RE: [alac] Public Comment on Whois Task Force Report

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Il giorno mar, 10-05-2005 alle 20:26 -0700, Bret Fausett ha scritto:
>               The At Large Advisory Committee ("ALAC") appreciates the
> opportunity to review and comment on the latest work of the Generic Names
> Supporting Organization on the subject of improving notification and
> consent for the use of contact data in the Whois system. The ALAC supports
> the concept of mandatory disclosure that underlies these recommendations
> but believes that the following two changes would bring clarity to the
> proposed policy and enhance the registrant's experience:
> 
> 1.    In Recommendation No. 1, the phrase "availability and" does not
> appear to add anything to the policy and, as phrased, potentially creates
> confusion. Data that is accessible by third-parties is also "available."
> The ALAC recommends that the GNSO delete the words "availability and" from
> Recommendation No. 1. 
> 2.    In Recommendation No. 2, the recommends deleting the last sentence
> altogether ("The wording of the notice provided by registrars should, to
> the extent feasible, be uniform"). To the contrary, the ALAC believes that
> registrants would be better served by having registrars make the
> disclosure in their own way, in their own languages, using whatever
> phrases they deem proper for their respective customer bases.
> 
>               The ALAC applauds the GNSO and its task forces for making
> progress on such difficult policy issues and looks forward to
> participating in and commenting upon future policy initiatives. 

This is fine with me. The only comment I have is that the "uniform
language" thing, I imagine, was meant also to ensure that no registrar
could get away with uninformative or vague text that confuses
registrants or does not really disclose much (here in Europe, where
disclosure is compulsory by law, you often see declarations using
baroque or euphemistic language to deceive customers). 

I don't know how to address this concern, since I agree with you that
text should be localized and customized; the only two ideas I had are
verification (i.e., someone can complain with ICANN if the disclosure is
deceptive and ICANN would then intervene, but don't know how to make it
work in practice) or requirements (i.e. the GNSO prepares a minimal set
of bullet points that need to be mentioned clearly, at least about data
processing activities that all registrars do, such as Whois). 

But I'm not sure whether they actually make sense and whether we should
suggest any of them, so your text as it is now would be fine as well.
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...