The 64th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) took place in Kobe from 11th to 14th of March 2019. ICANN64 was the Community Forum of 2019, with an attendance of 1,707 participants. The Community Forum features a six-day format that follows the traditional ICANN public meeting structure with a comprehensive agenda covering a wide range of topics and a number of cross-community discussions on key policy issues of broad interest. Including side-meetings, like the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) workshop on 8th, ICANN64 covered a full week.
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EPDP, GDPR and WHOIS Data Access
The Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Registration Data is currently one of the important areas of work for the GNSO and the broader ICANN community. Last May, the ICANN Board adopted a Temporary Specification on gTLD Registration Data as an interim measure to bring existing WHOIS obligations in line with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements. This has, in turn, triggered the obligation for the GNSO Council to undertake the EPDP to determine whether to confirm the Temporary Specification as a Consensus Policy. Relevant bylaw provisions require that the EPDP be completed within 12 months of the effective implementation date of the Temporary Specification, in this case, by 25 May 2019.
A few days before the meeting in Kobe, the EPDP team published the final report regarding the first phase of their work. Many did not have confidence that the group, in which – to some extent – fundamentally opposing views are represented, would even make it this far: producing a comprehensive paper of more than 180 pages in length. The report has been approved by the GNSO Council and is currently in a public comment period. The ICANN Board plans to take a decision on the report before the Temporary Specification expires upon its anniversary.
Being a member of the EPDP team to represent the Internet Service Providers & Connectivity Provider Constituency (ISPCP), Thomas Rickert participated in all four meetings of the team plus a number of additional sessions, to give updates to several parts of the community.
During the sessions in Kobe, the EPDP team discussed a variety of issues, including:
- Areas to be worked on in its second phase of work;
- Working methods for the second phase of work;
- Requirements, such as financial and administrative support, to conduct its work;
- Lessons learned from the first phase of work;
- Implementation of the recommendations of the first phase including the work of an Implementation Review Team; and
- Work Plan for Phase 2.
Several issues could not be resolved – at the moment as the EPDP team is waiting for a new Chair to be selected by the GNSO Council to replace Kurt Pritz, who has stepped down from this position.
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Universal Acceptance Steering Group
Universal Acceptance (and IDNs) was everywhere at the ICANN64 meeting in Kobe Japan in March 2019. This stems, at least in part, from the legacy that former Chair Ram Mohan laid by including Universal Acceptance within one of the five objectives in the ICANN’s Board five year plan.
The week of meetings started with the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) Workshop on Friday the 8th of March. The group, including most of the new and old leadership, spent significant time on strategic planning and setting the direction for the next few years.
There were five strategic areas developed, each with specific objectives and subtasks that were ranked by the group:
- Amplify UASG message to target audiences
- Develop authoritative resources for Universal Acceptance
- Define and address gaps to UA readiness
- Improve recruitment of active participants within the UASG
- Improve the administration of the UASG
The UASG agreed to expand the number of working groups and to review or create the charters of each. The groups will include: EAI, Measurement, Community Outreach, and Technology.
During a meeting of the ALAC, the members wanted to find a topic that they could use to exercise their network to amplify the objectives. They agreed that Universal Acceptance would be their next topic.
The community convened a Cross-Community Session on Universal Acceptance and IDNs on the last day of the meeting with participants from across the various constituencies:
- Jennifer Chung – .asia / At-Large
- Manal Ismail – NTRA / GAC
- Maria Kolesnikova – Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ / ccNSO
- Ram Mohan – Afilias / Outgoing UASG Chair / SSAC
- Mark Švančárek – Microsoft / UASG Vice-Chair / GNSO
- Dennis Tan Tanaka – Verisign / UASG Vice-Chair / DC DNSI
The panel was moderated by the two UASG Outreach Co-Coordinators Christian Dawson and Lars Steffen.
There was common agreement that UA was an issue that needed to be addressed and there was positive recognition that the UASG was addressing it. In the end, there was a call for people to get their own organizations UA Ready when they return home.
ICANN’s IT Group have been interesting to watch as they pursue UA Readiness. They have revised their initial approach of spinning up a project to a revised approach of including UA in their systems architecture requirements and addressing application through their normal maintenance efforts.
The ICANN CIO Ashwin Rangan reported during the UASG Community Forum that they have completed phase 1 of their UA Readiness project (the ability to handle all ASCII domain names) and were more than half-way through their phase 2 (the ability to handle all non-ASCII domain names). He also explained the challenges of working with vendors who had not been aware of the issues. A fresh case study on ICANN-IT’s efforts will be started in March.
UASG elections were finalized during the meeting. The new office holders are:
- Chair: Ajay Data
- Vice-Chairs: Dušan Stojičević, Mark Švančárek, and Dennis Tan Tanaka
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