Dear all,

Please find below the agenda for the Thursday, 13 November 2025 GNSO Council Meeting at 13:00 UTC.

This will be posted on the agenda wiki page.

Thank you!

Kind regards,
Devan

GNSO Council Agenda 13 November 2025

Please note that all documents referenced in the agenda have been gathered on a Wiki page for convenience and easier access: https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AKifBg

This agenda was established according to the GNSO Operating Procedures v3.5, updated on 15 March 2023.

For convenience:

• An excerpt of the ICANN Bylaws defining the voting thresholds is provided in Appendix 1 at the end of this agenda.
• An excerpt from the Council Operating Procedures defining the absentee voting procedures is provided in Appendix 2 at the end of this agenda.

GNSO Council meeting on Thursday, 13 November 2025 at 13:00 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/33sjnctx

05:00 Los Angeles; 08:00 Washington DC; 13:00 London; 14:00 Paris; 16:00 Moscow; 00:00 Melbourne (Friday)

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: https://icann.zoom.us/j/91048235847?pwd=bmEHjk0uYT3sR2DIoE0c0yw4HKbM6O.1

Councilors should notify the GNSO Secretariat in advance if they will not be able to attend and/or need a dial out call.

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Item 1: Administrative Matters (5 minutes)

1.1 - Roll Call

1.2 - Updates to Statements of Interest

1.3 - Review / Amend Agenda

1.4 - Note the status of minutes for the previous Council meetings per the GNSO Operating Procedures: 

Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 18 September 2025 were posted on 02 October 2025. 

Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 29 October 2025 were posted on xx month 2025.

Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List (5 minutes)

2.1 - Review focus areas and provide updates on specific key themes / topics, to include review of Projects List and Action Item List. 

Item 3: Consent Agenda (5 minutes) 

• GNSO Council Review of GAC Communiqué
• Confirmation of GNSO Empowered Community Representative 
• Motion to commemorate Rubens Kuhl

Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP - Interpretation of Intent for Select IGO/INGO PDP Recommendations (30 minutes)

During its September meeting, the Council discussed an issue that recently arose in the proposed implementation of the Subsequent Procedures PDP recommendations. Specifically, ICANN org staff prepared a discussion paper to explain the issue and to provide a path forward. The IRT was not aligned with ICANN org’s proposal. The Council was requested to provide guidance on the intent of relevant recommendations; without this guidance, the timeline for the Board’s adoption of the Applicant Guidebook and launch of the Next Round are likely to be negatively impacted.

The Council has discussed the issue during the September meeting, during an Extraordinary Meeting, and during the October meeting. During the October meeting, the Council had four different motions to consider, but were set to consider a motion that confirmed the intent of option 1, but encouraged a number of mitigatory actions as suggested in the Board’s letter to the Council on this issue. That motion, along with the three others that remain submitted, were deferred during the October meeting. 

Here, the Council will vote on the interpretation of the original intent. 

4.1 - Introduction of Topic (Susan Payne, GNSO Chair)

4.2 - Council Vote

4.3 - Next Steps

Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Final Issue Report on a Policy Development Process for DNS Abuse (25 minutes)

On 14 August 2025, the GNSO Council passed a motion, requesting ICANN’s Policy Support Staff to draft a Preliminary Issue Report on DNS Abuse. The objective of the Preliminary Issue Report was for Policy Support Staff to assess all relevant issues related to the GNSO Council request and, following Community Input during the Public Comment phase, to recommend a course of action to the GNSO Council. It remains the GNSO Council’s prerogative to either follow Support Staff’s recommendations or to pursue alternative action.

As background, in early 2025, the GNSO Council reconvened its DNS Abuse Small Team to re-examine DNS Abuse mitigation considering new developments, research, and data. 

Based on data analysis, community consultation, and input from stakeholder groups (SGs), the Small Team recommended the following three gaps be prioritized for policy work in the Issue Report: 

1. Unrestricted Application Programming Interface (API) access for domain name registration for new customers
2. Associated Domain Checks: Malicious domains are often part of broader campaigns involving dozens or hundreds of related domains. 
3. Limited coordination on Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA)-based abuse:

The Preliminary Issue Report concludes that all of the three identified priority issues are appropriate for policy development. However, the paper suggests that only two of the three identified DNS Abuse issues should be prioritized for policy development, while one may be addressed more directly and expeditiously outside of the ICANN policy development process. The Preliminary Issue Report was published for public comment and the GNSO conducted a working session on DNS Abuse at ICANN84; the Final Issue Report and the included draft PDP charter will be adjusted to take into account feedback received from both of these sources.

Here, the Council will receive an overview of the anticipated changes to the Final Issue Report on DNS Abuse to inform its decision of whether or not to initiate a PDP at its upcoming meeting in December. 

5.1 - Introduction of Topic (Jennifer Chung, GNSO Vice-Chair) 

5.2 - Council Discussion

5.3 - Next Steps 

Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) Standing Committee Findings Report (25 minutes)

In June 2023, the GNSO Council approved a Charter for the Registration Data Request Service Standing Committee, which outlines the Standing Committee’s tasks.

Specifically, the Standing Committee was tasked to review the data that will be produced by ICANN org on a monthly basis following the launch of the RDRS (see data points outlined here). The Scoping Team was expected to analyze the data and consider: 

• Assignment #1. Trends that can be identified over a month-by-month period; 
• Assignment #2. Possible technical updates that should be considered to RDRS and/or related messaging and promotion (recognizing that the RDRS will only be running for a two-year period and limited resources may be available to implement such updates); 
• Assignment #3. Specific lessons learned that should be factored into the consideration of how to proceed with the SSAD recommendations; 
• Assignment #4. Suggestions to the Council for a proposed recommendation(s) to the ICANN Board in relation to the consideration of the SSAD recommendations.

The Standing Committee began reviewing monthly data since the inception of the RDRS in November 2023 and distilled its findings into its Findings Report, which was published for public comment on 19 August 2025. Following its consideration of the public comments received, the RDRS Standing Committee delivered its updated Findings Report, which contains six recommendations for the Council’s consideration.

6.1 - Introduction of Topic (Sebastien Ducos, RDRS Standing Committee Chair) 

6.2 - Council Discussion

6.3 - Next Steps

Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - GNSO Liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Annual Report (15 minutes)

The GNSO Liaison to the GAC role was first piloted from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2016 as part of a broader initiative of the GAC-GNSO Consultation Group to facilitate early engagement of the GAC in GNSO policy development activities. Due to the success of the pilot, the GNSO Liaison to the GAC is now a permanent role and an integral part of communications between the GAC and GNSO. 

The Liaison is primarily responsible for providing timely updates to the GAC on GNSO policy development activities in order to complement the existing notification processes; the Liaison is also a resource for answering questions in relation to these (GNSO) activities that GAC members may have. Furthermore, the Liaison is responsible for providing the GNSO Council with regular updates on progress, including on GAC activities, specifically in so far as these relate to issues of interest to the GNSO. The objective of the liaison mechanism, in combination with other mechanisms and early engagement tools, is to facilitate effective early engagement of the GAC and assist with the flow of information between the GAC and the GNSO. 

The Liaison is responsible for delivering to the Council an annual report, which includes updates on relevant engagement activities and progress.

Here, the Council will receive a presentation on the annual report from the Liaison.

7.1 - Introduction of Topic (Sebastien Ducos, GNSO Council Liaison to the GAC)

7.2 - Council Discussion

7.3 - Next Steps

Item 8: Any Other Business (10 minutes)

8.1 - SPS Planning

8.2 - Next steps - Expiration Policies

 _______________________________

Appendix 1: GNSO Council Voting Thresholds (ICANN Bylaws, Article 11, Section 11.3(i))

See https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article11.

Appendix 2: GNSO Council Absentee Voting Procedures (GNSO Operating Procedures, Section 4.4)

See https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/op-procedures-15mar23-en.pdf

References for Coordinated Universal Time of 13:00 UTC

Local time between November and March in the NORTHERN hemisphere

See https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/ for Dates for Daylight Saving Time and Clock Changes

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California, USA (PST) UTC-8 05:00

San José, Costa Rica (CST) UTC-6  07:00

New York/Washington DC, USA (EST) UTC-5 08:00

Buenos Aires, Argentina (ART) UTC-3 10:00

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (WAT) UTC+1 14:00

Paris, France (CET) UTC+1  14:00

Moscow, Russia (MSK) UTC+3 16:00 

Singapore (SGT) UTC+8  21:00

Melbourne, Australia (AEDT) UTC+11 00:00 (Friday)

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For other places see http://www.timeanddate.com and https://tinyurl.com/33sjnctx