WHOIS Task Force
8 November 2005 - MinutesATTENDEES:
GNSO Constituency representatives:
Jordyn Buchanan - Chair
gTLD Registries constituency - David Maher
gTLD Registries constituency - Ken Stubbs
gTLD Registries constituency - Phil Colebrook
Registrars constituency - Ross Rader
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Steve Metalitz
Intellectual Property Interests Constituency - Niklas Lagergren
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Maggie Mansourkia
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Tony Harris
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Kathy Kleiman
Commercial and Business Users constituency - Marilyn Cade
Liaisons
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) liaisons - Wendy Seltzer
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 - Tuli Day
Commercial and Business Users Constituency - David Fares - 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 - Greg Ruth
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Milton Mueller
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Frannie Wellings
MP3 Recording
http://gnso-audio.icann.org/WHOIS-20051108-tf.mp3 Agenda:
1. Vancouver
- a. Cancelled GAC workshop
- b. Kathy Kleiman to announce "Building Bridges on ICANN's WHOIS"
- c. Steve Metalitz - preliminary report on the purpose of WHOIS
2. Purpose of WHOIS.
1. Vancouver
- a. Cancelled GAC workshop
- b. Kathy Kleiman to announce "Building Bridges on ICANN's WHOIS"
- c. Steve Metalitz - preliminary report on the purpose of WHOIS
The detailed Vancouver agenda has not been published.
The GAC WHOIS workshop scheduled for Tuesday morning 29 November has been cancelled and Jordyn asked whether the task force thought it would be useful to run a replacement session covering similar topics in the time slot allotted to the GAC?
The task force should establish specific goals if there were to be a replacement session.
Kathy Kleiman announced a related conference, "Building Bridges on ICANN's WHOIS" open to ICANN participants and participants outside of ICANN, organized by the NCUC, PIR and the gTLD Registry constituency, designed to be a complement to the morning GAC session and addressing among other topics, data protection.The cancellation of the GAC workshop would not affect the session.
The first session invites data protection commissioners, and country code managers who have changed their WHOIS in relation to data protection laws, including CIRA.
The second session will address the larger context of internet privacy.
The third session invites the 3 constituencies – NCUC, the gTLD Registry and the Registrars constituency, to present their plans to the public with new ideas for WHOIS.
Jordyn Buchanan noted that it was not a WHOIS Task Force or GNSO function, but was being sponsored by PIR and the gTLD Registry constituency was underwriting some costs.
Steve Metalitz - preliminary report on the purpose of WHOIS
Jordyn Buchanan stated that the aim was to have a preliminary report on the Purpose of WHOIS, but it would probably be a status report with two relatively competing coherent views. 2. Purpose of WHOIS.
Jordyn Buchanan summarised saying that the notion was advocated by some constituencies that the admin contact and the registrant might be responsible for Internet resources other than the domain name registration. The IPC statement had specific language about that, other constituency statement talked about content. If there were other responsibilities, how would one delineate that responsibility? Would that require more data to be added to the WHOIS?
Jordyn Buchanan in responding to a question from Wendy Seltzer that the registrants should be informed how to fill in the fields, stated that the current terms of reference required the purpose of WHOIS to be defined and not to create policies around informing registrants of the purpose. Marilyn Cade reminded the task force that there was no agreement on whether purpose was considered as narrow or broad, and the Business constituency could not accept a definition limited to dealing with lame delegations.
WHOIS-Technical Definition:
The Technical Purpose of the gTLD Whois databases is to contain data used to
find
a contact capable of investigating technical problems involving the
registration and
resolution of a domain name (e.g., lame delegation, incorrect DNS
configuration) and taking action to resolve the problem. Explanatory note:
Technical problems involving the registration and resolution of a
domain name include inappropriate or incorrect domain name server
configuration data in the registration record (including lame delegation and
incorrect
configuration of the DNS). Technical Expert:
It is the specific recommendation of WHOIS-Tech that the TF call upon the
technical expertise of our members to discuss the day-to-day technical
problems of
registration and technical coordination, and the use of the technical
contact. The question was if "technical purpose" related to other technical purposes and if so, what were the contacts? Steve Metalitz quoted from the IPC proposal that he considered clear and added that the discussion was pointless if registrants were not advised how to fill in these fields.
C. Administrative Contact
The purposes of identifying the Administrative Contact in the Whois database are (1) to give registrars a clearly identified authorized voice of the Registered Name Holder for purposes of managing the domain name, and (2) to give other members of the public a clearly identified point of contact for issues regarding the content of the corresponding website or other Internet resource. For instance, the Administrative Contact should have the authority to modify content on the site or to accept legal process or similar notifications concerning that content. The IPC notes, however, that the definition provided by the Transfers Task Force Report as referenced in ICANN’s June 2 Terms of Reference is somewhat confusing. Namely, the Transfers Report defines the administrative contact as: an individual, role [?], or organization authorized to interact with the Registry or Registrar on behalf of the Domain Holder [note reference is not to the “Registered Name 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 [sic – note inconsistent capitalization within the definition] is viewed as the authoritative point of contact for the domain name, second only to the Domain Holder. Final Report and Recommendations of the GNSO Council’s Transfers Task Force, Exhibit C: Standardized Definitions, at http://www.icann.org/gnso/transfers-tf/report-exhc-12feb03.htm (emphasis added).
The definition thus states that the Administrative Contact is “the” authoritative point of contact, but in the next breath demotes that authority to being secondary to the Domain Holder. The IPC agrees that the Domain Holder should have ultimate authority over the domain name, and suggests that the definition of Administrative Contact more clearly reflect that it is not “the” authoritative point of contact, but rather that it is the Domain Holder’s authorized point of contact for managing the domain name. Jordyn Buchanan clarified that the Council wanted the task force to use the first two Terms of Reference:
1) Define the purpose of the WHOIS service in the context of ICANN's mission and relevant core values, international and national laws protecting privacy of natural persons, international and national laws
that relate specifically to the WHOIS service, and the changing nature of Registered Name Holders.
(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): to discuss the third and fourth.
(3) Determine what data collected should be available for public access in the context of the purpose of WHOIS. Determine how to access data that is not available for public access. The current elements that must be displayed by a registrar are: - The name of the Registered Name; - The names of the primary nameserver and secondary nameserver(s) for the Registered Name; - The identity of Registrar (which may be provided through Registrar's website); - The original creation date of the registration; - The expiration date of the registration; - The name and postal address of the Registered Name Holder; - The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the technical contact for the Registered Name; and - The name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and (where available) fax number of the administrative contact for the Registered Name.
4) Determine how to improve the process for notifying a registrar of inaccurate WHOIS data, and the process for investigating and correcting inaccurate data. Currently a registrar "shall, upon notification by any person of an inaccuracy in the contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar, take reasonable steps to investigate that claimed inaccuracy. In the event Registrar learns of
inaccurate contact information associated with a Registered Name it sponsors, it shall take reasonable steps to correct that inaccuracy."
Ross Rader cautioned that the Transfers task force definitions were not intended for public consumption beyond the Transfers implementation panel. On substance, hostname data should also be included as well e.g. www.example.com. The hostname and domain name are not interchangeable.
Jordyn Buchanan clarified that within a single domain name there could be multiple hostnames with many different administrators. So there would not be one admin with control of them all.
Steve Metalitz proposed to bring some technical expertise to delineate the responsibilities of the Admin contact.
Jordyn Buchanan summarised that if it was agreed that one of the fundamental purposes was to allow someone to be contacted for technical issues relating to registration, delegation, resolution of the registration, if a broader scope were proposed how would it be possible to assure that purpose was well served? The distinction is made between where ccontact information can be found. The only place where contact information can be found on the technical delegation and registration issues is in the gTLD WHOIS, while for issues relating to a router or server that happens to be referred to by that domain name, there are other resources, e.g. IP WHOIS to find a specific device on the Internet.
Steve Metalitz commented that none of the action items promised for today had been dealt with and urged that the summaries reflect a little more realistic on what happens between the call.
Jordyn Buchanan to work with Maria and Glen on the issue. Next Call 15 November 2005
- Discuss the definition of the Technical contact (Kathy's posted definition) - is it satisfactory?
- How are the 'contact' fields populated - start discussion on list
- Jordyn to send additional questions to the list
- Decide there will be a preliminary report in Vancouver
Jordyn Buchanan thanked all the task force members for participating. The WHOIS task force call ended at 16 :40 CET | 