The 62nd international meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) took place this past week, from June 25-28, 2018, in Panama City, Panama. Several members of Winterfeldt IP Group attended ICANN 62.
ICANN 62, the second of three global meetings that will take place in 2018, was framed as a policy forum meeting, the shortest of ICANN’s three rotating meeting styles. The policy forum format focuses on cross-community collaboration, with a much more limited number of meetings of individual constituencies and stakeholder groups.
The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) met extensively during ICANN 62, including attending meetings with the ICANN Board, GNSO, and other stakeholder groups; conducting various working group sessions; and participating in assorted cross-community discussions, often focusing on GDPR and ultimately issuing its ICANN 62 Panama City Communiqué on Thursday, June 28, 2018. The GAC issues a Communiqué at the end of each ICANN meeting, drafted by consensus of its members, meaning the absence of any objection. The Communiqué summarizes GAC participation in the larger ICANN multi-stakeholder community, provides administrative updates about the GAC, and—most importantly—includes the GAC’s “advice” to the ICANN Board. While other portions of the Communiqué can offer important insight on governments’ role in the domain name system and their collective attitudes towards ongoing ICANN activities, the ICANN Bylaws compel the ICANN Board to respond to the GAC’s advice.The ICANN 62 Communiqué contains relatively robust rationales for its new advice, continuing a recent trend in GAC Communiqués that reflects increasing scrutiny of their conclusions. This Communiqué in particular focuses on several longstanding issues, but offers stronger and more elaborate positions on them. Please reach out to us at internet@winterfeldt.law if you are interested in receiving detailed summary and analysis of key takeaways from the ICANN 62 GAC Communiqué.
