Dear Councillors, As mentioned on today¹s GNSO Council time, due to time constraints, staff is providing an update on the Preliminary Issue Report on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures via email as opposed to verbally during the meeting. The public comment for the Preliminary Issue Report closed on 30 October and a total of 13 comments were received. Before discussing the comments in any detail, it may be helpful to recall that in regards to the report: * It contained five groupings of issues, as suggested by the Discussion Group that preceded the Issue Report * Within those five groupings were 37 issues, or subjects, each of which was researched and analyzed to produce background info, a description of issues around the subject, and a preliminary designation of whether or not the subject would be likely to warrant policy development - designations which a possible PDPWG may end up disagreeing with. With a few exceptions, public comment was largely supportive of staff's analysis and recommendations regarding policy development for the majority of the 37 subjects. There were also a number of comments that were less about the scope of work and more about the substantive PDP discussions, which will be provided to the PDP-WG in the event it is initiated. A few examples of comments that will likely result in changes to the Preliminary Issue Report include: * Comments around pricing restrictions, or the lack thereof, as it relates to premium or trademarked names. * Comments on the somewhat narrow focus of the security and stability section, which focused mainly around the existing reviews in the process (e.g., DNS Stability, technical/operational, etc.), but did not touch on the impact to the DNS from adding new TLDs in the 2012 round, or from continuing to add via a next round. * Concerns around the organization of the report, which for some made it difficult to locate certain issues and at times, seemed to duplicate certain topics. They also noted that the progression of subjects in the report was not necessarily intuitive. Staff will integrate these comments, as well as others, into the Final Issue Report. Timeline and Next Steps Staff will complete the public comment summary and analysis and deliver the Final Issue Report to this Council by the 7 December motions and documents deadline, although the intention is to provide earlier to allow for more time for review. The GNSO Council could consider the Final Issue Report and possibly initiate a PDP on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures at the 17 December meeting, where it could also approve the draft charter that will be included. If a PDP is initiated, a call for volunteers and initiation of PDP operations could begin shortly thereafter. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Best, Steven Chan Sr. Policy Manager ICANN 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 steve.chan@icann.org <mailto:steve.chan@icann.org> direct: +1.310.301.3886 mobile: +1.310.339.4410 tel: +1.310.301.5800 fax: +1.310.823.8649