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ICANN POLICY UPDATE | Volume 12, Issue 4 – May 2012

PDF Version [680 KB]

http://www.icann.org/en/topics/policy/

CONTENTS:

Across ICANN

  1. New Remote Participation Records Set at ICANN 43
  2. Issues Currently Open for Public Comment

ccNSO

  1. Curaçao, Palestinian Territory and Sint Maarten Join ccNSO
  2. First Look at ccNSO Prague Meeting Agenda
  3. Tips Available for Making Effective Presentations
  4. ccNSO Gets Friendly on Facebook

GNSO

  1. UK's National Physical Laboratory to Conduct Whois Privacy, Proxy Abuse Study
  2. Board Adopts Last Recommendation of Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part B

ASO

  1. ICANN Board Ratifies Policy Proposal for Recovered IPv4 Address Blocks

At-Large

  1. ALAC Approves Numerous Statements in Response to Public Comments
  2. Review of ALAC Rule of Procedures, Performance Indicators Begins
  3. Quick and Easy Translation Tool Installed on the At-Large Community Wiki Pages

SSAC

  1. Issues Active in the SSAC

GAC

  1. Where to Find GAC Information

Read in Your Preferred Language

ICANN Policy Update is available in all six official languages of the United Nations. Policy Update is posted on ICANN's web site and available via online subscription. To receive the Update in your Inbox each month, visit the ICANN subscriptions page, enter your e-mail address, and select "Policy Update" to subscribe. This service is free.

ICANN Policy Update statement of purpose

Send questions, comments and suggestions to: policy-staff@icann.org

Policy Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees

Address Supporting Organization ASO
Country Code Names Supporting Organization ccNSO
Generic Names Supporting Organization GNSO
At-Large Advisory Committee ALAC
Governmental Advisory Committee GAC
Root Server System Advisory Committee RSSAC
Security and Stability Advisory Committee SSAC

Across ICANN

1. New Remote Participation Records Set at ICANN 43

At a Glance

Remote participation at ICANN's Public Meeting in Costa Rica set a new record. Approximately 90 people attended the Newcomers' Track programs on Sunday. The Public Forum agenda included input from ICANN community leaders, and was published a week before the meeting.

Recent Developments

Remote Participation – All 11 physical meeting rooms used during ICANN's 43rd Public Meeting in Costa Rica offered remote participation services through Adobe Connect. These are now among the regular and default services provided during the ICANN Meetings. A total of 5609 connections were made through Adobe Connect, surpassing the previous high of 5159 at ICANN 42 in Dakar.

The Costa Rica meeting also surpassed on-site attendance figures for the previous ICANN meeting in the Latin American and Caribbean region in 2010 in Cartagena, Colombia. A total of 1026 people attended the Cartagena meeting on-site, and remote participation numbers were considered to be high with a total of 2821 Adobe Connections.

These numbers reflect increasing interest in ICANN Public Meetings and a strong correlation between increased remote participation and increased usage of remote participation tools.


MP3 Streaming Statistics by Meeting
Language English Spanish French Other Total MP3
Cartagena 1489 223 61 0 1773
San Francisco 2403 518 444 0 3365
Singapore 2417 316 1026 338 4097
Dakar 1666 1177 341 8 3192
San Jose 1497 395 563 81 2536

 

Adobe Connect Connections

Figure 1 - Adobe Connect Connections


Also, remote participants submitted more questions and comments during the community Public Forum in Costa Rica than ever before.


  ICANN 40: Silicon Valley/ San Francisco ICANN 41: Singapore ICANN 42: Dakar ICANN 43: Costa Rica
No. of remote questions and comments 3 10 17 18

 

While this increase can be attributed to better remote participation services, staff believes it is also related to the early publishing effort of the Public Forum agenda during the last three Public Meetings.

Newcomers' Program – The total number of Newcomers (including first-, second-, and third-timers) at the Costa Rica meeting was recorded at 421, and the approximate number of those using the Newcomers' Lounge was 140 registered participants.

The Newcomers' Lounge was available to participants for a total of 53 hours over the meeting week: Saturday, 10 March (0900-1800) and Sunday, 11 March to Wednesday, 14 March (0700–1800).

About 90 people attended the Newcomers' Sunday Tracks, and 15 percent participated to the sessions remotely. The Costa Rica Newcomers' Sunday Tracks included the following topics:

  • Welcome to ICANN: Overview of ICANN, mission, how it is structured, community groups and their interests, some tips on how to navigate through the ICANN meeting week.
  • Ombudsman 101: Role of the Ombudsman.
  • Policy Update: The activities of the Advisory Committees and Supporting Organizations, including an overview of the topics to be discussed through out the week.
  • New gTLD Program and Registries Overview: The basics of Registries and the New gTLD Program.
  • Contractual Compliance at ICANN: What Contractual Compliance does, how it is structured and staffed, how it ensures and enforces registry and registrar compliance, and what it means and why it matters within the ICANN's multi-stakeholder model.
  • Introduction to Remote Participation: ICANN's remote participation goals and services.
  • Basic Training on ICANN's Community Wiki: Basic information on Community wiki's, how to join, how to use them for what purpose.

Other highlights:

Participants in Costa Rica Newcomers' activities were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their experience.

  • 95 percent of the survey responders found the Newcomers' Tracks on Sunday geared well to those new to the ICANN experience.
  • 93 percent of the survey responders were satisfied with overall help and service they received at the Newcomers' Lounge.
  • Three newcomers were interviewed, unprompted, about their experience, and were very complimentary about the Newcomers' Program. The video is still being edited, but will be available and posted soon.

The Newcomers' Sunday Track will be repeated in Prague. Training session topics and content will be adjusted based on feedback received in Costa Rica.

Public Forum: ICANN staff worked with ICANN community leaders to develop the Public Forum agenda. Community members seemed to really appreciate this new approach.

ICANN staff continues to work with the Community to balance the desire for the agenda's early publication with the challenge of ensuring ample time for the Community to indicate which topics they would like to see on the agenda, which often become clearer closer to the meeting time. Publishing the agenda about a week prior to the Public Forum helps increase community awareness and seems to allow participants to prepare their remarks. This improves the quality and quantity of the participation during the forum.

Staff Contact

Filiz Yilmaz, Senior Director, Participation and Engagement


2. Issues Currently Open for Public Comment

Numerous public comment periods are currently open on issues of interest to the ICANN community. Act now to share your views on such topics as:

For the full list of issues open for public comment, plus recently closed and archived public comment forums, visit the Public Comment web page.


ccNSO

3. Curaçao, Palestinian Territory and Sint Maarten Join ccNSO

ccNSO Logo

At a Glance

The country code operators for Curaçao, Palestinian Territory and the Dutch part of Sint Maarten were approved as members of the ccNSO.

Recent Developments

University of Netherlands Antilles, the ccTLD operator of .cw (Curaçao), the Ministry Of Telecommunications & Information Technology; Government Computer Center and the Ministry of Infrastructure Information and Technology Division, the manager of the .ps (Palestinian Territory) ccTLD; and SX Registry SA, the ccTLD operator of .sx (Sint Maarten) have joined as the latest ccNSO members.

There are now a total of 130 ccNSO members.

Next Steps

The ccNSO is looking forward to fruitful cooperation with the new members.

Background

Since the beginning of 2012, six new members joined the ccNSO. It now counts 130 members.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, ccNSO Secretariat


4. First Look at ccNSO Prague Meeting Agenda

At a Glance

The ccNSO website now includes the draft meeting agenda for the ccNSO meeting during the ICANN Public Meeting in Prague.

Recent Developments

The ccNSO Programme Working Group published the first draft agenda for the ICANN Public Meeting in Prague. The traditional panel discussion on Wednesday afternoon will deal with Internet Governance. A session on New gTLDs is also included in the schedule.

Next Steps

Updates to the draft agenda are made continuously, so check back frequently for the latest.

Background

Everyone is welcome to attend the ccNSO Members meeting!

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, ccNSO Secretariat


5. Tips Available for Making Effective Presentations.

At a Glance

Improve your presentations with new ccNSO Presenter Guidelines, now posted online.

Recent Developments

In order to ensure a high quality of presentations at the ccNSO meetings, the ccNSO Programme Working Group drafted a set of guidelines with hints and tricks that can be useful when giving presentations.

Next Steps

ccNSO presenters will be encouraged to read the guidelines before preparing a presentation.

Background

The Programme Working Group researched how to support ccNSO speakers to ensure a high quality of presentations.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, ccNSO Secretariat


6. ccNSO Gets Friendly on Facebook

At a Glance

Join the ccNSO on Facebook for updates and networking.

Recent Developments

The ccNSO now has its own Facebook page.

Next Steps

Friends and "Likes" are very welcome!

Background

This initiative derives from discussions within the ccNSO Programme Working Group on how to engage people more in the ccNSO meetings; how to create awareness of what's on the Meeting agenda and to be able to have a useful "instant" research tool on how the sessions are perceived (it will be used to find out how people liked the sessions "live" in Prague.) There are other positive benefits, too – it provides a more relaxed forum for ccTLDs to share information and thoughts on various topics and developments.

More Information

Staff Contact

Gabriella Schittek, ccNSO Secretariat


GNSO

7. UK’s National Physical Laboratory to Conduct Whois Privacy, Proxy Abuse Study

At a Glance

"Whois" is the data repository containing registered domain names, registrant contacts and other critical information. The GNSO Council is proceeding with several studies to provide current, reliable information for community discussions about Whois.

Recent Developments

ICANN has engaged the National Physical Laboratory of the United Kingdom to conduct the Whois Proxy and Privacy Services Abuse Study. It will focus on the extent to which domain names used to conduct illegal or harmful Internet activities are registered via privacy or proxy services to obscure the perpetrator's identity.

More Information

Staff Contact

Liz Gasster, Senior Policy Counselor


8. Board Adopts Last Recommendation of Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part B

At a Glance

The ICANN Board adopted the last remaining recommendation of the IRTP Part B Policy Development Process. It endorses the standardization and clarification of Whois status messages regarding Registrar Lock status.

Recent Developments and Next Steps

At its meeting on 6 May, the ICANN Board adopted a recommendation to require registrars to provide more detail within Whois status messages regarding Registrar Lock status.

Previously, when a Whois lookup was conducted, different status codes were associated with a domain name registration such as "clientTransferProhibited" or "clientUpdateProhibited." However, no further explanation was provided concerning what these status codes mean or how these can be changed.

With the Board's action, registrars will be required to display a link to information on each status code directly next to the status in the output, for example: "Status: ClientLock http://www.internic.net/status/html/clientlock." This link connects to an ICANN-controlled webpage where the relevant status code information as described in the "EPP Status Codes, what do they mean and why should I know?" is posted.

ICANN will also post translations of the status information. The web page can make use of localization information from the browser the user employs to display the web page in the related language. In addition to the link, registrars will be required to include in the Whois output a note that states "For more information on Whois status codes, please visit Internic.net" where the link to the information will be posted. ICANN staff will develop an implementation plan for these Recommendations and continue communication with the community on such work.

Background

The aim of the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) is to provide a straightforward procedure for domain name holders to transfer their names from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another.

The IRTP is a GNSO consensus policy that was adopted in 2004 with the objective to provide registrants with a transparent and predictable way to transfer domain name registrations between registrars. As part of its implementation, it was decided to carry out a review of the policy in order to determine whether it was working as intended or whether there are any areas that would benefit from further clarification or improvement. As a result of this review, a number of issues were identified that were grouped together in five different policy development processes or PDPs, titled A to E, that are being addressed in a consecutive order.

More Information

IRTP Part B:

Staff Contact

Marika Konings, Senior Policy Director


ASO

9. ICANN Board Ratifies Policy Proposal for Recovered IPv4 Address Blocks

ASO Logo

At a Glance

The ICANN Board at its 6 May meeting ratified a policy proposal developed by consensus among the five Regional Internet Registries for handling IPv4 address space returned from the RIRs to IANA.

Recent Developments

The ICANN Board approved a proposal originated by APNIC and adopted by all five RIRs on the allocation of recovered IPv4 address space. Prior to being considered by the Board, it was posted for public comment and reviewed by the Number Resource Organization Executive Committee and the Address Supporting Organization Address Council.

In the approved new process, IANA will establish and administer a pool of returned address space to be allocated to all RIRs simultaneously in equal blocks of smaller size than the traditional /8. Pool size permitting, allocations will occur every six months.

Next Steps

IANA will implement the policy.

Background

IPv4 is the Internet Protocol addressing system used to allocate unique IP address numbers in 32-bit format. With the massive growth of the Internet user population, the pool of unique numbers (approximately 4.3 billion) has been depleted and a 128-bit numbering system (IPv6) is taking its place.

More Information

Staff Contact

Olof Nordling, Director, Services Relations


At-Large

10. ALAC Approves Numerous Statements in Response to Public Comments

At a Glance

During April and early May, the ALAC submitted eight statements in various ICANN public comment fora. This high rate of statements is due, in part, to the increasing activity of At-Large Working Groups and At-Large activity in cross-community Working Groups. The ALAC is preparing several additional statements in response to currently open public comments.

Recent Developments

The ALAC statements submitted since 1 April are:

More Information

Staff Contact

Heidi Ullrich, Director for At-Large


11. Review of ALAC Rule of Procedures, Performance Indicators Begins

At a Glance

Representatives of the five Regional At-Large Organizations (RALOs) are actively participating in the At-Large Rules of Procedure (ROP) Working Group. The group is analyzing the ALAC Rules of Procedure with the aim of harmonizing the ALAC rules with the realities currently faced by the ALAC and the At-Large community. The adoption of modifications to the ALAC rules is a bottom-up endeavor, with direct participation of members from At-Large Structures (ALSes) of all five RALOs and duly accredited individual Internet users. These activities are part of the ALAC/At-Large Improvements Implementation Project.

The RALOs are also actively engaged in the ALAC Metrics Sub-Committee. This Sub-Committee was also created as part of the ALAC/At-Large Improvements Project and is a Sub-Committee of the ROP Working Group. The ALAC Metrics Sub-Committee is conducting a review of the ALAC Member, RALO Member and ALS performance metrics. Cheryl Langdon-Orr is the Chair of the ROP WG and ALAC Metrics Sub-Committee.

By engaging in these activities, the ALAC and At-Large community aims to streamline its processes to facilitate discussions among its members and focus its strategies to achieve better outputs and optimize the internet user's participation in ICANN's multistakeholder model.

Recent Developments

The Rules of Procedure Working Group and the Metrics Working Group held meetings in April and May 2012. Discussions included matters of background and the history of rules and rule versions in At-Large and ALAC. The ROP WG is conducting an analysis of the current rules section by section with options for new sections to be added, as well as integration and synthesis opportunities. During the 44th ICANN Meeting in Prague, the At-Large ROP WG will decide under which mechanisms the group will report and monitor its progress. Work will focus on the use of the community wiki as a tool for review (with a general suggestions page to be created as a catch-all space) and with all sections at least initially being analyzed and commented on in parallel. The review will include consideration of the role, selection process and term length of the ALAC Chair and Vice Chairs. The review is being performed taking into account the ICANN Bylaws.

The Metrics Sub-Committee has a work plan with three phases, focusing first on ALAC Member Metrics, followed by an analysis of the ALS and continuing with RALO Leadership expectations.

Members from both the ROPs and Metrics Sub-Committee have attended the meetings and more are scheduled to take place on a rotating basis.

More Information

The ROP WG and Metrics Sub-Committee Workspaces may be viewed on the following community wiki pages:

Staff Contact

Silvia Vivanco, Manager Regional Affairs


12. Quick and Easy Translation Tool Installed on the At-Large Community Wiki Pages

At a Glance

Working with the Chair of the At-Large Technology Taskforce, ICANN staff has installed an automatic translation tool on the At-Large community wiki pages, which quickly and easily translates the entire page into one of several languages. This translation tool (placed at the top of each wiki page directly underneath the title) will make community wiki pages, including the comment sections, more widely available in a large choice of languages.

Recent Developments

The installation of a translation tool on the At-Large community wiki pages comes at a time when the At-Large community is actively engaging in numerous new working groups, including the Rules of Procedure Working Group and the ALAC Metrics Sub-Committee. The efforts of many current Working Groups are very detailed. Much work is conducted through comments posted on wiki pages. The ability of individual community members to read the contents of these pages in their language of choice greatly increases the ability of all members to contribute to the groups' activities.

More Information

Staff Contact

ICANN Policy Staff in support of ALAC


SSAC

13. Issues Active in the SSAC


GAC

14. Where to Find GAC Information

At a Glance

ICANN receives input from governments through the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). The GAC's key role is to provide advice to ICANN on issues of public policy, and especially where there may be an interaction between ICANN's activities or policies and national laws or international agreements. The GAC usually meets three times a year in conjunction with ICANN meetings, where it discusses issues with the ICANN Board and other ICANN Supporting Organizations, Advisory Committees and other groups. The GAC may also discuss issues between times with the Board either through face-to-face meetings or by teleconference.

More Information

Staff Contact

Jeannie Ellers, ICANN staff

update-may12-en.pdf  [680 KB]

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."