Sections are:

• JPA/Affirmation
• Applicant Guidebook/new gTLDs
• Fast Track/IDNs
• Public comment periods
• Seoul meeting
• And the remainder

JPA/Affirmation
Last Wednesday, 30 September 2009, the Joint Project Agreement with the US government ended and in its place a new Affirmation of Commitments was signed.

This is obviously of enormous significance to ICANN, so it currently sits front and center on the ICANN front page. We have an announcement, the Affirmation itself, a video of CEO Rod Beckstrom explaining its significance, and reaction from the community. The Affirmation has been signed but obviously there is much that the community now needs to discuss, and that conversation will start in Seoul.

Applicant Guidebook / new gTLDs
The third version of the Applicant Guidebook was released today. It’s all out for public comment, as we have done twice before. We are gradually moving forward with the overarching issues and, again, Seoul will be place to have more discussions.

It is worth pointing out that today, Monday 5 October, is the document deadline for Seoul (15 working days before the start of the meeting), which is why so much stuff has appeared in the past few days. The idea is that everyone will now have plenty of time to read the documents and so be in a position to talk about their contents at Seoul.

The full rundown of documents can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-3-en.htm, including red-lined versions so you can see what has changed.

Fast Track
This is the process for introducing internationalized domain names (IDNs) into the root – but only those that related to territories i.e. ccTLDs. The Fast Track final implementation plan was published last week for public comment, and the plan is to have the Board authorize it at the Seoul meeting (end of this month).

So, this is the last chance to have a look and have your say before it actually happens. You can find all the information you should need for that process at http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-30sep09-en.htm.

Public comment periods
As usual in the build-up to a meeting, we have a raft of public comment periods. Ignoring the ones for the Applicant Guidebook and Fast Track, both of which are mentioned above, we have also opened comment periods on:

• A root-scaling study by TNO
• The use of proxy services for domain registration i.e. people paying to ensure their personal details do not appear publicly as the owner of a particular domain name
• Board review final report i.e. the changes to be made to the Board itself as part of the ongoing independent review process
• SSAC review report – same as Board report above but not as far along in the process
• NomCom review report – same as SSAC above

Seoul meeting
Why we have this glut of material is, of course, the upcoming Seoul meeting at the end of October.

With respect to the meeting itself, there are several other pieces of information:

• The agenda is live - check it out to see what is going on, when and who will be speaking
• If you can’t attend, you can ask questions in the public forum online
• If you haven’t see it yet, the meeting has its own website at http://sel.icann.org

And the remainder
And there’s still more:

• Nairobi fellowship applications
• A new process for registry security requests
• A bulk transfer advisory

Hopefully that helps breaks down the work into manageable chunks. If you still have queries, please add them as a comment below.

We have put that document out in a radically different public comment period to allow for as much community discussion and collaboration as possible.

The comment period uses Jive software which allows for simple interaction and discussion between community members. It is an experiment we are running from now until 24 September. You can view everyone’s responses, clearly broken down into different areas, and if you register post your own thoughts and responses. As well as vote in polls, write blog posts, and so on.

The AC/SO summary drew out six main issues as well as seven suggested solutions to fix those issues. The top two issues were frustration and exhaustion at the huge volume of work, and the lack of visibility of the impact of volunteer input on decision-making.

The top three suggested solutions were: prioritization of the workload; better scoping of issues at the start of policy processes; and improving accessibility to issues by providing summaries.

Now we need you as the community to flesh out these broad points into specific ideas and suggestions.

The discussion space will be shut down after 30 days as the experiment closes and a report will then be written covering what happened as well as the feasibility of using Jive or similar software for future community discussions.

So if you want to make your voice heard not only about how ICANN can improve but the ways in which those improvement discussions are held, then please login on today and start interacting.

You can log-on to the collaborative space at: https://jive.dev.icann.org/community/acso.

Those topics are:

Status reports

• Document deadlines
• Language
• Calendar of meetings

For discussion

• Public comment process
• Public Forum
• Electronic tools for participation

You can download the backgrounder document here, or read the whole thing below. Everyone is encouraged to read it and come along to the meeting to discussion how ICANN can improve its public participation.

Public meeting backgrounder

Wednesday 24 June 2009

This backgrounder document has been prepared in order to promote more efficient and effective dialogue in the limited time available for the public meeting of the Public Participation Board Committee.

The Committee is working on a range of ways to improve public participation, with the expectation that most of them will be in place in time for ICANN’s meeting in Seoul in October 2009.

The Committee also recognizes that this document will not be released within the document deadline it has sought to outline for the organization to enable effective community review before meetings.

However, in order to promote discussion and dialogue with the community on these issues and to encourage participation in the development of these changes, initial thoughts and ideas have been drawn up and are published below.

The Committee will be available on Wednesday 24 June 2009 at 9 a.m., for about 90 minutes, to discuss any aspect of these ideas and proposals, and those individual Board members on the Committee would also like to encourage community members to share their views and opinions with them directly if there is not sufficient time during that meeting or they are unable to attend.

Topics

The Committee has six main issues it is working on at the moment.

Three of them will be covered here in the form of status updates, and they are:

• Document deadlines
• Language
• Calendar of meetings

And the other three will be specific topics of discussion at the public meeting:

• Public comment process
• Public Forum
• Electronic tools for participation

Each is coverered individually below, in this order.

Document Deadlines – Status Update

The issue of document deadlines, i.e. introducing a cut-off date for the production of documents prior to ICANN international public meetings, was raised at the Committee’s previous meeting in Mexico City.

The idea having met with unanimous approval, the Committee moved forward, proposing a specific resolution to the whole Board at its May meeting.

As a result, the Board approved the introduction of two deadlines for Sydney, and charged the Public Participation Committee with developing a fuller policy in time for the Seoul meeting in October 2009.

The relevant resolutions can be found at: http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/prelim-report-21may09.htm , point 8).

Below is a quick summary of the feedback received on this point from the Mexico City meeting. Underneath that is an expanded explanation of document deadlines taken from Committee documents used in arriving at the Board-approved deadlines.

Feedback from Mexico City:

1. Support for idea of document deadlines (Note: This is now instituted)
2. But need to communicate that very clearly to SOs and ACs (Note: we hope to achieve that in Sydney)
3. May be useful to produce zip file of all documents for a meeting (Note: something that will be considered for the Seoul meeting as part of the development of an operational policy)
4. Need agenda and presentations earlier (Note: Again, something that will be considered as part of the operational policy)

Excerpt from Committee working documents:

The need for document deadlines

It has long been a complaint of the community that documents are published too late prior to an international public meeting for there to be full consideration of their contents before the meeting starts.

The Committee recognizes the improvements that ICANN staff has made in this respect and also notes that many documents require the input and review of a significant number of people, both staff and community members, which can make early publication of documents difficult.

Nonetheless, due to the strength of feeling expressed by the community on this issue and the fact that it is clear best practice to provide documents sufficiently far ahead of a meeting for their contents to be properly and fully digested, the Committee is making a series of firm recommendations on document deadlines.

It is our belief that these deadlines will make possible greater and more effective participation within ICANN processes.

Community feedback

At the Committee’s public meeting in Mexico City, there was widespread support for the production of document deadlines prior to international public meetings.

Among those who specifically supported the idea were: Chuck Gomes of VeriSign; Ayesha Hassan of the International Chamber of Commerce; Marilyn Cade, a member of ICANN’s President’s Strategy Committee; Zahid Jamil, a GNSO Councillor; and ICANN’s President and CEO, Paul Twomey.

ICANN CEO Paul Twomey publicly stated his comfort with the Board Committee for Public Participation recommending to the Board deadlines for the future production of documents for international public meetings.

The issue of document deadlines was also raised by the Governmental Advisory Committee both during its meetings in Mexico City and formally in its communiqué.

The communiqué states: “In order to facilitate better GAC input to ICANN policy making, the GAC proposes that all documents to be considered at ICANN meetings, be posted not less than 15 working days before the meeting. In the event that this is not possible, the GAC may need to defer discussion until the subsequent meeting.”

In light of this community feedback, the Committee is recommending to the Board in this memorandum the introduction of two document deadlines for international public meetings. A 15-working-day deadline should stand for documents intended for GAC review and for final approval by any of the Advisory Committee or Supporting Organization councils, and a 10-working-day deadline for all other documents intending to be provided to the community.

The Committee checked on the definition and intent of “working days” with General Counsel and was informed that the wording referred to week days i.e. Monday to Friday, and that public holidays were not exempt i.e. they are counted as one of the working days.

Sydney and beyond

The system outlined above provides the following deadlines for the Sydney meeting:

• All documents: Monday 8 June 2009, 07:00 UTC
• GAC and final approval documents: Monday 1 June 2009, 07:00 UTC

As this process started only recently, it is expected that a significant number of documents will not meet the deadline set for Sydney. Requesting explanations for late documents, however, should serve to inform the community and staff about the Board’s intentions, and inform the Board about the processes behind the production of documents.

If adopted prior to Sydney, the deadlines should have a significant impact by the time of the Seoul meeting in October, and if successfully implemented and adopted, represent a norm for the meeting in Africa in March 2010.

The need to communicate with ACs and SOs

The Committee was advised by a number of Board members, staff members and members of the community that document deadlines will need to be clearly communicated to the Advisory Committees and Supporting Organizations.

Most of the work produced by ICANN staff for meetings is community-driven and in many cases progression on documents is reliant on review by one or several advisory committees or supporting organizations. As such, it will be crucial that deadlines be clearly communicated, and their implications fully understood, by the ACs and SOs before becoming effective across the organization.

It will be necessary in many cases for community members and staff to set a series of deadlines over a number of months in order to reach the main meeting document deadline.

Adequate time and consideration will therefore need to be given to ensure that the document deadlines are seen as a valuable assistance rather than being perceived as an unreasonable expectation or an attempt to rush community deliberations.

Exceptions, where warranted.

The Committee acknowledges that there will be occasional exceptions to these deadlines, particularly for the first few meetings after they are adopted. In some cases it is not possible to prepare documents in time, either because of the last-minute nature of the subject or because of unforeseen or unavoidable delays.

However, it is the Committee’s position that these should be exceptions that become increasingly rare over time. Furthermore, in order to understand the various factors that may contribute to late document publication, the Committee will be asking for a full explanation from the relevant staff member for each and every document that is produced late, starting at the Sydney meeting in June 2009.

Exception explanations should be provided to the Committee a minimum of five working days before the first Committee meeting that follows the relevant international public meeting (the Committee’s first meeting after Sydney is held on Tuesday 21 July, so all explanations should be provided to the Committee before Tuesday 14 July).

Going forward

The Committee recognizes that in the production of an operational policy, a wide range of issues need to be reviewed, because of the impact that document deadlines are liable to have.

As such, a small and incomplete list of questions are produced below for discussion:

• What does the deadline apply to? Every document? What about agendas and presentations?
• Is a single 15-working-day deadline the right approach and figure?
• What implications does a deadline have (less time for work between meeting, for example)?
• How do we deal with exceptions?

Language – Status Update

The issue of language, with respect to both the use of terminology and the provision of materials in languages other than English – is something that the Committee continues to review and work on.

With respect to the translation and interpretation provided by ICANN as an organization: the amount, timeliness and quality of both has increased significantly over the past two years and continues to improve. The organization now has a full-time Translations Manager, we are moving toward a multilingual website, and have introduced a new system for community-requested translations.

Additionally, we will soon have new translation software at the back-end and this may soon enable ICANN to give the community a way to directly input translations into our system. ICANN also provided the online Question Box – where any community member is able to ask the Board a specific question – in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Russian – for the Sydney meeting.

Nevertheless, the issue of translation remains a barrier to participation for a global audience and the Committee will continue to address how, organizationally, ICANN can improve.

Feedback from Mexico

• Attendees need to be able to speak and express themselves in different languages. (Note: Interpretation continues to be provided in all the main sessions and many of the smaller sessions when it is requested. We do note however that the use of headsets remains limited, raising questions about the level of demand for interpretation, and the costs involved.)

• Overuse of acronyms and lingo (Note: Since ICANN’s work typically concerns very specific issues with the domain name system, it is inevitable that a certain degree of lingo will be used. However to the extent that the use of such languages impedes effectives participation, the Committee will continue to examine ways to encourage communication in plain English.

• Translation expensive: so may only need translation of executive summaries. (Note: The Committee will shortly be addressing how best to provide executive summaries of all ICANN documents and the use of plain English as far as possible will be a key component of that process.)

Going forward:

• A new announcements process being developed will enable routine translation of announcements and public comment periods
• A multilingual front page – so people can find information in their language – is under development
• Increased translation. The Translations Manager has been very effective in reducing translation costs so that more translation is possible within the same budget. The translation budget will increase for FY2010; future increases will likely depend on evidence of community demand.
• ICANN is pioneering the use of interactive video transcripts in multiple languages so recordings of ICANN’s work (almost all of which is carried out in English) will be accessible to speakers of other languages.

Possible issues for discussion:

• A very high percentage of the ICANN community remains English-speaking: is this simply the reality of the work ICANN undertakes, or is use of language self-selecting participants?
• Does ICANN’s approach favor those from particular cultures? For example, the use of open microphones and email lists for raising and discussing issues.
• How does ICANN strike the balance between plain language and the fact that much of its work is quite technical in nature?

Calendar of Meetings – Status Update

In deciding on precise meeting dates for the future, ICANN gives careful consideration to international and religious holidays, as well as avoiding overlap with other large conferences, while allowing for adequate time between ICANN Meetings.

The dates for 2010 meetings have already been fixed and the Committee is reviewing the dates for 2011, 2012 and 2013. Staff prepared a calendar of other events occuring through those years in order to help guide and explain the dates put forward.

The Committee is publishing that document so the community has an opportunity to highlight any events or dates that may have been overlooked.

The recommended dates for the 2011-13 are given below:

2011

13-18 March
19-24 June
09-14 October

2012

11-16 March
24-29 June
14-19 October

2013

07-12 April
14-19 July
17-22 November

Possible issues for discussion:

• Have any important dates or holidays been missed that would require review of the above dates?

Public comment process – For discussion

The public comment process – where the community is invited to review and comment on all substantive work that ICANN produces – is a crucial element of the way the organization works and helps ensure both transparency and accountability in its processes.

Despite ongoing improvements to the public comments system – including the provision of a public comment page and summary/analyses of all comments to individual periods – overall it still remains far from optimal.

Staff are currently reviewing three new software solutions that would greatly improve the comment process, and the Committee will soon examine ways to provide executive summaries for most documents, but there remain issues with the public comment process that needs to be addressed by the whole community in order to make the process more effective.

The issues:

• Public comment overload.

ICANN as a whole is producing more comment periods than ever before, leading some to complain of overload and an inability to keep track.

The problem is particularly acute close to ICANN international public meetings. Last month (May 2009), no less than 12 comment periods were opened; in June, so far, there have been a further six. At any given time, an average of eight comment periods open for review.

Does the community believe this is the most effective way for ICANN to do its business while retaining openness and accountability? Are there alternative solutions?

Should there be prescribed spacing out of comment periods? Should comment periods be longer to give more time to respond? Are there some issues or documents that do not need to go through the formal comment system?

• Approach taken.

Currently, all public comment periods are announced on the front page of the ICANN site, and all open and recently closed comment periods are placed on a dedicated public comment page, linked to several times on the front page of ICANN’s main website.

Nevertheless, ICANN continues to receive, on average, under 20 comments per comment period. And if you discount the very large comment periods (Applicant Guidebook versions), there are, on average, just over seven comments per comment period.

Is this a sufficient response to publicly posted documents? Are people being made sufficiently aware of the comment process? Should there be required outreach to identified affected stakeholders?

Is it possible to effectively participate in a comment period? For example, do large documents posted with an email address for comments hinder effective participation? If so, what changes could be made? Would advance notice of comment periods have an impact? Would online polling of particular questions be effective or misleading?

• Feedback.

Every person sending in a comment receives receipt of that comment along with an explanation of ways in which to participate within ICANN’s processes. But, typically, there are no more targeted updates after that point.

Should respondents be kept up-to-date with progress of the particular area? How does ICANN show the impact of public comments on progress of an issue? Should there be required discussion of comment summaries when the topic is discussed next by the relevant group?

• Rules and procedures.

Those within the community know and expect that all revised versions of documents will be put out for public comment for, typically, 30 days. There are also a set of consultation principles that ICANN abides by (http://www.icann.org/en/accountability/frameworks-principles/community.htm#d ).

However, those are very few stated rules and procedures attached to comment periods. Should there be? For example, who may start a comment period, how it is formatted, which topics require public comment and which do not, how are late comments dealt with, and so on.

The Committee wants to review this crucial process to make sure it is meeting both the organization’s and the community’s needs.

Public Forum – For discussion

The public forum session typically held on Thursday at ICANN’s international public meetings is a crucial point of participation for the community. Anyone may put a question directly to the Board in the long open microphone session.

For Mexico City and for Sydney, there has also been the option to ask a question through an online Question Box – allowing for those that are not physically at the meeting or who prefer not to publicly address the whole room to have their say.

However, the Committee feels that the public forum is not fulfilling its desired purpose which is to act as a place where there can be open and active dialogue between the community and the Board.

The Committee will be recommending a number of changes in the format of the public forum in an experiment and in an effort to improve the session.

Those changes reflect closely what the Committee was told by the community itself at the Committee’s public meeting in Mexico City, namely:

• That the public forum is dominated each time by the same few individuals
• That the current format is not effective at encouraging discussion on particular topic but rather encourages a series of unrelated statements to be read out

The Committee has also recognized that:

• There is not enough two-way interaction between Board and community
• The opportunity for effective remote participation is not being used well
• The Board should be seen to be paying more attention to the room

Suggestions for change to public forum:

• Have the start of forum led by questions sent in remotely (and also, where possible, to give remote participants priority over those in the room)
• Have two microphones and two queues – one for new topics, one for comment on topic currently being discussed.
• Give precedence to those who have not asked a question in a public forum before
• Request that Board members engage more with the room and spend less time looking at their laptop screens

Other feedback from Mexico City:

• Use of colored cards may be useful (Note: The Committee remains uncertain whether this would be a useful system to introduce.)
• Announce issues to be discussed on website earlier (Note: The Committee wonder how effective this would actually be to pulling people into the forum.)

Excerpt from Committee working documents:

This memo represents the deliberations of the Committee with respect to the Public Forum held at the most recent ICANN meeting in Mexico City, as well as the previous international public meetings in Cairo and Paris.

1. Purpose

What is the public forum appropriate for and what is it not appropriate for?

Many hours are given over to the public forum/open microphone at each ICANN meeting and while its purpose is clear – to give the community a clear voice to raise questions or concerns – it is not clear that that purpose is being effectively realized with the current arrangements.

Too often, the public forum is not used as a forum to ask questions but rather as a way for individuals to make statements on the record. This greatly reduces the interactive nature of the forum and also consumes considerable time.

Also, the statements or views expressed are frequently the summation of views already expressed in a number of different fora during the previous days of the meeting.

There needs to be a trade-off between the one-way provision of (often repetitious) information to the Board and a more interactive two-way dialogue between Board and community. It may be worth exploring different avenues for the provision of official statements.

One suggestion is a second standing microphone which is used only for follow-up questions and statements on the particular topic currently being discussed.

2. Participants

It is notable that among approximately 1,200 attendees that the public forum/open microphone is dominated by a very small number of the same individuals at each meeting. The Committee would like to see broader and wider participation of the community during the public forum.

One suggestion put forward during the Board’s own session in Mexico City, and supported by some Committee members, is to reserve the start of the public forum for those that have not asked a question before in the public forum.

3. Remote Participation

The forum is an ideal venue for effective remote participation. However it needs to be recognized that effective remote participation can only be achieved if remote participants are given priority over those physically present.

The Committee wonders whether to recommend that the first hour of the public forum (or appropriate time period) is given over entirely to remote participants. It may be possible to take a number of questions provided by remote participants as the start point for further discussion within the room.

4. Board interaction

It is a consistent complaint that the Board does not interact sufficiently with the community during the public forum. In particular the sight of Board members on stage peering at open laptops rather than looking at the audience has been identified as a source of some consternation.

From the Board’s perspective there are two main issues in this respect. Firstly, much of the information is one-way – with Board members expected to listen to several hours of position statements. Secondly, during the public forum much of the flow of information – which is particularly high due to the session’s nature – is done electronically.

Despite that situation however, the Committee feels that all Board members on stage should demonstrate their attention to the debate during these public discussions. Glancing at the scribe feed on the screens in front of them is understandable, even advisable, but only modest attention should be paid to chat and email while the public forum is going on.

Electronic tools for participation – For discussion

Since ICANN is an Internet organization, it has always sought ways to use the Internet’s unique ability to communicate, to achieve effective participation.

Typically, such participation is carried out in two ways: firstly, through the provision and sharing of information on ICANN’s main website; and secondly, through remote participation tools while a physical meeting is going on.

The Committee is taking a particular interest in the use of electronic tools for remote participation, since it believes effective remote participation is essential to ICANN’s future and also represents significant future cost savings. As such, it recommended to the Board at its meeting in May that the organization take a more formal approach to determining what systems may be best suited to public participation in the context of ICANN.

The Committee’s Charter states that it should identify and encourage the development of effective tools, strategies, and methods for Public Participation activities, and it also agrees with the Chairman’s publicly stated view that ICANN should become a world leader in remote participation.

With this in mind, the Committee is working with staff to assess the suitability for use and best practices for remote participation tools, technologies and approaches in an effort to enable the community to enable greater participation (while also accounting for remote participation capabilities in developing countries).

Possible issues for discussion:

• What tools that ICANN currently uses are most effective, and which are least effective?
• Are there limits to what can be achieved through remote participation? If so, what are they?
• What type of tools does ICANN not currently use that might be useful?
• How can we foster participation from people in countries and regions with limited technical tools (access, connectivity, bandwidth, cost…)?
• What improvements could be made to existing systems?
• Will remote participation become more or less important over time?

Website usability study

ICANN’s website is the main entry point for the community to follow the work of the organization, but it remains far from optimal.

The Committee notes, and will follow with particular interest, a usability study that staff are carrying out with respect to the ICANN.org website where the community is being encouraged to provide its views on the website and where it can be adjusted or improved.

The Committee encourages all community members to fill in the online survey form opened prior to the Sydney meeting to gather information, and would like to discuss input into that process, the issues that people have with the current website.

Possible issues for discussion:

• What do people expect from the ICANN.org website?
• How easy is the navigation on the site?
• What features would be useful on the website?

Mexico City is no exception. Although this time, it is very much easier to get a quick overview of what is out for public comment by looking at the front page of the ICANN website (the third box down on the right).

Just to present you with another avenue to finding out about these public comment periods, there are all listed below with quick explanations of what they are and the dates when they close.

Open comment periods

1. GNSO Constituency Renewals. Closes 25 FEB
As part of the ongoing changes to ICANN’s main policy-making body, the GNSO, all the existing constituencies have put in submissions stating that they have followed the bylaws and so should be reconfirmed as valid constituencies. You are free to comment on these submissions.

2. IPv4 Global Policy. Closes 26 FEB
We are running out of IPv4 address space and so ICANN has been working with the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) to decide what system we follow as the addresses get more and more scarce. The policy here proposes that each RIR be allocated one “slash-8″ – equating to roughly 16.7 million IP addresses – as soon as they are only five blocks left. If you have a comment on this you can make it between now and 26 February.

3. Single and Two-Character .BIZ Domains. Closes 15 MAR
The company that runs the .biz registry, NeuStar, wants to make single and two-character domains available. Until recently, no registries were allowed to do this because of technical concerns. But those rules have relaxed over the past year or so. To be allowed to create, for example, i.biz, NeuStar has to change its contract with ICANN, and ICANN puts all contract changes out for public comment and review. So if you have an opinion about this, you can make it online.

4. Geographic Regions Working Group Charter. Closes 24 MAR
As an organization hoping to represent global stakeholders, ICANN has followed the common approach of splitting the world up into different regions in order to make things manageable. The problems is: where do you draw the lines? It may seem simple but the closer the issue is looked at, the more complex it becomes. So, in order to review what these regions are and who they include, ICANN has created a Working Group to go through all the issues and make recommendations at the end of it. The first step in that process is to create a charter for the group – outlining the scope and methodology that will be followed. This public comment period opens that charter up to public review.

5. Fast Track Proposed Solutions. Closes 6 APR
The Fast Track is the process by which governments and the managers of different countries’ registries will be able to apply for and receive versions of their country name in different languages scripts at the top-level of the Internet i.e. the part after the dot in a domain name. An example would be “China” in Chinese characters. These “internationalized domain names” or IDNs are being put out on the Internet for the first time as the technical issues that make it possible have only recently been resolved.

It is not a simple process by any means, so ICANN has been producing drafts of an “implementation plan” to make this process a reality. In this iteration, as well as the latest version of the Fast Track Implementation Plan, there will be three papers identifying specific issues that still need to be resolved. You can see all the papers in question and make comments about them now and until 6 April.

6. ALAC Review Final Report. Closes 17 APR
ICANN regularly reviews of its main supporting organizations and advisory committees to make sure they remain relevant and in the correct format. The At Large Advisory Committee or ALAC exists to represent ordinary Internet users and it has been under review for roughly a year and the process is drawing to a close. A final report of the working group created to carry out much of the review has been released for its final piece of public comment before being formally submitted to a Board Committee that then puts it forward to a vote by the whole Board. So if you want your say on how ordinary Internet users should be represented within the ICANN model, this is your last chance. Until the ALAC is reviewed again in a few years.

7. Operating Plan and Budget FY2010. Closes 30 APR
People are constantly asking how much money ICANN has and how it decides where to spend it. What few people recognise however is that those decisions are heavily influenced by the community itself. Every year, ICANN runs through a public strategic planning process that outlines what the organization needs to do in the next year. It then turns that into an Operating Plan and from that devises its budget. The community is invited every year to provide their feedback on the process of where ICANN spends it money. This is a comment period on the first version of the Operating Plan and Budget for ICANN’s 2010 financial year. The comments from this will be used to revise the plan and budget and it will then be put out a second time before being approved by the Board in June.

And that’s it for now. Much of the community will be focussed on the revised Applicant Guidebook for new generic top-level domains that will come out in the next day or so, but please do not forget these other public comment periods.

You can view all open and recently closed public comment periods on one page, as well as an archive of older comment periods: http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/.

The first public comment period on the Draft Applicant Guidebook for new gTLDs has closed. The period opened on 24 October 2008, and was 76 days long after it closed 7 January to account for later publication of the Guidebook in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. ICANN continued to receive and accept English comments received until the January 7 deadline considering the end of year holidays.

The comment period received over 300 comments from participants from 24 different countries. Among the many participants were individuals and organizations representing intellectual property interests, brand owners, business owners, ICANN supporting organizations, domain name industry players, and governments.

“This level of interest and feedback to the Draft Guidebook shows that the comment process is working. All the comments and concerns will be considered and a response will be provided,” said Paul Levins, Executive Officer and Vice President Corporate Affairs.

Some of the key concerns raised by the community that are immediately obvious are:

* Brand protection issues and the impact on brands and trademark owners
* Financial considerations, including evaluation fees, ongoing registry fees, and refund procedures
* Various issues surrounding the proposed registry agreement, particularly, price controls, registry/registrar separation, the management of future agreement amendments, equitable treatment, and others
* General comments and concerns related to expanding the top level and its impact on the global marketplace, specific industries and Domain Name System stability.

“There is no doubt that we need to address these and other legitimate concerns before proceeding to open the application process” said Mr Levins.

Respondents had the option to comment on the Guidebook as a whole or on one of its six modules. Just over half (55 percent), chose to comment on the Guidebook; the rest commented on specific modules or topics. The fifth module, covering the base agreement between new registries and ICANN, received the most comments (around 30 percent).

The responses are now being summarized and evaluated. A comprehensive analysis of the comments will be released in early February.

“We will also be holding conferences in different global locations to further explain the Guidebook, the changes envisaged and to have further dialogue. Alongside the feedback received from these and other outreach events, the summary and analysis will inform ICANN staff through the next program development phase, which will mean amending the current guidebook” Mr Levins said.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those that contributed their responses to the first public comment period. ICANN looks forward to continuing a productive dialogue on this that will result in amendments to the application process” Levins said.

The responses sent in will now be carefully compiled and summarized. In the New Year, this summary will be published and soon thereafter, suggested alterations to the Guidebook based on that feedback will be put back out to the community.

The revised Guidebook will then be put out to a second comment period in order to enable fine tuning.

As of Monday 22 December, this first public comment period has received 317 comments through its dedicated online forums. Respondents come from 24 different countries and each of the five global regions.

Respondents were given the option of responding to the Guidebook as a whole, or individually to one of the six modules that makes up the Guidebook. Just over half (55 percent) chose to comment on the Guidebook as a whole; the remainder (with a small overlap) made specific comments about the modules.

Of the modules, the fifth module, covering the legal agreement between new registries and ICANN received the most comments (43 of 141, or 30 percent). That was followed by Module 1, which covered, among other things, the costs of applications: it received 32 comments or 23 percent. Thereafter, evaluation procedures (17 percent); dispute resolution (13 percent); string contention (12 percent); and terms and conditions (5 percent).

We look forward to continuing the conversation and revision process in 2009.

ICANN Staff

Each issue covers the latest news and events, plus outlines how you can interact with the organization. This month, alongside the usual policy rundown, compliance summary, Board meeting precis, public comment digest, and blog complendium, is a briefing note for the recent Paris meeting and some early details about the Cairo meeting.

The hope is that, no matter which part of ICANN you are interested in, this magazine will act as an entry point and make people more aware of the other work that the organization carries out every month.

Feedback, as ever, is welcome. If you wish to receive the magazine automatically to your inbox, there is a very simple sign-up box above the magazine on the main magazine webpage at http://www.icann.org/magazine/.

In order for comments to be considered by the Review Team, please send comments by 23:59 UTC 24 May 2008 to pir-dnssec-proposal@icann.org.

Not sure what DNSSEC is? “DNSSEC is a mechanism to assure the authenticity and integrity of DNS data. DNSSEC facilitates a chain of trust that starts with the root name servers and proceeds through the hierarchical resolution of a domain name. At each level in the DNS, the signature of the upper level zone is verified using an associated public encryption key (see http://www.icann.org/committees/security/dns-security-update-1.htm).” A useful non-ICANN site on DNSSEC is www.dnssec.net.

In it, we provide updates on three policy areas: translation, SSAC, and new gTLDs. It also provide summaries of all 2008 Board meetings so far; interviews with the CEO and NomCom chair Hagen Hultzsch; the history behind ICANN’s efforts to deal with domain tasting; and sections covering recent blog discussions, public comment periods, and other ICANN-related news.

We hope you enjoy it – feedback, as ever, is welcome. If you wish to receive the magazine automatically to your inbox, there is a very simple sign-up box above the magazine on the main magazine webpage at http://www.icann.org/magazine/.