Amendment to Proposed motion on WHOIS -- last paragraph

KathrynKL at AOL.COM KathrynKL at AOL.COM
Fri Jun 30 19:04:39 CEST 2006


Council Members and All:

    I agree completely with Milton's Paragraph 3  suggestion.  My biggest
fear comes from the loose language in the last  proposed paragraph.  After
Resolution 5, this unnumbered paragraph  states:
    "The GNSO Council notes that the current  definition is related
    to the service that provides public  access to some or all of the
    data collected, and is not a definition of the  purpose of the data
itself."


I am very worried.  To me this line can be read to change our Task  Force
Terms of Reference -- the charter of the group.  For years we have  dutifully
done our job.  We defined the Purpose of Whois (Terms of  Reference #2), and we
are now looking at what data should be public (part 1 of  TOR #3) and what data
should be private (part 2 of TOR #3).
        TOR #(3) "Determine what  data collected should be available
        for public access in the  context of the purpose of WHOIS.
        Determine how to access  data that is not available for public
access."

Thus the Whois TF -- and our Purpose of Whois -- covers not only future
public information, but also the future of the data currently public and soon
(hopefully!) to be made private.  The use of this accumulated data of  63 million
domain name registrants  is **specifically in the Whois Task  Force charter
for recommendation to the Council** and that upsets our IP, ISP  and BC
friends.

Of course, Registrars and Registries can continue to collect and use this
data for technical and business purposes, but the intent of the Council and Task
 Force was always to evaluate which data should be continue to public under
the  Purpose, and what access should be allowed to the data that is private.
We  could not, for example, allow unlimited access to the newly private data to
 direct marketers -- that is completely contrary to why the data went private
to  begin with.  This newly private personal data **should have limitations
to  our new Purpose of Whois.** (That's also consistent with EU Data Protection
 law.  You cannot collect data for one purpose and use it for another.
Here, the data was always collected for a technical purpose, we have now made it
explicit in writing.  You cannot say that just because certain of this data
is made private, it is now available for completely unrelated purposes.)

So access to the newly-private data by others is **a key part of the Whois
TF review process.**   (Privately, of course IPC, BC and ISP Constituencies
would like to take this outside the scope of the Whois TF -- and that's exactly
what we cannot allow to happen.)

I would recommend that we strongly go after this paragraph. Ways to do  so:
1) Delete it -- it is only a "note" by the Council.  Since it is not  a
resolution or binding part of the text, and since it is very ambiguous, just
delete it.
2) Amend it --  alas, I have no good amendment since the whole  concept is
flawed, but perhaps:
    "The GNSO Council notes that the current  definition is related
    to the [add:  Whois] [S]service  [add:  and the data may continue to be
    collected by the Registrars and Registries  for technical and business
purposes]
    [strike: that provides public access to some  or all of the data
collected,
    and is not a definition of the purpose of the  data itself."]

Thanks so much of all the work ahead on this.  And thanks for  including us
on the discussions on Council....BTW, if they (other Council  members) say I am
misreading this, then asking them to clarify the text (in  writing) to make
sure my reading is not a possible one should get them to move a  bit... :-)

Regards and thanks,
Kathy






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