WHOIS Task Forces 123 Teleconference Minutes

WHOIS Task Forces 1, 2, 3
Teleconference Minutes

8 March 2005

Participants:
Bruce Tonkin - GNSO Chair
Jeff Neuman - Co -Chair - gTLD Registries constituency
Jordyn Buchanan - Co - Chair - Registrars Constituency
Marilyn Cade - Commercial and Business Users Constituency (GNSO Council)
David Maher- gTLD Registries constituency
Ken Stubbs - gTLD Registries constituency (GNSO Council)
Greg Ruth - ISPCPC (GNSO Council)
Kathy Kleiman - NCUC
Milton Mueller - NCUC
Tom Keller - Registrars Constituency (GNSO Council)
Ross Rader - Registrars Constituency (GNSO Council)
Sreve Metalitz - Intellectual Property Constituency
Niklas Lagergren - Intellectual Property Interests Constituency (GNSO Council)
Thomas Roessler - At Large Advisory Committee
Suzanne Sene - Government Advisory Committee (GAC Liaison - GNSO Council)

Absent
Sarah Deutsch - Commercial and Business Users Constituency - apologies
David Fares - Commercial and Business Users Constituency - apologies
Maggie Mansourkia - ISPCPC
Antonio Harris - ISPCPC (GNSO Council)
Marc Schneiders - NCUC (GNSO Council)
Frannie Wellings - NCUC
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests Constituency (GNSO Council)
Paul Stahura - Registrars Constituency
Wendy Seltzer - At Large Advisory Committee
Vittorio Bertola - At Large Advisory Committee


ICANN GNSO Policy Officer - Maria Farrell
GNSO Secretariat: Glen de Saint Géry

ICANN Policy Officer - Olof Nordling - absent - apologies

MP3 Recording

Agenda

1) Discuss/review work the staff has done on the report to the council
2) Status of complaint to Ombudsman
3) Create list of questions for staff regarding their letter on Conflicts with National Law work item
4) Pick up on discussion of accuracy from Cape Town
5) Issues/discussions arising out of last week's presentations
6) Argentina Agenda

Maria Farrel refered to the Whois summary document she drafted as an outline of what the final document would include.
Jeff Neuman commented that the purpose of the document was to organize the work that had been done thus far and be a starting point for the three task forces to continue their work.
Comments:
- the aim of the document was narrower than foreseen at GNSO Council meeting on February 17.
A consolidated document with whole debate is required.

- the recommendations relating to consent and procedure for conflicts have not been incorporated in a formal report yet. The document should capture a historical and factual record of the work to date, including those recommendations and constituency statements.

- submission of the document to the ICANN Board at the Mar del Plata meeting? It was intended for the GNSO Council rather than the Board

- what is the objective of the document ?
A document has not yet been put out for public comment. As part of the bylaws process, there is a requirement to create an initial report, that is basically what Maria Farrell is working on. The Council does not vote on that report but has to state that the report is ready, it contains all the sections and meets all the requirements for an initial report. The report can document draft recommendations, the level of support, for example: that two constituencies currently support the initiative, others do not and why. The public then comments. At the GNSO public forum it would be debated, further input sought from the public and the recommendations refined given the public input.

2) Status of complaint to Ombudsman

Jordyn Buchanan reported that the complaint to the Ombudsman was acted upon and General Counsel and Senior staff would join the call on 15 March 2004. A list of questions should be provided in advance, the six task force comments and why the issue was brought up at that point in the process and not earlier on.

Bruce Tonkin commented
1. that the questions were intended for the staff to do preparation followed by a conference call where there would then be dialogue between staff and the task force members on those questions.
2. a point raised with Paul Verhoef was that the roles of ICANN legal counsel for the organization and legal support for the policy development process should be separated. The policy development process and the GNSO needed their own legal counsel or the ability to use an external legal counsel when needed. Bruce proposed seeking support from the Councillors and task force members on the issue. Paul Verhoef agreed with him, but said it implied resources and prioritization within ICANN. Legal counsel was constrained as they were engaged in corporate counsel for ICANN.

Jeff Neuman suggested language such as "What happens if there is a change in national law and a contract is in place, how would you preserve the changeability the of the domain name space, especially that of registrants, if all of a sudden the Registrar were forced by national law to change his operation."

Bruce Tonkin distinguished between a contractual and a policy discussion
A contractual discussion set forth the contract that should be adhered to and only the mutual agreement of the two parties to the contract could change it - legal definition
A policy discussion would take into account developments in the external environment that had changed thus a policy review by the GNSO would be needed to recommend to the Board a change in the contract - policy definition.

Action:
Create list of questions for staff regarding their letter on Conflicts with National Law.
Questions should be submitted by COB on Thursday 10 March 2005.

4) Pick up on discussion of accuracy from Cape Town

Bruce Tonkin referred to his summary of Whois task force 3 discussion from Cape Town.

Steve Metalitz mentioned another related issue discussed in task force 3 which appeared to be a common scenario
- what happened when there was a complaint about Whois data and the new data the registrant provided was also false?
Thus the verification of data that was submitted after a complaint was received was another issue. It was distinct from verifying at the time of registration.

Tom Keller added that the complainant of inaccurate data should be identified.

Plan for moving forward:

- task force 3 discussions be brought to a broader group as the task force had suffered from lack of participation from all the constituencies
- summary report by Bruce with comments from this call
- Cape Town discussions and overlay them on top of the previous document for recommendations that can be presented and worked on on the list. We can have an interactive conversation in a couple of weeks.
- schedule time in a call for interactive discussion

Marilyn Cade joined the call


Argentina Agenda

Sunday 3 April 2005 - GNSO Council has access to a meeting room all day.
11:00 am to 2:00 pm Propose scheduling a meeting for Whois task force and GNSO Council members
Teleconferencing facilities to be arranged.

Bruce Tonkin drops off call

5) Issues/discussions arising out of last week's presentations
Jordyn Buchanan summarized that there were presentations from 3 registries on differentiated access for whois data which was part of the data gathering process. There was good dialogue with each presenter.

Marilyn Cade suggested developing the rest of the plans online and proposed two more presenters:
-.eu
- the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC)
as well as who from Government, Privacy protection, law enforcement, etc.

Marilyn Cade referred to, among other occasions, the meeting in Montreal , June 2003, where panels of presenters were invited and the Department of Justice presenter explained how they used Whois while a contribution from the commission concentrated more on the policy side. It was an effort to invite in a wide group of people with different views.

Suzanne Sene commented that there were a variety of views and experiences around the GAC table. Some GAC representatives did not their countries’ views. In the United States different entities expressed different views and it was hard to come up with a consensus position.

Tom Keller felt that more work should be put into the different approaches such as to tiered access before approaching governments again.

There was general agreement that consultation with Governments was necessary and should be structured but there was no specific schedule mentioned.

Work Plan
Next Week
15 March 2005
Submit question to ICANN staff by Thursday 10, March 2005

Bruce Tonkin, work on accuracy
Resubmit decision tree Jordyn Buchanan
Identify where there has been data gathering
Reaching out to .au and SSAC - Identify questions in advance

22 March 2005
Presentation on .au and SSAC devoted to tiered access

Jordyn Buchanan and Jeff Neuman thanked all for participating.
The call ended at 21:33 CET

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