[ALAC] Analysis of WHOIS AoC RT Recommendations.

[Alan Greenberg]

At 04/09/2012 05:59 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
>On 4 September 2012 17:29, Alan Greenberg 
><<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:
>Evan, we are certainly not bound by the politics or practices of the 
>GNSO, and pointedly, that is why I suggested that a PDP might not 
>always be necessary in the GNSO giving policy advice to the Board. 
>But we are bound by the ICANN Bylaws, unless we are explicitly 
>suggesting that they be changed. And currently the Bylaws do specify 
>that the GNSO is the body that formulates and recommends GNSO Policy 
>to the Board. The catch in this case is determining what is 
>upper-case-P gTLD policy, and what is not. And we are making the 
>case that with one exception, the initial implementation of the 
>recommendations are NOT upper-case-P gTLD policy.
>
>
>I hear you. But that's a level of detail one step down from the core 
>message, which (AFAIK) is not yet agreed to.
>
>We need full buy-in on the "what" (WHOIS fixing is an immediate 
>priority) before dealing with "how" (many of the RT things can be 
>done by staff without re-consulting the GNSO).
>If the Board is not in agreement that this is a priority to fix 
>quickly, it will punt the recommendations to the GNSO, including the 
>ones it doesn't need to.
>
>Even agreeing that certain matters are pure implementation that can 
>be done by staff is not assurance of anything, as we have seen 
>through the current sad state of contractual compliance. So it is 
>important that we get across as our main point -- as forcefully as 
>possible -- that the status quo is unacceptable. How ICANN addresses 
>that problem (assuming it agrees), while important, is secondary. 
>What point is arguing details if we don't have buy-in on the principle?
>
>Perhaps my cynicism (that the Board lacks our concern about the 
>broken state of WHOIS implementation and enforcement) is 
>unwarranted. I certainly hope so.
>
>- Evan

We seem to be talking at cross-purposes. The original ALAC statement 
on the report said we want it all. Period. The statement the ALAC 
made last week said that again, and added that six of the Recs are 
really high priority (in our mind) and that there was no reason the 
Board could not act quickly (and without GNSO creating a line of policy).

As a follow-up, it was suggested that we not just address the whether 
we believe that GNSO policy development is needed on the other 10. 
The document addresses that.

The Board has little wriggle room on whether to address all of the 
Recs. In the next A&T review, they will be judged on it and they 
better have a rock-solid rationale for rejecting any of the Recs. 
What they do have is flexibility on how they are to address the Recs 
and our point is that for most of them, they need not and cannot 
shove them off on the GNSO before doing anything. I.E. No punting in 
most cases.

Or at least, that is how I see it.

The critical issue is that we (like many others) keep on talking 
about the strength of the multi-stakeholder model. Here we are 
advocating (for the most part) that the Board can ignore the bulk of 
the stakeholders and just act (presumably with a comment period 
first). So we need to make our case that the circumstances reasonably 
allow such direct action.

Alan