Archived forums:

• GNSO improvements
• Final Report on the Introduction of New gTLDs
• Registry failover plan
• Telnic Whois contract change
• Strategic Plan
• Contractual compliance report
• New organisational frameworks and principles

• May 2008
• Apr 2008
• Mar 2008
• Feb 2008
• Jan 2008
• 2007 Archive
• Prior to July 2007

Explanation: The Board Governance Committee's GNSO Review Working Group has issued a comprehensive proposal to improve the effectiveness of the GNSO, including its policy activities, structure, operations and communications. The GNSO Improvements Report reflects the Working Group’s examination of many aspects of the GNSO’s functioning, including the use of working groups and the overall policy development process (PDP), and the structure of the GNSO Council and its constituencies.

That process has now reached a final report stage. As such it is being put out for public comment, and will also be discussed at the upcoming Los Angeles meeting on 29 October at 11am. The LA forum discussion and public comments will be considered and a final report will be presented to the full Board Governance Committee and the Board. As the community and the Board consider the proposals outlined in the Report, it is important to keep in mind that this is an evolutionary process intended to reflect the importance of the GNSO to ICANN and to build upon the GNSO's successes to date.

You can read a summary of the report here [pdf], the full report here [pdf], and a webpage dedicated to the process can be found here.

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments

Explanation: The GNSO Council voted to send a set of principles, recommendations and implementation guidelines intended to result in a straightforward process that awards new gTLDs if applicants satisfy the pre-published criteria.

In September the GNSO Council approved its Final Report [PDF, 516K] on the Introduction of New Top-Level Domains (Report) after two years of work and numerous public comment periods. The GNSO developed this proposed policy through its bottom-up, multi-stakeholder policy development process, and worked in coordination with an ICANN staff team to help ensure that their final recommendations and guidelines are "implementable." The questions that have been addressed by the GNSO in the development of new gTLD policy are complex and involve technical, economic, operational, legal, public policy, and other considerations.

The proposed policy provides direction to staff to enable the implementation of a clear, predictable, timely road map for the application process including: objective business and technical thresholds, pre-published contract terms, evaluation criteria, and dispute resolution processes. Detailed information is provided at http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm.

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments

Explanation: With the expected expansion of new generic top-level domains, the possibility of a registry failure is greatly increased. In order to pre-empt a possible future problem, ICANN has worked with gTLD and ccTLD registry representatives to devise a way of dealing with the failure of an arm of the domain name system.

The draft Failover Plan [pdf] (here as a flow chart) comes with a Best Practices [pdf] document. The Failover Plan identifies the process and procedures to be undertaken when a specific set of events indicating a potential gTLD registry failure. It is designed to protect the interests of registrants and provide the best opportunity for continued registry operations.

The Best Practices document intends to be the source of contractual terms that will become part of every new registry agreement. These terms are intended to provide registries a tool for ensuring ongoing operations and also to provide a backstop process in the case of failure.

This is a complex and important topic and so ICANN is putting it out for review by the wider community. You can find more summary information on the official announcement.

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments

Explanation: Telnic proposed a change to its contract covering Whois in May 2007. This was put out for public comment and following discussions at the San Juan meeting, Telnic changed its amendment. The issue has arisen because Telnic is due to launch .tel soon and it wishes to be fully in compliance with UK privacy law before it does so because it is headquartered in the UK.

Under the revised proposal [pdf], Telnic will continue to publish full Whois information for legal persons. Telnic will collect from registrars full Whois information for natural persons, but only limited information will be displayed. Requestors seeking full contact information for natural persons may use a secure Special Access Service to obtain non-public data.

You can view all the documentation covering the amendment here.

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments

Explanation: ICANN produces a Strategic Plan each year which sets out the community's views of the major opportunities and challenges that face the organisation in the next three years as it continues to evolve.

An initial draft of the plan was drawn up in June in time for the San Juan meeting and discussed in multilingual sessions, as well as put out for public comment. That feedback was then pulled into an issues paper, released for public comment in September. All of this has been incorporated into a draft which is now released for public comment. It will also be discussed at the Los Angeles meeting on 31 October at 3.30pm.

You can view the plan here in English [pdf], Français [pdf], Español [pdf], العربية [pdf], Русский [pdf] and 中文 [pdf].

A revised version of the plan will be prepared based on community feedback and presented to the Board for approval at its December meeting.

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments

Explanation: ICANN’s Contractual Compliance Department has published its first semi-annual report.

The report summarizes ICANN’s audit activities from January through to September 2007 and contains details regarding the audit findings, observations and conclusions. During this period, ICANN completed five registrar contractual compliance audits and two registry contractual compliance audits.

Comments regarding the report, or any other compliance-related matters, are welcome. You can download the compliance report here [pdf].

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments

Explanation: Over the past year, ICANN has been drafting a set of frameworks and principles that outline, define and expand upon the organisation's accountability and transparency.

The first step was an "issues paper" built from community suggestions and feedback. This was put out for public comment, and from that, plus the recommendations made by an independent review of ICANN by the One World Trust, a draft set of frameworks and principles was drawn up.

These were then put out for public comment and were also discussed at a special meeting [transcript] in San Juan in June. The feedback from that meeting and the comment forum was summarised and posted. And that feedback has been used to make some changes to the frameworks and principles. It is the resulting document [pdf] from this process that is now being putting out for a final comment period. For a quick overview of the changes made, see the official announcement of this comment period.

The frameworks and principles are very important. They outline how ICANN is going to approach various vital parts of its work, including releasing information; seeking consultation; dealing with disputes; ICANN's finances; translation of material into other languages; and how staff are expected to behave.

The feedback from this comment period, and from a special meeting to be held at the Los Angeles meeting on Wednesday 30 October between 1530 and 1700 hours, will be the last opportunity the community has to make changes. Comments will be pulled in a final document and the intent is to provide it to the Board at their December meeting to vote on. You can read the Accountability and Transparency Frameworks and Principles for Consultation here [pdf].

Announcement | Comments | Summary/analysis of comments