RE: [gnso-dow123] [Fwd: Draft staff summary on WHOIS]

["Milton Mueller" <Mueller@xxxxxxx>]

TF members:

First, I want to thank Maria for preparing this report on time and for the 
clarity and energy with which you are intervening in (and learning about!) the 
complex GNSO processes. It is great to have this kind of neutral staff support. 

To Maria and the TF members: I would like to express reservations about the 
definition of the purpose of Whois currently in the report. That definition 
will have to be eliminated or emended, simply because there is no agreement on 
it, and coming to an agreement on a purpose would be one of the most central 
achievments of the Whois Task Forces. At this stage, at best, you could include 
an impartial list of the various definitions that have been put forward, with 
an indication that there is no resolution of this yet.  

To explain, longstanding international and national norms regarding data 
protection inform us that the type of data you are authorized to collect, and 
the amount of access to it, must be clearly related to the purpose of the 
database. Moreover, data subjects must be informed of that purpose before they 
provide their data. Thus, how one defines the purpose will directly affect 
whois policy regarding data elements, data accuracy and data access.

For that reason the purpose of the whois database is, unfortunately, a deeply 
controversial issue. Indeed, different conceptions of its purpose are 
responsible for the entrenched policy divisions among the constituencies. 

I would reject out of hand the definition currently in the report. To say that 
the purpose of whois is to facilitate resolution of "any problem" arising in 
connection with a domain is tremendously broad and overreaching and would not 
be accepted by my constituency and several others.

As an alternative definition I would offer: 

"Whois data is intended to be a workable, authoritative record of contact 
information for the parties responsible for registering and maintaining a 
domain. The primary purpose of this record is to facilitate communication among 
responsible parties when disputes or problems arise concerning the technical 
management, renewal, or transfer of domain names."



Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org


>>> "Maria Farrell" <maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx> 3/9/2005 12:02:19 PM >>>
Thanks Marilyn - the terminology and different work items / task forces are
all slowly becoming clear to me...  Last night's WHOIS call was extremely
helpful in this regard.  

Now that everyone's had more of a chance to read the initial draft, comments
on this list - on structure, headings, substance and, most importantly,
omissions - are very welcome. 

Maria

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Marilyn Cade
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:27 PM
To: 'GNSO.SECRETARIAT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx'; gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Subject: RE: [gnso-dow123] [Fwd: Draft staff summary on WHOIS]

Maria, thanks so much for this initial draft. I am only reading it online,
so may be a little confused on this item, but I think that under the last
few items, you reference "agreements from CapeTown". I think, and stand to
be corrected by others, that that is limited to TF 3's issue and there would
be a similar topic for the work of what was TF1/2. We probably need now to
morph our work into Topical headings so that we are all able to reference
them coherently in the future. ;-) 

We can perhaps start changing that terminology using your report's headings
to help us to do that. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of GNSO.SECRETARIAT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 10:32 AM
To: gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Subject: [gnso-dow123] [Fwd: Draft staff summary on WHOIS]

Maria Farrell has asked me to circulate the attached working draft.
Glen

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Draft staff summary on WHOIS
Date:   Tue, 8 Mar 2005 15:53:53 +0100
From:   Maria Farrell <maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx>
To:     'Glenn De Saint Gery' <glen@xxxxxxxxx>,
<gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
CC:     'Bruce Tonkin' <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, 'Barbara Roseman'
<barbara.roseman@xxxxxxxxx>, 'Paul Verhoef' <paul.verhoef@xxxxxxxxx>



Hi Glen,



Could you please circulate this draft to the WHOIS call participants and
list in general for today's call?



Please include the following: The document is a working draft and mostly
lists the important documents and milestones to date.  All suggestions
as to content and documents that should be included will be gratefully
received.



Thanks!  M


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