Dear Councilors,

Staff is on track to be able to deliver the Preliminary Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures for public comment by the end of August, as discussed on the previous GNSO Council meeting. However, I wanted to note that during the meeting, the possibility of providing for an extended public comment period was also discussed, which would keep it open through the ICANN54 meeting. This topic is expected to be on the agenda for the next Council meeting, scheduled for 03 September and as such, it may make sense to delay the publication of the report by approximately 3 days to allow for discussion during the meeting and a decision to be made, to avoid confusion from possibly amending the comment close date. The impact appears to be minimal:

Staff is leaning towards waiting the three days and immediately putting in the request to publish the Preliminary Issue Report after a decision is made, but wanted to be sure there were no strong objections to this approach.

Best,