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<DIV>Friends in NCUC, we need your help. GNSO Council is now
completely OVERWHELMED with letters from the Intellectual Property (IP)
Constituency. After seven years of work, IP wants to send everything back
to beginning -- no privacy, no plan, no direction. We have come too far to
do that. We have spent too many years on Task Forces and Working
Groups. National laws all over the world gives us the right to privacy,
and ICANN knows it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Would you be willing to sign on to the Electronic Privacy Information
Center's (EPIC's letter) below? If so, please write to Marc Rotenberg at
<A href="mailto:rotenberg@epic.org">rotenberg@epic.org</A> with your name and
organization. TIME IS OF THE ESSENSE. PLEASE WRITE TODAY.</DIV>
<DIV>Best,</DIV>
<DIV>Kathy Kleiman (NCUC Whois Task Force member 2003-2006)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(Comments can be submitted to:
<whois-comments-2007@icann.org><BR>Comments may be viewed at:<BR><A
href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/whois-comments-2007/">http://forum.icann.org/lists/whois-comments-2007/</A>)<BR></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=right>October 25, 2007</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Mr. Vint Cerf, Chairman</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Mr. Paul Twomey, President & CEO</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">USA</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Dear Mr Twomey and Members of the ICANN Board,</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The purpose of this letter is
to express our support for changes to Whois services that would protect the
privacy of individuals, specifically the removal of registrants’ contact
information from the publicly accessible Whois database.<SUP><A
class=sdfootnoteanc href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote1sym"
name=sdfootnote1anc><SUP><FONT size=1>1</FONT></SUP></A></SUP> It is also to
propose a sensible resolution to the long-running discussion over Whois that
would establish a bit of “policy stability” and allow the various constituencies
to move on to other work</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">EPIC has had long-standing
involvement in the Whois issue. As a member of the Whois Privacy Steering
Committee, EPIC assisted in the development of the Whois work program, and has
been a member of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency for several years. EPIC
has submitted extensive comments to ICANN on Whois, and has testified before the
US Congress in support of new privacy safeguards for WHOIS as well as filing a
brief in the US courts on the privacy implications of the WHOIS registry.<SUP><A
class=sdfootnoteanc href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote2sym"
name=sdfootnote2anc><SUP><FONT size=1>2</FONT></SUP></A></SUP></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT size=1><BR></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">Both the Whois Task Force and
the Whois Working Group agree that new mechanisms must be adopted to address an
individual's right to privacy and the protection of his/her data.<SUP><A
class=sdfootnoteanc href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote3sym"
name=sdfootnote3anc><SUP><FONT size=1>3</FONT></SUP></A></SUP> Current ICANN
Whois policy conflicts with national privacy laws, including the EU Data
Protection Directive, which requires the establishment of a legal framework to
ensure that when personal information is collected, it is used only for its
intended purpose. As personal information in the directory is used for other
purposes and ICANN's policy keeps the information public and anonymously
accessible, the database could be found illegal according to many national
privacy and data protection laws including the European Data Protection
Directive, European data protection laws and legislation in Canada and
Australia.<SUP><A class=sdfootnoteanc
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote4sym"
name=sdfootnote4anc><SUP><FONT size=1>4</FONT></SUP></A></SUP></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT size=1><BR></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The Article 29 Working Party,
an independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy, states
that “in its current form the [Whois] database does not take account of the data
protection and privacy rights of those identifiable persons who are named as the
contacts for domain names and organizations.”<SUP><A class=sdfootnoteanc
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote5sym"
name=sdfootnote5anc><SUP><FONT size=1>5</FONT></SUP></A></SUP> The conflict with
national privacy law is real and cannot be dismissed. A sensible resolution of
the Whois matter must take this into account.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">In addition, country code Top
Level Domains are moving to provide more privacy protection in accordance with
national law. For example, regarding Australia's TLD, .au, the WHOIS policy of
the .au Domain Administration Ltd (AUDA) states in section 4.2, "In order to
comply with Australian privacy legislation, registrant telephone and facsimile
numbers will not be disclosed. In the case of id.au domain names (for individual
registrants, rather than corporate registrants), the registrant contact name and
address details also will not be disclosed."<SUP><A class=sdfootnoteanc
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote6sym"
name=sdfootnote6anc><SUP><FONT size=1>6</FONT></SUP></A></SUP> </P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The Final Outcomes Report
recently published by the Whois Working Group contains several key compromises
and useful statements and represents significant progress on substantive Whois
issues. The Whois Working Group found agreement in critical areas that advance
the Whois discussion within ICANN and provide clear guidance to the ICANN
Board.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">In its report, the Whois
Working Group accepted the Operational Point of Contact (OPoC) proposal as a
starting point, and the best option to date. The OPoC proposal would replace
publicly available registrant contact information with an intermediate contact
responsible for relaying messages to the registrant. The Working Group agreed
that there may be up to two OPoCs, and that an OPoC can be the Registrant, the
Registrar, or any third party appointed by the Registrant. The Registrant is
responsible for having a functional OPOC. The Working Party also agreed that the
OPOC should have a consensual relationship to the Registrant with defined
responsibilities. This would necessitate the creation of a new process, and
changes to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement and Registrar-Registrant
agreements to reflect this relationship.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The Board should support the
agreed standard for disclosure of unpublished Whois personal data – reasonable
evidence of actionable harm. But the Board should leave this term undefined, as
it is now in the RAA for proxy services. This standard will allow the OPoC
contact, registrars and registries to work within the framework of their
national and local laws to provide access to this personal data. </P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">OPoCs must be allowed to
employ strategies and standards similar to those of the registrars and
registries to ensure that the person receiving the protected personal Whois data
is in fact a law enforcement official. </P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The OPoC proposal does not
impede reasonable law or intellectual property enforcement efforts. In fact,
effective implementation of the OPoC proposal would benefit all stakeholders by
improving the accuracy of the information in the database. Because personal data
will be kept private, individuals will provide more accurate data. As a result,
the Whois database will be more useful and more reliable.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The OPoC proposal is not the
ideal privacy solution. EPIC, as well as groups such as the Non-Commercial Users
Constituency, recommended a distinction between commercial and non-commercial
domains in order to protect the privacy of registrants of domain names used for
religious purposes, political speech, organizational speech, and other forms of
non-commercial speech. EPIC has previously stated that the Whois database should
not publicize any registrant information, including name and jurisdiction.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The Whois Working Group has
proposed a workable framework. It is not a perfect framework. But it will help
ensure that the WHOIS policy conforms with law and allow ICANN to move forward.
If it is not possible to adopt this solution, then the only sensible approach
would be to allow the current Whois terms to simply sunset. Resolution 3 would
be the only real option. </P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The signatories to this letter
are willing to assist in finishing off the implementation details of the OPoC
proposal. </P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Sincerely,</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Marc Rotenberg</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">EPIC Executive Director</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Allison Knight</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Coordinator, Public Voice Project</P>
<DIV id=sdfootnote1>
<P class=sdfootnote><A class=sdfootnotesym
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote1anc" name=sdfootnote1sym>1</A>
EPIC’s comments on the ICANN Whois Task Force’s "Preliminary Task Force Report
on Whois Services," January 12, 2007, available at
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/whois/comments.html>.</P></DIV>
<DIV id=sdfootnote2>
<P class=sdfootnote><A class=sdfootnotesym
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote2anc" name=sdfootnote2sym>2</A>
[cite]</P></DIV>
<DIV id=sdfootnote3>
<P class=sdfootnote><A class=sdfootnotesym
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote3anc" name=sdfootnote3sym>3</A>
Final Report of the Whois Task Force, March 12, 2007, available at
<http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois-services-final-tf-report-12mar07.htm>;
and Final Report of the Whois Working Group, August 20, 2007, available at
<http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/icann-whois-wg-report-final-1-9.pdf>.</P></DIV>
<DIV id=sdfootnote4>
<P class=sdfootnote><A class=sdfootnotesym
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote4anc" name=sdfootnote4sym>4</A>
Privacy and Human Rights: An International Survey of Privacy Laws and
Developments (EPIC and Privacy International 2006), available at
<http://www.epic.org/phr06>.</P></DIV>
<DIV id=sdfootnote5>
<P class=sdfootnote><A class=sdfootnotesym
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote5anc" name=sdfootnote5sym>5</A>
Letter from Article 29<SUP> </SUP>Working Party to Vinton Cerf, March 12, 2007,
available at
<http://www.icann.org/correspondence/schaar-to-cerf-12mar07.pdf>.</P></DIV>
<DIV id=sdfootnote6>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><A class=sdfootnotesym
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#sdfootnote6anc" name=sdfootnote6sym>6</A>
<FONT size=2>For additional country code Top Level Domain policy examples, see
EPIC Testimony Before House Subcommittee, Financial Institutions and Consumer
Credit, Committee on Financial Services “ICANN and the WHOIS Database: Providing
Access to Protect Consumers from Phishing,” available at
<http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/071806mr.pdf>.</FONT></P></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See what's new at <A title="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" href="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" target="_blank">AOL.com</A> and <A title="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" href="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" target="_blank">Make AOL Your Homepage</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>