[Rt4-whois] Scope of Work

Wed Jan 5 20:23:56 UTC 2011

Dear All: 

First let me wish the one's who celebrated it, a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.  Secondly, I would like to thank you all for your kind personal emails with respect to my current situation.  I very much appreciated it. 

Thirdly, I am currently in the process of trying to catch up on all of the discussions that have been going on and I must admit, I am having a hard time following all of the discussions strings, but I think I did get the general gist of most of them. 

I generally agree with Bill's comments about not revisiting the WHOIS history, however, I do believe that an understanding of the original reasons for the WHOIS and reasons for why it still is the way it is are important.  This to say, I don't think that requires an in-depth empirical look in to all the facets of the WHOIS issues that arose in the last decade or so, but we all need to have a firm understanding of its genesis and the general evolution of the policy and the reasons thereof. 

With respect to scope, I do agree that we need to establish narrow boundaries as otherwise we will find ourselves caught up in minutia which will bury us and prevent us from accomplishing anything substantial this year. 

Finally, with respect to the scope, I am not sure whether I am simply mis-reading it or not fully understand it, but I don't completely understand what our view is should be the final product.  Yes, we need to analysis empirical data and juxtapose that to the needs, wants, etc. of the stakeholders, but then what?  Are we going to simply provide an analysis and leave the rest to the board and staff or are we going to provide recommendations?  I submit that we should provide recommendations based on our findings even if those are just "next steps".  Anyway, I may have missed it in the current scope and/or other discussions strings, but I thought I should raise it just in case. 

Kim 

__________________________________

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year or Season's Greetings... whatever works for you. 

On 2011-01-04, at 3:06 PM, Omar Kaminski wrote:

> Dear RT,
> 
> To discuss some important elements like "public interest" will lead us to a desiderable historical review - from a specific point of view, conducted by this team.
> 
> Besides that, I belive it could be interesting to harvest the most common issues related to Whois around the web. User's opinion on the web as blogs, discussions lists, etc. should be heard as an up-down process.
> 
> Most probably some issues are already addressed (my mistake, I'm researching to reach your level), the problems are well known, but anyway we should expect many, at least some conflicts of interest based on "who, how, why",
> 
> All the best in 2011,
> 
> Omar, representing the final user's view.
> 
> 
> 
> 2011/1/4 <lynn at goodsecurityconsulting.com>
> The excerpt of Emily's message that I believe will be useful for us is:
> 
> 1) where does responsibility for Whois policy formation sit within the ICANN organisation
> (2) how do the relevant strands (gNSO, GAC, SSAC) that we see referenced in the background materials provided by staff fit together, and what role does the board play and
> (3) with regard to WHOIS policy, what mechanisms/processes are in place to ensure that the end result is made in the public interest?
> 
> The historical information should help in answering those questions but agree that we do not need to take time at the
> meeting for a purely historical review of Whois.
> 
> Regards,
> Lynn
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Rt4-whois] Scope of Work
> From: "Smith, Bill" <bill.smith at paypal-inc.com>
> Date: Tue, January 04, 2011 2:32 pm
> To: Emily Taylor <emily.taylor at etlaw.co.uk>, RT4 WHOIS
> <rt4-whois at icann.org>
> 
>  Comments:
>  
> Rather than pull additional text from the AOC, I suggest we add a link to it. There may be other pertinent sections that one or more of us would like to reference.
>  
> I’m not convinced that our reviewing the history of current WHOIS policy is either useful or relevant to our work. I’m concerned that such a review would be time-consuming yielding little useful information since our charge is to review “existing policy and implementation”. (Note, I say this as one who is very fond of history.)
>  
> We should keep in mind, whether we review the ICANN history or not, that WHOIS (policy) and numerous other aspects of the DNS (Internet) predate ICANN and the other organizations responsible for the governance and “operation” of the Internet.
>  
> From: rt4-whois-bounces at icann.org [mailto:rt4-whois-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Emily Taylor
> Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 9:43 AM
> To: RT4 WHOIS
> Subject: [Rt4-whois] Scope of Work
>  
> Hi all
>  
> I'm belatedly replying to Kathy's thread, and her updates on the Scope document following the Cartagena meeting.  Bearing in mind that we should be aiming to communicate our scope of work to both ICANN insiders and those not so familiar with the context of these review teams, I have amended the draft scope to add in context from the AoC, including quoting the fact that the team is constituted under the AoC, the relevant paragraph (9.3.1) and other overarching principles contained within the AoC relating to ICANN's obligations to make policy in the public interest and "not just in the interests of a particular set of stakeholders" (para 4).
>  
> One of the questions that I have in approaching our work, which I hope we will discuss in London, is to what extent should we be looking at the policy process which has led to the current WHOIS policy - because it seems to me that these overarching principles about public interest vs interests of particular stakeholders is in part answered by a look at (1) where does responsibility for Whois policy formation sit within the ICANN organisation (2) how do the relevant strands (gNSO, GAC, SSAC) that we see referenced in the background materials provided by staff fit together, and what role does the board play and (3) with regard to WHOIS policy, what mechanisms/processes are in place to ensure that the end result is made in the public interest?
>  
> Please take a look at the draft Scope.  I tried to save the changes, and I think they are there, but the screen went a bit funny, so for completeness, here is a copy of the complete scope as amended by me today (see below).
>  
> Best regards
>  
> Emily
>  
>  
> ---------------------
>  
>  
> The WHOIS Review Team (WRT) has been constituted under the Affirmation of Commitments by the United States Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers dated 30 September 2009 (AoC).
> Under paragraph 9.3.1 of the AoC, ICANN commits to organising "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."
> Accordingly, the Scope of the Whois Review Team is to assess the extent to which existing WHOIS policy and its implementation:
> is effective,
> meets the legitimate needs of law enforcement, and
> promotes consumer trust.
> The WRT will identify and document ICANN’s existing WHOIS policy.
> The WRT will identify and document ICANN's implementation of its Whois Policy.
> It will define and identify law enforcement, and the term "legitimate needs of law enforcement."
> It will define consumer trust and analyse what factors promote consumer trust in the context of the Whois.
> It will identify the areas, if any, in which the interests above may be in conflict with each other.
> It will assess applicable laws and analyze issues possibly including:
>       -  contractual obligations vs. national law obligations
>       -  differing global laws and ICANN obligations
> It will review the extent to which ICANN’s existing WHOIS policy and its implementation are effective in meeting the legitimate needs of law enforcement and promotes consumer trust.
> This assessment will include an evidence-based approach, and seek to identify good practice in other areas of the domain space (as a benchmarking tool).
> The assessment will keep in mind overarching principles set out in the AoC in relation to ICANN's policy, ie that "decisions made related to the global technical coordination of the DNS are made in the public interest and are accountable and transparent" (paragraph 3(a)) "promote competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice in the DNS marketplace" (paragraph 3(c)), and that the outcomes of ICANN's private coordinating process should "reflect the public interest...and not just the interests of a particular set of stakeholders" (paragraph 4).  These principles set the context for the reviews (of which the WRT is one) performed under the AoC.
> The WRT will undertake an analysis and determination of ICANN's performance against the AOC requirement that ICANN implement measures to maintain timely, unrestricted and public access to accurate and complete WHOIS information, including registrant, technical, billing, and administrative contact information, and what impact such requirement have on the legitimate needs of law enforcement and promoting consumer trust.  
> 
> 76 Temple Road, Oxford OX4 2EZ UK 
> telephone: 01865 582 811   mobile: 07540 049 322 
> emily.taylor at etlaw.co.uk www.etlaw.co.uk
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Rt4-whois mailing list
> Rt4-whois at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/rt4-whois
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rt4-whois mailing list
> Rt4-whois at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/rt4-whois
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rt4-whois mailing list
> Rt4-whois at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/rt4-whois

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/rt4-whois/attachments/20110105/7d565fb2/attachment.html 