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ICANN POLICY UPDATE | Volume 14, Issue 4 – June 2014

ICANN 50 | London Meeting Logo

PDF Version [602 KB]

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/update-2014-02-20-en

CONTENTS:

Across ICANN

  1. Issues Currently Open for Public Comment
  2. Public Comment Process Changes On The Way

ASO

  1. Address Council Provides Advice on Post-Exhaustion IPv4 Allocation

ccNSO

  1. .mh is 150th Member
  2. ICANN 50 Page Updated to Include Agenda, Presenters, and Remote Participation
  3. Meeting Group Reacts to Singapore Survey, Improvements in the Works
  4. Applications Now Open for ICANN 51 Travel Funding Program
  5. First Podcast Now Available – Don't Miss ICANN 50 Updates
  6. Now Published: Discussion on Impact of Non-votes

GNSO

  1. Full Slate of Meetings Planned, Over 60 Sessions Scheduled
  2. PDP Launched On Access by International Organizations to Curative Rights Protections for Second Level Domain Name Disputes
  3. WHOIS Policy Work Study Phase Closes

At-Large

  1. 150 At-Large Structures Ready for Summit
  2. RALO Assemblies Offer Unique Face-to-Face Opportunities
  3. Two New Policy Advice Statements Submitted
  4. Four New ALSes Join At-Large Community

GAC

  1. Two Public Information Sessions Planned – Open Forum & Lessons Learned
  2. High-Level Governmental Meeting to be Held

RSSAC

  1. Restructure Effort Progresses

SSAC

  1. Comments on JAS Phase One Report – Mitigating the Risk of DNS Collisions

Read in Your Preferred Language

ICANN's Policy Update is available in all six official languages of the United Nations. Policy Update is posted on ICANN's website and is available via online subscription. To receive the Update in your Inbox each month, visit the ICANN subscriptions page, enter your e-mail address, and select "Policy Update" to subscribe. This service is free.

ICANN Policy Update statement of purpose

Send questions, comments and suggestions to: policyinfo@icann.org.

Policy Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees

Address Supporting Organization ASO
Country Code Names Supporting Organization ccNSO
Generic Names Supporting Organization GNSO
At-Large Advisory Committee ALAC
Governmental Advisory Committee GAC
Root Server System Advisory Committee RSSAC
Security and Stability Advisory Committee SSAC

Across ICANN

1. Issues Currently Open for Public Comment

A total of nine public comment periods are currently open on issues of interest to the ICANN community. The following six opportunities for public comment have become available since the April Issue of Policy Update.

FY15 Draft Operating Plan and Budget. Join us in creating ICANN's annual operating plan and budget for FY15, which describes planned activities for the year ahead (from 1 July 2014 – 30 June 2015). ICANN is seeking general feedback as well as feedback on the focus areas, objectives, goals, portfolios, projects and budget allocations. Your feedback is important to help ensure we have a clear roadmap for the year ahead. Comment period ended 29 May; reply period ends 1 July.

Proposed Implementation of GNSO PDP Recommendations on Locking of a Domain Name Subject to UDRP Proceedings – Revised UDRP Rules. ICANN Staff and the GNSO Implementation Review Team are now looking for input on the proposed revisions to the UDRP rules, which aim to satisfy the intent of the GNSO Policy Recommendations. Furthermore, any feedback on the expected time needed for affected parties to implement the revised UDRP rules before coming into effect, would be appreciated. The current plan is to announce implementation in November or December with a six-month implementation deadline. Comment period ends 18 June; reply period ends 18 July.

Registrars Stakeholder Group (RrSG) Charter Revisions (May 2014). In March 2014, the Registrars Stakeholder Group (RrSG) formally submitted a set of Charter revisions to the Staff for processing in compliance with Phase I of the Process For Amending GNSO Stakeholder Group and Constituency Charters. As part of its Phase II responsibilities, Staff undertook a review and recommended an additional set of modifications that were subsequently approved by the RrSG. The Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) of the Board then directed Staff to open a Public Comment Forum to solicit community input concerning the consolidated set of Charter amendments. Comment period ended 20 June; reply period ends 15 July.

ICANN Draft Five-Year Strategic Plan (FY16 – FY20). Built on community input received throughout an extensive, public strategy conversation, the Draft Strategic Plan proposes a new Vision, reiterates ICANN's existing Mission, and describes five focus areas with Strategic Objectives and Goals. ICANN is seeking general feedback, as well as input on the proposed measurable outcomes for the Focus Area Goals. Your comments will help inform the final ICANN Five–Year Strategic Plan. Comment period ends 27 June; reply period not specified.

Study to Evaluate Solutions for the Submission and Display of Internationalized Contact Data. This Public Forum invites comments on the study performed by experts that evaluates available solutions for the submission and display of internationalized contact data (such as WHOIS). This study documents and evaluates the potential solutions for submitting or displaying contact data in non-ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) character sets. It aims to inform the ICANN community regarding the possibility of transliteration, transcription or translation of internationalized registration data for its broader accessibility. Comment period ends 3 July; reply period ends 24 July.

For the full list of issues open for public comment, plus recently closed and archived public comment forums, please visit the Public Comment web page.

The staff also populates a web page to help preview potential "upcoming" public comment opportunities. This page – "Public Comments – Upcoming" page – provides information about potential future public comment opportunities. The page is updated after every ICANN Public Meeting to help individuals and the community to set priorities and plan their future workloads.


2. Public Comment Process Changes on the Way

At A Glance

The ICANN Policy Team expects to move forward with the implementation of specific short-term process improvements to the ICANN Public Comments Processes after the ICANN Public Meeting in London (ICANN 50). Those short-term changes will be evaluated for their effectiveness after six months while longer-term improvements are developed.

David Olive, Vice President, Policy Development Support, outlines those plans in a post on the ICANN Blog at – https://www.icann.org/news/blog/sharing-a-plan-for-public-comment-improvements.

Background:

ICANN's Policy Development Support Staff recently assumed day-to-day oversight of ICANN's public comment infrastructure. This responsibility includes coordinating, evaluating, developing and implementing targeted improvements to all of ICANN's community input and feedback mechanisms.

The team has spent considerable time reviewing the existing public comment infrastructure, processes, and procedures and gathering data on community activity to determine what changes inspired by the original recommendations of the Accountability and Transparency Review Team have been effective.

In conjunction with those efforts as well as the recent ATRT2 recommendations currently being reviewed by the Board, the Staff has been working over the past several weeks to develop a public comments improvement implementation plan. This effort builds on previous feedback from community leaders that identified a number of potential areas for public comment improvements. The plan has been shared with members of the Board of Directors who have encouraged the Staff to move forward with it.

More Information:


ASO

3. Address Council Provides Advice on Post-Exhaustion IPv4

At a Glance

The ASO AC provided advice to ICANN on the implementation of the Global Policy for Post Exhaustion IPv4 Allocation Mechanisms by the IANA.

Recent Developments

ICANN's IANA department requested clarification from the ASO AC about whether IPv4 allocations should be made immediately after the allocation phase of the post-exhaustion IPv4 policy was activated OR at the start of the next allocation period. The ASO AC advised ICANN to make an immediate allocation.

The allocation phase of the Global Policy for Post Exhaustion IPv4 Allocation Mechanisms by the IANA was activated when LACNIC's inventory of IPv4 address space fell below 8.3 million addresses on 20 May 2014. ICANN immediately allocated each RIR about 2 million addresses, using about half of the recovered pool.

The ASO AC discussed the end of 16-bit Autonomous System Number availability at an emergency meeting on 23 April. The ASO AC determined that no change in policy could be made but that it should consult the regions on the impact of the run out.

Next Steps

The ASO AC will formally convene at ICANN 50 as well as provide the ICANN community with a briefing on its activities during a public session on 25 June 2014 from 13:30 to 15:00.

More Information

Staff Contact

Barbara Roseman, Policy Director and Technical Analyst

Carlos Reyes, Senior Policy Analyst


ccNSO

4. .mh is 150th Member

At a Glance

The ccNSO reaches a historical landmark as .mh (Marshall Islands) joins as ccNSO's 150th member.

Next Steps

The ccNSO welcomes further ccTLDs to join the ccNSO. Please find the application and guidelines to apply here.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager


5. ICANN 50 Page Updated to include Agenda, Presenters, and Remote Participation

At a Glance

All information on the ccNSO-related sessions that the ccTLD community needs to have for the London meeting is now gathered on one web page. This page includes information such as the ccNSO Meeting Agenda, the Tech Day Agenda, Room & time information, presentation summaries, remote participation details and ccNSO pre-registered participants.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager


6. Meeting Group Reacts to Singapore Survey, Improvements in the Works

At a Glance

The ccNSO Meetings Program Working Group has published feedback on the input received to the ccNSO Meeting Survey conducted during the ICANN Public Meeting in Singapore.

Next Steps

The Meetings Program Working Group is planning to continue to provide such feedback to future Meeting Evaluation Surveys.

Background

After every ccNSO meeting, the community is asked to provide feedback on the quality of the sessions and on other thoughts around the meeting. To show that all input is read and evaluated, the Meetings Program Working Group is now providing "feedback on the feedback".

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager


7. Applications Now Open for ICANN 51 Travel Funding Program

At a Glance

ccNSO opens its travel funding program for applications.

Recent Developments

Applications are welcome until 27 June 2014, 12:00 UTC.

Next Steps

All applications will be reviewed by the ccNSO Travel Funding Committee, which will make a decision by 14 July 2014.

Background

ccNSO Travel Funding is open to anyone who actively contributes to the work of the ccNSO. However, you do not need to be a ccNSO member to be eligible for funding.

As the ccNSO only has a small pool of seats to distribute for every ICANN meeting, the ccNSO Travel Fund Committee carefully examines the applications and tries to make a fair selection, basing on the set criteria.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager


8. First Podcast Now Available – Don't Miss ICANN 50 Updates

At a Glance

The ccNSO Secretariat has produced its first ccNSO podcast to help the community prepare for the ICANN Public Meeting in London.

Next Steps

Based on the feedback to the podcast, the ccNSO Secretariat will review whether more podcasts should be produced in the future.

Background

In order to explore new ways of communicating with the ccTLD community, the ccNSO Secretariat decided to produce a podcast.

The podcast focuses on planning for ICANN 50 and addresses issues such as the ccNSO meeting agenda, Tech Day, and the Framework of Interpretation Working Group.

More Information

The 1st ccNSO Podcast [M4A, 18.8 MB]

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager


9. Now Published: Discussion on Impact of Non-votes

At a Glance

ccNSO Member survey results on how to interpret non-votes have been published.

Recent Developments

The ccNSO Quorum Interpretation Committee conducted a survey of the ccNSO membership from 28 May through 11 June to gather views on how "non-votes" during ccNSO voting periods and elections should be handled.

Next Steps

Based on the survey results, the Quorum Interpretation Committee will write and submit a report including recommendations on future steps, to be considered by the ccNSO Council.

Background

With a growing membership, the ccNSO has started to face challenges in reaching the necessary quorum when members are asked to cast votes.

A previous ccNSO working group tried to address this issue and came to the conclusion that there seem to be some cultural issues behind the interpretation of a "non-vote": in some areas, a non-vote might mean an "abstention", in others – "I do not subscribe to this policy".

To handle this issue, a suggestion was made to let members define themselves how a "non-vote" should be interpreted before every voting occasion. This would help the ccNSO avoid misunderstandings and reduce the necessity to run second rounds of voting and thus avoid the fatigue of those members who do vote.

The survey was launched in order to find out how the ccNSO members view this suggestion, so that the ccNSO Council knows how to move forward on this matter.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager


GNSO

10. Full Slate of Meetings Planned – Over 60 Sessions Scheduled

At a Glance

The GNSO community will hold over sixty sessions during ICANN 50, including its traditional two-day weekend working session on 21 June and 22 June and the public GNSO Council Meeting on Wednesday 25 June at 13:00.

Recent Developments and Next Steps

The ICANN 50 Meeting in London will be a very busy and productive period for the GNSO community, its Council, Stakeholder Groups, and Constituencies.

Highlights of the GNSO's London Schedule

The GNSO preparatory weekend session takes place on Saturday 21 June and Sunday 22 June. During these two day-long meetings the GNSO will meet with the ICANN President; the ICANN Board; the Governmental Advisory Committee; discuss the Transition of NTIA Stewardship of the IANA Function; and receive updates from the various PDP and non-PDP working Groups.

Monday's agenda plans four GNSO meetings including the joint ccNSO GNSO Council Meeting.

Tuesday remains the GNSO's traditional Constituency and Stakeholder Group Day with a total of thirteen meetings scheduled – including meetings of the four GNSO Stakeholder Groups with the ICANN Board.

On Wednesday the GNSO community will come together for seven sessions, including the GNSO Council Public Meeting, taking place from 13:00-15:00. The public meeting agenda and the tabled motions will be made available online, so please check these sites closer to the meeting.

Thursday, the last day of ICANN 50, starts with an unusually early GNSO Wrap-Up Session, where the GNSO Council meets in public to reflect on the week in London and plans its workload ahead of ICANN 51 in Los Angeles. The only other GNSO-supported session that day is the public meeting of the Data and Metrics for Policy Making Working Group.

Background: List of GNSO Meeting Links during ICANN 50 – London

Saturday: Working Session (09:00-18:00)

Sunday: Working Session (09:00-16:30)

Monday: Thick Whois Implementation Meeting (12:15-13:15) Cross-Community Working Group on Framework of CWG Operation Principles (13:30-15:00), IRTP Part D PDP Working Group (13:30-14:30), ccNSO/GNSO joint Council Meeting (17:00-18:30)

Tuesday: Non For-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (08:30-12:00), Non-Commercial Users Constituency (09:00-12:30) Commercial Stakeholder Group (09:45-11:15) Intellectual Property Constituency (13:15-16:30), Internet Service Provider and Connectivity Providers Constituency (14:00-16:30) Commercial and Business Users Constituency (13:15-16:30), Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (09.45-11:15), Registries' Stakeholder Group (09:00-17:30), Registrars Stakeholder Group (09:00-17:30), Board and Commercial Stakeholder Group (11:15-12:15), Board and Registries Stakeholder Group (13:00-14:00), Board and Registrars Stakeholder Group (14:15-15:15), Board and Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (15:30-16:30)

Wednesday: new gTLD Applicants Group (08:00-10:00), Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information PDP Working Group (09:00-10:00), 2012 new gTLD Application Round Session (10:00-12:00), Privacy and Proxy Services Accreditation Issues PDP WG (10:00-11:30) IRTP Part C Implementation Review Team (11:30-13:00), GNSO Council Public Meeting (13:00-15:00), Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group will host a Privacy Discussion (15:00-16:00), Policy and Implementation Working Group (15:30-17:30)

Thursday: GNSO Wrap-Up Session (08:00-10:00) Data and Metrics for Policy Making WG (08:00-09:00)

Staff Contact

Marika Konings, Senior Policy Director and GNSO Team Leader


11. PDP Launched on Access by International Organizations to Curative Rights Protections for Second Level Domain Name Disputes

At a Glance

The GNSO Council has approved the initiation of a new Policy Development Process (PDP). This PDP will explore whether the existing Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the new Uniform Rapid Suspension procedure (URS) should be modified to facilitate their use by protected International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) and if so, in what way; or whether a separate, narrowly tailored dispute resolution procedure applicable only to IGOs and INGOs should be developed.

Recent Developments

On 5 June 2014 the GNSO Council resolved to launch a new PDP to explore the issue of access by IGOs and INGOs to certain curative rights protection mechanisms centered on dispute resolution for second level domain names. The GNSO Council's vote follows the issuance of an Issue Report – an ICANN Bylaws-mandated step preceding a GNSO PDP – and public comments from the community.

Next Steps

The GNSO Council is considering a draft Charter for the Working Group (WG) that will be formed to conduct the PDP. A revised draft of the proposed Charter is expected to be available for the Council to vote on at the ICANN meeting in London. Should the Council approve the final Charter, a call for volunteers for the new WG will be issued shortly thereafter.

Background

In November 2013, the GNSO Council unanimously approved all the consensus recommendations of its PDP WG on the Protection of International Governmental Organizations in All gTLDs (IGO-INGO PDP WG). One of these recommendations had been that the Council request an Issue Report, as a preceding step to a possible PDP, on the issue of access to and use of curative rights protection mechanisms such as the UDRP and the URS by protected IGOs and INGOs. The Preliminary Issue Report was published for public comment on 10 March 2014. A report of public comments received was published on 16 May 2014, and a Final Issue Report incorporating relevant public comments was prepared and sent to the GNSO Council on 25 May 2014.

IGOs and INGOs currently have difficulties relying on the UDRP and URS to protect their identifiers at the second level. For IGOs, the procedural requirement to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of a court for purposes of an appeal is seen as potentially jeopardizing their status as being immune from national jurisdiction. For both IGOs and INGOs, the current mechanisms are premised on the ownership of a trademark or other such right – while some may own trademarks in their names and/or acronyms, this is not necessarily the case for all IGOs and INGOs.

This PDP will explore whether or not the UDRP and URS should be amended (and if so in what way) to allow for IGO and INGO access and use, or whether a separate narrowly tailored dispute resolution procedure specifically applicable only to protected IGOs and INGOs should be developed. Of note is the specific limitation of the PDP to only those IGO and INGO identifiers that had previously been listed by the earlier IGO-INGO PDP WG as eligible for protection, in its consensus recommendations adopted by the GNSO Council in November 2013.

More Information

Staff Contact

Mary Wong, Senior Policy Director


12. WHOIS Policy Work Study Phase Closes

At a Glance

All the Whois studies that had been commissioned by the GNSO Council on various aspects of the globally accessible gTLD registration data directory system (commonly known as the "Whois system") have now been completed.

Recent Developments

On 5 June 2014 the GNSO Council acted to formally close the study phase of its multi-year policy work on refining and improving the Whois system. It noted that the completed Whois studies may be relevant to ongoing and future ICANN policy work on Whois, and encouraged present and future community groups working on Whois policy to continue to consult and use the results of the Whois studies.

Next Steps

The GNSO Council will continue to monitor developments in Whois policy work both within GNSO and elsewhere in the ICANN community. Within the GNSO, the Working Group (WG) for the ongoing Policy Development Process (PDP) on Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues continues to rely on the results of the Whois studies, including the study on Privacy & Proxy Service Abuse, to inform its work. The WG has been tasked by the GNSO Council to develop policy recommendations that will assist ICANN in its creation of a formal accreditation program for privacy and proxy service providers.

Background

Between 2010-2011 the GNSO Council approved several studies on various aspects of the Whois system to obtain verifiable facts and data regarding the following: Whois Misuse, Privacy & Proxy Service Abuse, Whois Registrant Identification, and Privacy & Proxy Relay and Reveal Procedures.

Except for Relay and Reveal effort, for which a pre-study feasibility survey rather than a full study was performed in 2012, detailed studies were done for the others by NORC at the University of Chicago (Whois Registrant Identification, completed in 2013), Dr. Richard Clayton of the University of Cambridge and the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom (Privacy & Proxy Service Abuse, completed in 2014), and Cylab at Carnegie Mellon University (Whois Misuse, completed in 2014). Other Whois-related surveys and work done by the GNSO during this time included a survey on Whois Technical Requirements, completed in 2013.

The various Whois studies were based on hypotheses and study suggestions developed by the GNSO and ICANN community, including the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC).

With the completion of the final Whois study in early 2014, the GNSO Council took the opportunity to formally close this phase of its work on Whois policy. The Council took note of the fact that the studies and the various research teams had been useful to, among others, the Expert Working Group on gTLD Registration Data Directory Services, which had been convened by ICANN's President and CEO in December 2012. The Council recommends that current and future community groups working to further refine or replace the Whois system continue to consult and use the results of the GNSO's Whois studies, to inform their work.

More Information

Staff Contact

Mary Wong, Senior Policy Director


At-Large

13. 150 At-Large Structures Ready for Summit

At a Glance

Over 150 At-Large Structure representatives will convene in London during ICANN 50 to participate in the second At-Large Summit (ATLAS II) on the theme of "Global Internet: The User Perspective".

The full ATLAS II and ALAC schedule includes three plenaries, five parallel thematic sessions each meeting four times over Saturday and Sunday, five RALO General Assemblies, an ATLAS II "Fayre of Opportunities", three regular ALAC meetings, an At-Large Roundtable session, and an ALAC Leadership Team Meeting (see the ATLAS II and At-Large list of meetings at: At-Large London Meeting Agendas Workspace – June 2014).

The ATLAS II is an opportunity for ICANN's global end user community to meet, learn, discuss, mentor and influence policy.

More Information

Five parallel thematic group sessions will be will be held during the afternoons of Saturday, 21 June and Sunday, 22 June. These Thematic Groups will form the basis for the ATLAS II discussions.

The output of the thematic group sessions will form the core of the ATLAS II Declaration that will be presented to the ICANN Board during the Board Meeting on Thursday, 26 June.

The ALTAS II "Fayre of Opportunities", which will take place on Tuesday, 24 June, between 19:30-21:30, will have an informal format intended to encourage networking among the ATLAS II participants.

The two keynote speakers for the "Fayre" are Nnenna Nwakanma, Africa Regional Coordinator of the World Wide Web Foundation and Wolfgang Kleinwächter, ICANN Board Director.

Background: Purpose and Preparation

ATLAS II will build upon the successful activities of the At-Large community since the first At-Large Summit (ATLAS) was held during the ICANN Meeting in Mexico in March 2009 – an event of fundamental importance since it became the foundation for the involvement of many of the currently active At-Large Structures (ALSes) in ICANN.

The various purposes of the ATLAS II include:

  1. Strengthen the bottom up structure of the At-Large community by building capacity and awareness of At-Large policies and process by the 178 At-Large Structures (ALSes);
  2. Further develop the At-Large Community's capacity for engagement in ICANN by increasing community knowledge and understanding of the key issues confronting ICANN and ICANN's roles and responsibilities;
  3. Plan for the next stage of the ALAC/At-Large community's development;

The At-Large community has organized the ATLAS II in a bottom-up fashion.

There has been a general At Large Summit II Organizing Committee with nine ATLAS II Working Groups working on specific activities. The At-Large Summit II Organizing Committee; has been co-chaired by Eduardo Diaz and Olivier Crepin-Leblond.

There have been over 50 preparatory calls to plan and develop all aspects of the Summit.

In preparation for the ATLAS II, most of the ALSes filmed interviews describing their organizations and their activities (see: https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Outreach+Workspace).

There is also a Welcome Video for summit participants (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuQiiWzLVCE)

Follow ATLAS II Developments

ATLAS II Online

See the ATLAS II webpage and ATLAS II wiki page for all activities and outputs of the Summit.

ATLAS II on Social Media

Join the Summit conversations online!

Atlas II Twitter Facebook Logo

ATLAS II official hashtag is #ATLAS2

At-Large on Twitter
ICANN At-Large Community on Facebook

ATLAS II Newsletter

Keep up-to-date on the latest ATLAS II information with the At-Large Summit Newsletter!

1st Edition
2nd Edition
3rd Edition

Daily Newsletters will be published during the Summit.

You can subscribe to the daily newsletters by clicking here.

Staff Contact

Heidi Ullrich, Sr. Director for At-Large


14. RALO Assemblies Offer Unique Face-to-face Opportunities

At a Glance

Over 150 At-Large Structure representatives from all five Regional At Large Organizations (RALOs) will have the unique opportunity to meet face-to-face in General Assemblies during the ICANN 50. These RALO General Assemblies come at a crucial moment for the multistakeholder model as it grows and becomes more ubiquitous.

Recent Developments

NARALO and EURALO will hold General Assemblies on Tuesday June 24th and AFRALO, APRALO and LACRALO will hold their General Assemblies on Wednesday June 25th.

The meetings will address issues of importance for all RALOs. To name a just few, these are the review of the RALO's internal operating procedures, discussions on how to improve the participation of ALSes within the ALAC, discussions on project proposals for the FY2015, including those in the framework of the Community Regional Outreach Pilot Program.

All RALOS have also invited their respective ICANN regional vice presidents for stakeholder engagement to attend the meetings and discuss in detail the realities and challenges of their regions and how to improve the participation of civil society in ICANN's regional strategies. These meetings will allow the members of the diverse organizations of the RALOs to discuss their experiences and roles in the Internet governance ecosystem, the major challenges faced within their RALOs and the ALAC and their vision for the future of Internet governance and their expectations of ICANN in this regard.

It is expected that these meetings held in a face-to-face format, will help all ALSes to gain a better understanding of how Internet users can contribute to the Internet governance debate today, will strengthen the institutionalization of the RALOs, and will stimulate greater growth of the At-Large constituency worldwide.

More Information

Staff Contact

Silvia Vivanco, Manager, At-Large Regional Affairs


15. Two New ALAC Policy Advice Statements Submitted

At a Glance

Between mid-April and early-May, the ALAC ratified five statements and submitted two new Policy Advice Statements.

Recent Developments

The two new ALAC Policy Advice Statements submitted between mid-March and early-April are summarized below.

ALAC Statement on the Interim Report Internationalized Registration Data Expert Working Group

  • The ALAC welcomes the interim Report, supports the preliminary viewpoints and possible approaches identified in the Report, and believes it is a good initial starting point.
  • The ALAC is gravely concerned that no ICANN policy expert or appointed Advisors are present on either Integration Panel, as the eventual output will have policy impact.
  • The ALAC welcomes the IRD Working Groups assessment on the requirements for internationalized registration data (IRD) and its deliberation on how to produce a data model for the IRD that matches the requirements. The ALAC believes it is important that the IDN policy evolution should allow more accessibility to those who do not use the ASCII character set.
  • The ALAC acutely reaffirms that IDNs are crucial for enhancing diversity and multilingualism on the Internet.

Board Member Compensation

The five ALAC Policy Advice Statement ratified between mid-March and early-April are listed below.

Next Steps

The ALAC is developing three statements at the moment in response to public comments. These statements are the FY15 Operating Plan & Budget, Enhancing ICANN Accountability and the ICANN Draft Five-Year Strategic Plan (FY16 – FY20).

More Information

Staff Contact

Xinyue (Ariel) Liang, At-Large Policy Coordinator


16. Four New ALSes Join At-Large Community

At a Glance

The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) has certified four organizations as new At-Large Structures (ALSes): ISOC Venezuela, ISOC Yemen, ISOC Portugal, and Manitoba E-Association. These new ALSes expand the regional diversity of the At-Large community, which represents thousands of individual Internet end-users. With the addition of these new organizations, the number of accredited ALSes will now total 178.

Staff is currently waiting for Regional Advice from AFRALO Leadership for the applicant – Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON)

Due diligence is also being carried out for 3 other organizations.

Recent Developments

The ALAC has voted for the certification ISOC Venezuela, ISOC Yemen, ISOC Portugal, and Manitoba E-Association as new At-Large Structure (ALS). The certification process included due diligence carried out by ICANN staff and regional advice provided by the relevant Regional At-Large Organizations (in these cases, LACRALO, APRALO, EURALO, NARALO).

Additional information on the new At-Large Structures:

ISOC Venezuela is situated in Caracas, Venezuela. The mission of ISOC Venezuela resembles that of ISOC Global, which is to make the Internet accessible to all. The idea here is to make the voice of the Venezuelan civil society heard within ICANN. This organization will be an ALS within LACRALO.

ISOC Yemen is situated in Sanaa, Yemen. This organization aims to promote awareness among the public about the benefits of using the Internet and good practices that would minimize security and other risks to end users as well as promoting the efficient consumption of bandwidth. ISOC Yemen equally encourages websites to implement new services and promotes technical solutions to obstacles preventing effective use of the Internet such as slow speed and malware. This organization will be an ALS within APRALO.

ISOC Portugal is situated in Lisbon, Portugal. This ALS strives to promote the harmonious development in Portugal, of an open, non-discriminatory and secure Internet with respect for the principles of freedom of expression and privacy. This organization will be an ALS within EURALO.

Manitoba E-Association is based in Winnipeg, Canada. The organization's main objectives are to facilitate the adoption and utilization of innovative e-solutions by collaborating with organizations and/or communities to build e-capacity. This organization will be part of NARALO.

Background

One of the strengths of the At-Large community is that it incorporates the views of a set of globally diverse, Internet end-user organizations, or ALSes, organized within five RALOs. The views of these grassroots organizations are collected through an internal, bottom-up, consensus-driven process and find representation in the official documents of the ALAC.

More Information

Staff Contacts

Nathalie Peregrine, Secretariat Operations Coordinator, GNSO/At-Large


GAC

17. Two Public Information Sessions Planned – Open Forum & Lessons Learned

At a Glance

The GAC will hold two informational sessions for the community at ICANN 50, one on "lessons learned" regarding geographical names as top-level domains in view of future new gTLD rounds, another as a GAC Open Forum to inform the community about the working methods of the GAC and its members.

Recent Developments

In addition to most of the GAC sessions in London being open, including the High-Level Governmental Meeting on Monday 23 June, the GAC has decided to conduct dedicated sessions at ICANN 50 to inform the community about important GAC matters. This agenda is inspired by the ATRT2 Recommendations that propose, inter alia, to conduct "GAC 101" sessions for the community.

A first such session is planned for Wednesday 25 June to inform the community about GAC considerations and lessons learned regarding protection of geographic names in future new gTLD application rounds.

The GAC will also be holding a GAC Open Forum on Thursday 26 June to inform the community about the GAC and the GAC's working methods.

Next Steps

The GAC agenda is still in draft form, but these informational sessions are preliminarily scheduled to occur 09:00-10:00 on Wednesday (Lessons Learned) and 08:30-10:00 on Thursday (GAC Open Forum).

Background

ICANN receives input from governments through the GAC. The GAC's key role is to provide advice to ICANN on issues of public policy, especially where there may be interaction between ICANN's activities or policies and national laws or international agreements. The GAC usually meets three times a year at ICANN Public Meetings to discuss issues with the ICANN Board, Supporting Organizations, Advisory Committees, and other groups. The GAC may also discuss with the Board at other times, meeting face-to-face or by teleconference.

More Information

Staff Contact

Olof Nordling, Senior Director, GAC Relations

Julia Charvolen, Coordinator, GAC Services


18. High-Level Governmental Meeting to be Held

At a Glance

In addition to the traditional GAC meetings at ICANN 50, a High-Level Governmental Meeting is scheduled for the morning of Monday 23 June, following the ICANN 50 Welcome Ceremony. This meeting will be open to the public.

Recent Developments

The High-Level Governmental Meeting will be hosted by the United Kingdom and will be chaired by Minister Ed Vaizey with Heather Dryden, GAC Chair, as co-chair. Relevant ministers from across the world have been invited, including from countries outside the GAC's current membership. This is the second time that such a meeting is being held. The first was hosted by Canada in conjunction with ICANN 45, inspired by an ATRT recommendation suggesting this kind of meeting to take place every two years.

Next Steps

A wide attendance is expected, including multiple ministers. The agenda is not yet finalized but will include briefings by ICANN's leadership, discussions about the role of the GAC, and about current high-profile topics, such as the transition of NTIA's stewardship of the IANA functions.

Staff Contact

Olof Nordling, Senior Director, GAC Relations

Julia Charvolen, Coordinator, GAC Services


RSSAC

19. Restructure Effort Progresses

At a Glance

The RSSAC continues to make progress on its restructure effort. The RSSAC Executive Committee has been meeting twice monthly to coordinate its activities including the formation of the RSSAC Caucus. Moreover, the operational procedures document is undergoing another round of edits and is nearing completion.

Developments

At its 14 April 2014 teleconference, the Executive Committee—in coordination with the Membership Committee—approved a working definition, membership requirements, and application process for interested and qualified parties to join the Caucus. This information has been disseminated by the Membership Committee.

Next Steps

The RSSAC will host a public information session on 23 June 2014 from 13:30 to 15:00 at the ICANN Public Meeting in London. The public information session will provide the ICANN community with an update on the RSSAC restructure, ongoing work, and the formation of the Caucus. The RSSAC will also meet with the ICANN Board during ICANN 50.

More Information

  • More information about the RSSAC public information session at ICANN 50, including remote participation details
  • Further information about the RSSAC, the Caucus membership application process, and meeting minutes

Staff Contact

Carlos Reyes, Senior Policy Analyst


SSAC

20. Comments on JAS Phase One Report – Mitigating the Risk of DNS Collisions

At a Glance

On 11 June 2014 the Security and Stability Advisory Committee published "SAC066: SSAC Comment Concerning JAS Phase One Report on Mitigating the Risk of DNS Namespace Collisions [PDF, 306 KB]."

Recent Developments and Next Steps

On 11 June 2014 the SSAC published a comment on the JAS Phase One Report [PDF, 322 KB]: "Mitigating the risk of DNS Namespace Collisions: A Study on Namespace Collisions in the Global Internet DNS Namespace and a Framework for Risk Mitigation." The SSAC comment identifies eight issues, and makes recommendations in relation to each of them. The following recommendations fall into two categories: those related to operational considerations, and those related to strategic considerations.

Operational Recommendations:

  • ICANN should expand the range of situations that would trigger an emergency response, for example national security, emergency preparedness, critical infrastructure, key economic processes, commerce, and the preservation of law and order.
  • Instead of a single controlled interruption period, ICANN should introduce rolling interruption periods, broken by periods of normal operation, to allow affected end-user systems to continue to function during the 120-day test period with less risk of catastrophic business impact.
  • ICANN should perform an evaluation of potential notification approaches against at least the requirements provided by the SSAC prior to implementing any notification approach.
  • ICANN should implement a notification approach that accommodates Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)-only hosts as well as IP Version 4 (IPv4)-only or dual-stack hosts.
  • ICANN should provide clarity to registries on the rules and the method of allocation of blocked names after the conclusion of the test period.

Strategic Recommendations:

  • ICANN should consider not taking any actions solely based on the JAS Phase One Report. If action is to be taken before the entire report is published, communications to the community should be provided to indicate this clearly.
  • ICANN should in due course publish information about not yet disclosed issues.
  • ICANN should seek to provide stronger justification for extrapolating findings based on one kind of measurement or data gathering to other situations.

Next Steps

The SSAC will brief the community on its comment document during ICANN 50 – the ICANN Public Meeting in London.

Background

The term "name collision" refers to the situation where a name that is defined and used in one namespace may also appear in another. Users and applications intending to use a name in one namespace may actually use it in a different one, and unexpected behavior may result where the intended use of the name is not the same in both namespaces.

The circumstances that lead to a name collision could be accidental or malicious. In the context of top level domains (TLDs), the conflicting namespaces are the global Internet Domain Name System (DNS) namespace reflected in the root zone as published by the Root Zone Management Partners (currently the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and VeriSign) and any other namespace, regardless of whether that other namespace is intended for use with the DNS or any other protocol.

With respect to collisions with names provisioned under ICANN's new generic TLD (gTLD) program, on 26 February 2014 ICANN published a report entitled "Mitigating the Risk of DNS Namespace Collisions: A Study on Namespace Collisions in the Global Internet DNS Namespace and a Framework for Risk Mitigation, Phase One Report," prepared for ICANN by JAS Global Advisors. The JAS Phase One Report provides a set of recommendations that support an approach for identifying and managing the impact of current and future DNS namespace collisions, notifying operators of potential DNS namespace related issues and providing emergency response capabilities in the event that critical systems related to human health and safety are adversely impacted.

More Information

Staff Contact

Steve Sheng, Policy Director and Technical Analyst

policy-update-jun14-en.pdf  [602 KB]

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."