I don’t know much about Copenhagen, except that Princess Mary of Denmark is really ‘our’ Princess Mary from Tasmania, Australia. The other thing I know is that it will be really cold.

In terms of the ICANN meeting, there continues to be an element of dismay over the scheduling for this meeting, most notably reflected in a letter to ICANN’s CEO from the GNSO Commercial Stakeholder Group. While it’s good to get these issues on the table, I do believe that rather than pointing the finger at ICANN the organisation for any shortcomings the community should take ownership and look for solutions. I’ve written about this previously, so I go into this in detail here.

To the substance.

In Copenhagen, there will be two ‘Facilitated Discussions’ between representatives from the GNSO Council and the GAC in an attempt to reach a better understanding of the points of difference as they relate to the protection of Red Cross names and IGO acronyms at the second level of new gTLDs. Bruce Tonkin will play the role of facilitator in both these discussions. This is a new approach that is being trialed at the suggestion of Bruce, as an ICANN Board member, in Hyderabad. A considerable amount of preparatory work has gone into the development of these sessions with Problem Statements and Briefing material drafted for both topics.

The Data Protection Unit of the Council of Europe is providing its support to a series of sessions in Copenhagen to exchange views with the ICANN community on privacy and data protection implications of processing of WHOIS data, third party access to personal data and the issue of accountability for the processing of personal data. This includes a Cross Community Discussion on related topics with a panel of experts including a number of European Data Privacy Commissioners and moderated by Becky Burr.

The Contracted Parties House (Registries and Registrars Stakeholder Groups) is looking forward to continuing its dialogue with the ICANN Board and CEO about enhancing the relationship between ICANN the organisation and contracted parties.

And don’t forget the seven-year itch: for the next new gTLD application window to open on 12 January 2019, we need to get a lot of work done this year and next. To that end, I look forward to participating in the related sessions in Copenhagen and reiterate a recent plea made by Jeff Neuman to the community, please get involved so that we might move things along more quickly.

To the personal.

At a GNSO Council meeting in January, Glen de Saint Gery announced to the Council that she would be retiring from her role at ICANN. Believe me, there wasn’t a dry eye on the call. The gorgeous Glen is an ICANN treasure and the GNSO would not be where it is today without the calm and steady guidance that Glen has provided over the years from formation to now. I am very proud to say that I am a product of the Glen influence, having learned so much from Glen during my time at ICANN and beyond. Thank you Glen for the wonderful person, and role model, that you are to so many of us—I look forward to celebrating with you in Copenhagen.