[Rt4-whois] Questions on Recommendation 17

Tue Feb 7 02:11:00 UTC 2012

I'm with Seth. The AoC seems clear

On Feb 6, 2012, at 11:13 AM, "Seth M Reiss" <seth.reiss at lex-ip.com> wrote:

> Let's let the AoC speaks for itself.
> 
> "ICANN additionally commits to enforcing its existing policy relating to
> WHOIS, subject to applicable laws. Such existing policy requires 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."
> 
> Doesn't say that ICANN should play the operation role and it doesn't say
> that ICANN should not. ICANN is required to implement measures to effect an
> adequate result.  I do recall discussing a portal, not sure if that was in
> terms of ICANN operating the portal or ICANN contracting a third party to,
> or maybe discussing both.
> 
> Seth 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rt4-whois-bounces at icann.org [mailto:rt4-whois-bounces at icann.org] On
> Behalf Of Kathy Kleiman
> Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 5:20 AM
> To: Lutz Donnerhacke
> Cc: rt4-whois at icann.org
> Subject: Re: [Rt4-whois] Questions on Recommendation 17
> 
> Hi Lutz,
> Thank you for the detailed answers below. I am still working through 
> them and urge others to review them closely as well.  I would very much 
> like to see the "all-whois" website you have been running since 1996 -- 
> would you be willing to share the link?
> 
> There does seem to be a difference in how we view the AoC. I never saw 
> as **requiring ** ICANN to have an operational role in running websites, 
> and I don't remember such discussions in our meetings (did I sleep 
> through something?) I do remember discussing that ICANN -- with Whois 
> data as with so many other areas -- is responsible fo creating and 
> overseeing policies that implement the wording and goals of the AoC.
> 
> I tend to have a sense that policy-making bodies are not great 
> operational bodies, and know there has been great push-back against 
> ICANN in other areas (e.g. the DNS-Cert discussion of 2010).
> 
> I will send back more detailed comments shortly.  Thank you for this 
> discussion online and, hopefully, in CR as well. And thanks for the link 
> to your website!
> Best,
> Kathy
> 
> :
>> On Fri, Feb 03, 2012 at 01:59:05PM -0500, Kathy Kleiman wrote:
>>> I understand it, we are recommending a "dedicated, multilingual website"
> to
>>> provide thick Whois data (for thin gTLD registries, in one variation, and
>>> all gTLD registries in the other):
>> 
>> No, we are recommending a "dedicated, multilingual website" to provide a
>> "centralized access to all whois data regardless of the underlying data
>> structure".
>> 
>>> 1. What is the underlying data structure of this website? Is all the
>>> information going to be gathered into and run out of a California
> database
>>> run and owned by ICANN?
>> No. The website traveresed the data structure down the chain of whois
>> servers (starting at whois.iana.org). It does not store nor copy the whois
>> data, besides some short time caching.
>> 
>> It's similar to DNS: A recursive resolver does not copy and stores all the
>> DNS records worldwide, but is able to obtain the necessary data on the
> fly.
>> 
>>> 2. Alternatively, might it be a website run by ICANN offering links to
> the
>>> registries and registrars who hold the full Whois data?
>> No. The results should be present directly on this particular website in
>> order to fulfill the requirements of the AoC literaly:
>> 
>>   maintain timely, unrestricted and public access to accurate and
> complete
>>   WHOIS information, including registrant, technical, billing, and
>>   administrative contact information.
>> 
>> In order to overcome the problems, shown by user experiance report, the
>> website needs to be multilingual not only in terms of the user interface
> but
>> also in the presentation of the gathered data.
>> 
>> Of course, the website needs to show the sources and the way how the
>> information was obtained, where it is really stored and why. That's the
>> minimal requirement from (my) understanding of (European) data protection
>> laws.
>> 
>>> 3. Do you think this would become the place in which all people search
> for
>>> all gTLD whois data?
>> Yes, that's the intention of the proposal.
>> 
>>> If so, could there be a scalability problem if all
>>> people (law enforcement, domain name purchasers, etc) go to one website
> for
>>> all Whois searches? Is there some liability to ICANN should such a site
> go
>>> down?
>> Yes, that's the reasoning behind the proposal: The AoC urges ICANN to
>> provide such an unrestricted access. Unfortunly many registries does rate
>> limit the access or does not provide all the required data.
>> 
>> ICANN - as the operator of the proposed website - has the power to enforce
>> it's own policies by using it's own contracts with the parties in
> question.
>> 
>> This way the proposal collapses the differences between real world and AoC
>> at a single point within the organisation which is able to solve the
> problem.
>> 
>>> 4. Are we advocating a particular policy/technical solution or is the
>>> implementation open to discussion in the GNSO and other policy groups
>>> within ICANN?
>> We - as a group - are limited to the such a proposal and might add some
>> personal reasoning (like this).
>> 
>> Personally I do run such an "all-whois" website since 1996 and do have
> some
>> ideas how it should be implemented and which operational policy should be
>> enforced. But that's outside of our scope.
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> 
> 
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