Dear Tomslin,
Thank you for the question. We’re not aware of an identical situation having occurred in the past; however, the implementation of the EPDP on the Temp Spec has raised other questions for the GNSO Council regarding the intent of the policy recommendations in a few areas:
- Rec. 7 involved a disagreement within the IRT over the EPDP Team’s intent to modify the Thick Whois Transition Policy.
- Rec. 12 was not approved by the Board due to concerns regarding the deletion of the Organization field and involved a supplemental recommendation approved by the Council, clarifying the intent of the recommendation. The supplemental recommendation was adopted by the Board on 24 February 2024.
- The IRT could not agree on a timeline for response to urgent requests, and the Board subsequently expressed concerns with the proposed timeline and the absence of an authoritative, legally sufficient cross-border system for validating law enforcement/emergency responders. Because Rec. 18, provides in part, “A separate timeline of [less than X business days] will [be] considered for the response to ‘Urgent’ Reasonable Disclosure Requests, those Requests for which evidence is supplied to show an immediate need for disclosure [time frame to be finalized and criteria set for Urgent requests during implementation]” (emphasis added), the Registration Data Policy was published without reference to a separate timeline requirement for urgent requests. This issue is still under discussion among the Board, the GNSO Council, and the GAC.
Unlike in the examples referenced above, the billing contact query to the Council does not involve a question over the interpretation of existing policy recommendation text; instead, it involves a question of interpretation of the absence of text. There are examples in the EPDP Phase 1 Final Report where the EPDP Team explicitly recommends changes to certain data elements; namely, in Rec. 29, the EPDP Team confirms the elimination of the Administrative Contact field, and Rec. 5 confirms the Registered Name Holder MAY (but is not required) to provide a Tech Contact to the Registrar. Billing contact is not referenced in the policy recommendations.
The questions involving Rec. 7 and Rec. 12 were resolved prior to the publication of the Registration Data Policy, whereas the question about intended impact to the billing contact was raised after the publication of the policy.
In previous examples, and in this current example, the GNSO Council is being consulted under Principle E of the IRT Principles and Guidelines, which provides, “In the event of disagreement between ICANN Staff and the IRT or any of its members on the implementation approach proposed by ICANN Staff, the GDD Project Manager, in consultation with the GNSO Council liaison if appropriate, shall exercise all reasonable efforts to resolve the disagreement. Should the disagreement prove irreconcilable despite such efforts, the GNSO Council liaison in consultation with the IRT is expected to make an assessment as to the level of consensus within the IRT on whether to raise the issue with the GNSO Council for consideration, using the standard decision making methodology outlined in the GNSO Working Group Guidelines. If the GNSO Council liaison makes the determination that there is consensus for such consideration, the liaison will inform the GNSO Council accordingly which will deliberate on the issue and then make a determination on how to proceed which could include, for example, the initiation of a GGP, a PDP or further guidance to the IRT and/or GDD staff on how to proceed. This process also applies to cases in which there is agreement between the IRT and GDD staff concerning the need for further guidance from the GNSO Council and/or when issues arise that may require possible policy discussion.”
We hope this is helpful background information.
Kind regards,
Caitlin
From: Tomslin Samme-Nlar <mesumbeslin@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, November 30, 2024 at 3:18 PM
To: Caitlin Tubergen <caitlin.tubergen@icann.org>
Cc: GNSO Council List <council@gnso.icann.org>
Subject: [Ext] Re: [council] EPDP Phase 1 RegData Implementation - Billing Contact Issue Summary
Dear Caitlin,
Thanks for this well written and very helpful summary. Do we know if there has been a similar situation such as this in the past and how it was resolved by the IRT in question?
Warmly,
Tomslin
On Thu, 28 Nov 2024, 09:42 Caitlin Tubergen via council, <council@icann.org> wrote:
Dear Councilors,
During the ICANN81 GNSO Council Wrap-Up [icann81.sched.com], Thomas Rickert provided an update regarding the implementation of EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 recommendations. Thomas is the current GNSO Council Liaison to the EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 Implementation Review Team (IRT).
For background, the Registration Data Policy was published on 21 February 2024, and the policy has an effective date of 21 August 2025.
The EPDP Phase 1 policy recommendations [gnso.icann.org] do not reference billing contact data, and the Registration Data Policy also makes no reference to billing contact data.
Billing contact data, however, is referenced in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) in § 3.4.1.3 and in the Data Retention Specification in §1.1.2 – §1.1.5. The billing contact data is also referenced in the existing Registrar Data Escrow Specifications. ICANN’s publication of updated Registrar Data Escrow Specifications in August triggered a discussion within the EPDP Phase 1 IRT regarding the Registration Data Policy’s intended impact on the RAA requirements concerning the billing contact data fields.
Generally speaking, unless in conflict with or otherwise modified by a policy recommendation, current contractual requirements and consensus policy requirements remain in place following the publication of a new policy. For that reason, ICANN org informed the IRT on 8 August 2024 that billing contact data must still be collected and retained pursuant to current RAA requirements.
In response, some registrar members of the IRT expressed the view that the absence of a reference to billing contact data was a drafting error, and the EPDP Team intended for the collection of billing contact data to be optional and not mandatory. The registrar IRT members noted the reference to “billing contact” within charter question b1, which provides, “b1) What data should registrars be required to collect for each of the following contacts: Registrant, Tech, Admin, Billing?” Because billing contact is referenced in this charter question but the EPDP Team did not provide a recommendation regarding mandatory (or optional) collection of the billing contact, the registrar position is that the billing contact is no longer required to be collected.
On 25 September 2024, there was a special meeting of the IRT to discuss the topic of billing contact. While no objection to the registrar view was raised during the special meeting, it is unclear at this stage whether this is a broadly supported view of the IRT, as the majority of stakeholder groups did not have IRT members present at the special meeting. Specifically, members from the BC, GAC, IPC, ISPCP, IPC, NCSG, and SSAC were not in attendance.
It is worth noting that billing contact information is not referenced in the Temporary Specification, nor is it part of the RDDS specification in the RAA, so it could be argued that billing contact data was not in scope for EPDP Temp Spec Phase 1 policy development. It could also be argued that the drafting error was in the EPDP charter, as billing contact should not have been referenced since it is not part of the Temporary Specification. It is also worth noting that there are other elements within the RAA and Data Retention Specification that were not part of the Temporary Specification and are still required.
Thomas provided a high-level overview during the wrap-up session, and noted that some IRT members believe this drafting error is noncontroversial. However, Thomas noted that in the interest of transparency, all Councilors should consult with their respective groups to ensure that others are properly informed and agree with the interpretation raised by the registrars within the IRT. Thomas has also requested that further discussion of billing contact data within the Registration Data Policy be added as a discussion item to the GNSO Council’s December meeting.
Accordingly, please check in with your groups regarding the treatment of billing contact data in the Registration Data Policy. Specifically, does your group believe that (1) billing contact data was in scope for the EPDP Temp Spec policy development? If yes, does your group agree that because billing contact data was within the EPDP Team’s scope, (2) there was a drafting error in the EPDP Phase 1 Final Report because the intention of the recommendations, by not including a recommendation concerning the collection, escrow, etc of billing contact data was that the collection and retention of billing contact data should be optional and not mandatory? Note: If, as a matter of ICANN Consensus Policy this was the intended outcome, this interpretation would change current contractual requirements for registrars.
We invite Thomas and other councilors to provide additional context. Please feel free to provide thoughts via the list in advance of the December meeting, and please be prepared to discuss next steps during the 19 December Council meeting.
Kind regards, and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate,
Caitlin
_______________________________________________
council mailing list -- council@icann.org
To unsubscribe send an email to council-leave@icann.org
_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.