Re: [dow1tf] Amendments to Preliminary Report #1

["David Fares" <dfares@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Milton for starting an email dialogue.  

I am concerned that Milton's proposal prejudges our own going 
debate as to the definition of a legitimate user, which I would argue 
goes beyond users accessing whois for technical reasons.  

More generally, I disagree that international documents related to the 
"free flow of information" do not address personal contact data.  The 
OECD Guidelines specifically reference balancing privacy protection 
and the free flow of information.  I will try to provide some revised text.  
I also think that it would be helpful to cite the OECD Guidelines.

Thanks,
David



Date sent:      	Sun, 09 May 2004 11:07:29 -0400
From:           	"Milton Mueller" <mueller@xxxxxxx>
To:             	<dow1tf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <Jeff.Neuman@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject:        	[dow1tf] Amendments to Preliminary Report #1

> 
> As we near completion we should make more use of the list.
> Teleconferences are better for discussion, but email is better for
> nailing down wordings.
> 
> I have gone more carefully through Jeff's draft and propose
> the following change in the section entitled "Principles for
> the use of Whois." 
> 
> Existing language:
> "Whois TF 1's goal was to strike a balance among concerns and needs of
> the different stakeholders related to accuracy, reliability, access
> and privacy issues and to ensure that whatever process we developed
> did not prevent the free flow of information."
> 
> This language is a bit vague and potentially troublesome. There is no
> way we can speak of "not preventing the free flow of information" when
> the whole purpose of this task force is indeed to restrict some
> parties' access to information. Besides, there are bad overtones to
> this choice of words. In international treaties and policy, "free flow
> of information" does not mean personal contact data but news,
> scientific knowledge, opinion, culture and the like. 
> 
> Here is my proposed new language. It is also cleaner grammatically:
> 
> "Whois TF 1's goal was to balance the concerns and needs of domain
> name registrants, legitimate whois data users, registrars and
> registries. We recognize the need to take into account issues of
> privacy and data protection, data accuracy, registrant accountability,
> and system burdens. We also recognized the need to ensure that
> whatever process we developed must not prevent exchanges of
> information needed to make the DNS as a technical system operate
> smoothly and efficiently."
> 
> Hope this is acceptable to all. 
> 
> --MM
> 
> 

David A. Fares
Director, Electronic Commerce
U.S. Council for International Business
dfares@xxxxxxxxx
Tel: 212-703-5061
     212-354-4480
Fax: 212-575-0327