Dear all,

Please find below the notes and action items from today’s meeting on Thursday, 6 October 2022 at 13:30 UTC.

Kind regards,

Ariel, Steve, and Emily

Notes and Action Items - IDNs EPDP Call – 6 October 2022

Action Items

Action Item 1: Staff to send draft updated project plan and PCR to list, so that EPDP Team members can think about the options about provide input. This can also be discussed on the next call.

Action Item 2: EPDP Team members to review draft communication officially requesting that Chinese, Japanese, and Korean GPs take on work regarding single character TLDs that are not allowed.

Action Item 3: Staff to draft response to charter question A7 Part 2, indicating that this work will be outsourced to the GPs.

Action Item 4: EPDP Team members to review the updates and confirm that the text is stable for recommendations under Charter Questions D2, D3.

Action Item 5: Leadership team to follow up on list asking for additional positions on the string similarity approach.

Notes

SOI Updates

• Satish is now a member of ALAC.
• Hadia is now co-chair of the At-Large CPWG.

Welcome and Chair Updates

During the EPDP Team’s sessions at ICANN75:

• We discussed breaking our work into “chunks.” Part of this is providing an updated work plan for the GNSO Council. We will walk through the update on this call.
• The leadership team connected with CJK GP chairs. We will also have an update on that discussion.
• We talked about the possibility of using risk analysis to further consider some of the topics where the EPDP has not yet converged and members see risk related to the issues differently. On string similarity, there are 4 possible options on the table. We had thought that the risk assessment could help to work through the options, but we should be clear that it will take time and work to prepare for the analysis and to work through it. 
• Under AOB we will ask for the current views of groups on this topic – option 2 vs. the hybrid model. If we are leaning towards one option, we may not need to do the risk assessment.

Updated Project Plan + PCR

• Time extended in the EPDP project plan both because of time taken to deliberate on topics and also because of proposed “chunking” of topics.
• Original plan was to publish the Initial Report on all topics by Dec 2022 and finalize everything by April 2023.
• Updated project plan: Part 1 includes a sub-set of charter topics focused on the top level. It also includes a line item on data collection for second level charter questions, which will allow the group to proceed with deliberations on Part 2.
• Currently the updated project plan includes a Part 1 Initial Report, Part 2 Initial Report and a single Final Report. During the Part 1 Initial Report public comment period, Part 2 deliberations can begin. The Team will then pause Part 2 work, review public comments on Part 1, and then return to Part 2 deliberations.
• Updated milestones: Finish deliberations on Part 1 by 16 Dec 2022 and publish Part 1 Initial Report on 17 Feb 2023.
• Question for the group: Are we comfortable with the pace of our work and are there way to realize efficiencies? For example, would it be productive to have longer calls one out of every three calls?
• These new estimates are deliberately reasonably conservative, so that we don’t need to keep coming to Council with more adjustments. It is possible that we can deliver ahead of schedule.
• From one perspective, it is not surprising that the timeline will need to be extended as there were issues that needed to be addressed that were not anticipated and the subject matter is quite complex. Members come in with different backgrounds. It takes time to work through the charter question. We want to take all viewpoints into account and that takes time. It may not be possible to make the process more efficient, even if we make meetings longer.
• Part 2: Dennis is liaising with Tech Ops team on potential data points that can inform Part 2 work. Dennis is working on a paper and will speak with Tech Ops about data points during the CP Summit. The hope is that some data will be collected by 6 Jan 2023, so that the group can start working on Part 2 charter questions. Additional information about timeline for data collection will be available after the Summit.
• Part 2 deliberations planned to continue through early April, after which Part 2 deliberations will pause so the group can focus on review of public comments on Part 1. Public comment review is expected to continue until 19 May, after which Part 2 deliberations can resume. Phase 2 Initial Report is scheduled for delivery on 4 Jan 2024.  29 Aug 2024 – delivery date for Final Report, meaning 17 months extension of the total timeline. Additional “buffer” is included following public comment period on Part 2 in case package of recommendations needs to be revised before it is considered final.
• Process for submitting change to Council – updated project plan will be submitted with a form that highlight major changes and the reason for these changes. The expectation is that the PCR will be submitted to Council for the November Council meeting. During the October Council meeting, Donna can give an update to Council and provide a preview of the PCR.
• For the time being, the Final Report will contain two parts. It is possible as we get a sense of the recommendations that touch on SubPro, it might make sense to publish a Part 1 Final Report first to support SubPro implementation work. As a reminder, it’s not possible to act on recommendations until the Board has approved them. Karen Lentz (org) and Donna raised during ICANN75 that there is a connection between the SubPro implementation and some of the recommendations coming out of this group. Michael (org) serves as a point of coordination between these two efforts.
• If there are two Final Reports, it will likely take until Sep 2023 to wrap up Final Report Part 1. Part 2 work would resume after that. The Part 2 Final Report would likely take until approximately Dec 2024.
• Ariel has spoken with Karen (org). The sense is that the SubPro implementation team is going to need inputs sooner rather than later from this group. This may need to be factored into our thinking.
• Additional question. What would be the consequence of further delaying consideration of second level topics? Donna’s understanding that second-level issues won’t kick in until the next round except maybe the Guidelines v4.

Action Item 1: Staff to send draft updated project plan and PCR to list, so that EPDP Team members can think about the options about provide input. This can also be discussed on the next call.

• From one perspective, this approach seems reasonable. If it’s possible to deliver two Final Reports without concerns about interdependencies, this approach could enable continuation of SubPro work. Question: What are the opportunities to provide additional input besides public comment?
• Response: The hope is that comments from the groups are consistent with the inputs from the EPDP Team members throughout the EPDP Team’s work. The hope is that the public comment review will not be a heavy lift if members have been engaged along the way.
• In SubPro, there are 3 recommendations that pertain to the second level. These will be addressed in Part 2.

Update on discussion with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean GP chairs

• Chinese, Japanese, Korean GP chairs met with EPDP leadership team at ICANN75. We had previously asked them if they could provide guidance or a list of allowable and not allowable single character labels in the Han script.

• They are willing to conduct this extra work. They wanted to focus on the technical aspects and not, for example, confusing similarity, which is outside their remit.

• Instead of an inclusive list, they can look into a list of characters that should not be allowed, for example, non-ideographs and those that are symbols, single stroke characters. They will also check SAC052, which provides recommendations on single character TLDs.

• The timeline for this work will depend on the processes necessary to complete the work. Leadership team emphasized that it is important that this work does not result in a delay of SubPro.
• Generation panels will take on this work, but the EPDP Team does not need to provide a recommendation specifically on this topic because it is outside of our expertise.

• The list of prohibited characters can be used by evaluators in the New gTLD Process.

• If the group accepts this approach, we need to send an official request to the GP Chairs.

Action Item 2: EPDP Team members to review draft communication officially requesting that Chinese, Japanese, and Korean GPs take on work regarding single character TLDs that are not allowed.

Action Item 3: Staff to draft response to charter question A7 Part 2, indicating that this work will be outsourced to the GPs.

Confirming stable text: Charter Questions D2, D3, and D1b Part 2 [docs.google.com]

• D2: The main update is to indicate that the change process needs to happen at the same time for primary label and allocated and delegated variant gTLD labels.
• Outstanding item for recommendation 3.4 has been parked.
• D3: Changes to terminology – data escrow requirements and agent.
• Under 3.9, updated to emphasize that the focus of the recommendation is that data needs to be stored in separate files.
• Outstanding item: Rationale for 2.6 – question about whether we can mention usability goals and consistent user experience in this rationale. We will return to this next week. ALAC will be providing updated wording by next week’s call.

Action Item 4: EPDP Team members to review the updates and confirm that the text is stable for recommendations under Charter Questions D2, D3.

AOB

• Returning to the question of where people are on the issue of string similarity – are EPDP Team members in a position to speak to this?
• RySG has discussed the hybrid model and is coming to agreement that it supports the hybrid model with a caveat. Dennis to follow up on list with details. RySG supports a conservative approach. The objective of the RZ-LGR was not to find confusability. It is useful for this but will not find a complete set of labels. The small team did not consider operational implications. Some blocked variants are invalid due of co-mingling of scripts. Using those as a basis for comparison may make this overly complex. Suggestion to develop a process to remove those labels from the blocked set.
• ALAC is also in favor of the hybrid model, but they need to have more discussions to finalize their response. ALAC will be providing something in writing.
• Registrars are undecided, but they follow Michael’s lead. Michael supports the hybrid model and there appears to be no objections.

Action Item 5: Leadership team to follow up on list asking for additional positions on the string similarity approach.