Public Comment Summary Report
Phase 1 Initial Report on the Internationalized
Domain Names EPDP
Open for Submissions Date:
Monday, 24 April 2023
Closed for Submissions Date:
Monday, 19 June 2023 (Extended from Monday, 05 June 2023)
Summary Report Due Date:
Monday, 10 July 2023 (Extended from Monday, 26 June 2023)
Category: Policy
Requester: Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO)ICANN org Contact(s): policy-staff@icann.org
Open Proceeding Link: https://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/proceeding/phase-1-initialreport-on-the-internationalized-domain-names-epdp-24-04-2023
Outcome:This Public Comment proceeding was initially scheduled to remain open from 24 April 2023
through 05 June 2023. The Public Comment proceeding was extended by two weeks inresponse to requests for additional time to submit input.
The EPDP Team received a total of 12 submissions from groups, organizations, and individuals.
The EPDP Team is now beginning a thorough review of the Public Comment submissions
received on this Phase 1 Initial Report and will consider whether any changes need to be madeto its preliminary recommendations.

Section 1: What We Received Input On
The EPDP Team sought input on its sixty-eight (68) preliminary recommendations, which focus
on Phase 1 questions included in the EPDP Team’s charter on the following topics:● Topic A: Consistent definition and technical utilization of the Root Zone Label GenerationRules (RZ-LGR)● Topic B: “Same entity” at the top-level● Topic D: Adjustments in registry agreement, registry service, registry transition process,and other processes/procedures related to the domain name lifecycle|1

● Topic E: Adjustments to string similarity review, objection process, string contention
resolution, reserved strings, and other policies and proceduresThis Phase 1 Initial Report covers topics related to the top-level IDN variant gTLDs. The EPDP
Team is expected to deliberate on second level IDN variant management issues during Phase
2.
The Public Comment proceeding was presented as a series of structured questions andprovided an opportunity for respondents to provide general submissions. The EPDP Teamrequested that responses to the questions include detailed rationale to support further analysisof the relevant issues.

Section 2: Submissions
Organizations and Groups:
Name
PointQuebec
Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)ICANN orgAt-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)
Amadeu Abril i Abril, Chief Policy Advisorof CORE Association
Business Constituency (BC)Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG)

Submitted by
Louis Houle; andClaude Menard; andNormand Fortier
Robert Hoggarth
Michael Karakash
Policy staff in support of the ALAC

Initials

Nacho Amadoz
BC
RySG

Individuals:
Name
Julius Kirimi

Affiliation (if provided)

Initials

Section 2a: Late Submissions
At its discretion, ICANN org accepted two late submissions, which have been appended to thissummary report.

|2Organizations and Groups:
Name
Cross-Community Working Party on
ICANN and Human Rights (CCWP-HR)
Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG)

Submitted byInitials

Ephraim Percy Kenyanito
Zoe Bonython

Section 3: Summary of Submissions
To facilitate its review of the Public Comment submissions, the staff support team developed a
Public Comment review tool, which provides a high-level assessment of the views expressed on
the preliminary recommendations as well as the detailed submissions provided by eachcontributor. All contributions received and Public Comment review tool can be reviewed here.

Section 4: Analysis of Submissions
The EPDP Team is responsible for the review and analysis of submissions and will be reviewing
all submissions via the Public Comment review tool and further deliberations during meetings.
Please note at the time of publication of this report, review of the submissions by the EPDP
Team was in the very early stages.
In organizing the Public Comment submissions, the support staff team took note of topic areas
where there is a relatively high concentration of submissions expressing concerns or proposing
alternative language, which may provide an initial indication that a greater share of the EPDP
Team’s attention should be devoted to the corresponding preliminary recommendations.
Examples of such topics include Application Submission, Administrative Check, InitialEvaluation (see Preliminary Recommendations 3.11-16), String Similarity Review (seePreliminary Recommendation 4.4), Contractual Requirements (see PreliminaryRecommendations 7.5-7.9), and Delegation and Removal (see Preliminary Recommendations
8.1-8.2).
For the avoidance of doubt, the EPDP Team will carefully consider all submissions on all
recommendations in the course of its Public Comment review. As such, content in the Public
Comment review tool can be expected to be updated over time.

Section 5: Next Steps
Following its analysis of the Public Comments received on this Initial Report, the EPDP Teamwill consider whether any changes need to be made to the Phase 1 preliminary
recommendations. Once the EPDP Team has considered all the Public Comments, it willconduct a formal consensus call on all of the proposed Phase 1 final recommendations before
their inclusion in the Phase 1 Final Report.
|3

After the publication of the Phase 1 Final Report, the EPDP Team is expected to resume its
deliberations on Phase 2 charter questions.

|4

Human Rights Gap Analysis for
ICANN’s Phase 1 Initial Reporton the Internationalized Domain
Names EPDP

Final Report

Ephraim Percy Kenyanito
Maryam LeeMay 2023

Acknowledgments
Many people helped with this project, and we are grateful to everyone who put in theirtime and effort to make it a success.
In particular, thanks to members of the Cross-Community Working Party on ICANN andHuman Rights (CCWP-HR) and Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) for theircontributions to early versions of the HRIA methodology, the Non-Commercial
Stakeholder Group Policy Committee and membership, and various individual members
for providing comments on earlier versions of the analysis.

About the CCWP-HR
The CCWP-HR is a multistakeholder forum currently chartered as a sub-entity of theNon-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) within the Generic Name Supporting
Organisation (GNSO) but remains open to the rest of the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) community for research and discussion on therelationship between human rights and global Domain Name System (DNS) coordination.
This is related — but not limited — to policies, procedures, and operations, with aparticular focus on ICANN’s responsibility to respect human rights. The primary goal ofthe CCWP-HR is to provide information, facilitate dialogue, and make suggestions toICANN Org, its Board of Directors, and the ICANN community on ways to better
harmonize ICANN’s policies and procedures with internationally recognized human rights
laws and corporate social responsibility standards. Membership is open to any interested
individual, regardless of affiliation.

About the Authors
Ephraim Percy Kenyanito is a lawyer and researcher at ARTICLE 19, where he works oncensorship and business and human rights issues at the Internet infrastructure level. Heis a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), has co-chaired the CCWP-HR
since June 2020, and is also an alumni member of ICANN’s fellowship program,
NextGen@ICANN Program, among other fellowship programs.
Maryam Lee has 10 years of experience in human rights advocacy, policy making, andcapacity building to nurture a progressive society. She is trained as an educator and ispassionate about development. She is currently working on business and human rights indigital spaces in an effort to harmonize human rights and technology.

Introduction
In May 2023, ICANN published the Phase 1 Initial Report on the Internationalized
Domain Names Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP).
We welcome ICANN’s decision to release the document in its entirety, in line with
Workstream 2 Recommendations on ICANN Transparency.
We welcome most of the recommendations in the Initial Report, but urge foramendments to make it easier for Community-based TLD strings and in order toensure that the privacy rights of registrants are respected.
Recommendations that we support in full without amendment
1) Preliminary Recommendations 3.10, 3.12, 3.11, and 3.14:
We welcome the recommendations, as they aim to ensure that the allocation ofgTLD strings is affordable, including for applicants from the Global South, andthat applicants are treated on an equal basis regardless of financial capability.
2) Preliminary Recommendation 3.18:
It states, “The Reserved Names list must not be expanded to include variantlabels.”
We welcome the recommendation because it enables the right to free
expression, including the right to information. The Reserved Names list includes
names that are considered harmful to the technical operation of the Internet.
Expanding the list without proper analysis or justification to include variant labels
would unnecessarily limit registrants in instances where these variants do notpose a threat to the operation of the Internet.
Recommendations that we support with some amendments
1) Preliminary Recommendation 3.16:
It states, “An applicant for a Community-based TLD string and its allocatablevariant label(s) is required to submit a written endorsement of its applied-for
primary IDN gTLD string and applied-for allocatable variant label(s) fromestablished institution(s) representing the community that the applicant has
named.”First, the definition of “established institution” is unclear, whether this means
recognition from a State entity or not. This requirement may disproportionately
impact communities that are not recognized by their governments or face otherbarriers to legal identity. Across the world, not all communities have a single

institutional representation, and there may even be competing ones. In such
instances, it is unclear how ICANN would decide which institution is "established".
We thus recommend that this section be deleted, as it would limit smallercommunities with no power to get recognition from a State entity.
2) Preliminary Recommendation 8.2:
It states, “In order to encourage a positive and predictable registrant experience,a framework for developing guidelines for the management of gTLDs and theirvariant labels at the top-level by registries and registrars must be created during
implementation.”
The recommendation is not clear on who would be responsible to develop theframework and also does not give clear timelines for its development. We thus
urge amendments to the recommendation to ensure that this framework isdeveloped and agreed prior to implementation, in order to provide full
information to potential applicants for gTLD strings, and also in order to ensurethat this framework is developed in a multistakeholder manner with fulltransparency to the ICANN community.
3) Implementation Guidance 3.9:
It states, “ICANN org may conduct research that helps identify additional
standards or tests that should be used to evaluate the technical and operational
capability to manage the variant label set.”
The Implementation Guidance does not provide any explanatory information
regarding the research proposed and does not state how the outcomes of thisresearch will be applied. Given that these outcomes may ultimately be used as abasis for approving or denying requests for variant TLD strings, this research is ofsignificant interest to the ICANN community and has implications for the rights ofregistrants. We thus urge amendments to stipulate that ICANN org willcommunicate to the ICANN community clearly defined timeframes, processes,
and opportunities for public input before engaging in any research activities
under this Implementation Guidance.
Preliminary Recommendations 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 7.12 and 7.13
We note that there are various Recommendations (Preliminary Recommendation
7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 7.12, and 7.13) which discuss Registry Transition or Change of Control
process and therefore bear implications for the right to privacy.
Unfortunately, none of these recommendations are worded in accordance withinternationally-recognised data protection principles. For example, Preliminary

Recommendation 7.8 states, “If the registry operator of an IDN gTLD changes its
back-end registry service provider, that IDN gTLD and any delegated variantlabel(s) associated with that IDN gTLD must simultaneously transition to the new
back-end registry service provider.” This formulation creates the risk that
personal data is retained in the old registry following the transition, increasing theexposure of registrants to the potential for breaches or misuse.
We therefore urge ICANN to redraft these recommendations in full accordancewith applicable data protection principles, including purpose use limitation, dataretention limitation, data destruction, and secure data transfer.
Recommendations that require harmonisation.
Finally, we note that there are two Preliminary Recommendations that arecontradictory. Preliminary Recommendation 7.1 states that, “future IDN gTLD
along with its variant labels (if any) must be subject to one Registry Agreement”.
Preliminary Recommendation 7.3 states: “Any existing IDN gTLD registry
operator from the 2012 round that applies for its variant labels in the future must
be required to enter into a separate, new Registry Agreement for the newly
approved variant label(s), while maintaining the existing Registry Agreement for
its existing IDN gTLD. “We urge harmonization to ensure that all contracts are treated the same,
whereby any existing IDN gTLD registry operator from the 2012 round thatapplies for its variant labels in the future will be required to amend their existing
contracts to include the variant labels. This will improve transparency forregistrants, particularly those who are not deeply familiar with ICANN
documentation.
Conclusion
CCWP-HR is grateful to have participated in this public comment process inaccordance with the November 2019 ICANN Board approval of the FOI-HR.
We welcome feedback on any aspect of this initiative and extend an open
invitation to any interested individuals to get involved in the next phase of work.
To become a member of the Cross-Community Working Party on ICANN andHuman Rights (CCWP-HR), visit the CCWP-HR page on the ICANN Community
website.

19 June 2023
RrSG Response to Phase 1 Initial Report on the Internationalized Domain Names EPDP

The Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG) welcomes the opportunity to provide a comment onthe Phase 1 Initial Report on the Internationalized Domain Names EPDP (“EPDP-IDNs P1 InitialReport”). This is a significant undertaking by ICANN org and the ICANN community, and theRrSG appreciates the dedication of the team in reviewing this matter.
The RrSG supports the recommendations in the EPDP-IDNs P1 Initial Report, and does not haveany additional feedback. The RrSG is actively participating in this EPDP, and looks forward to thePhase 2 report which will focus more on issues that will directly impact registrars and domainname registrants.
Sincerely,
Ashley Heineman
Chair, Registrar Stakeholder Group