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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> * Subject: [council] Draft Charter for new Whois Working Group * From: "Maria Farrell" <maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx> * Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:51:53 +0100 * Sender: owner-council@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-12... . Staff notes on Potential Implementation Issues; http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/staff-discussion-points-whois-final-15mar... Government Advisory Committee Principles regarding gTLD WHOIS Services http://gac.icann.org/web/communiques/gac27com.pdf -- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@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/