A fundamental principle of ICANN's commitment to accountability and transparency is providing opportunities for input and feedback from the community. ICANN achieves this through the public comment process. In this month's issue we note a number of important
public comment developments.
Currently, a public comment proceeding on Proposed ICANN Bylaws Amendments recommended by the GNSO Policy & Implementation Working Group's Final Report seeks community opinions about three new GNSO process recommendations. A Final Report produced by the Working
Group recommends improvements to the GNSO Council's ability to respond to policy and implementation matters by using new standardized mechanisms instead of existing ad hoc processes. The ICANN Board has asked for community input on the recommendations before
it takes any action. (Read more in this issue.)
Last month, I wrote a blog post explaining the policy development process as it relates to the GNSO Privacy/Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Working Group Initial Report. That public comment proceeding recently received a remarkable 11,000+ public comments,
highlighting the importance of the issue to our community and general interest on the topic from Internet users. The Policy Development Support staff is now working diligently on summarizing the large number of public comments in order to publish a summary
report for community review as soon as possible.
Of course, the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group recently posted for input the consolidated proposal for the future of the IANA functions, and the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability also published for feedback its second
draft report. This issue examines those comment opportunities as well.
Whether core policy development work or strategic proposals, we encourage you participate in ICANN's public comment process. Public comment strengthens the multistakeholder model and distinguishes our bottom-up, consensus-driven policy development work.
Best regards,
David Olive
Vice President, Policy Development Support
General Manager, ICANN Istanbul Hub Office
