[council] List of Future GNSO Work -- Please share with your SGs and Cs

Sun Feb 16 09:30:18 EET 2020

Hi James,

Thanks for following up on this. I don’t think I can summarize this in a paragraph, but will try to capture the issue as concisely as possible.

First, this was never really an NCSG issue. It’s more of a GNSO Council issue, which I will explain in more detail below, as well as the NCSG’s relatively tangential involvement.

This ultimately began with recommendations coming out of the first WHOIS Review Team, but those don’t involve the substantive issues involved. The first RT simply triggered the topic of Internationalized Registration Data (IRD) being looked in to. This was done by ICANN commissioning an Expert Working Group (EWG) dedicated to IRD. The IRD EWG published its [final report](https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-3-2015-09-25-en) in September 2015. In this report, there were a few recommendations (see page 19 of the final report) made as follows:

1. Registrants should only be required to input registration data in a language(s) or script(s) with which they are skilled.
2. A Registry must be able to accept and store any language or script that might reasonably be expected to be used in its target market.
3. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all data elements should be tagged with the language(s) and script(s) in use, and this information should always be available with the data element.

At the time the IRD EWG was formed, a PDP (Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information “T&T") was Chartered by the GNSO Council to answer a narrowly scoped policy question; wether it was desirable to require all contact information in registration data being translated and/or transliterated in to a single common language and script. There was some overlap between the membership of the two Working Groups, and the where applicable, the recommendations of the two WGs were consistent with each other.

While the T&T PDP WG developed recommendations detailed in its own [final report](https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/filefield_47809/translation-transliteration-contact-final-12jun15-en.pdf), which would ultimately become Consensus Policy, these recommendations didn’t address all the ones the IRD EWG came up with. Of course the IRD EWG was not a WG chartered by the GNSO Council, and none of its recommendations can result in contractual obligations for Contracted Parties. The plan was for the GNSO Next-Generation RDS PDP to replace WHOIS to address both the remaining recommendations in the IRD EWG final report, and to also take in to consideration work already done by the GNSO T&T PDP.

In May 2016, the ICANN Board sent the GNSO Council [a letter](https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/2016-12/crocker-to-bladel-11may16-en.pdf) bringing to its attention the issues surrounding IRD, and enquiring how they would be handled. The Council, in turn, sent [a response](https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/gnso-council-to-icann-board-21dec16-en.pdf) in December 2016 pointing out where progress was made on the T&T PDP, and indicating that outstanding IRD issues identified by the EWG have been forwarded to the Next-Generation RDS to Replace WHOIS PDP WG.

That was all well-and-good at the time, but since then, the RDS PDP has been terminated. This left a number of RDS-related issues hanging in limbo. Privacy and data protection issues are being handled by the EPDP right now, but among the many other outstanding issues, I believe the one the NCSG should care about the most is to make end-to-end domain name registration processes as available as possible to non-commercial registrants, irrespective of the language(s)/script(s) they are able to use, which includes submitting accurate contact data during registration.

Now I’m painfully aware of the work-overload the community constantly finds itself in, and I doubt there is any appetite to even think about initiating a PDP on IRD right now, especially with the EPDP still going on, but I find that the GNSO Council keeps forgetting commitments it made on IRD-related work, and so, I like reminding it every now and then. I usually do this myself, when it is possible for me to do so by going up to the mic during public Council meetings at ICANN meetings.

However, right now, looking at the list of topics the Council is considering for prioritization, and not seeing IRD issues on the list at all is something that troubles me. I’m not saying that the Council does indeed need to prioritize it (although I would personally very much like it to), but not even including it in its thought process and planning is something I believe the NCSG should flag as a failure on the Council’s part, and make sure it is amended.

The NCSG itself, to my knowledge, has never formally advocated this. It did however support the recommendations coming out of the T&T PDP, which were very much consistent with those of the IRD EWG in [its comment on the T&T PDP WG’s initial report](https://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-transliteration-contact-initial-16dec14/pdfKCRkN7g2oM.pdf).

I hope this helps.

Thanks.

Amr

> On Feb 16, 2020, at 3:21 PM, James Gannon <lists at ICANN.GURU> wrote:
>
> Amr,
>
> Thanks for the below note. Coming back to the IRD topic, could I trouble you if you have time to write up a paragraph on the commitments and current status, and any NCSG positions/inputs, so that Councilors can bring the topic back to the attention of the group in Cancun?
>
> ---
>
> James Gannon
>
> From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> on behalf of Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM>
> Reply to: Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: Saturday, 15 February 2020 at 16:02
> To: "NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU" <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [council] List of Future GNSO Work -- Please share with your SGs and Cs
>
> Hi Amr,
>
> Thanks for the input.
>
> Regarding multistakeholder evolution/pdp improvements, it is more related to what was suggested in Brian Cute initiative to give the lead to GNSO to work on consensus and representation/inclusivity track  based on the work done with pdp 3.0. The implementation team submitted its final reportand delivery for council consideration. One suggestion is to give time to the improvements to be fully implemented and review them.
>
> Best,
>
> Rafik
>
> On Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 18:43 Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I’ve been trying to think about this list of future GNSO work, and tbh…, I don’t see much of it being of terribly high priority, perhaps with the exception of one item, but I’ll get to that later.
>>
>> There is some work that certainly needs to continue as effectively as possible; namely, concerning ongoing policy development:
>>
>> c) Phase 3 of the EPDP regarding Priority 2 Workstream issues
>>
>> d) Phase 2 of the Review of RPMs - Review of the UDRP
>>
>> …, as well as any existing policies which have been affected by GDPR and the EPDP recommendations, although I will note that for those policies, until their review is complete, there should be enough safeguards in place already to not make them a matter of terrible urgency. This view, however, may differ depending on which special interest party one asks.
>>
>> Apart from those items, item “i)” on Multistakeholder Model Evolution/PDP Improvements seems like something the GNSO Council should tackle with some sense of urgency, if it is to wrap up whatever is necessary on this from a GNSO perspective, before the next GNSO Review begins.
>>
>> One thing I would have liked to see at the top of this list, but isn’t on it at all is Internationalized Registration Data (IRD). Now that the GNSO (and the broader ICANN community) is in the process of wrapping up its work on compliance with data protection regulation, I would really like to see the GNSO Council follow up on its commitments to work on IRD. These commitments were made back in 2016 IIRC. This wasn’t during the current Council Leadership Team’s tenure, nor the previous one, but the one prior to that.
>>
>> That this issue isn’t even on this list at all is something I find to be of concern, and speaks to the GNSO Council’s lack of appropriate interest in a topic, which is an important component of making registration of gTLD domain names accessible to more potential registrants (not only those with a command of languages based on Latin script).
>>
>> Anyway…, these are my thoughts at the time being, and happy to discuss them and others, if folks would care to weigh in.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Amr
>>
>>> On Feb 8, 2020, at 12:22 AM, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> please share input e.g. ranking of the topics and rationale behind the choices. We will consolidate all input.
>>>
>>> the result will be used by NCSG councillors for the next GNSO council meeting.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Rafik
>>>
>>> Le ven. 7 févr. 2020 à 00:53, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com> a écrit :
>>>
>>>> hi all,
>>>>
>>>> this is a follow-up of SPS meeting and request for input from GNSO groups regarding the priorities for GNSO for the coming year. The attached list indicates future work for GNSO with some background information
>>>>
>>>> NCSG PC should coordinate and consolidate the input by the time of GNSO Council meeting in the 20th February.
>>>>
>>>> Please let me know if you have any questions.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Rafik
>>>>
>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>>>> De : Drazek, Keith via council <council at gnso.icann.org>
>>>> Date: ven. 7 févr. 2020 à 00:47
>>>> Subject: [council] List of Future GNSO Work -- Please share with your SGs and Cs
>>>> To: council at gnso.icann.org <council at gnso.icann.org>
>>>> Cc: gnso-secs at icann.org <gnso-secs at icann.org>
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> As a follow-up to our GNSO Council SPS discussions on work prioritization, I am attaching the list of known work items. You’ll recognize this list as the subject material for the informal “sense of the room” survey we completed on Friday. The survey result will be included in our SPS Report as a reference, but, as we agreed, it is only informational.
>>>>
>>>> Please share this list with your respective SGs and Cs and begin your discussions about priorities for 2020 and 2021. We will discuss this further during our 20 February Council meeting, and also during our F2F meetings in Cancun. Those conversations will be productive only if you’ve socialized this list with your colleagues and have received some direction regarding your groups’ top priorities.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Keith
>>>>
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