Please note that all documents referenced in the agenda have been gathered on a Wiki page for convenience and easier access: https://community.icann.org/x/8oAvEQ.
This agenda was established according to the GNSO Operating Procedures v3.5, updated on 15 March 2023.
For convenience:
- An excerpt of the ICANN Bylaws defining the voting thresholds is provided in Appendix 1 at the end of this agenda.
- An excerpt from the Council Operating Procedures defining the absentee voting procedures is provided in Appendix 2 at the end of this agenda.
GNSO Council meeting on Wednesday, 06 March 2024 at 17:15 UTC: http://tinyurl.com/yc8h56uu
09:15 Los Angeles; 12:15 Washington DC; 17:15 London; 18:15 Paris; 20:15 Moscow; 04:15 Melbourne (Thursday)
GNSO Council Meeting Remote Participation: [Published 24 hours prior to meeting]
Councilors should notify the GNSO Secretariat in advance if they will not be able to attend and/or need a dial out call.
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Item 1: Administrative Matters (5 minutes)
1.1 - Roll Call
1.2 - Updates to Statements of Interest
1.3 - Review / Amend Agenda
1.4 - Note the status of minutes for the previous Council meetings per the GNSO Operating Procedures:
Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 18 January 2024 were posted on 02 February 2024
Minutes of the GNSO Council Meeting on 15 February 2024 were posted on 02 March 2024
Item 2: Opening Remarks / Review of Projects & Action List (0 minutes)
2.1 - Review focus areas and provide updates on specific key themes / topics, to include review of Projects List and Action Item List.
Item 3: Consent Agenda (5 minutes)
- Motion to Adopt the Communications Small Team Final Report
Item 4: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Reaction to Program Management Tools Discussion (20 minutes)
During the Council’s recent Strategic Planning Session (SPS), Council Leadership and GNSO Support Staff provided an overview of the available program management tools to educate new councilors on what tools are available and how to best utilize them.
Councilors noted that before any changes to the current tools are considered, it is incumbent on all Councilors to familiarize themselves with the existing tools. To that end, the Council agreed to do a comprehensive and detailed review of the program management tools on a tri-annual basis. The Council agreed the tri-annual cadence aligned with the current ICANN conference schedule, and the first of these reviews was conducted during the Council’s Working Session at ICANN79.
Having performed a comprehensive review of the program management suite of tools during its working session, the Council will now discuss lessons learned and potential suggestions for the next review at the ICANN80 working session.
4.1 - Introduction of Topic (Greg DiBiase, GNSO Chair)
4.2 - Council Discussion
4.3 - Next Steps
Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Council Engagement with PDP Working Group Chairs (15 minutes)
During the Council’s 2023 Strategic Planning Session, the Council agreed that updates from PDP Working Group Chairs and Council liaisons should be more purpose-driven.
In discussing this, GNSO Support Staff provided background information on the GNSO Policy Webinar. Specifically, the webinars began in 2018 and were designed to provide the Council with an opportunity to directly engage with PDP chairs regarding the progress of their working groups. This engagement previously took place at ICANN meetings during GNSO working sessions; however, when the ICANN meeting schedule was shortened, these interactions were moved to a webinar format in an effort to allow the engagement to continue.
After receiving this background information, some Councilors noted that if the purpose is for the Council to hear frank updates from Working Group Chairs, the webinar should be for Councilors rather than a larger community update. Additionally, Councilors reviewed the list of questions provided to Working Group Chairs in an effort to better understand Working Group progress and potential challenges (if any).
Councilors attended the webinar, in its updated form, prior to ICANN79.
Here, the Council will discuss if the updates to the webinar format helped make the interactions more purpose driven or if further updates may be needed.
5.1 - Introduction of Topic (Nacho Amadoz, Council Vice-Chair)
5.2 - Council Discussion
5.3 - Next Steps
Item 6: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Update on Contracted Party House Abuse Subgroup Meetings with the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (15 minutes)
In February 2022, the GNSO Council formed a small team of interested Council members to consider what policy efforts, if any, the GNSO Council should consider undertaking to support the efforts already underway in the different parts of the community to tackle DNS abuse.
The DNS Abuse Small Team preliminarily concluded that there is not enough information available to warrant further policy work at this time. Following the update from the DNS Abuse Small Team, Council representatives from the Registrar Stakeholder Group commented on the productive dialogue between Contracted Parties and the ICANN Community with respect to DNS Abuse and committed to continuing the dialogue with interested groups.
To that end, on 23 January 2024, the Registrar Stakeholder Group and the Registries Stakeholder Group DNS Abuse Subgroups met with the Non-Commercial Stakeholder group as the first in a planned series of outreach sessions to the ICANN Community regarding pain points with respect to DNS Abuse. The discussion touched on potential recommendations for solutions and potential future work.
Here, the Council will receive an update on this meeting and subsequent discussions with other groups.
6.1 - Introduction of Topic (Chris Disspain, Co-Chair of DNS Abuse Subgroup)
6.2 - Council Discussion
6.3 - Next Steps
Item 7: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Response to Update from ICANN org Implementation Update and interaction with ICANN Board (25 minutes)
During the Council’s Working Session, ICANN org provided an overview of the implementation status of the projects that are currently in implementation. These include:
- Privacy and Proxy Services Accreditation Implementation (PPSAI)
- Preventative and Curative Rights Protections for Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs)/International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs)
- New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP
In addition, during Prep Week, the ICANN Board held a community engagement session where a question was posed that is relevant to the GNSO Council: how do we handle situations where it becomes clear that community-developed gTLD policies adopted by the Board are superseded by subsequent events or are otherwise not able to, or can no longer, resolve the problems they were designed to address
Here, the Council will have an opportunity to discuss the update from ICANN org and ICANN Board engagement session to determine next steps, if any.
7.1 - Introduction of Topic (Nacho Amadoz, Council Vice-Chair)
7.2 - Council Discussion
7.3 - Next Steps
Item 8: Selection and Timeline of Next GNSO Liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (10 minutes)
The role of GNSO Liaison to the Governmental Advisory Committee (“GAC”) was first piloted in FY15-16 (1 July 2014 to 30 June 2016) as part of a broader initiative of the GAC-GNSO Consultation Group to facilitate early engagement of the GAC in GNSO policy development activities. Due to the success of the pilot, the GNSO Liaison to the GAC is now a permanent role and an integral part of communications between the GAC and GNSO.
The Liaison is primarily responsible for providing timely updates to the GAC on GNSO policy development activities in order to complement the existing notification processes as well as answering questions in relation to these (GNSO) activities that GAC members may have. Furthermore, the Liaison will be responsible for providing the GNSO Council with regular updates on progress, including on GAC activities, specifically in so far as these relate to issues of interest to the GNSO. The objective of the liaison mechanism, in combination with other mechanisms and early engagement tools, is to facilitate effective early engagement of the GAC as well as generally assist with flow of information between the GAC and the GNSO. In addition to these engagement tools, regular coordination calls are to be scheduled between the GNSO Liaison to the GAC and the GAC Leadership/GAC Support Staff to ascertain that all the relevant information has been received by the GAC and progress is being made, following which a regular status update is provided by the Liaison to the GNSO Council.
Here, the Council will receive an update on the process for selecting a liaison and the associated timeline for doing so.
8.1 - Introduction of Topic (Jeffrey Neuman, GNSO Liaison to the GAC)
8.2 - Council Discussion
8.3 - Next Steps
Item 9: ANY OTHER BUSINESS (25 minutes)
9.1 - GNSO Chair Election Timeline Announcement
9.2 - Updated Small Team Guidelines
9.3 - Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (“SPIRT”) Charter Drafting Team Update
9.4 - Aspirational Statement
9.5 - Open Mic
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Appendix 1: GNSO Council Voting Thresholds (ICANN Bylaws, Article 11, Section 11.3(i))
See https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#article11.
Appendix 2: GNSO Council Absentee Voting Procedures (GNSO Operating Procedures, Section 4.4)
See https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/op-procedures-15mar23-en.pdf
References for Coordinated Universal Time of 17:15 UTC
Local time between November and March in the NORTHERN hemisphere
See https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/ for Dates for Daylight Saving Time and Clock Changes
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California, USA (PST) UTC-8 09:15
San José, Costa Rica (CST) UTC-6 11:15
New York/Washington DC, USA (EST) UTC-5 12:15
Buenos Aires, Argentina (ART) UTC-3 14:15
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (WAT) UTC+1 18:15
Paris, France (CET) UTC+1 18:15
Moscow, Russia (MSK) UTC+3 20:15
Singapore (SGT) UTC+8 01:15 (Thursday)
Melbourne, Australia (AEDT) UTC+11 04:15 (Thursday)
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For other places see http://www.timeanddate.com and http://tinyurl.com/yc8h56uu
