[gnso-rds-pdp-purpose] Purpose of registration data: Whois Review Team never assessed

Kathy Kleiman kathy at kathykleiman.com
Mon Apr 4 03:50:56 UTC 2016 

Hi Maryan and All,
Tx you for your analysis, and I would like to provide some additional 
background on the Whois Review Team Final Report.  The Whois Review Team 
was///expressly barred //from looking at the purpose of the Whois 
system/. It was allowed to look only at ICANN's "existing policy 
relating to WHOIS" per the Affirmation of Commitments signed between US 
Department of Commerce and ICANN in 2009.

Even within that scope, the Whois Review Team recommended protection of 
privacy for commercial companies, noncommercial organizations and 
individials (finding that each shared with us legal and legitimate 
reasons for privacy including as-yet-unannounced mergers, new movie 
names, unpopular religious, ethnic and policy views, etc). The Whois 
Review Team further advised ICANN to work towards a standard of 
contactability - reaching the registrant by some means rather than all 
means - which we wrote as: "ICANN should take appropriate measures to 
reduce the number of WHOIS registrations that fall into the accuracy 
groups Substantial Failure and Full Failure (as defined by the NORC Data 
Accuracy Study, 2009/10..." p. 87.

This history means that our RDS Working Group remains the only group I 
know -- since the 1980s -- to look at domain name registration data anew 
and ask the key questions:
1. What is the primary purpose for which domain name registration data 
is collected, and
2. To what secondary purposes (such as directories) may this data be 
used and pursuant to what requirements of law?

We are creating a new process/system and it falls to us to determine 
Purpose.

Best,
Kathy (Kleiman)
Formerly, Vice-Chair of the Whois Review Team.


On 4/2/2016 4:31 AM, Maryan Rizinski via gnso-rds-pdp-purpose wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I hope that you are all having a great week so far!
>
> I spent some time reviewing the WHOIS Policy Review Team's Final 
> Report from May 2012 with the goal of extracting relevant information 
> regarding the purpose of registration data. This has been a 
> challenging task because of two reasons:
>
>  1. There is a lack of clearly defined purpose for collecting
>     registration data within the existing WHOIS system (it is not
>     surprising that the SSAC's report SAC055 is entitled "Blind Men
>     and An Elephant")
>  2. Significant emphasis is given on topics such as compliance, data
>     accuracy and data access which all seem to share an intangible
>     common underlying (or over-arching) purpose/principle
>
>
> I have the impression that the purpose implicitly evolves around the 
> concept of achieving and ensuring "trust" - a term that is used a 
> number of times throughout the document.
>
> Many, if not all, stakeholders involved with or affected by WHOIS, may 
> be interested in achieving and ensuring trust in the online 
> environment (which may in turn represent a reasonable basis for 
> achieving consensus regarding purpose), but as Chuck said, at this 
> point we should restrain from deliberating on that topic even though 
> it may look like a tempting starting point for discussing the 
> fundamental question:
>
>     /What should the over-arching purpose be of collecting,
>     maintaining, and providing access to gTLD registration data?/
>
>
> In this context, I compiled some relevant excerpts from the final 
> report regarding trust that we may want to consider when preparing our 
> concise summary. The excerpts are given as follows (some parts are 
> highlighted for improved readability and navigation throughout the 
> excerpts):
>
>     /"The WHOIS Review Team’s scope, guided by the Affirmation of
>     Commitments was to review the extent to which ICANN’s WHOIS policy
>     and its implementation are effective, meet the legitimate needs of
>     law enforcement and promote consumer trust." (page 6)/
>
>     /"Part of the WHOIS Review Team’s scope was to evaluate the extent
>     to which ICANN’s current WHOIS policy and implementation “promotes
>     consumer trust”... This found that drivers of consumer trust
>     include knowing the entity with whom they are dealing, and being
>     able to find reliable contact information." (page 9)/
>
>
>     /"...the current implementation of WHOIS services does not help to
>     build consumer trust, and more could be done to raise awareness of
>     the service, and to improve its user-friendliness." (page 10)/
>
>     /"The low level of accurate WHOIS data is unacceptable, and
>     decreases consumer trust in WHOIS..." (page 12)/
>
>     /"ICANN will organize a review of WHOIS policy and its
>     implementation to assess the extent to which WHOIS policy is
>     effective and its implementation meets the legitimate needs of law
>     enforcement and promotes consumer trust." (page 20)/
>
>     /"The Review Team found the definition of Consumer Trust,
>     something the ICANN Community is also exploring in the context of
>     its policy-making processes, to be particularly challenging.
>     Consumer Trust can be narrowly construed to mean the level of
>     trust Internet users have in available WHOIS data; or more broadly
>     as the level of trust consumers have in Internet information and
>     transactions in general." (page 23)/
>
>     /"Thus, lack of support of non-ASCII characters introduces an
>     additional barrier for non-ASCII users to provide accurate and
>     consistent domain name registration data. This has implications
>     for their tractability for law enforcement and associated
>     organizations. Further, many people attach some pride and fondness
>     to the correct representation of their name and other data. While
>     this is not a purely technical or administrative requirement, it
>     is relevant in the context of Consumer Trust." (page 46-47)/
>
>     /"The Review Team was clearly told in written and oral comments
>     that inaccurate WHOIS data can also significantly impact consumer
>     trust and confidence in the Internet." (page 51)/
>
>     /"Consumers engaged in online purchases, in our Consumer Research
>     Study agreed: findings showed that factors which positively
>     supported consumer trust included knowing the company with whom
>     they were dealing with, and being able to verify their contact
>     details online." (page 51)/
>
>     /"A significant number of public responses to the WHOIS discussion
>     paper, and input from law enforcement agencies via the review
>     team’s targeted questionnaire, argued that privacy and proxy
>     services undermine the effectiveness of the WHOIS service, both in
>     terms of its ability to meet the legitimate needs of law
>     enforcement and to promote consumer trust." (page 61)/
>
>     /"The GAC WHOIS Principles similarly note that WHOIS data can
>     contribute: to user confidence in the Internet ... by helping
>     users identify persons or entities responsible for content and
>     services online" (page 67)/
>
>     /"Part of the WHOIS Review Team’s scope was to evaluate the extent
>     to which ICANN’s current WHOIS policy and implementation “promotes
>     consumer trust”. Having struggled with what “consumer” means in
>     the context of WHOIS, and aware of the Affirmation of Commitments’
>     observation that there are key stakeholders who do not engage in
>     the ICANN environment, the WHOIS Review Team commissioned consumer
>     research. This found that drivers of consumer trust include
>     knowing the entity with whom they are dealing, and being able to
>     find reliable contact information. The vast majority of consumers
>     were unaware of the existence of the WHOIS service, and many
>     struggled to understand the format of WHOIS outputs. This led us
>     to conclude that the current implementation of WHOIS services does
>     not help to build consumer trust, and more could be done to raise
>     awareness of the service, and to improve its user-friendliness."
>     (page 84)/
>
>
> I hope that this input would be helpful for our small team and I am 
> looking forward to working with all of you.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Maryan
>
>
>
>
>
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