[At-Large] The WHOIS Working Group is dead, long live the WHOIS WG

[Wendy Seltzer]

With apologies to those with monarchs... Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!

The original WHOIS Working Group concluded its work, GNSO Council voted
to charter a new WHOIS Working Group.  Still, the anti-privacy status
quo persists.

I was, however, assured that this group would work via consensus rather
than voting, so the non-voting status of non-constituencies such as ALAC
might be less of an issue.

<http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg03357.html>
[council] Draft Charter for new Whois Working Group

    * To: "'Council GNSO'" <council at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
    * Subject: [council] Draft Charter for new Whois Working Group
    * From: "Maria Farrell" <maria.farrell at xxxxxxxxx>
    * Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:51:53 +0100
    * Sender: owner-council at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    * Thread-index: Acdy0pITxrrlOGY7RXiPgSiXRFgS/w==

Dear Council members,

Attached is the draft Charter that sets out the statement of work and
working methodologies of the Whois Working Group, created by resolution of
the GNSO Council in Lisbon, on 28 March.

Please review it and note that it will be an agenda item for discussion
and adoption at the next Council meeting on 12 April.

Also, please email this list if you wish to be on the Working Group, and
feel free to to put any interested constituency members or outside experts
in touch with me for further information.

All the best, Maria

Attachment: Whois Working Group Charter2.doc
Description: MS-Word document


Whois Working Group Charter
	
Approved by the GNSO Council on -- April, 2007

STATUS OF THIS DOCUMENT
This is the DRAFT Whois Working Group Charter produced by ICANN staff
for the consideration of the GNSO Council at its meeting on 12 April, 2007.

1	Introduction
The GNSO Council voted on 28 March, 2007 to create a Whois Working Group
with a broad, balanced and representative membership to take the output
of the WHOIS task force and carry out further work to address concerns
raised by the community and seek to reach greater consensus around
improvements to the WHOIS service that achieve a balance between
providing contact information adequate to facilitate timely resolution
of any problems that arise in connection with the Register Name, and the
need to take reasonable precautions to protect the data about any
identified or identifiable natural person from loss, misuse,
unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction.

2	Background
Whois
ICANN’s agreements with gTLD registrars and gTLD registries require them
to provide  data concerning active Registered Names via three
mechanisms: port-43 WHOIS, an interactive web page (often called WHOIS
service), and third-party bulk access. The Registrar Accreditation
Agreement (RAA) spells out which data is collected and which data is
made available.   The data includes contact information of natural
persons that includes names, postal addresses, email addresses, fax and
voice telephone numbers.


Whois Policy Development Process (PDP)
The GNSO is approaching the end of a PDP on Whois that should fulfill
terms of reference agreed in June 2005. The terms of reference of the
PDP (http://gnso.icann.org/policies/terms-of-reference.html) are to make
policy recommendations to the Board on:
1.The purpose of the Whois service
2.The purpose of the Whois contacts (ie Registered Name Holder,
technical contact, and administrative contact) and the purpose for which
the data is collected.
3.Which data should be available for public access, and determine how to
access data that is not available for public access.
4.How to improve the process for notifying a registrar of inaccurate
data, and how to improve the process for correcting inaccurate data.
5.How to deal with any conflicts between the requirements of ICANN
agreements, and local or national privacy laws

Regarding term of reference #5, a Policy on conflicts between Whois
requirements and local or national privacy laws was developed by the
GNSO and approved by the Board on 10 May 2006.   A draft Procedure for
Handling Whois Conflicts with Privacy Law has been published on the
ICANN website at
(http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois_national_laws_procedure.htm).
The Final Task Force Report on Whois Services was submitted to the GNSO
Council on 12 March, 2007. The Task Force Report and Staff Discussion
Points on Potential Implementation Issues are available at
http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-16mar07.htm.    The GNSO
Council met to consider the WHOIS task force report on Saturday 25 March
2007, and also met with the Government Advisory Committee.   Various
concerns were raised regarding some of the recommendations in the
report, and subsequently the GNSO Council met on Wednesday 28 March and
decided to form a working group to attempt to resolve some of the issues
raised.


3	Objective
The objective of the WG is to examine the issues raised with respect to
the policy recommendations of the task force and make recommendations
concerning how those policies recommendations may be improved to address
these issues.

4	Work Plan
4a	Define the roles, responsibilities, and requirements of the contacts
available for unrestricted public query-based access, and what happens
if the responsibilities are not fulfilled.

4b.	Determine how third parties may access registration data that is no
longer
available for unrestricted public query-based access for legitimate
activities.

The GAC Policy Principles on gTLD Whois Services (dated 28 March 07)
sets out a list of legitimate (subject to applicable national law)
activities, including:

1.	Supporting the security and stability of the Internet by providing
contact points for network operators and administrators, including ISPs,
and certified computer incident response teams;

2.	Allowing users to determine the availability of domain names;

3.	Assisting law enforcement authorities in investigations, in enforcing
national and international laws, including, for example, countering
terrorism-related criminal offences and in supporting international
cooperation procedures. In some countries, specialized non governmental
entities may be involved in this work;

4.	Assisting in combating against abusive uses of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as illegal and other acts
motivated by racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related
intolerance, hatred, violence, all forms of child abuse, including
paedophilia and child pornography, and trafficking in, and exploitation
of, human beings.

5.	Facilitating enquiries and subsequent steps to conduct trademark
clearances and to help counter intellectual property infringement,
misuse and theft in accordance with applicable national laws and
international treaties;

6.	Contributing to user confidence in the Internet as a reliable and
efficient means of information and communication and as an important
tool for promoting digital inclusion, e-commerce and other legitimate
uses by helping users identify persons or entities responsible for
content and services online; and

7.	Assisting businesses, other organizations and users in combating
fraud, complying with relevant laws, and safeguarding the interests of
the public.



4c	Determine whether and how a distinction could be made between the
registration contact information published based on the nature of the
registered name holder (for example, legal vs. natural persons) or its
use of the domain name (for example, commercial versus non-commercial use)..
	
	
5	Participation
The WG will allow for new insights regarding this issue, with people
drawn from the GNSO, members of the GAC, government agencies (such as
law enforcement agencies), and the broader community.
The membership of this WG extends to the following:
Nominating Committee appointed GNSO councilors
GNSO constituency members
In addition, observers and liaisons may join the working group on the
following basis:

Observers shall not be members of or entitled to vote on the working
group, but otherwise shall be entitled to participate on equal footing
with members of the working group.   In particular observers will be
able to join the mailing list, and attend teleconferences or physical
meetings.

Observers must provide their real name, organization (if associated with
an organization) and contact details to the GNSO secretariat, and the
GNSO secretariat will verify at least their email address and phone
contact information. Observers will also be requested to provide a
public statement of interest, as for working group members.

The GNSO Council will appoint an interim Chair of the WG and the working
group can elect a chair at its first meeting.

6	Working Methods
The WG will work using the following methods:
Teleconferences, likely to be once a week
Wiki / other participatory forum or platform for group decision-making
Face to face meeting at ICANN Puerto Rico meeting, 25-29 June, 2007.
Email list

7	Decision-making
The WG will operate using a rough consensus approach. The WG will work
to achieve agreement on positions that most or all of the group members
are willing to support.

For the expression of views, the Working Group will use the following
conventions:
-	Agreement –  there is broad agreement within the Working Group
(largely equivalent to “rough consensus” as used in the IETF)
-	Support –  there is some gathering of positive opinion, but competing
positions may exist and broad agreement has not been reached
-	Alternative view – a differing opinion that has been expressed,
without garnering enough following within the WG to merit the notion of
either Support or Agreement.

Working with the group, the Chair will have the authority to establish
where agreement/support/alternative views exist.

8	Timeline
The WG will convene within one week of the GNSO Council’s agreement of
its Charter, by 20 April, 2007, latest.
The WG will work to achieve the following targets:
1.Produce for publication on the ICANN website a progress reports by
each of the following dates: 25 May, 2007, and 22 June, 2007.
2.Conclude its work and submit a final report to the GNSO Council on or
before 26 July, 2007.
If the WG has not been able to reach conclusions by 26 July, 2007, it
will terminate its work and report its outcomes to the GNSO Council by
that date.
 
 9	Relevant Documents
The following documents are directly relevant to the work of this
Working Group and should be read by participants before joining the group:
Final Task Force Report on Whois Services, including the public comments
report on comments received on the policy proposals from November 2006 –
January 2007;
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois-services-final-tf-report-12mar07.htm
.
Staff notes on Potential Implementation Issues;
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/staff-discussion-points-whois-final-15mar2007.htm

Government Advisory Committee Principles regarding gTLD WHOIS Services
http://gac.icann.org/web/communiques/gac27com.pdf

-- 
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.org
phone: 718.780.7961 // fax: 718.780.0394 // cell: 914.374.0613
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html
http://www.chillingeffects.org/