Minutes of WHOIS  TF  Call – March 20, 2002

Participants:
Marilyn Cade, co chair/BC
Laurence Djolakian, IPC
Karen Elizaga, Registry
Bret Fausett, BC
Philip Grabensee, Registrar
Kristy McKee, GA
Steve Metalitz, IPC
YJ Park, non comm
Oscar Robles, ccTLD
Thomas Roessler, GA
Ken Stubbs, Registrar
Abel Wisman, GA

Regrets from Tony Harris, who was unavailable and from Glen. Marie Juliano will take summary minutes for the TF.  Note from Marie:  if you joined late, your name may not be on the roster. Please respond to Glen and Marilyn if additional names should be added to the minutes. thank you. 

Co-Chair welcomed the TF members and gave Tony’s regrets for an unchangeable conflict.   

Agenda Topics:
Report from Accra
Status of Preliminary Report
Proposed Next steps from Editorial Team
Feedback on outreach Discussion
Planning for Final Report development

Report from Accra:

Marilyn opened the session by asking for a report from Ghana from some who attended [Laurence, Philip, Bret, Karen, YJ, Ken, and Marilyn, Antonio] and asked Laurence to provide the lead off comments: 

Laurence:  
Meeting of the Task force took place as scheduled on Sunday; the team developed the final version of the presentation, which  Tony and Marilyn presented. Very useful to have the team meeting face to face; valuable to working of TF to work out similar opportunities.   The presentation didn’t rely on the draft report which was available, but provide an overview and summary of key aspects: 

Initial findings/Issues overviewed in presentation: 
Importance of data accuracy
Questions of responses about bulk access, resale, and marketing
How to go on with the process
How to organize work

Laurence noted that although the goal had been to read more than 300 submissions; because of the way the team is reviewing, it appears that the TF has already reviewed as many as 1000 submissions. 

Steve Metalitz: what is the status of the report; link has been posted via Thomas/Abel. Is the document final/should we distribute?

Cochair: the document is final/stable. Please distribute. Document will not be edited further.  Is available via TF site via Thomas’s link. Will talk to ICANN staff about how to take input/comments. Report back at next call.
Follow up:  Where can the comments go?  Glen and Marilyn following up.

Kristy – will send email to Marilyn describing best approach  [Kristy and Marilyn will follow up].

CoChair: We all want to thank the  “Editorial Team:  Thomas, Abel, Kristy”; their contributions made the preliminary report possible. Tony and Marilyn have asked them to make a proposal on how to proceed on process which treats the 3000+ like the 300.  

Comments from the “Editorial team” on next working steps:   

Thomas:  Abel has done some number crunching on the 3000 and may be able to post later. Brief discussion of various questions followed. Marilyn:  The work of the GA team has given additional tools in how to manage the analysis.   Need for the ICANN staff for reformatting.  We must reach agreements on baskets.

Steve M:  Are we developing  baskets for all of the free formats or would we include the ones where there are a very small percentage of responses.

Thomas:  no preference on our part.  Suggest TF should focus on priorities/where are clear. 

Kristy:  These low ones may be interesting, but we should do high ones first.[meaning the responses with significant numbers of returns with narratives].

Marilyn:  Question 20 - totally free form. In Q20 do any of you have a sense of how many free forms there were? --recommend that we make Q20 a priority. Prefer is possible to map to other questions to see if the responses validate other questions. May  not be “a fit”; need to  hear from the team, particularly Abel on that question. 

Consensus of group: generally support that statement. Look to Editorial team for “
baskets”. 

Abel: Will send a proposed set of baskets to the list and people can comment on it and try to reach agreement on line for Q20 (have discussed all other questions). [Work in progress and will try to have done by next call so can discuss.]. 

Summary:  Get baskets agreed to--Get right format--Editorial team - have a fast track and a couple of weeks for next stage of analysis. Then have next call. 

TF seemed to agree.

Next Topic: Review of conversations with ICANN board/staff, several GAC members re WHOIS/privacy, etc. 

Summary: The survey is not sufficient as outreach to provide a broad enough understanding about what is on people's minds on WHOIS, particularly “currently”.  Privacy is an issue of discussion, interest, and concern in the GAC; however, within the GAC members, there are different questions.  Particularly in the GAC, there were several people who raised issues about the accuracy of data in the WHOIS, as well as questions about respect for national law related to privacy.  

There are other concerns on the minds of the community that were not addressed by the survey who contacted Marilyn after the GA meeting in Accra to ask several questions about what the TF was doing next.  ICANN staff also suggested that there were other questions not fully addressed by the Preliminary report in terms of what different responses might mean, given the limitations of the survey data.  

Several suggestions for further outreach [described as “listening sessions by Marilyn ] were received. Marilyn noted the following groups that were suggested:    ICANN staff; law enforcement, ccTLDs, GAC, EC re data privacy directives, further dialogue with the broad set of respondents, such as ISPs.  Two comments noted that DNS WHOIS is not the only WHOIS database {referencing RIRs} and asked whether the survey covered that data. [Answer: wasn’t intended to].   

One or two constituency representatives objected to these listening sessions  -- Registrar and Registry.  Ken:  has a concern - there are a log of issues that are very germane.  Don't want to create a process with the ccTLDs because of the fact there is nothing that obligates to adhere to another set of standards or guidelines.  Don't want to slow the process.

Marilyn:  Our questionnaire addressed the ccTLDs.  Understand completely the points that you were making. National law governs the privacy restriction related to the ccTLDs.

Steve:  There are a lot of areas addressed by the survey;  not sure how much more can we get from these listening sessions.  Laurence:  don't want to delay the process.  But, we should have a dialogue with ccTLDs.  

Marilyn:  reason for the listening sessions:  survey is one part of our work trying to educate ourselves.  Listening sessions validate what we learn to also guidance.  The listening sessions are about hearing what are on people's minds.  It would educate us.  It is not going to change the findings.  Present findings and listening to them - part of our requirements as a Task Force to outreach and document.

Karen:  The listening sessions and outreach should be a second step after analyzing data from the survey.  Listening sessions will slow the process.

Kristy:  more comfortable having the date prior to the conversation.  Have an outline of something to talk about and see who the special interest groups are.

Thomas:  first thing is to get the baskets.  First do the questionnaire and then have listening sessions.  Get much of the work done before scheduling other dialogue with ICANN staff.  

Marilyn:  focus on trying to get analysis done and moving ahead on report.  We continue our reading and move forward quickly and get to the next stage of preliminary findings and recommendations.  Decide on an outline of what we would talk about and what we would do and reach agreement and then also agree on scheduling for the "outreach sessions".  But we would be concluding majority of the work then getting ready for listening session - presenting report.  We will probably have a scheduled opportunity with the GAC in Bucharest. Plan ahead as a Task force - have a presentation and take questions.  Plan as a robust experience.

Steve agreed, but wanted to focus on “better process”.  

Co-chair: Getting to Final Report Development Stage:    Preliminary report - at present is frozen.  Make our priority the conclusion of the 3000 narrative analysis, as described by “editorial team”; then continue development of preliminary findings and continue to validate - begin preparation of final report.   

Reach agreement on a process; Put timelines together. 
If you have an opinion/idea of how to develop process, email – not enough to just talk about need for better process. Put concrete suggestion out/use email to TF. 

Additional Reminder:  Finalizing and documenting the mission and activities of the TF:
Some of TF members have challenged the TOR and the co-chairs definition of the scope of work, and indicated they prefer/understood a different and very narrow focus of TF.  Co-chairs have reminded the TF to send them the emails and documents which they believe are the basis of the ToR so that a validated drafting can be done by the co-chairs. TO DATE NO EMAILS HAVE BEEN SENT TO TONY OR MARILYN WITH ANY ADDITIONAL MATERIALS. THIS IS LAST CALL FOR THE SUBMISSIONS BY THE TF MEMBERS ON THIS TOPIC. 

Editorial team undertaking work as described earlier in discussion.  Marilyn to get the data redelivered in better format from ICANN staff to Thomas, Kristy, Abel.

Next Meeting: Presently – NC has 9:00 a.m. EST on a weekly basis, due to restructuring work of NC. Suggest bi-weekly calls for WHOIS. Suggest have a call for the end of next week (Thursday or Friday). Two weeks later have another call.  [Update to Minutes: Thomas cannot  make Friday’s, so the meetings will be scheduled from Monday through Thursday when possible.]

Marilyn:  To full TF:  Start thinking about the mechanisms of being in Romania to help to present final report.

For both Tony and Marilyn:  Special thanks again to our editorial team, and to those who helped to draft the presentation for Accra. Reminder presentation is on the WHOIS archive site.

Call adjourned.