The 61st international meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is taking place this week, from March 10-15, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Several Winterfeldt IP Group team members are attending ICANN 61.
ICANN 61, the first of three global meetings that will take place in 2018, is framed as a community forum meeting, the traditional meeting format ICANN used for many years before switching to a rotating schedule of three different meeting styles. The San Juan meeting features a robust schedule of sessions for the GNSO Council (the body that develops global domain name policy) and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), the body of over 175 country and territory representatives that advises the ICANN Board. The meeting will also offer sessions covering a number of specific policy development initiatives, updates on and working sessions for cross- community work streams, stakeholder and constituency organizational and outreach activities, and opportunities for a wide variety of community-wide discussions on key topics of broad interest.
Following a busy Constituency Day on March 13, on Wednesday, March 14, ICANN convened an assortment of sessions featuring contributors across the stakeholder community. The GNSO Council held its traditional open meeting, and various working groups, including those devoted to new gTLD subsequent procedures and registration directory services, held sessions. Cross-community discussions included a session on open data and information transparency within ICANN, as well as a continuation of an earlier session on GDPR and WHOIS compliance models. Other miscellaneous sessions included an update from ICANN’s contractual compliance department and a joint meeting of the Contracted Parties House and Commercial Stakeholder Group. Finally, the GAC’s focus shifted to drafting its communiqué, the document providing advice to the ICANN Board on various topics of priority to national governments that will be issued before the end of ICANN 61.
As with the preceding days of ICANN 61, GDPR and WHOIS issues are continuing to be a common thread and top discussion topic throughout most sessions. Please reach out to us at internet@winterfeldt.law if you are interested in receiving a summary and analysis of key takeaways from select sessions presented on Wednesday, March 14 in San Juan.
