Dear EPDP Team,

Please find below the notes and action items from today’s meeting.

The next EPDP Team Phase 2A meeting will be Thursday, 29 July at 14:00 UTC.

Best regards,

Marika, Berry, and Caitlin

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‼️ 📣 Action Items 📣 ‼️

Please find a link to outstanding action items: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17qLMYb3HC7qGYPQveXbUq5ZSzvedrQ3t8AdVdrRIdrw/edit#gid=0

EPDP Phase 2A - Meeting #31

Proposed Agenda

Thursday 22 July 2021 at 14.00 UTC

1. Roll Call & SOI Updates (5 minutes) 

2. Welcome & Chair updates (Chair) (5 minutes)

• The EPDP 2A Team has just come out of its public comment period. We will now discuss the next six weeks of work.
• Thank you again for all of the work that went into developing the Initial Report
• The Team will now spend time mapping out the upcoming plan to analyze the comments. We will then discuss the mediated discussions that took place with Melissa Allgood. Thank you everyone for making time to talk to Melissa.
• Based on a very preliminary review of the public comments, we did not receive new information or new proposals in the public comments. There is a lot of work ahead of this team to bring it to a consensus position that can be supported by the full team.

3. Initial Report Public Comment Review (30 minutes)

a. High level overview of comments received - see https://community.icann.org/x/coMZCg

b. Proposed approach for review and addressing public comments received

• Thank you to the Team for allowing Staff to continue with the targeted feedback via input by the Google Form.
• The Staff Support Team understands that this is not everyone’s preferred format; however, this is the last time you will be confronted with this exact structure. ICANN org will soon be deploying a new public comment platform as part of its ITI initiative.
• This structure goes a long way in allowing the Staff Support Team to quickly group comments.
• From the public comment page, you can click the “view comments” link to view the raw data. This is virtually unreadable; however, the new platform will have an easier mechanism for comment review.
• Once the comment period closed, the Support Team took an export of the Google Sheet and moved it into a Google Spreadsheet. This format is a tool used to extract the comments into the subsequent tools.
• It serves a few requirements. It allows the comments to be organized and color-coded by the comment. It helps to filter out incomplete or spam submissions. It also allows Staff to tabulate the total submissions received.
• Nine community groups submitted comments; seven orgs (such as INTA) submitted comments, and one individual submitted, for a total of 17 comments.
• The raw data allows Staff to compare the data if need be, but this is an interim step to get to the public comment review tool.
• All public comments can be found on this wiki page: https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=169444210.
• The first document is the public comment review tool, and the discussion tables summarize the public comments in a shorter form for easier review.
• There are five documents – one for each preliminary recommendation – the preliminary recommendation is noted at the top. The grey section shows the question related to the prelim. recommendation. Then, you will see the extracted comments.
• This tool has likely exceeded its useful life. WGs used to go comment by comment to see if new information has been included.
• The discussion draft serves the purpose of reviewing the comments in an easy-to-consume manner. The tables group like comments together.
• Support Staff took the same approach from Phase 1 and Phase 2.
• The way the public comment period was structured allows for easy grouping.
• In terms of Prelim. Rec. 1 – the question was “is there any new information or new input the group should consider?” Support Staff went through all of the comments provided and summarized the comments.
• Please be mindful of the disclaimer – the discussion table does not take away the onus of the group to review all comments in full.
• ACTION ITEM: The ask to the Team is: all groups to review the table and use the column on the far right and provide input. Based on summary or the comments and the full comment, is further discussion warranted? If yes, what specifically warrants further discussion. Also, if you believe a recommendation needs to be changed, please be specific about what change is warranted based on the comment – the more specificity, the better.
• Flagged items will dictate the building of agendas.

c. EPDP Team questions & input

d. Confirm next steps

4. Mediated conversations – proposed next steps (30 minutes)

a. Conversations to date and proposed next steps (Melissa)

• One key takeaway is that everyone has missed face-to-face interactions. The experience that the group has had has been challenged by the virtual nature of the work. The lack of hallway conversations or informal conversations has impeded the group’s progress.
• Thank you for the engagement – there was a lot of candor in the discussions.
• Some of the big themes that emerged – all groups have open questions of other groups. There are a lot of areas where groups are speaking past each other. “I don’t understand why Group x says y.” Leadership thought it would be worthwhile to engage with some of the open questions.
• Another theme that emerged – there is a genuine desire amongst the groups to better understand other groups’ point of view.
• Moving forward, Leadership is proposing information conversations. These informal conversations are designed to mimic hallway conversations, coffee chats, lobby bar-esque conversations.
• Each individual would have two minutes to share their points of view and then share points of view of others around the table. After everyone has their chance to speak, representatives could then clarify their positions and ask additional clarifying questions of others.
• The goal is to engage in dialogue and increase understanding and clarity.
• Leadership identified some narrowly focused questions to start the conversations and identified groups that may want to participate in these conversations.
• Looking to set these conversations up for next week.

b. EPDP Team questions & input

• The Team is now down to the brass tacks of interpretation of data protection law on key issues. Do not think the Team will reach consensus on these issues that will inevitably end up in court. Do not think there is a path to consensus.
• Encouraged by the potential for future mediation – it is important to give this a shot and see if the group can come together on some things.
• The onus is on the groups who would like a change from the status quo – these groups should come forward to tell us how it’s possible and why we should accept
• There were proposals, and these were abandoned and never went back to it
• There were proposals put forward early in the process, but it was evident that the group was not agreeing on any of these proposals. However, if there are groups that have proposals that they believe will reach consensus, please bring them forward.
• Agree that there was not necessarily agreement on the proposals, but do not agree that there were not proposals
• During the initial months, there was a fairly significant divide in the group regarding those proposals, so the group began talking about guidance.
• In terms of the movement toward consensus, believe the breakdown occurred around the SSAD. When stakeholder groups decided they hated the SSAD and began lobbying against it, it made it difficult to agree on how to handle the other issues.
• Groups can discuss paths forward, but there remain severe doubts about gating questions. If the GNSO Council is to give clarity that some of these items are in scope, then it will provide comfort to certain groups.
• If groups feel like Council clarification is necessary. Leadership sees a distinction between a new consensus policy requirement vs. guidance where a CP could choose to differentiate.
• If there is requirement for a development of a new field so that CPs could optionally use it, there may need to be a distinction.
• Have never argued against the guidance – support the guidance – just want it to be practical. A hard recommendation is necessary for this data element, so need to look at the scope issue.
• New standards should go through the IETF process. This may sound complicated and hard, but it is not and is what should be done.
• If there are specific scope questions, please provide them to the team in writing.
• The next Council meeting is later today, and this topic is not on the Council’s agenda. Any scope discussions would to be submitted for the next Council meeting by 9 August (the documents and motion deadline for August).
• If the team provides a standardized data element that involves the criteria for that element – the criteria for deciding what goes in the element is giving legal advice. If this is sent to the IETF (and this should be sent to the IETF), then those legal questions have to answered by the IETF.
• It is possible to subdivide this issue. The point about standardizing through the IETF – this is not a place for legal debate and issues. What is appropriate to go through the IETF is defining the field and the appropriate values. Can the values be ported from one place to another and has different determinations by jurisdiction, this would have to be included in the field values.  

5. Wrap and confirm next EPDP Team meeting (5 minutes):

a. EPDP Team Meeting #32 Thursday 29 July at 14.00 UTC

b. Confirm action items

EPDP Team to review the public comments received for Preliminary Recommendations 1 and 2. Groups to use the Discussion Table Google Docs to indicate if new ideas are presented that warrant further discussion by the full team by COB Wednesday, 28 July. If EPDP Members believe a recommendation should be amended based on a public comment, EPDP Team members are strongly encouraged to provide proposed updates in the Google docs by COB Wednesday, 28 July.

EPDP Team to review the Next steps – Mediated Conversations document and indicate if your group should be included in any of the proposed discussion groups by COB Friday, 23 July.

EPDP Team Members who have expressed concerns about scope are to provide concerns in writing, including draft questions to submit to the GNSO Council, by Friday, 30 July.

c. Confirm questions for ICANN Org, if any