Here is my summary report of the GNSO Council's 15 Feb 2024 meeting. It's 'relatively' short compared to the actual agenda because I have parsed out just the key matters of interest to us. You can also read this report posted at the
ALAC Liaison to the GNSO workspace, or using the links included below.
Special Summary Report of 15 Feb 2024 Meeting to ALAC
For brevity, I will just highlight a few things here. For some of the issues, you can glean a wider perspective from GNSO Council Feb 2024 Matters of Interest and/or from GNSO Council Feb 2024 Meeting Records.
1. Consent Agenda
- Council confirms Karen Day as Chair and Segunfunmi Olajide as Vice-Chair of the GNSO Standing Selection Committee (SSC) for 2024.
- Council confirms Mark Datysgeld as the GNSO-Nominated Mentor for the 2024 ICANN Fellowship Program.
2. Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team Recommendations #1 and #2
- Council resolved to extend the deferral of consideration of recommendations #1 and #2 of the Registration Data Accuracy Scoping Team write up for an additional six months, and commits to considering the Scoping Team recommendations at an earlier date if DPA negotiations have been completed before six months have passed or another significant event, such as the implementation of the NIS2 directive or the publication Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains (INFERMAL) Study, occurs before six months have passed.
3. Board Non-Adopted Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) Recommendations & GNSO SubPro Small Team Plus
- In March 2023, the ICANN Board approved the majority of the recommendations contained in the Final Report on the new gTLD Subsequent PDP, but also placed some recommendations into a pending status. The Council convened a small team that worked collaboratively with the ICANN Board to resolve all pending recommendations. While the majority of the pending recommendations were able to be adopted by the ICANN Board, recommendations across six Topics were not adopted by the ICANN Board.
- With the primary task of addressing the pending recommendations now complete, the Council has tasked the Small Team Plus with an updated assignment form. The Small Team Plus has committed to a work plan to address the recommendations not adopted by the Board. Following that plan, the Small Team has completed initiation steps (i.e., developed background materials, preliminary Supplemental Recommendation language, and issued a call for volunteers for the Small Team Plus). The Small Team Plus has come to preliminary Supplemental Recommendation language (i.e., stable text) for most of the six Topics.
- The Small Team Plus (which includes the Board SubPro Caucus co-chairs and community subject matter experts/alternates) have now completed its immediate task of drafting supplemental recommendation language to address all the 10 recommendations not adopted by the Board. For details about the Small Team Plus and the draft supplemental recommendation language, please refer to this slide presentation.
- Next steps are for the Small Team Plus to present the draft supplemental recommendation language to the community for input vide;
4. Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) Study 2 Report
- The NCAP Discussion Group (NCAP DG) is currently seeking input on its draft Study 2 report and responses to a series of questions from the ICANN Board regarding name collisions as outlined in resolution 2017.11.02.30 and reaffirmed in resolution 2021.03.25.13.
- Council received an overview of the draft Study 2 report, which is structured to guide the reader through the methodology and significant findings of three pivotal research studies, as well as the analysis of the NCAP Discussion Group's extensive work activities. This material is what informs the eleven strategic recommendations provided at the end of the report.
- One of the key recommendations is the establishment of a new workflow, the Name Collision Risk Assessment Workflow, designed to enhance the assessment process of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). This recommendation underscores the NCAP Discussion Group’s belief that name collisions should be approached not merely as a technical challenge but as a critical risk management issue.
5. Diacritics Study Request
- As a reminder, this request for a Diacritic Study is concerned with how to deal with existing ASCII TLDs which have a version with diacritics which are NOT considered as variants of each other accordingly to established Label Generation Rules (for eg. quebec and québec).
- Council received an update from GNSO staff that a potential solution that may remove the need for a study request altogether is being developed and is likely to be ready for Council's consideration soon after ICANN79.
Action by ALAC Liaison
To alert ALAC/CPWG when the GNSO staff's potential solution, which proposes to displace the need for Diacritic Study Request, is ready for Council's consideration.