Summary Report to the ALAC on GNSO Council Meeting #01 held on 15 January 2026 (click on 'Report to the ALAC' tab)

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

1. GNSO Council Membership Changes

• As a result of the recent sale of the Markmonitor business to Com Laude, Prudence Malinki has had to step down as a RrSG councilor. That seat remained vacant for this Council January meeting.

• Prudence was also Council Liaison to the Latin Diacritics Policy Development Process (LD PDP). Her stepping down from Council left a vacancy that has now been filled by Christian Dawson, NCA NCPH Councilor.

• Following ICANN84 AGM and the above development, GNSO Council comprises--
  
  Leadership: Susan Payne (IPC) is GNSO Chair, with Jennifer Chung (RySG) and Taiwo Peter Akinremi (NCSG) as Council Vice-Chairs for CPG and NCPH, respectively.
  
  

• Damon Ashcraft and Susan Payne, for IPC
• Samantha Demetriou, Jennifer Chung and Nacho Amadoz for RySG
• Ashley Heinemann for RrSG (+ 1 seat vacant)
• Lawrence Owale-Roberts and Vivek Goyal for BC
• Osvaldo Novoa for ISCPC
• Taiwo Peter Akinremi and Bruna Martins dos Santos for NCSG
• Anne Aikman-Scalese, NomCom Appointee

• Sebastien Ducos remains as GNSO Liaison to the GAC
• Antonia Chu remains as ccNSO Liaison to the GNSO
• Justine Chew remains as ALAC Liaison to the GNSO

2. DNS Abuse Mitigation

• Council has adopted the charter for the First Policy Development Process (PDP) for DNS Abuse Mitigation (PDP 1) which --
  (i) updates the Charter Questions;  (ii) updates the language on Human Rights considerations; (iii) adjusts the membership structure from a “Representative + Open Model”  to a "Representative Model"; (iv) adjusts the seat allocation numbers by group for the Representative WG Model; and (v) adds allocatable seats including Members, Participants and Alternates.

• GNSO secretariat staff will now promptly issue a call for volunteers to commence the PDP working group’s work. For this purpose, the ALAC has been assigned 4 seats on the working group (2 members, 1 participant and 1 alternate) to be filled. An unlimited number of observers is also welcomed.

3. System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD) Recommendations

• The SSAD is a system proposed to centrally handle requests for non-public registration data, envisioned in Recommendations 1-18 of the Final Report of the GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data Phase 2 (of October 2020).

• Simply put, these Recommendations 1-18 remain pending with the ICANN Board, due to mainly to feasibility concerns, and the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) was instead implemented as a temporary solution.

• Council had tasked its Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee to analyze the data collected on the RDRS, and in particular, the RDRS Standing Committee’s Assignment #4 was to make suggestions to Council for a proposed recommendation(s) to the ICANN Board in relation to the consideration of those SSAD recommendations.

  • The Standing Committee produced Recommendation 5, which provides, in part, “the SC recommends that the Board should consider the 18 recommendations together as one package. The SC further recommends that when the GNSO Council and ICANN Board engage in a dialogue, the Council should recommend that the ICANN board reject the SSAD recommendations (as a package) and send them back to the GNSO Council for further action and Supplemental Recommendation.”

• After having accepted the RDRS Standing Committee updated Findings Report, Council discussed next steps to address the Standing Committee’s Recommendation 5 – which in brief, was to recommend that ICANN Board reject Recommendations 1-18, to trigger the GNSO Supplemental Recommendation process. Council leadership advocated for the use of a Council small team plus to include participation/input from outside GNSO, noting the success of the small team plus model in resolving Subsequent Procedures recommendations that the Board had found problematic. The small team plus model is expected to include the participation of ALAC representatives and Board liaisons.

4. Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) and International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) Curative Rights

• Council was called upon the provide the GNSO’s interpretation of Recommendations 3 and 4 of the Final Report on IGOs and INGOs on Curative Rights which stated that the new arbitral proceeding may be initiated by the registrant within 10 days after a final UDRP decision or URS Appeal Determination, or within 10 days following a court’s refusal to hear the merits of a related case due to IGO immunity.

• ICANN org, in its role as the implementer of these policy recommendations, has raised the question as to how the Final Report language should be interpreted insofar as the timing/circumstances under which this new arbitral proceeding may be initiated arise. IRT members have expressed the view that, though the Final Report may be somewhat ambiguous on this question/timing path, the spirit of the recommendations would be best achieved by permitting this new arbitral proceeding to be initiated (by agreement of the parties) at any time after a UDRP or URS proceeding is filed by an IGO.

• Council agreed with the interpretation of the IRT members.

5. Continuous Improvement Program – GNSO Policy Processes

• Council’s Standing Committee on Continuous Improvement (SCCI) was tasked with reviewing the 2015 Policy and Implementation Working Group Final Report, where its objective is to allow for execution of continuous improvement related projects that are focused on the GNSO’s structural, procedural, and process improvements to the Policy Development Process (PDP), was assigned to review the PSR and consider both the analysis conducted and the potential changes suggested. The SCCI systematically reviewed the analysis contained in the Policy & Implementation (P&I) Policy Status Report (PSR), and proposed three (3) recommendations through its Final Report, which propose courses of action for each of the three processes - EPDP, GGP, and GIP.

• The 3 recommendations essentially suggest that Council should--

  • #1 develop educational materials to illustrate the differences between the GNSO processes—PDP, EPDP, GGP, and GIP, including use of a GNSO Processes Comparison chart;

  • #2 modify the EPDP Manual to allow for the solicitation of Early Input from the various stakeholder groups to be optional rather than mandatory for all EPDP; and

  • #3 modify the GGP Manual to require the development and approval of a Charter for the GGP, where the structure of the Charter for the GGP may be similar to the Charter for a PDP or EPDP.