Final Proposed Agenda 2025-09-18
GNSO Council Agenda 18 September 2025
Please note that all documents referenced in the agenda have been gathered on a Wiki page for convenience and easier access: Documents 2025-09-18
This agenda was established according to the GNSO Operating Procedures v3.5, updated on 15 March 2023.
For convenience:
An excerpt of the ICANN Bylaws defining the voting thresholds is provided in Appendix 1 at the end of this agenda.
An excerpt from the Council Operating Procedures defining the absentee voting procedures is provided in Appendix 2 at the end of this agenda.
GNSO Council meeting on Thursday, 18 September 2025 at 05:00 UTC: 
Event Time Announcer - GNSO Council Meeting
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: Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting
Councilors should notify the GNSO Secretariat in advance if they will not be able to attend and/or need a dial out call.
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Item 1: Administrative Matters (5 minutes)
1.1 - Roll Call
1.2 - Updates to Statements of Interest
1.3 - Review / Amend Agenda
1.4 - Note the status of minutes for the previous Council meetings per the GNSO Operating Procedures:
Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 10 July 2025 were posted on 28 July 2025.
Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 14 August 2025 were posted on 2 September 2025.
Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List (0 minutes)
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 (5 minutes) (Tomslin)
Confirmation of GNSO Members to the Review of Reviews Cross Community Group (RoR CCG): Sophie Hey and Osvaldo Novoa
Approval of 2025 Customer Standing Committee slate
Pablo Rodriguez (NA)
Appointing Organization: ccNSO
1st Term: 1 October 2024 – 30 September 2026
Maarten Simon (EU)
Appointing Organization: ccNSO
1st Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2027
Gordon Dick (EU)
Appointing Organization: RySG
1st Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2027
Rick Wilhelm (NA)
Appointing Organization: RySG
2nd 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
Houda Chihi
Appointing Organization: ALAC
Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2027
John Gbadamosi
Appointing Organization: GNSO (Non-Registry)
Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2026
Selina Harrington
Appointing Organization: PTI
Term: No term limit
ASO and GNSO (Non-Registry) have not appointed liaisons to the CSC 2025 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
Daniel Migault
Appointing Organization: RSSAC
Term: 1 October 2024 – 30 September 2026
Erwin Lansing
Appointing Organization: ccNSO
Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2026
Anil Jain
Appointing Organization: GNSO (Non-Registry)
Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2026
Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Prioritization of Upcoming Work (30 minutes)
During its second working session at ICANN82, the GNSO Council discussed the upcoming pipeline of work, including a newly-started PDP, PDPs the GNSO had previously committed to, and a list of potential topics the GNSO Council could consider for future PDPs.
Specifically, the GNSO Council discussed:
(i) a newly-started PDP: Latin Diacritics;
(ii) a previously committed to PDP: Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in gTLDs, Phase 2, and
(iii) identified topics for potential future work:
DNS Abuse
RDDS (Accuracy, RDRS, PPSAI)
New gTLDs (from rounds to open process)
Expiration Policies
Transfers (dispute mechanism for registrants)
The Council generally aligned around the need to prioritize the DNS Abuse work, requesting an Issue Report on 14 August. The RDRS Standing Committee published its Council Report for public comment; the report provides some insight into anticipated next steps.
The Council suggested that level of effort be integrated into the prioritization document, to help provide important context for the prioritization exercise. An updated prioritization document was shared with Council on 05 September 2025.
Here, the Council will continue this discussion for how to prioritize these topics given limited resources.
4.1 - Introduction of Topic (Nacho Amadoz, Interim GNSO Co-Chair)
4.2 - Council Discussion
4.3 - Next Steps
Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Urgent Request Timeline and Related Topics (15 minutes)
On 15 October 2024, the GAC wrote to the Board, recommending, “[f]or the work on authentication, we would support the establishment of a joint PSWG/CPH task force. For the work on the response time for authenticated requests, we invite the Board and the GNSO Council to identify an expedited procedure for addressing this workstream. We strongly suggest resuming the work of the IRT, which was halted last summer.”
A trilateral meeting was held on 4 November 2024 and the Board, GAC, and GNSO Council discussed next steps, including potentially resuming discussions with the IRT. The Council discussed this issue in detail during its meeting on 19 December 2024 and responded to the GAC on 15 January 2025, noting, “[the Council] assumes work on additional timeline discussions would occur within the existing IRT. To be clear, this would not constitute policy development as defined in Annex A of Bylaws (the GNSO PDP) but rather, would be continued implementation work on Recommendation 18 of the EPDP Phase 1 Final Report.” The IRT has resumed meetings on the issue of response time for urgent requests.
On 20 August 2025, Thomas Rickert, the GNSO Council liaison to the Registration Data IRT, wrote to the Council, noting some potential challenges with the handling of LEA disclosure requests at the global level. Thomas flagged potential legal challenges that may require a nuanced discussion and proposed, et al., a series of meetings between relevant parties, including the ICANN Board, the GNSO Council, and the PSWG/GAC.
Here, Thomas will present the concerns in more detail, and the Council will discuss next steps.
5.1 - Introduction of Topic (Thomas Rickert, GNSO Council Liaison to the Registration Data IRT)
5.2 - Council Discussion
5.3 - Next Steps
Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Board Readiness Small Team Recommendations (20 minutes)
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 year, the Small Team has been conducting interviews with community members, Board members, and staff members, and has synthesized its findings into recommendations for the Council’s consideration.
Here, the Council will receive a presentation of the recommendations from the Board Readiness Small Team and determine next steps.
6.1 - Introduction of Topic (Kurt Pritz, Small Team Lead) - Slides
6.2 - Council Discussion
6.3 - Next Steps
Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Proposed Agenda for GAC and GNSO Bilateral Meeting at ICANN84 (15 minutes)
In advance of ICANN meetings, the GNSO liaison to the GAC and the GAC point of contact discuss and propose an agenda for the bilateral meeting at the ICANN meeting. The proposed agenda was circulated to the Council in advance of the September meeting.
The Council has suggested that better coordination in advance of the bilateral meeting will ensure that the messaging, goals, and objectives are more aligned in advance of the meeting, helping to avoid surprises for Councilors, while also improving the likelihood of positive outcomes from the bilateral meeting.
Here, the Council will review and prepare for the proposed agenda topics for the GNSO/GAC bilateral meeting for ICANN84.
7.1 - Introduction of Topic (Sebastien Ducos, GNSO Council Liaison to the GAC) - Slides
7.2 - Council Discussion
7.3 - Next Steps
Item 8: New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP - Disagreement Between ICANN Staff and the IRT on Implementation (15 minutes)
The New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP is in the concluding stages of its implementation. However, an issue has arisen recently where the ICANN org staff in charge of implementing the policy recommendations, are not in alignment with the Implementation Review Team (IRT) on the intent of certain policy recommendations.
A discussion paper was prepared by ICANN org staff to explain the issue and to provide a path forward. The IRT was not aligned with the ICANN org’s proposal. The Council may be requested to provide guidance on the intent of relevant recommendations; without this guidance, the timeline for the Board’s adoption of the Applicant Guidebook and launch of the Next Round are likely to be negatively impacted.
Here, the Council will be briefed on the issue and discuss potential next steps.
8.1 - Introduction of Topic (Anne Aikman-Scalese & Susan Payne, GNSO co-liaisons to the PDP) - Slides
8.2 - Council Discussion
8.3 - Next Steps
Item 9: Any Other Business (15 minutes)
9.1 - GNSO Council SPS (Terri)
9.2 - ICANN84 planning and GNSO Draft schedule (Terri)
9.3 - GNSO Prep Week Webinar - 07 Oct at 21:00 UTC (Nacho)
9.4 - Next Steps for Accuracy Small Team Rec. 2 (educational materials)
9.5 - Initiating the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (SPIRT) (Steve)
9.6 - Update from PPSAI small team (Paul)
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Appendix 1: GNSO Council Voting Thresholds (ICANN Bylaws, Article 11, Section 11.3(i))
See Bylaws FOR INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS | A California Nonprofit Public-Benefit Corporation - ICANN .
Appendix 2: GNSO Council Absentee Voting Procedures (GNSO Operating Procedures, Section 4.4)
See https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/op-procedures-15mar23-en.pdf
References for Coordinated Universal Time of 05:00 UTC
Local time between March and November in the NORTHERN hemisphere
See Dates for Daylight Saving Time and Clock Changes – City Lookup for Dates for Daylight Saving Time and Clock Changes
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California, USA (PDT) UTC-7 22:00 (Wednesday)
San José, Costa Rica (CST) UTC-6 23:00 (Wednesday)
New York/Washington DC, USA (EDT) UTC-4 01:00
Buenos Aires, Argentina (ART) UTC-3 02:00
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (WAT) UTC+1 06:00
Paris, France (CEST) UTC+2 07:00
Moscow, Russia (MSK) UTC+3 08:00
Singapore (SGT) UTC+8 13:00
Melbourne, Australia (AEST) UTC+10 15:00
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For other places see http://www.timeanddate.com and Event Time Announcer - GNSO Council Meeting