GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2025 held on 18 September 2025 (updated 16 Sep)

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

  • 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 

    • ALAC-appointed Liaison: Houda Chihi (Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2027)

• Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Prioritization of Upcoming Work

• Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Urgent Request Timeline and Related Topics

• Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Board Readiness Small Team Recommendations

• Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Proposed Agenda for GAC-GNSO Bilateral Meeting at ICANN84

• Item 8: New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP -  Disagreement Between ICANN Staff and the IRT on Implementation (added 16 Sep)

• Item 9: Any Other Business

  • 9.1 - GNSO Council SPS

  • 9.2 - ICANN84 planning and GNSO Draft schedule

  • 9.3 - GNSO Prep Week Webinar - 07 Oct at 21:00 UTC

  • 9.4 - Next Steps for Accuracy Small Team Rec. 2 (educational materials)

  • 9.5 - Initiating the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (SPIRT)

Summary Report to the ALAC on GNSO Council Meeting #9 of 2025 held on 18 September 2025

For brevity, I will just highlight outcomes on key issue here. For some of the issues, you can get more information under the Matters of Interest and/or Meeting Records tabs.

1. Consent Agenda

• Houda Chihi, ALAC’s appointed liaison to the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) (for Term: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2027) was confirmed as part of the 2025 CSC slate of members and liaisons.

2. Prioritization of Upcoming GNSO Work

• Council continues to consider the upcoming pipeline of work, including a newly-started PDP, PDPs the GNSO had previously committed to, and a list of potential topics Council could consider for future PDPs. However, Council is generally aligned around the need to prioritize the DNS Abuse work.

3. SubPro IRT - Protection of Reserved Names in the Next Round

• Due to a disagreement between the Subsequent Procedures Implementation Review Team (SubPro IRT) and ICANN org staff implementing the Next Round, the issue in respect of protection of Reserved Names in the Next Round has been escalated to Council for resolution, in line with IRT procedure.

• In short, Council is being asked - What does it mean for the full name (IGO/INGO+) identifiers to be “protected,” but available for the relevant organization via an exception procedure?  With 2 options presented by ICANN org.

• Since this issue was put on the agenda without a lot of notice, Council concluded that time is needed for consultation with SG/Cs prior to any decision being made. A special meeting of Council is contemplated to address the urgency of a resolution sought by ICANN org.

• I plan to discuss this issue further during the CPWG call of 24 Sep 2025.

4. Board Readiness

• Council received an overview of the findings and recommendations of its Board Readiness Small Team, but due to insufficient time, Council intends to consider these in more detail during ICANN84. In the mean time, the final report of the Small Team is close to completion.

5. Registration Data Urgent Request and Related Issues

• Council continues to grapple with the complexities and dependencies (and perhaps, some misunderstanding) around law enforcement agencies' access to registration data via urgent requests.