[nc-transfer] RE: [nc-whois] Comments on completing DRAFT task force reports

[Steve Metalitz <metalitz@iipa.com>]

Bruce, 

Thank you for this note which should be very helpful to the Whois TF.

However, when you state "(the paper by Louis Touton
and Dan Halloran has attempted to identify elements of the interim report
that are new or changed polices compared to the existing agreements)," what
paper are you referring to?

If you are talking about the paper Louis Touton posted prior to Shanghai,
"General Counsel's Briefing Concerning Implementation of Policies by
Registrars and Registry Operators," perhaps a clarification would be
helpful.  The General Counsel has stated both privately and publicly that
the lists contained in the appendices to this paper do not differentiate
between those recommendations that could be implemented within the framework
of the existing agreements and those that would require revision of the
agreement.  Several of the Whois Task Force's interim recommendations are
intended to fall into the first category, which appears to correspond to the
Recommendations for Action category in your note below.   

Steve Metalitz, IPC representative to Whois TF  

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Tonkin [mailto:Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 8:43 PM
To: 'nc-whois@dnso.org'
Cc: 'nc-transfer@dnso.org'
Subject: [nc-whois] Comments on completing DRAFT task force reports


Hello All,

In response to Thomas Roessler's message copied below, and also the feedback
from Louis Touton on the Names Council call last night, I recommend that the
task force clearly identify the following elements in the DRAFT report:

- recommendations for ICANN Board, staff, registries, or registrars (e.g
that the current policy be more stringently enforced) - these
recommendations would form RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

- new policy elements that have strong support (the paper by Louis Touton
and Dan Halloran has attempted to identify elements of the interim report
that are new or changed polices compared to the existing agreements) - these
new elements would form a new CONSENSUS POLICY, and become legally binding
on registries and registrars provided they are in the scope of consensus
policies in the registry and registrar agreements (WHOIS issues are
generally in scope)

- new policy elements that have mixed support - ie well reasoned arguments
for and against, but not clear consensus - there elements would form ISSUES
for further work

The requirements to form a formal "consensus policy" are quite strict, and
can be subject to a range of appeals by affected parties - so the elements
that are included in the "new policy" components need to be well supported,
for them to become binding on registries and registrars.

A reminder that the requirements for consensus policy are:

"Consensus Policies" are those specifications or policies established based
on a consensus among Internet stakeholders represented in the ICANN process,
as demonstrated by 

(a) action of the ICANN Board of Directors establishing the specification or
policy, 

AND

(b) a recommendation, adopted by at least a two-thirds vote of the council
of the ICANN Supporting Organization to which the matter is delegated, that
the specification or policy should be established,

AND

(c) a written report and supporting materials (which must include all
substantive submissions to the Supporting Organization relating to the
proposal) that:

(i) documents the extent of agreement and disagreement among impacted
groups, 
AND
(ii) documents the outreach process used to seek to achieve adequate
representation of the views of groups that are likely to be impacted, 
AND
(iii) documents the nature and intensity of reasoned support and opposition
to the proposed policy.


So in summary I think the report should clearly separate:
- general recommendations
- new consensus policy
- issues for further work

As Thomas suggests below, the task force should carefully consider which
elements of the report fit in the categories above.  I recommend where in
doubt, to put the topic in the issues for further work.  It is better to
make progress by iteration than wait until we solve all problems.

I hope that by the end of November 2002, we can identify a component of the
interim report that can form a new consensus policy (which may even only be
one sentence long, but at least we make some progress).

The other element of general advice is to carefully draft the words of a new
consensus policy that avoids being overly detailed on implementation (e.g a
policy might state that a sanctions program based on fines of the order of
$1000 be introduced, which would allow flexibility in implementation to set
a fine at e.g $800 or $2000, but not $10,000 or $10).

Once the elements to include in consensus policy are identified, it might be
worth getting some external advice (e.g from ICANN General Counsel or
others) to fine tune the wording of the final consensus policy component.

I would like to thank all the members of both the Transfers and WHOIS task
forces, as the interim reports have thoroughly considered most of the main
issues of WHOIS and TRANSFERs.  The reports have been an excellent basis for
the discussions over the recent weeks, and I hope that these discussions can
be usefully used to identify which elements of the reports have "consensus"
support, and which elements do not.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin
Chair
Names Council

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Roessler [mailto:roessler@does-not-exist.org]
> Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 11:27 PM
> To: nc-whois@dnso.org
> Subject: [nc-whois] editorial question
> 
> 
> Thinking about our work plan, I have a question: Do we really have 
> to produce a comprehensive all-4-issues-report until the week of 
> November 24?
> 
> An alternative I could think of would be to limit the "official"  
> November 24 report to the "low-hanging fruits" - this should allow  
> us to streamline our work on that report very much, and to reduce  
> its volume.
> 
> Under the assumption (!) that only the low-hanging fruits require a  
> Names Council vote in Amsterdam, we could then slightly later  
> produce a second report on the remaining issues (as far as we have  
> material on them) which would mainly try to give a systematic  
> overview of the possible policy options we have encountered, and of  
> the comments and inputs received during our conference calls and  
> through the comment period.
> 
> -- 
> Thomas Roessler                        <roessler@does-not-exist.org>
>