Re: [gnso-thickwhoispdp-wg] Thick Whois and Privacy

[Tim Ruiz <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I believe at least some of us who have spoken out "in support" of the privacy 
concerns raised are still in strong support of the report overall. I for one 
will support it regardless of how the privacy concern is addressed within it 
and I believe I indicated that early on, but I will also likely support the 
minority view if one is made.

However, it would be better in my opinion if all of us could support the report 
and there were no minority views along with it. That is why I have argued 
strongly to include a compromise change, if one is possible, that we "all" can 
live with. Unfortunately, it seems there a few on both sides of the issue that 
cannot compromise. At some point we may just need to accept that we will likely 
have a minority view included and get on with it.

Tim


> On Sep 24, 2013, at 12:54 AM, "Alan Greenberg" <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> I have largely stayed out of this debate, but this week's meeting conflicts 
> with the ALAC monthly meeting (as it does every month), and I will not be 
> able to attend, so I will make a few comments here.
> 
> My overwhelming reaction to all this is extreme disappointment. The draft 
> report was published, we solicited comments for over six weeks. Unless I have 
> missed something, NONE of the people now advocating a new recommendation and 
> potentially a delay in the implementation of the PDP main (and until this 
> discussion only) recommendation. There was one comment on the movement of 
> date across jurisdictional boundaries, and I believe that all of those who 
> participated in the review of comments (and implicitly all on the WG mailing 
> list) agreed on the WG reply, which did not include adding new 
> recommendations.
> 
> Now this has suddenly blown up, with quite a number of the both active and 
> passive WG members requiring a new direction to allow for their support.
> 
> Everyone agrees that there are privacy issues with Whois (or whatever we name 
> it next go-around). We spent a lot of time discussing whether there was an 
> issue with the thin-to-thick transition, and no one could present a single 
> example of exactly how such a problem would play out. This issue was not 
> actual occurrences, just a request for a theoretical example.
> 
> As has been pointed out, there have been cases where REGISTRIES needed 
> exemptions to satisfy privacy issues and those have been granted. The new RAA 
> makes it explicitly clear that REGISTRARS could ask for exemptions if they 
> could demonstrate a need (no longer requiring actual prosecution or the 
> threat of prosecution). To date, no registrars had identified a thick 
> registry as being problematic, not did the RrSG indicate a problem.
> 
> And all registrants in thin registries have agreed to allow their data to 
> move across jurisdictional boundaries. And in fact, some Whois data already 
> does just that when it is escrowed.
> 
> From a practical point of view (and I understand that laws may not consider 
> this), all of the data we are talking about is publicly available and will 
> continue to be so. DomainTools, a US-based company, and no doubt others cache 
> all of this as well as historical data. And under the older RAAs, registrars 
> were required to sell their Whois data if someone wanted it.
> 
> I appreciate that there are people who despite the lack of specific concrete 
> or theoretical cases of problems, are uneasy with the change. But as people 
> regularly remind us, we are supposed to be setting fact-based policy. In this 
> case, a good theoretical scenario might suffice, but I have yet to hear one.
> 
> I do note that we are about to embark on a PDP on privacy and proxy 
> providers, and there will doubtless be substantive privacy issues discussed 
> there.
> 
> I strongly support making sure that as we make substantive changes to Whois 
> (and its replacements), that we understand all issues related to privacy. But 
> in the absence of specific issues related to the transition from thick to 
> thin, I do not believe that we should be delaying the transition that we have 
> been working on and that had such strong support until very recently.
> 
> Alan
>