[Gnso-epdp-team] Letter to council and others

[Kurt Pritz]

Dear Keith:

Rafik and I are writing to let you know that the EPDP Team studying the processing of registration data will not release its initial report today, 19 November. This date had been previously identified as a likely date for publication, mostly based upon the timeline and process requirements for getting to the finish line on 25 May 2019 .

However, the Team has made considerable progress and we anticipate publishing the report as early as Wednesday, 21 November and are making plans to hit that date. In the event that certain issues remain unresolved, publication might be delayed (partially due to the US holiday) until early the following week. These issues include complex topics regarding whether ICANN and contracted parties are “joint controllers” where new information has become available only in the past few days and we need team agreement to move forward. We are striving to meet the 21 November date so that the comment period does not end in the midst of the year-end holiday week. In the case of either scenario, careful planning can still ensure closure by 25 May.

While this is an apparent “delay,” I would not characterize the current schedule as that. It is important to understand that the delivery schedule for the Initial Report was set by the time left after all other “required” processes such as comment period, GNSO and Board consideration periods and other steps were taken into account. Also remember that the EPDP Team is dealing with a myriad of complex policy and legal issues that have flummoxed attempts at progress on this topic for 20 years. It is difficult to schedule an effort that is simultaneously addressing report objectives to: review the Temporary Specification, create new policy, and answer 50+ charter questions.

Concessions, compromises and thoughtful solutions are in many instances developed by the hour.

As late as this past weekend, the Team reviewed drafts and raised substantive issues that required difficult and contentious discussion, but they have got through most of them with suitable language. The full Team met for multi-hour meetings on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday last week and has set the same schedule for Monday and Tuesday this week. We’ve had 28 teleconferences and 40+ hours of face-to-face meeting time in 3 ½ months

When published, the Initial Report will not reflect agreement on all issues but there has been apparent unanimity on many important issues and the report describes areas of difference in sufficient detail so that the public can adequately understand and opine on them. The report will be overly wordy in spots and provide much detail as it seeks to adequately describe a significant level of complexity to its audience. Remember that this report started with a blank sheet of paper, the EPDP Team, and not much time.

We will also be launching a new type of comment forum, designed to: clearly link comments to specific sections of the Initial Report, encourage commenters to provide reasoning or rationale for their opinions, enable the sorting of comments so that the EPDP Team can more easily read all the comments on any one topic.

We look forward to more communication on this topic to you in the near future.

Sincerely, 

Kurt and Rafik