Dear Councilors,

 

During our April meeting, we discussed potential next steps for the Whois Accuracy Implementation Advisory Group. Background and potential options are below (the meeting recording includes additional). Please discuss with your SGs and provide feedback by Friday, 2 May.

 

What is this procedure?

 

ICANN’s Procedure For Handling Registration Data Directory Services Conflicts with Privacy Law is a procedure that allows Contracted Parties to demonstrate when they are prevented by local laws from fully complying with the provisions of ICANN contracts regarding personal data in RDDS. After receiving a recommendation from the 2003 Whois Task Force, the GNSO launched a PDP on this topic in 2005, and ICANN org implemented a procedure in 2006. The procedure was updated in 2017 to include an alternative trigger.

 

Why is the Council considering this now?

 

Following the addition of the new alternative trigger to the procedure in 2017, the GNSO Council was set to review the procedure by launching a PDP. However, because the EPDP on the Temporary Specification was engaged in parallel work, the GNSO Council decided to pause the call for volunteers until the EPDP Team delivered its report. Following the publication of the Final Report, ICANN org and Contracted Parties agreed to prioritize their work on the Data Processing Specification prior to revisiting the Conflicts Procedure.

 

ICANN org published the Data Processing Specification (DPS) in January 2025. Now that the DPS is complete, the Council is considering if/how it should proceed on reviewing the Conflicts Procedure.

 

Questions to consider?

 

As discussed during the Council meeting and brought up councilors, some of the factors to consider in determining how to proceed include:

 

• Do Contracted Parties (the parties who would use the procedure) believe this is an urgent need as no Contracted Parties have used the procedure in years?
• Does the new Registration Data Policy, which becomes effective in August, obviate the need for a modification to the procedure?
• Does the Council believe this should be a priority, which would require other work to be de-prioritized?

 

Potential Options

 

1. Defer/Leave procedure as is

• If Councilors (particularly Contracted Parties) do not believe this procedure needs an urgent modification, further work could be:

1. Deferred indefinitely until the Community communicates a need to review (in other words, leave the procedure alone until the Community informs Council it needs to be reviewed.)
2. Deferred for a finite amount of time (1 year, 2 years, etc.) to revisit if updates may be needed

2. Proceed with original plan - ICANN org to draft modification in consultation with CPs

• If Councilors (particularly Contracted Parties) believe this work is urgent and important, the Council could request ICANN org to draft a modification to the procedure in consultation with Contracted Parties before sharing with the Council. (As noted above, due to resource constraints, the Council would need to determine what work can be de-prioritized in order to prioritize this work.)

3. Terminate/Retire procedure

• During the meeting, some councilors noted it may be worth terminating/retiring this procedure due to flaws. It is important to note that the termination/retirement of the procedure would require further policy work as this procedure is the product of GNSO policy recommendations. If the Council does not want to extend resources on this procedure at this time, it may be worth exploring Option 1.

 

Deadline for Feedback?

 

Please socialize with your respective SG/Cs and let the Council know how you think it should proceed by Friday, 2 May.

 

Thanks,

Greg