Thank you Amr, for such a long and detailed response... and for taking 
the time amidst vacation. I/we will study your words below closely. Have 
a wonderful vacation!

Kathy

  :
> Hi Kathy,
>
> Thanks for your continued interest in the work being done by this WG, 
> and apologies for the slow response. I am on holiday with my kids at 
> Disneyland Paris right now, and am not regularly checking my email. 
> Being one of several NCSG members who actively participated in this 
> WG, I will try to briefly provide my own personal perception regarding 
> the "thick" Whois PDP WG's initial report. Roy Balleste, Marie-Laure 
> Lemineur and Avri Doria could provide more insight as well, which I 
> would personally appreciate.
>
> On page 4 of the report, there is a list of 11 topics listed for 
> consideration by the WG's charter. Sub-teams were created for each 
> topic, each with their own mailing list and meeting schedule, 
> independent from the rest of the WG. To my knowledge, NCSG had very 
> little if any contributions to the sub-teams listed apart from the one 
> concerned with "Impact on privacy and data protection" in which we 
> really exerted the majority of our collective effort. However, two 
> submissions were made by NCSG (one by each of the constituencies) in 
> January addressing every one of the topics listed for consideration as 
> each constituency saw fit, and you will find some of those comments 
> reflected in some of the sub-team findings (although not all). Still…, 
> the NCSG initial feedback is on-the-record and can be found here 
> <https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=39421016> for those 
> who would like to go over them, or any of the other statements 
> submitted by other constituencies/SGs and ALAC.
>
> I do not personally agree with the bottom line recommendation of this 
> report to proceed with a transition of current "thin" registries to 
> "thick", as well as implement this as a rule for all new gTLDs beyond 
> the last round of new gTLDs (which will also all be adopting a "thick" 
> Whois model as per the applicant guidebook). It seemed to me that this 
> was, however, the obvious expected outcome by most of the WG members 
> from the outset of the WG's deliberations and am not surprised by the 
> final outcome.
>
> I would definitely say though that section 5.5 (starting on page 25) 
> of the report with the findings of the Impact on Data Protection and 
> Privacy sub-team appropriately reflected the concerns we, as NCSG 
> members, expressed (amidst the lack of concern expressed by other 
> folks of course). I personally see more of a noncommercial influence 
> on this part of the report than others. I do have to say that while 
> working on this sub-team, I was pleasantly surprised to find folks 
> from other SGs/constituencies very agreeable in accepting 
> noncommercial concerns, and including them in the sub-team findings. 
> The sub-team coordinator, Don Blumenthal, also did a great job of 
> moderating the discussions that included a lot of debates.
>
> I generally found the folks from the Registries to be the most on this 
> WG to share common concerns with us in NCSG. I also found it 
> unfortunate that we had so much disagreement on this topic with the 
> folks from At-Large. I personally see a very little difference between 
> the interests of users and those of registrants, especially where 
> Whois and privacy is concerned. It seems that the folks from At-Large 
> don't agree with me. I think that if we would like to make progress on 
> this topic in the future, we should probably work on both those fronts.
>
> This email is no where near as brief as I intended it to be when I 
> started, but I will close with this; if we do submit a public comment, 
> we might want to focus less on detailing the opinions we have on 
> specific policy issues. We've done this several times already during 
> the course of this WG. I would lean more towards brief overviews on 
> those, with more elaborations on the principles we hold that explain 
> our policy positions. Folks from NCSG who attended the WG meeting in 
> Beijing did a pretty good job of doing that, and I personally 
> appreciated it. I would appreciate input from others on this though.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Jun 23, 2013, at 9:40 PM, Kathy Kleiman <[log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>> Dear NCSG Members of the Thick Whois WG,
>> Thank you for your time and efforts on this Working Group.  As we 
>> review the initial report, it would help to have your guidance:
>> - What do you agree with?
>> - What do you disagree with?
>>
>> Feel free to share what you think your victories were (hooray!) and 
>> what you think still needs to be done to make this Initial Report - 
>> and the next steps it urges for GNSO policy - better and tighter.
>>
>> My and our thanks for all your work in the past, and your work to 
>> come, on this WG!
>> Kathy
>>
>>
>>
>> :
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>>> *From: *Glen de Saint Géry <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>> *Subject: **[liaison6c] Public Comment: Thick Whois Initial Report 
>>>> - GNSO Policy Development Process*
>>>> *Date: *June 22, 2013 12:35:13 AM PDT
>>>> *To: *liaison6c <[log in to unmask] 
>>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/thick-whois-initial-21jun13-en.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Thick Whois Initial Report – GNSO Policy Development Process
>>>>
>>>> Comment / Reply Periods (*)
>>>> Comment Open Date: 21 June 2013
>>>> Comment Close Date: 14 July 2013 - 23:59 UTC
>>>> Reply Open Date: 15 July 2013
>>>> Reply Close Date: 4 August 2013 - 23:59 UTC
>>>> Important Information Links
>>>> Public Comment Announcement 
>>>> <http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-21jun13-en.htm>
>>>> To Submit Your Comments (Forum) 
>>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>>> View Comments Submitted 
>>>> <http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-thick-whois-initial-21jun13/>
>>>> Brief Overview
>>>> Originating Organization: GNSO
>>>> Categories/Tags:
>>>>
>>>>   * Policy Processes
>>>>
>>>> Purpose (Brief):
>>>>
>>>> The Generic Names Supporting Organization ("GNSO") Thick Whois 
>>>> Policy Development Process Working Group tasked with providing the 
>>>> GNSO Council with a policy recommendation regarding the use of 
>>>> 'thick' Whois by all gTLD Registries has published itsInitial 
>>>> Report 
>>>> <http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/whois/thick-initial-21jun13-en.pdf>[PDF, 
>>>> 1.21 MB] for public comment.
>>>>
>>>> Current Status:
>>>>
>>>> The Policy Development Process (PDP) Working Group has published 
>>>> itsInitial Report 
>>>> <http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/whois/thick-initial-21jun13-en.pdf>[PDF, 
>>>> 1.21 MB] and is soliciting community input on the preliminary 
>>>> recommendations contained in the report.
>>>>
>>>> Next Steps:
>>>>
>>>> Following review of the public comments received, the Working Group 
>>>> will continue its deliberations and finalize its report for 
>>>> submission to the GNSO Council.
>>>>
>>>> Staff Contact:
>>>> Marika Konings
>>>> Email Staff Contact 
>>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Detailed Information
>>>> Section I: Description, Explanation, and Purpose:
>>>>
>>>> The Thick Whois PDP WG was tasked to provide the GNSO Council with 
>>>> 'a policy recommendation regarding the use of thick Whois by all 
>>>> gTLD registries, both existing and future'. Following its analysis 
>>>> of the different issues outlined in its Charter, including: 
>>>> response consistency; stability; access to Whois data; impact on 
>>>> privacy and data protection; cost implications; synchronization / 
>>>> migration; authoritativeness; competition in registry services; 
>>>> existing Whois applications; data escrow, and registrar Port 43 
>>>> Whois requirements (see section 5 of the Initial Report), on 
>>>> balance the Working Group concludes that there are more benefits 
>>>> than disadvantages to requiring thick Whois for all gTLD 
>>>> registries. As a result, the Working Group recommends that:
>>>>
>>>> /The provision of thick Whois services should become a requirement 
>>>> for all gTLD registries, both existing and future./
>>>>
>>>> The WG expects numerous benefits as a result of requiring thick 
>>>> Whois for all gTLD registries. Nevertheless, the WG recognizes that 
>>>> a transition of the current thin gTLD registries would affect over 
>>>> 120 million domain name registrations and as such it should be 
>>>> carefully prepared and implemented. In section 7.2 of the Initial 
>>>> Report, the WG outlines a number of implementation considerations. 
>>>> In section 7.3 of the Initial Report the WG also provides other 
>>>> observations that emerged from this discussion which while not 
>>>> directly related to the question of thin or thick did and should 
>>>> receive due consideration by other bodies.
>>>>
>>>> The WG would like to encourage all interested parties to submit 
>>>> their comments and suggestions so these can be considered as the WG 
>>>> continues its deliberations in view of finalizing its report and 
>>>> recommendations in the next phase of the policy development process.
>>>>
>>>> Section II: Background:
>>>>
>>>> ICANN specifies Whois service requirements for generic top-level 
>>>> domain (gTLD) registries through the Registry Agreement (RA) and 
>>>> the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). Registries and 
>>>> registrars satisfy their Whois obligations using different service 
>>>> models. The two common models are often characterized as "thin" and 
>>>> "thick" Whois registries. This distinction is based on how two 
>>>> distinct sets of data are managed. One set of data is associated 
>>>> with the domain name, and a second set of data is associated with 
>>>> the registrant of the domain name.
>>>>
>>>>   * A thin registry only stores and manages the information
>>>>     associated with the domain name. This set includes data
>>>>     sufficient to identify the sponsoring registrar, status of the
>>>>     registration, creation and expiration dates for each
>>>>     registration, name server data, the last time the record was
>>>>     updated in its Whois data store, and the URL for the
>>>>     registrar's Whois service.
>>>>   * With thin registries, registrars manage the second set of data
>>>>     associated with the registrant of the domain and provide it via
>>>>     their own Whois services, as required by Section 3.3 of the RAA
>>>>     for those domains they sponsor.COM and NET are examples of thin
>>>>     registries.
>>>>   * Thick registries maintain and provide both sets of data (domain
>>>>     name and registrant) via Whois.INFO and BIZ are examples of
>>>>     thick registries.
>>>>
>>>> The GNSO Council requested an Issue Report regarding the use of 
>>>> thick Whois by all gTLD Registries at its meeting on 22 September 
>>>> 2011. The Issue Report was expected to 'not only consider a 
>>>> possible requirement of thick Whois for all incumbent gTLDs in the 
>>>> context of IRTP, but should also consider any other positive and/or 
>>>> negative effects that are likely to occur outside of IRTP that 
>>>> would need to be taken into account when deciding whether a 
>>>> requirement of thick Whois for all incumbent gTLDs would be 
>>>> desirable or not'.
>>>>
>>>> Following the delivery of the Final Issue Report, the GNSO Council 
>>>> initiated a Policy Development Process at its meeting of 14 March 2012.
>>>>
>>>> Section III: Document and Resource Links:
>>>>
>>>> Initial Report on the Thick Whois Policy Development Process 
>>>> <http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/whois/thick-initial-21jun13-en.pdf>[PDF, 
>>>> 1.21 MB]
>>>>
>>>> Working Group Workspace -https://community.icann.org/x/whgQAg
>>>>
>>>> Section IV: Additional Information:
>>>> N/A
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> (*) Comments submitted after the posted Close Date/Time are not 
>>>> guaranteed to be considered in any final summary, analysis, 
>>>> reporting, or decision-making that takes place once this period lapses.
>>>>
>>>> Glen de Saint Géry
>>>> GNSO Secretariat
>>>> [log in to unmask] 
>>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>>> http://gnso.icann.org <http://gnso.icann.org/>
>>>
>>
>