Dear all,

Please find below the agenda for the GNSO Council Meeting on 11 June 2025 at 11:45 UTC (13:45 CEST)  This will be posted on the agenda wiki page shortly.

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Terri

Policy Team Supporting the GNSO

GNSO Council Agenda 11 June 2025

Please note that all documents referenced in the agenda have been gathered on a Wiki page for convenience and easier access: https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/x/2KefBg

This agenda was established according to the GNSO Operating Procedures v3.5, updated on 15 March 2023.

For convenience:

• An excerpt of the ICANN Bylaws defining the voting thresholds is provided in Appendix 1 at the end of this agenda.
• An excerpt from the Council Operating Procedures defining the absentee voting procedures is provided in Appendix 2 at the end of this agenda.

 GNSO Council meeting on Wednesday, 11 June 2025 at 11:45 UTC: https://tinyurl.com/2zjh8rfh

04:45 Los Angeles; 07:45 Washington DC; 12:45 London; 13:45 Paris; 14:45 Moscow; 21:45 Melbourne

GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation [Published 24 hours prior to meeting]: https://icann83.sched.com/event/246XL/gnso-council-meeting

Councilors should notify the GNSO Secretariat in advance if they will not be able to attend and/or need a dial out call.

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Item 1: Administrative Matters (5 minutes)

1.1 - Roll Call

1.2 - Updates to Statements of Interest

1.3 - Review / Amend Agenda

1.4 - Note the status of minutes for the previous Council meetings per the GNSO Operating Procedures: 

Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 10 April 2025 were posted on 24 April 2025.

Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 15 May 2025 will be posted on 02 June 2025.

Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List (5 minutes)

2.1 - Review focus areas and provide updates on specific key themes / topics, to include review of Projects List and Action Item List. 

Item 3: Consent Agenda (5 minutes)

• Deferral of Whois Implementation Advisory Group work

Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Prioritization of Upcoming Work (35 minutes)

During the GNSO Council’s second Working Session at ICANN82, the Council discussed its immediate and longer term pipeline of work, including work that the Council has previously committed to, e.g. Latin Diacritics, RPMs Phase 2, and potential areas of work in the future, e.g. DNS Abuse, RDDS, New gTLDs, Expiration Policies, and the Transfer Policy (new dispute mechanism).

Here, the Council will begin a detailed discussion of the prioritization of its upcoming work, understanding that all of this work cannot proceed concurrently.

4.1 - Introduction of Topic (Greg DiBiase, GNSO Chair) 

4.2 - Council Discussion

4.3 - Next Steps

Item 5: COUNCIL UPDATE - Update from Board Readiness Small Team (15 minutes) 

During the 2023 GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session (SPS), the GNSO Council agreed that it should seek to limit the likelihood of the Council approving PDP recommendations that the ICANN Board is ultimately unable to adopt. To that end, the Council discussed the desire to ensure it submits “board-ready policy recommendations” to the Board, to the extent possible. 

Generally speaking, a policy recommendation is considered board ready when the recommendation is likely to achieve board adoption, i.e., the recommendation has been approved by a GNSO Supermajority Vote and will most likely be considered by the Board to be in the best interests of ICANN Community and ICANN org.

In August 2024, a Council Small Team began meeting to further discuss the topic of board readiness. Specifically, the Small Team was tasked by GNSO Council to:

• Develop a survey/questionnaire related to the Board’s rejection/non-adoption of policy recommendations, which may be administered to relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. (Examples: EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 and 2; Subsequent Procedures)
• Administer the survey/questionnaire and conduct interviews with relevant PDP Chairs, PDP WG members, ICANN org Support Staff, and Board members. 
• Synthesize the findings from the survey/questionnaire and interviews into a set of findings and develop a set of recommendations intended to inform Council work on improving Board readiness.

Over the past few months, the Small Team has been conducting interviews with community members, Board members, and staff members.

Here, the Council will hear an update on the Small Team’s progress.

5.1 - Introduction of Topic (Kurt Pritz, Small Team Lead)

5.2 - Council Discussion

5.3 - Next Steps

Item 6: COUNCIL UPDATE - Progress Update from Council Accuracy Small Team (15 minutes)

During the Council’s March 2025 meeting, the Council agreed to form a dedicated small team on accuracy, which would be tasked with: 

• Reviewing the written input received on the Council’s threshold questions; and
• Providing a detailed summary of the input received, taking into consideration the potential other sources that can inform the discussion - i.e. (but not limited to) INFERMAL study, EU NIS2 cooperation group, recommendation CC.1, and provide a recommendation to the Council on how to best make progress on the topic of registration data accuracy, e.g., relaunch scoping team with updated assignment, request Issues Report, request additional study (including the recommended form and aim of the study), etc.

The Small Team, led by Paul McGrady, began meeting on 15 May 2025.

Here, the Council will hear an update on the small team’s progress. 

6.1 - Introduction of Topic (Paul McGrady, Small Team Lead) 

6.2 - Council Discussion

6.3 - Next Steps

Item 7: COUNCIL UPDATE: Status Update from DNS Abuse Small Team (15 minutes)

During the Council’s March 2025 meeting, the Council agreed to form a dedicated small team on DNS Abuse, which would be tasked with: 

• evaluating DNS Abuse mitigation efforts across ICANN (e.g., by the CPH, other community groups, and potentially industry firms focusing on DNS whether briefings from such abuse groups would aid the small team. Similar to the first iteration of the DNS Abuse small team, conduct outreach to the broader ICANN community, seeking their input on items specifically suitable for policy development). 
• reviewing the recommendations that were proposed by the DNS Abuse Small Team in 2022
• assessing the impact of the Contract amendments on DNS abuse mitigation efforts. 
  • How have the amendments helped ICANN Compliance enforce DNS Abuse mitigation? Have they empowered ICANN Compliance to undertake proactive (as opposed to reactive ) enforcement measures?
  • Can the requirements outlined in the amendments be further clarified to enable more effective DNS Abuse mitigation by registrars and registries? 
  • Can such clarifications be addressed via additional efforts such as focused ICANN policy development, or via other methods such as incremental improvements on industry best practices? What other actions should be taken in order to bring transparency and accountability to the mitigation measures (standardizing “evidenced and actionable” complaints and response rates for example)? Or even, a practice of reviewing portfolios of malicious registrations rather than one by one, for example. 
  • Assess the human rights impact of the DNS abuse mitigation measures 
• Discussing with relevant stakeholders and providing a summary on the insights from the INFERMAL study and how these insights can help inform next steps on DNS Abuse.

The Small Team, led by Jennifer Chung, began meeting on 15 May 2025.

Here, the Council will hear an update on the small team’s progress. 

7.1 - Introduction of Topic (Jennifer Chung, Small Team Lead) 

7.2 - Council Discussion

7.3 - Next Steps

Item 8: Any Other Business (25 minutes)

8.1 - Update on Reviews - Letter from ICANN Board Chair, Tripti Sinha

8.2 - Open Mic

 _______________________________

Appendix 1: GNSO Council Voting Thresholds (ICANN Bylaws, Article 11, Section 11.3(i))

See https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article11.

Appendix 2: GNSO Council Absentee Voting Procedures (GNSO Operating Procedures, Section 4.4)

See https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/op-procedures-15mar23-en.pdf

References for Coordinated Universal Time of 11:45 UTC

Local time between March and November in the NORTHERN hemisphere

See https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/ for Dates for Daylight Saving Time and Clock Changes

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California, USA (PDT) UTC-7 04:45

San José, Costa Rica (CST) UTC-6  05:45

New York/Washington DC, USA (EDT) UTC-4 07:45

Buenos Aires, Argentina (ART) UTC-3 08:45

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (WAT) UTC+1 12:45

Paris, France (CEST) UTC+2  13:45

Moscow, Russia (MSK) UTC+3 14:45

Singapore (SGT) UTC+8  19:45

Melbourne, Australia (AEST) UTC+10 21:45 

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For other places see http://www.timeanddate.com and https://tinyurl.com/2zjh8rfh