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" <[log in to unmask]> 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