Dear All,

Following the notes from our call yesterday, here are the prioritized list of three issues for ST members to bring back to their SG/Cs for reaction, discussion and additional input for our call next week (Thursday August 24).

During our call we also discussed context and reframing for this prioritization exercise to limit this to what we have termed “Low Hanging Fruit”:

Rationale/Low Hanging Fruit: Limited to topics that seem appropriate for policy development (taking into consideration review of source data, input/priorities received by ST members and Community consultation during ICANN83)

"Low hanging fruit" can mean:

i) important/impactful gap to solve
ii) likely to gain broad consensus
iii) ideally, the potential solution(s) seem uncomplicated.

For consideration for input into the Draft report :

Recommendation 3: Prioritize the following Three Issues. (rationale/explanation to be further updated for the draft report – pending ST input)
Based on data analysis, community consultation, and input from stakeholder groups, the Small Team recommends the following three issues be prioritized for early scoping and possible PDP initiation under the Issue Report:

Unrestricted API access for new customers: The INFERMAL study and other community inputs indicate a strong correlation between abuse and unrestricted API-enabled bulk registrations.
Associated Domain Checks: The CPH update during ICANN83 indicated that there is currently no contractual requirement or best practice standard requiring contracted parties to investigate domains associated with known malicious actors.
Limited coordination on DGA-based abuse: The current system for responding to Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA)-based threats commonly used in botnets and malware campaigns seems to be fragmented. No single trusted platform or protocol for real-time information sharing between registries, registrars, hosting providers, and law enforcement means fragmentation causing delays and inconsistent responses.

Best,

Jen

From: John Emery via gnso-dnsabuse-smallteam <gnso-dnsabuse-smallteam@icann.org>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2025 11:39 AM
To: gnso-dnsabuse-smallteam@icann.org
Subject: [gnso-dnsabuse-smallteam] 17 July 2025 Meeting Notes

Dear DNS Abuse Small Team,

Please see attached below the meeting notes and action items from our 17 July meeting of the DNS Abuse Small Team. Please look out for an email from Jen later today with the leadership and staff priorities list based on Small Team input thus far for discussion.

DNS Abuse Small Team Wiki

Slides

ACTION ITEMS

AI: Each group to come up with top 3 priorities for next week’s meeting that are appropriate for policy development.

AI: Leadership and staff to provide priorities list for discussion and reaction from input already received.

AI: Staff will start preparing the draft motion to present to small team to provide feedback

Welcome
Update on Preliminary Recommendations Document

Update on the Draft Report with additional two recommendations for discussion
The chart at the end of the document was removed and the full list of gaps in the matrix
Updated the list of gaps in the matrix including the phases and merged agreed upon cells and integrated CSG and NCSG input

3. Discussion on Issue Report

Previously 1 issue report resulted in 1 PDP, this Issue report will look more deeply in the list of gaps and will encompass all of that
Result of this one issue report will be a narrowly chartered PDP on one or two topics/gaps to complete the work expeditiously.
Subsequent PDPs could be initiated from this original issue report when the initial PDP completes it work

4. Discussion on “Prioritization”

How would we like to prioritize there have been indications of SGs/Cs for what should be prioritized
Who will decide? This will be a Council decision, the Small Team can recommend from the prioritization exercise.
Good to have priorities here to then make a recommendation to Council and then while Issue report is being worked on there may be other factors to consider
Suggestion to launch next PDP during public comment period going with a single issue report
As PDP is underway the next step can be a chartering team for the next set of work

In the Chat: CSG priorities are:

1. Associated domain check.

2. Continual review and update of DNS abuse definitions.

3. Validation of registrant details.

4. Access to bulk / API registrations

Caution prioritization exercise from Council that a continuing small team. A PDP, a charter drafting team, a small team, and another PDP there could be resource constraints
How this Small Team wants to prioritize with the At Large priorities in the slides
ALAC input based on the matrix and were careful not to go into solutions to provide input on the gap itself. The possible solutions list can be litigated later as it is a raw list based on the matrix.
ALAC list could be revised based on how the inputs will be resolved and the priorities of the other groups
Do we prioritize low hanging fruit? For those items for the first PDP, do they necessarily need to be topics where PDPs are appropriate to address?
Calling for the issue report will lay foundational work for the first and subsequent PDPs. This will be looking at whether the gaps will be fit for PDP.
AI: each group come up with top 3 priorities for next week’s meeting that are appropriate for policy development
Also CPH DNS Abuse working group will have something coming along soon
Determine what is a PDP focus and what is for other parts of the community. We can cover more gaps if some things should just be referred back to ICANN compliance
Intention is to focus on what makes most sense for inclusion in PDP specifically, framing for low hanging fruit. PDP work with topics that are important and impactful, wide agreement, and perhaps easier to implement
Reminder: only two more meetings with this Small Team
AI: Leadership and staff to provide priorities list for discussion and reaction from input already received
There is a time crunch meeting on the 31st need to have finalized recommendation and matrix for the annex for the 4 August deadline
Limiting scope to topics appropriate for policy development and put in writing the low hanging fruit
AI: Staff will start preparing the draft motion

5. AOB- Next Steps

John R. Emery, Ph.D.

Policy Development Support Senior Specialist

Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO)

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)