Explanation/Background: The Draft Applicant Guidebook, V3 is now available for review and comment at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-3-en.htm. The Guidebook has been changed significantly. In all, there are over 50 areas of change, clearly indicated in the “redline” version of the Guidebook. All materials are in draft form for public comment and review. Your comments will help with the production of the next version of the Applicant Guidebook.

Further details about the New gTLD Program can be found at: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-program.htm.

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Explanation/Background: After receiving recommendations from the Implementation Recommendation Team and others, taking extensive comment and conducting consultation with the broader community, ICANN Staff have drafted a set of implementation recommendations related to intellectual property protections for the new gTLD program.

Those proposed rights protection mechanisms are:

• The creation of an IP Clearinghouse, which is a database of validated trademarks to be utilised by new gTLD registry operators in implementing either an IP Claims service or Sunrise process during TLD launch; and
• The creation of a Uniform Rapid Suspension process for use in clear-cut, blatant cases of trademark infringement.

These proposed rights protection mechanisms are available for review and comment at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/gnso-consultations-reports-en.htm.

All materials are in draft form for public comment and review. Your comments will help with the production of the next version of the Applicant Guidebook.

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Explanation/Background: In June 2007 Interisle Consulting Group was contracted to undertake the external review of the Nominating Committee, and delivered their report in October of the same year.

Following public comments, the NomCom Review WG presented a report to the Board Governance Committee (BGC), at that time responsible for the oversight of the Organizational Review function. The BGC considered that recommendations from the NomCom review process had to be analysed in coordination with the findings of other reviews that at the time of delivery of the report were ongoing. Consequently, the NomCom review WG report was not published for public comments.

More recently – and towards the conclusion of other interlinked review processes– the Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) – which in the meantime took over the duty of coordinating the Organizational Review processes – considered that findings and conclusions of the Working Group report needed to be consolidated and updated before publication for public comments.

To this end, a specific NomCom Review Finalization Working Group was tasked with the duty to update the conclusions and recommendations of the original NomCom review WG report. In order to fulfill its mandate, the WG reviewed relevant documents, and consulted intensively with NomCom Chairs of the period of 2006 to 2009, with supporting staff, and with General Counsel.

The NomCom Review Finalization Working Group issues now for presentation at the Seoul meeting and for public comment its draft report [PDF, 276K]

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Explanation/Background: The Board appointed JAS Communications as the consultants for the independent review of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee -SSAC. JAS released their draft Final Report in February 2009 for presentation and discussion with the community at the ICANN meeting in Mexico City.

Comments received at the presentation and during the following public consultation were addressed by consultants in the final version of their review report.

The SSAC review WG engaged then in an extensive round of consultation with the SSAC community –which released a structured document providing inputs to the work of the WG- and with the public at large, through a public consultation process.

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Explanation/Background: ICANN appointed the Boston Consulting Group/Colin Carter & Associates to perform the external review of its Board of Directors; their review report was presented during a public workshop at the ICANN meeting in Cairo and a public comment period followed.

The Board review WG, considering the Independent Reviewer's final report, Board input, and comments from stakeholders and the public, issued an Interim Report for consultation with the Community, which was presented at the ICANN meeting in Mexico City. During the following public comment period further inputs were received from interested parties.

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Explanation/Background: ICANN, assisted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), recently completed a draft of its study of the percentage of domain names registered using a privacy or proxy service. Today, that draft report is being posted for review and comment through 6 November 2009.

The findings in the report identify a percentage range of domain names that appear to have been registered using a privacy or proxy service. To inform this study, ICANN relied on a random sample of 2400 domain names drawn in March 2009 from the universe of domain names registered under the top 5 gTLDs (i.e., .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info).

Community members are invited to review the draft report and its findings and comment on all aspects of the report.

The draft report can be found here: http://www.icann.org/en/compliance/reports/privacy-proxy-registration-services-study-28sep09-en.pdf [PDF, 124K]

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Explanation/Background: ICANN has published a report prepared by TNO entitled "Root Scaling Study: Description of the DNS Root Scaling Model" [PDF, 677K]. TNO (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research) is an independent research organization based in Delft, Netherlands (http://www.tno.nl). This report is an additional product of the root scaling study led by Lyman Chapin of Interisle Consulting, and complements the "Scaling the Root" report [PDF, 1,340K] published on 18 September 2009. The TNO report describes the characteristics of a quantitative model developed by TNO for dynamic analysis of root scaling issues. The TNO model and simulation system are undergoing verification.

ICANN is soliciting public comment on both reports. The Root Scaling Steering Group is evaluating these reports and plans to provide an evaluation and recommendations for the Board and the public.

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Explanation/Background: In February 2009, with Resolution 2009-02-03-04, the ICANN Board requested the Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC), the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), and the ICANN staff, including the IANA team, to study the potential issues regarding the addition of IDNs, IPv6 addresses, DNSSEC and substantial numbers of new TLDs to the root zone. The Terms of Reference for this study are at http://www.icann.org/en/committees/dns-root/root-scaling-study-tor-05may09-en.htm.

The Root Scaling Study Team led by Lyman Chapin of Interisle Consulting was selected to perform this study.

We are hereby releasing the Interisle report as delivered for public comment and analysis as well as a covering note from the joint RSSAC/SSAC/ICANN staff steering group for this study.

The steering group will be evaluating the report against the Terms of Reference and preparing recommendations for the Board and the public.

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Explanation/Background: VeriSign has proposed to offer Bulk Transfer After Partial Portfolio Acquisition (BTAPPA) in Dot-Com & Dot-Net through the Registry Services Evaluation Process, and is seeking an amendment to proceed with the offering of this service. The amendments provide for changes to Appendix 7.

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Explanation/Background: The Expedited Registry Security Request (ERSR) is the result of a collaborative effort between ICANN and gTLD registries to develop a process for quick action in cases where gTLD registries inform ICANN of a present or imminent security incident to their TLD and/or the DNS and request a contractual waiver for actions they might take or have taken to mitigate or eliminate the incident. A contractual waiver is an exemption from compliance with a specific provision of the Registry Agreement for the time period necessary to respond to the Incident. The ERSR process is viewable at http://www.icann.org/en/registries/ersr/.

Public comment is sought on the ERSR process.

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