[council] Regarding definitions of Admin and tech contacts

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Ross,

> 
> > 
> > (2) Define the purpose of the technical and administrative 
> contacts, 
> > in the context of the purpose of WHOIS, to improve the accuracy and 
> > relevance of the data collected.
> 
> Some, or perhaps all, of this task was completed by the 
> transfers task force. The recommendations of the TF included 
> statements of definition of the contacts, although I can't 
> remember whether these included a definition of purpose. This 
> should be clarified prior to requesting more work in this area...
> 

Thanks for the reference.

The transfers task force report is available at:
http://www.icann.org/gnso/transfers-tf/report-12feb03.htm 

I reviewed the report, and it seems to me that the transfers task force
specified the level of authority with respect to transfers of the
Registrant and Administrative contact.

E.g Recommendation 16
"The Administrative Contact and the Registrant, as outlined in the
Losing Registrar's or Registry's (where available) publicly accessible
WHOIS service are the only parties that have the authority to approve or
deny a transfer request to the Gaining Registrar. In the event of a
dispute, the authority of the Registrant in the authoritative Whois
service supercedes that of the Administrative Contact."

So I can conclude that "one" of the purposes of the Registrant and
Administrative contact is to provide authorization for a transfer.   I
doubt that this is "the" only purpose.

I could find no reference to the Technical contact.

If there are other definitions/references in the transfers work - please
provide them.  It is possible that some of the definitions were included
in other task force documents.

As pointed out in the meeting in Mar Del Plata, there are some
references to administrative and technical contact in some of the IETF
RFCs.  These could also be used as a starting point for discussion.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin