Summary

  • GAC members attending ICANN87 voted to adopt administrative revisions to their Operating Principles after a 60-day consultation launched at ICANN86, according to the 26 October Bali communiqué.
  • The October clean proposal replaces a preamble that still describes the IANA handover in the future tense, while ICANN was founded in 1998 and held its first standalone IANA-functions contract by 2000.

Some institutions miss a deadline. The June 2025 edition of the Governmental Advisory Committee’s rulebook had a clock problem in its opening lines. The version on its website, adopted in June 2025, still begins by saying that the functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority “are being transferred” to a new ICANN. ICANN's history records its founding in 1998; the first standalone contract for IANA functions followed in February 2000. The clock moved; the preamble did not.

At ICANN87 in Bali, GAC members in attendance voted to adopt administrative revisions to their Operating Principles. The committee's 26 October communiqué says the vote followed the required 60-day consultation begun at ICANN86. The changes were developed by its Operating Principles Evolution Working Group to bring wording, references and terminology into line with current practice. The communiqué records a vote, though it gives no tally.

The working group's October clean proposal shows the editorial surgery. Gone is the future-tense IANA sentence. Its new opening starts with ICANN Bylaws Article 12.2, which provides for the GAC, then sets out the committee's advice role and its ability to adopt its own charter and internal operating principles. Another clause points to ICANN's Articles of Incorporation and the public interest in operational stability. The text puts the committee's present legal setting where a history lesson used to sit.

This matters when a government delegate, an ICANN Board member or a reader needs to know which document governs the committee's conduct. The Operating Principles specify how the GAC meets, elects leaders and conveys advice. The preamble tells readers what institution these procedures belong to. Stale constitutional prose is a poor map for current procedures.

The October PDF on the working group's page is still headed “proposed revisions.” The Bali communiqué records the adoption decision. The next useful public document is a consolidated adopted edition carrying the vote into the text people actually consult. Together, the clean proposal and the communiqué show the wording put forward and the decision taken. The old sentence has finally received its calendar reminder.

Original records: GAC Bali communiqué; October clean proposal; October redline; June 2025 Operating Principles; ICANN history; SSAC IANA-functions history.