[registrars] Re: [gnso-dow123] Registrar Constituency position and representatives comments on Preliminary Whois Report

[GNSO.SECRETARIAT@GNSO.ICANN.ORG]

Thank you very much Ross, the Registrar constituency statement has been 
received and noted.

Best wishes
Glen

Ross Rader a écrit :
> Glen/Maria -
> 
> Please accept the following statement from the registrar constituency 
> and its representatives to this TF. Section 1) was adopted by a majority 
> vote of the constituency in January, 2006 and formally discussed, 
> reinforced and evolved at each meeting of the constituency since (New 
> Zealand, Morocco, Miami and Sao Paolo). This is in addition to ongoing 
> dialogue about the work of the TF and the constituency position on the 
> registrar constituency mailing list. The commentary included is provided 
> in support of this formal position and includes feedback and commentary 
> from various constituency participants.
> 
> 1) Formal Position of the Registrar Constituency (ratified)
> (i) The GNSO Registrar Constituency continues to support the Operation 
> Point of Contact proposal discussed in the preliminary task force report.
> 
> 2) Formal Feedback of the Constituency on the TF process, proposals and 
> report
> (i) The OPOC proposal represents a variety of compromises between a 
> number of potentially competing interests and strikes a balance between 
> the requirements of network operators, business interests, trademark and 
> intellectual property holders and registration interests. (ii) We urge 
> the task force to complete its work prior to the upcoming meetings in 
> Lisbon, Portugal and to focus on its consideration of access to data to 
> ensure that the proposed policies can be properly implemented by users 
> and providers; specifically, network providers, law enforcement 
> interests, registration interests and those seeking to protect their 
> intellectual property rights. (iii) Without due consideration of access 
> to data, including the important questions of "Who?" and "On what 
> terms?" the task force cannot consider their work adequate or complete.
> 
> 3) Commentary
> Unlike the last minute Business Constituency and Intellectual Property 
> Constituency proposals ("A Pragmatic Approach" and "Special 
> Circumstances" proposals respectively) the Operational Point of Contact 
> proposal does not advocate the irresponsible discontinuation of any 
> aspect of the Whois service. Abolishing aspects of the service, or 
> replacing it entirely,  will undermine the stability and security of the 
> internet's domain name system. Neither of these proposals are 
> technically, socially or economically practical and both only serve the 
> narrowest of interests within the business community.
> 
> Despite the mischaracterizations that came with the handwringing and 
> scare tactics of the IPC, BCUC and ISPC, the Operational Point of 
> Contact proposal provides for very small improvement to the Whois system 
> without fundamentally altering its structure or operation. This 
> iterative improvement allows registrants a modicum of privacy without 
> affecting *in any way* the amount of data that is available for 
> legitimate investigative purposes. This stands in stark contrast to the 
> position of the intellectual property lobby, in the guise of the IPC, 
> ISPC and BCUC, which proposes to replace the entire existing whois 
> system with a centrally administered registration database operated by 
> an unaccountable entity according to policies specifically designed to 
> circumvent national law on a global scale.
> 
> The policy development process is necessarily participative, 
> consultative and consensus driven. It is also prone to abuse and gaming, 
> as is evidenced by the tactics of those participants who have turned 
> their back on the current set of compromises by tabling their own 
> private proposals - proposals which may or may not even have the 
> endorsement of the interests they purport to represent. Reaction to this 
> type of disingenuous participation will always be swift and predictable. 
> In this case, compromises were fractured, perhaps irrevocably, as 
> additional proposals were crafted as a defensive measure against the 
> abandonment of the set of agreeements that the task force participants 
> had been working with. This type of bad faith participation undermines 
> the foundation and integrity of the GNSO's processes and structure. It 
> may warrant specific examination during ICANN's Board review of the 
> GNSO. The GNSO cannot be allowed continue to function in a manner that 
> permits narrow constituencies to push their own self-interested agenda 
> at the expense of all other stakeholders, especially given the duplicity 
> and overlap of the composition of the intellectual property, internet 
> service provider and business users constituencies. Large business 
> interests must be consolidated into one constituency and arrangements 
> made to allow unrepresented interests to participate in the work of the 
> GNSO.
> 
> Finally, the importance of defining which parties shall continue to have 
> access to Whois data pursuant to any policies adopted by ICANN cannot be 
> forgotten. All parties with a legitimate need for access to registration 
> data must continue to have access to this data. Attention must be paid 
> to facilitate the needs of registration (registrants, registrars and 
> registries) and law enforcement interests and the means by which they 
> access the data they require.
> 


-- 
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org