[Gnso-ppsai-pdp-wg] Edits to Executive Summary

Tue Apr 28 13:37:42 UTC 2015

All:

Happy to discuss on the call, but my impression is that the proposed edits to Section 1.3.3 outlined below seem more substantive than typographic/compositional, and thus would probably be better suited for inclusion in an additional statement to go out with the draft initial report than in the report itself.

Having written many “Questions Presented” for briefs in a previous lifetime that were designed to lead to only one answer, the four questions outlined below seem to me especially ill-suited for our draft initial report.

TW.

From: gnso-ppsai-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-ppsai-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Kathy Kleiman
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 10:38 PM
To: gnso-ppsai-pdp-wg at icann.org
Subject: [Gnso-ppsai-pdp-wg] Edits to Executive Summary

Hi All,
I think the Excerpt from the Executive Summary is very important as it is likely to be what people read first – and then they will decide whether or not to jump into our long report. To that end, I would like to propose some edits for clarity, fairness and balance.

  1.  Page numbers – if we are publishing this as a stand alone documentary, let’s add page numbers to make reading and editing references easier.
  2.  Footnote 1 [as edited by Steve] and as already done in the main Report, this text should be moved into the main body of the text. It’s the key to the strange code of brackets that we use in the Interim Report and everyone should see it…
  3.  Section 1.3.3, Specific topics on there is currently no consensus within the WG, needs a lot of work. The issues we wrote about long ago, in our initial draft of this Executive Summary, have been updated and expanded – especially with all the work we have done on Reveal since then!
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Specific Edits to 1.3.3.  Given all of our work with Reveal since this first Executive Summary was first published, I submit the following changes to the Executive Summary (and as needed to correspond in the Interim Report)

To opening of 1.3.3. after “Specific Topics on which there is currently no consensus within the WG:”

••••• The WG’s has not yet reached final preliminary conclusions on key details of its “Reveal” recommendations (See Annex E of the Interim Report). There are many details still under discussion and for which the WG has not reached consensus. These include:

-          What remedies should a Customer be allowed in the event that a Reveal Request was falsely made or the data was improperly used (current recommendations provide mechanism only for Provider action)?

-          Should Requestors be allowed to escalate each and every rejection of a Reveal Request to a 3rd party forum, or should the WG seek to adopt reasonable standards and thresholds for such appeals to avoid unnecessary and potentially harassing and time-consuming appeals?  (Note: a Request for Reconsideration is already a part of the recommended process the WG has agreed to  by consensus.)

-          What rights and protections should a Customer be allowed and encouraged to forth in her/his/its own defense to provide a reasonable defense for maintaining her/his/its privacy, even in the face of a copyright or trademark infringement allegation?

-          How can Customers be protected from requests from Law Enforcement from outside their country, when the use of their domain name is for legal purposes in their own country, but perhaps purposes deemed illegal in other countries [Note: even Interpol refuses to act across national lines in matters of political, military, religious and racial issues because of the enormous differences of law. Article 3, Interpol Constitution]

Input and comments would be helpful on these issues.

In addition, [existing text] “[a]lthough the WG agreed that the mere fact that a domain name is registered by a commercial entity or by anyone conducting commercial activity should not preclude the use of P/P services[1], there was disagreement over whether domain names that are actively used for commercial transactions (e.g. the sale or exchange of goods or services) should be prohibited from using P/P services. While most WG members did not believe such a prohibition is necessary or practical, some members believed that registrants of such domain names should not be able to use or continue using proxy or privacy services. These members noted that businesses in the “offline world” are often required to register with relevant authorities as well as disclose details about their identities and locations. They expressed the view that it is both necessary and practical to distinguish between domains used for a commercial purpose (irrespective of whether the registrant is actually registered as a commercial entity anywhere) and those domains (which may be operated by commercial entity) that are used for a non-commercial purpose.”

••••• Other members of the WG noted that fundraising and membership drives are often performed by the very groups and organizations seeking privacy/proxy registration for protection, including minority political groups, minority religious organizations, ethnic groups, organizations committed to change of racial policies, gender orientation groups, and publications engaged in freedom of expression. These groups and their representatives note that, in the laws of their countries, the mere collection of a donation or membership fee does not change their status from “non-commercial” to commercial. Further, many of these organizations conduct their financial transactions through 3rd party e-commerce companies, such as PayPal, and thus are not processing the financial transactions directly. Accordingly, many in the WG submit there is no reason to breach the proxy/privacy of organizations and groups for this reason. They further note many in the WG submit that content regulation is beyond the scope of ICANN and properly the scope of national laws.

[existing] The WG chairs suggested that such domains might be more usefully termed “transactional” rather than more generally “commercial” domains. They developed the following suggested definition and potential recommendation to describe the view of some WG members regarding these transactional domains: “domains used for online financial transactions for commercial purpose should be ineligible for privacy and proxy registrations.”

••••• This suggestion has been debated strongly by the members of the WG and has not reached consensus. Input requested!

[I request the deletion of the rest of this section as too much detail for an Executive Summary and detracting from the many open other issues of the Executive Summary and Interim report.]

•         Should registrants of domain names associated with commercial activities and which are used for online financial transactions be prohibited from using, or continuing to use, privacy and proxy services?
•         Will it be useful to adopt a definition of “commercial” or “transactional” (and if so, should this be that suggested by the WG Chairs or some other)?
•         Will it be necessary to make a distinction in the WHOIS data fields to be displayed as a result?]

Best,
Kathy
p.s. also attached as a word doc

icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-ppsai-pdp-wg

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[1] The WG notes that the WHOIS RT had specifically acknowledged that P/P services can be and are used to address legitimate interests, both commercial and non-commercial.
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