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Board's Review Procedures for Global Internet Number Resource Policies Forwarded for Ratification by the ASO Address Council in Accordance with the ASO MoU

  1. When, in accordance with step 1 in the Global Policy Development Process of the ASO MoU (Attachment A, article 1), ICANN staff liaising with the addressing community becomes aware of a global policy development within the scope of the ASO MoU, ICANN staff informs the ICANN Board of this development. The Board decides, as and when appropriate, that this development should be followed by ICANN staff and instructs the ICANN CEO to assign staff for this purpose. ICANN staff so assigned shall inform all ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees, shall establish an ICANN web page to be kept up to date and shall compile a background report to be kept up to date on this global policy development. This background report shall be provided to the Board as requested.

  2. Within one business day from the receipt of a proposed global policy forwarded by the ASO Address Council to the ICANN Board, the ICANN Board Secretary shall acknowledge receipt of this to the ASO Address Council and submit the proposed global policy to the Board together with an updated background report. This is the start of the window for Board response to the ASO Address Council, as specified in the ASO MoU Attachment A.

  3. In accordance with Attachment A, article 8 of the ASO MoU, the ICANN Board will proceed as follows, prior to any deliberations, within one day after the receipt of a proposed global policy: a) The Board Secretary sends a request to the ASO AC for advice on this proposed global policy to be delivered at least 30 days before expiry of the window for Board response; b) The Board Secretary makes a final call for comments to all ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees, to be delivered within 21 days; and c) The Board Secretary posts a final call for public comments to be delivered within 21 days. In addition, if deemed appropriate by the Board, advice from an independent body may be requested, to be delivered no later than 30 days before expiry of the window for Board response.

  4. ICANN staff analyzes all comments and advice received during this procedure and compiles, no later than 20 days before the end of the window for Board response, a final report with a staff recommendation which is submitted to the Board for consideration. The final report shall contain an exposition of the arguments made for any suggested amendments to the proposed global policy forwarded for ratification.

  5. No later than one day before the expiry of the window for Board response, the ICANN Board decides on the proposed global policy forwarded by voting in the following order: a) to take no action, by simple majority; b) to reject the proposed policy, by a supermajority (2/3) vote; c) to accept the proposed policy, by a simple majority vote; and d) to request changes to the proposed policy, by a simple majority vote. As part of the decision, the Board shall, as appropriate, give authorization or direction to the ICANN staff to take all necessary steps to implement the global policy. The Board shall inform the ASO Address Council of the decision.

  6. Should the Board request changes to the proposed global policy forwarded or reject it, the relevant MoU provisions in Attachment A, articles 10-15, apply. Should the Board fail to take action as defined by the MoU provisions in Attachment A, article 10, within the window for Board response, the proposed global policy is deemed to be accepted by the Board and becomes a global policy.

  7. Throughout the Board's Review Procedures, from the moment the Board charges the staff to follow up a global policy development, ICANN will maintain a web page detailing the progress. This web page shall describe the initial proposal for a policy, all discussions and comments submitted in the process, all reports and recommendations produced on the matter and the outcome of the review. Throughout the Board's Review Procedures, assistance in line with the ASO MoU article 4 is applicable as appropriate.

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."