Ballot 202 – Underscore and Wildcard Characters

Ballot overview

• Ballot 202, Underscore and Wildcard Characters, proposed changes to the Baseline Requirements.
• The ballot aimed to clarify that underscore characters are allowed in FQDNs in SANs, replace some uses of FQDN with Domain Name, and clarify wildcard certificate validation and related terminology.
• The page states that the voting period ended and the ballot failed.

What the motion would have changed

• Replaced multiple Baseline Requirements references from Fully Qualified Domain Name and FQDN to Domain Name.
• Added or revised definitions for Authorization Domain Name, Domain Label, Domain Name, Fully-Qualified Domain Name, Reserved IP Address, Wildcard Certificate, and Wildcard Domain Name.
• Required CAs to process CAA records for requested Domain Names.
• Revised domain validation language in Section 3.2.2.4.
• Added additional validation requirements for Wildcard Certificates, including refusal of registry-controlled or public-suffix wildcard issuance unless the applicant proves control of the entire domain namespace.
• Revised SAN requirements to allow underscore characters in Domain Labels when replacing underscores with hyphens would yield a valid label.
• Updated commonName guidance to make it deprecated but not prohibited, with restrictions for Domain Names and IP addresses.

Voting result

• CA votes: 12 yes, 7 no, 0 abstain.
• Browser votes: 3 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain.
• Quorum was met.
• The ballot did not meet the CA approval threshold of two-thirds of CA votes, so it failed.

Timing stated on the page

• Discussion: July 12, 2017 to July 19, 2017.
• Vote for approval: July 19, 2017 to July 26, 2017.
• If approved, the Chair would initiate a 30-day IPR Review Period.
• If no Exclusion Notices were filed after that period, the ballot would become effective at the end of the IPR Review Period.

Outcome

• Because the ballot failed, it never became normative and no compliance date took effect.