WHOIS Task Force
1 November 2005 - MinutesATTENDEES:
GNSO Constituency representatives:
Jordyn Buchanan - Chair
gTLD Registries constituency - David Maher
gTLD Registries constituency - Ken Stubbs
Registrars constituency - Ross Rader
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Steve Metalitz
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Greg Ruth
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Maggie Mansourkia
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Kathy Kleiman
Commercial and Business Users Constituency - David Fares
Commercial and Business Users constituency - Marilyn Cade joined the call late
Liaisons
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) liaisons - Wendy Seltzer - aplogies
GAC Liaison - Suzanne Sene - absent - apologies
ICANN Staff:
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination - absent - apologies
Maria Farrell Farrell - ICANN GNSO Policy Officer
GNSO Secretariat - Glen de Saint Géry
Absent:
gTLD Registries constituency - Phil Colebrook - apologies
gTLD Registries constituency - Tuli Day
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Niklas Lagergren - apologies
Commercial and Business Users Constituency - Sarah Deutsch
Registrars constituency - Paul Stahura
Registrars constituency - Tim Ruiz (alternate)
Registrars constituency - Tom Keller
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Tony Harris - apologies
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Milton Mueller
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Frannie Wellings
MP3 Recording Agenda:
Item 1 Brief review of constituency statements on the purpose of contacts
Item 2: Scope of the Whois as a broad tool versus narrow tool
Whois task force terms of reference
Item 2) Define the purpose of the Registered Name Holder, technical, and administrative contacts, in the context of the purpose of WHOIS, and the purpose for which the data was collected. Use the relevant definitions from Exhibit C of the Transfers Task force report as a starting point
(from http://www.icann.org/gnso/transfers-tf/report-exhc-12feb03.htm)
Item 1 Brief review of constituency statements on the purpose of contacts
Constituency statements Steve Metalitz reported on the Intellectual Property Interests constituency statement
Currently there was no consistency of the terms and a better understanding of how to populate the data fields would be helpful. The IPC considered the registered name holder should be the ultimately responsible party, also the entity allowed to transfer the domain name, and that information should be public. The technical contact should ensure operational stability and security.
The admin contact had 2 purposes:
- to give the registrar a clearly identified voice to manage the domain name, and
- to give the public a point of contact regarding the website, for the site content, legal process, etc. The Transfers Task Force definition of admin contact was ambiguous as it viewed the latter as the authoritative point of contact, but secondary to the domain name holder.The registered name holder had ultimate authority over and responsible for use of the domain name, corresponding website or internet resource but could designate the authorized point of contact.
Ross Rader commented that if it was presumed appropriate to start tracking the link between domain names and Internet resources, that the resources should be enumerated in some form. Maggie Mansourkia reported on the ISPCP statement which stated that the registered name holder, was the person who initiated the use of the domain name, was responsible for everything associated with the domain and owned the domain name. The technical contact was the person responsible for security or interoperability issues, and was the contact the ISPs usually interacted with the most. The constituency discussed the admin contact, whether it was a different person and considered it the appropriate contact to address business or legal issues associated with the domain name.
Kathy Kleiman reported on the Non Commercial Users Constituency statement that took a slightly different approach. As task 2 in the Terms of Reference asked to provide "purpose" in context of purpose of WHOIS, the NCUC considered that purpose within the scope of ICANN was the technical purpose. The NCUC referred to the Transfers task force definition and agreed that the material collected by the technical contact had to be relevant and not excessive for the purpose. Steve Metalitz asked for clarification on how the NCUC concluded that the technical contact was often not a person and the registered name holder was a person. Kathy Kleiman explained that the information was gathered from some NCUC members who had been surveyed, discussions on line, and years of working in the field, as an attorney and as a non commercial organization but this could vary from business user registrants.
Jordyn Buchanan noted that although the terms of reference required that the purpose of WHOIS be considered in the context of national and international laws, the views of the global WHOIS policy could not be based on any one jurisdiction and its legal framework. Ross Rader, reporting for the Registrar's constituency stated that the purpose of the contacts was well bound up in the purpose of WHOIS itself.
The definition on p. 9 of the Registrar's submission: Registrant purpose – to provide a entity of response. Admin contact purpose - to provide contact information for individual or entity to provide assistance to third parties on administrative issues. Technical contact purpose - for assistance regarding technical management of the zone.
The information associated with the registrant was discussed, a lot was extraneous, most was not related to the delegation itself and most could be removed from the WHOIS system. Similarly, other end user contacts have become closely related over the years and little distinguishes them in the mind of end users. They could be redefined to give relevant data which could provide a subset of the current data which could, for example, fall into the bucket of business data Jordyn Buchanan asked a clarifying question: If it was the view of the NCUC and/or Registrars that contacts were not correctly part of the WHOIS data set, would their view be that the terms should not be defined? If so, if an entity wanted to publish an additional set of WHOIS data, they would not be able to, e.g. an admin contact. Would that not be an option available to a registrant? Ross Rader responded that the registrars had tried to define the existing construct. There was a new content type that made the publication more optional such as having an operational point of contact. Allowing for the current practice allowed registrars to publish additional information in the WHOIS and there was no reason to restrict the practice. In addition it allowed users to be more interactive with the records and their contents. Kathy Kleiman responded that the NCUC believed registrants should be allowed to opt in to include additional information.
David Fares reported for the CBUC which identified the registered name holder as the person responsible for canceling and transferring a domain name, the tech contact was responsible for responding to and handling technical inquiries and should be competent to do so, the admin contact was responsible for content on the site. In general the CBUC considered it important to clarify the information provided and called for consistent terminology. Jordyn Buchanan summarised the constituency presentations saying that there appeared to be common ground on most definitions, and the biggest gap seemed to be whether the admin contact should be responsible for content. Action: Proposed that Maria complete the compilation, posted on on August 26 2005, of the constituency statements on the 'purpose'.
Proposed a side by side comparison of each of the various terms in the text from the constituencies. Item 2: Scope of the Whois as a broad tool versus narrow tool Whether the purpose of WHOIS was narrow in scope and focused specifically on factors relating to the registration of the domain name, or whether it was a broader repository of contact information related to any issues on the use of a domain name, regardless of whether they had to do with registration or not.
Jordyn Buchanan suggested given the agreement in the task force that technical issues related to the domain name registration or delegation were in the scope of the purpose of WHOIS,
sometimes the person who resolved those problems was not the same as the person who resolved other technical issues, did that apply that if the purpose of WHOIS was broader than registration and delegation issues, more types of technical contact were needed to deal with those other issues, e.g. dns and spam issues. Steve Metalitz commented that rather than look at a granular level, another approach would be to have a high level definition of what these contacts were supposed to do, a contact point who would find the appropriate person to address that problem Marilyn Cade joined the call. Ross Rader agreed with Steve and added that it would be difficult at any level to enact policy that included the broader purpose.
Marilyn Cade commented that it could vary from company to company depending on the size of the company.
More information would be needed on how the fields were populated. Next call 8 November 2005 Action Items for next call: a. TF members to discuss on-list what data gathering, if any, might be useful on how the various WHOIS contact fields are populated. What approaches would be useful?
b. Jordyn will email framing questions to the list to guide the discussion.
c. Task force members who support the idea of a broader purpose for the technical contact are encouraged to consider if a larger data set is needed to support this, and what form it might take.
d. Continue discussion on next week’s task force call Jordyn Buchanan thanked all the task force members for participating. The WHOIS task force call ended at 16 :50 CET WHOIS Task Force’s terms of reference (June 2005) which includes the definitions provided by the Transfers Task Force.
Define the purpose of the Registered Name Holder, technical, and administrative contacts, in the context of the purpose of WHOIS, and the purpose for which the data was collected. Use the relevant definitions from Exhibit C of the Transfers Task force report as a starting point
(from http://www.icann.org/gnso/transfers-tf/report-exhc-12feb03.htm): "Contact: Contacts are individuals or entities associated with domain
name records. Typically, third parties with specific inquiries or
concerns will use contact records to determine who should act upon
specific issues related to a domain name record. There are typically
three of these contact types associated with a domain name record, the
Administrative contact, the Billing contact and the Technical contact. Contact, Administrative: The administrative contact is an individual,
role or organization authorized to interact with the Registry or
Registrar on behalf of the Domain Holder. The administrative contact
should be able to answer non-technical questions about the domain name's
registration and the Domain Holder. In all cases, the Administrative
Contact is viewed as the authoritative point of contact for the domain
name, second only to the Domain Holder. Contact, Billing: The billing contact is the individual, role or
organization designated to receive the invoice for domain name
registration and re-registration fees. Contact, Technical: The technical contact is the individual, role or
organization that is responsible for the technical operations of the
delegated zone. This contact likely maintains the domain name server(s)
for the domain. The technical contact should be able to answer technical
questions about the domain name, the delegated zone and work with
technically oriented people in other zones to solve technical problems
that affect the domain name and/or zone.
Domain Holder: The individual or organization that registers a specific
domain name. This individual or organization holds the right to use that
specific domain name for a specified period of time, provided certain
conditions are met and the registration fees are paid. This person or
organization is the "legal entity" bound by the terms of the relevant
service agreement with the Registry operator for the TLD in question." | 