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Notes from 28 June 2022 APAC Space Web Conference

Notes from 28 June 2022 APAC Space Web Conference

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

Overview

This APAC Space session was a Readout of the ICANN74 Policy Forum (13-16 June 2022) featuring debriefs and takeaways from seven community leaders/members. Satish Babu (Chair, APRALO) facilitated the open community discussion.  The speakers are:

  1. Jia-Rong Low, Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement & Managing Director, ICANN APAC
  2. Akinori Maemura, ICANN Board Member
  3. Shi-Young Chang, GAC Vice Chair
  4. Ai-Chin Lu, ccNSO Council Member
  5. Maureen Hilyard, ALAC Chair
  6. Hiro Hotta, RSSAC Member & RSS GWG Representative
  7. Donna Austin, IDNs EPDP Chair
  8. Antonia Chu, Transfer Policy Review PDP WG Member

Details of Session 

1._ICANN74 Overview: Jia-Rong Low, Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement & Managing Director, ICANN APAC

Returning as the first hybrid meeting since the pandemic, ICANN74 was well attended by 1,817 attendees from 101 countries/territories. 12% of the 917 in-person attendees were from the APAC region. The top 3 in-person participating economies were India, Australia, and Indonesia, while the top 3 economies participating remotely were India, China, and Chinese Taipei.

High interest sessions/topics at ICANN74 included:

  • “Who Sets ICANN’s Priorities?” session– A poll conducted with participants during this plenary showed that about 30% were unaware of ICANN’s priorities. Also notable was the trial launch of the ICANN Prioritization Framework which could be useful to increase community engagement.
  • “Updates on Geopolitical, Legislative, and Regulatory Developments” session— This plenary provided updates on regulations/legislations impacting ICANN. From the APAC region, China’s Personal Information Protection Law (see blog), as well as India’s recent “Directions on the IT Act 2000 sub-section (6) of section 70B” relating to CERT-IN bear impacts to ICANN contracted parties.
  • DNS Abuse— ICANN published a DNS abuse trends report and a blog, highlighting that DNS Abuse, especially spam, has been trending down. Another significant update on this topic is DNS Abuse Institute’s launch of NetBeacon, a centralized online abuse reporting tool which would be useful for ICANN contracted parties.
  • Closed Generics— In addition to the “At-Large Policy: Closed Generics-Finding a Balance” session, this topic was also discussed by the GNSO Council Small Team which reported their considerations on the Framing Paper in relation to the Board proposed GNSO-GAC facilitated discussion. 
  • SSAD Light/WHOIS Disclosure System. The WHOIS Disclosure System project follows from the community's work and ICANN org's Operational Design Phase (ODP) on the System for Standardized Access/Disclosure to Non-public gTLD Registration Data (SSAD). This was discussed at length at ICANN74 as the undertaking of this project would impact other ongoing projects. [Note: A blog has since been published on the commencement of this project and its impact]

Jia-Rong welcomed the APAC community to the ICANN75 meeting which will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 17-22 September 2022.

2. ICANN Board Perspectives: Akinori Maemura, ICANN Board Member

The ICANN Board participated in Prep Week, the Board Workshop, and the ICANN74 Meeting across two weeks.

During the three-day Board workshop, the Board covered various topics such as Board operation priorities; Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)/Universal Acceptance (UA) in relation to the Strategic Plan; the evolution of the multistakeholder model; and the ICANN Planning Prioritization Framework.

At the 12 June Board Meeting, the ICANN Board:

  • Approved the relocation of ICANN’s Washington, D.C. office.
  • Deferred the next scheduled Organizational Reviews for the ALAC, ccNSO, ASO, NomCom, RSSAC, and SSAC, in light of recommendations from the third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3).
  • Approved recommendations from the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), and authorized implementation of the ICANN Grant Giving Program.

3. GAC Perspectives: Shi-Young Chang, GAC Vice Chair

Of the total 179 GAC members and 38 observers, 81 members and 8 observers attended ICANN74. Shi-Young noted there were over 150 new GAC participants since ICANN66 and 21 new participants since ICANN73.

The GAC leadership elections started at the end of ICANN74 and will conclude at ICANN75. The appointed GAC Chair and five GAC Vice Chairs will begin their term after ICANN76 (Mar 2023). Discussions are also ongoing for a possible High Level Governmental Meeting (HLGM), which has been paused since ICANN63.

At ICANN74, the GAC met with the ICANN Board, ALAC, and GNSO Council separately to discuss various topics including:

  • “Proof of Concept” (SSAD Light)— The GAC emphasized the need for defining timelines and goals for an effective SSAD and looks forward to a timely completion of this system.
  • Subsequent Rounds of New gTLDs—
    • Shi-Young and other APAC GAC colleagues concurred on the importance of capacity building sessions tailored for GAC members.
    • On the GAC-GNSO facilitated dialogue for Closed Generics, GAC reaffirmed its intention to participate and encouraged ALAC’s involvement. Among other criteria, the GAC raised that the dialogue facilitator should be well-respected and independent from commercial interests.
  • Accuracy of Registration Data— Instead of pausing its work, the GAC suggested that the Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team should focus on interim work such as analyzing whether there are procedures to ensure accurate and reliable registration data. The team should also obtain more information through a survey on how contracted parties are currently enforcing accuracy requirements.
  • DNS Abuse Mitigation—The GAC encouraged enhanced DNS abuse reporting to serve as basis for a potential Policy Development Process (PDP) towards improving abuse-related contractual provisions. The GAC also supported continuous auditing activities to mitigate abuse issues.

4. ccNSO Perspectives: Ai-Chin Lu, ccNSO Council Member

The ccNSO and GNSO Councils are coordinating efforts on several areas, including developing a solution to address the issue of post-PDP timeline predictability, and collaborating on IDN PDP work through appointed liaisons. The GNSO Council shared developments on the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Phase 2, raising that ccTLDs could be interested in the Operational Design Assessment (ODA).

On DNS abuse, the ccNSO has created a Roadmap, and formed a DNS Abuse Standing Committee. Five ccNSO members across different regions (.bw, .hk, .si, .pa, .us) shared their current policies and experience on the topic of DNS abuse. Various best practices were adopted, with practices such as enforcing policy requirements, ensuring registration data accuracy, and collaborating with other local entities, commonly implemented across the ccTLDs. 

On policy sessions, the ccPDP3 Working Group (WG) provided updates on the topic of Review Mechanism and targets to finalize its draft before ICANN75. The ccPDP4 WG has completed updating its base policy document and started stress testing on five potential trigger events. The ccPDP4’s Variant Management sub-group is furthering their work on developing variant IDN ccTLD delegation requirements, while the Confusion Similarity sub-group is updating the review process.

The ccNSO Members Meeting Governance session was held in two parts. Changes in ICANN By-laws Article 10 now allows IDN ccTLDs to join as ccNSO members, applying a one territory-one vote principal for territories with more than one ccTLD manager. Another key discussion was on the Conflict of Interest (COI) declaration requirements, where an impacted ccNSO member (e.g. a member running for the ICANN Board, or seeking funding to an ICANN Meeting) is required to abstain from voting.

At the 184th ccNSO Council Public Meeting, the FY22-24 ccNSO Workplan was adopted; new leadership teams for internal WGs were appointed; and timelines for the upcoming ccNSO Council elections and ICANN Board Seat 11 nomination process were confirmed.

5. ALAC Perspectives: Maureen Hilyard, ALAC Chair

After four years of serving as the ALAC Chair, Maureen will be handing over the position at the next ICANN Meeting. Satish Babu (APRALO Chair) will join as a new ALAC member. Elections are currently held for ALAC leadership positions, including selection of a NomCom appointee.

Pre-ICANN74, Maureen participated at the SO/AC Chairs ICANN74 Roundtable session, and joined the DNS Abuse Institute Advisory Council gathering in preparation of the NetBeacon launch. 

The following three regionally focused sessions were held:

  • “At-Large Regional Leaders”: Regional leaders discussed the Mobilization Working Group results, focusing on the roles and responsibilities of At-Large Structures (ALSes) and individual members.
  • “Laws and Regulations in the European Union (EU)”: The session discussed the impacts of EU Laws on ICANN.
  • “Internet Governance and Multistakeholderism in Times of Emergency”:  Initially focused as a call of support for Ukraine, this session also covered impacts from other emergencies such as the volcanic eruption in Tonga.

Two At-Large Policy sessions were held on topics of DNS abuse and Closed Generics respectively, focusing on raising awareness on the progress for these topics among the At-Large community. ALAC also held its usual joint meetings, discussing selected SSAC reports and corresponding end user impacts with the SSAC, as well as with the GAC on discussions of IDNs/UA, geopolitical issues, and the multistakeholder model.

6. RSSAC and RSS GWG Perspectives: Hiro Hotta, RSSAC Member & RSS GWG Representative

RSSAC

Around ICANN74, key updates from RSSAC discussions were:

RSS Governance Working Group (GWG)

Following the RSSAC037 and 038 publications in 2018, the ICANN Board initiated a community wide discussion on the “RSS Governance Framework”, to be led by the RSS GWG. Further to subsequent publications on success criteria for the RSS governance structure (RSSAC058 and 059) in Nov 2021, the RSS GWG has now restarted its discussions on RSS governing structure and targets to publish its proposal in 2023. 

To accommodate the independence and autonomy of Root Server Operators (RSOs), the RSS GWG has expanded its membership from three RSOs to now include representatives from all 12 RSOs. Since November 2021, the GWG has focused on sharing the basis of RSSAC058 across all GWG members, and discussed two suggested models for the new governance body on RSS/RSOs:

  • Affiliate Organization Model— Similar to the Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) as an affiliate organization of ICANN.
  • Supporting Organization Model— Adopting a similar model like the GNSO, ccNSO, and ASO.

7. IDNs EPDP: Donna Austin, IDNs EPDP Chair

The EPDP made considerable progress on IDN variant management discussions at the TLD-level and will soon work on the second-level. The WG is also discussing on variant treatment for gTLD operators from the 2012 new gTLD round, in which IDN variants were not allowed. Further discussions will include variant treatment on both TLD-level and second-level for the subsequent new gTLD rounds.

Amidst the progress, some challenges remain:

  • Technical considerations are still unclear due to a current lack of variants at the TLD-level. Operationally, the primary IDN and all variants should be managed as a set. However, from a technical perspective, each variant will be an independent string in the root zone, and end users might not be able to differentiate them. The WG will continue its discussions considering these factors.
  • Depending on the number of IDN variants allocatable or blocked from the primary gTLD string, there could be a multiplier effect on the evaluation process, specifically on reviewing string similarity. The WG needs to further analyze impacts across different evaluation approaches—
    • Conservative: Primary gTLD with requested allocatable variants only;
    • Midway: Primary gTLD with all allocatable variants;
    • “Atomicity”: Primary gTLD with all allocatable and blocked variants.
  • At the second-level, the WG needs to consider how IDN variant operations differ from the TLD-level, especially with the different language tables used across gTLDs.

The WG plans to publish its Initial Report by mid-December 2022 but this deadline may experience a slight delay to address open issues and to counter check across each recommendation.

During the open community discussion, Satish shared that on the evaluation process, some from the ALAC have raised that the conservative approach might not seem necessary. Donna responded that the approaches are still in discussion, and the current WG recommendation does not include any limitations for variant application due to two main factors. Firstly, application fees and other economic factors would partially address the issue. In addition, of the 26 scripts within the Root Zone-Label Generation Rule 5 (RZ-LGR-5), only a limited 7-8 scripts could apply for variants.

8. Transfer Policy Review PDP: Antonia Chu, Transfer Policy Review PDP WG Member

In the past year, the Transfer Policy WG focused its work on Phase 1(a) deliberations, including Gaining and Losing Form of Authorization (FoA), Transfer Authorization Code, and denying transfers (NACKing). The Phase 1(a) Initial Report was completed in June 2022, and is now open for public comment until 2 August 2022. Antonia urged the regional community, especially the contracted parties, to submit their input.

Key highlights from the Initial Report include:

  • Transfer Authorization Code (TAC)—
    • The formerly known Authinfo Code has been renamed as TAC.
    • The TAC will now only be generated upon a transfer request and not at the time of domain name creation.
    • TAC syntax used by registries will be standardized, and all registrars and registries are required to implement the same RFC security model.
    • TAC will only have a maximum Time-to-Live (TTL) of 14 days, and will no longer be valid after use. Once transfer completes, registries will set the TAC to null status. This is a change from current transfer codes which are by default valid indefinitely.
  • Transfer Locks— The previous optional 60-day lock at the time of domain name creation and upon transfer has been updated to a mandatory 30-day lock.
  • NACKing— The current 2nd NACKing window for a Losing Registrar to deny a transfer request will no longer be available.
  • Poll Messaging— There will be changes on notifications throughout the domain transfer, such as an added notification when the transfer completes.
  • IANA ID— This ID is useful for Losing Registrars to provide feedback to registrants upon transfer completion, and the WG’s report poses a question to the community on whether the IANA ID will still be needed in the future.

While reviewing public comments to the Phase 1(a) Initial Report, the WG will continue its work on Phase 1(b) topics. All Phase 1 recommendations will be consolidated in a single report for the GNSO Council’s approval.

Open Community Discussion

As this was the first hybrid ICANN meeting after 2 years, Satish encouraged participants to share their in-person or remote experiences. Akinori commended the Meetings Team on successfully managing participants’ health and safety at ICANN74. Several participants agreed with Akinori. Satish added that the success of ICANN74 represents a turning point and possibility of holding face-to-face meetings during the pandemic as long as precautionary measures are implemented.

Shi-Young appreciated the opportunity to physically meet GAC colleagues and community members, and hopes to strengthen the network and collaboration across the APAC community. Satish agreed and raised for potential collaboration on capacity building activities between the GAC and ALAC.

On remote participation experience, Donna shared that her overall experience was satisfactory. However, a key issue faced was the inability to identify the number of on-site participants at the sessions and to gauge their interests. As both Donna and Justine Chew (IDNs EPDP Vice Chair) were chairing the IDN EPDP session remotely, it was challenging to work on more than an updates session, to which they received some criticisms. Also, the usual time zone issue remains. In response, Satish suggested possibilities to improve technical and logistic aspects such as camera placements and on-site feedback processes.