Dear Councilors,

As GNSO Council liaison to the ALAC-GAC-GNSO Facilitated Dialogue on Closed Generic gTLDs, I wanted to update you on the latest developments on this project. On 7 July 2023, after discussions amongst themselves that I also participated in, Sebastien (in his capacity as GNSO Chair), Jonathan Zuck (ALAC Chair) and Nico Caballero (GAC Chair) sent the attached letter to the participants in the dialogue. For reasons set out in the letter, and in response to questions that the dialogue participants had referred to them (also noted in the letter), the three Chairs have collectively decided that it will be neither necessary to continue with the dialogue to develop a final framework nor initiate further policy development work on this topic.

The dialogue participants have discussed the Chairs’ joint letter and agreed to conclude their work as requested, including producing an outcomes report to ensure that the work to date is thoroughly documented. Participants also agreed to forward the Chairs’ letter to all the commenters that submitted input on the draft framework (viz., Tucows, RySG, BC, ISPCPC, ALAC and GAC), and have invited those commenters that wish to engage with the group to join their next call to clarify any significant concerns they raised in the feedback they provided.

The staff team that is supporting the dialogue is currently preparing a draft outcomes report for the group to review. The group intends for the outcomes report to serve as an introduction and summary of their work, including expressly clarifying that the draft framework the group published in June 2023 does not reflect agreed outcomes but, rather, was a product of compromise that was reached in the interests of soliciting community feedback on the various elements and points included in the draft framework. The outcomes report will also include all the community feedback that were submitted in full, links to the group’s community wiki space and other relevant documentation, and the participants’ feedback on the consensus building techniques and approaches that were used for the dialogue.

The group hopes to wrap up its work by September, in line with its previous plan to conclude the dialogue and final framework by end-Q3 2023. I understand that Sebastien, Nico and Jonathan will also be sending a separate communication to the ICANN Board that reflects the decision they took and, as stated in the letter, expressing the collective view that:

(1) closed generic gTLDs should not be viewed as a dependency for the next round;

(2) until there is community-developed policy, the Board should maintain the position from the 2012 round (i.e., any applications seeking to impose exclusive registry access for "generic strings" to a single person or entity and/or that person's or entity's Affiliates (as defined in Section 2.9(c) of the Registry Agreement) should not proceed; and

(3) should the community decide in the future to resume the policy discussions, this should be based on the good work that has been done to date in the facilitated dialogue.

Sebastien and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have on the letter, the Chairs’ decision and the proposed next steps. You may also wish to check in with the representatives that each of your Stakeholder Groups appointed to the dialogue for further information.

Finally, I am sure I speak for all of us when I say that we are very grateful to the dialogue participants and the staff support team for all the hard work and consensus building that resulted in a detailed and substantive, if preliminary, draft framework. I also hope that the participants’ feedback on the methods and techniques used in the dialogue, as well as other lessons learned from the experience, will provide the GNSO Council and community with useful information that we can put into practice in future policy discussions.

Best regards,

John