Dear all,

Please find below the notes and action items from today’s meeting on Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 13:30 UTC.

Kind regards,

Ariel, Steve, and Emily

Notes and Action Items - IDNs EPDP Call – 27 October 2022

Action Items

Action Item 1: Staff to follow up about which EPDP Team meetings may need to be cancelled in November and December.

Action Item 2: EPDP members to provide input via mailing list on Charter Question E2 regarding the Legal Rights Objection. Staff to summarize key points for this discussion and Leadership to suggest a path forward.

Action Item 3: Leadership team to consider additional framing for the question at hand regarding Charter Question E2 for Community Objections and bring this back to the EPDP Team.

Notes

Welcome and Chair Updates

Donna provided an update about the EPDP work plan to Council during the GNSO Council meeting on Thursday last week. Councilors appreciated the update and some questions were raised about the possible impact of the revised timeline and work plan on SubPro work. The leadership team will submit a Project Change Request to Council for its consideration at the November Council meeting.
EPDP Team meeting schedule: Proposal to keep meeting at 13:30 UTC on Thursdays and not make any changes with respect to daylight savings.
Additional scheduling items: Meetings will be cancelled on 24 November and 29 December for holidays. Next Thursday, 3 November will be the CP Summit. Many will be attending, so the meeting next will be cancelled. Feedback is welcome about whether to meet on 22 December, as well as whether EPDP Team members will be impacted by the IGF, which clashes with the EPDP Team meeting on 1 December.

Action Item 1: Staff to follow up about which EPDP Team meetings may need to be cancelled in November and December.

Donna is relocating permanently to Australia at the end of the year. The group may revisit the timing of calls beginning in January.

Continue Discussion of Charter Question B4 [docs.google.com], Discussion Question 2: Based on the observations, is there a compelling reason to allow applications for variant gTLDs of existing gTLDs between application rounds?

Slide 4 – Closed discussion questions on D1b and B4 and open discussion question on B4: Based on the observations, is there a compelling reason to allow applications for variant gTLDs of existing gTLDs between application rounds?
Slide 5 – Strawman Process Flow – Observations
Slide 6 – Additional Observations – Conclusion of D1b Deliberations
Slide 7 – Question for EPDP Team
As a reminder, for the 2012 round, there wasn’t an option for IDN applicants to apply for variants. Question – is there really a need to apply for a variant between rounds following the first round, because that opportunity will exist within rounds going forward?
Comment: In the 2012 round, applicants expressed their interest in variants with the knowledge that they wouldn’t be available yet. Now some users are impacted daily by the lack of availability of variants. Rectifying this is important because there is dilution of trust in the DNS system. The cost of certain processes such as geo names and brands will need to be considered. This does not mean that it will have a direct impact on fees for all. Objections processes, comment processes, etc will be applicable to variants.
Clarification: Are these comments about a standalone IDN round before the next round or also applicable to the question at hand about opportunities between rounds?
Response: The comment is not specific to creating round(s) for variants, but about creating a process for activation that does not happen within a round, just as name servers are changed. There may be feasibility considerations but the group should think it through.
Comment: If the SubPro recommendations are adopted, there should be determinable, short periods between rounds, with regular intervals the offer application opportunities, known in advance. In this world, there would not need to be an opportunity to apply between rounds. If ICANN chooses not to go this route, then this group can give further consideration to the issue of allowing applications for variants between rounds. As a reminder, this is about application for variants. The discussion question is not about delegation or activation, which is more like changing a name server. Comment periods, objections, etc will be applicable for variants. There are good reasons to keep these in rounds because it provides defined windows for observers to monitor applications.
Comment: There is not harm in applying between rounds. ICANN can evaluate costs based on those who are expected to want to apply. If applicants are willing to pay the price they should be able to do so.

Comment: We should assume that there will not be extended intervals between rounds. Some have expressed the disadvantage to Chinese language communities about not having variants available. The next round will be the moment in which existing ROs can first apply for their variants. What is the chance that and RO doesn’t apply for the variants it wants in that first round, resulting in a continued disadvantage? The answer is not known.
Response: Support for an opportunity for ROs from the 2012 round to activate the variants before the next round, after that they can apply for variants as part of rounds. You could focus on those variants that 2012 applicants expressed interest in applying for, which could essentially be considered an application.
Reminder that Section 1.3.3 of the AGB says: “Declaring variant strings is informative only and will not imply any right or claim to the declared variant strings.”

“When a variant delegation process is established, applicants may be required to submit additional information such as implementation details for the variant TLD management mechanism, and may need to participate in a subsequent evaluation process, which could contain additional fees and review steps.”

Comment: If someone did list variants for informational purposes, they were not run through string sim or other evaluation elements. Objections would not have been taken with respect to the information provided in that section. This should be taken into account.
Reminder that in last week’s discussion, the EPDP Team concluded that the quickest path forward for IDN applicants for variants is to apply as part of the next round. From a process perspective it is a lot of work and from a timing perspective, it wouldn’t be that much quicker. Last week, the EPDP Team talked about giving prioritization through application queuing procedures in the next round to applications for variants of TLDs that were delegated in the 2012 round.
Comment: It would be helpful to identify reasons why it should not be possible to apply for variants between rounds.
Comment: If IDN variant labels are applied for in rounds, cost recovery takes into account all of the applications in the pool for that round, so costs will be lower. If IDN variant labels are applied for between rounds, the costs will only take into account the cost associated with that few applications. The costs will be very high which creates a potential political issue.
Comment: Last week, we discussed that once the next round is set up from an operational perspective, moving forward if there was an ability to apply for variants between rounds, the costs won’t be as high.
Comment: The share of IDNs is still very low and many users don’t know about IDN gTLDs. UA issues are still significant. Maybe the end users will accept IDN gTLDs in the future, which may make ROs realize that they need to apply for variants. We need to provide for this possibility without such long periods between application opportunities. If a business in China wants to extend their business to Hong Kong or Macau, it may be costly, but you shouldn’t forbid them from doing so.
Comment: The work of this EPDP should not delay the next round. If this EPDP does not conclude in time, the next round goes ahead without variants. If this is the case, then we should have a way to make sure that activation can happen between rounds once the EPDP recommendations can be implemented.
Comment: The EPDP should have a backup plan in case variants are not included in the next round that does allow applicants to include variants in the application and application processes such as string similarity that take into account phase 1 recs. Elements related to phase 2 recs might need to wait.
Summary: Agreements from last week stand. For 2012 applicants, the next opportunity to apply for variants will be the next round and there will be some prioritization.

Continue Discussion of Charter Question E2 [docs.google.com] – Options for Legal Rights and Community Objections

· Slide 9 – Legal Rights Objection Recommendation options

· Slide 10 – Legal Rights Objection: Option 2 Rationale and Example

· The IPC opposes the hybrid model for string similarity review, but if the model is adopted, option 2 will allow for some mitigation. If there is an exception process, option 1 is possible, but option 2 is preferred. Trademark holders should not be prevented from applying for their mark because it is confusingly similar to the blocked variant of another IDN.

· Clarification: The IPC believes that if B2 and A1 are applied for in the same round they shouldn’t be a contention set. If A1 is delegated and B2 is applied for in the next round, that is allowed. If that exception process is not put into place, there needs to be a way for B2 to object to A1.

· Additional clarification: IPC wants it to be possible for B2 and A1 to coexist. If there is no exception process, the Option 2 won’t be satisfactory. Presumably A1 and B2 will have different meaning and can therefore coexist without confusion.

· Response: It is possible that the outcome of a successful objection by B2 could be that A1 could be delegated but A2 could not be requested in the future.

· Question: How does the same entity principle come into play here?

· Response: The same entity principle is not a problem because it only applies to variants and confusables.

· Comment: Just because we allow an objection, it doesn’t mean that the objector will prevail. Different outcomes are possible if B2 objects:

If B2 is successful, A1 can’t be delegated but B2 can be applied for in the future.
If B2 does not prevail, similarity is not strong enough. A1 proceeds and B2 can proceed in a future round.

· Comment: If B2 objected to A2 and B2 and A1 are being used for different things, then it’s likely that B2 wouldn’t prevail under the standards of the Legal Rights Objection.

Slide 11 – Community Objection Recommendation – Options
Slide 12 – Community Objection: Option 2 – Rationale and Example
Comment: We are asking the wrong question. We should be asking, “Do we need to create additional standards that would allow a community to prevail?”

Action Item 3: Leadership team to consider additional framing for the question at hand regarding Charter Question E2 for Community Objections and bring this back to the EPDP Team.

Begin Discussion of Charter Question E6 [docs.google.com]

Slide 14 – Charter Question E6
- Is there any reason to permit the registration of gTLDs consisting of decorated two-character Latin labels which are not variant labels of any two-letter ASCII labels? If so, rationale must be clearly stated.
- What is the question asking: 1. Can a two-letter gTLD label in the Latin script be applied for? 2. Can a two-character IDN gTLD label in the Latin script be applied for? 3. Can a two-character IDN gTLD label in the Latin script that is not a variant of any two-letter ASCII label be applied for?
Slide 15 – ccTLD context
Slide 16 – What Happened in the 2012 Round
Slide 17 – Analyze the Question