A couple of council meetings I undertook to keep council up to date on some issues relevant to the GNSO happening within the IETF DNSOP working group. As described in a previous update to council, a recent RFC has placed the .onion TLD on the Special Use Names registry, which is a list of TLD names (maintained by IANA) that the IETF has recommended to be retained for special uses, and therefore should not be delegated by ICANN. While this RFC did go through, it was controversial and there are several other names that have in the past been proposed for the Special Use Names that may still be proposed again. There is now a suggestion that the RFC 6761 process for reserving Special Use Names needs some work, and the DNSOP group is working on how to do this. Currently a small design group has been formed. How the RFC 6761 Special Use Names interacts with ICANN (and by implication, the GNSO, as such names are generally gTLDs) is expected to be clarified by these efforts, and I think it is important that we maintain aware of that process, and that documents produced are reviewed with a focus on GNSO/ICANN processes. I will endeavour to do so, and I will keep the GNSO Council informed. David