[gnso-reg-sgc] FYI: CALL SUMMARY Sub group C, 2 May, 2007

["Maria Farrell" <maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear sub group members,
 
Attached is a brief summary of this sub group's conference call this week. 
 
Best regards, Maria Farrell

Sub group C 

Conference call summary

2 May 2007

 

Participants:

Jon Bing (sub group Chair)

Ross Rader

Philip Sheppard

Avri Doria

Denise Michel

Glen de Saint Gery

Maria Farrell

 

Scope of work

Reminder: this sub group's scope of work follows item 4C of the WG Charter.
The sub group needs to compile information on options to:

 "Determine whether and how a distinction could be made between the
registration contact information published based on the nature of the
registered name holder (for example, legal vs. natural persons) or its use
of the domain name (for example, commercial versus non-commercial use)."

 The group is focusing on how these distinctions might be made rather than
why. 

  

1           Discussion paper         

Jon Bing summarised his discussion paper. (see attached) An initial
observation from this paper was that "the only distinction that is both
operative and which relates to the issue at hand would be the distinction
between individuals and legal persons."  This distinction is not without its
own problems. Distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial or public
and private entities is much more problematic. Some country code TLDs
distinguish on the national level between legal entities and individuals, or
between commercial and non-commercial activities. 

 

2          Individual versus commercial registrations

If registrants were allowed to self declare as individuals versus legal
entities, this may create an incentive for bad actors to say they are
individuals and evade wider publication of their data. On the other hand,
this issue could be dealt with as one of data accuracy and verification of
information through existing (WDPRS -Whois Data Problem Reporting System;
http://wdprs.internic.net/) or improved processes. If someone made a claim
that wasn't sustainable, like a wrong address, there would have to be a
process to determine it's not true of alleged miscreants. Work on
challenging inaccurate data is the focus of group 4a. 

 

The group broadly agreed with Jon's discussion paper that in principle, and
with the caveats in the paper noted, distinguishing between legal entities
and individuals is relatively straightforward in principle.  

 

Chris Wilson - agree that when alternatives are reported, we should report
them with a red flag attached.  1st wishlist on basis of distinction of
natural, legal. And then 2nd wishlist on use, commercial non commercial, of
proposals for alternatives under each. There are two levels and they
implicate different things. 

 

3          Commercial and non-commercial use

Use of a domain name can't be verified as clearly as the nature of
registrant. Use of a domain name - and the website and emails attached - can
vary within the use (e.g. blogging with AdWords) and also change from one
day to the next. 

The group broadly agreed that distinguishing between commercial and
non-commercial use of a domain registration is not straightforward.  

 

4          Interaction of two categories; legal/individual and
commercial/non-commercial

The group looked at registrations across both categories, for example, a
registrant self declaring as an individual who also makes commercial use of
the registration or an organisation that wanted to be treated with rules for
data of individuals.

 

The group noted that making distinctions in these categories might lead to a
change in the amount of data available openly or differences in access to
the data.  The distinctions could have implications in three layers; type of
data collected, data available publicly, and conditions in which data not
accessible publicly is accessible in a non public manner. 

 

The group discussed a possible two tier approach to self declaration; first,
the registrant would declare if she is an individual or a legal entity,
secondly whether the registration will be used for commercial or
non-commercial purposes. 

 

However, distinctions in the two categories may not be apparent to users.
Increasingly, individual registrants use their domains for mixed purposes,
in contrast to a corporation that might be said to use its registrations
almost entirely for commercial purposes. Self declaring as commercial versus
non-commercial may be difficult for individual registrants, since the
Internet is itself changing the nature of what is public and private. 

 

The group agreed to develop criteria to distinguish between the two
categories. 

 

Actions:

*       Maria will circulate a matrix for the group to fill in with criteria
for distinguishing within the two categories.