Hi All, Please find below the notes and action items from the 5 October 2023 IDNs EPDP meeting #99<https://community.icann.org/x/04yZDg> at 12:00 UTC. Best Regards, Ariel, Steve, and Dan ACTION ITEMS: * The Team will review Rationale for Rec 3.5 and IG 3.6 by next week’s meeting, Meeting #100, on 12 October. * The Team will review the updates to Rec 4.4 by next week’s meeting, Meeting #100, on 12 October. * Staff will begin the consensus call process for all resolved recommendations (i.e., excluding Rec 4.4 if not agreed to by 12 October) NOTES: * Roll Call and SOI Updates * Welcome and Chair Updates * The Chair welcomed everyone to the call and reminded the team that there will be a call next week, Meeting #100 on 12 October. * Resolve Outstanding Comments for Phase 1 Recommendations o A few comments were raised on the text that was proposed last week, during meeting #98. § One question was based on the language in 3.5.4 and the phrase “operational and management complexities”. · The SSAC are concerned with Management Complexities, per their publications. It was asked if there are specific operational complexities? If not, then the team member would prefer just writing “Management Complexities” o A comment from a team member alluded to keeping both as they are one in the same o A different commenter was in favor or just keeping Operational o A third commenter was in favor of keeping both, but if it came down to keeping one or the other, they would keep Operational as well. § The team member who recommended cutting Operational agreed to keep both but would like a statement in the rationale to clarify. § Another comment was based on 3.6.1 and the evaluation panel. The commenter is in favor of changing “language expertise” to “script expertise”. This would make things easier on the panel to arrange experts than if they needed specific language expertise. · There were no objections from changing “Language” to “Script” o After reviewing the RAA and the base agreement, the registries are no longer concerned about the reseller language in 3.5.4. o ACTION ITEM: Team will review the Rationale for Rec 3.5 and IG 3.6 by next week’s meeting, Meeting #100, on 12 October. o There were a few comments made for Rec 4.4 that were deemed to not be controversial by the Support Staff and the Staff described all the comments § In 4.4.3 the word IDN was added to before ccTLD and to the sub-recommendation § In 4.4.3.1.2. “That is Validated” was added for clarification to the sub-recommendation § In 4.4.3.2 there was clarification added for if conflict is found during the evaluation period. The gTLD application would be put on hold while the ccTLD application is evaluated. There are two sub scenarios added: · One for if the gTLD does not have the required approval from the relevant government or public authority · A second for if the ccTLD application is withdrawn § In 4.4.3.3 contention was changed to conflict · This received support from the team § In 4.4.4.2 “can” was replaced with “is eligible to” for consistency o There was a comment from a team member concerned with the 4.4.3.1 about the process for contention deviating from what was agreed upon for string similarity resolutions and outcomes. § On 4.4.3.2.1 there was also concern from that team member that if the gTLD application may not have government approval it may be possible the applied-for string is like a country, territory, or regional name, but not the same. § The text in 4.4.3.2 that is the color black was lifted from the 2012 Applicant Guidebook. This is not about the contention; this is about who goes first. · A comment was asked about why not just say “First Come First Serve” if they wanted to remove contention o A response was that removing contention is important because there will never be a situation where a ccTLD and gTLD applicant will have to “fight it out”, but it is important to be cognizant of the different processes for the two applications and to give context for the differences § It was asked if a gTLD is going through the process and is about to be completed, and at the last second a ccTLD is submitted in contention, based on 4.4.3.2, does the gTLD application get put on hold? · A comment from chat replied that 4.4.3.1.1 addresses this issue, using language from the 2012 AGB. · The chair replied that the team will leave the comments open for Rec 4.4 until next week for the team to review o ACTION ITEM: The Team will review the updates to Rec 4.4 by next week’s meeting. · The chair also provided context that this is a very uncommon scenario, based on how ccTLDs are limited in scope. o On 4.4.3.1.1 the team member who proposed updated text described their idea for what would happen if the primary string completed evaluation but one or more of the variant labels did not finish evaluation (due to issues or concerns from evaluators) and a ccTLD application came in. § This will be discussed next week as well after deliberation by the team. o There is a plan to start a consensus call next week, 12 October. § The chair asked if there was a possibility to start the consensus call earlier for everything but Rec 4.4 · Support Staff believes this would be possible. The goal is that Rec 4.4 will be agreed to next week but in the meantime the team will start the consensus call for the remainder of recommendations. · ACTION ITEM: Staff will begin the consensus call process for all resolved recommendations (i.e., excluding 4.4 if not agreed to by 12 October) * Refresher on Phase 2 Deliberations * The team has completed the initial deliberation for 9 out of 19 Phase 2 Charter Questions * Staff described the nature of the charter questions * Staff also discussed some key dates to keep in mind regarding the face-to-face workshop (6-8 December 2023), the publish date for the P2 Initial Report (April 2024) and the delivery of the P2 Final Report (October 2024) * Second Review of Phase 2 Draft Text o There was a discussion over the agreed upon “grandfather” rights of the registrant. The intention should be that the IDN table harmonization in the future should not affect current (and in the future they will be considered past) variant domain names. § The EPDP team agreed to this language so there is a desire to keep the text as is. · “Variant” will be kept in the agreed upon language, but there will be a review of the recommendation. o Regarding Prelim Rec 1, there was a discussion about harmonization and specific variant rules. § One comment in chat said “I disagree with the characterization of harmonization in that context. Harmonization is about creating consistent rules across tables within a namespace, not about the specific rules a registry may include in such tables.” § There was not enough support to make the changes suggested for Prelim Rec 1, there is a desire from the person who suggested the comment to return to it in the future. o Context was added to the Rationale for Prelim Rec 1 § “Consistent” replacing “same” was received with unanimous approval. · Consistent was defined in chat as the following “where two “letters” are variants in a table, they must be variants in another table in the same gTLD, but there could be other variant relationship due to additional “letters” which produce a different set of variant labels in each gTLD” o There was additional discussion of the role of harmonization from a member of the registries. § The text in the harmonization comment was received without objection. § Pending the future discussion of the scope of harmonization, this text may have to be reviewed later. o The input for the C5 EPDP team response received no objections o The input for the C6 EPDP team response was discussed and there were no comments about the proposed text. They will be adopted. * AOB * The chair noted that 4.4 will be first on the agenda for next week and then the consensus call may begin. * The Chair adjourned the meeting