Thursday, 16 April 2020 ICANN Community Leadership Digest The ICANN org Policy Development Support function publishes this twice-weekly digest to help ICANN community leaders track requests and follow updates. Table of Contents Information Sharing REMINDER: PIR Transaction and Proposed Public Interest Commitments Update NEW: Registrant Course on ICANN Learn REMINDER: Call for Expressions of Interest: Standing Panel for ICANN’s Independent Review Process ICANN68 Planning NEW: ICANN68 Publication Support Public Comment CLOSES MONDAY: Proposal for Chinese Script Root Zone Label Generation Rules CLOSES NEXT WEEK: Proposal for Bangla Script Root Zone Label Generation Rules Phase 1 Initial Report of the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs Policy Development Process Addendum to the Initial Report of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data Team – Phase 2 Guidelines for Developing Reference Label Generation Rules (LGRs) for the Second Level Version 2 NEW: ICANN Africa Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025 Information Sharing REMINDER: PIR Transaction and Proposed Public Interest Commitments Update Executive: Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO Since Public Interest Registry (PIR) formally notified ICANN of the proposed change of control transaction on 14 November 2019, the ICANN org and Board have worked together to thoughtfully and thoroughly evaluate the proposed acquisition to ensure that the .ORG registry remains secure, reliable, and stable. Throughout this process, ICANN has urged PIR, the Internet Society (ISOC), and Ethos Capital (Ethos) to engage and consult with the .ORG community, and to provide full transparency regarding the proposed transaction. Today, ICANN is publishing PIR's recently updated Public Interest Commitments (PICs), which were received by ICANN on 7 April 2020. PIR proposes that these PICs be added to the .ORG Registry Agreement should ICANN approve the change of control request submitted by PIR. Two versions of the PICs are being published: a "clean" version and a "redline" version that shows changes made by PIR from its 16 March 2020 version submitted to ICANN following PIR's Public Engagement process. The revised PICs that ICANN is publishing today are in response to additional questions posed by ICANN as part of its diligence around the change of control request. On 3 April 2020, ICANN provided PIR with two sets of questions. One set of questions are in follow-up to previous ICANN inquiries designed to further understand the proposed transaction and its potential effect on PIR and the .ORG top-level domain (TLD). The second set of questions relate specifically to the proposed PICs. PIR has indicated that it is working to answer all of the questions from ICANN. It is ICANN's intention to post PIR's responses to these questions when they are available, subject to any appropriate requests for confidentiality made by PIR. Many people have questioned the enforceability of PICs by ICANN. To be clear, PICs are enforceable by ICANN. Any Internet user may submit complaints to ICANN Contractual Compliance. In addition, ICANN Contractual Compliance may identify an issue through its proactive monitoring. ICANN's follow-up questions to PIR seek to ensure that ICANN has a clear understanding of each commitment within the PICs, such that it could be enforced should the need arise. The ICANN Board continues to have reservations regarding the enforceability of PIR's proposed PICs. The .ORG Registry Agreement stipulates a specified time period for ICANN to approve or withhold consent of the proposed change of control of PIR. ICANN and PIR have agreed to extend the deadline several times since the original deadline in mid-January, and the deadline for ICANN's response is now Monday, 20 April 2020. Similar to when voluntary commitments in the form of PICs were proposed by applicants for new generic TLDs, ICANN is providing PIR's proposed PICs to the ICANN community with this public notice. Given the fast-approaching deadline for ICANN to make a decision to approve or withhold consent on the requested change of control of PIR, the typical 30-day public notice period has been condensed to seven days. We recognize the full engagement of the .ORG community in PIR's consultation process, but wanted to ensure ICANN remained fully transparent in what is being considered, the concerns still present in the Board's review, and what the Board will be reviewing. How to Participate: Feedback may be submitted as a comment to this blog or through correspondence to me or the ICANN Board. We thank the ICANN community for its active participation in this matter and remain committed to keeping you informed of new developments. NEW: Registrant Course on ICANN Learn Executive: Sally Costerton, Senior Advisor to the President and Senior Vice President, Global Stakeholder Engagement ICANN org has published a new course for registrants that aims to educate registrants and the end user community on a registrant's rights and responsibilities, and their role in the domain name ecosystem. Register for the course. REMINDER: Call for Expressions of Interest: Standing Panel for ICANN’s Independent Review Process Announcement On 31 March 2020, ICANN opened a call for Expressions of Interest for panelists to serve on the omnibus Standing Panel for ICANN's Independent Review Process (IRP). Candidates for the IRP omnibus Standing Panel should review the Expressions of Interest document before submission. The document includes the following information: Panel Position Description Required or Highly Preferred Skills Required or Highly Preferred Experience Time Commitment Compensation and Selection Expressions of Interest should be submitted to irp-standingpanel-eoi2020@icann.org by 23:59 UTC on Friday, 31 July 2020. ICANN68 Planning NEW: ICANN68 Publication Support Executive: David Olive, Senior Vice President, Policy Development Support Design and Translation Deadline If you require design assistance for your publication, you need to provide all the text, images, layout, and publication type/size requirements (i.e. newsletter vs. 1-pager vs. trifold, etc.). You will receive a maximum of 2 iterations of the publication. Please provide everything by Wednesday, 13 May 2020. Please keep in mind that all materials, new or updated, need to be evergreen. Translation-only Deadline If your publication requires translation, please provide the final material(s) by Monday, 25 May 2020. This ensures that there is enough time to translate the publication by the below print deadline. If your materials require design assistance (outlined above), please note that the final materials will have to be complete, including the edit/approval process, by this deadline in order to be translated. Please work directly with your support staff to submit these requests to chantelle.doerksen@icann.org and liana.teo@icann.org. Public Comment CLOSES MONDAY: Proposal for Chinese Script Root Zone Label Generation Rules Close Date: Monday, 20 April 2020 CLOSES NEXT WEEK: Proposal for Bangla Script Root Zone Label Generation Rules Close Date: Thursday, 23 April 2020 Phase 1 Initial Report of the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs Policy Development Process Close Date: Monday, 27 April 2020 Addendum to the Initial Report of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data Team – Phase 2 Close Date: Tuesday, 5 May 2020 Guidelines for Developing Reference Label Generation Rules (LGRs) for the Second Level Version 2 Close Date: Tuesday, 12 May 2020 NEW: ICANN Africa Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025 Close Date: Wednesday, 27 May 2020 Volume 2, Issue 31 | Archive | Next Issue: Monday, 20 April 2020 ICANN | 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 Unsubscribe ccnso-council@icann.org Update Profile | About Constant Contact Sent by david.olive@icann.org in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today!