On behalf of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) New generic top-level domain (gTLD) Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group (WG), we are pleased to announce the publication of our draft Final Report and the start of the Public Comment period.
The draft final report is a culmination of the multi-year working group deliberations, including the consideration of community input through numerous Public Comment periods, as well as a review of statements from the 2012 round of new gTLDs and earlier working group reports. It presents draft final recommendations and implementation guidance on topics within the working group's charter. Because some of the recommendations have been substantively updated since the last Public Comment, the draft final report is being published for an additional Public Comment opportunity. These updates are a result of taking into consideration the comprehensive public comments we received, as well as a great deal of compromises that have been made by members of the working group to address concerns with the initial recommendations.
The Public Comment period will take place over 40 days, closing on 30 September 2020.
While the full report is open for comment, the working group asks that community input focus on areas that have changed since publication of the Initial Report and Supplemental Initial Report, as well as specific questions the working group has posed to the community for feedback. To help the community prepare their Public Comment responses, outputs included for each topic of the report are intended to be considered as a package. For each topic, respondents will be presented with a summary of any substantive differences that have been made since the two previous reports, will be asked to what extent they support the outputs, and will be given an opportunity to provide additional explanation. In addition, a limited number of questions are included on specific topics where the working group is seeking additional input from the community. The structure of this Public Comment forum has been designed to support the targeted nature of the Public Comment period.
We recognize that many of the recommendations and the implementation guidance may not be completely in line with comments you may have previously made, but please rest assured that all comments from previous comment periods have been thoroughly discussed and addressed in this draft final report. The output in this draft final report represents hundreds of hours of discussions and compromises aimed at finding solutions that we can all live with. We kindly ask that you keep that in mind when responding to the survey.
We are also providing an annex to the draft final report to serve as a resource for readers and to help them better understand which topics within the report have evolved significantly from the initial report to the draft final report. We encourage readers to review the full set of recommendations for the relevant topic as a package, to better understand the full context of the recommendations and changes made.
Lastly, please note that we are using a Google Form to collect input, which we believe makes sense given the targeted nature of this comment proceeding. We suggest that you or your group work offline with the provided PDF or Word document, in advance of actually submitting your contributions in the Google Form. This link will take you to a tutorial about the Public Comment Input Form. If you run into any challenges, do not hesitate to reach out to us or the ICANN Policy staff. We look forward to hearing from you!
What happens next?
Upon review of public comments received on this draft final report, the working group will finalize the recommendations in addition to other outputs. The co-chairs will conduct a formal consensus call on all recommendations and outputs before the working group issues its final report to the GNSO Council, which may adopt the final report for the ICANN Board's consideration. If adopted by the Board, the recommendations will proceed to implementation by ICANN org.
Acknowledgments
The co-chairs offer their sincere gratitude to the working group's members and ICANN Policy staff for their ongoing dedication, which enabled us to deliver this draft final report. We look forward to reviewing the Public Comments and finalizing the recommendations and other outputs as we work toward issuing the final report.