Dear all,

Please find below the notes and action items from today’s meeting on Thursday 16 September 2021 at 13:00 UTC.

Best regards,

Steve, Marika, and Emily

Action Item #1: Leadership team to send out a “last call” for any comments/concerns about the draft project plan. Absent comments by Monday, the project plan will be submitted to Council.

Action Item #2: Keep calls at 60 minutes for now. Revisit length of meetings after the working group has deliberated on charter questions in Topic A.

Action Item #3: Staff to take back items discussed last week regarding data and metrics and see if additional nuance should be added to the bullets in the charter.

Action Item #4: Members/participants to prepare to discuss charter question a3 - a10 on upcoming calls.

Action item #5: For those that have not done so yet, please review all the introductory materials and sign off via the google sheet (see https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbXhd2L4oAb_Cn22FnjkSoDSj0K-HNcijDZDW_zpvseqXH8A/viewform [docs.google.com]).

Notes – IDNs EPDP Call – 16 September 2021

Welcome & Chair Updates

• This is a full agenda. The goal is to get through at least agenda item 5.

Draft Project Plan

• Current PDPs and EPDPs all have formal, standardized project plans like the draft displayed on screen. These are an outcome of PDP 3.0, a GNSO Council initiative to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of policy development efforts. They are more detailed than some of the work plans we have used in the past.
• The initial items on the project plan are administrative. Working group members should focus on section 2. The project plan is built around the topics in the charter, with a repeatable process that will be followed for each topic: understand the topic and questions, conduct deliberations, first reading, second reading, and confirm the draft is stable.
• Once there are stable drafts for all topics, these will feed into the Initial Report. Following the steps in section 3 related to the Initial Report, the steps related the Final Report in section 4 will be completed.
• This project plan should be realistic and achievable. It will be delivered to the GNSO Council and will be used by the Council to hold the WG accountable. It is not expected that there is absolute precision in the estimates. If additional time is needed to complete the EPDP, the working group can submit a Project Change Request to Council explaining the need for an extension to the timeline.
• The polls conducted in the working group during early calls helped to inform the timeframes for deliberations included in the work plan.
• The project plan estimates delivery of the Initial Report in early 2023 and Final Report in April 2023.
• Status will be reviewed each month and a “project package” will be delivered to the GNSO Council with updates about the EPDP’s progress.
• Absent objections, this work plan will be sent to the GNSO Council and will go on the October Council agenda for formal acknowledgment.

Action Item #1: Leadership team to send out a “last call” for any comments/concerns about the draft project plan. Absent comments by Monday, the project plan will be submitted to Council.

• Question: There may be additional work associated with IDN implementation guidelines and interactions with the IRT for SubPro. Is this included in the project plan.
• Answer: Noting that the IRT may be some time away, continue to move forward with the timeline as proposed. If additional items come into play, we may need to adjust.

Length of meetings

• The working group currently meets weekly for 60 minutes. The last few meetings we were rushing through the agenda. Would it make sense to extend weekly calls to 90 minutes so there is more time for deliberations?
• Leadership suggestion: start calls at 12:30 UTC and run to 14:00 UTC.
• Comment: Once we start getting deeper into the substance of the discussion, less time will be needed for process is administrative matters. 60 minutes may be sufficient.
• Suggestion: Work through charter questions in Topic A with 60-minute calls. Revisit length of calls after that work is complete to determine if 90-minute calls are needed.

Action Item #2: Keep calls at 60 minutes for now. Revisit length of meetings after the working group has deliberated on charter questions in Topic A.

Review of proposed data & metrics requests from the charter

• The working group will likely need staff to assist with data collection.
• The charter identifies six suggested data elements to support the work, beginning on page 19. Does it make sense for the working group to instruct staff to go ahead and begin collecting/organizing these metrics?
  • Using the latest version of the RZ-LGR determine the variant labels of the 2012 New gTLD Round and determine whether the list of calculated variants match those that were identified by the applicant (a2)
  • Time needed to create an LGR script proposal and frequency a RZ-LGR is updated (a4, a6)
  • Methods used to establish the same entity at the second-level by the same Registrar and across different Registrars (c3, c3a)
  • Number of registries that use the machine readable LGR format specified in RFC 7940 for second-level IDN tables (c6)
  • Using the latest version of the RZ-LGR determine the variant labels, if any, of i) all delegated gTLDs, and ii) all ICANN reserved TLD labels. Determine whether the calculation is consistent with reality or whether any exceptions need to be considered (e5)
  • Breakdown of the scripts/languages represented in a validated and active trademark in the TMCH (f1)
• Suggestion: Request the data from staff now and then allow members to add to this along the way.
• Question: Staff noted some questions on last week’s call. Do they coincide with the list in the charter or add to it?

Action Item #3: Staff to take back items discussed last week regarding data and metrics and see if additional nuance should be added to the bullets in the charter.

Continue deliberations on Topic A: Consistent definition and technical utilization of RZ-LGR

• We left off last week at charter question a3.
• Staff-provided background on the challenge/appeal mechanism included in the SubPro recommendations – The Final Report provides a table in Annex F which lays out all of the evaluation elements and objections processes that could potentially be challenged or appealed in the New gTLD Program. The table explores what the appeal could look like in practice. This group could use the table as a model and try to fill in the values to help think through a possible challenge process for resolving disagreements with the RZ-LGR calculation for an applied-for TLD label where the label is found to be “invalid.”
• Next week, we will try to fill in a row to the table to help inform whether the approach would make sense.
• Note that whatever this group produces does not need to follow the model of what SubPro produced, but SubPro’s work can be used as a starting point.
• Potential data point to collect: Frequency that a RZ-LGR is updated. If updated frequently, there might not be a need for a challenge mechanism.
• Response: There is not an active review. It is an on and off issue.

Action Item #4: Members/participants to prepare to discuss charter question a3 - a10 on upcoming calls.