whois TF draft notes and some procedural questions

[Milton Mueller]

I would like to personally thank whoever wrote these notes,
probably Glen. They give me a very good sense of what happened
on the call. I am doing this not just to be nice to Glen (as important
as that is), but to express my concern about the growing reliance
of ICANN TFs on teleconferences and the almost total abandonment
of listserv communications in the policy formation process. 

In my opinion, complete reliance on
teleconferences almost entirely eliminates the ability of 
people in Asian time zones to participate, and seriously restricts
the participation rights of those for whom ICANN is a
labor of 'love' (?) stolen from job time rather than a part of
one's industry or lobbying/legal job. If teleconferences are
held monthly, to facilitate consensus, it is one thing. If
they are held weekly and completely replace progress that
occurs via the list, then it is bad. It means we have adopted
in total the consultation mode of the American telephone companies
and DC-based law firms, and those actors are the clear beneficiaries
of such a mode of interaction.

Please, let's scale back the telecons - very few of us with
nonDNS related jobs can reliably commit 2 hours of prime time 
to ruminating on the telephone with 8-10 people. Lets 
rely more on the list and advance exchanges of documents
and proposals. 

--MM

>>> "GNSO SECRETARIAT" <gnso.secretariat at gnso.icann.org> 09/18/04 11:23 AM >>>
[To: dow1-2tf[at]gnso.icann.org]

Please find the very rough draft notes of the Whois joint task force 1 and 2
held on September 14, 2004.

Please let me know what you would like changed.

Thank you very much.

Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat

WHOIS Task Forces 1 and 2 Teleconference 14 September, 2004 - Minutes

ATTENDEES:
GNSO Constituency representatives:
gTLD Registries constituency: - Jeff Neuman - Co-Chair
Registrars constituency - Jordyn Buchanan - Co-Chair
gTLD Registries constituency - David Maher
Commercial and Business Users constituency - Marilyn Cade
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency: - Antonio Harris
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Maggie Mansourkia
Registrars constituency - Paul Stahura
Registrars constituency - Tom Keller
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Steve Metalitz
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Jeremy Banks
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Niklas Lagergren

Liaisons:
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) liaisons - Thomas Roessler
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) liaisons - Wendy Seltzer

ICANN Staff Manager: Barbara Roseman
GNSO Secretariat: Glen de Saint Géry

Absent:
Commercial and Business Users constituency - David Fares
Amadeu Abril l Abril
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Milton Mueller - absent, apologies
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Marc Schneiders - absent, apologies

MP3 recording

Agenda
Item 1: Discuss decision tree that Barbara sent out this week
Item 2: Ongoing work plan
Item 3: Explore the possibility of dividing the TF into 3-4 subgroups
focusing on certain areas:
Conspicuous Notice Sub Group
Local laws/Regulations Sub Group
Tiered Access Sub group
- Feasibility in general Assuming feasible, what data is included in the
anonymous public access vs. the tiered access
Item 4: Discuss possible future issues
Item 5: Timing: dates and events

Each constituency should indicate who are the two participants and
alternates to the joint 1 and 2 task force.

David Fares would continue as a Commercial and Business Users Constituency
representative until the conclusion of the task force.

Barbara Roseman gave an update on the GNSO Council call on September 9, 2004
and commented that Council had given no directive to the task force.

Item 3:

Subgroups were discussed. It was argued that the role of subgroups would be
to split out the work, contribute items and then the subgroups would report
to the full group in multiple groups which could lead to greater efficacy.
The task force was not in agreement and did not support the proposal.

Item 1

Barbara Roseman walked the task force through the diagram she had prepared
and sent to the task force mailing list.



Steve Metalitz: commented on:
"How do contractual requirements relate to national laws on privacy?" in the
chart under Task force 2 progress.
Task Force 2 did not ask the question but made a recommendation that a
procedure be adopted so that registrars who believed that they were
encountering a conflict with national law could have a path to resolve that
where ICANN could also be involved.
Barbara Roseman responded that the language came from the discussion in
Kuala Lumpur and would be happy if the task force would like it changed.
Steve Metalitz commented further that there was consensus/support in task
force 2 for a procedure which could potentially be delivered in a fairly
short order. Hopefully, a procedure for resolving the conflicts when they
arose, would be one of the objectives for further work.

Marilyn Cade commented on: "Log the request issue" and asked whether there
was agreement about notification of registrants process or was it meant to
be 2 separate questions:

a. will there be a white list and if so, what kind?
b. if there is a white list will there be registrant notification?

Barbara Roseman responded that they were 2 separate items in the sense that
they tracked differently for the work needed to be done. Presuming that if
there was some active information that it was other than public and
anonymous and that the issue of notifying registrants would have to be
explored when their data was accurate.
Marilyn Cade asked whether the staff was assuming that or was it being
assumed from what could be read from the contributions?
Barbara Roseman stated that it was staff 's assumption and it was assumed
from what was put forward in the recommendations.
Marilyn Cade pointed out that it was a recommendation and had not been
agreed to.
None of the items have achieved full consensus
The two questions could be worked out together or independently.
The chart was not meant to predetermine how issues should be dealt with but
was meant to break the issues down into workable chunks.

Jordyn Buchanan commented that the benefit of the chart was that it gave a
sense of the right question to ask at each stage of the process and given
the answer to that question what the next question would be that followed up
as a result. It should be looked upon as an outline for future work, rather
than determining the answers.

Steve Metalitz remarked that the same question appeared at 2 different
levels in slightly different wording
" Working group needs to recommend what information needs to be included
into tier 1
" what falls into each set of data"

Barbara confirmed that they were restatements of the same question.


Jeff Neuman referred to the 3 items discussed in last call mentioned in the
chart and suggested persuing them further:
1. conspicuous notice
2. how registrars would approach conflict with national laws
3. overall idea of tiered access

Maggie Mansourkia's proposal referred to the same topics as a starting
point.

Marilyn Cade suggested some parallel processing on tiered access by
assigning some work to outside people who would be able to inform the group
and have reports come back while the group worked on conspicuous notice and
the procedure for conflicts with governments privacy laws. Proposed tiered
access needed expert input as there could possibly be significant costs
involved in implementing the change across the registrars or registries
which they would have to bare.

Jeff Neuman commented that experts, who would likely be volunteers, would be
needed on all the issues and that the task force would need to identify
experts who could give advice.

Thomas Roessler suggested drafting a proposal and then examining whether it
was feasible or not.
Thomas Keller agreed that there should be a proposal before it there was
further evaluation.

Marilyn Cade commented that it would be difficult to commit a single
proposal to the BC. There needed to be an assessment of feasibility and
options before there could be a firm proposal, and suggested that it would
be acceptable to examine different options and then have experts advise on
the different options.
Marilyn Cade expressed concern about following a direction which could
result in a mandate to the registrars which they are unable to agree to on
and the task force being led in a direction that was not feasible.
Maggie Mansourkia added that information gathering and hearing from experts
would have to happen before determining a proposal which should include
feasibility and cost as part of the equation.

Jordyn Buchanan stressed the need for a strategy for going forward with the
3 issues, identifying questions to refer to experts and initial work that
should be done on tiered access before determining what questions were
appropriate to refer to experts.

Steve Metalitz supported by Tom Keller suggested starting with a specific
question from the chart - What work is required for identifying a requestor
? This may have cost, privacy and liability implications.
Tony Harris was of the opinion that identifying the requestor could be a
relatively simple procedure with a password, user name and subscription.
Thomas Roessler commented that identity was a vague term and suggested:
Step 1. look at the requirements constituencies have for tiered access so
that a defined set of requirements could be implemented
Step 2 What data elements should be collected.
Paul Stahura suggested adding more questions to diagram for the task force
to answer
Tony Harris suggested access to a list of ICANN accredited "accessors" who
would assist in checking the legitimacy of the investigation
Marilyn Cade reminded the group that people in developing countries should
be able to use the solutions

Future work plan

1. Set up three calls in the next few weeks on the following items:

a) Conspicuous notice to registrants on Whois Policies
b) What happens in the event that any ICANN Policies conflict with National
Law (i.e., what steps can be taken by the registrars and ICANN in order to
address these potential conflicts).
c) With respect to tiered access, the first issue to address is how to
identify who is a "requestor."

With each of these subjects, it is important not only to determine what
sub-issues are involved in addressing the questions, but also, what experts
can be invited to participate and provide the Task Force guidance on these
issues.
As an example, for issue #1, it may make sense (if the group agrees) to have
legal experts from different countries discuss similar "conspicuous"
requirements in contracts in their local jurisdictions.

The role of the experts is to provide the Task Force with advise on the
various questions to be used as the Task Force members see fit.

2. Keep the discussions going on these topics through the mailing lists as
well.

3. Additional calls may be set up on these topics as determined by the
group.

4. Assignments handed out to members of the Task Force on the above issues.

Jeff Neuman and Jordyn Buchanan thanked everyone for their presence and
participation.
The call ended at 12:15 EST, 18:15 CET

Next Call: 21 September 2004
see: GNSO calendar