Thanks for beginning the discussion, Kurt. I like the personal information point, though we may ultimately be asking people to talk about specific experiences. I would suggest being somewhat less directive in terms of question formulation, as well as less discouraging about the task at hand. I doubt that there are fewer registrants and potential registrants than registrars and registries. Moreover, even sample sizes in the mid-hundreds may be sufficient to make good projections, if the samples are taken well. Here are some suggested tweaks: Regarding the Survey to Domain Name Registrants and Potential Registrants The surveys of registrants and potential registrants address the broadest universe of potential respondents in the covered categories. The bidder should consider (1) the survey contents, in terms of questions that registrants and potential registrants will be able to answer, and that, when answered, will provide meaningful information, and (2) the methodology of reaching registrants and potential registrants to provide meaningful results. The ICANN volunteer policy team developing registrant survey questions has only created the rough drafts. Answers to these questions will inform the discussion of the Charter questions that you have read. ICANN staff and policy volunteers will continue to hone the survey questions during the vendor selection process and then will work with the selected survey provider to create a set of questions and methodology to economically and effectively elicit the requisite data. Our guidance on this is: To increase the likelihood that registrants respond: The survey should be relatively short It should follow other best practices in question formulation and sequence to avoid leading questions and elicit usable responses Requests for personal information should be avoided Rebecca Tushnet Frank Stanton Professor of First Amendment Law, Harvard Law School 703 593 6759 ________________________________ From: Gnso-rpm-data <gnso-rpm-data-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Kurt Pritz <kurt@kjpritz.com> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2018 4:27:10 PM To: Mary Wong; Julie Hedlund Cc: gnso-rpm-data@icann.org Subject: [Gnso-rpm-data] Registrant Questions Paragraphs for RFP Hi Mary, Julie, et.al.: Below are a couple paragraphs that might be included in the RFP for a survey provider. The “Our Guidance” paragraphs are optional but I think it is a good opportunity to steer the proposals in the right direction. Here you go: Regarding the Survey to Registrants and Potential Registrants The surveys of registrants has the twin risks of: * Being the most expensive part of the work, and * Returning little or no value if not done properly Therefore the bidders proposal must address: * The survey contents, i.e., questions that: : * registrants are willing to answer and * When answered, will provide meaningful information * The survey methodology, the manner of economically reaching registrants in sufficient numbers to provide statistically meaningful results. (Less than 1% of the world’s population has registered a domain name.) The ICANN volunteer policy team developing registrant survey questions has only created the rough drafts. These questions, when answered by registrant in significant numbers, will inform the discussion of the Charter questions that you have read. ICANN staff and policy volunteers will continue to hone the survey questions during the vendor selection process and then will work with the selected survey provider to create a set of questions and methodology to economically and effectively elicit the requisite data. Our guidance on this is: To increase the likelihood that registrants respond and to control costs: * The survey should be relatively short * Most or all of the questions should be multiple choice * Open ended questions (if any) should be at the end * Requests for personal information should be avoided To reach a requisite number of respondents, the survey provider might: * Use access to large survey panels * Using domain industry contacts, develop incentives, and work with registrars to directly reach out to their customers