[council] GNSO Council Update for the Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information PDP WG

[Amr Elsadr <aelsadr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Following up on the update of the initial report of the translation and 
transliteration of contact information PDP WG, I thought it best not to paste 
the entire executive summary in this email. It’s quite long, and has several 
references in the footnotes that may be useful to look at, so please do look at 
the report 
(http://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/gtlds/transliteration-contact-initial-15dec14-en.pdf%20),
 and encourage your respective groups to provide comments before the February 
1st deadline.

The public comment period announcement is here: 
https://www.icann.org/public-comments/transliteration-contact-initial-2014-12-16-en

These are my personal notes, and if Lars and Julie can fill in any gaps I may 
have missed, I’d be grateful:

First meeting of the working group was in August 2013.
The working group was tasked with answering two chartered questions:
Is mandatory transformation of contact information in the WHOIS database to a 
single common language and script desirable?
Who should, in the view of the working group, bear the burden of transformation?
The working group solicited input at an early stage in its deliberations and 
received input from:
ALAC
The European Commission
The Government of Thailand
The People’s Republic of China
NCSG
IPC
FICPI (International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys) - This 
input was received very late, and was decided to be included as input to the 
public comment on the initial report
All input was discussed in great detail by the working group members.
Special attention was given to the ongoing work of the EWG on registration data 
services as well as the EWG on internationalised registration data services, 
both of which were relevant to the work of this working group.
After review of community comments and extensive working group deliberations, 
the recommendations provided in the working group's initial report were 
provided for public comment. This was done in the absence of a formal consensus 
call, however, with the understanding that a majority of the working group 
members support these recommendation. They are also provisional recommendations 
pending review of comments submitted in the public comment period.
That translation and transliteration of contact information should not be 
mandatory.
Any new RDS contemplated by ICANN should allow for non-Latin script to be 
usable.
Registrants should provide their contact information in the language/script 
appropriate for the language the registrar operates in
Registrars and registries should assure that data fields are consistent and 
correctly tagged to facilitate future transformation if ever needed
If registrars wish to transform contact data, this should be displayed in the 
WHOIS as additional fields along with the original information provided by the 
registrant
The field names in the WHOIS should be translated into as many languages as 
possible
Based on these recommendations, the question of bearing the burden of 
transformation is moot. The working group is asking for input specific to this 
question, especially from those providing input in favour of mandatory 
transformation.
A formal consensus call of the working group members will be taken following 
discussions of any and all input provided during the public comment period, 
which will close on February 1st 2015.
An announcement was made about a webinar to be held on January 16th 2015 (today 
at UTC 14:00) covering the findings in the initial report of the working group 
(http://gnso.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-09jan15-en.htm).

If anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to try to answer them.

Thanks.

Amr