Dear Work Track members, Please find below the action items and discussion notes from today’s call. These high-level notes are designed to help Work Track members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the chat transcript or the recording. The referenced slides are attached along with the Response from ICANN Compliance on PIC complaints. Best, Julie Julie Hedlund, Policy Director -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes and Action Items: New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP WG - Track 2 – 21 November 2017 1. SOI Updates: None. 2. Appointment of New Co-Chair: Slide 3 -- Process for Appointment of Co-Chair -- Nominations and volunteers were accepted from 31 Oct to 10 November. -- Sophia Feng volunteered. -- Welcome to Sophia. 3. Schedule Forward to Plenary Report: Slide 4 -- Schedule -- Objective: In order provide time for deliberations have outlined the steps we need to take to meet the deadline. -- What do deliberations look like? What will the format be?  There is no decided format for that.  should fully outline the issue and provide a path forward including consensus if we have it. -- Ask ourselves if this is realistic. -- By February we will present what we have as a deliberation and ask for consensus. -- March 9th to send proposal to overall WG. Discussion: -- Confused the term "deliberations" means discussion, not conclusions.  You are using it as coming to a conclusion.  Don't see how we can do that on a single call on three different options. -- We don't need to have a conclusion on the topic.  The better term would be agreement on a prooposal: what the issue is, what we have talked about; if we don't have a path forward we need to say if we need more time. -- A "proposal" implies we've made decisions and I don't think given the timeframe that is somewhat unrealistic. -- There are 12 issues and in February we need to get a finalized document on the issues in 3 calls, that is 15 minutes per issue.  We have to come out of calls like this one with a straw man document with the sense of the group. -- We have a summary document that summarizes what we have spoken about to date and how we might find a path forward. -- This is an ambitious schedule: if we are going to make this schedule we have to continue discussions online and we need more written documents.  We can't expect all conversations will take place on phone calls. -- There have been enough calls that we can lay out the options and discuss the pros and cons; may not be tendencies toward solutions on all of these.  -- A preliminary report doesn't have to be conclusions; it can be pros and cons and ask pointed questions. -- If our target is in fact a viable set of options and questions to ask, that may be doable. 4. Vertical Integration Continuation: Discussion on follow up questions to ICANN Compliance: Slide 5: Discussion Recap: Where are we at now? -- Had two previous calls. -- Introduced history, benefits, and harms. -- Reviewed mechanism to detour abusive activity. Goal: Not to reverse VI as that is a standard.  Looking to explore whether the mechanism introduced have fulfilled their purpose or if additional mechanisms are required. Discussions: Requested data from ICANN Compliance and decided we need more data. Slide 6: Discussion Recap: Additional Questions -- What about audit reports, GDD.  Response: We received input on audit reports, but there wasn't substantive findings on compliant registry operators, but we will check. -- The data on audit reports is accessible; we will share after the call. -- The link to the 2017 registry audit report is here: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/contractual-compliance-ra-audit-...

From the chat:

Kathy Kleiman: What about audit reports? Kathy Kleiman: GDD?? Kathy Kleiman: How would we get a report from GDD on its audit reports? Kathy Kleiman: This is the most systematic review of compliance, right? Jeff Neuman: Kathy, compliance CCME back and said there were no issues with VI that they have found Jeff Neuman: typo: came back Trang Nguyen: Previous years' reports, including registrar audit reports are here: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/compliance-reports-2017 Jeff Neuman: But all they do with respect to this is get a self-certification.  I do not believe they have done anything more than that Kathy Kleiman: These audit reports don't appear to address VI Emily Barabas 2: The responses from ICANN compliance can be found on this wiki page: https://community.icann.org/display/NGSPP/4.3.5+Registrar+Non-Discrimination Emily Barabas 2: (see bottom of page) 5. Vertical Integration: CC2 Comments: Slide 7: CC2 Comments -- Goal of CC2 Comment Review is our second pass through the WT2 topics.  The goal is to review the feedback provided and discuss this input and the material of the topic in the WT2. Slides 8-9: Question 2.6.1 -- Nominet, BRG, and RySG stated that they did not identify any issues. Discussion: -- The reason we asked the initial questions is because the audit is a self-audit. -- Once you get into sub-topics that are related you might get some more information.  Not too much interest from the community on wholesale changes to vertical integration. Slides 10-12: Question 2.6.2 -- Nominet, Afilias, RySG, BRG, and Valideus did not identify any other circumstances where exemptions should be granted. -- BC supported exemptions where the RO can demonstrate that the term comprising the TLD string directly corresponds to a product name of the Registry Operator. -- RySG, BRG, Valideus supported greater flexibility for registry operators wishing to seek an exemption and stated that existing process of obtaining an exemption to the Code of Conduct results in some ambiguity under the Registry Agreement. Discussion: -- I see this for non-trademarked products, such as Microsoft Office where they can get Code of Conduct exemptions.  Not a generic term but is one that they use that can't be trademarked.  Or one that doesn't qualify for Spec 13.

From the chat:

Jeff Neuman: I see this for non-trademarked products Susan Payne: Funnily I think they mean in the trademark sense, but where they don't qualify for spec 13 Slides 13-17: Question 2.6.3 -- Nominet supported allowing full integration for .brand registries. -- Jannik Skou supported allowing full integration for .brand registries and any "single registrant" TLD. -- RySG and BRG suggested that the PDP examine whether there remains any consumer protection benefit to limiting registry-direct sales. -- Google encouraged the PDP to examine whether to permit closed TLDs to self-allocate all domain names and recommended extending carve outs granted to .brands to other TLDs that qualify for a Code of Conduct exemption. -- INTA stated that it does not support dispensing with the Code of Conduct requirements altogether, but there may be justification for permitting registries to seek an exemption to the Spec 9 Code of Conduct on a case-be-case basis. -- ALAC supported retaining the non-discrimination rule. -- John Poole opposed vertical integration. Discussion: -- One aspect of what this question is asking is do we need section 2.9 of the Registry Agreement -- the definiing principle.  Registry has to use an ICANN-accredited registrar. -- Before we started on vertical integration economic papers said things like allowing discrimination between registrars would help to achieve efficiencies -- so has our artificial imposition of limits prevented vertically integrated registries from achieving the benefits of vertical integration.  Was for non-brand or open registries, not .brand or closed registries. -- Second the comment that it is not very efficient.  The question is universal across the brand owners -- consider whether vertical integration is possible for .brand TLDs.

From the chat:

Jeff Neuman: One of the things I think we should do on the last question is talk to Donuts, Google, Afilias, and other vertically integrated registries and registrars Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): makes sense Jeff Jeff Neuman: Once we get the list of the vertically integrated entities, we can talk to them Gg Levine (NABP): Maybe allow it for registries that are low-volume?