-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[council] [Fwd: Statement of Registry Constituency]
Date: 	Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:06:50 +0200
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[Council[at]gnso.icann.org]

Please see the Response by the Registry Constituency to motion 1 of the 
GNSO Council passed on 20 July 2006. The attachment has been copied in 
plain text below.

Subject: 	Statement of Registry Constituency
Date: 	Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:24:41 -0500
From: 	David W. Maher (Alternate Chair of the Registry Constituency).

"Attached to this message is a statement adopted by the Registry
Constituency at our teleconf meeting on July 26 in response to Motion 1
passed by the GNSO on 20 July 2006. Step 1 of the GNSO motion says,
“Each Council member that voted in favour of the definition (and any
Advisory Committee liaison) may provide a brief explanation of the
reason for supporting the resolution and their understanding of its
meaning.”
The Registry Constituency is posting this statement on its web site at:
http://gtldregistries.org/."


RESPONSE BY THE REGISTRY CONSTITUENCY TO
MOTION 1 OF THE GNSO, 20 JULY 2006

Ref:  Motion 1 approved by the GNSO Council on 20 July 2006.  Step 1 of 
this motion says, “Each Council member that voted in favour of the 
definition (and any Advisory Committee liaison) may provide a brief 
explanation of the reason for supporting the resolution and their 
understanding of its meaning.”

In accordance with the gTLD Registry Constituency (RyC) Articles of 
Operation, each RyC Council member voted to support Definition 1 as 
directed by the RyC membership so there does not seem to be any value in 
individual explanations from RyC Council representatives.  But there may 
be value in explaining the RyC understanding of the meaning of 
Definition 1 of the purpose of Whois that was approved by the Council on 
12 April 2006.  The following information is provided for that purpose.

Prior to the Council vote on 12 April 2006, the RyC approved support for 
Definition 1 with the clearly communicated assumption that Definition 1 
would not preclude providing access to Whois data to law enforcement 
agencies and other organizations that have a legitimate need for that 
access.  In fact, in a RyC teleconference meeting before 12 April 2006, 
before final direction was confirmed for RyC Council representatives to 
vote in support of Definition 1, the following question was asked: “Does 
Definition 1 preclude granting access to Whois data by law enforcement 
and other organizations that have a legitimate need for that access?” 
The RyC members of the GNSO Whois Taskforce answered ‘no’ to this 
question.  Based on that understanding, RyC Council representatives were 
directed to vote in support of Definition 1.
It is also important to note that this position is consistent with RyC 
statements made over the past several months regarding Whois access. 
Three of these statements are quoted below from publicly available 
documents as noted:
•	“There are adequate techniques, such as tiered access, that can make 
WHOIS data available to law enforcement agencies and others that need 
the data.” [RyC constituency statement in Section 4(e) of the Final task 
force report on the purpose of Whois and of the Whois contacts dated 15 
March 2006 and posted at 
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/tf-report-15mar06.htm]
•	“The Registry Constituency supports a balanced approach to solving the 
Whois dilemma.  We recognize that there are multiple uses of Whois that 
need to be recognized and accommodated including those of intellectual 
property users and law enforcement agencies.”  [Statement of Sponsorship 
by the gTLD Registry Constituency for the ‘Privacy Conference - Building 
Bridges on ICANN's Whois Dilemma’ held in Vancouver, B.C. on 29 November 
2005 and posted at 
http://www.gtldregistries.org/news/2005/2005-11-21_privacy_conf_sponsorship_statement.]
•	“We recognize that certain parties (e.g., law enforcement, IP) may at 
times need to have better access to Whois. We suggest that a technical 
solution be identified  which allows legitimate parties to search for 
the information they need, without requiring registries to turn over all 
data they have in the Whois (i.e., current bulk access).  IRIS could be 
considered as a potential technical solution.”  [gTLD Registry 
Constituency Statement for Whois Task Force 1 that can be found at 
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/Whois-tf1-preliminary.html#GTLDRegistriesConstituency.]

It is our hope that this explanation removes much of the 
misunderstanding and in some cases misrepresentation by third parties 
with regard to the RyC’s position regarding Definition 1 of the purpose 
of Whois and in particular with regard to public Whois access.