What’s Coming Up at the ICANN 83 Policy Forum?

The ICANN 83 Policy Forum will take place between Monday 9 June and Thursday 12 June at the Prague Congress Centre, in Prague, Czech Republic. The Policy Forum is focused on progressing current policy work and networking within the community. The Board forgoes formal sessions with community groups, with Board members instead joining sessions to listen and learn from the discussions. At the end of each day, there is a networking reception to facilitate cross-community relationships.

Working towards the next round of applications for new gTLDs in April 2026 remains a high priority for ICANN in Prague. We are expecting the public comment period for the draft Applicant Guidebook (AGB) to be opened before ICANN 83 commences. This also aligns with the agenda for the next round implementation team, who will be discussing the Base Registry Agreement for next round gTLDs. There will also be an information session on the status of the string similarity project for the next round. String similarity will be used to form initial contention sets in the next round, so ICANN 83 will be a good opportunity for prospective applicants to hear how the rules are being developed. The BRG (Brand Registry Group) will also be showcasing use cases by existing dotBrands during the week.

We are also expecting DNS Abuse to remain a big topic of conversation. Since Seattle, the GNSO Council has formed a small team to explore possible options for future work on DNS Abuse. With the DNS Abuse contract amendments having been in force for a year now, the hope is to review the data and learnings from the amendments. There is also the INFERMAL (Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains) report for the small team to consider. In Prague, we are expecting to hear different parts of the community discussing ideas to feed into the small team.

If you do plan to attend in person, it is essential that you register by 8 June. 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. Please note that ICANN will again be using Sched for the meeting schedule, which is not integrated into ICANN’s meeting page. You will therefore need to create a separate account and password to access the schedule after registering for the meeting. You can find details of all sessions on the ICANN 83 schedule.