Hello Anne, Thanks for the heads up. The Guidance Statement focuses on whether the “.québec" issue is within the scope for the EPDP-IDNs Team to address. The Council agreement is that it is beyond scope, as the EPDP Team is tasked to develop policy recommendations on *variant* management mechanism (“.québec" is not a variant of .quebec). The request for Issue Report and the consideration for a dedicated PDP effort may be the appropriate path to develop an exception to string similarity review to tackle this specific challenge. Staff’s understanding is that the Guidance Statement is unaffected. Best Regards, Ariel From: Anne ICANN <anneicanngnso@gmail.com> Date: Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 10:13 AM To: Ariel Liang <ariel.liang@icann.org> Cc: "council@gnso.icann.org" <council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: [Ext] Re: [council] Draft Guidance Statement on “.québec" Ariel - just a note that Leadership asked the Liaisons to Sub Pro to raise the issue in today's Sub Pro IRT discussion on draft String Similarity review language. It appears that the existing draft AGB language may not be adequate to clarify a requirement for the inclusion of spellings with accents over certain letters as mandatory to the string similarity review. Some believe this is a policy issue and not an implementation issue. I gather this will be discussed next week at Council. I don't know if this affects what Leadership wants to say in the letter or not. It may if Council wants to take the view that this can be addressed in the IRT and does not require a policy process. Thank you, Anne Anne Aikman-Scalese GNSO Councilor NomCom Non-Voting 2022-2024 anneicanngnso@gmail.com<mailto:anneicanngnso@gmail.com> On Thu, Sep 14, 2023 at 6:55 AM Ariel Liang via council <council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>> wrote: Dear All, Given that no substantive edits or suggestions were received by EOB yesterday, staff will send the attached guidance statement to the EPDP-IDNs Team on behalf of the GNSO Council. Thank you all for the review. Best Regards, Ariel From: Ariel Liang <ariel.liang@icann.org<mailto:ariel.liang@icann.org>> Date: Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 1:50 PM To: "council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>" <council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org>> Subject: Draft Guidance Statement on “.québec" Dear GNSO Council, Following the discussion during the August meeting<https://community.icann.org/display/gnsocouncilmeetings/Final+Proposed+Agend...> regarding “.québec”, the GNSO Council leadership, in coordination with staff, developed a draft guidance statement based on the general agreement from the Council. This statement is in response to EPDP-IDNs Team’s request with regard to whether the public comments related to “.québec” are within its scope to address. Please be so kind to review the statement attached. If no objection or concern is raised by any Councilor by EOB Wednesday, 13 September, it will be sent to the EPDP-IDNs Team as a formal guidance. Thank you, Ariel Ariel Xinyue Liang Policy Development Support Manager Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) _______________________________________________ council mailing list council@gnso.icann.org<mailto:council@gnso.icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/council _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.