Special Report on ICANN56 Policy Forum

Special Report@ITRealms:

The 56th Public Meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ended recently in Helsinki, Finland with focus on policy development to spur the global multi-stakeholder body into the next level. DigitalSENSE Business News x-rays the meeting and reports.

 Letter from Istanbul:

THANK you very much for attending the ICANN56 Policy Forum!

We hope the innovative format fostered collaboration and substantive policy and advice development work. ICANN will continue to evaluate and improve the Policy Forum format in line with the recommendations of the community-led Meeting Strategy Working Group. Your feedback is important to us.

This Post-ICANN56 Policy Forum Report captures highlights from the week including summaries of the cross-community sessions and updates from our Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees. As you see from this infographic, it was a busy four days of robust debate, discussion, disagreement, and compromise.

ICANN congratulates and thanks Chuck Gomes and Keith Davidson, this year’s recipients of the Multistakeholder Ethos Award. This award honors members of the community who demonstrate dedication to ICANN’s multistakeholder model of Internet governance through many years of active participation and leadership.

Above all else, we aspire to support the core consensus-driven policy and advice development work of ICANN by enabling efficient and effective bottom-up participation and engagement in the multi stakeholder model. Again, we appreciate your contributions to a successful ICANN56 Policy Forum.

Best regards, from: David Olive, Senior Vice President, Policy Development Support, General Manager, ICANN Regional, Headquarters – Istanbul.

Overview:

This forum report is divided into two, namely the Cross-Community sessions and Supporting Organisations cum Advisory Committees (SO/AC) updates.

In the Cross-Community sessions includes ICANN56 by the numbers, briefs on Next Generation Registration, Directory Services, Review of All Rights Protection, Mechanisms in All generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), Charter for the CCWG on Auction Proceeds, New gTLD Subsequent Procedures, Draft Framework of Principles for Future CCWGs, Workload Scheduling and Management and ICANN56 Wrap-Up and ICANN57 Planning.

Whereas the Supporting organisations and Advisory Committees updates cover the Address Supporting Organization (ASO), Country Code Names Supporting Organization (CCNSO), Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), At-Large and At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) and Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC).

For the Senior Vice President, Policy Development Support and General Manager, ICANN Regional Headquarters in Istanbul, Mr. David Olive described ICANN56 Policy Forum as successful in a thank you letter to the community.

ICANN, he said hopes the innovative format fostered collaboration andsubstantive policy and advice development work. ICANN will continue to evaluate and improve the Policy Forum format in line with the recommendations of the community-led Meeting Strategy Working Group, adding stakeholders’ feedback is important.

Also, this Post-ICANN56 Policy Forum Report captures highlights fromthe week including summaries of the cross-community sessions and updates from our Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees.

As you see from this infographic, it was a busy four days of robust debate, discussion, disagreement, and compromise.

ICANN congratulates and thanks Chuck Gomes and Keith Davidson, this year’s recipients of the Multistakeholder Ethos Award. This award honors members of the community who demonstrate dedication to ICANN’s multistakeholder model of Internet governance through many years of active participation and leadership.

Above all else, Olive noted ICANN aspires to support the core consensus-driven policy and advice development work of ICANN by enabling efficient and effective bottom-up participation and engagement in the multistakeholder model. Again, we appreciate your contributions to a successful ICANN56 Policy Forum.

What Happened at ICANN56?

This cross-community session was led by Next Generation Registration Directory Services (RDS) Policy Development Process (PDP) working group chaired by Chuck Gomes, supported by vice chairs David Cake, Susan Kawaguchi, and Michele Neylon and by ICANN policy development support staff members Marika Konings and Lisa Phifer.

During this session, working group members drew from their own experiences to share examples and attendees joined in a lively conversation about possible requirements which they believe should be supported by next generation Registration Directory Service (RDS) to replace WHOIS. Inputs gathered during this cross-community session are essential to inform this policy development process working group’s phase 1 recommendations.

The discussion on this topic, including reflecting on the cross-community input received, continued during the PDP working group’s meeting the next day.

Next Steps

The working group will next confirm that the list of possible requirements—including those suggested during the cross-community session is sufficiently complete to serve as the foundation for deliberations. The working group will then continue through its work plan to Task 12. The working group will systematically consider each possible requirement individually with the goal of trying to reach as strong a consensus as possible on working group support for a possible requirement, including how it is worded. Due to interdependencies, working group deliberation will likely be interactive, especially on fundamental questions pertaining to purpose, data, and privacy. As part of this process, the working group is expected to review the input received from GNSO stakeholder groups and constituencies as well as ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees.

Session Materials

Review the presentation, read the transcripts, or listen to the recordings of this cross-community session here. For the working group meeting materials please visit www.icann.org later.

Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs:

What Happened at ICANN56?

This cross-community session focused on the scope of the policy development process (PDP), particularly its current Phase One (of Two) where the Working Group is reviewing the rights protection mechanisms (RPM) that were developed for the new gTLD program of 2012. This topic had been selected so that the community’s input can be taken into account by the working group for the purpose of prioritizing the list of topics it will cover during the PDP. 

At its open meeting, the working group discussed the input that was provided during the cross-community session and continued its analysis of the first RPM –Review Public Meeting - it is reviewing—the Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PDDRP). The two sessions in combination and attendance by non-working group members and participants from other parts of the community made for a very useful discussion.

Next Steps

The working group will use the feedback it received to finalize and refine the non-exhaustive list of topics to be covered in its RPMs review. The working group aims to complete its work on the Trademark PDDRP by late August, and will proceed to review the remaining RPMs in sequence, culminating in a planned initial report on its Phase One work before the end of 2017.

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!