Re: [council] Response to Board Request re: IRD Working Group Report

["Drazek, Keith" <kdrazek@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This looks good to me. No objection to sending the letter without a formal 
motion. 

Thanks,
Keith 

> On Dec 5, 2016, at 5:27 PM, James M. Bladel <jbladel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Councilors -
> 
> If you recall, several months ago the Board requested that we examine the 
> recommendations of the IRD WG, and (1) refer these to the RDS PDP for 
> consideration during their work, and (2) confirm that they were compatible 
> with the (concluded) Translation & Transliteration (T&T) PDP.  We did both of 
> these, and James Galvin prepared a lengthy response addressing the second 
> question, concluding that these recommendations were not in conflict.
> 
> Marika and I have reformatted the information provided by James as a response 
> to the original Board letter (attached and copied below).  I realize there 
> hasn’t been much traffic on this topic, so I would ask that folks please 
> review this response and share with your SG/Cs to see if any concerns arise.
> 
> Assuming that everyone is good with this letter, then I would ask the Council 
> if there are any objections to sending the letter, or if folks would rather 
> see this presented formally as a motion for our next meeting.
> Thank you,
> J.
> 
> 
> 5 December 2016
> 
> Response to ICANN Board Letter concerning GNSO consideration of the policy 
> implications of the Internationalized Registration (IRD) Working Group’s 
> Final Report
> 
> Steve Crocker
> Chair, ICANN Board
> 
> Dear Steve,
> 
> On behalf of the GNSO Council, I am responding to your letter of 11 May 2016. 
> I apologize for the delay in developing this response but it was necessary to 
> take this time to gather and consider the information needed to 
> comprehensively respond to your request.
> 
> In your letter, you asked the GNSO ‘to consider the policy implications of 
> the IRD’s report, follow up as the Council deems appropriate, and, at a 
> minimum, forward the IRD’s report as an input to the Working Groups engaged 
> in the Next Generation Registration Directory Services (RDS) to Replace WHOIS 
> PDP’.
> 
> With regard to the latter request, the IRD report was forward to the RDS PDP 
> Working Group for consideration during their work on 7 July 2016.  With 
> regard to the former request, we consulted with representatives from the 
> (previously concluded) Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information 
> (T&T) PDP Working Group, and as a result the GNSO concludes that:
> 
> 
>  *   The IRD recommendations were, in fact, considered in the development of 
> the T&T recommendations, and
>  *   Those members who participated in both efforts (T&T and the IRD Expert 
> WG) made a point to explicitly compare the discussions, to flag any issues 
> that appeared to be in conflict, and bring these to the attention of both 
> groups, and
>  *   All discrepancies were reviewed in detail within each group, and
>  *   The short answer to the concern of whether or not the two sets of 
> recommendations are in conflict is, "No, they are not." A more complete, 
> nuanced response is as follows.
> 
> The following two recommendations are intended to be equivalent.
> 
> 
>  *   From the T&T:  The Working Group recommends that the language(s) and 
> script(s) supported for registrants to submit their contact information data 
> may be chosen in accordance with gTLD-provider business models.
> 
> 
>  *   From the IRD:  A registry must be able to accept and store any language 
> or script that might reasonably be expected to be used in their target market.
> 
> There is a natural tension regarding the language and script used to 
> represent the data among all of the points from a registrant to the final 
> display of the data, including how the date is collected by the registrar, 
> and how it is stored by the registry. Both the T&T and the IRD working groups 
> recognized this and both groups agreed with full consensus that the 
> appropriate place to anchor this preference is with the registry.  The gTLD 
> registry operator’s business model will determine how it intends to serve its 
> target registrants, and subsequently drive the decision on which language(s) 
> and script(s) it will use to present and manage its services.
> 
> The IRD working group went a step further in its deliberations and included 
> the following additional recommendation:
> 
> 
>  *   Registrants should only be required to input registration data in a 
> language(s) or script(s) with which they are skilled.
> 
> The purpose of this recommendation was to mitigate any requirement that would 
> burden registrants with special skills or requirements. The IRD 
> recommendations are based on three foundational principles, and among these 
> is the "User Capability Principle:  the capability of the data-submitting 
> user should be the constraining factor. Such users should not be burdened 
> with tasks that cannot be completed under ordinary circumstances." This 
> principle is the primary motivation for this recommendation.
> 
> These three recommendations are intended to be complementary.  A registry is 
> expressly permitted to engage in any approved business model with any 
> registrant, but it must expect that only registrants who ordinarily work with 
> the languages and scripts supported by the registry may use the services of 
> the registry.  Some might consider this point obvious from a business 
> perspective, but nonetheless, the IRD working group believed this point was 
> often overlooked in discussions of internationalization and thus chose to 
> make it explicitly.
> 
> As a result, the GNSO concludes there is no conflict between these sets of 
> recommendations, and as such recommends that the T&T IRT factors in the IRD 
> Expert Working Group recommendations as part of their implementation efforts. 
> However, should the T&T IRT find that there are policy implications resulting 
> from the IRD Expert Working Group recommendations, we would refer them to 
> existing mechanisms for the IRT to flag these and submit them to the GNSO 
> Council for appropriate action.
> 
> If there are no objections or further questions from the ICANN Board on this 
> approach, I propose that I share this communication with the T&T IRT for 
> their information.
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> 
> James Bladel
> GNSO Chair
> 
> <Response to ICANN Board - IRD Final Report - 5 DEC 2016.docx>