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WHOIS Task Forces 1 2 3 Minutes

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Date

WHOIS Task Forces 1 2 3

28 June 2005 - Minutes

ATTENDEES:
GNSO Constituency representatives:
Jordyn Buchanan - Chair
gTLD Registries constituency - Ken Stubbs
gTLD Registries constituency - David Maher
Registrars constituency - Tim Ruiz (alternate)
Registrars constituency - Ross Rader
Registrars constituency - Tom Keller
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Kathy Kleiman
Commercial and Business Users Constituency - David Fares
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 - Greg Ruth

Liaisons
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) liaisons - Wendy Seltzer - absent
GAC Liaison - Suzanne Sene - absent - apologies

ICANN Staff:
Maria Farrell Farrell - ICANN GNSO Policy Officer - absent
GNSO Secretariat - Glen de Saint Géry

Absent:
Registrars constituency - Paul Stahura
Commercial and Business Users constituency - Marilyn Cade - apologies
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Milton Mueller - apologies
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Marc Schneiders
Non Commercial Users Constituency - Frannie Wellings
Commercial and Business Users Constituency - Sarah Deutsch - apologies
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers constituency - Tony Harris - apologies

MP3 Recording

Agenda:
1) Update on Council consideration on our recommendations relating to
notice
2) Planning for Luxembourg
3) Brief discussion of uses of Whois document prepared by Maria
4) Review of TF 2 tiered access principles and proposals received to
date on tiered access


1) Update on Council consideration on our recommendations relating to
notice

The GNSO Council took no action on the recommendations for improving notification and consent of contact data in the WHOIS system at its meeting held on 23 June 2005, but deferred action to the Luxembourg meetings.
Bruce Tonkin proposed certain revisions which have received comments on the task force list .
Ken Stubbs emphasised the need for a cohesive sense of direction, to which Jordyn Buchanan responded that the new terms of reference would provide greater direction.

Jordyn Buchanan urged the task force members to discuss the call for statements with their constituencies and submit them by 21 July 2005

- 1. WHOIS COMBINED TASK FORCE Consensus Policy/Advice Recommendation 2 on conflicts between national privacy laws and registries' or registrars' contractual obligations to ICANN.

- 2. Tasks 1 and 2 from the Terms of Reference for the combined WHOIS Task Force.

2) Planning for Luxembourg
The final schedule was not yet available, but Thursday afternoon 14 July had been proposed for a meeting with the task force and the GNSO Council.
Steve Metalitz proposed holding a short meeting as well as, earlier in the week with task force members even it did overlap with other events.
The question arose about the utility of using the public forum time to collect input.
Kathy Kleiman strongly encouraged the task force to make use of that time to inform the public of the work that lay ahead for the task force, and to describe the new terms of reference. In her opinion it was another avenue of reaching out to the public which would be different from the usual task force outreach.
Jordyn Buchanan proposed the following items:
- Update on task force work
- New terms of reference
- Tentative calendar dates with public comment periods

Kathy Kleiman stressed the importance of a method of messaging to the public on such occasions.

3) Brief discussion of uses of Whois document prepared by Maria
Jordyn Buchanan commented that when framing "purpose" as one of the tasks in the new terms of reference, one should be aware of the uses of Whois data.
Jordyn Buchanan stated that Maria's list was a staff compilation of data input and that the task force had decided that there would be no more data gathering on the uses of Whois. Task force members could add to the list if they discovered a use not mentioned.
Tim Ruiz added:
Used by Certificate Authorities in their verification and validation processes.
Task force members were encouraged to review the list and submit comments if they wished.

 4) Review of TF 2 tiered access principles and proposals received to
date on tiered access
Jordyn Buchanan stated that it would be difficult to resolve the issue of tiered access before the tasks 1 and 2 were completed in terms of understanding the work that has already been done.
Jordyn Buchanan referred to Task Force 2 recommendations as useful guide:
a) Technical and operational details about the domain name should continue to be displayed to the public on anonymous basis. Providing some basic contact information (possibly limited to the name and country for both the registrant and administrative contact) may also be appropriate in the interest of balancing contactibility and privacy concerns for publicly available information. Further contact details for the registrant and administrative contact would only be available in one or more protected tiers.

b) Registrants should have the option to direct that some or all of their protected data be displayed to the public.

c) Those meeting the requirements and identifying a legitimate use to access protected information should be able to obtain it in a timely manner.

d) Those seeking access to protected information should identify themselves in a verifiable manner. Once identified, the user would be issued a portable credential, rather than needing to verify their identity on a registrar-by-registrar (or even registry-by-registry) basis.

e) The system should be affordable, both for implementers and users.

f) Registrars and registries should continue to have full access to the WHOIS data for technical and operational purposes.

Jordyn Buchanan referred to Thomas Roessler's PKI-based authentication mechanism for tiered access .
where the WHOIS data user proves their identity towards the WHOIS Authentication Provider.
In response to Steve Metalitz , Jordyn read from the task force 2 report confirming that tiered access was not endorsed.
The task force believes that a system that provides different data sets for different uses (also known as "tiered access") may serve as a useful mechanism to balance the privacy interests of registrants with the ongoing need to contact those registrants by other members of the Internet community. The task force believes that such a system should be based on the following principle.
Kathy Kleiman and Ross Rader expressed concern about the immediate relevance of the tiered access approach when the purpose of Whois had not been defined.
Jordyn Buchanan proposed identifying a framework of principles that apply specifically to tiered access approach acknowledging that the task force may or may not elect to go down the tiered access road at a later date as these would fit in with with task 3 of the terms of reference:
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.
Kathy Kleiman should change "principles" to "steps and procedure".

Action Items

1. Ross Rader will circulate a document combining
Tiered Access related recommendations of GNSO Whois task force 1 & 2.

2. Circulate Thomas Roessler's PKI-based authentication mechanism for tiered access.

3. Open up on line discussion on how you access data that is not publicly available using the work of task force 1 & 2 as a starting for pre-work on task 3 of the terms of reference
"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."

No Task Force call on 5 JULY 2005.

The next Whois task force meeting will be held in Luxembourg July 11 - 15 July 2005

Jordyn Buchanan thanked all the task force members for participating.

The WHOIS task force call ended at 16 :40 CET

 

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