Dear Councilors, With the Council’s focus recently on IDNs, staff thought it might be worthwhile to flag two public comment proceedings that are focused on IDNs. While this is being sent to the Council list, it may be of particular interest to the small team of Councilors convened to suggest a procedural path forward for IDN Variants and other IDN related issues. The first is on the Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone Version 3 (RZ-LGR-3) - https://www.icann.org/public-comments/rz-lgr-3-2019-04-25-en The RZ-LGR is needed to determine valid top-level IDN labels and their variant labels. This public comment proceeding on the third version of the RZ-LGR and is taking place as a result of 10 additional scripts having been approved by the Integration Panel. The public comment period is currently open and is scheduled to close on 4 June 2019. The second is on Study on Technical Use of Root Zone Label Generation Rules (https://www.icann.org/public-comments/technical-rz-lgr-2019-05-15-en) As the RZ-LGR is being incrementally developed by the community, the RZ-LGR Study Group (SG) was constituted at the request of the ICANN Board. Its membership is based on volunteers/nominations from the ccNSO, GNSO and Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the group has been directed to study technical considerations for utilizing the RZ-LGR to determine valid top-level domains (TLDs) and their variant labels in a harmonized manner. The public comment period is currently open and is scheduled to close on 30 June 2019. Best, Steve Steven Chan Policy Director, GNSO Support ICANN 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 Mobile: +1.310.339.4410 Office Telephone: +1.310.301.5800 Office Fax: +1.310.823.8649 Find out more about the GNSO by taking our interactive courses and visiting the GNSO Newcomer pages. Follow @GNSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ICANN_GNSO Follow the GNSO on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/icanngnso/ http://gnso.icann.org/en/