Hi Thomas.    Some comments on this draft:

1. Please know that the majority members of the IRT have expressed the opinion that Option 2 is NOT consistent with policy and would require new policy.  Therefore, when you say that the Council concludes that both Options are consistent with policy, you have cut off discussion on this at the Council level.  

2.  You appear to favor having the Board make the decision as to which Option aligns with policy.  I'm not sure the full Council agrees with that approach.  Again, my own concern is that Council should not be asking the Board to "pick between two plausible implementations".  In fact, it is indeed the role of Council to advise the IRT when issues of disagreement of implementation arise and that is why Council appoints Liaisons to the IRT.  Once again, please refer to Susan's email of September 29 in which she lays out the procedural context for Council's consideration of disagreements at the IRT Level.

3.  In short, I completely disagree that it is not Council's role to determine the intent behind the PDP Recommendations.  Failing to provide any advice to the IRT is an abdication of Council's responsibility and sets a very bad precedent.   

4.  In short, Council must consider the position of the IRT and of the Staff and weigh the options in light of the Intent behind the PDP Recommendations.  The liaisons must be instructed to bring that information back to the IRT and Staff.  Whatever the outcome, the Board of course has the power to choose a different path, either in the exercise of its fiduciary duty, or because of GAC Advice.

My sense is that your approach has been developed in order to expedite matters, but in fact it improperly characterizes the Council as not having a role in connection with an issue raised at the Council level by IRT Staff and the Council IRT Co-Liaisons.  

If you want to cede authority to the Board to expedite the matter, it would be best to offer the following as an alternative approach:

A.  The Council is the proper body to consider differences of agreement at the IRT Level and the proper intent and  implementation of policy and reserves the right to do so in accordance with its Operating Procedures.
B. However, in this situation, the Council understands that the Board has expressed preferences  and some concerns with the majority view of the IRT and that the Board has  both a fiduciary duty and the power to make the implementation decision in connection with its conclusion regarding the Global Public Interest.
C.  Therefore, the Council will instruct its Sub Pro liaisons to advise the IRT and ICANN staff to leave the decision of Option 1 or Option 2 to the ICANN Board.

Whatever the Council does, it should definitely NOT set a precedent that states that it is not Council's role to provide guidance to an IRT when there is a disagreement at the IRT level.  All our procedures are designed to protect against that view.

Anne



Anne Aikman-Scalese
GNSO Councilor
NomCom Non-Voting 2022-2026
anneicanngnso@gmail.com


On Fri, Oct 3, 2025 at 12:54 PM Thomas Rickert | rickert.law via council <council@icann.org> wrote:

Dear all,

In preparation of the discussion on the IGO/INGO matter, please find below a proposal for a letter we could send to the Board.

 

I suggest to make this part of the deliberations during the extraordinary meeting before we get to the vote. As there is not too much time before the meeting, feedback and questions are welcome so we can advance the discussion as much as possible before we meet.

 

Kind regards,

Thomas

 

[  ] October 2025

Protection of IGO/INGO Identifiers

Tripti Sinha, Chair

ICANN Board

 

Dear Tripti,

Thank you for your letter of 16 September 2025 regarding the scope of protection for IGO and INGO names in future rounds of new gTLDs, and the potential for this issue to give rise to a global public interest concern.  

This is a complex issue.  The GNSO Council notes the following:

  • Policy potentially impacting on this issue is set out across various documents, including the following:
    • the Final Report on the Protection of IGO and INGO Identifiers in All gTLDs Policy Development Process (IGO-INGO PDP Final Report);
    • The Final Report of the GNSO New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP (SubPro Final Report); 
    • Phase 1 Final Report of the EPDP on Internationalized Domain Names (IDN PDP Final Report).
  • These policy recommendations have been adopted by the Board. 
  • Recommendations from the IGO-INGO PDP make reference to the Applicant Guidebook applicable to the 2012 Round (the AGB 2012).  
  • The AGB 2012 was the mechanism by which the 2007 policy recommendations were implemented.  There is a new AGB (the 2026 AGB) which will be applicable to the next Round of new gTLDs (the 2026 Round).
  • Much has changed since the 2012 Round, including new terminology and definitions, and a more complex assessment of string similarity to reflect the availability of IDN variants at the top level in the 2026 Round. 

The scope of protection to be afforded to IGO and INGO names must be considered in this context.  

We have heard from both staff and the Board that the two options set out in the staff briefing paper might serve to implement the relevant policy recommendations.  Members of Council, on the instructions of their respective SGs and Cs have differing views as to which option best reflects the policy recommendations, from which we conclude that both options are plausible. It is not the role of the GNSO Council to pick between two plausible implementations - we see that as the responsibility of the Board. We ask therefore that the Board instruct staff to proceed with implementation in the manner that you believe is the most appropriate to meet the intent of the policy recommendations.

Although our GNSO Operating Procedures do not directly cover this scenario, we consider there to be support for referring this back to the Board within paragraph 14 of the PDP Manual, which deals with the situation where staff’s proposed implementation is considered inconsistent with the GNSO Council recommendations.  

Based on the preference you expressed in your letter it appears that the following outcome would be unlikely, but for the avoidance of doubt if the Board and staff were to reach the conclusion that the implementation described in Option 1 should be adopted, we note that the Board proposes that the relevant protected organizations will be contacted after String Confirmation Day to ensure they are aware of any applied-for strings that could be considered confusingly similar to those on the Reserved Names list.  We also note that the Board would encourage the GAC to likewise contact the relevant organizations, and that you anticipate the possibility that the GAC might issue consensus advice regarding applications for strings that appear to be confusingly similar to the strings on the Reserved Names list. These steps seem sensible to ensure that the relevant protected organizations would be made aware of confusingly similar applications and would be able to utilize such challenge mechanisms as they deem appropriate.  

Sincerely,

 

Nacho Amadoz and Tomslin Samme-Nlar

Interim co-chairs of the GNSO

 

 

Von: Johan Helsingius via council <council@icann.org>
Datum: Freitag, 3. Oktober 2025 um 18:00
An: council@icann.org <council@icann.org>
Betreff: [council] Re: Reminder: Input welcome on GNSO Council agenda for 2025 meetings

On 03/10/2025 17:56, Anne ICANN via council wrote:
> Dear Councilors,
> Steve and I are finalizing the background slides for Oct 9.  To allay
> any fears regarding premature voting without sufficient discussion, I
> have added some clarifications to the agenda which should address Paul's
> concerns. In this regard, I have corrected text to note that the issue
> was referred to Council by the IRT Staff, not by the Board.

Thank you for the clarifications, Anne!

        Julf

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