What to Expect at ICANN 84

by Sophie Hey

The ICANN 84 Annual General Meeting will take place between Saturday 25 and Thursday 30 October at The Convention Centre Dublin, Ireland. This is the meeting where new members of the ICANN Board take their seats, along with most other incoming community leaders, at the end of the week. Throughout the week, the ICANN Board will be meeting with community groups.

ICANN 84 will be a milestone for the Next Round of New gTLDs. The Next Round application window is anticipated to open in April 2026. In Dublin, the Board is expected to vote to adopt the Applicant Guidebook. Because of this, the sessions on the Next Round are likely to be more information and outreach focused, rather than working sessions.

Internet Governance discussions will be occurring on two levels throughout ICANN 84. At a global level, the UN negotiations on the World Summit and Information Society 20-year review (WSIS+20) are expecting to conclude in December. These negotiations cover a range of issues, including internet governance and the role of civil society, technical communities, academia, industry and governments in overseeing the internet. The co-facilitators appointed by the President of the UN General Assembly to lead the overall review of implementation of the outcomes of WSIS will be in Dublin for stakeholder consultations.

At a community level, the Review of Reviews Cross Community Group is undertaking an evaluation of the current suite of ICANN Reviews. The focus of their work at ICANN 84 will be working to solicit input on the purpose of such reviews in order to refine their initial work. The group is expecting to have completed their work by August next year.

In the GNSO, the ICANN 84 sessions on DNS Abuse will be focused towards refining the eventual DNS Abuse PDP. The public comment period on the Preliminary Issues Report, a defined step in the policy development process, will close right before ICANN 84. However, the PDP still needs to be chartered and initiated, so the GNSO Council is planning on using Dublin to make sure they know what key issues need to be set out in the charter.

ICANN 84 is the first public ICANN meeting since the Registration Data Policy came into effect. We expect that work on dealing with urgent requests for data from law enforcement will continue. On registration data, but in a separate workstream, the RDRS Standing Committee has been working to synthesise the findings from the RDRS into a Findings Report. The RDRS was created and piloted to gather data to inform the decision on whether to proceed with implementing a Standardised System for Access and Disclosure (SSAD). The Standing Committee sessions will be used to go over the input received during the public comment period on the Findings Report, before it is delivered to the GNSO Council.

For those planning to attend in person, it is essential to register by 23 October. Virtual attendees will also need to register before they can access the schedule and the links to participate in sessions but can do so right through to the end of the meeting. Participants should also be aware that Ireland stops daylight savings on 26 October. This means that the sessions scheduled for Saturday will be on Irish Standard Time (UTC+1), while those on Sunday and the rest of the week will be on Greenwich Mean Time (UTC). Details of all sessions can be found on the ICANN 84 schedule.