Contributed by Satish Babu

21 July 2026. APRALO Policy Forum Webinar Series on "A Multilingual Internet"

Organized by the APRALO Policy Forum (APF), this three-part webinar series explored the technical, policy, and implementation aspects of the multilingual Internet. The sessions collectively traced the evolution from the technical foundations of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), through policy development, to Universal Acceptance (UA), providing participants with a comprehensive understanding of the multilingual Internet ecosystem.

Webinar #1: “Multilingual Domain Names” (26 Feb 2026)

Speaker: Pitinan Kooarmornpatana (IDN Programs Director, ICANN); Moderator: Gopal Tadepalli

The opening webinar introduced IDNs and Label Generation Rules (LGRs), explaining how script communities develop and maintain rules for secure multilingual domain names. Discussions covered variants, diacritics, differences between gTLD and ccTLD implementation, the limitations of emoji domain names, and the community-driven nature of the LGR process. Participants expressed particular interest in practical LGR workshops and wider deployment of IDNs.

Webinar #2: “IDN Policies and Implementation” (26 Mar 2026)

Speakers: Sarmad Hussain (Senior Director, IDN & UA Programs, ICANN); Pitinan Kooarmornpatana (IDN Programs Director, ICANN); Moderator: Satish Babu

The second webinar examined Variant TLD management, policy recommendations emerging from the Subsequent Procedures PDP and the IDNs EPDP, and implementation within the New gTLD Program. Discussions emphasized outreach to underrepresented script communities and identified future priorities including DNS abuse, homograph attacks, Universal Acceptance case studies, and the introduction of additional scripts into the DNS.

Webinar #3: “Universal Acceptance of All Domain Names and Email Addresses” (23 Apr 2026)

Speaker: Sarmad Hussain (Senior Director, IDN & UA Programs, ICANN); Moderator: Edmon Chung

The final webinar focused on Universal Acceptance as the operational foundation of a multilingual Internet. It reviewed current UA challenges, stakeholder responsibilities, and the work of the Universal Acceptance Expert Working Group (UAEWG). The webinar recognized UA adoption as the critical next step towards ensuring that all domain names and email addresses function consistently across Internet-enabled applications.

Overall Outcomes

• Presented a cogent progression from technical standards to policy development and practical deployment.

• Strengthened understanding of IDNs, Variant TLDs, and Universal Acceptance within the At-Large community.

• Demonstrated sustained demand for implementation-oriented workshops, case studies, and follow-up activities.

• Highlighted the need for continued engagement with language and script communities not yet fully represented in the DNS.

• Reinforced Universal Acceptance as a key enabler of an inclusive and truly multilingual Internet.

The Series at a Glance

The series attracted 205 pre-registrations and 111 participants across the three webinars, demonstrating sustained interest in multilingual Internet issues.

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Links: The APRALO Policy Forum 2026 Webinar Series on "A Multilingual Internet" agendas and Zoom recordings are available at the respective hyperlinks below:

• APRALO Policy Forum Webinar Series on A Multilingual Internet: Webinar #1: “Multilingual Domain Names” - 26 February 2026

• APRALO Policy Forum Webinar Series on A Multilingual Internet: Webinar #2: “IDN Policies and Implementation” - 26 March 2026

• APRALO Policy Forum Webinar Series on A Multilingual Internet - Webinar #3: “Universal Acceptance of All Domain Names and Email Addresses” - 23 April 2026

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Contributed by Aris Ignacio

30 June 2026. APIGA Philippines 2026: Building the Next Generation of Internet Governance Leaders

When APIGA Philippines was first envisioned, a simple question was asked: How can we bring Internet governance closer to Filipino youth?

For many students and young professionals, Internet governance remains a concept associated with international conferences and policy discussions. Yet the decisions made within the Internet ecosystem influence how billions of people connect, communicate, innovate, and participate in the digital world. And so, the College of Information Technology and Engineering of Southville International School and Colleges, in partnership with the Internet Society Philippines Chapter (ISOC PH) (an At-Large Structure),organized the inaugural APIGA Philippines in Las Piñas City on 30–31 March 2026, to gather aspiring leaders to begin their Internet governance journey, joining a growing regional and global community.

Inspired by the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA), this Philippine local edition was created to strengthen local capacity in Internet governance and encourage greater participation in the multistakeholder model. Participants hailed from universities, government, civil society, industry, and the technical community, creating an environment where diverse perspectives could come together in meaningful dialogue.

One of the defining strengths of APIGA Philippines was the remarkable diversity of its speakers. They comprised respected experts from academia, international organizations, the technical community, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and regional Internet governance initiatives. Their collective presence reflected the collaborative nature of the Internet governance ecosystem and demonstrated how different sectors work together to address today's digital opportunities and challenges.

While every speaker brought a unique perspective, the conversations consistently reinforced one important message: the future of the Internet depends on collaboration. Throughout the two-day program, participants engaged actively in discussions, asked thoughtful questions, shared their own experiences, and discovered that Internet governance is not limited to policymakers or technical experts, it is a space where everyone has the opportunity to contribute.

Open

One of the most memorable moments of the academy was the recognition of Andrea Ruth Manalo as the Best Performer of APIGA Philippines 2026. Her enthusiasm, curiosity, and outstanding engagement throughout the program earned her the opportunity to represent the Philippines at the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) 2026 in Busan, Republic of Korea. Her achievement embodies APIGA's vision of developing future leaders who will help shape an open, secure, stable, and inclusive Internet.

As the event concluded, conversations continued  with participants exchanging ideas, building new friendships, exploring opportunities to engage with APRALO, ICANN, and APrIGF representatives, and began envisioning how they could contribute to the Internet governance community. It was a reminder that the true success of capacity-building initiatives is measured not only by what participants learn, but by the connections they build and the inspiration they carry forward.

The inaugural APIGA Philippines represents more than the successful completion of a two-day program. It marks the beginning of a long-term commitment to empowering Filipino youth and emerging professionals to become active participants in shaping the future of the Internet. By bringing Internet governance closer to local communities, we hope to inspire more voices, encourage broader participation, and strengthen the multistakeholder model throughout the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific region.

For more information on APIGA, visit ICANN APIGA Wiki Page

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Contributed by Barkha Manral

27 May 2026. Ten Years of APIGA: Building a Generation of Internet Governance Leaders Across the Asia Pacific

Launched in 2016, the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) marks its 10th anniversary in 2026. Co-hosted by ICANN and the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), and organised in collaboration with APNIC, DotAsia Organisation, the Internet Society (ISOC), and APTLD, APIGA targets youth aged 18–35 from across the Asia Pacific region. 

Over nine annual editions, APIGA (aka “Regional APIGA”) has built a steady pipeline of Internet governance practitioners. Past data shows that one in four APIGA alumni continue to participate in Internet governance forums locally, regionally, and globally. The Regional APIGA maintains an average acceptance rate of the top seven percent of each cohort's applications.

In 2024, APIGA took a deliberate step to reach more people. Four Local APIGA events were held across the region, with the inaugural edition in Taipei on 20–21 April 2024, welcoming 26 participants. Events in Kathmandu, Greater Jakarta, and Melbourne followed. The first full cycle saw seven Local APIGA events across Kathmandu, Greater Jakarta, Melbourne, Putrajaya, New Delhi, Taipei, and Hong Kong, all organised and led by past Regional APIGA alumni. This alumni-led model is central to how the program intends to grow its community of practice across the region.

Open

The second cycle of Local APIGA events, held between October 2025 and March 2026, further expanded the program’s reach — both in the number of events and economies engaged. Notably, Lahore, Pakistan joined the program with an event on 17–18 November 2025, followed by Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 6–7 December 2025.

The 2026 edition of Regional APIGA will be held on 20–24 July in Busan, Republic of Korea, marking the program's 10th Anniversary. Selected top participants from Local APIGA events will automatically be invited to attend the Regional APIGA, creating a clear pathway from local learning to regional engagement.

For more information on APIGA, visit ICANN APIGA Wiki Page

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Contributed by Amrita Choudhury

15 May 2026. Expert Group Meeting: An Initial Step For Shaping the Future of IGF 

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) convened an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in New York, hosted by the Permanent Mission of Finland. Held on 14–15 April 2026, the meeting gathered experts across different stakeholder communities and the UN system to deliberate on the IGF’s permanent mandate and its future role. Several members from the ICANN community attended the EGM.

Discussions focused on how the IGF can strengthen its contribution to global digital governance, enhance structures and outputs, and improve participation and impact in an increasingly complex landscape. Key priorities included building on multistakeholder foundations of openness, inclusiveness, and transparency; developing a strategic multi‑year framework; and reinforcing the IGF Secretariat’s coordinating role. Greater coherence across annual meetings, intersessional work, and National and Regional IGF initiatives (NRIs) were emphasized, alongside the call for innovative formats and improved metrics to measure effectiveness.

Participants highlighted the need for stronger Global South engagement, capacity development, and sustainable funding. Enhanced communications, visibility, and alignment with global processes such as WSIS and the Global Digital Compact (GDC) were seen as essential. The meeting concluded with consensus that the IGF’s permanent mandate is a milestone, positioning it to advance inclusive, effective digital cooperation within the UN system and beyond.

For APRALO, these developments are highly significant. The emphasis on Global South representation, capacity development, and stronger linkages with NRIs, directly aligns with APRALO’s mission to amplify Asia‑Pacific voices within ICANN and the IGF ecosystem. We hope a sustainable funding and structured pathways for youth and new leaders will provide opportunities for APRALO to deepen engagement and broaden participation.

For more information read the EGM Report

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Contributed by Shita Laksmi and Justine Chew

05 May 2026. Broadening Participation, Engaging Newcomers

As a community-based organization, continuous outreach and engagement are essential to ICANN’s work. ICANN carries out these efforts via various activities, including through its Supporting Organizations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs).

In the case of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), outreach and engagement efforts in APAC falls to APRALO – the Asian, Australasian, and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization. And one such effort by the APRALO is the APRALO ICANN Readouts. An APRALO ICANN Readout calls APAC community members to examine topics discussed at an ICANN public meeting, with the goal of mapping implications for individual Internet end users in the region, and identifying next steps for action by APRALO and APAC community.

APRALO ICANN Readouts were first introduced in July 2023, as an initiative of the APRALO Policy Forum (APF). The inaugural APRALO ICANN77 Readout on 06 July 2023,[1] featured a slate of cross-community speakers who discussed, with the APAC community, their key ICANN77 takeaways how they thought were next steps to their takeaways and how they saw individual Internet end users or end user communities playing a role in such next steps. In the beginning, discussants were invited from APAC-based community members from the GNSO, ccNSO, GAC, and the corresponding ICANN Fellowship Program cohort.

Over time, the APRALO Readouts for ICANN78 on 09 November 2023, ICANN79 on 19 March 2024, ICANN80 on 27 June 2024, and ICANN81 on 28 November 2024, received increasing traction.[2] Thereon, the diversity of conversations was enriched.

The APRALO ICANN82 Readout on 03 April 2025 and ICANN84 Readout on 13 November 2025 saw the added participation of ICANN GSE – APAC, and the ICANN85 Readout on 31 March 2026[3] featured an APAC-based ICANN85 NextGen on the panel, in addition to an ICANN85 Fellow. In particular, the continued inclusion of ICANN Fellows and now, inclusion of NextGens, represents a deliberate effort to incorporate newer voices in APRALO discussions, and to assimilate newer community members into APRALO, as way to and broaden APRALO’s outreach and engagement efforts. The presence of newcomers has indeed made the discussions livelier and relevant, owing to the voicing of new perspectives and exploration of fresh views towards ICANN policy-making. Our readouts also act as a forum for the exchange of knowledge and perspectives between ICANN’s more seasoned, cross-community members, and novice participants.

As a result, this engagement approach will continue, as APRALO remains committed to reaching and including a wider and diverse end-user community throughout the APAC region, and beyond. This is in full alignment with ICANN’s Strategic Plan 2025-2030 and the ALAC’s Fiscal Year 2026 Strategic Goal 1.1, and in particular, Strategy 11.3 ‘Foster appealing environment for next generation’ participants for ICANN.[4] 

The other aspect that calls for improvement is a more systematic way to gather valuable input from readouts to formulate a direction for follow through.

Tags:GNSO, ccNSO, GAC, ICANN GSE - Global Stakeholder Engagement, ICANN Fellowship Program, NextGen@ICANN Program

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Footnotes

[1] APRALO ICANN77 Readout had 53 participants

[2] APRALO ICANN78 Readout drew 45 participants; APRALO ICANN79 Readout drew 55 participants; APRALO ICANN80 Readout drew 61 participants; and APRALO ICANN81 Readout drew 66 participants

[3] APRALO ICANN82 Readout drew 46 participants; we took a breather for ICANN83; while APRALO ICANN84 Readout drew 69 participants, and APRALO ICANN85 Readout drew 55 participants.

[4] See:https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/x/VQCIG

Contributed by Justine Chew

23 February 2026. The At-Large Community is gearing up for the ICANN85 Community Forum taking place on 7-12 March 2026 in Mumbai, India, where one of several areas of priority for us is the evergreen topic of DNS Abuse Mitigation.

The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) had first initiated a cross-community conversation on this topic via a plenary session at the ICANN83 Policy Forum in June 2025 in Prague, Czech Republic, and is now hosting a follow up plenary session at ICAN85 on 10 March 2026 to progress the DNS Abuse Mitigation agenda. As we head into ICANN85, the At-Large Community’s participation is expected to boost the end-user perspectives along several lines of inquiry - 

• The At-Large Community had in June-July 2025, helped shape a list of Domain Name System (DNS) abuse mitigation gaps by providing input to GNSO Council’s DNS Abuse Small Team’s work, which sought to identify gaps that were preventative in nature, of the highest priority and relatively easy to overcome, which can be addressed by policy development.  

• As a direct result, two GNSO Policy Development Processes have been initiated. These are the:

1. GNSO DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP on Associated Domain Checks (DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1) and 

2. GNSO DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP on Safeguards for Application Programming Interface (API) access to new customers (DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP2). 

• The work on PDP1 will commence during ICANN85 where the ALAC’s team of 2 members, 1 participant and 1 alternate will be on-site to meet their colleagues in the working group face-to-face for the first time on 7 March 2026. Four ICANN85 sessions have been allocated to the working group.

• At the 10 March plenary session, we will gather with other community groups to:

  • Assess and discuss any preliminary shortcomings of the DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1;

  • Establish a general understanding of how abuse caused by Domain Generation Algorithms might be tackled; and

  • Revisit the list of mitigation gaps to understand which remaining mitigation gaps should be prioritized for action 

Thus, ICANN85, being an APAC meeting, presents a golden opportunity for our region to get engaged in this topic.

Upcoming engagement opportunities

• Pre-ICANN85 At-Large Webinar: At-Large Meets OCTO-SSR, 26 February 2026 at 16:00 UTC

   At the ICANN85 Community Forum:

• At-Large Consolidated Policy Working Group, 7 March 2026 at 05:00 UTC

• GNSO: DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1 Working Group Session (1 of 4), 7 March 2026 at 09:30 UTC

• GNSO: DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1 Working Group Session (2 of 4), 7 March 2026 at 11:00 UTC

• GNSO: DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1 Working Group Session (3 of 4), 9 March 2026 at 07:45 UTC

• GNSO: DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1 Working Group Session (4 of 4), 9 March 2026 at 09:30 UTC

• ALAC-GAC Joint Session, 10 March 2026 at 03:30 UTC

• At-Large Plenary - Progressing the DNS Abuse Mitigation Agenda, 10 March 2026 at 05:00 UTC

• ALAC-OCTO Joint Session, 11 March 2026 at 07:45 UTC

• GNSO: CPH DNS Abuse Community Update: DGAs, 11 March 2026 at 07:45 UTC

Tags: DNS_Abuse, CPWG, GNSO, GNSO_DSAMPDP1

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Contributed by by Amrita Choudhury

26 January 2026. WSIS+20: A Step Forward, But Implementation Is Key

The recently adopted high‑level document on the twenty‑year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) reflects compromise, but also important progress. From the end‑user perspective, several outcomes stand out as wins.

The vision of a people‑centred, inclusive, development‑oriented information society has been reaffirmed, alongside the principle of multistakeholder cooperation and stronger international collaboration. Most notably, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has been granted a permanent mandate, with sustainable funding for its secretariat. This ensures continuity, enhances intersessional work, support to national and regional initiatives, and broadens participation. A structured government dialogue with multistakeholder engagement represents a pragmatic compromise on state involvement.

Other measures welcomed by end-users include continuation of the WSIS Forum and aligning WSIS action lines with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Global Digital Compact (GDC). Closing the digital divide has rightly been identified as the top priority—covering connectivity, affordability, skills, multilingualism, cultural diversity, gender equality, human rights, and enabling policy environments. The emphasis on fair digital development, technology transfer, and environmental sustainability, including energy use and e‑waste management, is particularly relevant for everyday users.

Human rights commitments have been reinforced, with clear emphasis on protecting rights online, safeguarding against harms, and promoting media freedom, privacy, and freedom of expression. Capacity development, financing, digital skills, and AI expertise are recognised as essential, with ITU and the UN AI Working Group tasked with assessments and programme design.

Yet, the real challenge lies ahead: ensuring implementation is genuinely inclusive, and that end-users—especially in the Global South—have a meaningful voice in shaping the digital future.

Upcoming engagement opportunities:

• APrIGF WSIS+20 Webinar: Beyond the WSIS+20 Review: Charting the Path Forward for the Asia-Pacific Region in Digital Development, 28 January 2026 at 04:00 UTC – Sign up form: https://forms.gle/PkwHhLYZoc88RPo58

• World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2026, 6-10 July 2026

Other:

• WSIS Forum 2026 Open Consultation — Meeting 1 Session Recording

Tags: WSIS+20 (per UNCTAD), ITU, SDGs, IGF, GDC, UN AI WG, WSIS Forum 2026

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Contributed by by Aftab Siddiqui

11 December 2025. The Second RIR Governance Document Still Lacks Real Accountability.

Before we start discussing the second draft, we need to first give a well-deserved acknowledgement to the ASO-AC for its dedication and leadership in reviewing and updating the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) governance policy. The journey from ICP-2 to this second governance draft represents meaningful progress which is not just in structure, but in clarity and responsiveness to community needs. The work is substantial, and the community recognises it.

Moving towards the second draft of the RIR Governance document which is being positioned as a major step toward a more structured and resilient global Internet numbers governance model, which in essence is true but APRALO’s November 2025 response makes few things clear:

• The draft introduces processes but not strong governance.

• It creates frameworks but leaves the rules undefined.

• Without safeguards, accountability becomes optional.

While the draft improves on earlier iterations, it still contains structural weaknesses that could weaken the bottom-up model the RIR system is built on.

Undefined “Implementation Procedures” 

The draft defers key operational and oversight rules to future “Implementation Procedures” to be created later by ICANN and the RIRs.

• No minimum standards.

• No transparency guarantees.

• No requirement for community review.

These risks handing the power to design accountability rules to those meant to be held accountable. APRALO calls for a mandatory accountability baseline inside the core document, not in a future annex that could be quietly shaped later.

Audits exist but without “Scope, Limits or Transparency”

Audits are a necessary accountability tool, and their inclusion is welcome.

But the current design is dangerously vague:

• There are no caps on how often audits can be triggered, risking audit overload without purpose

• No clear timelines exist for when audits must begin or conclude, this could stall accountability

• There is no requirement to publish audit outcomes, limiting community oversight

• Community-initiated audits require an unusually high participation threshold (25% or 2,000 members)

Such ambiguity could either flood RIRs with audits or prevent meaningful community-led reviews altogether. APRALO stresses the need for defined triggers, caps, timelines, and public reporting to make audits effective instead of ornamental.

Remediation is prioritised, without guardrails

The draft prefers rehabilitation over immediate derecognition which is a sensible idea in principle. But with no timeframes, milestones, or reporting requirements, remediation could become an endless holding pattern.

Without hard deadlines and transparency, a failing RIR could remain in limbo for years while the community stays in the dark. APRALO urges time-bound remediation with published plans and visible progress reporting.

Appeals process is linked to ICANN existing processes 

Appeals currently fall under ICANN’s existing review mechanism, which can change at any time and may not suit RIR-specific scenarios or their respective communities.

A governance system needs a dedicated, independent, and reliable appeals mechanism. Without it, decisions risk appearing discretionary rather than accountable.

No requirements for diversity or regional balance

The document assumes community participation but does not guarantee representation, especially for smaller or underserved regions or communities. A global system cannot claim legitimacy if oversight bodies can be regionally skewed by default. Diversity in all forms whether geographic, linguistic, gender and stakeholder must be required, not implied.

Emergency Continuity: Stability vs Risk

One of the draft’s most important proposals is a mechanism to transfer RIR operations to an “Emergency Operator” in case of severe failure, which is again a good safety valve. 

APRALO suggests that this provision should be further refined with objective triggers, defined time limits, and strong communication expectations. Doing so would provide confidence that emergency measures are used appropriately and consistently, while maintaining trust in the RIR system.

Final Verdict: The draft is a step forward but not enough

Yes, the revised draft of the RIR Governance Document begins to address long-standing concerns, it formalises audits, introduces recognition/derecognition procedures, and acknowledges the need for operational stability.

But the structural gaps identified by APRALO show the draft still leans too heavily on vague promises and side-procedures. Without clear, enforceable standards, mandatory community participation, and strong transparency safeguards, the new framework risks becoming “governance with invisible rules.”

If the community does not demand stronger provisions now, we may look back in a few years and view this framework as a missed opportunity. Strengthening it today could ensure shared responsibility, transparency, and a strong community voice. Without these improvements, the governance model may gradually evolve in ways that limit oversight and accountability.

This is not a theoretical concern. For many in Asia-Pacific and other regions, real accountability and inclusive governance are essential for maintaining trust, ensuring fair resource distribution, and protecting regional autonomy in Internet-number governance.

More information: 

• ICP-2 Review

• Second Draft of the RIR Governance Document public comment proceeding

• APRALO Submission to the Second Draft of the RIR Governance Document public comment proceeding

Next decisional point:

• ASO to review comments received to the Second Draft of the RIR Governance Document public comment proceeding which closed on 7 November 2025

Tags: ASO, IETF, NRO, RIRs, ICP-2, APNIC, ARIN, RIPE NCC, AFRINIC, ICP-2 Review

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Contributed by Satish Babu

6 November 2025. A uniform way to handle diacritics in domain names, similar to IDN Variants, has been a long-standing demand from several parts of At-Large, including the Canadian French-speaking territories. The asymmetry between Diacritics and Variants arose from the way the Latin Generation Panel has chosen to treat diacritic labels--as distinctly separate code points, and not as equivalents as with variant labels--mostly on account of security and confusability issues. In order for the end-user community to treat Latin Diacritics and Latin regular ASCII labels in special cases (eg. to treat Montreal and Montréal as the same thing), a policy needed to be developed as an exception to existing policy on variants.

In support of a 22 June 2023 letter from the ALAC Chair to the (then) GNSO Chair, a preliminary issue report was requested by the GNSO Council in May 2024, for ICANN org to assess all relevant issues related to the request. The Preliminary Issue Report was put out for public comment on 8 July 2024. Based on 41 public comments received, the Final Issue Report suggested a potential policy development process (PDP) to consider a single issue: In circumstances where a base ASCII gTLD and the Latin script diacritic version of the gTLD are NOT variants of each other, what mechanism is needed in order to allow a single registry operator to simultaneously operate both gTLDs?

The Latin Script Diacritics PDP was initiated by the GNSO Council in November 2024. The name of the PDP was later simplified to Latin Diacritics PDP (LD PDP) and its charter adopted on 19 December 2024. The PDP adopted an 'Open Model', and the first meeting took place in March 2025.

Given the similarity between on IDN variants and diacritics, the LD PDP builds on the work done by the two phases of the Expedited Policy Development Process on Internationalized Domain Names (EPDP on IDNs). The LD PDP first worked on defining the precise scope of the PDP, and developed a framework for differentiating variants and diacritics. The PDP subsequently went through the recommendations of the EPDP on IDNs to determine if they would apply to Latin Diacritics.

As of now, the PDP has completed iterating through the list of EPDP recommendations and has produced its initial recommendations. During ICANN84, it also ran through several Stress Test cases that examined different edge cases and worked on finalizing its initial recommendations.

The revised timeline for the public comment on the PDP’s draft initial recommendations is January 2026, with submission of its Final Report to the GNSO Council targeted for August 2026 (as opposed to the original estimate of Nov 2026).

Next engagement opportunity:

• Public comment proceeding on the Latin Diacritics PDP Initial Report in January 2026

Tags: GNSO, Latin Script Diacritics PDP

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Contributed by by Maureen Hilyard and Justine Chew

14 October 2025. It bears reminding that ICANN is responsible for coordinating and managing the Internet's unique identifier systems, which cover domain names (“Names”), Internet Protocol (IP)  addresses (“Numbers”), and protocol parameters (“Protocols” or “Standards”). While Names attracts the most attention within the ICANN community, it is the role of the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) to review and develop recommendations on IP address policy and to advise the ICANN Board on policy issues relating to the operation, assignment, and management of IP addresses; while responsibility for Protocols management falls to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Although the ASO is the formal participating body in ICANN, the actual Numbers policy-making function is mostly undertaken on a regional basis by the world’s five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which in turn rely on the Internet Coordination Policy-2 (ICP-2) – a statement of essential fundamental principles required for recognising and evaluating new RIRs –  and the Number Resource Organization (NRO) as the coordinating mechanism of the RIRs.

The ICP-2 had been presented by the ASO (then assisted by APNIC, ARIN and RIPE NCC) to and accepted by the ICANN Board back in June 2001. Following a spate of legal disputes related to use of IPv4 address allocations outside the African region, beginning in 2020, AFRINIC became embroiled in court litigation, had its assets frozen, and by mid-2022, saw its Board of Directors dissolved by the Supreme Court of Mauritius.   

In October 2023, the NRO Executive Council (NRO-EC) asked the ASO Address Council to establish and manage a process to update the ICP-2 document, which is summarized below:

The ALAC submitted comments on the Draft Principles during the Q4 2024 first public comment proceeding; while APRALO submitted a comment in full support of the ALAC submission. In its submission, the ALAC agreed with much of what was proposed by the ASO. 

The ALAC also submitted comments on the First Draft RIR Governance Document during the Q2 2025 Governance Document for the Recognition, Maintenance, and Derecognition of RIRs public comment proceeding, expressing certain concerns which were subsequently found to have been addressed in the Second Draft RIR Governance Document. In the ALAC’s view, these developments represent meaningful steps forward in making the RIR framework more resilient, accountable, and community-focused and contribute to institutional trust and end-user accountability.

For the Q3 & Q4 2025 second public comment proceeding, the ALAC is set to urge the ASO to revisit two outstanding concerns to the Second Draft RIR Governance Document:

1. Accountability of Sub-Regional Registries (Section 2.6) - introduction of baseline safeguards—such as transparency, fairness, and community consultation—that would apply consistently to all delegated functions, while still allowing each RIR to determine the details.

2. Regional Continuity in Handoff Scenarios (Section 6.3(a)) - where an Emergency Operator is to temporarily take over RIR functions in the event of failure the ALAC stresses that continuity of services is not the same as continuity of trust. To safeguard both technical stability and community confidence, the ALAC recommends the inclusion of mechanisms for community consultation and transparency during the transition period; and wherever feasible, prioritize regional expertise and continuity when selecting interim or successor entities. This would ensure that while the Emergency Operator keeps the Internet running, the process also preserves local trust, legitimacy, and alignment with community needs.

More information: 

• ICP-2 Review

• Proposed ICP-2 Version 2 Principles public comment proceeding

• First Draft of the RIR Governance Document public comment proceeding

• Second Draft of the RIR Governance Document public comment proceeding

ICANN engagement opportunity:

• ICANN84 Prep Week: Presenting the Second Draft of the RIR Governance Document, 15 October 2025 at 15:00 UTC

Next decisional point:

• ASO to review comments received to the Second Draft of the RIR Governance Document public comment proceeding closing on 7 November 2025

Tags: ASO, IETF, NRO, RIRs, ICP-2, APNIC, ARIN, RIPE NCC, AFRINIC, ICP-2 Review

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