Councilors –

Last week, the Council Chairs (Donna, Heather and I) met with Göran for our regular discussion with the CEO.  Notes & action items are captured below.  Please be aware that these are relatively informal discussions, and the notes below are being circulated “as-is”, and may be missing some detail.

Thank you,

J.

From: Marika Konings <marika.konings@icann.org>
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 22:29

Subject: Notes and action items from meeting between Göran and GNSO Council Leadership Team

All,

As requested, please find below some high-level notes from today’s discussions as well as action items. I hope this provides an accurate reflection of your conversation today.

Best regards,

Marika

High level notes and action items from meeting between Göran and GNSO Council Leadership Team (James Bladel, Heather Forrest, Donna Austin) on Wednesday 30 August 2017

• Hubba Bubba – before Abu Dhabi web-site and manual will be published. Now for the community to take this project and decide what to do next.

• Long term financial planning process – Executive team have started talking more about the mechanics. James observes contraction in the industry – needs to be factored into revenue projections. How to have discussion with community on how to prioritize. For example, currently 14 million $ is spent on meetings. Growth in domain name registrations is contracting, smaller registries / registrars are suffering from high fees. May result in some looking at some of the other sources available like auction proceeds or requesting increase in fees to keep up current spending. Executive team to discuss with the Board mechanics of budget and prioritization and then take it to the community.

• SO/AC Chairs Workshop at ICANN60 - How to prioritize the work that is front of us? What is important for GNSO may not be important for ALAC. Proposal to re-establish meeting between SO/AC Chairs and Göran – sharing information, not a decision-making mechanism. Invitation and ‘charter’ for that meeting will go out shortly for meeting to take place on Friday prior to ICANN60. Board members also expected to participate in this meeting.

• Meetings going forward – update on current discussions provided. David and his team are working on a paper that reflects what can be done about the existing meeting structure, but only focused on low hanging fruits e.g. moving days between meetings. Staff will not open up the recommendations of the meetings strategy, unless SO/ACs ask for it, for example idea of having two policy meetings and one AGM. GNSO Leadership to consider adding it to the agenda for upcoming Council meeting to discuss input as well as possible next steps.

Action item #1: David to share paper on improvements to ICANN meetings with GNSO leadership team when available.

Action item #2: GNSO leadership team to consider adding the topic of meetings and possible modifications to the agenda for one of the upcoming Council meetings to discuss input as well as possible next steps.

• GDPR – update by Göran on Task Force activities. Assembling different use cases, with idea of publishing those early September. Are in the process of engaging legal counsel in Europe. Have appointed internal data protection officer, focused on controlling of in house data. Meetings taking place in Brussels. ICANN invited to Art. 29 WP who are writing a reference paper which will be used for interpretation of the law – October/November timeframe to publish this. Three different layers of possible outcomes of the DPA discussion: nothing happens as recognized important for stability and security, something that will have an effect on the policy as they are today, decide what kind of info could be in the system. Good thing is that a discussion is starting on this, but don’t know the outcome yet. ICANN Org neutral in this regard – just supporting the discussion, protect status quo until someone directs that it should be done differently. James requests to step away from being neutral – a decision needs to be taken shortly, whatever scenario prevails, in order to have any hope to meet a compliance deadline. Consider including industry reps for any meetings that ICANN is involved. Also consider engaging industry associations so they can also have these conversations separately – the more people that raise these issues the more likely is that we’ll be heard. Importance of having transparency and openness in communication. Any suggestions are welcome.

Action item #3: ICANN Org to consider involving industry representatives in meetings that are held with legislators / DPAs to discuss GDPR.

• Role of the GAC and involvement in PDP discussions – possible collision coming up in relation to IGO/INGO Curative Rights. PDP is about to finalize its recommendations that are expected to be in contradiction with GAC Advice. Leadership team hereby providing a heads-up. Important for ICANN Org to encourage dialogue and championing the process, not a particular outcome. Need to improve information flow across SO/ACs. How can ICANN Org help inform others of discussions that are ongoing and appreciate context? Will not solve all the problems, but may facilitate mutual understanding. Make sure to support the process instead and avoid short-cuts. The Board seems to understand well the position of the GAC/governments, is there a need for additional information to Board members on the GNSO position and how these have been arrived to. PDP WG will organize a 90-minute session at ICANN60 to brief the community on its Final Recommendations as well as rationale for those recommendations - would be really helpful to have Board members to attend this session to understand the context and the rationale for the recommendations.  Also need Board to support the integrity of the process. Also consider briefing newer Board members on the status of ongoing PDPs so that they are informed about the deliberations as well as potential contentious issues. More and more legislation at national / local level that has a direct impact on ICANN.

Action item #4: Marika to share timing of presentation of Final Report on Curative Rights for IGO/INGOs at ICANN60 so that Board members can be invited to this session. (Note this session is currently scheduled for Wednesday 1^st November 2017 from 17:00 – 18:30 local time).

Action item #5: Göran to work with Board Support to see how to work this session into the Board Schedule.

• Board meetings & schedule – there is little information currently available with regards to the Board meeting schedule as well as agenda’s for Board workshops. Would it be possible to ensure that this information gets posted in a timely manner? Project underway to improve this.

Action item #6: ICANN Org to check where this information can be found and/or encourage the Board the publish this information in a timely manner

Marika Konings

Vice President, Policy Development Support – GNSO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 

Email: marika.konings@icann.org

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