ICANN 77

Event
Process	ICANN
Date	Jun. 12, 2023 – Jun. 15, 2023
Region	NA
Country	United States of America
City	Washington D.C.
Websites	77.schedule.icann.org
← ICANN 76 ICANN 78 →

ICANN 77 was held from June 12 to 15, 2023 at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C., USA, as a Policy Forum in ICANN’s three-meeting annual cycle. It was the eighth ICANN Policy Forum and the first Policy Forum to take place in North America. Substantive discussions centered on the New gTLD Program: Next Round (including closed generics, applicant support, and registry voluntary commitments), DNS Abuse and related contract amendments, the implementation of new registration data policies and the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS), and ongoing work on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

New gTLD Program: Next Round

Context and Pending Recommendations

By ICANN 77, the ICANN Board had already adopted most of the recommendations from the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures (SubPro) PDP Final Report, while deferring decision on several topics including applicant support, Public Interest Commitments (PICs) and Registry Voluntary Commitments (RVCs), and aspects of GAC Early Warnings and GAC Consensus Advice. ICANN 77 therefore operated in a transitional phase where the community was both tracking ICANN org’s implementation planning and continuing policy-level discussions on the deferred issues and on closed generics.

The ICANN77 Policy Outlook Report highlighted the New gTLD Program: Next Round as one of the central cross-community themes for the meeting, identifying scheduled sessions on implementation status, GNSO and community priorities, and the Board’s expectations for an implementation plan by August 1, 2023.

Main Session

ICANN org organized a plenary "New gTLD Program: Next Round" main session at ICANN 77 to provide a consolidated status update on implementation planning based on the SubPro recommendations and the Operational Design Phase (ODP) work. The session addressed:

• the overall implementation roadmap and major workstreams (including Applicant Guidebook drafting, systems development and communications),
• dependencies on Board decisions regarding the remaining “pending” SubPro recommendations, and
• possible timelines and options for addressing closed generics, including an estimate that a dedicated EPDP-like process on closed generics could take on the order of 96 weeks from chartering to delivery of recommendations.

Participants discussed how these dependencies would influence the eventual application window and the sequencing of preparatory work such as the Applicant Support Program, communications, and outreach to underserved regions.

Facilitated Dialogue and Framework on Closed Generics

Closed generics remained a focal point. In the run-up to ICANN 77, a multi-stakeholder group of volunteers from the ALAC, GAC, GNSO and ICANN Board had produced a draft "Framework for Closed Generic gTLDs," published on 8 June 2023. At ICANN 77 this work, previously conducted in small-group settings, was opened to the broader community in the form of two public "GAC-ALAC-GNSO Facilitated Dialogue on Closed Generics" sessions..

These sessions walked through the draft framework along three axes (application, evaluation and contracting) and invited feedback on how to define and operationalize the “public interest” in the context of closed generic TLDs. Discussions explored possible criteria and safeguards that might allow some closed generic models while avoiding capture or anti-competitive effects, but also acknowledged that prohibiting closed generics altogether remained on the table if consensus could not be achieved.

The GAC’s New gTLD Program sessions at ICANN 77 (Sessions 2 and 6) focused on reviewing the outcomes of the facilitated dialogue, considering how the GAC might frame advice on closed generics and other Next Round topics, and preparing draft language for inclusion in the ICANN77 GAC Communiqué.

GAC–Board Dialogue on Pending SubPro Topics

In their joint meeting at ICANN 77, the GAC and ICANN Board discussed the Board’s deferral of decisions on several SubPro topics and the process for resolving them. According to the Japanese GAC meeting report (which quotes and paraphrases the ICANN77 GAC Communiqué), GAC representatives asked, among other questions:

• whether and how the Applicant Support Program could be expanded to better assist applicants from regions with limited Internet infrastructure;
• whether the budget figure for applicant support in the Final Report was appropriate or would need adjustment once program design was finalized;
• whether implementation of PICs and RVCs might require amendments to the ICANN Bylaws or other foundational documents to ensure enforceability; and
• whether GAC Early Warnings and GAC Consensus Advice would continue to be available tools in the next round, and how they would interact with any new arrangements for PICs and RVCs.

The GAC ICANN77 Communiqué subsequently recorded Early Warnings and Consensus Advice in relation to the Board-deferred SubPro topics, signaling the committee’s intention to remain closely engaged as ICANN org finalized the implementation plan.

IDNs

The ICANN77 Policy Outlook Report identified IDNs as a continuing priority for both the GNSO and ccNSO, with a focus on alignment between the GNSO’s Expedited Policy Development Process on IDNs (EPDP-IDNs) and the ccNSO’s ccPDP4 on IDN ccTLD strings.

At ICANN 77:

• The GNSO EPDP on IDNs held working sessions addressing outstanding charter questions in its second phase, including the treatment of variant labels and string similarity at the second level, and how existing gTLDs and their IDN variants would transition into the new framework. The sessions built on preliminary recommendations and community input from earlier meetings, with the goal of refining recommendations for eventual delivery to the GNSO Council.

• The ccNSO’s ccPDP4 on IDN ccTLDs continued its discussions on string selection and variant management criteria for IDN ccTLDs, including how to ensure consistency with the Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR) and with the IDN variant rules being developed on the gTLD side.

The Policy Outcomes Report notes that ICANN 77 helped surface the remaining areas where EPDP-IDNs and ccPDP4 recommendations would need careful coordination, including rules for variant activation and retirement, to avoid inconsistent treatment of similar IDN strings between ccTLD and gTLD namespaces.

Registration Data, RDRS and Accuracy

Registration Data Policy Implementation IRT

ICANN 77 hosted a session of the Registration Data Policy Implementation Review Team (RDP IRT), which is implementing the new Registration Data Policy arising from the EPDP on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data. According to the IRT’s meeting notes, discussions at ICANN 77 focused on:

• timeframes for handling “urgent” disclosure requests (comparing options such as a 24-hour window versus two business days),
• the requirement for registrars to provide a prominent “homepage” link for submitting disclosure requests, and
• other items where implementer feedback had prompted adjustments to the draft implementation approach.

The IRT session also included a report-out from implementer interviews and discussion of the overall implementation timeline and collaboration with contracted parties, followed by a community Q&A segment.

RDRS

The Policy Outlook and Outcomes Reports describe ICANN 77 as a waypoint for community discussions on the transition from the WHOIS Disclosure System pilot to the Registration Data Request Service (RDRS). The GNSO Council and its small team on the WHOIS Disclosure System engaged with ICANN org on:

• the proposed RDRS design and feature set,
• questions about how to encourage contracted party uptake, and
• how RDRS implementation relates to the forthcoming Registration Data Policy and ongoing accuracy work.

On the advisory side, the GAC held a plenary session on “WHOIS and Data Protection Policy (including Accuracy)” which reviewed the state of play of registration data policy implementation, accuracy initiatives and data protection law developments, and prepared for the GAC–Board meeting at ICANN 77. This session fed into GAC questions to the Board about the future of registration data accuracy work and the interaction between ICANN policies and national data protection regimes, as reflected in later reporting on the ICANN77 GAC Communiqué.

DNS Abuse and Contract Amendments

RA/RAA DNS Abuse Amendments and Public Comment

DNS Abuse was one of the most prominent cross-cutting issues at ICANN 77. In late May 2023, shortly before the meeting, ICANN org launched a public comment proceeding on proposed amendments to the gTLD Base Registry Agreement (RA) and 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) aimed at strengthening obligations related to DNS Abuse. The Japanese GAC meeting report notes that this public comment period opened on May 29, 2023 and closed on July 20, 2023, receiving 36 submissions, and that the ICANN77 sessions provided explanations of the amendment development process and the substance of the proposed changes.

At ICANN 77, community sessions on DNS Abuse – including GAC plenaries and cross-community briefings – examined:

• how the proposed RA/RAA amendments clarified the responsibilities of registries and registrars when notified of DNS Abuse or illegal activities,
• the enforcement tools available to ICANN Compliance, including the possibility of suspending or terminating agreements with contracted parties in cases of non-compliance, and
• national perspectives on DNS Abuse harms, with presentations from, for example, the United Kingdom and United States on the impact of DNS Abuse in their jurisdictions.

The ICANN77 GAC Communiqué, as quoted and paraphrased in the Japanese report, welcomed the increased contractual obligations as raising the baseline for addressing DNS Abuse and expressed the GAC’s intention to contribute actively to the public comment process and to future work on contract amendments, PDPs and best practices, including in advance of the next round of new gTLD applications.

GAC Capacity Development Workshop on DNS Abuse

On the eve of the Policy Forum, the GAC held a three-part “Capacity Development Workshop on DNS Abuse” on June 11, 2023. The workshop:

• provided an overview of common forms of DNS Abuse and the respective roles of ICANN org, registries and registrars in addressing them,
• examined DNS security threats with reference to concrete case studies, and
• offered targeted briefings to prepare GAC members for substantive engagement in the DNS Abuse contract amendment discussions and related public comment proceedings.

ccNSO DASC

Within the ccNSO, the DNS Abuse Standing Committee (DASC) used ICANN 77 to continue its multi-phase survey of ccTLD practices and experiences concerning DNS Abuse and to socialize the idea of a shared repository or reference set of ccTLD anti-abuse practices. According to the Policy Outcomes Report, the DASC session discussed preliminary survey findings, gaps in data and reporting, and possible next steps for developing ccTLD-oriented reference materials and guidance to complement the gTLD contract-based approach to DNS Abuse.

Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees

GNSO

Beyond its central role in the New gTLD Program discussions, the GNSO at ICANN 77:

• reviewed progress and next steps for the EPDP on IDNs and its coordination with ccNSO ccPDP4;
• oversaw the Registration Data Policy Implementation IRT and the transition to RDRS, including small-team engagement with ICANN org on conditions for the service’s launch and its relationship to the forthcoming Registration Data Policy;
• held interactions with the GAC (GAC–GNSO joint session) focusing on the Next Round, closed generics and DNS Abuse, including how GAC advice and GNSO policy outputs would be reconciled in implementation; and
• continued its internal work on prioritization, project management and coordination across multiple parallel PDPs and IRTs, as described in the Policy Outcomes Report.

ccNSO

At ICANN 77 the ccNSO:

• advanced work on ccPDP4 (IDN ccTLDs), including sessions on the proposed policy for the selection and delegation of IDN ccTLD strings and the handling of variants;
• continued discussions within the DASC on DNS Abuse, survey work and potential best-practice repositories, as noted above; and
• held ccNSO Council and member meetings addressing internal governance, upcoming elections and engagement in ICANN-wide initiatives.

ALAC and At-Large

The ALAC and broader At-Large community used ICANN 77 to pursue end-user perspectives on several of the meeting’s core themes. According to the Policy Outlook and Outcomes Reports, At-Large activities included:

• engaging in the facilitated dialogue on closed generics and emphasizing public-interest and end-user trust considerations in any future framework;
• contributing to RDRS and registration data accuracy discussions from the standpoint of end-user needs for effective abuse reporting and access to data under appropriate safeguards; and
• holding internal and regional (RALOs) sessions on DNS Abuse, IDNs and outreach, including preparation for At-Large input to public comment proceedings on RA/RAA amendments and Next Round implementation.

ALAC also participated in joint meetings with the GAC and GNSO on Next Round issues, reinforcing At-Large concerns about closed generics and registry voluntary commitments.

Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)

The GAC at ICANN 77 organized a full programme of topic sessions and drafting meetings culminating in the ICANN77 Washington D.C. Communiqué. Based on the GAC agenda and subsequent reporting:

• DNS Abuse: The GAC welcomed the RA/RAA amendment proposals and the clarification that ICANN Compliance could suspend or revoke contracts in cases of non-compliance, supported raising the contractual baseline on DNS Abuse, and expressed its intent to contribute to further work – including future contract amendments, PDPs and best-practice development – in the lead-up to the next round.
• Closed generics: The GAC reviewed the draft framework developed by the facilitated dialogue and stressed that no policy option, including continued prohibition of closed generics, should be excluded if a satisfactory “public interest” solution could not be found.
• Emerging technologies: Following a proposal from Chinese Taipei, the GAC agreed to initiate structured discussions on the impact of emerging technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence on the DNS system, inviting members to propose topics for a dedicated session at ICANN 78.

RSSAC and SSAC

The RSSAC used ICANN 77 to update the community and the ICANN Board’s Technical Committee on its ongoing work regarding the governance and evolution of the Root Server System and the implementation of recommendations from recent RSSAC publications.

The SSAC held sessions on DNS security topics, including DNSSEC deployment and DNS Abuse, and briefed the community on the status of its recent and planned advisories. According to the Policy Outcomes Report, neither RSSAC nor SSAC issued new formal advice at ICANN 77, but both used the meeting to socialize existing work and gather input for future documents.

Board and Leadership Actions

ICANN 77 included several structured interactions between the ICANN Board and the community:

• A Board–GAC joint session in which the Board responded to GAC questions on the deferred SubPro topics (applicant support, PICs/RVCs and GAC Early Warnings/Consensus Advice), as well as the Board’s expectations for the Next Round implementation plan and the role of future GAC advice.
• A Board listening session on the CEO search that invited community input on desired qualifications and priorities for ICANN’s next President and CEO, reflecting the leadership transition planning underway at the time.
• Interactions with RSSAC, SSAC and other groups focused on technical stability, DNS Abuse and progress on implementing Board-accepted policy recommendations.

While ICANN 77 did not feature a major new Board decision on the New gTLD Program itself, it served as an important consultation point as the Board and org worked toward the August 2023 delivery of a comprehensive implementation plan for the Next Round and considered how to resolve the remaining SubPro topics, particularly around closed generics and public-interest safeguards.

North America, according to the ICANN Geographic Regions (ICANN Geographic Regions).

Generic Top-level Domain

Internationalized Domain Name

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).

Expedited Policy Development Process

At-Large Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN related to the interests of individual Internet users (ICANN Bylaws). Not to be confused with the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group.

Generic Top-level Domain

Top-Level Domain

Country Code Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board global policies relating to country-code top-level domains (ICANN Bylaws).

Internationalized Domain Name

Country code top-level domain. Determined by "ISO 3166-1: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country codes".

Country code top-level domain. Determined by "ISO 3166-1: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country codes".

Registrar Accreditation Agreement

Policy Development Process

Root Server System Advisory Committee. Advises the ICANN community and Board on matters relating to the operation, administration, security, and integrity of the Internet's Root Server System (ICANN Bylaws).

Security and Stability Advisory Committee. Advises the ICANN community and Board on matters relating to the security and integrity of the Internet's naming and address allocation systems (ICANN Bylaws).

Domain Name System Security Extensions