92758023899?pwd=RDI5OHNlckFtWEt6QlZRNlB6dUhiZz09
Interpretation Available: ES and FR
How can I participate in this meeting?
Conference ID: 1638 (EN) 1738 (ES) 1838 (FR)
RTT Link: https://www.streamtext.net/player?event=ICANN [streamtext.net]
Participants:
EN: Moriam Sulaimon, Vernatius Ezeama, Hadia Eliminiawi, Steinar Grotterod, Yavoi Atohoun, Hamza Salami, Adama Ouedraogo, Priyatosh Jana,Jim Prendergast, Fouad Bajwa, Amrita Choudhury, Bill Jouris, Mikhali Anisimov, Angela Matlapeng, Lito Ibarra, Jeffrey Neuman, Eduardo Diaz, Samiran Gupta, Alfredo Calderon, Peter Koch, Javier Rua-Jovet, Bastiaan Gosling, Bob Ochieng, Dr. Govind, Demi Getschko, Minata Zong-Naba, Laxmi Prasad Yadav, Nadira Al-Araj, Frode Sorensen, Avri Doria, Wim Degezelle, Satish Babu, Yien Chyn Tan, Dave Kissoondoyal, Katambi Joan, Photchanan R., Mary Udama, Marius Andriamparany, Sasa Kovacevic, Roberto Gaetano, Syuzan Marukhyan, Glenn McKnight, Laura Margolis, Bukola Oronti, Vanda Scartezini, Brian Beckham, Alan Greenberg, Martin Sutton, Hanan Khatib, Sarata Omane, Jay, Jean Rakotomalala, Lianna Galstyan, Vrikson Acosta, Yao, Adrian Carballo, Marita Moll, Seun Ojedeji, Joan Katambi, Lilian Ivette De Luque, Yumi Ohashi, Fanny Salyou, Raymond Mamattah,
FR: Olévié Kouami, Minata Zong-Naba, Anne-Marie Joly-Bachollet, Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong, Michel Tchonang,
ES: Anahi Menendez-Ruiz,
Apologies: Alberto Soto, Dr Gopal
Staff: Heidi Ullrich, Gisella Gruber, Claudia Ruiz
Interpreters:
ES:
FR: Jacques and Aurélie
Call Management: Claudia Ruiz
Recording: EN, FR, ES
Transcript: EN, FR, ES
Zoom Chat: EN
Zoom Recording: EN
Action Items: EN
Guest Speaker: Justine Chew
Description:
During this webinar, Justine will take participants through a brief overview of the New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program, and suggest answers to 4 key questions around the topic of 'New gTLD Rounds and Subsequent Procedures’:
How does the New gTLD Program impact end-users?
What are Subsequent Procedures?
Why should Subsequent Procedures matter to end-users?
What’s next with Subsequent Procedures - a new round of New gTLDs?
Although introductory in nature, Justine will attempt to touch on the end-user connection to selected sub-topics for which policy development is taking place within the GNSO New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process Working Group. Thus, this webinar is not only suitable to those who are less familiar with the New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program in general, but it will also provide an opportunity for more seasoned ICANNers to reaffirm or reacquaint themselves with why and how Subsequent Procedures matter to the At-Large community.
AGENDA:
Introduction - Staff (5 minutes)
Welcome and Overview of the Webinar - Hadia El Miniawi, Chair of the CBWG Webinars Group (5 minutes)
Presentation on the New gTLD Rounds and Subsequent Procedures - Justine Chew, ALAC Member (45 minutes)
A brief history leading to the New gTLD Program
How does the Program impact end-users?
What are Subsequent Procedures?
Why should Subsequent Procedures matter to end-users?
What’s next with Subsequent Procedures - a new round of New gTLDs?
Questions and Answers - Hadia El Miniawi (30 minutes)
Next Steps and Upcoming Webinars - Hadia El Miniawi (5 minutes)
12 Comments
Justine Chew
Alfredo Calderon asked,
How does the DNS and new gTLD Program contrast with the use of Social Media in e-Commerce, Online business? Does the ‘trust concern’ have a really high impact in the end-users knowledge when seeking services?
Answer
In hindsight, if someone chooses to operate an e-Commerce / online business a Social Media platform (eg. www.facebook.com/<shop>) then they forgo the need to register a second-level domain themselves (eg. www.<shop>.com). The same would apply if they choose to operate shopfront via an eCommerce platform like Etsy or even just sell directly through a platform like Amazon.com. So they aren't responsible for the domain names which Facebook, or Etsy or Amazon register for and aren't registrants to the domain name space.
The new gTLD Program is about expanding the DNS at the top-level, meaning the likes of .facebook, .etsy and .amazon, and focuses on applicants, who if successful, become Registry Operators. It is less about second-level domain although the Program obligates Registry Operators some responsibilities over downstream activities undertaken by their Registrars and Resellers.
Where 'trust' is concerned, I talked about end-users being able to trust that whichever domain name they visited has a real, trustworthy operator behind it and not a dubious entity or person who uses a domain name to commit fraud, phising, or other nefarious activities. Having said that, end-users are increasingly required to exercise caution and be wary when seeking services so as not to be duped by such fraudsters.
Alfredo also asked,
Does the 'why it matters to end-user' imply that an education program for the public (end-user) will be in place? Who will be responsible of the “education component’ of the consumer’s choice?
Answer
I had suggested that such an education program could fall within At-Large's purview. To be fair, I neglected to mention that each country would likely have a legal enforcement authority that would/should also be tasked to deal with cyber crimes, and a consumer protection body mandated to educating consumers to guard against falling victim to cyber crimes.
Thank you for your questions, Alfredo.
Justine Chew
Mikhail Anisimov asked,
Which New gTLD could affect security and stability of the internet and how could they do it?
Answer
In the context the New gTLD Program, "security and stability" refers to how mass introduction of new gTLDs to the root might affect its security and stability. The issue is therefore whether there is a safe threshold by which to delegate new gTLD to the root. This is a highly technical area and based on research done by both RSSAC and SSAC, that threshold might be best upheld through a rate of change to the root, meaning how frequently and how many new gTLDs are being delegated to the root at any one time.
Mikhail also asked,
So just for the clarification: the question is about proper sequencing of introduction, and not about rejecting “harmful” TLDs? Thank you for your answer.
Answer
It is about the rate of change to the root zone, insofar as the topic of "security and stability" under Subsequent Procedures goes. I would say rejecting "harmful" TLDs is facilitated through the evaluation processes that each applied-for string undergoes.
Thank you for your questions, Mikhail.
Justine Chew
Amrita Choudhury asked,
Has any existing nGTLD affected the security and stability of the Internet? Any such example?
Answer
Not that I'm aware of. And as mentioned, in the context the New gTLD Program, "security and stability" refers to how mass delegation of new gTLDs to the root might affect its security and stability.
Thank you for your question, Amrita.
Justine Chew
Bill Jouris asked,
The Internationalization of Domain Names will result in lots of new glyphs being available. Domain names will be allowed if they can be distinguished from existing one. But the definition IDN is using for *variants* is extremely narrow – basically, if a trained linguist (i.e. not a normal user) can tell the difference, it’s not a variant. How does that square with maintaining security?
Answer
The New gTLD Program is about introduction of top-level domains. At the top-level, all new gTLD applications go through evaluations and one of the evaluation process is the String Similarity Evaluation conducted by the expert String Similarity Panel. The panel uses a visual similarity test and where the panel finds that an applied-for string is confusingly similar to an existing TLD or if two (or more) applied-for strings also also confusingly similar then these application will likely not be allowed to proceed.
Alan Greenberg also correctly identified the applicability of your comment more to domain names at the second-level.
And in hindsight, I should have mentioned that the determination of IDN Variants isn't within the domain of Subsequent Procedures, it's more within scope for the group that deals with IDN Variant TLD Implementation.
Thank you for your question, Bill.
Justine Chew
Nadira Alaraj asked,
How many new delegated gTLD were a successful from the first round?
Answer
I couldn't recall off the top of my head what that number was, although I remembered that were 1,930 applications received in the 2012 round.
Further to the common answer offered by Alan Greenberg and Vanda Scarzetini, I can now report that according to statistics reported by ICANN Org, as at 30 June 2020, a total of 1,238 new gTLDs have been delegated into the root.
You can find this data, along with a breakdown, here: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/statistics
Thank you for your question, Nadira.
Nadira Alaraj
Thank you very much Justine Chew for taking the time to reply here,
May I follow up with a question that you or the others might not have an answer to it because it needs a separate study.
From the 1,238 new gTLDs, how many made a hit. I know .Berlin .London were very popular.
The point that I'm trying to formulate advice to CPE applications. Some they just wanted to reserve the strings for many reasons. But if a community applicant proposed a string that might not be viable it would be sad to see the investments put into this string went wasted.
Justine Chew
Indeed, some research is needed to answer your supplementary question.
By "hit" I take it you mean "success"; well, is there a definition of success?
Even if we were to just look at the Community-based applications from the 2012 round, where 53 of 84 have been delegated, how do we say that all 53 have been successful? Simply because they still remain in the root? Or simply that they haven't had their RAs terminated for non-payment of registry fees?
If you're looking for more judgmental criteria for success, you may have to research the 53 TLDs individually and apply those criteria as needed. And they were likely delegated at different times, thus having varying opportunity (time-wise) to mature.
In any case, it's not just community applicants that have to be sure that their applied-for string and registry is viable, each applicant would have been expected to undertake market research to establish a viable business model for their desired strings.
And by the way, I now realise that I misunderstood your original question.
Nadira Alaraj
I don't think you misunderstood, with ICANN, it is so tricky to understand a question if it is not using the right terms. Given the short time in writing the question in a chat with someone who is not highly engaged in this WG, it becomes difficult to formulate the exact question.
If we want to focus only on the CPE, it would be good to include in their guidebook an advice to these applicants to do their homework and do a feasibility study to their business model.
Justine Chew
Regarding advice, or more appropriate, guidance to applicants on feasibility of a business model, I would like to point out that the At-Large has stated as much, but with respect to applicants who are applying for Applicant Support (ASP) and not necessarily Community-based applicants (just highlighting that Community-based applicants being the correct term, not CPE).
This is because we distinctly note that applicants who apply for Applicant Support are the ones likely to require assistance; these may or may not be Community-based applicants and the Community application status is open also the economic groupings which would normally already have a business model in mind.
The call that At-Large has made is for non-financial support for Applicant Support applicants to include access to information on various business models (such as different business cases).
Nadira Alaraj
Thank you Justine for your accuracy and being able to understand and correct my on the go acronyms. It makes full logic to provide guidance to ASP on how to make sure that their project or investment would be sustainable.
Justine Chew
Fouad Bajwa asked,
Justine, that's an interesting point, has ICANN or GNSO so far conducted a baseline of the effect the previous round had on the domain name system? so that these risks are evaluated? So far there is no score card or a risk analysis based upon the previous round?
Answer
I understood your question to be about risks of delegating too many new gTLDs into the root.
I mentioned studies by RSSAC and SSAC that advised us to focus on the rate of delegation to the root (or rate of introduction) as a more appropriate measure of stability (rather than the overall number of delegation per annum). For more information, you can refer to RSSAC031 and SAC100 advice, and in fact, to be more precise, the advice says to focus on the rate of change for the root zone over smaller periods of time (rather than an overall number per annum).
I also talked about a cap of 1,000 delegations per annum for the 2012 round and that this was also subject to ICANN Org's ability to process 1,000 evaluations per annum. I should have mentioned the source of this figure, which is ICANN Org's 2010 "Delegation Rate Scenario for New gTLDs" paper, in which a prediction was made that ICANN Org would be able to process 924 evaluations per year (which was rounded up to 1,000).
I should also mention that the technical community had in fact used 1,000 delegations/year as a basis of analysis in studying the impact on Root Server Operations and Provisioning due to introduction of new gTLDs (i.e. root zone scaling) and had concluded that 1,000 delegations/year would not pose a security and stability threat. For more information, please see: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/historical-documentation/root-scaling-27jun12-en.pdf
Thank you for your question, Fouad.
Justine Chew
Dr Govind asked,
When is the new gTLD round is going to begin?
Answer
I don't know. There are many things that could and need to happen before a new round of New gTLD applications can be called for.
When the Final Report of the Subsequent Procedures PDP Working Group is issued, targeted for by year end 2020, it has to go to the GNSO Council first for adoption. GNSO Council's deliberation could involve long deliberation or debate, it may adopt the recommendations contained in the report, as is, or it may decide it won't adopt part or the entire report, in which case, it would decide on how to proceed, if at all.
If and when GNSO Council adopts the report, it will then go to the ICANN Board for approval. The Board presents another layer of deliberation and against it may approve part or the entire report. If the Board declines to approve part of the report, it would probably send it back to GNSO Council with a request to deal with the unapproved portions. That could take a while.
Assuming that the Board approves the Final Report as presented by the GNSO Council, it would then send it to ICANN Org for implementation. An Implementation Review Team then gets constituted to support the implementation process. Implementation could also take a while.
And all that has to happen, with the completion of implementation, before calling for the next round can be considered.
Going by the 2012 Round, the period between policy development which began in December 2005 to launch of the round in Q1 of 2012 was 7+ years.
So you can perhaps draw your own conclusions.
Thank you for your question, Dr Govind.