RE: [council] Initial staff report on GNSO-requested WHOIS studies attached for your review and discussion

[Liz Gasster <liz.gasster@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chuck and all, please see my responses below.  Please let me know if you have 
any more questions or would like more information.  Thanks, Liz

From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 12:45 PM
To: Liz Gasster; GNSO Council List
Cc: Steve Sheng
Subject: RE: [council] Initial staff report on GNSO-requested WHOIS studies 
attached for your review and discussion
Importance: High

Liz,

After reviewing the report, I have a few comments.  Please note the possible 
time sensitive action item under 3 below.

"3. Staff Analysis of WHOIS Misuse Studies "

The following points from the analysis make me wonder whether these studies are 
worth the investment:

 *   Referring to the recommended proposal, ". . even that proposal did not 
address key challenges that could diminish the WHOIS policy contributions 
afforded by this study - notably, determining the "significance" of misuse and 
proving a causal relationship between misuse reduction and WHOIS 
anti-harvesting measures. If ICANN and GNSO elect to pursue this study, these 
concerns should be discussed with the bidder before a contract is awarded. "
 *   ". . it is not clear that researchers can quantitatively measure or 
qualitatively assess whether measured misuse is "significant." The ToR 
suggested surveying registrants about incident impact (severity), but no bidder 
elaborated on this study goal or indicated how "significance" might be 
assessed. Simply counting harmful acts without putting them into some kind of 
perspective cannot prove the study's hypothesis and may thus do little to 
inform policy. "
Is it possible to ask the bidders, or possibly just the preferred one, to 
elaborate on "how "significance" might be assessed"?  And could this be asked 
prior to our 1 April Council meeting?  This could be critical information in 
making a decision regarding whether to purse these studies or not.

If we are unable to prove or disprove the hypothesis, it might not make sense 
to spend $149,000.

LG - The Council should understand that the issue of how significance might be 
assessed is one that remains even after several bidders and numerous subject 
matter experts pored through this study for months, and so far no one has yet 
found a good answer for.  Based on my work to-date, my view is ICANN and the 
bidder would probably need to invest more than a day or two discussing these 
concerns and proposed methods to arrive at workable solutions for what (after 
months of discussion) are still unresolved challenges. I believe that if the 
Council wants to pursue this study and recognizing this concern, the next step 
would be for staff to ask the bidder to address this concern before awarding a 
contract.

"4. Staff Analysis of WHOIS Registrant Identification Study "

Based on Staff analysis, it seems like this study might be worth doing.  The 
challenge it appears would be to choose between the two top bidders and their 
different methodologies.

LG - We would not look to the Council to choose between the bidders or 
methodologies, that is something staff would work out once the decision is made 
to pursue this study.  My point in making that statement was simply to say that 
there were credible options presented by two bidders, which is useful in 
confirming the feasibility of such a study.

"5. Preliminary staff Analysis of WHOIS Abuse and Reveal Studies"

It appears that it is too early to make any decisions on these studies, but we 
may need to at least decide whether we think any funds should be set aside in 
the FY11 budget for further work and possibly doing one of them.

LG - Agree that it is too early.  Information on the proxy and privacy "abuse" 
study might be available in July or August (I have not released an RFP yet).  
We are still not sure about the viability of a privacy/proxy "reveal" study.  
If the Council thinks it is likely to find the proxy/privacy abuse study to 
also be of a high priority, then asking for a set aside for that study might 
make sense.  Given current budget constraints and the cost of the first two 
studies, it may also make sense to look to the FY 2012 budget.


Chuck

________________________________
From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Liz Gasster
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 7:47 PM
To: GNSO Council List
Cc: Steve Sheng
Subject: [council] Initial staff report on GNSO-requested WHOIS studies 
attached for your review and discussion
All,

Attached please find staff's initial report on WHOIS studies as requested by 
the Council on 4 March 2009.  I will provide an overview of this report at the 
Council's upcoming 1 April meeting, and I look forward to your comments and 
input.  My report will also be posted here shortly. 
https://st.icann.org/gnso-council/index.cgi?whois_discussion#<https://st.icann.org/gnso-council/index.cgi?whois_discussion>
   I will also be posting my presentation slides by the end of this week.  I'd 
also like to make the following points:


1.       I want to recognize that this effort has been underway for quite some 
time, and while I have provided many updates along the way, I understand that 
the background and context may be new to Council members who joined the GNSO 
following the discussions that led to initiation of this work.  I would be glad 
to add additional background or detail as requested.  There was a significant 
body of work that the Council and community engaged in that led up to the 
decision in March 2009 to pursue costs and feasibility for the specific study 
areas selected.  There were also other studies initially proposed by members of 
the community and by the GAC.  Those described in my report were selected by 
the Council for staff to pursue.

2.       The Policy staff is also releasing a first draft later this month of 
an additional "study" that was requested by the GNSO Council in May 2009.  This 
"study" is more accurately described as a compilation or synthesis of WHOIS 
Service Requirements,  that includes known deficiencies in the current service 
and "any possible requirements that may be needed to support various policy 
initiatives that have been suggested in the past". As requested in the 
resolution initiating this work, when Staff releases the report, we will be 
consulting with the SSAC, ALAC, GAC, the ccNSO and the GNSO on this draft, and 
an updated synthesis will be prepared following those consultations. Steve 
Sheng is the primary author of this upcoming report.

3.       Regarding both reports, staff has tried to be responsive to the 
expectations of the GNSO in initiating the requests.  If more work is needed or 
you have something further in mind, please let us know.  We consider both to be 
working documents that can be updated or refined upon community review.

4.       There are many important details to consider, but ultimately the 
Council will want to consider whether to recommend funding for WHOIS studies in 
the FY 2011 budget.  WHOIS studies have been noted as a potential future 
expense for some time, but the analysis I've just completed provides 
much-needed detail on specific costs to anticipate for the WHOIS Misuse and 
WHOIS Registrant Identification studies.

At the time this work was initiated, there were differing views about whether / 
which studies should be undertaken.  Hopefully the information provided will be 
useful to the Council in considering next steps.  I might also suggest that 
this information be provided to the GAC given its extensive previous 
recommendations for further study of WHOIS.  Staff can forward the report or 
the Council may certainly do so.

Again, we look forward to your comments and input!

Thanks, Liz