Cross-Community Working Group on Use of Country/Territory Names as TLDs Following the very successful cross-community session at ICANN56 in Helsinki, the co-chairs asked staff to draft a strawman paper to be circulated with the WG for discussion. Purpose of the paper was to lay-out the Group’s discussion to-date, and provide a basis for discussion on the working group’s progress to date of the group in relation to the WG’s main objectives, in particular with respect to question about the feasibility of a harmonized framework on the use of country and territory names as TLDs. The goal of such a framework would be to provide a common (across cc’s and g’s) basis for use of country an territory names, which could then included in policies through the respective (ccNSO and GNSO) policy development processes The strawman paper was circulated to the group with aim to generate a discussion among the group and discussed during the call last Monday (29 August) and seems to get support, i.e. a harmonized framework is not feasible. The WG observed an incredible level of complexity associated with and divergence in interest between and within communities. These factors and also the fact that currently many different initiatives are on-going with respect to Geographic names across the ICANN community, make it impossible to come up with a harmonized framework that is supported by the community at large. Next steps The WG will prepare a progress report and start drafting its final report. These documents will go out for public comment first. Only after the comments have been processed, the ccNSO and GNSO Councils will be informed formaly about the conclusions and recommendations of the CCWG (foreseen at or post Hyderabad) On behalf of the ccNSO appointed co-chairs