ICANN today is posting its third status report [PDF, 224 KB] to the GNSO on the implementation of its recommendations for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy.

The GNSO Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery (PEDNR) Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group has published its Initial Report today. The PEDNR WG was tasked to address questions in relation to what extent should registrants be able to reclaim their domain names after they expire. At issue is whether the current policies of registrars on the renewal, transfer and deletion of expired domain names are adequate.

As part of GNSO Improvements, which has as its objective to improve the structure and operations of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), a Working Group (WG) Work Team (WT) was tasked with developing a Working Group Model. The Working Group Model should become the focal point for GNSO policy development and enhance the policy development process by making it more inclusive and representative, and – ultimately – more effective and efficient. To this end, the WG WT has developed a document, entitled ‘GNSO Working Group Guidelines’, which brings together two different elements of the Working Group process; on the one hand it addresses what should be considered in creating, purposing, funding, staffing, and instructing/guiding a WG to accomplish the desired outcome (the chartering process), and; secondly, what guidance should be provided to a WG on elements such as structuring, norms, tasking, reporting, and delivering the outcome(s) as chartered (the working group process)

Pursuant to a Resolution passed by the GNSO Council at its meeting on 21 April 2010, the community is invited to provide comments on a set of GNSO Improvements recommendations submitted by the Communications and Coordination Work Team (CCT) on 9 April 2010. The recommendations are part of the overall GNSO Improvements effort and are designed to help the GNSO Council and the GNSO Constituencies and Stakeholder Groups improve communications, cooperation and coordination among themselves and with other ICANN structures

What has the GNSO previously recommended that Whois should be able to do, and what other standards or capabilities will Whois need in the coming world of IDNs and new gTLDs? In May last year, the GNSO Council tasked Policy Staff (with the assistance of technical staff and Council members as required) to collect and organize a comprehensive set of requirements for the Whois service

ICANN has given another update on the situation with their planning to deal with the security issues at the upcoming meeting in Nairobi in March. While they continue to monitor the situation, there will also be increased access to remote participation and there is a board meeting scheduled for 19 February to “give the Board a final opportunity to review the situation and plans.” There will also be a policy update briefing meeting provided by ICANN Policy Staff on Thursday, 25 February at 13.00 and 19.00 UTC, summarising policy issues across the different ICANN Supporting Organizations, namely the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) and Address Supporting Organization (ASO). Amongst other topics, updates will be provided on: GNSO Improvements GNSO Registration Abuse Policies Working Group GNSO Whois Studies GNSO Vertical Integration Policy Development Process ccNSO IDN PDP ccNSO Delegation and Re-delegation Working Group ccNSO Strategic and Operational Plan Working Group ASO Global policy for handling IPv4 address space

Cybersquatting: recommending the initiation of a Policy Development Process to investigate the current state of the UDRP.