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Re: [council] Regarding Letter from American Intellectual Property Law Association
- To: Anthony Harris <harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Subject: Re: [council] Regarding Letter from American Intellectual Property Law Association
- From: Ross Rader <ross@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:43:27 -0400
- Cc: Council GNSO <council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, gnso-dow123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- In-reply-to: <001e01c69579$00061d60$7801a8c0@harris2>
- Organization: Tucows Inc.
- References: <AC66A6AC5610D847B53408B5143B4D2004D68DCB@0401a.ifpi.org> <44999573.70909@tucows.com> <001e01c69579$00061d60$7801a8c0@harris2>
- Reply-to: ross@xxxxxxxxxx
- Sender: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516)
Anthony Harris wrote:
Ross,
I think you have a valid point when you say:
"it would extremely helpful if stakeholders limited
themselves to speaking for themselves."
And thus am rather surprised at your conclusion that:
"The definition also seems to meet the needs
of web host and ISP operators,"
If it does, I have yet to meet one...
I would be very happy to introduce you to any number of operators that
are unconcerned about Formulation 1 as it relates to their core
business. Unfortunately, there aren't many (if any) of them that
participate in ICANN's policy development process, so they are
relatively unheard in the process. (On a slightly related not, it seems
that the ISPCP website has been taken offline by your provider and that
many of the associations counted as members are defunct. Presumably,
this makes it extremely difficult for interested parties to get involved
with the ISPCP.)
Moreover, I should also clarify that I am not pretending to speak for
these operators. Rather, I'm passing on my observation that based on the
conversations that I have almost daily with them about this and other
related operational issues, that they don't seem to share the views
espoused by those in the ISPC and other GNSO constituencies who opposed
Formulation 1.
As to your remark:
"(and other related parties such as those that place a
higher relative value on intellectual property considerations than they
do on privacy, convenience and cost considerations such as the GNSO's
BCUC and ISPC.)"
This is your opinion. Not necessarily a fact.
Yes, you are correct - this is my opinion. But please don't forget that
my opinions are mostly shaped by your position. If my interpretation of
the position of your constituency is incorrect, I welcome the
opportunity to learn more and form new opinions based on that. However,
I'm not sure that it is incorrect. The ISPC is quite clear that
unfettered whois access must be preserved in order to ensure that issues
related to content can be resolved by network operators. Of course, IP
issues are only a subset of content issues (which also includes
phishing, DDOS attacks, etc.) but I'm not sure that this changes my
basic understanding or assertion.
Nonetheless, I beleive it an opportune occasion to point out that you
have neglected to declare a pretty obvious fact, and that is that the
whole content of this very prolongued (and in your personal
case, very agressive) discussion, seeks to eliminate WHOIS
entirely and rid you of the cost and trouble of providing it.
Speaking of opinions, I believe that we both have them ;) To the point,
I was once asked what I thought might be the best way to deal with the
Whois policy issue and I made the mistake of half-seriously replying
that personally, I thought the easiest solution to the policy problem
was to turn it off entirely. For very understandable reasons, you - and
others - continue to quote this out of context. It has never been the
formal policy position of Tucows or the Registrar constituency that
Whois should be eliminated - it is of tremendous value to my company, my
customers and the registrars I represent. The cost issue that we are
seeking to avoid has nothing to do with the status quo solution (which
truth be told is a non-material element in terms of our annual operating
budget). It is a reaction to Tiered Access "solution" that some continue
to advocate for. The technical solutions proposed are not practical, nor
affordable. This was the main motivation behind the oPOC proposal that
our constituency tabled, going back as far as the Mar del Plata meeting.
We believe that by rationalizing the level of data presented in Whois
and building in additional accountabilities, that a new focus on
contactability can be built into Whois that provides a broad range of
users with a "best possible compromise" solution. If this approach is
too "aggressive" for you, I sincerely apologize.
The task force is a vehicle to do this piece by piece, since
you have the weighted voting advantage when it comes to that.
This is something I can understand, and I am sure there must
be a suitable solution for it, that can be discussed in a civil,
cooperative atmosphere, without insulting our intelligence in
the process.
I'm not sure that there is anything cooperative about the current task
force or the GNSO's policy development process. Your comments, and most
of those made in opposition to Formulation 1, perfectly illustrate the
problem. Instead of assessing the needs of the other stakeholders as it
relates to the needs of your constituency and identifying where
compromise might possibly be had, the representatives of the ISPC, BCUC
and IPC have instead focused on advocating a single, immutable position.
This advocacy consumes most of the time available to the task force and
is the primary reason why little progress has been made on this issue.
It is not by accident or because of weighted voting that Formulation 1
received support necessary within the task force and at Council. The
sole reason that this proposition was successful was because it
represents the best middle ground that many parties with differing goals
and needs could find. This middle ground was only found because these
parties, the registries, noncommercials, nominating committee reps and
registrars, actually talked to one another and worked through their
respective differences until a consensus view was found. I believe an
effort was made on several occassions to include the rest of the
constituencies in this dialog, but the outreach never bore fruit.
I keep bringing this up in our calls, and I apologize if it has become
boring for you, but we need alternatives and suggestions for compromise
from your constituency and those of the IPC and BC - not advocacy.
Without it, this criminal lack of progress will continue.
If you are seriously interested in making progress, then please
reconsider the request I made of you and Marilyn on the last call: how
can the existing proposals that have been tabled be changed so that they
are suitable for the needs of the stakeholders you represent?
Regards,
--
-rr
"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Contact Info:
Ross Rader
Director, Research & Innovation
Tucows Inc.
t. 416.538.5492
c. 416.828.8783
Get Started: http://start.tucows.com
My Blogware: http://www.byte.org
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