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Notes from 1 November 2017 APAC Space meeting at ICANN60

Notes from 1 November 2017 APAC Space meeting at ICANN60

Owned by Philadel Yeo
Last updated: Mar 02, 2025 by Aleksey Khapchenko (Unlicensed)Version comment

The APAC Space meeting in ICANN60 registered its largest attendance of 100 participants from the region (85 on-site, 15 remote participants). Participants included registries, registrars, technical and at-large communities, business stakeholders, and government officials. The face-to-face meeting discussed APAC community participation in ICANN, Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), and data privacy and protection in relation to ICANN, focusing on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The meeting recording and presentation slides can be found at the APAC Space Community Wiki webpage here: https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GSEAPAC/pages/114296860/APAC+Space.

Key action items following the meeting are as follows:

  • APAC registrars are invited to provide comments on the pilot Repository for Registrars, a repository of ICANN policy requirements dedicated for registrars.
  • Community members interested in IDNs and aim to start a generation panel for Root Zone Label Generation Rules or join an existing one may wish to contact the IDN team at IDNProgram@icann.org.
  • APAC regional office will share the date for the next APAC Space web conference as well as the upcoming call details of the Data Privacy subgroup, in the APAC Space mailing list discuss@apacspace.asia. 

Introduction

Jia-Rong Low, VP and Managing Director, ICANN Asia Pacific, welcomed the participants. This was followed by a round of self-introduction by the participants.

Thanking out-going Board Member Asha Hemrajani 

Low thanked out-going Board Member Asha Hemrajani for representing Asia Pacific for the last three years. Hemrajani observed that the APAC space community had grown in the last three years and she expressed her gratitude to the community for supporting her. 

APAC Engagement

Low and Save Vocea, VP for Australasia and the Pacific Islands, shared the focus areas for Asia and Oceania engagement respectively.  

Low shared the key pillars and focus areas for Asia, and highlighted that one focus area was on capacity development for the community. Capacity development activities currently underway include the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA), the capacity building webinars in collaboration with APRALO, and technical trainings for the community in the region.

Low added that increasing stakeholder participation in ICANN was another focus. Community is invited to look through the APAC regional office’s 4th anniversary report which captures data on APAC community representation in every Supporting Organization (SO) and Advisory Committee (AC) in ICANN.

Vocea shared engagement activities in the Oceania region. He highlighted the demand for capacity development from the underserved regions, especially in the Pacific. He added that governments in the region were interested in topics related to cybersecurity as well as DNS abuse and DNSSEC, and that ICANN regularly participates in related events to improve understanding on these topics.  Other areas include our work in deploying L-root instances in the region, as well as in At-Large Structure (ALS) engagement where we facilitate returning ICANN fellows from the Pacific region to form their own ALSes.

On facilitating participation in APAC, Low mentioned that we work closely with our community on several initiatives, such as training for contracted parties in China and Korea, and readout sessions for the communities in Japan, India and China.  As an example of how we have acted on feedback received through our engagements, Low shared that a pilot repository would be launched for ICANN policy requirements dedicated to registrars to complement our capacity development efforts with registrars. APAC registrars would be invited to provide their feedback on the Repository for Registrars. Another important initiative is the APAC Space, and asked that the community participate actively in the face-to-face meetings and in the web conferences.

Community Discussion

Low asked for ideas on how the APAC community can coordinate better to facilitate participation in ICANN. He gave the example of the Data Privacy subgroup, which was the first of its kind coming out from the APAC space. Edmon Chung, CEO DotAsia and APAC Space Community Facilitator, emphasized the bottom-up nature of the APAC Space and asked for comments on how the APAC Space discussions could be better leveraged.  The key discussion points from the community are summarized below.

On topics for APAC Space

  • Community members suggested various topics for APAC Space, such as Root Zone KSK rollover; new technology developments such as Decentralized ID including Blockchain; and topics related to security and stability of the Internet, specifically on enhancing the trust of Internet users.
  • Kuowei Wu said that the next APAC Space Data Privacy & Protection Subgroup call includes sharing by data protection experts on local data privacy practices. Details of this call would be shared on the APAC Space mailing list. 

On leveraging APAC Space and facilitating participation in ICANN  

  • One community member suggested that given the lack of voice from the Asia Pacific region due to lack of understanding of ICANN, we should focus on strengthening regional voice in policy consultations and other policy work. To Chung’s follow-up question on how we can measure regional contribution to policy development processes such as public comments, Low said that his team is working on gathering data on regional contribution to public comments.
  • One way to facilitate greater understanding and participation is the readouts held in some economies. To a question on how APAC regional office selected the location for ICANN Readout, Board member Akinori Maemura explained that in the case of Japan, this was a community-driven process led by the community rather than ICANN org. He encouraged community members to also hold similar readouts.
  • The community also shared ideas on improving capacity development in the APAC region, such as:
    • Extend capacity development to everyone rather than limited to youths and newcomers, so that the level of participation could be raised.
    • Assign mentors to newcomers for APAC Space; however, a response to this was that APAC space was not meant to replace existing policy development processes and newcomer programs in ICANN. 
    • Include sessions focused on actual ICANN topics and working group discussions, such as jurisdiction and data privacy and protection in ICANN’s capacity development programs for youths.

Acknowledging ICANN APAC staff

  • Michael Flemming thanked Joyce Chen, ICANN APAC’s GSE Strategy and Development Senior Manager for her efforts in arranging for this APAC Space.
  • Pam Little thanked Jian-Chuan Zhang, ICANN Head of China for improving communications and information flow with the Chinese community members since coming on board in April 2017. 

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

Introduction to IDNs

Pitinan Kooarmornpatana, ICANN IDN Programs Manager, gave an introduction to IDNs, the objectives of the IDN program, as well as the need for rules related to their use to maintain the security and stability of the Internet. She highlighted that the IDN program requires help from experts in the community, to form generation panels (GP) that will determine the rules on the use of the IDNs. She called on those interested to form generation panels for their language, or to join the panels, to step forward and contact the IDN team.  Kooarmornpatana also introduced the Chairs of Chinese GP, Japanese GP, Korean GP and Neo-Brahmi GP. 


IDN Implementation Guidelines

Chung ran through the scope and topics under the IDN implementation guidelines. These guidelines covered both generic top-level domain names (gTLD) and country code top-level domain names (ccTLD).  The document is currently available for public comments. Chung stressed that community input is very important for the development of the guidelines, and called for greater participation. During the discussion, the following points were raised:

  • On how a conclusion is reached on the “right” variant to use, Chung said that if they look exactly the same but are two different characters, one way is to map them together using variants and be interchangeable.
  • On whether APAC Space had discussed the topic of Universal Acceptance (UA) on browsers, Chung said there was no special session on UA as relates to browser, and it was possible to have a session on it.  A member of the UA steering group (UASG) stated that there is not much content for the end-user on IDNs, such as social media posts and blogs.  Community is encouraged to refer to https://www.icann.org/idn for more information.
  • On the potential interface between IDNs and W3C email validation input type, which does not recognize Email Address Internalization (EAI), Chung explained that W3C is engaging with the UASG on this issue. 

Data Privacy & Protection by APAC Space subgroup

Update on ICANN Registration Directory Services (RDS) Working Group (WG)

Holly Raiche (ICANN ALAC), APAC Space Data Privacy and Protection subgroup co-chair, spoke about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), its significance and impact to ICANN. Due to the extent of its impact (applies to EU citizens wherever they are) and severity of the penalty (4% of annual worldwide revenue), this has been a hot topic for discussion. As the regulation will be in force in May 2018, the RDS WG is working through the implications for this. 

Raiche highlighted the legal advice that was given to the RDS WG, which includes having clear specified purpose for the collection of personal data, with the purposes and collection means decided by the data controller.  She briefly shared the discussion at RDS WG on the legitimacy of access to data by law enforcement agencies, as well as by individuals (personal access) for combating defamation, harassment etc.  Raiche spoke about gated access and the proposal by the Expert Working Group (EWG), and shared that some form of layered access could be useful in addressing data protection concerns.

Update on GDPR discussions 

Sebastien Ducos (geoTLD.group), Data Privacy and Protection subgroup member, introduced the geoTLD.group, as well as their work on the GDPR. The group had produced a position paper on the GDPR from an operational standpoint in relation to contracted parties. The following points were discussed:

  • Responding to a query on the status of discussion with ICANN on amendments to the existing agreements given the tight deadline of May 2018, Ducos explained that ICANN was still looking at the legal aspects of this issue. He indicated that the solutions were in sight, but they needed to be advised by the lawyers on what exactly should be done. As there are already solutions from other European nations who have had to deal with this already, he expressed optimism that this issue can be worked out.
  • Chung added that if registries and registrars have looked into and thought about this issue early, they could be cautiously optimistic.

AOB

Subash Dhakal, Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) representative for Nepal, invited the community to the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT) 2018 workshop and conference, which will be held from 19-28 February in Kathmandu. In particular, there will be an ICANN GAC capacity-development workshop on 23-25 February for economies in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Chung also invited those going to Kathmandu to attend DotAsia’s 10th anniversary dinner on 24 February.

Maemura encouraged participation in other related events in the horizon, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in Singapore later in the month, and the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) conference alongside APRICOT 2018. 

Low encouraged all to subscribe to the APAC Space mailing list discuss@apacspace.asia. The exact date of the next APAC Space web conference (planned for January 2018) will be shared on that list. The discussion topic will be on the “Introduction to Next-Generation gTLD Registration Directory Services (RDS) to replace Whois Policy Development Process (PDP)”. He invited everyone for the APAC Social event to be held later in the evening.