RE: [ssac-gnso-irdwg] REMINDER: RESPONSE REQUESTED: Draft Interim Report

["Metalitz, Steven" <met@xxxxxxx>]

Process question:  is a revised draft interim report going to be
circulated today?  Otherwise it will be difficult to have a productive
discussion of it on Monday, or to consult with my constituency in time
to reach a conclusion prior to the Nov. 15 deadline.

Substance question:  the last sentence of Jeremy's draft recommendations
raises concerns about whether we would be asking this proposed Working
Group to solve a technical problem or to make policy decisions, such as
on privacy questions.  If the latter, how would this dovetail with (1)
existing policy; (2)  the Whois inventory exercise conducted by staff at
the direction of GNSO; and (3) the Whois Review Team under the
Affirmation of Commitments?  

Also: Jeremy proposes to "alter the preliminary IRD-WG recommendations."
In the Oct. 20 draft that was circulated, the recommendations section
was blank.   Is there a subsequent draft that I missed?  I would ask the
same questions about "findings" of which there were none in the Oct. 20
draft.  

Steve Metalitz
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ssac-gnso-irdwg@xxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-ssac-gnso-irdwg@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeremy Hitchcock
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2010 3:17 PM
To: Ird
Subject: Re: [ssac-gnso-irdwg] REMINDER: RESPONSE REQUESTED: Draft
Interim Report


I think we're hoping to get some more commentary.  Would be nice to get
a response from at least everyone with a general reply of where things
are, especially with the findings and recommendations.  I'll see if I
can get a few things started.


Looking at Steve's comments:

[Question:  should we spell out here the RAA obligation to provide
registrant data via the Web as well as via Port 43?]  -- I think we
should.

[Question:  Did any in our group suggest that registrations not be
accepted in non-English languages?]  -- I don't remember that either but
missed a few calls.


I would like to propose some items which may elicit varying appeal.

- Do we want to alter the preliminary IRD-WG recommendations from "WHOIS
clients (both port 43 and web)" to "registrant data query tool"?

- Under the findings section: The requirements of international content
combined with the current WHOIS protocol are incompatible.  Quoting from
RFC 3912

   The WHOIS protocol has not been internationalised.
 
   protocol has no mechanism for indicating the character set in use.
   Originally, the predominant text encoding in use was US-ASCII.  In
   practice, some WHOIS servers, particularly those outside the USA,
   might be using some other character set either for requests, replies,
   or both.  This inability to predict or express text encoding has
   adversely impacted the interoperability (and, therefore, usefulness)
   of the WHOIS protocol.'

- Under the findings section: "IETF has done work on a system called
CRISP to increase the flexibility and scope to build a protocol that
allows one to find and access information associated with Internet
labels"

- Under the findings section: There has been no demonstrated
deficiencies with web based query tools as HTTP-based protocol support
language and script encodings"


- Under the recommendations section: "ICANN phase out the requirement
for the RFC 3912 WHOIS system" - this would leave the web based query
tool."

- Under the recommendations section: "ICANN direct a working group to
choose a replacement for both the whois and web based query tool to be a
single point of access for domain label name.  This WG would examine
privacy concerns, accessibility to data concerns, and registry/registrar
impacts"


Jeremy