Dear Councillors,

Please note that Keith & I have agreed on a simple manner in which we should handle the task of notifying the Council about ICANN's public comment processes that are of relevance or interest to the ccNSO. Going forward, I will be first point of contact and of notifying the Council. I will usually bounce off views with Keith where I'm not certain if a public comment process has any relevance/interest to ccTLDs.

The goal of these notices is not to cover those processes that are ccNSO's or that the ccNSO is actively involved in (e.g. DSSA WG, IDN PDP WG), but is to cover those processes which are outside ccNSO's direct activity.

In preparation for tomorrow's Council meeting, we have the following public comment processes. I will leave to the Council to decide if we should provide any comments, but I also include my own assessment/views on some of the processes:

Assessment: this process may be of interest to the ccNSO from a DNS stability & security point of view. We may make a general statement in support or against the SSAC view that dot less domains should be prohibited. A number of submissions have been made (including one by .fr) in support & against the SSAC recommendation.

Deadline for comments: this is a Reply period & the deadline is 2 November.

Dotless domains are domains that consist of a single label (e.g. http://example instead of example.tld or mail@example instead of mail.example.tld) and there is an A/AAAA or MX records in the APEX of a TLD zone. On 23 February 2012, the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) published SAC 053: SSAC Report on Dotless Domains [PDF, 183 KB]. In this report, the SSAC stated that dotless domains would not be universally reachable and the SSAC recommended strongly against their use. As a result, the SSAC recommended that the use of DNS resource records such as A, AAAA, and MX in the apex of a Top-Level Domain (TLD) should be contractually prohibited where appropriate, and strongly discouraged in all cases.

On 23 June 2012, the ICANN Board adopted a resolution tasking ICANN to consult with the relevant communities regarding implementation of the recommendations in SAC053.

Assessment: this may be of interest to the ccNSO in terms of encouraging effectiveness in the operations of the ICANN Board. On face value, it seems quite logical to streamline new Board appointments to commence at the same time, as this would avoid duplication of Board induction & help save on cost.

Deadline for comments: 22 October 2012

ICANN is seeking public comments on proposed Bylaws amendments drafted to align the terms of all Board members to begin at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting each year. Currently, some Board member terms begin between around the time of a Mid-Year ICANN meeting (June) while those selected by the Nominating Committee begin just a few months later at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting. This requires two induction periods just months apart as well as two times per year when committee assignments and Board leadership may have to be reviewed. Under the proposed Bylaws amendments, all five voting Board members selected in any year would join the Board at the same time (along with the non-voting liaisons), which is expected to increase Board effectiveness and efficiency.

Assessment: the Council should consider making a statement or submission as this process is about finding additional ways to promote inclusivity and transparency in how ICANN decides issues that fall outside the usual public comment processes.

Deadline: 25 October 2012

The discussion document is posted by ICANN Staff at the request of the Board Governance Committee to solicit views from the ICANN community on ways to enhance the process by which the Board seeks advice from the ICANN community beyond the traditional public comment process. This issue stems from the work undertaken by Staff in fulfillment of recommendation No. 6 from the Accountability and Transparency Review Team, and highlights an area where improvements can lead to predictability and consistency for future Board actions. A session is included in the ICANN Toronto agenda to explore this important issue further.

(ATRT Recommendation No. 6. States that:
"The Board should clarify ... the distinction between issues that are properly subject to ICANN's policy development processes and those matters that are properly within the executive functions performed by the ICANN staff and Board and, as soon as practicable, develop complementary mechanisms for consultation in appropriate circumstances with the relevant SOs and ACs on administrative and executive issues that will be addressed at Board level.")

Assessment: this is of interest to the ccNSO as it may have an impact on ccTLDs' ability to participate effectively in ICANN meetings. Necessarily, a balance must be struck between holding ICANN meetings in easily accessible locations and allowing different ICANN regions to have regular turns to host ICANN meetings. It is also important to look at the issue of meetings from a cost-saving viewpoint as well as raising awareness in those regions that may be not as active in ICANN as we would like them to be.

Deadline: 16 November 2012

The topic of ICANN meeting structure, purpose, execution and locations is not a new one; it has been evolving since the early days of ICANN. Documentation regarding ICANN’s approach to its thrice a year meetings began in earnest with the Meeting White Paper posted by then Board member Susan Crawford in November 2006. The ICANN Meetings Reform Discussion Paper [PDF, 387 KB] published in 2008 continued the discussion, and it persists today. It is essential that Meeting venues provide excellent facilities for community interaction. The purpose of the ICANN Consolidated Meetings Strategy is to ensure that the conference venues that offer the best facilities can be used.