Minutes | Meeting of the Technical Committee of the Board (BTC) | 24 April 2026

BTC Attendees: James Galvin (Chair), Alan Barrett, Chris Buckridge, Raúl Echeberria, Wes Hardaker, David Lawrence, and Patricio Poblete

BTC Member Apologies: Nico Caballero

ICANN Organization Attendees: Kim Davies (VP, IANA Services & President, PTI), Aaron Jimenez (Board Operations Manager), Matt Larson (Vice President, Research, and Managing Director - Washington D.C.), and Eric Palmer (Senior Counsel)

The following is a summary of discussions, actions taken, and actions identified:

1. Welcome and Admin
   • Agenda Review – The Chair established the agenda for the meeting and welcomed the Committee's input on continuing to use the Committee's meetings as an opportunity to hold in-depth discussions on strategic, technical topics of relevance to the ICANN Board, including more detailed updates from the technical liaisons. The Chair also noted that during this 24 April 2026 Committee meeting, the Committee would receive a detailed, technical report from the IETF Liaison to the ICANN Board, as well as an update regarding .INTERNAL.
   • Approval of Pending Meeting's Reports (if any) – There were no pending meeting reports that needed approval.
   • Action Items Review – It was noted that one action item remained open, and that two action items had been closed and would be retained for purposes of the Committee's Activities Report:
     • ICANN org (OCTO), in coordination with the relevant technical liaisons, to continue to track IETF discussions on .INTERNAL and to report to the Committee, as appropriate (in the event there is new information for the Committee to consider) is an open action item.
     • ICANN org to relay the Committee's approval of the current version of the Committee's charter to the Governance Committee of the Board (BGC) through the appropriate process is an action item that has been closed.
     • ICANN org to provide information to the Committee on the formality of process required for the Committee (via the IETF Liaison to the ICANN Board) to communicate with the IETF (and/or IAB) regarding any technical solution for the implementation of ICANN Board Resolution 2024.07.29.06 is an action item that has been closed.
2. Deep Dive into IETF Liaison Report – The IETF Liaison to the ICANN Board provided the Committee with a general overview presentation on how work at the IETF is undertaken, which included a discussion of the IETF's mission, standards-development process, and working groups. The Committee was reminded that the IETF produces high-quality, technical documents that influence how Internet protocols are used between systems, and that adherence to IETF protocols is voluntary. It was noted that the IETF does not have a formal certification or enforcement process, and that implementation and interoperability are important to the practical use of IETF protocols. The Committee also discussed the IETF's individual-participation model, including the extent to which companies and other organizations may support individuals' participation in the IETF. The presentation addressed the IETF's protocol-development workflows – including Internet-Drafts, Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions, working group adoption, working group last call, IETF-wide last call, review by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), and final processing for publication as a Request for Comments (RFC) – as well as the roles of the IETF working groups, area directors and Internet Architecture Board (IAB). It was noted that IANA plays an important role in the IETF process through maintaining protocol registries, thereby providing an important bridge between ICANN and the IETF, and that IETF-produced documents (RFCs) include a specific "IANA Considerations" section detailing what IANA must do to allocate, modify, or register protocol parameters related to those RFCs. Some of the IETF's various working groups, including the RESTful Provisioning Protocol (RPP) and DNS Delegation (DELEG) working groups, were highlighted, and their associated work items of relevance to ICANN were discussed.
3. Discussion on .INTERNAL – The RSSAC Liaison to the ICANN Board, in their capacity as an active IETF participant, provided the Committee with an updated presentation regarding .INTERNAL that built on prior Committee discussions regarding SAC113 (SSAC Advisory on Private-Use TLDs) and ICANN Board Resolution 2024.07.29.06 concerning the reservation of .INTERNAL for private-use applications. It was noted that internal namespaces (such as .CORP, .MAIL, and .HOME) have historically existed, and the Committee discussed the question of what happens, technically speaking, when a name does not exist within the root zone (e.g. .INTERNAL). The presentation described several possible DNS conditions: where the parent does not exist (which is the case for .INTERNAL); where the parent exists but the queried child does not; and where delegation or name server information is broken. The Committee was informed about differences among possible approaches, including the current non-existence of .INTERNAL in the root zone, delegation of .INTERNAL to an empty zone, and a delegation of .INTERNAL consisting of an NS record pointing to the root, as well as the different caching and response behavior associated with those approaches. An analysis of results from experimental testing using RIPE Atlas nodes to query for existing domain names, nonexisting domain names, and nonexisting subdomains was provided, as well as the conclusions derived from the analysis. The Committee also discussed possible next steps for the information within the presentation, including sharing the information with the Domain Name System Operations (DNSOP) working group.
4. Updates from Technical Liaisons
   • SSAC (James Galvin) – The Committee was informed that the SSAC, together with the Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers (ISPCP) Constituency and ICANN's OCTO team, is undertaking several educational webinar opportunities. It was reported that a recent webinar addressed Name Collisions and the New gTLD Program: 2026 Round, including a high-level overview of the Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) and its proposal on name collisions.
   • RSSAC (Wes Hardaker) – The Committee was informed that RSSAC met with several groups during the recent ICANN meeting, including the GAC. It was further reported that the work party behind RSSAC001 (which concerns service expectations for Root Server Operators) is discussing whether any substantive changes are needed to the document. It was also noted that questions have arisen regarding whether existing documentation clearly addresses IPv6 support by Root Server Operators.
5. AOB – The Committee was reminded of a procedure to be followed by all Board Committees, as communicated by the Governance Committee of the Board (BGC). The procedure requires Board Committees to include an executive session at the end of Board Committee meetings.
6. Executive Session – The Committee held an executive session without ICANN staff present.