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RE: [gnso-thickwhoispdp-wg] missing recommendation in 7.1

  • To: "'Mike O'Connor'" <mike@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: RE: [gnso-thickwhoispdp-wg] missing recommendation in 7.1
  • From: "Metalitz, Steven" <met@xxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 18:05:31 +0000

Mikey, 

Thanks for drawing this proposal into one document, and I hope you are feeling 
better. 

You wrote on last Friday that "putting a recommendation in 7.1 puts it into 
consensus policy, putting a recommendation in 7.3 puts in in the "suggestions" 
pile."    Based on that distinction I still don't understand why your proposal 
in item 1 fits into consensus policy.  I look forward to discussing that on our 
call tomorrow.  

I also offer the attached edits to your text for consideration by the group.    
 

Steve





-----Original Message-----
From: Mike O'Connor [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2013 9:47 AM
To: Metalitz, Steven
Cc: Avri Doria; Thick Whois
Subject: Re: [gnso-thickwhoispdp-wg] missing recommendation in 7.1

hi Steve,

i realized that i didn't really respond to your whole argument with my reply.  
i'm working my way through Lyme's Disease or Ehrlichiosis (nobody is quite sure 
which) and some days my energy level is a little lower -- your note caught me 
on one of those days.  my apologies for that.

i think that Section 5 *does* support the "legal review" modification being 
proposed.  here are the paragraphs from Section 5 i would put forward to back 
that argument -- the paragraphs immediately preceding the language in my 2) 
suggestion.  here's the quote -- it's the four paragraphs immediately preceding 
the Conclusions section you're referring to:


        "However, the fact that the WG has not seen analyses or objections from 
the contracted party community does not prove a lack of problems. In addition, 
data protection and privacy laws and regulations change over time so any 
analyses from the past might need to be revisited periodically. RSEPs (Registry 
Services Evaluation Panel) initiated by .cat and .tel suggest that they have 
identified data protection and privacy legal issues that they considered valid 
even if no formal government action was initiated.  While registrars are 
required under the Registrar Accreditation Agreement to obtain registrants' 
consent to uses made of data collected from them, whether registrants are aware 
of the full ramifications of data publication, legal or real, might be 
questioned, and local rules concerning coercive contract provisions conceivably 
could come into play.
 
        "The WG has made every effort to examine thin vs. thick registry models 
in a broad sense. However, any requirement that all registries use the thick 
model will require that existing thin registries move to thick environments. 
This situation will raise concerns that, while limited in the long run, are 
significant given the numbers of domains and registrants involved. The WG 
expects that data transfers will be in volumes unprecedented in Whois 
operations and urges that increased information systems and protections are put 
in place, which are appropriate to handle the volumes.
 
        "Some registrations may have occurred based on a registrant's 
consideration of local rules governing a registrar or registry.  In that event, 
registrants' data protection expectations will be affected when publication of 
Whois data moves to a registry that is in a different jurisdiction from the 
relevant registrar.  Thorough examination must be given to the extent to which 
data protection guarantees governing a registrar can be binding on a registry. 
Should data protections in the jurisdiction of a registrant, registrar, or 
registry control? Should registry or registrar accreditation agreements contain 
language that specifies whose protection environment applies? 
 
        "Again, these questions must be explored in more depth by ICANN Staff, 
starting with the General Counsel's Office, and by the community. As an added 
benefit, analyses concerning change of applicable laws with respect to 
transition from a thin to a thick environment also may prove valuable in the 
event of changes in a registry's management, presumably an increasing 
likelihood given the volume of new gTLDs on the horizon."  [note, this is the 
paragraph i'm proposing to move down into the immediately-following Conclusions 
section you're quoting from]



your #1 citation says "The WG finds that requiring thick Whois for all gTLD 
registries does not raise data protection issues that are specific to thin v. 
thick Whois."  that quote refers to the topic of data protection, not privacy 
-- the sub-team went to a lot of trouble to separate those two issues and so i 
don't think that point is relevant to this discussion.

your #2 citation says "There are currently issues with respect to privacy 
related to Whois and these will only grow in the future..... None of these 
issues *SEEM* to be related to whether a thick or thin Whois model is being 
used. " [emphasis mine]  which doesn't rule out the possibility of a legal 
review, especially given the (i think) consensus view that we don't really have 
the expertise on this WG to evaluate the nuances of those issues.

your #3 citation says "So although privacy issues may become a substantive 
issue in the future, and should certainly be part of the investigation of a 
replacement for Whois, it is not a reason not to proceed with the PDP WG 
recommending thick Whois for all."  i'm not sure i follow how a legal review 
(which seems prudent in any case) contradicts that argument.  

Steve, is your concern that the legal review could be used to *block* the 
transition to thick Whois?  if that's the case, i share your concern.  but i 
view it more in the "identify and mitigate risks" department and hope that 
others would too.  i would be open to clarifying that language if folks felt 
the need.

regarding your point on the "undermine at the last minute" argument -- i think 
i mentioned this on the call.  i as the Chair bear the responsibility for not 
testing more aggressively for consensus *much* earlier in the process.  most of 
my frustration on the last call was with myself for allowing this issue to 
slide to the end.  but the fact is, we don't have consensus yet and we need to 
work on getting there.  

to that end i've pulled my little 3-point recommendation into a Word document 
and include it into this post for people to contemplate and edit.  i decided it 
was time to move the text into something that can be red-lined rather than 
using the pretty-limited text-only email format.

thanks all for a spirited discussion -- let's contemplate this some more and 
see if we can get to a place where we can all live with the result.

thanks,

mikey

Attachment: Thick Whois --redline of MOC draft of 092213 (5564537).DOC
Description: Thick Whois --redline of MOC draft of 092213 (5564537).DOC



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