The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council and the GNSO community welcome your participation in the ICANN85 Community Forum in Mumbai, India. As with all ICANN Public Meetings, at ICANN85, the GNSO will seek to leverage the contributions of both in-person and remote participants to advance important policy development efforts and the work of the GNSO Council. As ICANN85 approaches, we would like to highlight a few GNSO initiatives that will be on the agenda for the meeting, as well as recent and ongoing work that may interest you.
During ICANN85, the GNSO plans to progress key policy development initiatives and other GNSO projects. The Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group on Domain Name System (DNS) Abuse will commence its work in Mumbai. There will be four (4) DNS Abuse working sessions that will include the kickoff of PDP 1 on Associated Domains Checks, focusing on establishing the Working Group's foundations, confirming its work plan and timeline, introducing charter questions, and hearing input from technical and subject matter experts to inform the group's deliberations.
DNS Abuse PDP 1 working sessions 1 and 2 will take place on Saturday, 7 March 2026. Sessions 3 and 4 will take place on Monday, 9 March 2026. Mitigating DNS Abuse remains a priority issue within the ICANN community due to its ongoing impact on the security, stability, and resilience of the DNS. Please consider following these proceedings as an observer as the community makes progress on this important topic.
The PDP Working Group on Latin Script Diacritics, seeks to establish an appropriate mechanism that allows a single registry operator to simultaneously operate an American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) and its diacritic version of a generic top-level domain (gTLD). The Latin Diacritics Working Group published its Initial Report for Public Comment in January and will hold two meetings during ICANN85, to discuss Public Comments received in preparation for publishing its Final Report.
The ICANN community has made clear that there is a strong desire for efficient and effective PDPs. The GNSO Council has been working diligently toward achieving this goal by making them narrow in scope and getting early input from the community on points of consensus and divergence. The Council utilizes a project list as the primary tool to manage the progress of its work and encourages community members to review the list regularly for updates.
The GNSO Council and ICANN Board have been discussing the next steps for the policy recommendations on a Standardized System for Access and Disclosure. The GNSO Council will be meeting at ICANN85 to discuss next steps following these discussions.
During ICANN85, the GNSO Council will hold the following meetings: on Sunday, 8 March 2026, the Council will hold three public working sessions and a bilateral meeting with the Governmental Advisory Committee; the second of the working sessions will be devoted to discussing the draft proposals from the Review of Reviews cross community group. On Wednesday, 11 March 2026, the Council will meet with the ICANN Board and hold its public meeting and on Thursday, 12 March 2026, the Council will hold its wrap-up session.
ICANN85 will be a full meeting with ample opportunities to participate and learn about GNSO policy development. Whether you are attending in person in Mumbai, or via Zoom, I look forward to seeing you and wish you all a productive meeting.
Susan Payne, GNSO Council Chair