ISPCP Comments on GNSO Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Working Group Initial Report

[Christian Dawson <dawson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ISPCP Comments on GNSO Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Working 
Group Initial Report

 
The Internet Services Provider and Connectivity Provider Constituency (ISPCP) 
respectfully submits the following comments on the “GNSO Privacy & Proxy 
Services Accreditation Issues Working Group Initial Report”. 

The Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers operate Internet 
backbone networks and/or provide access to Internet and related services to End 
Users.  We are key players on the Internet, and have an essential role in its 
stability and development.  The Internet Service Providers and Connectivity 
Providers Constituency seeks to selectively respond to the GNSO Privacy & Proxy 
Services Accreditation Issues PDP Working Group Community Questions.

We focus comments only on areas of concerns for Internet Service Providers and 
Connectivity Providers, which in this case means issues affecting Internet 
intermediaries. As Internet intermediaries ourselves, we have a keen interest 
in avoiding bad precedent for issues that could potentially become a ‘slippery 
slope’ to be imposed upon our networks in the future. We therefore file the 
following official responses on behalf of our constituency:

There are four core issues that the ISPCP wishes to focus its comments on, all 
regarding Internet intermediary precedent:

 
1. Regarding Relaying (Forwarding) of Third Party Requests:

        The cost of relaying a third party request, if digital, can easily be 
considered a cost of doing business for a Privacy & Proxy provider, but should 
an email address fail despite best efforts from a provider to keep contact 
information valid, more discussion needs to be had around who should bear the 
cost of those communications, and ultimately this needs to be well defined and 
not open-ended.  


2. Regarding LEA definitions & differentiations:

While we respect the desire to utilize the official ICANN definition of Law 
Enforcement Agent (LEA), we acknowledge that intellectual property rights 
holders and private anti abuse organizations should be treated as complainants 
and not indisputably wronged parties, and accordingly an independent 
adjudicator should determine the merits of their claim before rights that users 
would otherwise have are abrogated by reason of those lawyers' claims.
 
3. Regarding restrictions to P/P for websites involved in commercial 
transactions:

        An Internet intermediary should not be contractually required by ICANN 
to categorize the use of an Internet service. It is not practical or 
operationally feasible to restrict P/P to websites involved in commercial 
transactions.


4. On disclosure of data request to customer:

        Different global jurisdictions have differing laws regarding when a law 
enforcement request is supposed to remain confidential. A P/P provider must be 
able to operate within the allowances of its local jurisdiction regarding 
disclosure to customers.
 
 
The ISPCP constituency will continue to comment in the subsequent dialogue 
phases.

 
On behalf of the ISPCP constituency:

Christian Dawson