Thanks Alan and others for your hard work on this. On reading the end results of these calculations, I would tend to agree with the NCUC and the registrars that those studies are a waste of time and money. This is not only because we already have a lot of history and studies. This is mostly because, IMHO, we are taking the problem from the wrong end. To state it simply, it is not about what the ICANN community would _like_ to achieve, it is what the community is _able_ to achieve in the real world. The fact gathering about the legal context applying to privacy is paramount in this context. It rated pretty low in the list, so it will most probably not be studied. Too bad, because we may end up with ICANN policies that some registrars may not be able to abide to, due to their local legal requirements, in effect distorting the market in favour of those registrars located in countries where there are little or no privacy laws. Patrick On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:03:25 -0500, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:
The GNSO was asked to make recommendations on what studies could or should be done to ultimately allow some progress on the Whois issue.
Public input was requested on the types of studies that could be done, and this list was merged with the GAC request to the Board on Whois studies.
We are now at the stage where GNSO constituencies have prioritized the various studies (or groups of studies) so that ICANN staff can begin to evaluate the feasibility and cost of such studies. The GNSO is scheduled to hold a vote on the issue in Mexico City.
Although not a formal Constituency, the ALAC was asked to rate prioritize the studies also.
A working group was convened. The volunteers were Alan Greenberg, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Beau Brendler, Carlton Samuels, Danny Younger, Seith Reiss, Sylvia Caras and Gareth Shearman.
Beau volunteered to evaluate the studies from a user and consumer point of view. Most of the WG participants felt that we should give the studies ratings, although there view was expressed by some that we should follow the RrC and NCUC example (see below).
The attached spreadsheet gives the various studies/groups, a brief description or hypothesis (some less brief than others), the priority rating that Beau assigned and the priorities of the GNSO constituencies. Note that two Constituencies, the Registrar and Non-Commercial Users, rated all studies at zero. For the Registrars, the reasons were: "The RrC continues to maintain that no studies should be pursued. We have over six years of history on this topic. It was clear through those years that the stakeholder groups were entrenched in their views and positions and there is no evidence or any other indication that any of these studies will change that." The NCUC also felt that there was no point in any further studies.
Following the individual ratings are the averages. I have calculated the averages both before and after the ALAC input, and also both including and excluding the RrC and NCUC. By comparing the before and after ALAC averages, you can see how our input will impact the process. By excluding the RrC and NCUC, we can see how our priorities compared to those set by the other groups that went through the exercise.
On the average, I have highlighted those with an average of greater than 2.5 (studies were given ratings from 0 to 5). Without the ALAC, 6 studies were above the threshold and are scheduled to be recommended for further ICANN staff action. With the ALAC ratings, two additional studies are above the threshold. If the threshold is raised just a bit, we would have no change in the overall outcome (even though a few of our ratings are quite different from the others that gave non-zero ratings).
I understand that this is not a particularly understandable table, but I am at a loss as to how to make it easier without making it much larger. For those who want to understand more about what the studies are looking at, see
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-study-hypothesis-group-report-to-co....
The current plan from the WG is to submit this to the GNSO for inclusion in their deliberations. I am not sure if Cheryl is planning to schedule a formal ALAC vote on this, but will leave that up to her.
Beau did review his rationale for the priorities during the last conference call, and I will post the location of the MP3 as soon as I get it.
If someone has specific questions, I am sure he will try to answer them.
Alan