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GNSO Council Meeting #3 of 2025 held on 12 Mar 2025

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #3 of 2025 held on 12 Mar 2025 

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects  Action List
  • 2.1 - Review focus areas and provide updates on specific key themes / topics, to include review of Projects List and Action Item List.   
• Item 3: Consent Agenda

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

GNSO Council Meeting #3 of 2025 held on 12 Mar 2025

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 09 January 2025 were posted on 26 January 2025.

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2025 held on 13 Feb 2025 at 20:15 UTC (13:15 PT)

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: please refer to the ICANN82 schedule

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the meeting or call as listen-only observers.

Records of 12 Mar 2025 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 12 Mar 2025 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Mar 2025 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Mar 2025 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2025 held on 13 Feb 2025

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2025 held on 13 Feb 2025 

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects  Action List
  • 2.1 - Review focus areas and provide updates on specific key themes / topics, to include review of Projects List and Action Item List.   
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Confirm the GNSO-nominated ICANN Fellowship Program Mentor and Selection Committee Member positions
    • Mentor: Glen De Saint Géry
    • Selection Committee Member: Maud Adjeley Ashong Elliot
  • Confirm the Latin Script Diacritics PDP WG Chair
    • Michael Bauland
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on ICANN’s Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements - Six Month Progress Update
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps for Policy and Implementation Policy Status Report
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Phase 1 on the Temporary Specification - Implementation Question re: Billing Contact
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Final Report of the Transfer Policy Review PDP Working Group
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Outcomes of Strategic Planning Session 
• Item 9: Any Other Business
  • 9.1 - ICANN82 planning update
  • 9.2 - Discussion of Request for LinkedIn Post re: Human Rights Checklist
  • 9.3 - Volunteer needed to be the GNSO Liaison to the Latin Diacritics PDP

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2025 held on 13 Feb 2025

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large

• Item 1: Administrative Matters

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 19 December were posted on 30 December 2024.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 09 January 2025 were posted on 26 January 2025.

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on ICANN’s Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements - Six Month Progress Update
  • On 8 November 2024, ICANN announced the release of a six-month report, "ICANN's Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements," detailing its enforcement actions under the new Domain Name System (DNS) Abuse mitigation requirements. The requirements, which became effective on 5 April 2024, require generic top-level domain registry operators (ROs) and registrars to take mitigation steps to address well-evidenced DNS Abuse, which, for the purposes of ICANN agreements, is limited to malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam used as a vector for delivering the other forms of DNS Abuse.
  • During the initial six months of enforcement, from 5 April to 5 October 2024, ICANN's Contractual Compliance team launched 192 DNS Abuse investigations involving contracted parties. This enforcement effort led to impactful results, including:

    • Issuing formal Notices of Breach to an RO and a registrar for noncompliance with DNS Abuse mitigation requirements.

    • Resolving 154 cases that resulted in the suspension of over 2,700 abusive domain names and the disabling of more than 350 phishing websites.

  • Council will hear an update from ICANN Compliance and have an opportunity to ask questions. (presentation) 
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps for Policy and Implementation Policy Status Report
  • ICANN org published a Policy Status Report (PSR) on the Policy and Implementation Working Group Final Report to support the GNSO Council in its assessment of the effectiveness of its recommendations in achieving their intention of supporting and improving the effectiveness of GNSO Policy Development and Implementation processes. 
  • The PSR includes background on the Policy and Implementation Recommendations and their intended purpose, readily available data, staff observations and analysis, and performance against the stated objectives by the GNSO Council and the ICANN community. The PSR is intended to serve as input to the GNSO Council review of policy and implementation related efforts, notably in the assessment of the following GNSO processes introduced in light of the recommendations of the Final Report: 
    • The GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) 
    • The GNSO Guidance Process (GGP)
    • The GNSO Input Process (GIP) 
    • The Implementation Review Team (IRT) Principles & Guidelines, as well as the requirement to form an IRT following the adoption by the ICANN Board of GNSO Policy recommendations 
    • The Consensus Policy Implementation Framework (CPIF) 
  • In summary, the PSR finds that these processes have proved effective in supporting and enhancing GNSO Policy and Implementation efforts, but also identifies a number of caveats and possible improvements. 
  • Council will hear an overview of the updated PSR and determine next steps for the recommendations in the Report. 
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Phase 1 on the Temporary Specification - Implementation Question re: Billing Contact
  • During the ICANN81 GNSO Council Wrap-Up, Thomas Rickert provided an update regarding the implementation of EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 recommendations. Thomas is the current GNSO Council Liaison to the EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 Implementation Review Team (IRT). Thomas noted that the IRT expressed the view that the absence of a reference to billing contact data was a drafting error, and the EPDP Team intended for the collection of billing contact data to be optional and not mandatory.

  • The Registration Data Policy was published on 21 February 2024, and the policy has an effective date of 21 August 2025. The EPDP Phase 1 policy recommendations do not reference billing contact data, and the Registration Data Policy also makes no reference to billing contact data.

  • In the interest of transparency, Thomas requested that all Councilors consult with their respective groups to ensure that others are properly informed and agree with the interpretation raised by the registrars within the IRT. Accordingly, Councilors were asked to consult with their groups. The Council discussed this topic during its meeting on 19 December 2024 and asked for additional background information on the topic. 

  • Council is being asked to consider the questions below:

    1. Does the Council confirm billing contact was in scope for the EPDP on the Temp Spec - Phase 1 Team? 
    2. Does the Council confirm:
       1. the collection of billing contacts by registrars should continue to be required as per current RAA requirements because EPDP Phase 1, by being silent on this, did not mean to change this requirement, OR
       2. the collection of billing contacts by registrars should become optional because EPDP Phase 1, by being silent on this, meant to change the RAA requirement?
  • Council will discuss the above questions and determine next steps.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Final Report of the Transfer Policy Review PDP Working Group
  • On 18 February 2021, the GNSO Council initiated a PDP to review the Transfer Policy, the policy that governs the process of transferring a domain name from one registrar to another. This PDP is tasked to determine if changes to the policy are needed to improve the ease, security, and efficacy of inter-registrar and inter-registrant transfers. 
  • The Transfer Policy Review (TPR) working group began meeting in May 2021, and while it initially divided its work into three distinct groups/phases, the working group ultimately agreed that the topics within its charter needed to be considered together due to overlapping dependencies. Accordingly, the working group worked toward a comprehensive Initial Report, which it published on 1 August 2024. The Initial Report covers all topics in the working group’s charter, including inter-registrar transfers, change of registrant, the Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy, ICANN-approved transfers, and others.
  • The TPR Working Group introduced a new format to its Initial and Final Report, where it endeavors to indicate the “Policy Impact Level” of each policy recommendation. The Policy Impact Indicator is a new feature to help the reader understand the degree of change being proposed by the Working Group, i.e., how much does this recommendation differ from the current Transfer Policy? 
  • The Chair of the TPR Working Group will present an overview of the forty-seven (47) policy recommendations to the Council. 

• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Outcomes of Strategic Planning Session

  • Beginning in 2018, the GNSO Council has held an annual Strategic Planning Session (SPS). The SPS is the Council’s dedicated meeting designed to (i) understand and review the GNSO’s portfolio of work for the coming year, (ii) align on the GNSO’s work priorities for the coming year, (iii) consider whether the GNSO Council has the correct resources and tools to conduct its work as manager of the PDP efficiently, effectively, and comprehensively, and (iv) discuss how to best prepare for emerging and upcoming challenges the Council could face in the coming year and beyond. This year’s SPS was held in Washington, D.C. on 14-15 January 2025.

  • Council will review the outcomes of the SPS and discuss next steps. 

GNSO Council Meeting #2 of 2025 held on 13 Feb 2025 at 21:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/5zh8rb2v 

13:00 Los Angeles; 16:00 Washington DC; 21:00 London; 22:00 Paris; 00:00 Moscow (Friday); 08:00 Melbourne (Friday)

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/91048235847?pwd=bmEHjk0uYT3sR2DIoE0c0yw4HKbM6O.1

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the meeting or call as listen-only observers.

Records of 13 Feb 2025 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 13 Feb 2025 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Feb 2025 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Feb 2025 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council confirmed Glen De Saint Géry as the GNSO's ICANN Fellowship Program Mentor, Maud Adjeley Ashong Elliot as the GNSO's ICANN Fellowship Program Selection Committee Member, and Michael Bauland as the Latin Script Diacritics PDP WG Chair.

2. DNS Abuse Mitigation

• Council received a presentation from ICANN Contractual Compliance on a six-month report, "ICANN's Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements," detailing its enforcement actions under the new Domain Name System (DNS) Abuse mitigation requirements. The requirements, which became effective on 5 April 2024, require generic top-level domain registry operators (ROs) and registrars to take mitigation steps to address well-evidenced DNS Abuse, which, for the purposes of ICANN agreements, is limited to malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam used as a vector for delivering the other forms of DNS Abuse.
• During the initial six months of enforcement, from 5 April to 5 October 2024, ICANN's Contractual Compliance team launched 192 DNS Abuse investigations involving contracted parties. This enforcement effort led to impactful results, including:

  • Issuing formal Notices of Breach to an RO and a registrar for noncompliance with DNS Abuse mitigation requirements.

  • Resolving 154 cases that resulted in the suspension of over 2,700 abusive domain names and the disabling of more than 350 phishing websites.

• Discussion on this report touched on:
  • Need for better types of data, for eg. average turnaround time by CC in handling complaints
  • How learnings from handling complaints filed with CC could support development of guidance material for potential complainants in respect of understanding ICANN's role in addressing complaints and the need for completeness in information for a complaint to be actionable, as well as the need to contact relevant registrars in the first instance. 
  • Anticipation of inclusion of more data arising from a complete Contracted Parties' audit cycle.
  • What data and how such data could inform whether the new DNS Abuse mitigation requirements have actually improved CC's enforcement efforts and if so, how.

3. Policy and Implementation Policy Status Report

• Council received an update from Global Domains and Strategy (GDS) and GNSO Policy Staff on the Final Policy Status Report on the Policy and Implementation Recommendations, intended to provide Council with an assessment of the following GNSO processes which the PSR found to have proven effective in supporting and enhancing GNSO Policy and Implementation efforts, but also identifies a number of caveats and possible improvements:  
  • The GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP)
  • The GNSO Guidance Process (GGP)
  • The GNSO Input Process (GIP)
  • The Implementation Review Team (IRT) Principles & Guidelines, as well as the requirement to form an IRT following the adoption by the ICANN Board of GNSO Policy recommendations
  • The Consensus Policy Implementation Framework (CPIF) 
• Council decided that to have its Standing Committee on Continuous Improvement (SCCI) to consider the Actions Table for this PSR.

4. Transfer Policy Review

• Council received, in part, a detailed presentation on 47 final policy recommendations in the Final Report of the Transfer Policy Review PDP Working Group, and expect to continue consideration of the same during the Pre-ICANN82 GNSO Council Webinar.
• What is interesting to note that this Final Report differs in structure from a standard GNSO Final Report, with the structural reformatting is designed to make the report more digestible and reader friendly.
  • The main body of the report includes a table for each policy recommendation, which includes:
    a. Recommendation # & Title
    b. Recommendation text: the specific consensus recommendations proposed by the Working Group.
    c. Policy Impact Indicator: a new feature to help the reader understand the degree of change being proposed by the Working Group, i.e., how much does this recommendation differ from the current Transfer Policy.
    d. Recommendation Rationale: an explanation provided by the Working Group to explain and justify the proposed recommendation.
    e. Implementation Guidance: where applicable, the Working Group included a brief explanation to assist in the implementation phase of the policy recommendations.
    f. Links to Charter Questions & Summary Deliberations: The extensive summary deliberations and charter questions are now included in an annex to the report, which significantly reduces the length of the Final Report body but allows interested readers who desire further historical context to easily toggle between the recommendation’s tables and the annex where the deliberations can be found. 

5. EPDP Phase 1 on the Temporary Specification - Implementation Question re: Billing Contact

• Council continued its deliberation on the questions of:

  • Does the Council confirm billing contact was in scope for the EPDP on the Temp Spec - Phase 1 Team? 

  • Does the Council confirm:

    • the collection of billing contacts by registrars should continue to be required as per current RAA requirements because EPDP Phase 1, by being silent on this, did not mean to change this requirement, OR

    • the collection of billing contacts by registrars should become optional because EPDP Phase 1, by being silent on this, meant to change the RAA requirement?

• Discussion did not result in a clear conclusion. Council Leadership to draw learning from discussion and to propose a way forward.

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2025 held on 9 Jan 2025

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2025 held on 9 Jan 2025 

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects  Action List
  • Review focus areas and provide updates on specific key themes / topics, to include review of Projects List and Action Item List.  
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Confirmation of Standing Selection Committee (SSC) Leadership and Members

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Board Readiness Small Team Update

• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on ICANN’s Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements - Six Month Progress Update - Moved to Feb 2025 Meeting
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1, Recommendation 18 - Urgent Requests Trilateral Meeting Preparation
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Phase 1 on the Temporary Specification - Implementation Question re: Billing Contact - Moved to Feb 2025 Meeting
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Review of Projects List and Action Decision Radar

• Item 9: Any Other Business

  • 9.1 - GNSO Liaison to the ccNSO update

  • 9.2 - ICANN82 - update on planning and draft GNSO schedule

  • 9.3 - SPS reminders

  • 9.4 - Public Comment Opportunities

    • ICANN FY26–30 Operating & Financial Plan, ICANN/IANA FY26 Op Plans & Budgets
    • Draft PTI FY26 Operating Plan and Budget

  • 9.5 - IGF/WSIS+20 Small Team

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2025 held on 9 Jan 2025

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large

• Item 1: Administrative Matters

  • Minutes (Part 1) Minutes (Part 2) of the GNSO Council Meeting on 13 November 2024 were posted on 02 December 2024.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 19 December were posted on 30 December 2024

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Board Readiness Small Team Update

  • During the 2023 GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session (SPS), the GNSO Council agreed that it should seek to limit the likelihood of the Council approving PDP recommendations that the ICANN Board is ultimately unable to adopt. To that end, the Council discussed the desire to ensure it submits “board-ready policy recommendations” to the Board, to the extent possible. Generally speaking, a policy recommendation is considered board ready when: the recommendation is likely to achieve board adoption, i.e., the recommendation has been approved by a GNSO Supermajority Vote and will most likely be considered by the Board to be in the best interests of ICANN Community and ICANN org.

  • In August 2024, a Council Small Team began meeting to further discuss the topic of board readiness. Specifically, the Small Team was tasked by GNSO Council to:

    • Develop a survey/questionnaire related to the Board’s rejection/non-adoption of policy recommendations, which may be administered to relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. (Examples: EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 and 2; Subsequent Procedures).
    • Administer the survey/questionnaire and conduct interviews with relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members.
    • Synthesize the findings from the survey/questionnaire and interviews into a set of findings and develop a set of recommendations intended to inform Council work on improving Board readiness.
  • Over the past few months, the Small Team has been conducting interviews with community members, beginning with EPDP (Temp Spec) Phase 1.
  • Council will hear an update on the Small Team’s progress. Slide presentation
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on ICANN’s Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements - Six Month Progress Update -Moved to Feb 2025 Meeting
  • On 8 November 2024, ICANN announced the release of a six-month report, "ICANN's Enforcement of DNS Abuse Mitigation Requirements," detailing its enforcement actions under the new Domain Name System (DNS) Abuse mitigation requirements. The requirements, which became effective on 5 April 2024, require generic top-level domain registry operators (ROs) and registrars to take mitigation steps to address well-evidenced DNS Abuse, which, for the purposes of ICANN agreements, is limited to malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam used as a vector for delivering the other forms of DNS Abuse.
  • During the initial six months of enforcement, from 5 April to 5 October 2024, ICANN's Contractual Compliance team launched 192 DNS Abuse investigations involving contracted parties. This enforcement effort led to impactful results, including:
    • Issuing formal Notices of Breach to an RO and a registrar for noncompliance with DNS Abuse mitigation requirements.
    • Resolving 154 cases that resulted in the suspension of over 2,700 abusive domain names and the disabling of more than 350 phishing websites.
  • The six-month report provides additional context and details about the specific actions taken to keep the ICANN community informed and enhance transparency around the enforcement of DNS Abuse requirements.
  • Council will hear an update from ICANN Compliance and have an opportunity to ask questions. Slide presentation
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1, Recommendation 18 - Urgent Requests Trilateral Meeting Preparation
  • ICANN org convened an Implementation Review Team to assist ICANN in implementing the EPDP on the Temporary Specification Phase 1 Final Report, which began meeting in May 2019. ICANN org published the draft Registration Data Policy for public comment on 24 August 2022. Several commenters expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of Recommendation 18, specifically around the issue of the response timeline for urgent requests. The relevant portion of Recommendation 18 reads, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].”
  • After a series of correspondence between the Board and Council (3 June 2024 and 29 August 2024) and between the GAC and the Board (15 October 2024), a trilateral meeting of Council - GAC - Board was held on 4 November 2024 which discussed next steps, including potentially resuming discussions with the IRT.
  • Council will continue its discussion from December 2024, in preparation for the next trilateral meeting with the ICANN Board and GAC.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Phase 1 on the Temporary Specification - Implementation Question re: Billing Contact -Moved to Feb 2025 Meeting
  • During ICANN81, the EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 Implementation Review Team (IRT) expressed the view that the absence of a reference to billing contact data was a drafting error, and the EPDP Team intended for the collection of billing contact data to be optional and not mandatory.
  • The Registration Data Policy was published on 21 February 2024, and the policy has an effective date of 21 August 2025. The EPDP Phase 1 policy recommendations do not reference billing contact data, and the Registration Data Policy also makes no reference to billing contact data.

  • All Councilors were requested to consult with their respective groups to ensure that others are properly informed and agree with the interpretation raised by the registrars within the IRT. Accordingly, Councilors were asked to consult with their groups on the following questions:

    1. Does your group believe that billing contact data was in scope for the EPDP Temp Spec policy development? 
    2. If yes, does your group believe there was a drafting error in the EPDP Phase 1 Final Report because the intention of the recommendations, by not including a recommendation concerning the collection, escrow, etc of billing contact data was that the collection and retention of billing contact data should be optional and not mandatory? Note: If, as a matter of ICANN Consensus Policy this was the intended outcome, this interpretation would change current contractual requirements for registrars. 
  • Council will further discuss these questions and determine next steps.

GNSO Council Meeting #1 of 2025 held on 9 Jan 2025 at 05:00 UTC:  https://tinyurl.com/p69xapak 

21:00 Los Angeles (Wednesday); 00:00 Washington DC; 05:00 London; 06:00 Paris; 08:00 Moscow; 16:00 Melbourne

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/91048235847?pwd=bmEHjk0uYT3sR2DIoE0c0yw4HKbM6O.1

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the meeting or call as listen-only observers.

Records of 9 Jan 2025 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 9 Jan 2025 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Jan 2025 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Jan 2025 Meeting Records.

1. Board Ready Recommendations

• Council agreed that it should seek to limit the likelihood of Council approving PDP recommendations that the ICANN Board is ultimately unable to adopt. To that end, the Council discussed the desire to ensure it submits “board-ready policy recommendations” to the Board, to the extent possible. Generally speaking, a policy recommendation is considered board ready when: the recommendation is likely to achieve board adoption, i.e., the recommendation has been approved by a GNSO Supermajority Vote and will most likely be considered by the Board to be in the best interests of ICANN Community and ICANN org.
• Council created a Board Readiness Small Team to study what gaps exist, from the perspective of PDP WG participants, which led to the Board rejecting recommendations, and to determine how to fill those gaps.
• Council was provided with an update on the Board Readiness Small Team via slide presentation which included some preliminary insights out of interviews conducted with 4 EPDP Phase 1 WG members. The panel of interviewees will be expanded, while preparations are under way for interviews regarding EPDP Phase 2 and thereafter, Subsequent Procedures. Work on conclusions is anticipated to be completed by ICANN82. 

2. Urgent Requests

• This pertains to the GAC's concerns over the implementation of the EPDP on the Temporary Specification Phase 1 Final Report, in particular, Recommendation 18, specifically around the issue of the response timeline for urgent requests of registration data. The relevant portion of Recommendation 18 reads, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].” 
• Council along with the Board and the GAC have initiated a Trilateral Meeting to try to resolve the GAC's request for more policy work to handle such urgent requests. The GAC have also offered to work on a universal method for authenticating (LEA) requestors. However, Council is of the view that further discussion is needed to establish (a) clear understanding of policy vs implementation work, and (b) what else is needed to make Recommendation 18 work. 
• The next Trilateral Meeting is expected to take place in late Jan or early Feb. 

GNSO Council Meeting #12 of 2024 held on 19 December 2024 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #12 of 2024 held on 19 Dec 2024

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • GNSO Review of the GAC Communiqué

  • Recommendations Report for the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Phase 2 

  • Confirmation of GNSO Empowered Community Representative (Tomslin Samme-NIar)
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Empowered Community Approval Action on Fundamental Bylaws Amendments to Article 4 Accountability and Review, 4.2 Reconsideration
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Charter for Policy Development Process on Latin Script Diacritics
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1, Recommendation 18 - Urgent Requests
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Request for Guidance from the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures / IDNs EPDP Phase 1 IRT
• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE: EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1 - Billing Contact
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - 2025 Council Strategic Planning Session (SPS)
• Item 10:  DISCUSSION ITEM -  Request for Guidance from the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) PDP IRT on the Scope of Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) Recommendation 1  Moved to Jan 2025 meeting
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Council PR Officer Update 

• Item 11: Any Other Business

  • 11.1 - GNSO Liaison to the GAC update
  • 11.2 - ICANN82 - funded travel emails were sent out, please action as past deadline

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large (updated on 17 Dec 2024)

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 17 October  2024 were posted on 01 November 2024.
  • Minutes (Part 1) Minutes (Part 2) of the GNSO Council Meeting on 13 November 2024 were posted on 02 December 2024.
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Charter for Policy Development Process on Latin Script Diacritics

  • Following Council's adoption of a motion to initiate a Policy Development Process (PDP) on Latin Script Diacritics on 13 November 2024, a charter for the PDP needs to be adopted to action the PDP next steps.

  • This PDP has been informed by the Preliminary Issue Report which objective was for ICANN org to assess all relevant issues related to Council's request, and, following Community Input during the Public Comment phase, to recommend a course of action to Council. 

  • The PDP will be focused on the circumstance when an ASCII gTLD and the Latin script diacritic version of the gTLD are not variants of each other AND may be found to be visually similar to each other. The issue is theoretically possible for any existing ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLD pairs, and is essentially infinite for future applied-for ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLDs, where diacritics are involved.
  • The Final Issue Report had included a draft charter prepared by ICANN org supporting Council. Having discussed the draft charter, Council determined that edits were needed with respect to, but not limited to, the membership structure.  The amendments made are:
    • 1) limiting the scope of work;
    • 2) adjusting the membership structure to make it an “Open Model”; and
    • 3) including the Global Public Interest (GPI) Framework and its checklist as a reference for analysis when conducting the PDP, per the ICANN Board’s recommendation.
  • Council will vote on the updated charter.
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1, Recommendation 18 - Urgent Requests
  • ICANN org convened an Implementation Review Team to assist ICANN in implementing the EPDP on the Temporary Specification Phase 1 Final Report, which began meeting in May 2019. ICANN org published the draft Registration Data Policy for public comment on 24 August 2022. Several commenters expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of Recommendation 18, specifically around the issue of the response timeline for urgent requests. The relevant portion of Recommendation 18 reads, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].”
  • After a series of correspondence between the Board and Council (3 June 2024 and 29 August 2024) and between the GAC and the Board (15 October 2024), a trilateral meeting of Council - GAC - Board was held on 4 November 2024 which discussed next steps, including potentially resuming discussions with the IRT.
  • Council will discuss GAC's proposal and determine next steps.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Request for Guidance from the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures / IDNs EPDP Phase 1 IRT
  • The New gTLD Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) PDP provided Recommendation 25.4 (approved by the ICANN Board) to allow single character gTLDs for ideographic scripts in the next round, provided that they do not introduce confusion risks that rise above commonplace similarities.  The IDNs EPDP Phase 1 Final Report put forth important additional detail and limitations on Rec 25.4, prescribing that the single character gTLDs be limited to the Han script and that applications must not be accepted until relevant guidelines are developed and put in place by the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) Generation Panels (GPs). Alternatively, the IDN EPDP concluded that if the CJK GPs determine that additional guidelines beyond the RZ-LGR are not needed, then the single character applications should proceed.
  • The matter was put out for public comment by the CJK Generation Panels.  Although the CJK GPs stated that the work done in the Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGRs) sufficiently addresses the concerns around the risk of confusion for single character Han script gTLDs, the majority of the public comments on the CJK GPs’ statements opposed moving forward.   Commenters from the Chinese community expressed concerns about the lack of alignment with China’s linguistic laws and regulations, the complexities of Chinese character ideographs, and end-user confusion due to multiple meanings of many single characters.  One such comment received from a co-Chair of the CGP argues that the CGP should not be and was not involved in "risk of confusion" policy considerations related to single Han characters as TLDs.  Many of the comments call for further community work prior to proceeding. Similar concerns were received through the public comment on the relevant draft AGB sections.
  • This public comment was discussed with the Sub Pro IRT IDN Sub-Track which referred the matter to the main SubPro IRT.  The main SubPro IRT was asked by ICANN staff whether Recommendation 25.4 should be modified as not implementable or whether the issue should be reviewed with Council for possible further work.   It was agreed that the Liaisons should raise this with Council for direction on next steps.  A background document prepared by Lars Hoffman was shared with the Council on December 9.   Councillors are encouraged to review this write-up prior to the meeting.
  • Council will be briefed on the options for next steps, including a recommendation from the IRT Liaisons to refer this complex matter to a GNSO Guidance Process to determine the guidance necessary to allow Han single characters to proceed, with an acknowledgement that the GGP could well determine that Recommendation 25.4 and IDN EPDP Recommendation 3.17 as approved may not be implementable.  Due to time constraints, and the fact that both the SubPro and IDNs recommendations were conditional, Liaisons believe that the recommended GGP process should not hold up the next round.
• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE: EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1 - Billing Contact
  • During ICANN81, the EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 Implementation Review Team (IRT) expressed the view that the absence of a reference to billing contact data was a drafting error, and the EPDP Team intended for the collection of billing contact data to be optional and not mandatory.
  • The Registration Data Policy was published on 21 February 2024, and the policy has an effective date of 21 August 2025. The EPDP Phase 1 policy recommendations do not reference billing contact data, and the Registration Data Policy also makes no reference to billing contact data.

  • All Councilors were requested to consult with their respective groups to ensure that others are properly informed and agree with the interpretation raised by the registrars within the IRT. Accordingly, Councilors were asked to consult with their groups on the following questions:

    1. Does your group believe that billing contact data was in scope for the EPDP Temp Spec policy development? 
    2. If yes, does your group believe there was a drafting error in the EPDP Phase 1 Final Report because the intention of the recommendations, by not including a recommendation concerning the collection, escrow, etc of billing contact data was that the collection and retention of billing contact data should be optional and not mandatory? Note: If, as a matter of ICANN Consensus Policy this was the intended outcome, this interpretation would change current contractual requirements for registrars. 
  • Council will discuss next steps.
• Item 10:  DISCUSSION ITEM -  Request for Guidance from the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) PDP IRT on the Scope of Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) Recommendation 1  Moved to Jan 2025 meeting
  • There are currently diverging views within the Implementation Review Team (IRT) concerning the implementation of the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) Final Recommendation 1 in the RPM PDP Phase 1 Final Report. Specifically, there is disagreement regarding the scope of amendments to a complaint filed under the URS after the complainant receives the contact information from the URS Provider. As stated in URS Recommendation 1:

    • The Working Group recommends that URS Rule 3(b), and, where necessary, a URS Provider’s Supplemental Rules be amended to clarify that a Complainant must only be required to insert the publicly-available WHOIS/Registration Data Directory Service (RDDS) data for the domain name(s) at issue in its initial Complaint. Furthermore, the Working Group recommends that URS Procedure paragraph 3.3 be amended to allow the Complainant to update the Complaint within 2-3 calendar days after the URS Provider provides updated registration data related to the disputed domain name(s). 

  • The disagreement within the IRT centers on a limit on the scope of possible amendments to the complaint - some IRT members pointed out that if new information providing greater clarity to a claim becomes available after the party's identity is revealed, the complainant should be permitted to amend the Complaint to include this information. These IRT members believe that there doesn't seem to be any substantial harm in allowing the complainant to amend the Complaint beyond just putting in the contact details of the registrant.
  • A staff review of the PDP Working Group deliberations reveals that the WG did not discuss either expanding or limiting the scope of URS Recommendation 1.  For further details on the PDP IRT and original Working Group discussions, see the background document at https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/policy/2024/draft/staff-summary-rpm-urs-rec1-en.pdf.
  • Since the IRT has not come to agreement, the next step, per the IRT Principles and Guidelines, is to raise the issue with the GNSO Council liaison. 
  • Council will receive an introduction to the topic from the GNSO Council Liaison to the IRT.

GNSO Council Meeting #12 of 2024 held on 19 Dec 2024 at 19:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/ybse6rda 

13:00 Los Angeles; 16:00 Washington DC; 21:00 London; 22:00 Paris; 00:00 Moscow (Friday); 08:00 Melbourne (Friday)

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation:  https://icann.zoom.us/j/92283565389?pwd=QnlHK1JSbzdiSFFZSjRjamxMTkNGdz09

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the call as listen-only observers.

Records of 19 Dec 2024 Meeting 

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 19 Dec 2024 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Dec 2024 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Dec 2024 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council adopted the GNSO Review of the ICANN81 Istanbul Communiqué on Issues of Importance (there was no GAC Advice provided for ICANN81) and this is to be communicated to the ICANN Board and the GAC.
• Council approved the Recommendations Report to the ICANN Board regarding the Phase 2 Final Recommendations from the EPDP on IDNs and this report is to be transmitted to the ICANN Board.
• Council confirmed GNSO Vice-Chair Tomslin Samme-NIar as GNSO's Empowered Community Representative.

2. Latin Script Diacritics

• Council adopted the PDP WG charter for Latin Script Diacritics, which included the following amendments: 1) limiting the scope of work; 2) adjusting the membership structure to make it an “Open Model”; 3) including the Global Public Interest (GPI) Framework and its checklist as a reference for analysis when conducting the PDP, per the ICANN Board’s recommendation. 
• Next Steps for the Latin Script Diacritics PDP, following up on the Council’s adoption of the WG charter, a Call for Volunteers for Members and Chair will be published in the beginning of January for confirmation by the end of January. The WG plans to kick-off in February.

3. Han Script Single Characters as TLDs

• The New gTLD Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) PDP provided Recommendation 25.4 (approved by the ICANN Board) to allow single character gTLDs for ideographic scripts in the next round, provided that they do not introduce confusion risks that rise above commonplace similarities.  The IDNs EPDP Phase 1 Final Report put forth important additional detail and limitations on Rec 25.4, prescribing that the single character gTLDs be limited to the Han script and that applications must not be accepted until relevant guidelines are developed and put in place by the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) Generation Panels (GPs). Alternatively, the IDN EPDP concluded that if the CJK GPs determine that additional guidelines beyond the RZ-LGR are not needed, then the single character applications should proceed.
• Although the CJK GPs stated that the work done in the Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGRs) sufficiently addresses the concerns around the risk of confusion for single character Han script gTLDs, the majority of the public comments on the CJK GPs’ statements opposed moving forward.   Commenters from the Chinese community expressed concerns about the lack of alignment with China’s linguistic laws and regulations, the complexities of Chinese character ideographs, and end-user confusion due to multiple meanings of many single characters.  One such comment received from a co-Chair of the CGP argues that the CGP should not be and was not involved in "risk of confusion" policy considerations related to single Han characters as TLDs.  Many of the comments call for further community work prior to proceeding. Similar concerns were received through the public comment on the relevant draft AGB sections.
• This public comment was discussed with the Sub Pro IRT IDN Sub-Track which referred the matter to the main SubPro IRT.  The main SubPro IRT was asked by ICANN staff whether Recommendation 25.4 should be modified as not implementable or whether the issue should be reviewed with Council for possible further work.  
• Council discussed options for next steps, including a recommendation from the IRT Liaisons to refer this complex matter to a GNSO Guidance Process to determine the guidance necessary to allow Han single characters to proceed, with an acknowledgement that the GGP could well determine that Recommendation 25.4 and IDN EPDP Recommendation 3.17 as approved may not be implementable.  Due to time constraints, and the fact that both the SubPro and IDNs recommendations were conditional, Liaisons believe that the recommended GGP process should not hold up the next round.
• A small group of Councilors will review this issue in more detail and suggest next steps for Council's consideration.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to provide an update on the Han Script Single Characters as TLDs as and when an update becomes available

4. EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1, Recommendation 18 - Urgent Requests

• ICANN org convened an Implementation Review Team to assist ICANN in implementing the EPDP on the Temporary Specification Phase 1 Final Report, which began meeting in May 2019. ICANN org published the draft Registration Data Policy for public comment on 24 August 2022. Several commenters expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of Recommendation 18, specifically around the issue of the response timeline for urgent requests of registration data.
  • The relevant portion of Recommendation 18 reads, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].”
• A series of correspondence between the Board and Council (3 June 2024 and 29 August 2024) and between the GAC and the Board (15 October 2024) on this issue led to a trilateral meeting of Council - GAC - Board which was held on 4 November 2024 and which discussed next steps, including potentially resuming discussions with the IRT.
  • In bref, the GNSO and the Board's concerns revolved around whether disclosure of registration data was feasible when the requestor is not authenticated entity even if the requestor claims to be an LEA representative. The GAC then proposed the idea of starting work on an authentication method and for GNSO to start or continue policy work to support implementation of Recommendation 18.
  • Of note also is that the EPDP Phase 2 referred to a response timeline of one business day but not exceeding three calendar days in respect of the SSAD - System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) but which also suffered the challenge of a lack of authentication mechanism for the requestor.
  • Further to the authentication mechanism aspect, any request would still be subject to other steps to determine its validity, regardless of the requestor, and whether the request is truly "urgent".  Therefore authentication of the requestor does not automatically lead to disclosure of data to the requestor and does not necessarily imply any urgency associated with a request.
  • And finally, the timeline refers to a response by the relevant registrar and not necessarily completion of a disclosure.
• Council discussed whether there needs to be additional policy work to be contemplated on the assumption that the authentication mechanism is in place. Council concluded that further clarification is needed and should be sought at the next trilateral meeting, including:
  • How is the work on GAC's proposed authentication mechanism progressing and what role could GNSO have in it (if at all);
  • A better understanding of what policy development work is contemplated by the GAC per its request;
  • Whether the issue of timeline could be within the remit of the IRT to resolve (assuming the authentication mechanism is in place) instead of any need to take on more policy development work.
• It was decided that Council leadership would take on the task of rationalizing the clarifications needed, formulate a correspondence to set the agenda for the next trilateral meeting. Council will discuss this output at its January 2025 meeting.

5. EPDP Temporary Specification Phase 1 - Billing Contact

• This is another issue arising from the EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 Implementation Review Team (IRT) deliberations which that of a view that the EPDP Team had intended for the collection of billing contact data to be optional and not mandatory. 
• The EPDP Phase 1 policy recommendations do not reference billing contact data, and the Registration Data Policy published on 21 February 2024, which has an effective date of 21 August 2025, also makes no reference to billing contact data. However, the collection of and placement in escrow of billing contact data is an obligation under the 2013 RAA. And hence, in short, Council is being asked which position should be authoritative, in other words:
  • 1) Should billing contact data no longer be required, i.e, that it is optional
  • 2) Is this the case despite the fact that the EPDP Phase 1 policy recommendations makes no mention of billing contact either being optional or required.
  • 3) Noting that billing contact data is not something that is transferred as part of the RDDS or RDAP, but is instead separately collected under the registration data escrow specification, and it is not going to be included in a response to RDAP or RDDS
• Council decided to ask staff to provide more extensive background information for Council's better understanding.

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2024 held on 13 November 2024 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2024 held on 13 Nov 2024 (as amended)

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Motion to Defer the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Policy Development Process (PDP) Phase 2 for an Additional Six Months
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Motion to Adopt the Revised Charter for Permanent Standing Committee on Continuous Improvements (SCCI) 
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP-IDNs) Phase 2 Final Report
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of Policy Development Process for Latin Script Diacritics
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Policy Status Report (PSR) on Rights Protection Mechanisms PDP Phase 2
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Draft Charter on Latin Diacritics
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE: Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee Update
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Annual Report
• Item 11: GNSO Chair Q&A 

• Item 12: Any Other Business 

  • 12.1 - Ethics Policy & Statements of Interest (SOIs)

  • 12.2 - Review CIP-CCG’s proposed edits on continuous improvement

  • 12.3 - Farewell to Outgoing Councilors

  • 12.4 - Open Mic

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 19 September 2024 were posted on 07 October 2024.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 17 October  2024 were posted on 01 November 2024.
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP-IDNs) Phase 2 Final Report
  • In May 2021, Council voted to initiate the EPDP-IDNs that was tasked to develop policy recommendations that will eventually allow for the introduction of variant gTLDs at the top-level and build on the existing body of policy work on the IDN subject, specifically the Outputs produced by the GNSO New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process (SubPro PDP). The Team’s focus was to fill the gaps not addressed by the SubPro PDP, including applying SubPro PDP Outputs to existing gTLDs and second-level variant domains.
  • In November 2022, Council approved an EPDP Team request to divide its work into two phases, with Phase 1 covering topics related to top-level gTLD definition and variant management and Phase 2 pertaining to second-level variant management. The two-phased approach was intended to allow the EPDP Team to focus on the charter questions that are most likely to impact the implementation of the Next Round of the new gTLDs and avoid potential delays.
  • Council went on to approve the Phase 1 Final Report including all sixty-nine (69) policy recommendations and implementation guidance, in November 2023. 
  • The ICANN Board subsequently adopted a scorecard on the Phase 1 Final Report on 8 June 2024, plus another scorecard on 7 September 2024, leaving two (2) pending recommendations out of fifty-eight (58).
  • In October 2024, Council received a comprehensive overview from Donna Austin, Chair of the EPDP-IDNs, on the Phase 2 Final Reportand the policy recommendations noting they all received full consensus designations.  The Phase 2 Final Report covers charter questions pertaining to second-level variant management on the following topics:
    • “Same entity” at the second-level and IDN Table harmonization
    • Adjustments in registry agreement, registry service, registry transition process, and other processes/procedures related to the domain name lifecycle
    • Adjustments in registration dispute-resolution procedures and trademark protection mechanisms
    • Process to update the IDN Implementation Guidelines
  •  Council will vote on the Phase 2 Final Report from the EPDP on IDNs.
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE - Initiation of Policy Development Process for Latin Script Diacritics
  • On 16 May 2024, Council passed a motion, requesting ICANN’s Policy Support Staff to draft a Preliminary Issue Report on Latin Script Diacritics. The objective of the Preliminary Issue Report was for ICANN org to assess all relevant issues related to Council's request, and, following Community Input during the Public Comment phase, to recommend a course of action to Council.

  • The Final Issue Report is focused on the circumstance when an ASCII gTLD and the Latin script diacritic version of the gTLD are not variants of each other AND may be found to be visually similar to each other. The issue is theoretically possible for any existing ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLD pairs, and is essentially infinite for future applied-for ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLDs, where diacritics are involved. On 16 May 2024, Council requested an Issue Report on this topic which once received, will aid in determining next steps. The Preliminary Issue Report opened for public comment on 18 July 2024 and closed with 41 submissions on 27 August 2024, a summary of which can be found in Annex B. The Final Issue Report includes a draft charter prepared by ICANN org supporting Council. Council may determine that edits are required before adopting the charter, in the event a PDP is initiated.

  • Council will vote on the recommendation from the Final Issue Report to initiate a Policy Development Process on Latin Diacritics.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Policy Status Report (PSR) on Rights Protection Mechanisms PDP Phase 2
  • On 18 February 2016, Council resolved to initiate a two-phased PDP to review all existing Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs. The Phase 1 Final Report issued by the PDP Working Group assessed the effectiveness of the relevant RPMs established as safeguards in the 2012 New gTLD Program, including the Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (TM-PDDRP); Sunrise and Trademark Claims services offered through the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH); and the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) dispute resolution procedure. Phase 2, when launched, will focus on a review of the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), which has been an ICANN Consensus Policy since 1999.
  • ICANN org published a Policy Status Report (PSR) on the UDRP in March 2022. Council considered the PSR and expressed some concerns, such as that the manner of presentation of some of the data was rather misleading or indeed, in some cases, incorrect. Council agreed that it needed to further discuss those concerns prior to the Org engaging in any further work on the PSR.
  • Council will discuss preparatory elements for RPMS Phase 2, including the Policy Status Report.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION: Draft Charter on Latin Diacritics

  • Pursuant to item four on this Council agenda, the Final Issue Report includes a draft charter prepared by ICANN org supporting Council. Some Councilors expressed concerns with the membership model suggested in the charter and requested additional time to review the details with their respective groups.

  • Council will discuss if updates are needed to the draft charter for the PDP on Latin Diacritics.

• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE: Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee Update
  • In June 2023, Council approved a Charter for the Registration Data Request Service Standing Committee, which outlines the Standing Committee’s tasks.
  • Specifically, the Standing Committee is tasked to review the data that will be produced by ICANN org on a monthly basis following the launch of the RDRS (see data points outlined here). The Scoping Team is expected to analyze the data and consider: 
    • Assignment #1. Trends that can be identified over a month-by-month period; 
    • Assignment #2. Possible technical updates that should be considered to RDRS and/or related messaging and promotion (recognizing that the RDRS will only be running for a two-year period and limited resources may be available to implement such updates); 
    • Assignment #3. Specific lessons learned that should be factored into the consideration of how to proceed with the SSAD recommendations; 
    • Assignment #4. Suggestions to the Council for a proposed recommendation(s) to the ICANN Board in relation to the consideration of the SSAD recommendations.
  • The Standing Committee has been reviewing monthly data since the inception of the RDRS in November 2023 and Council will receive an update on the RDRS Standing Committee’s observations to date. 

• Item 12: Any Other Business 

  • 12.1 - Ethics Policy & Statements of Interest (SOIs)

GNSO Council Meeting #11 of 2024 held in  Istanbul, Türkiye on 13 Nov 2024 at 13:15 - 15:15 EEST: https://tinyurl.com/25kf4xs6  

Coordinated Universal Time: 10:15 - 12:15 UTC

02:12 Los Angeles; 05:15 Washington DC; 10:15 London; 11:15 Paris; 13:15 Moscow; 21:15 Melbourne 

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: please refer to the ICANN81 Schedule

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the call as listen-only observers.

Records of 13 Nov 2024 Meeting

• Audio Recording (Part 1)
• Zoom Recording (Part 1) (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Minutes (Part 1) 
• Audio Recording (Part 2)
• Zoom Recording (Part 2) (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Minutes (Part 2)
• Zoom Recording (Wrap-up)

Special Summary Report of 13 Nov 2024 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Nov 2024 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Nov 2024 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council voted unanimously to defer the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Policy Development Process (PDP) Phase 2 for an additional 6 months

2. Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP-IDNs) Phase 2 Final Report

• Council approved, and recommends that the ICANN Board adopt, all fourteen (14) final recommendations as documented in the EPDP-IDNs Phase 2 Final Report.

3. Latin Diacritics

•  Council resolved to initiate a Policy Development Process for Latin Diacritics. This PDP to start as soon as its PDP WG Charter is approved by Council.
• The WG charter is pending confirmation on 2 elements: (1) nature of the WG: whether Open or Open + Representative; and (2) clarity on narrow scope of PDP.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to report to ALAC if and when GNSO Council determines the charter of its PDP on Latin Script Diacritics and next steps

4. Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)

• The Rights Protection Mechanisms PDP Phase 2 is the GNSO's intended review of the UDRP. Council posits that due to workload that GNSO is currently managing, the RPM PDP Phase 2 ought to be deferred for a further 6 months while Councilors considers how to improve upon the Policy Status Report (PSR) on RPMs PDP Phase 2 prepared by GNSO policy support staff.
• Council noted that WIPO and the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) has announced that they are jointly reviewing the UDRP independently of GNSO. Some councilors were unperturbed by this development; others opined that the WIPO-ICA review output could help inform the RPMs PDP Phase 2 work.

5. DNS Abuse 

• As an AOB, I requested that Council reinitiate / reconstitute the GNSO Council Small Team on DNS Abuse, given that the INFERMAL Report has been released by ICANN org, which was one of the reasons for suspending the work of that small team. The GNSO Chair acknowledged my request and Council leadership will take it into consideration in organizing Council's work moving forward.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to report to ALAC if and when GNSO Council determines next steps on the Small Team on DNS Abuse.

6. GNSO Council 2025 (per Council Meeting - Part 2)

• Greg DiBiase is returned as GNSO Chair for a second term, as are Tomslin Samme-Nlar and Nacho Amados, as Council Vice-Chairs for the NCPH and CPH, respectively.
• There are also several new Councilors: 
  • Vivek Goyal, replacing Mark Datysgeld, for BC
  • Farzaneh Badii and Julf Helsingius, replacing Stephanie Perrin and Wisdom Donkor, for NCSG
  • Sam Demetriou, replacing Kurt Pritz, for RySG
  • Hong-Fu Meng, who starts his own term, having served out the remainder of Antonia Chu's term, for RrSG
• The incumbent or returning Councilors are:
  
  • Paul McGrady, Desiree Miloshevic and Anne Aikman-Scalese, being the NomCom Appointees
  • Damon Ashcraft and Susan Payne, for IPC
  • Jennifer Chung and Nacho Amadoz, for RySG
  • Greg DiBiase and Prudence Malinki, for RrSG
  • Lawrence Owale-Roberts, for BC
  • Osvaldo Novoa and Thomas Rickert, for ISCPC
  • Manju Chen, Taiwo Peter Akinremi, Bruna Martins dos Santos, Tomslin Samme-Nlar, for NCSG 
• And there are new Liaisons:
  
  • Sebastien Ducos is the new GNSO Liaison to the GAC
  • Antonia Chu returns to Council as the ccNSO Liaison to the GNSO, having stepped down as a councilor from the RrSG earlier.

7. Registration Data Policy (RDP) (per Council Wrap-Up Session)

• The Registration Data Policy (RDP) resulted from the EPDP Phase 1, with the RDP now finalized and to be implemented soon. Since it needs to be read in conjunction with other documents - namely the Base RAA 2013. The RAA requires a billing contact data to be collected and put in escrow but the RDP, in superseding documents for registrar obligations, is silent on collection of billing contact data as well as such data being put in escrow, hence raising an inconsistency.
• Council needs to facilitate the publishing of an update RDP which states that collection and putting into escrow of billing contact data is optional, and to get ICANN Compliance's understanding on this approach to allow for what was intended and at the same time, disallow reopening discussion on any other aspect of the RDP.

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2024 held on 17 October 2024 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2024 held on 17 Oct 2024

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda

  • Motion to defer the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Policy Development Process Phase 2 for an additional 6 months beginning 17 Oct 2024. Motion deferred to Nov 2024 meeting.

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Phase 2 Final Report
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Final Issue Report on a Policy Development Process for Latin Script Diacritics
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy of Registration Data 
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on Board Readiness Project
• Item 8: COUNCIL UPDATE: Council Committee for Overseeing and Implementing Continuous Improvement (CCOICI) and Continuous Improvement Program Community Coordination Group (CIP-CCG) 
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE: Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee Update
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on Board Letter Re: Contention Sets

• Item 11: Any Other Business

  • 11.1 - ICANN 81 Planning

  • 11.2 - GNSO Prep Week Webinar - 24 Oct at 13:00 UTC

  • 11.3 - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration: Draft Council Letter to the Board  

Updated 10 Oct 2024

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 08 August 2024 were posted on 23 August 2024.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 19 September 2024 were posted on 07 October 2024.
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Phase 2 Final Report
  • The EPDP-IDNs Team had submitted, on 8 November 2023 to Council, its Phase 1 Final Report containing sixty-nine (69) policy recommendations and implementation guidance, which Council subsequently approved in its entirety on 21 December 2023 and sent the same to the Board for adoption. The Board adopted a scorecard on the Phase 1 Final Report on 8 June 2024, plus another scorecard on 7 September 2024, leaving 2 pending recommendations out of 58.
  • Council will now received a detailed overview of the EPDP-IDNs Team's Phase 2 Final Reportin preparation for action next month.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Final Issue Report on a Policy Development Process for Latin Script Diacritics

  • On 16 May 2024, Council passed a motion, requesting ICANN’s Policy Support Staff to draft a Preliminary Issue Report on Latin Script Diacritics. The objective of the Preliminary Issue Report was for ICANN org to assess all relevant issues related to Council's request, and, following Community Input during the Public Comment phase, to recommend a course of action to Council. It remains Council’s prerogative to either follow ICANN org recommendations or to pursue alternative action.

  • This Final Issue Report is focused on the circumstance when an ASCII gTLD and the Latin script diacritic version of the gTLD are not variants of each other AND may be found to be visually similar to each other. The issue is theoretically possible for any existing ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLD pairs, and is essentially infinite for future applied-for ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLDs, where diacritics are involved. Council's request for an Issue Report on this topic was to aid in determining next steps.

  • The Preliminary Issue Report opened for public comment on 18 July 2024 and closed with 41 submissions on 27 August 2024, a summary of which can be found in Annex B. The Final Issue Report includes a draft charter prepared by ICANN org supporting the GNSO Council. The Council may determine that edits are required before adopting the charter, in the event a PDP is initiated.

  • Council will discuss the recommendation from the Final Issue Report in preparation for a potential vote to initiate a PDP during the next Council meeting.

• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy of Registration Data

  • During Council’s July meeting, Council agreed that restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not recommended. However, during its August meeting, some Councilors suggested potentially convening a small team to discuss how to make progress on this topic. Council Leadership has worked on a proposal of how to solicit additional feedback from ICANN org and GNSO groups with directed questions, in order to receive information from which Council can decide how to handle the important topic of accuracy. During the September meeting, the Council drafting team that volunteered to further consider the proposal will present the updated version to be discussed by Council.

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on Board Readiness Project
  • During the 2023 GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session (SPS), the GNSO Council agreed that it should seek to limit the likelihood of the Council approving PDP recommendations that the ICANN Board is ultimately unable to adopt. To that end, the Council discussed the desire to ensure it submits “board-ready policy recommendations” to the Board, to the extent possible. Generally speaking, a policy recommendation is considered board ready when: the recommendation is likely to achieve board adoption, i.e., the recommendation has been approved by a GNSO Supermajority Vote and will most likely be considered by the Board to be in the best interests of ICANN Community and ICANN org.
  • In August 2024, a Council Small Team began meeting to further discuss the topic of board readiness. Specifically, the Small Team was tasked by GNSO Council to:
    • Develop a survey/questionnaire related to the Board’s rejection/non-adoption of policy recommendations, which may be administered to relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. (Examples: EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 and 2; Subsequent Procedures)
    • Administer the survey/questionnaire and conduct interviews with relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. 
    • Synthesize the findings from the survey/questionnaire and interviews into a set of findings and develop a set of recommendations intended to inform Council work on improving Board readiness.
  • Council will hear an update on the Small Team’s progress.
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE: Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee Update
  • In June 2023, Council approved a Charter for the Registration Data Request Service Standing Committee, which outlines the Standing Committee’s tasks.

  • Specifically, the Standing Committee is tasked to review the data that will be produced by ICANN org on a monthly basis following the launch of the RDRS (see data points outlined here). The Scoping Team is expected to analyze the data and consider: 

    • Assignment #1. Trends that can be identified over a month-by-month period; 
    • Assignment #2. Possible technical updates that should be considered to RDRS and/or related messaging and promotion (recognizing that the RDRS will only be running for a two-year period and limited resources may be available to implement such updates); 
    • Assignment #3. Specific lessons learned that should be factored into the consideration of how to proceed with the SSAD recommendations; 
    • Assignment #4. Suggestions to the Council for a proposed recommendation(s) to the ICANN Board in relation to the consideration of the SSAD recommendations.
  • The Standing Committee has been reviewing monthly data since the inception of the RDRS in November 2023. Council will receive an update on the RDRS Standing Committee's observations to date.
• Item 10: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Next Steps on Board Letter Re: Contention Sets
  • On 13 September 2024, the ICANN Board sent a letter to Council regarding resolution of contention sets in the Next Round of the New gTLD Program. In that letter, the Board provided a holistic approach to resolving contention sets, which included reversing its adoption of SubPro Recommendation 20.6, which allows for joint ventures.
  • During its 19 September 2024 meeting, Council briefly discussed the letter during AOB and then more extensively during the informal meeting with GNSO appointed Board members on 25 September 2024. During these discussions, there appeared to be an understanding of the Board’s concerns about Recommendation 20.6 and also the lack of an appropriate mechanism to allow for the reversal of a Board-adopted recommendation. Nevertheless, there also appeared to be an understanding that the reversal of Recommendation 20.6 could happen concurrently with capturing the general procedure, including the integration of any appropriate guardrails. 
  • If this initial assessment is correct, Council leadership is proposing that Council submit a letter to the Board that notes, despite some procedural reservations, it will not object to the reversal of the Board’s adoption of Recommendation 20.6, but does look forward to working with the Board to document the process of reversing adoption of a GNSO recommendation.
  • Council will discuss whether there are any concerns and/or suggested amendments to the suggested approach from Council leadership.
• Item 11: Any Other Business
  • 11.3 - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration: Draft Council Letter to the Board  

GNSO Council Meeting #10 of 2024 held on 17 Oct 2024 at 13:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/4yjj9kpj  

06:00 Los Angeles; 09:00 Washington DC; 14:00 London; 15:00 Paris; 16:00 Moscow; 00:00 Melbourne (Friday) 

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/92283565389?pwd=QnlHK1JSbzdiSFFZSjRjamxMTkNGdz09

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the call as listen-only observers.

Records of 17 Oct 2024 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 17 Oct 2024 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Oct 2024 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Oct 2024 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• The vote to defer the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) Policy Development Process Phase 2 was deferred to the Nov meeting.

2. Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP-IDNs)

• Council received an extensive update (presentation) on the EPDP-IDNs Phase 2 Final Report and is expected to vote on its adoption in the Nov meeting

3. Latin Script Diacritics

• A circumstance has been identified in that an ASCII gTLD and the Latin script diacritic version of the gTLD are not variants of each other yet may be found to be visually similar to each other and hence, may not be delegated. The circumstance is theoretically possible for any existing ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLD pairs, and is essentially infinite for future applied-for ASCII or Latin script IDN gTLDs, where diacritics are involved.
• Following Council's 16 May 2024 request, ICANN’s Policy Support Staff prepared a Preliminary Issue Report on Latin Script Diacritics. The objective of the Preliminary Issue Report was for ICANN org to assess all relevant issues related to Council's request, and, following Community Input during the Public Comment phase, to recommend a course of action to Council. 
• The Final Issue Report (presentation) now includes a draft charter prepared by ICANN org for which Council may determine that edits are required before adopting the charter, in the event Council wishes to initiate a PDP to address the deficiency of the circumstance described. Council is expected to determine during its Nov meeting if a PDP should be initiated, but may choose to separate the decision on PDP initiation and approval of the draft charter.  

4. Registration Data Accuracy (RDA)

• Council has been grappling with the deferral of recommendations of the RDA Scoping Team which was complicated by ICANN org's determination that assessing collected registration data for the purpose of determining its accuracy was not a valid legal purpose under GDPR. This eventually led to a larger span on views amongst councilors no that problem was intended to be solved. There was also ambiguity on whether upcoming legislation (NIS2) might also impact the intent of work in this area. Thus, as a path forward, Council leadership devised a set of proposed questions to determine how best to proceed. 
• Council discussed the updated proposal on how to solicit additional feedback from ICANN org, GNSO groups and ACs with directed questions, in order to receive information from which the Council can decide how to handle, including what mechanism would be best suited to do so.
• Council will follow up on next steps over its mailing list on account of insufficient time at this meeting.

5. Registration Data Request Service (RDRS)

• The RDRS Standing Committee is tasked to review the data that will be produced by ICANN org on a monthly basis following the launch of the RDRS, and in particular, is expected to analyze the data and consider: 
  • Assignment #1. Trends that can be identified over a month-by-month period; 
  • Assignment #2. Possible technical updates that should be considered to RDRS and/or related messaging and promotion (recognizing that the RDRS will only be running for a two-year period and limited resources may be available to implement such updates); 
  • Assignment #3. Specific lessons learned that should be factored into the consideration of how to proceed with the SSAD recommendations; 
  • Assignment #4. Suggestions to the Council for a proposed recommendation(s) to the ICANN Board in relation to the consideration of the SSAD recommendations.
• This Standing Committee has been functioning since the inception of the RDRS in Nov 2023.
• Council received a (part) update (presentation) from Sebastien Ducos, Chair of RDRS Standing Committee, which will continue at Council's Nov meeting.
• In particular, Sebastien raised the need to separate discussions within the Standing Committee on how to improve the RDRS as a product/service versus policy questions. More on this at ICANN81.

6. Next Steps on Board Letter Re: Contention Sets

• GNSO Chair Greg DiBiase had in Sep drew Council's attention to the receipt of a 13 Sep letter from Board Chair regarding Contention sets for the New gTLD Program: Next Round (Next Round) where; 
  • Board has determined that they are not allowing private resolutions, and intends to reverse its adoption of the SubPro Final Report recommendation 20.6 
  • Meaning that a JV meant to resolve a contention set could now be in violation of this principle
  • Asked councilors to consider what Council's response might be in context of the Board approval process per ICANN Bylaws Annex A Section 9.
• Subsequently, GNSO Council had its informal call with GNSO Board members In the interim to better understand the rationale of the said Board Chair's letter.
• Council leadership is suggesting to not formally object to the Board's action on this, but to draft letter explaining Council's thoughts and concerns in reaction to the said Board Chair's letter. Given the lack of time at this meeting, GNSO Chair proposed to take this up via Council mailing list.

7. Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration

• On 22 November 2023, the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) filed a Request for Reconsideration  of the ICANN Board Resolutions 2023.10.26.11 and 2023.10.26.122, regarding (i) the actions and inactions that led to (a) the ICANN Board’s public comment of 6 December 2018 on the Initial Report of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), (b) the organization of the public comment phase on the Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group, (c) the ICANN Board Resolutions 2022.06.12.13 to 2022.06.12.16 , and (ii) the actions and inactions involving the implementation of the ICANN Grant Giving Program.

• During its meeting at ICANN80, a few GNSO Councilors volunteered to draft a letter to the Board regarding the Request for Reconsideration.

• A draft letter was prepared and Council had agreed that it should be issued to the Board, and that Council would socialize this letter with other SO/ACs so that they may choose to also provide input to the Board on this issue. 
• GNSO Chair Greg DiBiase noted that a new draft of IPC's letter is out after taking into consideration comments from some councilors. No objections have been received thereafter. Council leadership will follow up with an email on this issue prior to sending the letter to the Board.

8. Board Readiness Project

• The Board Readiness project emanated from Council's 2023 Strategic Planning Session (SPS) wherein Council seeks to limit the likelihood of Council approving PDP recommendations that the ICANN Board is ultimately unable to adopt by ensuring it submits “board-ready policy recommendations” to the Board, to the extent possible.
• This project is being driven through a Council Small Team which is tasked to:
  • Develop a survey/questionnaire related to the Board’s rejection/non-adoption of policy recommendations, which may be administered to relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. (Examples: EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 and 2; Subsequent Procedures)
  • Administer the survey/questionnaire and conduct interviews with relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. 
  • Synthesize the findings from the survey/questionnaire and interviews into a set of findings and develop a set of recommendations intended to inform Council work on improving Board readiness.
• Council received an update (presentation) from Kurt Pritz, Board Readiness Small Team Chair.

GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2024 held on 19 September 2024 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2024 held on 19 Sep 2024

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Motion to Approve Proposed Modifications to GNSO Operating Procedures Relating to Election of Board Seat No. 13
  • Approval of the 2024 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Slate. In accordance with Section 17.2 (d) of the ICANN Bylaw and per the CSC Charter, the full membership of the CSC must be approved by the GNSO Council. The Council approves the full slate of members and liaisons, noting that the ASO has declined to appoint a liaison.
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Supplemental Recommendation on Singulars/Plurals
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Registration Data Accuracy
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy of Registration Data 
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Policy Status Report: GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group Recommendations
• Item 8: Any Other Business 
  • 8.1 - GNSO Council SPS 
  • 8.2 - Update on ICANN81 planning and GNSO Draft schedule
  • 8.3 - Latin Diacritics Public Comment Preliminary Issue Report
  • 8.4 - Reminder: Informal Joint Meeting with GNSO Appointed Board Members and GNSO Council (25 Sept at 21:00 UTC) 
  • 8.5 - Update from Privacy and Proxy Services Accreditation Implementation Review Team Liaisons
  • 8.6 - Contention sets for the New gTLD Program: Next Round (Next Round)
  • 8.7 - Operational Design Phase Community Consultation Survey (deadline 27 Sept)

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 18 July 2024 were posted on 02 August 2024.

  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 08 August 2024 were posted on 23 August 2024.

• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • Motion to Approve Proposed Modifications to GNSO Operating Procedures Relating to Election of Board Seat No. 13 
    • Resulting from the  Registries Stakeholder Group and Registrars Stakeholder Group's joint review of the existing process to select a new ICANN Board Seat #13 Candidate in Annex 6 to ensure it was clear, effective, and appropriately balanced between Stakeholder Groups.
    • Proposes replacement Annex 6 to offer continuity in the selection process, prevent potential gaming of the process, provide balance between the Stakeholder groups, and encourage the selection of a consensus candidate.
  • Approval of the 2024 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Slate. In accordance with Section 17.2 (d) of the ICANN Bylaw and per the CSC Charter, the full membership of the CSC must be approved by the GNSO Council. The Council approves the full slate of members and liaisons, noting that the ASO has declined to appoint a liaison.

Members:

• • • Dmitry Burkov (EU), Appointing Organization: RySG, Term: 1 October 2023 - 30 September 2025
    • Federico Neves (LAC), Appointing Organization: ccNSO, Term: 1 October 2023 - 30 September 2025
    • Pablo Rodriguez (NA), Appointing Organization: ccNSO, Term: 1 October 2024 - 30 September 2026
    • Rick Wilhelm (NA), Appointing Organization: RySG, Term: 1 October 2024 - 30 September 2026

Liaisons:

• • • Joe Abley, Appointing Organization: SSAC, Term: 1 October 2024 - 30 September 2026
    • Tracy Hackshaw, Appointing Organization: GAC, Term: 1 October 2024 - 30 September 2026
    • Hiro Hotta, Appointing Organization: RSSAC, Term: 1 October 2024 - 30 September 2026
    • Milton Mueller, Appointing Organization: GNSO (Non-Registry), Term: 1 October 2023 - 30 September 2025
    • Holly Raiche, Appointing Organization: ALAC, Term: 1 October 2023 - 30 September 2025
    • Amy Creamer, Appointing Organization: PTI, Term: No term limit

ASO has advised that it will not send a liaison to the CSC for the 2024 slate.

Alternates:

• • • Maarten Aertsen, Appointing Organization: SSAC, Term: 1 October 2024 – 30 September 2026
    • Gloria Atwine Katuuku, Appointing Organization: GAC, Term: 1 October 2024 – 30 September 2026
    • Ejikeme Egbuogu, Appointing Organization: ALAC, Term: 1 October 2023 – 30 September 2025
    • John Gbadamosi, Appointing Organization: GNSO (Non-Registry), Term: 1 October 2023 – 30 September 2025
    • Daniel Migault, Appointing Organization: RSSAC, Term: 1 October 2024 – 30 September 2026
    • Nicklas Pousette, Appointing Organization: ccNSO, Term: 1 October 2024 – 30 September 2025

• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Supplemental Recommendation on Singulars/Plurals
  • In March 2023, the ICANN Board approved the majority the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP Final Report recommendations but also placed some into a pending status. Council convened a small team that worked collaboratively with two ICANN Board member to resolve all pending recommendations. While the majority of those pending recommendations were able to be adopted by the ICANN Board, recommendations across six Topics were non adopted.
  • Council then tasked its Small Team Plus with developing Supplemental Recommendations on five of the six Topics, i.e., Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments, Applicant Support, Terms and Conditions, String Similarity Evaluations, and Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanisms. Based on the expected implementation as it relates to the Continued Operations Instrument (COI), the Small Team Plus determined it was unnecessary to develop a Supplemental Recommendation for Topic 22: Registrant Protections.
  • The Small Team Plus developed Supplemental Recommendations for all five topics and shared them with Council. Because of information received just prior to its consideration in April 2024, Council elected to defer consideration of the Supplemental Recommendation related to String Similarity Evaluations, or more specifically, singular/plurals. The new information received was a strawperson developed by ICANN org, which provided a potential path forward for singular/plurals. Council determined that the strawperson was promising enough to task the Small Team Plus with considering whether the strawperson, or an amended version, could be agreed upon.
  • The Small Team Plus worked to develop a Supplemental Recommendation, seeking a limited exception procedure for strings found to be singulars and plurals of each other in the same language, but was unable to agree on the exception procedure, so, ultimately reached consensus on proceeding without any exception procedure.
  • Council will vote on the Supplemental Recommendation on Singulars/Plurals. (Voting threshold: GNSO Supermajority in order to trigger the threshold that “the Board shall adopt the recommendation unless more than two-thirds (2/3) of the Board determines that such policy is not in the interests of the ICANN community or ICANN.”)
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Registration Data Accuracy
  • The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by the GNSO Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. 
  • The Scoping Team completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to Council on 5 September 2022. In its write up, the Scoping Team suggested moving forward with two proposals that would not require access to registration data, namely a registrar survey (recommendation #1) and a possible registrar audit (recommendation #2) that may help further inform the team’s work on measuring the effectiveness of current accuracy requirements and determining if further policy work may be needed.
  • On 19 October 2023, ICANN org provided an update on Registration Data Accuracy efforts, in which it noted limitations and concerns with proceeding with the Scoping Team’s recommendation #1 (voluntary registrar survey) and registrar audit (recommendation #2). Council voted to extend the deferral of the Accuracy Scoping Team’s recommendations by another six months during its meeting on 15 February 2024.
  • Following discussion during the meetings in June and July, Council discussed the limitations noted by ICANN org and determined there would be limited value in proceeding with the Scoping Team’s two recommendations (#1 and #2). Council also discussed the limited value in restarting the Scoping Team at this time due to limitations in access to data for the purpose of assessing accuracy.

  • Given the importance of this issue within the ICANN community, however, Council will continue to discuss how to best proceed on this topic and will vote to defer the consideration of the Scoping Team’s two recommendations for an additional six months.  

  • Council will vote to defer the Scoping Team’s recommendations #1 (voluntary registrar survey) and #2 (registrar audit). (Voting threshold: Simple Majority)

• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy of Registration Data 

  • Following the ICANN80 GNSO Council Wrap-Up session, GNSO Chair asked Councilors to consider the following questions: 

    1. Evaluation of Proposed Alternatives: In its write-up, ICANN noted limitations in processing data for the purpose of assessing accuracy and proposed two alternatives (analyzing historical audit data and engagement with Contracted Parties on ccTLD practices – see detail below). Is pursuing these alternatives worthwhile? If not, are there other alternatives for obtaining data Council should consider?
    2. Consideration of Scoping Team Restart: Given the limitations with respect to access to data, would there be value in restarting the Scoping Team at this time?
    3. Advancing the Topic: If restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not deemed advisable, what other ideas do you have to advance this topic given its importance to the ICANN community? 
  • During its July meeting, Council agreed that restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not recommended. However, during the August meeting, some Councilors suggested potentially convening a small team to discuss how to make progress on this topic. Council Leadership has worked on a proposal of how to solicit additional feedback from GNSO groups with directed questions, in order to receive information from which an eventual small team (if that is the Council’s chosen vehicle) can decide how to handle the important topic of accuracy.
  • Council will discuss Council’s Leadership’s proposal.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Policy Status Report: GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group Recommendations
  • In July 2013, Council formed a Working Group, which was tasked to provide Council with a set of recommendations on a number of questions that specifically related to policy and implementation in a GNSO context.
  • In June 2015, Council adopted the Policy and Implementation Working Group Final Report, followed by Board approval of the parts pertaining to the ICANN Bylaws in September 2015. These recommendations resulted in the establishment of a set of new mechanisms, including the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP), Consensus Policy Implementation Framework (CPIF), and others. 
  • As part of the GNSO Council resolution, it was recommended that “a review of these recommendations is carried out at the latest five years following their implementation to assess whether the recommendations have achieved what they set out to do and/or whether any further enhancements or changes are needed”.

  • The PSR discusses the contents of the Policy and Implementation Recommendations and their performance against stated objectives by the GNSO Council and the ICANN community, based on readily available data, staff observations, and analysis to date. The report is intended to serve as input to the GNSO Council’s review of the policy and implementation related efforts, including, for example: 

    • The GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP)
    • The GNSO Guidance Process (GGP)
    • The GNSO Input Process (GIP)
    • The Implementation Review Team (IRT) Principles & Guidelines
    • The Consensus Policy Implementation Framework (CPIF)
  • Council will receive an update from the ICANN org staff who assisted in drafting the PSR.

GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2024 held on 19 Sep 2024 at 05:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/47y2u9fh 

22:00 Los Angeles (Wednesday); 01:00 Washington DC; 06:00 London; 07:00 Paris; 08:00 Moscow; 15:00 Melbourne

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/92283565389?pwd=QnlHK1JSbzdiSFFZSjRjamxMTkNGdz09

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the meeting or call as listen-only observers.

Records of 19 Sep 2024 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 19 Sep 2024 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Sep 2024 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Sep 2024 Meeting Records.

1. Consent Agenda

• Council resolved to replace Annex 6 in the GNSO Operating Procedures regarding Registries Stakeholder Group and Registrars Stakeholder Group Process to Select ICANN Board Seat #13 Candidates to offer continuity in the selection process, prevent potential gaming of the process, provide balance between the Stakeholder groups, and encourage the selection of a consensus candidate.
• Council approved the 2024 Customer Standing Committee (CSC) slate of Members and Liaisons. For the ALAC, Holly Raiche remained as member and Tjikeme Egbuogu as alternate as they had been previously appointed for the term: 1 October 2023 – 30 September 2025.

2. Supplemental Recommendation on Singulars/Plurals

• This pertains to the final Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) PDP recommendations (i.e. Rec 24.3 and 24.5) that were not adopted by the ICANN Board. This non-adoption triggers the option for Council to develop a Supplemental Recommendation in order to address the Board's concerns for non-adoption. This is the path that Council chose, delegating this task to its SubPro Small Team Plus.
• The Board had instructed ICANN org to propose a way forward on how to handle applied-for strings which were found to be the singular/plural versions of the same word in the same language. ICANN org proposed a strawman. (Please refer to Part B of the At-Large Workspace on SubPro Policy Implementation & Supplementary Recommendation Development for record of the discussions at CPWG on the months of deliberation including the several iterations of the strawman that were formulated and discussed.)
• After receiving Council's instructions to complete its work before this Sep Council meeting, the Small Team Plus finally proposed the Supplemental Recommendation for the non-adopted SubPro recommendations related to Topic 24 which Council has now approved. (This Supplemental Recommendation 24.3 is as discussed per Update #18, 5 Sep 2024 with CPWG).
• This Supplemental Recommendation 24.3 has been delivered to the ICANN Board along with the accompanying Plurality and Minority Statements.

3. Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team and Accuracy of Registration Data

• The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by the GNSO Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. 
• The Scoping Team completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to Council on 5 September 2022. In its write up, the Scoping Team suggested moving forward with two proposals that would not require access to registration data, namely a registrar survey (recommendation #1) and a possible registrar audit (recommendation #2) that may help further inform the team’s work on measuring the effectiveness of current accuracy requirements and determining if further policy work may be needed.
• On 19 October 2023, ICANN org provided an update on Registration Data Accuracy efforts, in which it noted limitations and concerns with proceeding with the Scoping Team’s recommendation #1 (voluntary registrar survey) and registrar audit (recommendation #2). Council then voted to extend the deferral of the RDA Scoping Team’s recommendations by another six months during its meeting on 15 February 2024.
• Following discussion during the meetings in June and July, Council discussed the limitations noted by ICANN org and determined there would be limited value in proceeding with the Scoping Team’s two recommendations (#1 and #2). However, given the importance of this issue of registration data accuracy within the ICANN community, it has remained on Council's agenda although Council had agreed on the limited value in restarting the RDA Scoping Team at this time due to limitations in access to data for the purpose of assessing accuracy. 
• During its August meeting, some Councilors suggested potentially convening a small team to discuss how to make progress on this topic, while other suggested that this work should not be undertaken until we have more clarity around the implementation of accuracy requirements in the Network and Information Security (NIS 2) Directive being implemented in the EU.
• At this September meeting:
  • Council has voted to again defer consideration of the RDA Scoping Team’s Recommendations #1 and #2 for an additional six months while it determines how to make meaningful progress on the topic. 
  • Council Leadership shared a proposal of how to solicit additional feedback from GNSO groups with directed questions, in order to receive information from which an eventual small team (if that is the Council’s chosen vehicle) can decide how to handle the important topic of accuracy.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to liaise with ALAC representative on RDA Scoping Team on next steps 

4. Latin Diacritics

• Council was informed that 41 public comments were received on the Preliminary Issue Report on Latin Diacritics:
  • 37 were in support of the initiation of a PDP on Latin Script Diacritics
  • 2 were in support but issued a strong caution on possible risks - impact on end users, create confusion, and make it difficult to distinguish between authentic and malicious websites
  • 1 was against the initiation of a PDP on this topic on the basis of maintaining a user-friendly and secure Internet
  • 1 was assessed as out of scope
• Council will determine whether to proceed with a PDP on this issue in an upcoming Council meeting, and if so, whether revisions are needed to the current draft charter.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to report to ALAC if and when GNSO Council determines whether to initiate a PDP on Latin Script Diacritics and next steps

5. Contention Resolution

• GNSO Chair drew Council's attention to the receipt of a 13 Sep letter from Board Chair regarding Contention sets for the New gTLD Program: Next Round (Next Round); 
  • Board has determined that they are not allowing private resolutions, and intends to reverse its adoption of the SubPro Final Report recommendation 20.6 
  • Meaning that a JV meant to resolve a contention set could now be in violation of this principle
  • Asked councilors to consider what Council's response might be in context of the Board approval process per ICANN Bylaws Annex A Section 9.
  • In the interim, this will be on the agenda on Council's upcoming informal meeting with GNSO Board Members so more to come.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to report to ALAC if and when GNSO Council determines what steps it will take on the 13 Sep letter from the Board Chair regarding Contention Resolution

6. Policy Status Report: GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group Recommendations

• In July 2013, Council formed a Working Group, which was tasked to provide Council with a set of recommendations on a number of questions that specifically related to policy and implementation in a GNSO context.
• In June 2015, Council adopted the Policy and Implementation Working Group Final Report, followed by Board approval of the parts pertaining to the ICANN Bylaws in September 2015. These recommendations resulted in the establishment of a set of new mechanisms, including the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP), Consensus Policy Implementation Framework (CPIF), and others. 
• As part of the GNSO Council resolution, it was recommended that “a review of these recommendations is carried out at the latest five years following their implementation to assess whether the recommendations have achieved what they set out to do and/or whether any further enhancements or changes are needed”. This PSR constitutes the first step in that review.

• The PSR discusses the contents of the Policy and Implementation Recommendations and their performance against stated objectives by the GNSO Council and the ICANN community, based on readily available data, staff observations, and analysis to date. The report is intended to serve as input to the GNSO Council’s review of the policy and implementation related efforts, including, for example: 

  • The GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP)
  • The GNSO Guidance Process (GGP)
  • The GNSO Input Process (GIP)
  • The Implementation Review Team (IRT) Principles & Guidelines
  • The Consensus Policy Implementation Framework (CPIF)
• Council received a presentation from the ICANN org staff who assisted in drafting the PSR.
  • In summary the PSR:
    • Concludes that the recommendations have proven effective in supporting and enhancing GNSO policy recommendation implementation efforts
    • But also identified a number of issues and possible improvements
  • Summarized the 5 comments received via the Public Comment Proceeding on GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group Recommendations (to which ALAC submitted a comment) touching on a number of elements including needing to ensure "fitness of purpose" of policy recommendations (read policy recommendations that are no longer feasible) through to implementation, hence potential need for a mechanism to address/modify policy recommendations for relevant reasons; whether to retain the GIP and include learnings from use of Small Teams.  
• Council is to determine next steps after ICANN org submits its finalized PSR for Council's review, including:
  • PRSP Team's development of a research proposal to scope a research project to gather/analyze data on IRT time utilization to inform further options for streamlining
  • PRSP Team's proposal on CPIF updates.

7. Privacy and Proxy Services Accreditation Issues (PPSAI)

• Council received a report from Council's Liaison to the PPSAI that the IRT has held its kickoff meeting at ICANN80, followed by bi-weekly meetings through July. The IRT was tasked with reviewing the 21 policy recommendations and identifying implementation-related questions on feasibility, a sort of triage exercise on how to move forward on those recommendations. 
  • It seems there are opposing views within the IRT on whether many of the recommendations are still feasible versus many of them being salvageable to avoid as few as possible going back to Council for addressing. 
  • An IRT public meeting will be held during ICANN81

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2024 held on 8 August 2024 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2024 held on 8 Aug 2024

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • GNSO Review of the GAC ICANN80 Communiqué
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - GNSO Liaison to the GAC Replacement
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the SPIRT Charter
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE DISCUSSION - Accuracy Scoping Team (vote deferred)
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy of Registration Data
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - Transfer Policy Review PDP - Initial Report Format
• Item 10: COUNCIL UPDATE - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration
• Item 11: Any Other Business

  • 11.1 - Independent Review Process - Implementation Oversight Team

    • Deadline for public comments: 16 September

  • 11.2 - ICANN's Draft Five Year Strategic Plan

    • Deadline for public comments: 17 September
  • 11.3 - Continuous Improvement Program - Community Coordination Group (CIP-CCG) Phase 3 Update
  • 11.4 - Publication of Preliminary Issues Report on Latin Script Diacritics 
    • Deadline for public comments: 10 September

  • 11.5 - ICANN Board Seeks Input on Applicant Support Program Use of Auction Proceeds - blog post

  • 11.6 - Board Letter & RrSG Input Letter re: Urgent Request

  • 11.7 - IDNs-EPDP Phase 2 recommendations related to harmonized IDN tables

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 12 June 2024 were posted on 01 July 2024.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 18 July 2024 were posted on 02 August 2024.
• Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - GNSO Liaison to the GAC Replacement
  
  • The GNSO Liaison to the GAC role was first piloted in FY15-16 (1 July 2014 to 30 June 2016) as part of a broader initiative of the GAC-GNSO Consultation Group to facilitate early engagement of the GAC in GNSO policy development activities.
  • Due to the success of the pilot, the GNSO Liaison to the GAC is now a permanent role and an integral part of communications between the GAC and GNSO. The term of the liaison role is two years, and the term limit is two consecutive two-year terms. As the current liaison’s term will expire at the 2024 Annual General Meeting (ICANN81), the GNSO Council will now appoint a new liaison to assume the role at ICANN81. 
  • Following a review of candidates by the Standing Selection Committee (SSC), Council will vote to confirm the SSC's recommendation of Sebastien Ducos as the new GNSO Liaison to the GAC. (voting threshold of simple majority) 
• Item 5: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the SPIRT Charter
  • Council enlisted a Drafting Team to develop a draft charter for the SPIRT, which is a standing implementation review team recommended in the New gLTD Subsequent Procedures Final Report.
  • When issues arise after ICANN Board adoption of the Applicant Guidebook and during the course of the New gTLD Program that need to be addressed, the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (“SPIRT”) will utilize the Predictability Framework, which is an output of the implementation effort developed by ICANN org, in coordination with the Subsequent Procedures (“SubPro”) Implementation Review Team (“IRT”); the Predictability Framework and the SPIRT Charter should be mutually coherent. And Council is responsible for the oversight of the SPIRT.
  • In developing the draft charter, the Drafting Team considered elements such as scope, formation, the operating principles and decision-making of the SPIRT, et.al. The New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Final Report included an annex that provides detailed guidance on how the SPIRT should operate, which served as a basis for the drafting of the charter.
  • Following the 12 June 2024 update to Council on the draft charter, focusing on the sections that differed from the implementation guidance in Annex E of the New gTLD SubPro Final Report, including specific language, the Drafting Team is now submitting a final version of the SPIRT Charter which Council will vote on. (voting threshold of simple majority).
• Item 6: COUNCIL VOTE DISCUSSION - Accuracy Scoping Team
  • The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by the GNSO Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. 
  • The Scoping Team completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to Council on 5 September 2022. In its write up, the Scoping Team suggested moving forward with two proposals that would not require access to registration data, namely a registrar survey (recommendation #1) and a possible registrar audit (recommendation #2) that may help further inform the team’s work on assignment #3 (effectiveness) and #4 (impact & improvements), while it awaits the outcome of the outreach to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) by ICANN org in relation to proposals that would require access to registration data (recommendation #3). 
  • On 19 October 2023, ICANN org provided an update on Registration Data Accuracy efforts, and Council discussed the update during its 16 November 2023 meeting. During that meeting, some Councilors noted that, barring (i) completion of the Data Processing Agreement, (ii) implementation of the NIS2 directive, or (iii) publication of the Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains (INFERMAL) Study, it may not be the appropriate time to reconvene the Accuracy Scoping Team.  Council voted to extend the deferral of the Accuracy Scoping Team’s recommendations by another six months during its meeting on 15 February 2024.
  • Following discussion during the meetings in June and July, Council discussed the limitations noted by ICANN org and determined there would be limited value in proceeding with the Scoping Team’s two recommendations (#1 and #2). Council also discussed the limited value in restarting the Scoping Team at this time due to limitations in access to data for the purpose of assessing accuracy. Given the importance of this issue within the ICANN community, the Council will continue to discuss how to best proceed on this topic (see item 7)
  • Council will vote to reject the Scoping Team’s recommendations #1 (voluntary registrar survey) and #2 (registrar audit). (voting threshold of simple majority) At the request of the IPC Councilors to defer a vote on this issue, Council will now discuss next steps instead.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy of Registration Data

  • Following the ICANN80 GNSO Council Wrap-Up session, the GNSO Chair asked Councilors to consider the following questions: 

    1. Evaluation of Proposed Alternatives: In its write-up, ICANN noted limitations in processing data for the purpose of assessing accuracy and proposed two alternatives (analyzing historical audit data and engagement with Contracted Parties on ccTLD practices – see detail below). Is pursuing these alternatives worthwhile? If not, are there other alternatives for obtaining data Council should consider?
    2. Consideration of Scoping Team Restart: Given the limitations with respect to access to data, would there be value in restarting the Scoping Team at this time?
    3. Advancing the Topic: If restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not deemed advisable, what other ideas do you have to advance this topic given its importance to the ICANN community? 
  • During the Council’s July meeting, Council agreed that restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not recommended. Councilors requested additional time to discuss additional alternatives with how to proceed on the topic of accuracy and will be asked to present proposals.
  • Council will discuss the feedback received from Councilors’ groups.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
  
  • In March 2023, the ICANN Board approved the majority of the recommendations contained in the Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP, but also placed some recommendations into a pending status. Council convened a small team that worked collaboratively with the ICANN Board to resolve all pending recommendations. While the majority of the pending recommendations were able to be adopted by the ICANN Board, recommendations across six Topics were non adopted by the ICANN Board. 

  • Council tasked the Small Team Plus with developing Supplemental Recommendations on five of the six Topics, i.e., Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments, Applicant Support, Terms and Conditions, String Similarity Evaluations, and Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanisms. Based on the expected implementation as it relates to the Continued Operations Instrument (COI), the Small Team Plus determined it was unnecessary to develop a Supplemental Recommendation for Topic 22: Registrant Protections. The Small Team Plus developed Supplemental Recommendations for all five topics and shared them with Council.

  • Because of information received just prior to Council consideration in April 2024, Council elected to defer consideration of the Supplemental Recommendation related to String Similarity Evaluations, or more specifically, singular/plurals. The new information received was a strawperson developed by ICANN org, which provided a potential path forward for singular/plurals. The Council asked to consider whether it felt that the strawperson was promising enough to task the Small Team Plus considering whether strawperson, or and amended version, could be agreed upon.

  • Council will receive another update from the Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals.
  • An electronic vote to adopt the Small Team Plus' Supplemental Recommendations 24.3 and 24.5 is foreshadowed for after this meeting.
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - Transfer Policy Review PDP - Initial Report Format

  • At its meeting on 18 February 2021, the GNSO Council unanimously adopted a motion to initiate a Policy Development Process (PDP) to review the Transfer Policy and determine if changes to the policy are needed to improve the ease, security, and efficacy of inter-registrar and inter-registrant transfers.

  • The Transfer Policy Review PDP WG has published its consolidated Initial Report, and is now seeking public comments. Because the Initial Report covers many topics and includes many policy recommendations, the Working Group has updated the format of its Initial Report in an effort to make it more digestible to readers (including, eventually, the GNSO Council and ICANN Board). 
  • Council will receive an overview of the format update.
• Item 10: COUNCIL UPDATE - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration

  • On 22 November 2023, the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) filed a Request for Reconsideration  of the ICANN Board Resolutions 2023.10.26.11 and 2023.10.26.122, regarding (i) the actions and inactions that led to (a) the ICANN Board’s public comment of 6 December 2018 on the Initial Report of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), (b) the organization of the public comment phase on the Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group, (c) the ICANN Board Resolutions 2022.06.12.13 to 2022.06.12.16 , and (ii) the actions and inactions involving the implementation of the ICANN Grant Giving Program.

  • During its meeting at ICANN80, a few GNSO Councilors volunteered to draft a letter to the Board regarding the Request for Reconsideration.

  • Council will hear an update on the draft letter and discuss potential next steps for the Council, if any.

GNSO Council Meeting #8 of 2024 held on 8 Aug 2024 at 21:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/3wxk2kd2   

14:00 Los Angeles; 17:00 Washington DC; 22:00 London; 23:00 Paris; 00:00 Moscow (Friday); 07:00 Melbourne (Friday) 

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/92283565389?pwd=QnlHK1JSbzdiSFFZSjRjamxMTkNGdz09

Non-Council members are welcome to attend the meeting or call as listen-only observers.

Records of 8 Aug 2024 Meeting

• Audio Recording
• Zoom Recording (includes chat and visual and rough transcript. To access the rough transcript, select the Audio Transcript tab)
• Transcript
• Minutes

Special Summary Report of 8 Aug 2024 Meeting to ALAC

For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Aug 2024 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Aug 2024 Meeting Records.

1. GNSO Liaison to the GAC

• A role piloted in FY2015-2016 now becomes permanent and integral in GNSO-GAC communication. Sebastien Ducos is appointed as the new GNSO Liaison for a 2-year term starting at end ICANN81 to end ICANN87, replacing Jeff Neuman who terms out. Sophie Hey is named as the alternate in the event the need for an alternate arises.

2. Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (SPIRT, pronounced as spirit) Charter

• Council resolved to adopt the charter of the SPIRT, acknowledging the possibility of future amendments as a result of material changes to the Predictability Framework which could occur after the final public comment on the draft Applicant Guidebook (AGB) for the next round of new gTLDs.

3. Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) and Accuracy Scoping Team

• I am taking these two topics together as they are closely related issues, and ones which Council have been grappling with for some time now.  
• In short, the desire to somehow establish the accuracy of domain name registration data has not been able to be acted on as under GDPR, ICANN has no legal basis to process registration data for the purpose of assessing accuracy.  With no data being legally available to ICANN, the Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team that had been initiated by Council in July 2021 has been unable to move forward since completing its Assignment #1 (on enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (on measurement of accuracy) andhaving submitted its write up to Council on 5 September 2022.
• During its most recent meetings in June, July, and now, August, Council revisited and discussed the limitations noted by ICANN org resulting in limited value to proceeding with the RDA Scoping Team’s two recommendations (#1 and #2). Council also discussed the limited value in restarting the RDA Scoping Team due to limitations in access to data for the purpose of assessing accuracy. 
• However, given the importance of this issue within the ICANN community, Council decided to establish a new small team to see if there might be other ways to move forward - including reframing the issue(s) to perhaps focus on how registrants could be contacted for relevant reasons (such as DN abuse) in order to establish accuracy of their registration data rather than assessing accuracy for the sake of establishing accuracy of registration data.

4. SubPro Small Team Plus: Policy development on Singulars/Plurals of the Same Word in the Same Language as TLDs

• This an ongoing discussion at the GNSO Subsequent Procedures Small Team Plus, which I have been reporting on and discussing extensively at CPWG (see CPWG 15 May 2024, 22 May 2024, 10 Jul 2024, 17 Jul 2024 , 31 Jul 2024 and 7 Aug 2024)
• It is also the last of the recommendations, i.e. 2 recommendations under String Similarity Evaluations, or more specifically, singular/plurals, as contained in the Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP, which were not adopted by the ICANN Board. The Small Team Plus proceeded to craft a Supplemental Recommendation which attempted to address the Board's concerns/reasons for not adopting the 2 recommendations.
• The Board also instructed ICANN org to propose an alternative to these 2 recommendations, to address the Board's reasons for non-adoption. Because of information received just prior to Council consideration in April 2024, Council elected to defer consideration of the Small Team Plus' Supplemental Recommendation. The new information received was a strawperson developed by ICANN org, which provided a potential path forward for singular/plurals. Council was asked to consider whether it felt that the strawperson was promising enough to task the Small Team Plus with considering whether strawperson, or and amended version, could be agreed upon.
• NCA Councilor Paul McGrady, Small Team Plus lead, reported on the continued work of the Small Team Plus, which had started from consideration of the ICANN org strawperson around public crowdsourcing for reporting incidences of strings applied-for being caught as the singular/plural of the same word in the same language and if an exceptions process should be contemplated. 
  • By "exceptions process", we mean could an applicant whose applied-for string that has been caught in such a singular/plural report be able to explain how its string would not lead to consumer/end user confusion - as against an existing TLD or another applied-for singular/plural string - if it were allowed to delegated, and if so, how (ie what criteria could be used, new process, vs existing process).
  • Noting that such an exceptions process must not rely on 'intent of use' (an approach which the Board has rejected) but could rely on other grounds, such as registrant restrictions, so long as if any Registry Voluntary Commitments (RVCs) were involved then these RVCs must be enforceable under the ICANN Bylaws and as a practicable matter.
  • The Small Team Plus eventually attempted to craft a second strawperson supplemental recommendation by fleshing out details the exceptions process but could not arrive at any clear consensus on the same. In an attempt to get the Small Team Plus to coalesce around something it could support, a third strawperson was proposed. That ultimately did not enjoy Small Team Plus' consensus agreement either, so a further attempt was made to revisit the original 2 recommendations, to extract portions which did not attract the Board's objections while discarding/replacing portions which did, and to account for the Board's resolution of 8 Jun 2024 on Approach for Handling Registry Commitments that Restrict Content and/or Usage of gTLDs in Next Round Registry Agreements.
• At the time of this Council meeting, the Small Team Plus had not concluded its work and Council determined that the Small Team Plus must do so before/by Council's September 2024 meeting.

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to continue to update ALAC/CPWG on the progress of the Singular/Plurals issue.

4. Transfer Policy Review Policy Development Process (TPR PDP)

• TPR PDP Working Group Chair, Roger Carney, provided Council with an update on the working group's Initial Report, concentrating on highlighting the format of the report in an effort to make it more digestible to readers (including, eventually, the GNSO Council and ICANN Board). Councilors provided positive feedback to Roger on the format.

5. Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration

• On 22 November 2023, the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) filed a Request for Reconsideration  of the ICANN Board Resolutions 2023.10.26.11 and 2023.10.26.122, regarding (i) the actions and inactions that led to (a) the ICANN Board’s public comment of 6 December 2018 on the Initial Report of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), (b) the organization of the public comment phase on the Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group, (c) the ICANN Board Resolutions 2022.06.12.13 to 2022.06.12.16 , and (ii) the actions and inactions involving the implementation of the ICANN Grant Giving Program.

• During its meeting at ICANN80, a few GNSO Councilors volunteered to draft a letter to the Board regarding the Request for Reconsideration.

• A draft letter has since been prepared and Council agreed that it should be issued to the Board shortly, and that Council would socialize this letter with other SO/ACs so that they may choose to also provide input to the Board on this issue. 

Action by ALAC Liaison

• •  Justine Chew to bring Council's letter on IPC's Request for Reconsideration to the attention of ALAC Leadership/ALAC.

6. Input on ICANN Board's Approach to use Auction Proceeds for Applicant Support Program

• Council is supportive of this approach and will provide input to the Board on it. 

7. EPDP on Temporary Specification Phase 1Urgent Requests

• The present concern is limited to the issue of urgent requests, stemming from Recommendation 18 of the Expedited Policy Development Process on Temporary Specifications' Phase 1 Final Report which has been adopted by the ICANN Board on 15 May 2019, and which had gone onwards for implementation by ICANN org through an Implementation Review Team (IRT).
  • Rec 18 reads, "A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered [sic] for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].
• This is an ongoing concern between the GNSO, GAC and the Board, where most recently, the Board having responded to the GAC (Board Letterre: Urgent Request) which has received support from the RrSG (RrSG Input Letter). 
• Part of the issue is a procedural one, in that there is no existing mechanism that allows for revisiting a policy recommendation that has been approved by the Board.
• Council has now prepared a letter to the Board proposing that a meeting be schedule between the Board, interested GAC and PSWG representatives and Council to discuss the concerns in detail, explore the complexities involved, and determine the most effective way to proceed.

8. EPDP on Internationalized Domain Names Phase 2 recommendations related to harmonized IDN tables

• The Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names Working Group (EPDP-IDNs) received a request from ICANN org to stabilize the WG's Phase 2 recommendations related to harmonized IDN tables, namely Preliminary Recommendation 6 and Implementation Guidance 7 in response the charter question C5. According to ICANN org, the stability sought is a prerequisite to ICANN launching the Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program in November.
• The WG has agreed to prioritize their discussion on PR 6 and IG 7 to reach the stability sought by end of August. However, to enable the RSP Evaluation Program to proceed in November would mean that PR 6 has to be implemented before the WG's Phase 2 Final Report even reaches Council for consideration (and assuming it is approved by Council, it still has to go to the Board for consideration/adoption). As this is procedurally unprecedented, Council has been asked to provide guidance to the WG on a path forward.

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2024 held on 18 July 2024 

• Agenda
• Matters of Interest
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Record
• Special Summary Report

GNSO Council Meeting #7 of 2024 held on 18 Jul 2024

Full Agenda  |  Documents  |  Motions

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
• Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects List and Action Item List. 
• Item 3: Consent Agenda
  • GNSO PR Officer - Roles & Responsibilities
  • Confirmation of GNSO nominees to the Pilot Holistic Review
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP on Temporary Specification Phase 1 Urgent Requests
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy Check-in
• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Review of GAC Communiqué
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Small Team Supplemental Recommendations - Non-Adopted Recommendations
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration
• Item 10: Any Other Business

  • 10.1 - Aspirational Statement

  • 10.2 - SPS Actions Follow-up

    • Recommendations Report
    • Public Comment Review
    • Board Readiness - Slide presentation from Kurt Pritz

For notes on highlighted items click on MATTERS OF INTEREST tab above

Matters of interest to ALAC/At-Large 

• Item 1: Administrative Matters
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 16 May 2024 were posted on 01 June  2024.
  • Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 12 June 2024 were posted on 01 July 2024.
• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - EPDP on Temporary Specification Phase 1 Urgent Requests
  
  • On 18 May 2019, the ICANN Board adopted the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data to enable contracted parties to continue to comply with existing ICANN contractual requirements and community-developed policies as they relate to registration directory services. GNSO Council initiated a one-year policy development process to confirm whether or not the Temporary Specification should become a consensus policy, and whether it provided an enduring framework for complying with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 
  • The EPDP Team sent its Phase 1 Final Report to Council on 20 February 2019, and Council voted to approve the Final Report on 4 March 2019. The Board subsequently adopted the Phase 1 Final Report on 15 May 2019, with the exception of Recommendation 1, Purpose 2, and Recommendation 12, which the Board did not adopt in full. The Board directed the ICANN President and CEO or their designee(s) to implement the policy recommendations. 
  • ICANN org convened an Implementation Review Team, which began meeting in May 2019. ICANN org published the draft Registration Data Policy for public comment on 24 August 2022. Several commenters expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of Recommendation 18, specifically around the issue of the response timeline for urgent requests. The relevant portion of Recommendation 18 reads, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will considered [sic] for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation].”
  • Following the public comment period and subsequent discussion by the Implementation Review Team, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) wrote to the Board about the topic of urgent requests on 23 August 2023. The Registrar Stakeholder Group wrote to the Board on 8 September 2023 in response to the GAC’s letter.
  • Following the receipt of these letters and further communication amongst Board members, the Board sent a letter to the GNSO Council on 3 June 2024, expressing its concerns with the text of Recommendation 18 related to urgent requests. 
  • Council will discuss the concerns raised in the Board’s letter and discuss next steps in light of the concerns.
• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Accuracy Check-in
  • The Registration Data Accuracy (RDA) Scoping Team was initiated by Council in July 2021 per the formation instructions. The Scoping Team was tasked with considering a number of accuracy-related factors such as the current enforcement, reporting, measurement, and overall effectiveness of accuracy-related efforts before making a recommendation to Council on whether any changes are recommended to improve accuracy levels, and, if so, how and by whom these changes would need to be developed (for example, if changes to existing contractual requirements are recommended, a PDP or contractual negotiations may be necessary to effect a change). 
  • The Scoping Team completed Assignment #1 (enforcement and reporting) and Assignment #2 (measurement of accuracy) and submitted its write up to Council on 5 September 2022. In its write up, the Scoping Team suggested moving forward with two proposals that would not require access to registration data, namely a registrar survey (recommendation #1) and a possible registrar audit (recommendation #2) that may help further inform the team’s work on assignment #3 (effectiveness) and #4 (impact & improvements), while it awaits the outcome of the outreach to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) by ICANN org in relation to proposals that would require access to registration data (recommendation #3). 
  • On 19 October 2023, ICANN org provided an update on Registration Data Accuracy efforts, and Council discussed the update during its 16 November 2023 meeting. During that meeting, some Councilors noted that, barring (i) completion of the Data Processing Agreement, (ii) implementation of the NIS2 directive, or (iii) publication of the Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains (INFERMAL) Study, it may not be the appropriate time to reconvene the Accuracy Scoping Team.  Council voted to extend the deferral of the Accuracy Scoping Team’s recommendations by another six months during its meeting on 15 February 2024. During this meeting, Council agreed to check in on the progress of these items during its June 2024 meeting.

  • Following the ICANN80 GNSO Council Wrap-Up, the GNSO Chair asked Councilors to consider the following questions: 

    1. Evaluation of Proposed Alternatives: In its write-up, ICANN noted limitations in processing data for the purpose of assessing accuracy and proposed two alternatives (analyzing historical audit data and engagement with Contracted Parties on ccTLD practices – see detail below). Is pursuing these alternatives worthwhile? If not, are there other alternatives for obtaining data Council should consider?
    2. Consideration of Scoping Team Restart: Given the limitations with respect to access to data, would there be value in restarting the Scoping Team at this time?
    3. Advancing the Topic: If restarting the Scoping Team at this time is not deemed advisable, what other ideas do you have to advance this topic given its importance to the ICANN community?
  • Council will discuss the above questions and determine next steps.
• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update from Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals
  
  • In March 2023, the ICANN Board approved the majority of the recommendations contained in the Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP, but also placed some recommendations into a pending status. Council convened a small team that worked collaboratively with the ICANN Board to resolve all pending recommendations. While the majority of the pending recommendations were able to be adopted by the ICANN Board, recommendations across six Topics were non adopted by the ICANN Board. 

  • Council tasked the Small Team Plus with developing Supplemental Recommendations on five of the six Topics, i.e., Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments, Applicant Support, Terms and Conditions, String Similarity Evaluations, and Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanisms. Based on the expected implementation as it relates to the Continued Operations Instrument (COI), the Small Team Plus determined it was unnecessary to develop a Supplemental Recommendation for Topic 22: Registrant Protections. The Small Team Plus developed Supplemental Recommendations for all five topics and shared them with Council.

  • Because of information received just prior to Council consideration in April 2024, Council elected to defer consideration of the Supplemental Recommendation related to String Similarity Evaluations, or more specifically, singular/plurals. The new information received was a strawperson developed by ICANN org, which provided a potential path forward for singular/plurals. Council was asked to consider whether it felt that the strawperson was promising enough and tasked the Small Team Plus considering whether the strawperson, or an amended version, could be agreed upon.

  • Council will receive an update from the Small Team Plus on Singulars/Plurals.
• Item 8: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - SubPro Small Team Supplemental Recommendations - Non-Adopted Recommendations
  • As mentioned above, the ICANN Board had not adopted recommendations across six topics from the new gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP (i.e., Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments, Applicant Support, Terms and Conditions, String Similarity Evaluations, and Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanisms. Based on the expected implementation as it relates to the Continued Operations Instrument (COI)).
  • At Council's direction, the Small Team Plus developed Supplemental Recommendations for five topics and shared them with Council and on 18 April 2024, Council voted to approve these Supplemental Recommendations for the non-adopted SubPro recommendations. The Small Team Plus determined it was unnecessary to develop a Supplemental Recommendation for Topic 22: Registrant Protections.  
  • On 8 June 2024, the ICANN Board adopted the following scorecard, wherein it approved the Supplemental Recommendations related to Topic 17: Applicant Support and Topic 32: Limited Challenge/Appeal Mechanism. The Board did not adopt the Supplemental Recommendation 9.2 related to Topic 9: Registry Voluntary Commitments / Public Interest Commitments and Supplemental Recommendations 18.1 and 18.3 related to Topic 18: Terms & Conditions. 
  • Council will discuss whether any further actions should be pursued for any of the non-adopted Supplemental Recommendations.
• Item 9: COUNCIL UPDATE - Intellectual Property Constituency Request for Reconsideration

  • On 22 November 2023, the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) filed a Request for Reconsideration  of the ICANN Board Resolutions 2023.10.26.11 and 2023.10.26.122, regarding (i) the actions and inactions that led to (a) the ICANN Board’s public comment of 6 December 2018 on the Initial Report of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), (b) the organization of the public comment phase on the Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group, (c) the ICANN Board Resolutions 2022.06.12.13 to 2022.06.12.16 , and (ii) the actions and inactions involving the implementation of the ICANN Grant Giving Program.

  • During its meeting at ICANN80, a few GNSO Councilors volunteered to draft a letter to the Board regarding the Request for Reconsideration.

  • Council will hear an update on the draft letter and discuss potential next steps for the Council, if any.