Summary

  • The Customer Standing Committee and PTI chose 26 of 64 naming-service SLAs for deeper review; an October redline was prepared for discussion, not adopted.
  • The 2025 amendment procedure exempts changes confined to existing threshold values from public comment and GNSO/ccNSO Council approval.

A service promise can be rewritten in two ways. Change the number on an existing gauge, and the IANA naming-function procedure offers a short route. Change what the gauge measures, and the public and two ICANN councils get a turn. That distinction now sits in the path of the Customer Standing Committee’s review of 26 service-level agreements.

In a May 2026 announcement, the committee chair said PTI had met all 64 defined thresholds for April. In the same message, he said the CSC and PTI had selected 26 of the 64 SLAs for deeper review. Good performance did not retire the question of whether the measurements still fit the service. The October 9 CSC list carried a redline prepared against proposed changes for the committee’s next meeting. A redline is working text; the published record cited here does not identify an approved package.

The amendment procedure supplies the stakes. Section 2.2 asks the three parties—PTI, ICANN and the CSC—to examine customer benefit, feasibility, cost, resources and time. If they cannot agree, section 2.4 leaves the existing SLAs in place and requires each party to issue a written notice of non-agreement. If they do agree, PTI prepares an impact analysis. The ordinary path then takes the proposal to public comment and requires approval from both the GNSO and ccNSO Councils.

Two numbered exceptions cut through that path. Section 3.3.1 removes public comment for changes that only alter threshold values of an existing SLA. Section 3.4.1 removes the two council approvals for the same narrow category. A lower time limit on an existing response measure could fit that description. Removing a measure, rewriting its scope or changing what counts as a completed request raises a different question. The CSC’s August discussion included a 30-minute threshold and separate talk about wording and eliminating a metric; none of that discussion establishes final classifications.

The instrument matters beyond committee housekeeping. The SLAs are incorporated by reference into the IANA Naming Functions Contract, and ICANN can enforce them through that contract. An approved measurement changes what PTI must demonstrate to its customer. The useful publication is an item-by-item table: old measure, proposed text, reason, impact, procedural lane and final disposition. Without it, “26 under review” tells customers how many files are open but little about who gets to contest the edits.

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