Re: [bc-gnso] Outcome of Whois studies at GNSO Council meeting today

["Marilyn Cade " <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Great team work on this! 
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:03:56 
To: <bc-GNSO@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [bc-gnso] Outcome of Whois studies at GNSO Council meeting today

As we discussed extensively in Tuesday's BC meeting, there were 2 motions on 
Whois studies before GNSO Council today.  Here's what happened:

 
Tim Ruiz withdrew his motion for more information. 


Registrars then asked that the BC resolution be deferred to the next meeting. 
  
Zahid described the urgency of these studies, explaining that they are a 
consolidation of studies requested by the GAC and by the community.  And that 
his question on Sunday brought a firm response from GAC Chair: Yes, they are 
disappointed that Whois studies they requested in 2008 have not yet begun. 
  
John Berard reiterated his argument for studies to support fact-based policy 
development. 
  
Steve DelBianco went to the mic to amplify our Councilors' points: 
At this meeting we have a "Perfect storm" of pressure to begin these Whois 
studies: 
1) AoC Review of WHOIS;   
2) KnuJon report on Illicit Privacy-Proxy WHOIS; 
3) a reminder to "Mind the GAC" (as the T-Shirt says) 
  
To rebut Tim Ruiz' point that studies will not change any minds,we explained 
that every community study suggestion had to explain policy implications of its 
hypothesis.  e.g., the Priv/Proxy study #3 had this Hypothesis: 
Of ICANN-accredited registrars who offer their own proxy services, some 
are failing to reveal shielded registrant data in accordance with the 
Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) and/or their own Terms of Service 
(TOS). 
And this "Utility": 
If the hypothesis were verified, ICANN should improve its 
contractual compliance efforts for registrars offering proxy services.  ICANN's 
response should be proportional to the quantity of registrars and affected 
registrants where compliance was found to be deficient.  If non-compliance is 
confined to a small number of registrars, increased contract enforcement 
efforts could be limited and targeted.  On the other hand, a widespread lack of 
compliance might indicate that ICANN should amend the RAA to increase penalties 
for non-compliance. 
  
To emphasize "Mind the GAC", we read these 2 study requests from the Apr-2008 
GAC Letter:  
1:  To what extent are the legitimate uses of gTLD WHOIS data curtailed or 
prevented by use of proxy or privacy registration services? 
  
11: What is the percentage of domain names registered using proxy or privacy 
services that have been associated with fraud or other illegal activity versus 
the percentage of domain names not using such services that have been 
associated with fraud or illegal activity? 
  
We also responded to Tim Ruiz claim that we already knew there was "some" fraud 
and abuse hiding behind privacy/proxy services.     Without  facts on the 
magnitude of abuse, Council would lack data to justify significant compliance 
expenses or policy changes. 
  
Jeff Neuman indicated he only wanted to tighten the language for some of the 
studies, and proposed a small group to convene before next Council meeting.   
Steve DelBianco volunteered for this.


So it's deferred to next Council meeting, with some work left to do before then.