Here is the Guidance from Council Leadership, this time on the public list. Julf -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Guidance for the SSC from Council Leadership on the DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP 1 Chair Selection Process: Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2026 17:24:27 +0000 From: Susan Payne <susan.payne@comlaude.com> To: Johan Helsingius <julf@julf.com>, Vivek Goyal <vivekg@ldotr.red> CC: Saewon Lee <saewon.lee@icann.org>, Jennifer Chung <jen@dot.asia>, Akinremi Peter Taiwo <compsoftnet@gmail.com>, Caitlin Tubergen <caitlin.tubergen@icann.org> Dear Julf and Vivek I am resending the Guidance from Council Leadership.  I would be grateful if you would post this to the SSC mailing list. GNSO Council Leadership is seeking the recommendation of the SSC on the selection of a Chair for DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP 1. As noted below, while the candidate names can be shared publicly, their EOI’s will not be shared. The basis of the private selection is 1) explicit mention of that in the EOI announcement; and 2) per the SSC charter a private/public process can be directed by the Council. Often, in past experience, there has only been one EOI for PDP WG chairs and in those cases the GNSO Council leadership is able to propose the sole candidate to the Council to affirm or reject without the SSC input. Additionally, in the case where there are two candidates and one is clearly unqualified and another is clearly qualified according to the criteria, the Council leadership may again propose the qualified candidate to the Council to affirm or reject without the SSC input. In this particular case, there are three candidates and the Council leadership would like the input of the SSC to aid in the selection process for this Chair. *Guidance for the SSC* In considering the potential chair selection, the SSC should familiarize themselves with the leadership criteria as outlined pp.11-14 of the DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP 1 Charter [gnso.icann.org] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/policy...>. The Leadership would like to especially emphasize the importance of the chosen candidate having a recent proven track record of leadership, neutrality, and ability to efficiently reach consensus, particularly on contentious issues with diverse divergent interests. The most important elements to consider given the high-profile nature of this PDP is that the recommended Chair needs to have considerable experience in chairing working groups or Council small teams, direct experience seeing a PDP process throughout its lifecycle, and leadership skills necessary to build consensus on an aggressive timeline. Finally, as stated in the Charter, knowledge of and preferably direct experience in DNS Abuse related work at ICANN is a crucial qualification. We appreciate your prompt attention to this selection. 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