SENT ON BEHALF OF COUNCIL LEADERSHIP Dear Councilors: Please find attached a draft response to the ICANN Board re: the two Registration Directory Service Review Team (RDS-WHOIS2-RT) Final Recommendations passed through to the GNSO Council from the ICANN Board. Keith, Pam, and Rafik have kindly provided a draft for your review. Please review the draft and provide suggested edits (if any) by Thursday, 25 June. Thank you. Best regards, Caitlin Tubergen Policy Senior Manager, GNSO Support From: Caitlin Tubergen <caitlin.tubergen@icann.org> Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 3:24 PM To: <council@gnso.icann.org> Subject: Board action - Registration Directory Service Review Team (RDS-WHOIS2-RT) Final Recommendations Sent on behalf of the Multi-stakeholder Strategy & Strategic Initiatives (MSSI) department: Dear GNSO Councillors, The purpose of this note is to highlight the 25 February 2020 Board action on the Registration Directory Service Review Team (RDS-WHOIS2-RT) Final Recommendations - see https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2020-02-25-en. ICANN org wishes to notify you that the ICANN Board resolved to pass through two recommendations to the GNSO Council, in whole or in part, for your consideration, as documented in the scorecard<https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/resolutions-board-action-rds-who...> associated with the Board resolution<https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2020-02-25-en>. Specifically, please see below Recommendations CC.1 and CC.4 RDS-WHOIS2 Recommendation CC.1: “The ICANN Board should initiate action intended to ensure that gTLD domain names suspended due to RDS (WHOIS) contact data which the registrar knows to be incorrect, and that remains incorrect until the registration is due for deletion, should be treated as follows: (1) The RDS (WHOIS) record should include a notation that the domain name is suspended due to incorrect data; and (2) Domain names with this notation should not be unsuspended without correcting the data.” Board resolution: The Board approved this recommendation and directed this item “to be included in the next round of contractual negotiations with the Contracted Parties”, with a note that “it cannot require or guarantee any negotiation outcomes”. The Board also noted that “this is an area that the GNSO Council might wish to take into a policy development process separate from any recourse to the policy development process that might be incorporated into the negotiation process”, and passed through this recommendation to the GNSO Council “for purposes of considering such initiation”. Recommendation CC.4: “The ICANN Board should recommend the GNSO adopt a risk-based approach to incorporating requirements for measurement, auditing, tracking, reporting and enforcement in all new RDS policies.” Board resolution: The Board passed the recommendation through to the GNSO Council, “with reference to documentation of clarifications received from RDS-WHOIS2 Implementation Shepherds in the 29 January 2020 discussion with the RDS Board Caucus Group”, i.e. “this recommendation could be directed to the GNSO”. Additionally, we would like to highlight the following language of the Board resolution: “in passing this recommendation through, the Board is neither accepting nor rejecting the recommendation. The Board is careful to respect the remit and roles of the different parts of the ICANN community and is not directing Board or ICANN org action that would usurp another group's remit”. These recommendations are for your consideration. Background The Registration Directory Service (RDS) Review is one of the four Specific Reviews anchored in Section 4.6 of the ICANN Bylaws. The RDS-WHOIS2 Review Team (RDS-WHOIS2-RT) produced 22 final recommendations for Board consideration and released its Final Report<https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rds-whois2-review-03sep19-en.pdf> on 3 September 2019. The RDS-WHOIS2-RT Final Report is the culmination of over two years of work by 11 review team members, representing over 1,000 hours of meetings and countless more hours of work. As required by section 4.6<https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article4.6> of ICANN Bylaws, the Final Report was published for public comment<https://www.icann.org/public-comments/rds-whois2-rt-final-report-2019-10-08-...> to inform Board action on the final recommendations. The Board took action on each of the 22 recommendations produced by the RDS-WHOIS2-RT https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2020-02-25-en. The Board’s action on each recommendation is documented in the scorecard published at https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/resolutions-board-action-rds-who.... We thank you for your collaboration and would welcome any updates on your progress in addressing, as appropriate, these recommendations, to be included into ICANN org’s reporting. Please let us know whether you have any questions. Thank you. Best regards, Multi-stakeholder Strategy & Strategic Initiatives (MSSI) department