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ICANN Policy Update | Volume 15, Issue 2 - February / March 2015

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

POLICY UPDATE

Volume 15, Issue 2 – February / March 2015

Community Work at the Core of ICANN

This is a busy time for everyone at ICANN. The second Middle East DNS Forum was just held in Amman, we marked the 30th anniversary of second-level domain names, and the FY16 Draft Operating Plan and Budget was just released for public comment. To keep all stakeholders up to date, we will be hosting our next quarterly report on 23 April 2015 at 15:00 UTC. For more details including how to sign-up, please visit the announcement page.

We are also now a year into the critical work of the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability processes. I encourage you to read my colleague Theresa Swinehart's recent blog post summarizing the activities of the past year and reflecting on the progress made. Moreover, the CCWG-Accountability and CWG-Stewardship will continue their work with meetings in Istanbul next week.

With a successful ICANN 52 now behind us, the ICANN community continues to advance the multistakeholder model. Working groups within and across our supporting organization and advisory committees continue their important tasks while balancing other commitments across the organization, as you will read in this issue of Policy Update. The next three months leading up to ICANN 53 will undoubtedly continue this trend.

We are very grateful for the time and effort of our volunteer community. Your commitment is at the core of ICANN's success.

Thank you,

David Olive's Signature

David Olive

Vice President, Policy Development Support
General Manager, Istanbul Hub Office

Across ICANN

Issues Currently Open for Public Comment

Multistakeholder Ethos Award 2015 Planned for ICANN 53 Buenos Aires

Address Supporting Organization (ASO)

APNIC Policy Special Interest Group at APRICOT 2015

Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO)

ccTLDs Invited to Join New Incident Response Email List

The ccNSO Welcomes three new members

ccNSO Council Reconfirms ccNSO Chair and Vice Chairs

Singapore ccNSO Meeting Survey Results

Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO)

Board adopts 18 Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part D Policy Development Process Recommendations

GNSO @ ICANN52 – a spot light on GNSO Working Group and Community Activities

At-Large / At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)

ALAC/At-Large Achievements at the 52nd ICANN Meeting in Singapore

ALAC Policy Development Activities from late-January to early-March

Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)

The GAC Concludes its Singapore ICANN52 Meeting

Pragmatic GAC New gTLD Advice at ICANN52

Action on GAC Advice for Two-Letter Second-Level Domains

Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC)

RSSAC Achievements at ICANN 52

RSSAC Caucus Update

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

Issues Currently Open for Public Comment

Several public comment proceedings are currently open on issues of interest to the ICANN community. Act now to share your views on the following topics:

Release of Country and Territory Names within the .EMERCK, .HAMBURG and .BERLIN TLDs
This public comment proceeding aims at gathering community input on proposed amendments to the .EMERCK, .HAMBURG and .BERLIN Registry Agreements to allow the registration of country and territory names currently reserved under Section 4 of Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement.
Comment Period Closes: 14 April 2015, 23:59 UTC

Reference Label Generation Rulesets (LGRs) for the Second Level
This public comment proceeding requests community review on the effectiveness of the suggested process for the development of reference IDN tables in machine readable format, called Label Generation Rulesets (LGRs) for the second level, for use in PDT and the Registry Service Evaluation Process (RSEP).
Comment Period Closes: 19 April 2015, 23:59 UTC

Internationalized Registration Data Expert Working Group Draft Final Report
This public comment proceeding invites comments on the draft Final Report from the WHOIS Review Team Internationalized Registration Data Expert Working Group (IRD Working Group) recommending requirements for internationalized registration data. The Report proposes internationalization requirements for twelve categories of data elements currently outputted by the various gTLD registration data directory services.
Comment Period Closes: 21 April 2015, 23:59 UTC

Draft Report: Rights Protection Mechanisms Review
This public comment proceeding asks for community input on a draft report to provide an initial assessment of the effectiveness of the rights protection safeguards put in place to mitigate potential issues in the New gTLD Program.
Comment Period Closes: 1 May 2015, 23:59 UTC

ICANN Draft FY16 Operating Plan and Budget
This public comment proceeding seeks general feedback on the Draft FY16 Operating Plan and Budget, which implements the first year of ICANN's Draft Five-Year Operating Plan, in support of the Five-Year Strategic Plan (approved by the Board in October 2014).
Comment Period Closes: 1 May 2015, 23:59 UTC

At any time, the full list of issues open for public comment, plus recently closed and archived public comment proceedings can be found on the Public Comment web page.

The staff also populates a webpage 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.

Multistakeholder Ethos Award 2015 Planned for ICANN 53 Buenos Aires

At a Glance

The nomination period for the 2015 Multistakeholder Ethos Award was extended to close on 20 March 2015. The Community Selection Panel will convene to deliberate on nominations received and to select a recipient to be awarded at ICANN 53 in Buenos Aires.

Recent Developments

In December 2015, ICANN launched the nomination period for the Multistakeholder Ethos Award. This award program seeks to recognize community members who have served in leadership roles in multiple ICANN working groups or committees and demonstrated collaboration with different supporting organizations and/or advisory committees.

The nomination period for the award was extended and was scheduled to close on 20 March 2015.

Next Steps

A panel of community members representing ICANN's different Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees will convene to review nominations and determine the recipient(s) of the award. The selected award recipient(s) will be presented at ICANN 53 in Buenos Aires.

Community members are critical to ICANN's success, and ICANN is committed to recognizing them for their efforts through the Multistakeholder Ethos Award.

Background

ICANN's distinctive multistakeholder model brings together community members with different backgrounds and interests to work towards a joint goal: to ensure the security and stability of the Internet's unique identifier systems. Due to the presence of so many different opinions and interests within ICANN's policy-making structure, courtesy and collaboration are key.

The Multistakeholder Ethos Award recognizes those ICANN participants who have deeply invested in consensus-based solutions and in the importance of ICANN's multistakeholder model to Internet governance.

The Community Selection Panel will evaluate the nominees for this award with four primary criteria in mind:

  1. Demonstrated multistakeholder volunteer service via working groups or committees
  2. Demonstrated spirit of collaboration through engagement with other community members with the aim of consensus building
  3. Demonstrated facilitator of dialogue and open discussion in a fair, cordial and collegial manner
  4. Demonstrated additional devotional factors exhibited by time spent supporting ICANN's multistakeholder model and its overall effectiveness

More Information

Staff Contact

Robert Hoggarth, Senior Director, Policy and Community Engagement
Benedetta Rossi, Community Engagement Support Coordinator

Address Supporting Organization (ASO)

APNIC Policy Special Interest Group at APRICOT 2015

Most of the Internet numbering constituency consists of network service providers, ranging from the largest of telecommunications companies to small ISPs focusing on a tight business or geographic niche. It is a technical community and usually bases its decisions on technical best practices.

Increasingly though, the profile of Internet number resource stakeholders is changing as other communities are more directly affected by IPv4 exhaustion and the deployment of IPv6.

APNIC is seeing significant growth in the number of end-user organizations holding resources themselves instead of using addresses from their provider. This may represent a new challenge for the policy process.

Staying ahead of this trend by creating policies that meet the technical goals of address management, while accommodating for the needs of these new constituents, requires technical expertise and appreciation of how multistakeholder policy processes work.

At APRICOT 2015 (APNIC 39), held in Fukuoka, Japan, from 2-6 March, four policy proposals were under discussion—details of those proposals, and outcomes from the policy meeting are available on the APNIC website. 

More Information

Staff Contact

Carlos Reyes, Senior Policy Analyst

Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO)

ccTLDs Invited to Join New Incident Response Email List

At a Glance

ccTLDs have started to receive invitations to the Incident Response Email list (TLD-OPS).

Recent Developments

Over the past several weeks, invitations to join a newly established email list (TLD-OPS) have been sent to ccTLDs around the world. The email list's primary goal is to provide a contact repository for ccTLDs in cases of security incidents.

Next Steps

ccTLDs who have not yet received an invitation to join the TLD-OPS list should expect to receive one shortly. The invitation is sent to the ccTLD's administrative contact, as listed in the IANA database.

Replies to the invitation should (preferably) be sent from the administrative contact email address. However, in cases where this is not technically possible, the administrative contact email address must be copied into all correspondence.

In order to handle the administrative burden, invitations are sent in batches. Interested ccTLDs who have not yet received an invitation and would like to subscribe can ask to be signed up.

Background

The TLD-OPS list is an initiative of the ccNSO and was set up by the ccNSO working group Secure Email Communication for ccTLD Incident Response (SECIR). The purpose of the TLD-OPS list is to enable ccTLD operators to easily and quickly contact each other, thus allowing them to better handle incidents that require a coordinated response of ccTLDs at the global level. Example of these incidents may include targeted attacks on or malfunctions of registration systems, the DNS, or the Internet at large.

The TLD-OPS list is only accessible to people who are responsible for the overall security and stability of a ccTLD, and in particular, for the authoritative name servers and registration system of the registry. List members need to go through a lightweight admission procedure in which their IANA administrative contact authenticates them as being responsible for their registry's security and stability.

The TLD-OPS list's primary purpose is to act as a contact repository. As it is unencrypted, members should exchange actual incident information through a different channel (such as telephone or instant messaging).

The TLD-OPS list is open to all ccTLDs, and non-ccNSO members are also encouraged to sign up. The list and is being maintained by the ccNSO Secretariat and runs at DNS-OARC.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager

The ccNSO Welcomes Three New Members

At a Glance

Three new members joined the ccNSO during February: .vg, .gd, .sc.

Recent Developments

The ccNSO welcomes .vg (British Virgin Islands), .gd (Grenada) and .sc (Seychelles) to its membership. The ccNSO now counts 155 members.

Next Steps

The ccNSO is looking forward to welcoming further ccTLDs to its membership.

Background

Starting with 35 members in 2003, the ccNSO membership has experienced extensive growth, now totaling 155 members.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager

ccNSO Council Reconfirms ccNSO Chair and Vice Chairs

At a Glance

The ccNSO Chair and vice Chairs were reconfirmed in their positions by the ccNSO Council during the ICANN 52 meeting in Singapore.

Recent Developments

At the ccNSO Annual General Meeting (AGM), held during the ccNSO Council Meeting in Singapore on 11 February, the ccNSO Council reconfirmed the sitting ccNSO Chair Byron Holland (.ca) and two vice Chairs Keith Davidson (.nz) and Katrina Sataki (.lv) for another term.

Pictured left to right: Keith Davidson, Byron Holland, Katrina Sataki

Pictured left to right: Keith Davidson, Byron Holland, Katrina Sataki

Next Steps

The Chair and vice Chairs will serve the ccNSO for another one-year term.

Background

The ccNSO always holds its AGM during the first ICANN meeting of the year.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager

ICANN 52 ccNSO Meeting Survey Results

At a Glance

The results of the ccNSO Meeting Evaluation during ICANN 52 in Singapore are now available.

Recent Developments

As usual, the ccTLDs attending the ccNSO meeting were asked to evaluate the ccNSO Meeting Days in Singapore at ICANN 52. The results are now available for public review.

Next Steps

The ccNSO Meetings Programme Working Group will carefully review the input provided. The Working Group will analyze the survey results during its upcoming conference calls after the next agenda is set. A reply to the input received will also be produced in time for the next ICANN Public Meeting.

Background

The input received in ccNSO meeting surveys not only serves as a tool for improvements, but is also an important source of inspiration for the development of future ccNSO meeting agendas.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, Policy Specialist & ccNSO Support Manager

Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO)

Board Adopts 18 Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part D Policy Development Process Recommendations

At a Glance

The ICANN Board has adopted all 18 recommendations submitted by the GNSO Council, following the successful conclusion of the IRTP Part D Policy Development Process (PDP). An implementation review team (IRT) will be formed shortly to work with staff on the implementation of these recommendations to ensure that the implementation meets the intent of each of the policy recommendations.

Public Comment and GAC outreach before Board Consideration

The IRTP Part D PDP Working Group submitted its Final Report [PDF, 1.1 MB] to the GNSO Council on 25 September 2014 and, following the Council's unanimous adoption of the recommendations on 15 October 2014, the recommendations were then submitted to the ICANN Board for its consideration.

Prior to the Board consideration of the recommendations, a public comment period was held and the Board informed the GAC about the potential adoption of the recommendations, encouraging GAC feedback in case the recommendations raise public policy considerations.

The ICANN Board duly adopted all recommendations during its public session at ICANN 52 in Singapore.

Volunteers needed soon

In due course, staff will send out a call for volunteers, targeted at first at former WG members, to join the Implementation Review Team – and an announcement will be posted on the GNSO website and here in the ICANN Policy Update.

More Information

Summary of Recommendations

The IRTP Part D PDP produced 18 recommendations, including:

  1. Reporting requirements to be incorporated into the Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP).
  2. A domain name to be returned to the original Registrar of Record if it is found through a TDRP procedure that a non-IRTP compliant domain name transfer has occurred.
  3. The statute of limitation to launch a TDRP to be extended from the current 6 months to 12 months from the initial transfer.
  4. If a request for enforcement is initiated under the TDRP, the relevant domain is to be 'locked' against further transfers.
  5. No dispute options for registrants to be developed and implemented as part of the current TDRP, but the implementation of the IRTP Part C policy recommendations concerning a change of registrant should be closely monitored to determine whether dispute resolution mechanisms are necessary to cover the Use Cases in Annex C of the Final Report.
  6. The TDRP to be modified to eliminate the First Level (Registry) layer of the TDRP.
  7. The Form of Authorization (FOA) should not be abandoned.
  8. Following the implementation of all IRTP recommendation, a future review of the IRTP and the TDRP should be initiated, based on relevant data points that the Registries and Registrars should starting collect as soon as possible.

For full details on all 18 recommendations, please review the Final Report [PDF, 1.1 MB].

Staff Contact

Lars Hoffmann, Policy Specialist

GNSO @ ICANN52 – a Spotlight on GNSO Working Group and Community Activities

At a Glance

At each ICANN Meeting, in addition to high visibility events such as the GNSO Council Public Meeting, the GNSO holds dozens of Working Group, Stakeholder Groups and Constituency meetings. It is during these less prominent meetings that most of the GNSO's work gets accomplished – through ICANN's bottom-up, multistakeholder process.

GNSO's ICANN 52 Achievements

The GNSO held over 50 meetings in Singapore at ICANN 52, most of which were stakeholder group (SG), constituency (C), and working group (WG) meetings.

The Policy and Implementation WG presented its Initial Recommendations Report to the ICANN community to encourage feedback and comments to its preliminary recommendations. The WG was formed because of an increased focus on issues that require policy and implementation work, including which processes should be used at what time. The WG suggests in its report to create three new standardized processes for GNSO deliberations: a GNSO Input Process, a GNSO Guidance Process and a GNSO Expedited Policy Development Process. For more details, consult the Initial Report [PDF, 1.46 MB].

Another important meeting was that of the Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Policy Development Process (PDP) WG that deals with an important issue left over from the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement. WG members have been working on their Initial Report since December 2013 and the progress made in Singapore will hopefully lead to its publication in the coming weeks. You can monitor the Group's progress here.

Traditionally at ICANN Meetings, Tuesday marks the GNSO Constituency and Stakeholder Group Day. All day, SG's and C's meet publically, and sessions are open to newcomers with interventions from the floor encouraged. Make sure to join some SG/Cs meeting during ICANN 53 and find out how these group work and what their priorities are.

Finally, the GNSO Council met for its preparatory Weekend Session, Public Meeting and concluding Wrap-Up Session. Discussions focused, among others, on the IANA Stewardship Transition, ICANN Accountability, the ongoing GNSO Review, and the forthcoming PDP Working Group on the Registration Data Services (formally Whois).

Feedback on GNSO meeting program

Those that participated in the GNSO meetings during ICANN 52 are encouraged to provide their feedback on the program so that the input can be taken on board as the GNSO community plans its meetings for ICANN 53. To participate in the survey, please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/35M9C75.

Working Groups remain open to all

The GNSO's work agenda will remain busy in the run-up to ICANN 53. There are currently a number of active PDP and non-PDP working groups and all are open to new members. New PDPs are likely to be initiated during the coming months. If you like more information or want to join any of the GNSO's efforts, contact gnso-secs@icann.org and help develop gTLD policy through the bottom-up multi-stakeholder process.

More Information

Staff Contact

Lars Hoffmann, Policy Specialist

At-Large / At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)

ALAC/At-Large Achievements at the 52nd ICANN Meeting in Singapore

Recent Developments

ALAC/At-Large

  • The ALAC held 22 formal meetings, which resulted in many Action Items.

  • At-Large members were active in all meetings on the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability and Transparency. These two topics were also the hot topics of the ALAC during ICANN 52.

  • Actions that took place during the Sunday ALAC and Regional Leaders Session include briefings by Fadi Chehadé and the ICANN GSE and Government Engagement teams, an introduction to the upcoming At-Large review, a discussion of the FY16 budget process and sessions on the ALAC's hot topics of the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability and Transparency.

  • ALAC representatives participated in an informal meeting on the PICs with other members of the impacted community and senior ICANN executives. This meeting provided a means to discuss the issue in an open and constructive manner. 

  • Olivier Crépin-Leblond provided an update on the status of the ATLAS II recommendations to the members of At-Large. The ATLAS II Implementation Taskforce will continue work on the implementation of the recommendations. A status report will be prepared for the Board.

RALOs

  • AFRALO, APRALO and NARALO held their face-to-face meetings during the ICANN 52 meeting in Singapore. RALOs leaders also held a Regional Secretariats meeting, a RALO Chairs Meeting and ALAC Leadership working session.

  • The ALAC and RALO Chairs also participated in the Community Roundtable hosted by ICANN's President and CEO, Fadi Chehadé and ICANN's senior staff. As a result of this meeting, all RALO Chairs were invited to join the monthly community roundtable teleconference "What's Up" Call with the AC/SO/SGs hosted by the CEO.

AFRALO

  • AFRALO held its AFRALO-afrICANN meeting on Wednesday, 11 February in Singapore. This meeting featured debate on an issue of special interest for the African community on accountability related to the IANA Stewardship Transition. The meeting participants discussed the theme chosen in consultation with the members of the African ICANN community, "ICANN accountability in light of the NTIA intention to withdraw its stewardship on the IANA functions". This Statement was read at the Public Forum and will be sent to the ICANN Board.

APRALO

  • APRALO held its monthly face-to-face meeting on Tuesday, 10 February 2015. APRALO discussed, among other issues, the following:

    • APAC Hub-APRALO Framework being implemented in collaboration and full synergy between APRALO-APAC Hub and ICANN staff supporting both groups.

    • The Focus Area 1: Language Localization as supported by community yielded the following concrete results: ISOC-Delhi and Bangla by ISOC-Bangladesh translated Outreach materials into Hindi.

    • The Focus Area 2: Leveraging APAC for Capacity & Capability Building will start shortly with a series of capacity building webinars, available for Asia Pacific ALSes. The topics have been selected with input by the ALSes. APAC Hub and At-Large staff are working with APRALO to organize the webinars.

    • Yu-Chuang Kuek, Kelvin Wong, At-Large staff and APRALO ALSes discussed the ways and means to improve participation within ICANN.

  • APRALO will send a survey to its members to identify the professional expertise available in APRALO ALSes. This will be done to start implementation of ATLAS II recommendation 28, which requires, "The ALAC should work with all RALOs and ALSes to map the current expertise and interests in their membership, to identify Subject Matter Experts and facilitate policy communication". This information will help APRALO identify the areas members are more interested in and better coordinate our participation in different ICANN related activities and working groups.

  • On February 11th, APRALO signed a cooperation agreement with Dot Asia. Both parties agreed to work jointly in capacity building activities, sharing of information, outreach, strategic engagement and partnership. It must be noted that the parties agreed to a mutual Appointment of Liaisons as follows:

    "The Parties shall each appoint Liaisons for the purposes of communicating with each other. This MOU also confirms APRALO as a Co-Sponsor member of DotAsia, and have the option to appoint a liaison to serve on the Advisory Council of DotAsia, as well as to participate in the governance of DotAsia, including in member voting and elections."

    See APRALO-Dot Asia Agreement [DOCX, 236 KB] for the full text of the Agreement. Note APRALO signed similar MOUs with APTLD and APNIC in 2014. It should also be noted that Dot Asia contributed financially with the 2015 and 2014 APRALO Showcases.

  • ISOC Malaysia, APRALO ALS, obtained the Ad-Honorem participation of high school students from the Malaysian School of Sekolah Menengah Sains Kubang Pasu as the main cultural event of the APRALO Showcase on Wednesday, 11 February. The students were introduced personally to Fadi Chehadé and learned about ICANN, Internet Governance and the Internet eco-system.

NARALO

  • NARALO held its monthly face-to-face meeting on Thursday 12 February 2015. NARALO discussed, among other issues, NARALO FY16 Special Budget submissions.

  • NARALO signed an MOU [DOCX, 51 KB] with the North American Regional Registry ARIN. The signing ceremony took place on February 8th and was signed by ARIN's President and CEO, John Curran, and NARALO Interim Chair, Evan Leibovitch. The Agreement has the main purpose to

    "To promote infrastructure development and business in the region and industry. The Parties agree to cooperate to promote Internet standards, infrastructure development and services in order to encourage Internet development in the North American region".

    See MOU Signing ceremony and Pictures here.

More Information

Staff Contact

At-Large Staff

ALAC Policy Development Activities from late-January to Early-March

At a Glance

During this period, the ALAC submitted one Statement in response to ICANN Public Comment requests. Currently, three draft ALAC Statements are receiving input from across the At-Large Community.

Recent Developments

  1. ALAC Statement on the Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information PDP Initial Report [PDF, 512 KB]

    • As proposed in the Preliminary Recommendation #1, transformation of contact information does not have to be mandatory. However, there should be a provision for it to be maintained in two forms: a mandatory 'canonical' form in the original language, and an optional 'transformed' form after transliteration/translation. The latter should be a close approximation to the original that can be parsed, understood and used by other communities.

    • All ICANN databases, forms and documents should provide for capturing, displaying, storing and maintaining both the forms.

    • Registrars should provide Registrants with the option of entering both forms while creating new entries or editing existing entries.

    • In the intermediate term, transformation & validation of contact information should be taken up through collaborative efforts of Registrars and the larger ICANN community. In order to minimize costs, such transformation should be done using a combination of automated tools, crowd-sourced community efforts where possible, and encouraging Registrants to enhance their own credibility by providing information in English as well.

Next Steps

More Information

Staff Contact

Xinyue (Ariel) Liang, At-Large Policy Coordinator

Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)

The GAC Concludes its Singapore ICANN52 Meeting

At a Glance

ICANN 52 was a positive and productive meeting for the GAC. In addition to new gTLD issues (see Pragmatic GAC New gTLD Advice at ICANN52), the GAC focused on strategic issues for ICANN as a whole, notably the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability efforts. Human rights issues in the ICANN context, Internet security and wider Internet governance also generated significant interest and discussion by the GAC in Singapore.

Recent Developments

Like for most of the ICANN community, the IANA Stewardship Transition and the Enhancing ICANN Accountability process discussions were high on the GAC's agenda at ICANN 52 in Singapore. This is reflected in the GAC's ICANN 52 Singapore Communiqué [PDF, 264 KB].

The GAC will prioritize inter-sessional work for the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability working groups since the final IANA Stewardship Transition proposal will likely require inter-sessional approval by chartering organizations, including the GAC. 

On the topic of human rights, the GAC is monitoring community developments as well as creating a GAC Working Group on Human Rights. The GAC is also paying attention to the cross-community working group on Internet governance and will consider this working group's Charter to determine whether the GAC should participate through individual GAC members or possibly as a chartering organization.

Next Steps

In follow-up to the Singapore meeting, the GAC is gearing up to consider, provided the working groups are able to deliver on their ambitious timelines, an inter-sessional IANA Stewardship Transition proposal and accompanying Enhancing ICANN Accountability measures from Work Stream 1 between now and ICANN 53 in Buenos Aires.

More Information

Staff Contact

Olof Nordling, Senior Director, GAC Relations
Julia Charvolen, Coordinator, GAC Services
Karine Perset, GAC Relations Advisor

Pragmatic GAC New gTLD Advice at ICANN52

At a Glance

The GAC is taking a pragmatic approach to progress some of the issues regarded as still outstanding in the new gTLD program. For example, on verification and validation of credentials in highly regulated sectors, the GAC now suggests a "best practice" approach; on the PICDRP, a possible "fast-track" mechanism; and on country names, a public "opt-in" database for GAC members to release such names at the second level.

Recent Developments

Out of four dozen new gTLD strings identified by the GAC as associated with highly regulated sectors, 28 registry operators have already signed contracts with ICANN and are in business. At ICANN 52 in Singapore, the GAC advised the Board to recognize publicly, as best practice, the voluntary commitments made by some of these "Category 1" registries to verify and validate registrants' credentials. The GAC further advised that ICANN suggest to all "Category 1" registries that they consider such voluntary commitments. Other notable new gTLD GAC advice concerns the Public Interest Commitments Dispute Resolution Procedure (PICDRP), where the GAC advised the Board to consider creating a "fast track" process for regulators and law enforcement agencies to pursue cases presenting serious risks of harm to the public. Regarding release of country names at the second level, the GAC advised that ICANN work with the GAC to create a public database for GAC members to opt in for release of such names as second level domain names.

Next Steps

The GAC remains engaged with the ICANN Board's New gTLD Program Committee on all of its outstanding advice and, where relevant, is assisting or ready to assist ICANN with implementation.

More Information

Staff Contact

Olof Nordling, Senior Director, GAC Relations
Karine Perset, GAC Relations Advisor
Julia Charvolen, Coordinator, GAC Services

Action on GAC Advice for Two-Letter Second-Level Domains

At a Glance

ICANN has notified GAC members and reached out to ccTLD administrators about over 350 new gTLD strings for which registry operators requested to release two-letter codes as second level domain names. Relevant governments have been invited to file any objections to most of these active requests by 25 March 2015.

Recent Developments

At ICANN 52 in Singapore, the Board swiftly took action to accept GAC advice [PDF, 113 KB] on modifying the authorization process for release of two-letter codes at the second level in new gTLDs. ICANN is now implementing the advice by alerting GAC members of requests directly and has extended the comment periods until 25 March 2015 or later. Over 350 requests for release of two-letter SLDs - new, extended or reopened - are open for comments, whereof more than 50 requests are for brand TLDs. Several strings correspond to highly regulated sectors (so called "Category 1" strings), notably .casino, .bingo, .abogado, .dentist, .lawyer, .attorney, .university, .surgery, .sarl, and .creditcard.  Most of the objections received to date relate to country codes being used under some of these Category 1 strings.

Next Steps

GAC members are asked to send any objection to the use of the relevant two-letter country code(s) under most strings by 25 March 2015 and, for the newer requests, within 60 days of the posting date. Those not wishing to be notified of new applications involving their country code(s) are asked to signal this on the GAC list for information to relevant ICANN staff.

More Information

Staff Contact

Olof Nordling, Senior Director, GAC Relations
Karine Perset, GAC Relations Advisor
Julia Charvolen, Coordinator, GAC Services

Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC)

RSSAC Achievements at ICANN 52

The RSSAC actively participated at ICANN 52 in Singapore, holding two work sessions, a public session, and various meetings with community groups and senior staff. The work sessions enabled the RSSAC to make significant progress on key issues relating to administration, planning, and Caucus development. 

During its public session, the RSSAC briefed the community on the two recently completed advisories (RSSAC001: Recommendation on Service Expectation of Root Servers, and RSSAC002: Advisory on Measurements of Root Server System), as well as its ongoing participation in the IANA Stewardship Transition Process through its two appointed members on the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG).

The RSSAC also approved a joint statement on its liaison with the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), with both groups reaffirming their commitment to the relationship.

More Information

Staff Contact

Carlos Reyes, Senior Policy Analyst

RSSAC Caucus Update

The RSSAC dedicated significant time during its two work sessions at ICANN 52 to discussions about how to best facilitate the work of the Caucus. The RSSAC approved two new members of the Caucus, bringing the total number of DNS and root server system experts in the group to 55. The RSSAC is currently planning a formal launch meeting for the Caucus at IETF 92 in Dallas, TX on 22 March 2015.

New TTL Work Party Begins Work

The RSSAC appointed Duane Wessels as the leader for the new TTL Work Party. The work party will be meeting every other week leading up to its 1 June 2015 draft submission deadline.

More Information

Staff Contact

Carlos Reyes, Senior Policy Analyst

policy-update-feb15-mar15-en.pdf  [707 KB]

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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."