Dear All, On behalf of Christopher Wilkinson, the appointed ALAC ‘Co-Lead’ for Work Track 5, please see his message and attached report on the topic of Work Track 5 Geographical Names in the DNS. . Please send your comments to this list and Christopher. Kind regards, ICANN Policy Staff in support of the At-Large Community [Begin forwarded message] Dear Friends and Colleagues: As you may recall, ICANN is currently working on the policies relating to the eventual launch of a further round of applications for new generic top level domains (TLDs) As part of this process, the PDP has recently created a dedicated sub group (‘work track 5’) to address the question of geographical terms in the top level name space (DNS) This is my first briefing note to At Large, as the appointed ALAC ‘Co-Lead’ for Work Track 5, - as provided for in the WT5 ToR. Note that the other three Co-Leads have been appointed by ccNSO, GAC and GNSO. The principal outcome to date is the agreed Terms of Reference approved by the WT5 conference call on 17 January 2018. The document is attached (.pdf). The principal features of this decision are as follows: - the Terms of Reference of the work track on geographical terms follow closely the structure and organisation of the GNSO PDP Guidelines - the option of working as a Cross Community Working Group, as was initially proposed, has been rejected in favour of the GNSO PDP policies and procedures - no decision has been taken regarding the definition of geographical terms relevant to the DNS, That has been deferred to the next phase of the discussion, which has already begun. Accordingly, I would encourage At Large members to participate actively in this working group (WT5) because it has the potential to influence decisively the scope for individual Internet users, world-wide, to exercise their rights and interests in their geographical terms of all kinds in the future. Further background information about this subject is available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JnqiUKHd9_aTLFMFQ0Rmft8GRUL7JSvGF7qS2xj7CAw/edit[docs.google.com]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_document_d_1JnqiUKHd9-5FaTLFMFQ0Rmft8GRUL7JSvGF7qS2xj7CAw_edit&d=DwMFaQ&c=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM&r=PF9VKOo4nYMGLTtWcHZZreauv03rE96xienOw4tThw4&m=P6Vz4WyvwJs1fLXtV2T1mxh_frKRnUt2xtt5C0OzBWE&s=XuDEO3HgEjDyIWpny6B_m6f7_IfF2Ru3lgZU9kINZt8&e=> I would be glad to receive any comments and answer any questions on this matter. Regards Christopher Wilkinson ALAC Co-Lead GNSO new gTLD PDP, WT5 (Geo-Names) cw@christopherwilkinson.eu<mailto:cw@christopherwilkinson.eu>