Dear Working Group members, Please see below the notes from the meeting on 03 September 2019. These high-level notes are designed to help WG members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the recording, transcript, or the chat, which will be posted at: https://community.icann.org/display/NGSPP/2019-09-03+New+gTLD+Subsequent+Pro.... Kind regards, Julie Julie Hedlund, Policy Director Notes and Action Items: Actions: Applicant Reviews: Technical/Operational, Financial and Registry Services For Technical and Operational Evaluation: -- Important distinction: As long as the schedule of registry services are the same for applications selecting pre-approved RSP that wouldn’t necessitate a new technical evaluation. If there is a change in the schedule of registry service then a new technical evaluation may be required. ACTION ITEM 1: Ensure that this qualification is included in the recommendation. Proposed revision of requirements for Financial Evaluation: -- SSAC comment: They may not have interpreted the waiver/exemption correctly. Here is the language: “If any of the following conditions are met, an applicant should be allowed to self-certify that it has the financial means to support its proposed business model associated with the TLD: If the applicant is a company traded on an applicable national public market; If the applicant and/or its Officers are bound by law in its jurisdiction to represent financials accurately; If the applicant is a current Registry Operator that is not in default on any of its financial obligations under its applicable Registry Agreements, and has not previously triggered the utilization of its Continued Operations Instrument.” ACTION ITEM 2: Look into what the exemption was -- top 20 exchanges. Notes: 1. Updates to Statements of Interest: No updates provided. 2. Review of summary document – See: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q6_DxsCvSA_3B7ArncO2U4tWNY3vH7Wi4nINrouR... a. Security and Stability (page 39): -- Change to high-level agreement from policy goal: The WG supports the SSAC position that emoji in domain names, at any level, should not be allowed. -- Algorithmic string review -- Covered in IDNs. -- Emoji -- Also covered. -- CCT-RT Recommendations, covered in the next section (recommendations 14 and 15). b. Applicant Reviews: Technical/Operational, Financial and Registry Services (page 41) High-Level Agreements: Clarifying Questions: -- Publishing clarifying questions (CQs) and responses to CQs as long as no confidential information is published. -- Question: why do we have the "to the extent possible" qualifying language? Answer: due to some public questions cross-referencing private questions. For Technical and Operational Evaluation: -- Important distinction: As long as the schedule of registry services are the same for applications selecting pre-approved RSP that wouldn’t necessitate a new technical evaluation. If there is a change in the schedule of registry service then a new technical evaluation may be required. ACTION: Ensure that this qualification is included in the recommendation. -- This bullet: Retain the same questions (except Q30b - Security Policy): Might need a qualifying statement, since there is also a suggestion to improve the clarity. So maybe it’s more about the framework of questions? Perhaps "retain the same substance of questions" ? Financial Evaluation: -- To replace the "no other financial questions" text, the text before the questions could say "the following is a sample set of questions".
Or "sample exhaustive set of questions".
.neumann will be the TLD with most competitors in the next procedure.
 Outstanding Items - New Ideas/Concerns/Divergence Technical/Operational: -- For Technical and Operational Evaluation: Do not require a full IT/Operations security policy from applicants. Open question: How to meet the spirit of this goal without having to provide the full security policy. -- Could use the SSAC language, saying that we would encourage the Implementation Review Team to find ways for an applicant to demonstrate its expertise without supplying the actual security policy. If there is still a requirement there could be an option to do an on-site visit. Could pose yes/no questions, or check boxes, and ask how often the policy is activated, reviewed/updated, for examples. Financial -- COIs: -- Put them in another section where we talk about COIs. Proposed revision of requirements for Financial Evaluation: -- SSAC comment: They may not have interpreted the waiver/exemption correctly. Here is the language: “If any of the following conditions are met, an applicant should be allowed to self-certify that it has the financial means to support its proposed business model associated with the TLD: If the applicant is a company traded on an applicable national public market; If the applicant and/or its Officers are bound by law in its jurisdiction to represent financials accurately; If the applicant is a current Registry Operator that is not in default on any of its financial obligations under its applicable Registry Agreements, and has not previously triggered the utilization of its Continued Operations Instrument.” ACTION: Look into what the exemption was -- top 20 exchanges. b) Proposed revision of requirements for Financial Evaluation: ICANN Org: New Idea - The suggested third-party certification could be an appropriate mechanism to “demonstrate” that the applicant meets these goals, it is unclear how self-certification would allow the applicant to “demonstrate” meeting these goals as self-certification by definition does not require the applicant to make any demonstrations. -- If the WG recommends self-certification for evaluation that will be a different type of evaluation than was done in 2012. In 2012 the key part was that the applicant understood what it took to run the TLD. -- The recommendation for self-certification is on the business model itself. -- So it sounds like no change from the last round since ICANN didn’t evaluate the business model in 2012. High-Level Agreement: -- This is what there was high level agreement on: "Financial statements (audited, certified by an officer with professional duty in applicant jurisdiction to represent financial information correctly or independently certified if not publicly-listed or current RO in good standing)” (0-1 scoring) (certification posted). -- It's not only the self-certification is different, the criteria is different. So understanding whether self-certification applies or not to the new criteria is the discussion at this point.