GNSO Council Meeting held on 13 November 2025 (updated 11 Nov)
Full Agenda | Documents | Motions
Item 1: Administrative Matters
1.1 - Roll Call
1.2 - Updates to Statements of Interest
1.3 - Review / Amend Agenda
1.4 - Minutes
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
GNSO Council Review of GAC Communiqué
Confirmation of GNSO Empowered Community Representative
Motion to commemorate Rubens Kuhl
Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE: New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP - Interpretation of Intent for Select IGO/INGO PDP Recommendations
Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Final Issue Report on a Policy Development Process for DNS Abuse
Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee Findings Report
Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Annual Report
Item 8: Any Other Business
8.1 - SPS Planning
8.2 - Next steps - Expiration Policies
Summary Report to the ALAC on GNSO Council Meeting #11 held on 13 November 2025
For brevity, I will just highlight outcomes on key issues here. For some of the issues, you can get more information under the Matters of Interest and/or Meeting Records tabs.
1. Protection for IGO/INGO Identifiers
I had previously reported on and discussed this issue extensively during the CPWG call of 24 Sep 2025. During Council’s Extraordinary Meeting held on 9 Oct 2025, I spoke in support of the IGO/INGO Group’s position and submitted a letter to Council expressing support for the ICANN Board, ICANN org IRT implementation staff and the minority of SubPro IRT members' preference for the inclusion of protected IGO/INGO Identifiers in String Similarity Review for the Next Round as the correct and logical interpretation of relevant adopted policy recommendations.
However, a majority of Councilors (with RrSG abstaining, one BC councilor, one ISPCP and the NCPH councilor disagreeing) favored the stricter interpretation of the relevant adopted policy recommendations text which was silent as to the treatment protected IGO/INGO Identifiers in String Similarity Review. They see extending protections for IGO and INGO names from exact match to string similarity as constituting new policy, and not mere implementation. This effectively means, a third party applicant could potentially apply for and secure a string which is confusingly similar to a protected IGO/INGO Identifier (i.e. a full name of an IGO/INGO from a specified list) and if the designated IGO/INGO did not also apply for its protected identifier string or objected to an application for a string which deemed confusingly similar to the protected IGO/INGO Identifier, then IGO/INGO would be from obtaining its protected identifier string due to the overarching policy for not allowing confusingly similar strings to be delegated into the root.
Noting this undesirable consequence, Councilors rallied to build consensus around a motion Option 4 to effectively encourage ICANN org to notify the GAC and a designated IGO/INGO in the event a string which deemed confusingly similar to its protected IGO/INGO Identifier is applied for (as was suggested by the Board). This is to provide notice to GAC and/or the designated IGO/INGO to take action as it deems appropriate.
Council had during its 29 October 2025 Meeting deferred the vote of the motion Option 4 as the RySG expressed concern on the earlier Resolved Clause 3(f) and requested time to propose further amendment. After much discussion on the Council mailing list, the finalized motion Option 4 was voted on and passed (with RrSG abstaining) (motion Options 1, 2, and 3 were withdrawn).
2. DNS Abuse
GNSO support staff presented an analysis of the discussions at the DNS Abuse Work Session on 26 October 2025 (see Session Report wiki: At-Large Session Reports from ICANN84 ) as well as the comments received to the Preliminary Issue Report on a Policy Development Process on DNS Abuse Mitigation Public Comment Proceeding.
Council’s discussion - ahead of the issuance of the Final Issue Report on 17 November - mostly revolved around the following:
(a) agreement on the 2 identified priority gaps as being suitable for PDP while the 3rd identified gap would be better dealt with through non-PDP establishment of best practices;
(b) whether Council should initiate one PDP with 2 phases or 2 separate PDPs but possibly part overlap in timetable;
(c) staff and volunteer community resources available for the PDP(s);
(d) length of the PDP workplan(s) (i.e. how fast can a PDP be completed), noting this is subject to the number and complicatedness of charter questions; and
(e) whether a Representative+Open PDP model should be preferred over a purely Representative PDP model and impact of including vs excluding newcomer participation or participants who do not belong to any existing group in ICANN.
Council is expected to consider initiating one or 2 PDPs in its December 2025 meeting.
3. Registration Data Request Service (RDRS)
The RDRS Standing Committee Chair discussed their Findings Report, including its 6 recommendations and comments from its August 2025 public comment proceeding:
Rec #1: Continue the RDRS beyond the Pilot period
Rec #2: Allow for authentication of interested requestor groups, beginning with law enforcement.
Rec #3: Implement Key System Enhancements to sustain and evolve RDRS post-pilot while more policy work is underway.
Rec #4: Consider further policy work in the following areas.
Rec #5: Next steps on EPDP Phase 2/SSAD Policy Recommendations.
Rec #6: Maintain the current Standing Committee with narrowed Scope.
Council will further consider next steps in due course.
NOTE: Separately, the ICANN Board has asked for community input to generate community discussion on the proposed roadmap for aligning the RDRS-related policy gaps identified in the Registration Data Request Service Policy Alignment Analysis and to help inform discussions between the ICANN Board and the GNSO as they assess the work of the Privacy and Proxy Services Accreditation Issues (PPSAI) IRT and Registration Data Policy IRT and begin to discuss the consensus policy recommendations for an System for Standardized Access/Disclosure. This public comment proceeding will close on 9 December.
Thanks for reading / considering