[council] Board Data and Consumer Protection Working Group Report on Recommendations (7 December 2010)

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

Hello All,


The report of the Board's Data and Consumer Protection Working Group is
now available on the ICANN website, following its first and only
official meeting on Friday afternoon 3 Dec 2010.

http://www.icann.org/en/committees/consumer-protection/report-on-recomme
ndations-07dec10-en.htm


See below.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin

Board Data and Consumer Protection Working Group Report on
Recommendations

7 December 2010

On 5 August 2010 the Board asked the Board Governance Committee to
assist in the formation of a Board Data and Consumer Protection Working
Group (DCP-WG) to identify issues relating to the use of registry data
and where registrant protection might be further explored or proposed
policies might be introduced.  The DCP-WG was formally established on 25
September 2010 to address data and consumer protection issues.

The DCP-WG provides this report on its conclusions and recommendations.
The report will be provided to the Board for consideration at its 10
December 2010 meeting in Cartagena, Colombia.

DCP-WG Conclusions and Recommendations

Searchable Whois, Referred to the DCP-WG on 25 September 2010:

Searchable Whois: Refer to the Board Data Consumer Protection Working
Group to study issues and provide information to the Board relating to
access and privacy to develop recommendations for possible inclusion in
the forthcoming version of the applicant guidebook.

DCP-WG Response:

The DCP-WG advises the Board that making searchable whois mandatory is a
policy matter that would have to be referred to the GNSO, but we accept
it being optional as proposed in current version of the Applicant
Guidebook.  We flag that there are consumer and data protection issues
that could be raised through a searchable whois system.

DCP-WG Charter Task 1:

Fact Finding: Establishing what consumer protections associated with the
collection and use of domain-name related data are currently planned to
be included in the proposed new gTLD Registry contract.

DCP-WG Response:

Under the proposed Registry Operator Code of Conduct, at Specification 9
of the Registry Agreement in the current version of the Applicant
Guidebook, there are consumer-protection provisions relating to
limitations on the use of domain-name related data.  These are currently
subject to public comment. 

DCP-WG Charter Task 2: 

Fact Finding: Reviewing the status of work on determining the
domain-name related data collected and the uses to which it is put.

DCP-WG Response:

The DCP-WG has identified that the work mandated by the Board in
approving the Council Report to the Board, Policies for Contractual
Conditions - Existing Registries (PDP Feb 06) - 2 November 2007,
Recommendation 5* has not been done.  The DCP-WG recommends that this
work be implemented now by staff.

Continuation or Replacement of DCP-WG:

DCP-WG recommends to the Board that the WG be thanked for its work and
dissolved.


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*  Recommendation 5 states: "In order to determine whether there is a
need for a new consensus policy on the collection and use of registry
data, including traffic data, for purposes other than which is was
collected, there is first a need for a properly targeted study by an
independent third party on the data collected and the uses to which it
is put."