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Dr. Tamar Frankel: We will start. We're going to start with the reports of Groups D, E, and F. And repeat more or less the process that we have taken yesterday, then we'll have some concluding remarks by myself and by our participants from other countries, so we have a sense of where this meeting goes and how it hopefully brings together people from other countries, all members of the Internet communities. So let us start by the reporting.
Working Group Reports: Group D, Implementation
Mr. Weitzel: Good afternoon. My name is Dave Weitzel, I'm from Mitretek Systems. We're a systems engineering non-profit chartered in the public interest. We live where technology changes, that's why we're here today. Other than that we're not particularly a stakeholder. So I got the dubious honor of being able to point my finger at folks while we tried to figure out what we're doing in Section D discussing implementation.
My personal observation is that there are a lot of people that aren't there. If I could take a minute of Chair's privilege. There are a lot of folks that aren't here, there are a lot of folks that haven't bought in. We have no delusion or illusion that we're at the end of anything. I think that we're at the beginning of a beginning. It's good to see, we're going to be here, we're going to be around at various stubborn points. This is a process, this is not a product and so as the process moves forward it needs -- progress was made here, progress will continue on the web, progress will continue as the IFPW works it's way around the world bringing buy in. I'd like to see big stakeholders come in and do what they need to do because this isn't just a little game, there is big issues that need to be worked through and I think we've had a good beginning. That's enough from my soap box. Now I become nothing more than a reporter.
We began by taking the page on implementation from Professor Frankel's comments and questions and we then took the next step of asking people to blue sky on other items that they wanted to discuss. If I could ask for our scribe to help point to the items we agreed to add to the discussion. I'm going to move to the side. Okay. Folks, in this middle small board these items were added. So for those of you that have Professor Frankel's original paper, we did put those on the board, that was our starting point. We then added asking folks to add items that they believed needed to be covered, that included legal format, the site of jurisdictions, who the organizers and the incorporators were going to be of the interim Board. That we needed to consider coming up with a statement of consensus and commitment from the group. That we needed to do the process which discussed the process, which included binding roles. That we needed to identify the responsibilities and scope of the interim Board. There was a call that there may be a proposed slate of the interim Board as part of the preparation of those items, there was a comment to a call that there needs to be further meetings as move on here, beyond those currently identified. And certainly before whatever is called an interim Board comes into existence. Then there, it was brought up to have eligibility to vote in a voting method as a point of discussion, to discuss articles and by-laws and then a mechanism for a continuation and the decision process. If I can move back to it.
After those two items then we had Professor Frankel's original page. We added these items. There was some discussion and then I would say a consensus emerged that these weren't in conflict but they were complimentary and we should have discussions along those areas.
If I could comment quickly and as I believe things were identified as we moved through that list. For those that are interested or made those recommendations, if they want to make comments, I think we should allow them, if I'm making mistakes on what was said. On (A) I have no special addition. On (B) the site of jurisdiction, the Board must have a jurisdiction before we determine it's illegal Board. There was some question in California, a couple of other places were discussed. I think that remains open and much farther down into the details then we were prepared to discuss today. Who would be the incorporators, who would be the organizers and I believe the point here is what matters is what is brought into the process for this interim Board to oversee.
On the statement of consensus, I would like to concentrate for a minute on the process. I think we spent a lot of time moving between legal formats and details and the general broad process. And there was a great concern about what the process should be to select the people who become the interim Board, to select the people who write the by laws, and who legitimizes corporation. This question includes what form the IFWP process should be binding on the interim Board. I think there was great concern about an interim Board be called and then declaring itself and moving forward with its own by-laws and not having, feeling bound by anything that has already begun.
There was an item raised as we discussed with propose slate that we move immediately to a nominations process, that names be put forward, potentially five names from this meeting to be joined from five names the Geneva names, and addition from an Asia meeting. There was quickly not consensus on that because we weren't ready to move there. But I would say that there was consensus that we weren't ready for that. We didn't identify when that process should move forward.
Now I would like to identify the consensus points that were reached in the morning process. We believe that we had consensus with that there will be an interim Board. Some of this stuff folks might sound obvious, but it's important to get it on the record so that we know what we've agreed to so that as the baton gets passed to those that will move forward, they know at least what the feeling of that, of Group D was on this morning and this afternoon in Washington and as we move forward. So there was a consensus that there will be an interim Board.
Secondly, in the morning session there was consensus that the power will be limited. There was consensus that the interim Board does not select the final Board. I would say that this was strongly informed by an afternoon process, so if you could bare with me for a minute. There was a consensus that the interim Board defines the process by which the process the final Board is selected. I think there was a strong view that this be process driven and I would like to reiterate that. There was a strong consensus that the interim Board will not insert net GTLD's into the route and that part of this is the job of the interim Board is to recommend to the membership the process by which the final Board is selected, unless we are able to supply the specifics of the process. And then there was a discussion of who we were, wwha validity did we have, and what did we mean there. And I think this was an important point through the whole day on who we are and who we, we are a self-selected group at this point. We are not all of the entities, again, all of the stakeholders have not weighed in.
There are many folks that have not raised their voice today that still need to raise their voice. Whether that be folks that are Internet users, public interest orientations, on folks that need to get their voice out there. There was a lot of discussion then moving into the afternoon, let me review what process we went through then. In the afternoon we had a quick summary of the morning sessions, and then we moved on as had been successful in Section B yesterday. We had those that wanted to speak, were allowed to get up and give a three to five minute statement and then we asked clarifying questions. We had 12 folks that talked. A lot of these discussed strawman proposals on how an interim Board should be constructed. This included specific numbers, whether there should be certain councils that come into existence. What the relationship should be between councils and potentially an oversight Board. How to create a private self-regulating organization. That what the scope of charter should be and how broad the council should be.
There was proposals on what should be the structure of the non-profit. Lessons learned from folks that have experience in creating corporations and trying to make them survive and how to make that happen. There was statements that we should let some trusted legal folks take care of drafting issues. Many of us are engineers and folks that deal with technology and there are things that are better left to those that understand the term of arts and the meanings and the implications of these various types of entities. So I personally view that we got quickly towards in over our head as we tried to move down some of that stuff and my, again, my personal call, those who do have skills in these areas, it would be wonderful if they self-identify. I'm sure Professor Frankel would be happy to hear from. I know that folks that are interested in that and have those skills are going to be important in this process. And I just, and we don't mean those that have a dog in this fight hurry up and get together and cut a deal in a back room. That means folks that are willing to participate in an open, an open process of the legal experts to make sure that documents get drafted and organizations come into existence that are valid.
There was a proposal talking about what guidance we should take from the green paper and the white paper. I know that there was concern in Section B yesterday on some of this. What is the current status and how, what status it should have with this process as it continues to move forward.
Our friends from Canada were strong participants in this, in this activity in Section D, wow, we have friends. (editor: a bird trapped in the meeting room flies across the podium) I don't think it's a dove descending from heaven anybody. Yes, right. Now, if we could, back to the item, there are folks that have created entities that do these kinds of activities in technology, in trust. We have people that have expertise, they should continue to come forward and help as much as they can in these processes. We're not strictly at ground zero on any of this and so we should take those lessons learned and move forward. There was a call, a proposal that because we're talking about the Internet, the world wide web that there is a strong place on the web that this discussion should continue. We shouldn't walk away and just wait for somebody else to tell us where to show up and that where to show up includes your computer when you get home, or your computer if you're online here even as we speak.
There was then a proposal that talked about the three councils that had been mentioned in earlier proposals and the importance of making sure that the public interest was represented, that this not become an insiders club, that those folks that some of them who have yet to find out that they're important stakeholders here and aren't necessarily empowered stakeholders need to have a continuing place in this process. I think there was strong sensitivity in that area that, again, because we self-identify we need to make sure that those that are unlikely to be able to participate in this process continue to have a voice or we'll have to explain why not.
And then there was some discussion on the specific of incorporation bodies. That took up a better part of the afternoon. We then moved to what were our consensus items after those discussions. There was several minutes of general discussions and folks had some points. We then decided time was of the essence and so we moved to see if we had consensus on certain points from those proposal and that were brought forward. There was consensus that we need to have some experts in non-profit law. This is something I had mentioned generally, but there was specific consensus, we need to have some experts in non-profit law prepare comments for the next meeting in Geneva. As I understood non-profit, we're not experts in the law, we don't mean that as a term of heart, it's the general non-profit kind of entity. So whatever those things are and whatever the risks are of those various structures, those that understand that need to please self-identify and help us understand.
There was a consensus that we need to continue the discussion of perspective membership and with regard to the composition of who that membership is, what areas that they represent and to make sure important and valid segments are represented. There was a consensus that we must make progress on defining the incorporators. We need to move forward. There are clocks that are ticking, we need to show this as a valid activity. There was a consensus that working out the role of the three operator communities who would be likely constituents of the councils, we saw that there should be organized a number, the organized number in protocol communities exist and have formal processes in legitimacy, they should be included in this and invited into creation of these, of what entities come out of this process. Some felt that these councils are natural constituents of the Board.
I do want to mention that we did have, as we moved through this consensus process we did take close notes. In addition to consensus points there were points noted for those in opposition. I want to make an observation from somebody that has worked in the standards area, sometimes those points noted after consensus as we continue to get smarter end up being your future consensus. So I think we do need to continue to get smart in those areas and let's remember to include all voices. We might find out that those obscure voices and that obscure point noted early on is the thing we find down the road that we do end up agreeing on and it is the most important item that we brought forward. I stand ready for any questions for those that were, and with the assistance of those that helped document Section D. If there is not any questions.
A general observation that we know the clocks are ticking and that we better show that we're moving forward on something through the September, through the September 30th. I think what's going on in the web between now and Geneva and what's going to go on in Geneva are critical to that process as we move forward and then into the Asian/Pacific region. I think people are very, took Mr. Magaziner's comments very seriously yesterday.
Mr. Auerbach: I would point out though that the point was made and I don't know if it was consensus or not, that a number of people think we should specify a final meeting with the stamp on it that says final meeting, far enough in advance that everybody can be there, hopefully central enough that everybody can be there, where we can lay these all out on the table and either codify them or shake our heads that we couldn't reach consensus and go home. But there should be a finish line regardless of when it is and try to hit it.
Mr. Auerbach: In terms of the self-identification of the legal community to get to some of these very detailed issues, I've been talking to a number of people and use me as the focal point, this Carl Auerbach speaking and I'm trying to be sort of the worker bee and (indiscernible) of the people actually know the details. So consider me the contact point on that.
Mr. Weitzel: If you could identify yourselves when you do come to the mic.
Mr. Feld: Harold Feld, Domain Name Rights Coalition. First I want to put out it is no reflection on you that the first, that after Kathy, the next people who were coming up were all in the same group but because I want to say that I believe you reported fair and accurately, but there is one point that I do want to mention that was a point of considerable contention that was informed in the afternoon and became clear when some of the proposals that were put forth were diametrically opposed on how the interim Board and final Board should be structure in that there is still great tension between the role that the Board is going to take in doing things like drafting the articles of incorporation, drafting the by-laws. And the question of whether, the important thing is the process of selecting the Board and then letting them do more in terms of shaping the by-laws in the corporation or whether you shape the by-laws and the corporation first and the move forward with selecting the Board is still very much alive and needs to be resolved.
Mr. Bluestein: Also, I want to commend you for doing a good job of reporting. Barry Bluestein, Lapis Group Consulting. One point that should be made is that references were made to what the membership order wouldn't do or when it might not do something. By the end of the meeting there was still considerable doubts in some people's mind as to whether or not there should be membership of any sort whatsoever or whether it should be more or less a Fiat organization. I heard people voicing doubts about . . . I heard people voicing doubts about - - I'm sorry.
Male Speaker: If you want to respond to that because I think we have something right up there that says we're a membership organization.
Mr. Weitzel: Other questions on the contentious points that were raised through day? Okay. I'd like to commit that I'm going to do my best work forward on documenting what happened today. I know we had able assistance, I'd like our official scribe and transcribers to identify themselves if possible. Yes, we're (indiscernible) in Section D, so.
Ms. Craig: I appear to be Jean Craig, (indiscernible) for the association. One other point that was brought up and it was not noted on here and that was a very attractive suggestion raised by (indiscernible) first it said we should be aware of how we're going to fund this, that members are going to have member fees and so forth.
Mr. Weitzel: For the record because I believe this is being taped, there was a discussion that in the end money needs to flow people need to travel businesses need to be formed, that costs money, let's not lose site of it.
Mr. Simon: Thank you for your great work today and I'm Craig Simon, University of Miami, School of International Studies and I look forward to carrying through with you folks on these lists in the next few weeks and months. Thanks.
Mr. Weitzel: Okay. To wrap up if there is not another point. Again, my name is Dave Weitzel, my internet address is dweitzel@mitretek.org. For those that weren't satisfied, for those that think this is a, that there is some game going on, that this, if you have concerns that this process, these activities are not open, are not fair and due process is not occurring, please let me know and I'll do my best to make sure that those who need to hear your concerns get your concerns vented.
Mr. Rony: Dave, I'm glad you brought that up. My name is Peter Rony, I'm representing myself. I have no doubt that what I've seen here is open, public, and everybody is allowed to have a chance to speak. But I have heard a rumor and this is a good time to ask that really there is a hidden track that apparently, let me see how I can word this, there is already somewhere a proposal. It's been, it's had limited distributions, it's a proposal for an interim board including membership and draft by-laws. And this is only a rumor, I have not necessarily verified it, I don't know anything about it. But it seems to be something that is lurking behind the scenes and must say I'm very unhappy about that.
Mr. Weitzel: You know, I'm not in a position to confer, I don't know all the people. What I do think is that this possibility which circumvents all the hard work we've been doing for two days should at least be brought up in the open and we should be aware that something like this may exist and we should seek the details of it. Sorry for opening a can of worms but I think this is important.
MALE SPEAKER: I don't see, I'm out of my element on that regarding rumors. My recommendation is if people have proposals show up on the net, show up in Geneva, work with the process. I know, all I saw was yesterday morning, obviously Mr. Magaziner returns the Professor's call, so legitimacy will come from this process or it will fail. And if there are secrets that needed to be vented in secret in groups, bring it on and get your recommendations out in the open. If there is a fix in please go identify it for those of you that know how that are in that business.
Mr. Rony: I don't know how to identify but the optimistic comment I heard is that we have made sufficient progress and have sufficient momentum going as a result of this meeting that what we are doing will maybe head off this other track. And I hope that indeed is the case.
MALE SPEAKER: Speaking of that I also know of no particular specific proposals. However, I would think that it would help our discussions if people did come up with fairly concrete documents that we could review and look at and possibly throw away.
Mr. Cook: Gordon Cook of the Cook Report on Internet. I want to state very specifically I have nothing to do with that rumor whatsoever but I have, I have an idea of what it refers to and I think most of us are aware of John Postel's Internet transition, IANA Transition Advisory Group. And I have heard a number of people who believe that they have draft statutes, et cetera, et cetera, other than just state that, that I believe there is some substance to that. I don't want to evaluate it or judge it in anyway whatsoever, but I hope if they are doing something on their own it will be made public the sooner the better.
Mr Weitzel: I have no comment besides saying is if the fix is in then stop wasting these people's time.
Working Group Reports: Group E, Trademarks and Domain Names
Ms. Cabell: My name is Diane Cabell, I'm an attorney with Fausett, Gaeta and Lund in Boston. And I am presenting the consensus of the trademark domain name group. And we did this in two minutes flat and we spent the rest of the time arguing soccer. We recommend that this new company which we are calling NEWCO should gather and provide information regarding, in particular cyber-squatting or piracy and trademark disputes in that area in particular. We think that NEWCO should recognize that individuals and organizations exist that have concurrent valid rights in names that are not covered by trademark. NEWCO should encourage the development of various rapid alternative dispute mechanisms. I can't read anymore. NEWCO should not, does not have the role of resolving trademark domain name disputes. We support the creation under this new entity of a name council and we recommend that as soon as possible additional discussion should be focused solely on the formation of that particular council in addition to all the other activities going on. We think this council should handle trademark domain interactions. We think they should set a minimum requirement for data registration for names and contact points, what records should be available to the public. We think they should investigate privacy issues. We think that the issue needs to be addressed by this council on how liability for the decisions the new entity makes in the trademark area will be handled, how will they be protected. We think the names council should be making recommendations to the entity regarding dispute policy.
We also spent time discussing the council that the entity should use to come to these recommendations. And Jason Hendeles will tell you what we decided about that. And I also would like to thank Mr. Battista who was our moderator, our facilitator, and took it like a man.
Mr. Hendeles: I guess in the morning we went through a whole mix of issues and a lot of them were intellectual property related. I'm sorry, my name is Jason Hendeles. After some mulling through and some consensus and some not consensus, we sort of went back to the white paper and try to use that as a premise or a foundation to move forward. At which point there was agreement that we could develop a process for NEWCO to move through to consolidate the right information that it needed and to start to meet that deadline in September. The first step of that process as we initially, was already begun was to build a natural names council. There were three councils altogether. We focused on the names council but we also agreed that there should be a numbers councils and a protocol IP council. At that time once we have defined the responsibilities of the specific councils involved, those councils would break off and focus on defining the specific terms, issues, variables, et cetera as they relate to each particular group. Once that had occurred the next step was that those particular councils would go out to the community and consolidate that information and begin to mull through it.
Once the gathering process had come into effect each of the particular councils would begin to prioritize which of those issues were being dealt with, the sequence of dealing with them, and begin to assess the information and organize it. Once that process of organizing information had been put together and prioritized and defined properly, there was enough meat with which to make recommendations to the Board. Once those recommendations had been put forward we felt that the Board would be in a position to either ratifying or approve of some of those recommendations, or shunt them back to the beginning or middle of this process through which those issues that were problematic or unresolvable would begin again to move through the various steps of consolidating and then refining.
So that was pretty much the key focus for the afternoon. I guess I'll open it up to some questions.
Ms. Hubbard: Hi, I wondering on the protocol/IP council, do you mean by Internet protocol or intellectual property?
Mr. Hendeles: Internet protocol.
Ms. Hubbard: Okay. So then what's the number council, what's the difference between those two?
Mr. Hendeles: We never actually got that.
Ms. Hubbard: The same thing as an IP council, I guess.
Mr. Hendeles: (indiscernible).
Ms. Hubbard: Yes, it should just be protocol council, not just protocols.
Mr. Hendeles: Well the gist, hold on, the gist of the argument of the argument was that these three groups, the other two not being fully defining, those are arbitrary names at this point would break up the remaining issues, some problematic, some not, and deal with them on a focused or isolated basis.
Ms. Hubbard: Okay. Thanks.
Mr. Hendeles: So I could change this to protocol council.
Mr. Reno: Patrick Reno from NameSecure. I'd just like to clarify a point that we made up on the board which is item number three if I can see that regarding the various rapid alternative dispute mechanisms. What we meant by various is that these mechanisms could come from differing organizations, so we would have a number of solutions to choose from for these processes. Thank you.
Mr. Feld: Hi, Harold Feld, Domain Name Rights Coalition. Just a point of clarification, there was no decision as to how this name council would -- was there a decision to have this name council would actually be appointed or was this just defining how it would function within the NEWCO?
Mr Hendeles: Well, my group will correct me if I'm wrong. We had decided that it was not our function but the other groups responsibility. The one that was specifically doing the actual organization structure to define those particular players and party. We did though go back to the white paper and obviously we want global representation.
MALE SPEAKER: If I might add, in this group we also came to, you know, as soon as we started talking about the composition of the names council there was disagreement so that's one of the reason there is a proposal to continue with separate sessions or maybe an entire conference specifically on setting up the names council.
Mr Hendeles: Yes, step one is to really define the responsibilities and it should also say who is in them but, again, we deferred that responsibility.
MALE SPEAKER: With respect to the ADR mechanism, is intention that people who get domain names or address allocations would sign some sort of contractual relationship to cause them to be subject to this or is this voluntary or what?
Mr. Hendeles: No, the key word here is all recommendations, okay. There was no actual, we didn't formulate, the goal at this point was really just to define a process that we could get to the point of developing actual policies and procedures and recommendations which this group is not responsible for, but the Board, whoever they should be as a fair representation of the community would make those decisions.
Mr. Weitzner: Danny Weitzner, Center for Democracy and Technology. I want to just bring to this discussion that the sense of both yesterday's Group B which was the Board and today's Group, I don't know, I guess, it's no longer F, it was D, the one that David reported on, that the working notion of the councils that we discussed were as very open more or less bottoms up entities. In other words if you show up to the council you're a member. And I'd just be curious, now I don't want to represent that as the consensus of our group, but I think that's where the bulk of the discussion was and that's where consensus was heading. Does that fit with your discussion of what a names council would be, because we took the model of more or less an ITF model and brought it without finalizing to the names council as well?
Mr. Hendeles: I do not believe that we came up with an actual model or number or structure. Keep in mind that by the afternoon session we had decided to go back to the white paper and build from there. And part of the recommendations in that paper was to create different councils. We weren't the group that was going to define who was to be in that council. All we did was define it should be global representation, that's it.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Comment to Karl on the ADR mechanisms. What we were rejecting was the white paper reference to having WIPO exclusively do this. We weren't comfortable with that and so we were saying there should be alternatives, WIPO's one.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I'm just going to take the chronological order in which you have seem to have come to your final discussion on councils. I wonder if your final discussion on councils will affect your number one point. Because I'm wondering if you have a council why do you need the NEWCO gathering and providing information regarding cyber piracy, why can't the council be doing that?
Mr. Hendeles: They are, this was just a consensus that led into the follow-up process.
Male Speaker: I think the implication of what she says is correct, that we discussed point one before we had carved out the more detailed role for the councils. And that if we had gone back and made it a little more consistent, number one, we would probably read name council, should gather and provide information about cyber piracy, but to be an accurate record of what we actually consented upon, that's what it was.
Mr. Hendeles: This is more, this beginning part was more what was decided in the morning, and then further went through, so maybe there should be some editing there.
Mr. Mueller: I just have one minor point. On point two my records indicate that I have, it says have rights and domain names that are not based on trademarks and I see you have up there just names and I wondered if there was any objection to making that more specific?
Mr. Hendeles: We actually purposely made it not specific. I'm not sure whether our group is willing to make that specific or not. I think names satisfied everybody, but I don't know, is that, I think that's fair.
Working Group Reports: Group F, Privacy and Security
Mr. Weitzner: Good afternoon, I'm Danny Weitzner with the Center for Democracy and Technology and I'm reporting on the privacy and security discussion. We didn't fill out a blackboard because we went and met in a private room so we could fit the blackboard. But I would say that we first of all tried to separate a little bit the discussion of privacy issues which are principally consumer rights issues from the discussion of security issues which have broader implication. And as a general matter we did agree that the Board of the entity should have the authority to issue guidelines on privacy and security matters. And we broke those matters really into three categories, consumer privacy issues, Government and law enforcement access issues, and security issues, which are really technical security issues.
On the consumer privacy side we had two pretty solid consensus points. The first was that all entities under the jurisdiction of this body and we discussed registries, registrars, resellers, others who might appear and be under the aauthority of this board should comply with the 1980 OECD privacy guidelines. These are very broadly accepted privacy principles that were negotiated by a number of people and a rather painful process. Some people think they don't go quite far enough, some people think they go too far, but they do form I think what is the closest thing to any kind of international baseline on privacy.
And for those of you who are not familiar with them, they are really a statement of fair information practices. That is terms and conditions under which information, personally identifiable information ought to be handled and they include requirements such as providing notice about how information will be used and what information will be collected. Gaining consent where appropriate for secondary unrelated use of information. Restriction son unnecessary collection of information and restrictions on unnecessary retention of information beyond it's useful life or it's original purpose, there are other principles as well which we could discuss. But the general sense was that these guidelines ought to be the baseline by which all entities in this arena operate.
The second consumer privacy point that we noted was that all entities ought to be aware of the risk of the invasion of personal privacy posed by the possibility, the capability in some cases of analysis of DNS look-up data, whether at route service or at other points in the DNS system. I think there is, this is probably something that is covered if an entity were to comply full with the OECD guidelines, but it was a point of special concern that we thought was worth raising.
On the question of law enforcement access and Government access to personal information held by entities in the system in general, we came to a consensus point the disclosure of personally identifiable information should only be made in compliance the appropriate legal process of the jurisdiction the entity operates in. We've punted altogether on the question of how one determines what jurisdiction on is operating in. But the concern expressed really was related to circumstances in which entities in the online world today have in some cases disclosed information to law enforcements, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally without any lawful process. What the lawful process is will certainly vary from country-to-country, in some cases maybe even from state-to- state. But the concern was that there should be lawful process, that there should not be disclosure as with the sort of notorious AOL case recently where a law enforcement officer calls up and says, can you please tell me about so and so and the service provider discloses the information.
On the question of technical security we had three points. First of all, there was certainly strong consensus that route zone data should be appropriately authenticated and also the TLD records should be appropriately authenticated with generally accepted security protocols.
We discussed DNSsec quite a bit and there was a fair amount of agreement that this was the appropriate means to provide this sort of authentication. Although there was some significant dissent from and questions raised about DNSsec. So I think that we won't include DNSsec per se as part of our consensus point there.
We agreed that it's important to have secure procedures for portability of domain names from one registrar to another to address what might become a problem of slamming in this environment.
And finally, as a general point we do believe that the Board should set minimum security and accessibility guidelines for all components of this system as appropriate. So those are our consensus points. Questions, comments, silence. Chris.
Chris Ambler: Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are making decisions about domain name portability and slamming per se, aren't you presuming then, of course, that domain names are in fact portable, we haven't gotten that far?
Mr. Weitzner: I think that --
Mr. Ambler: Not that I don't think they should be, mind you.
Mr. Weitzner: I think that we were certainly, we did not get to the point of requiring portability, but we did, I think, recognize that it was at least possible and whether intentionally or not. So we thought it was important whatever the state of portability is to make sure that portability happens when the domain owner wants it and not under other circumstances.
Mr. Feld: Harold Feld, Domain Name Rights Coalition. Was there any discussion in all of this as to whether this was an area in which the new corporation should essentially legislate best standards or whether it was simply going to recommend voluntary guidelines and leave it to the individual registries or registrars as to whether they were going to follow these recommendations?
Mr. Weitzner: Well, to be frank we punted on that question. We did discuss quite a bit the implications of adopting in principle the OACD guidelines. The question was raised in the discussion whether that meant that the Board would have some sort of enforcement process to assess compliance with the guidelines, whether the Board would expect some sort of self-certification or enforcement process to go on through some other mechanism that might exist or other mechanisms that could exist around the world. I think that ultimately we were unclear enough about the general nature and powers of the Board that we did not feel that we could specify what kind of enforcement would go on. I think that we wanted to say that this was more than a suggestion, that it's more than a suggestion that entities comply with these basic fair information practices, but we did not get as far as to be able to articulate how that requirement ought to be enforced.
Mr. Feld: All right. Okay. I guess just one --
Mr. Weitzner: But it was heavily discussed.
Mr. Feld: Okay.
Mr. Weitzner: And I think it's clear that this is one of the items will have to be sorted out.
Mr. Reno: All right. Patrick Reno from NameSecure. Early you mentioned release of information to law enforcement and following the privacy guidelines that are generally agreed upon now. What I was curious about is if you discussed what is a minimum amount of information that should be made available to the public should they have a legitimate need to contact an entity that holds a domain name. Are you reversing the position that exists now where currently that information is available to anyone should they wish to provide correct information vs. NSI.
Mr. Weitzner: We did not intend to reverse the status quo, although I think that the status quo has to be looked at more carefully in light of the OACD guidelines and some additional protections, certainly some additional notice and procedures certainly could be required as a result of compliance with those guidelines.
What I would say is that particularly we tried to discuss what the likely architecture was between the route, the registries, the registrars and whether we're talking about a thin registry model or a model that looks more like what we have today where those functions are combined. And I think that we felt that it was not clear enough what the state of the world was going to be from a practical sense. So that we didn't feel, first of all, we felt the trademark group would have a fair amount to say on this subject and we wanted to defer to them and felt that the reference to the OECD guidelines would handle the privacy concerns that might be raised, but also recognize that the topology is still enough in flux that it was hard to provide a precise answer.
Laina Ravendran Greene: Just want to make a quick comment that is relevant to perhaps your group, but I also made that point in the other group in trademarks. While there might be a lot of legitimate questions and legitimate issues that people have, I don't think that people should necessarily feel that if they don't get that into the Board as part of it's charter by-laws that these issues are not going to get addressed. Some of these issues might be better off to things like codes of practices, more industry self-regulation things. Because if you're going to try and do it in ways that says they should do this and they should do that and put in the charter, you're basically kind of creating a quasi- judicial type authority which opens itself to litigation and it draws, et cetera, et cetera. You may not want to do that, there maybe other more relevant ways in which you can get your concerns addressed. So something just to keep in mind. You don't have to put all the eggs into one basket.
Mr. Weitzner: We discussed that question quite a bit and did come to the conclusion that privacy and security guidelines were an important baseline to be included as a minimum set of standards. I think especially on the enforcement question, we recognized that it was likely not going to be appropriate for this entity to handle that and that there would be other entities both in the private sector and governmental entities that would have enforcement functions in this space. But the clear sense among our group at least was that some minimum standards were important here. Thanks very much.
Closing Remarks: Summary by Dr Tamar Frankel
Dr. Frankel: First I have an announcement, we have a printed transcripts of yesterday's opening session and the end of the day working group reports and they're available outside at the registration desk so that you can pick a copy as you go out. A copy will also be placed at the IFWP web site. And transcripts from today's session will be available at the same web site early tomorrow morning. That is number one. I wish I could say thank you, but I didn't do it, it's done.
I would like to summarize the experience that we had during the last two days. We had planned the following steps, to meet, to focus, and to agree on whatever we decided we agree. Our process was for each of us select the topics that we want to select, that we want to address and for each group to select their own moderator. Our goal was to produce a rough consensus and guidelines to the future interim Board that will organize the corporation that will deal with domain names, addresses, and identifiers at the Internet. These guidelines are being built on Government's white paper. I believe that we have met our mission.
First we had a very broad base participation here from here and from abroad. We had more than 200 people here, not all of them both days, some of them have some pressing business couldn't be here. But nonetheless, there was a very broad participation. We also had people from abroad and after my concluding remarks I will ask them to come here and present the views and the feelings about, the views, the feeling about this meeting and what they're going to do when they go back home.
We also focused on our process and we had some very, very good and new ideas which we will pay attention to. And third, we came up with results that is being transcribed and distributed. So we have begun to build a rough consensus about some of the issues that we discussed.
There is one achievement which permeates I think all over what we have done the last two days. We are beginning to build a real trust and reliance on each other. With this trust many of our disagreements, I believe, misconceptions will disappear. We are not only an Internet, we're inter-dependent as well, and this is a beginning. We have additional meetings to build this consensus and give some real substance to it too, and we're looking forward to starting a new tradition which is quite exciting because it is so unique. I don't know that it exists anywhere else. So I'm asking now, mister, what I will do is read the names of our participants from abroad and then ask them to come up to the microphone. One is Mr. Jim Dixon of EuroISPA of England. Oh let me add, Mr. Michael Schneider of EuroISPA, couldn't be here, he was here during the two days but had to catch a plane and he wanted to tell you, first of all he is organizing the meeting in Geneva which will be a continuation of what is happening here and he was delighted with the results. So it has worked. Mr. Azuma Aizu of the Asia Network Research and he is Secretary General of the APIA. Mr. Pindar Wong of the APIA and VRIFI. And Ms. Lana Green of Asia Public Policy and Legal Forum. And finally Mr. Ricardo Sawon of Argentina, CABASE. So please come over and share with us your thoughts.
Closing Remarks: International Participants
Mr. Dixon: I'm Jim Dixon, I'm President of EURO-SO which is a federation of ISP trade associations in the European Union and I'm also on the infamous steering committee. I was personally quite pleased of the progress that's been made here today. The picture that is emerging that is emerging out of all of this, it's not quite clear it's still fuzzy, but it's emerging. We're confidant that over the next two or possibly three meetings it will become very clear indeed. We're quite pleased to be able to announce that the next meeting, the IFWP meeting in Europe will be at the same venue as ISOC in Geneva. It will be on the 24th and 25th, that is to say Friday and Saturday. This is a major contribution from ISOC financial community -- sorry, a major financial contribution, but it's also a coalescing of the people involved in this thing. The European event will try to meet the same standards of fairness and openness that we've seen here.
Everybody here is, of course, invited to European event which will be free to anybody who wants to participate, so thank you and we look forward to seeing some of you, at least, in Geneva.
Mr. Sawon: Good afternoon, I'm Ricardo Sawon, I'm coming from Argentina and I'm representing the CABASE, that's the Argentinean Association of Service Providers and the Content Development. Now I will talk like a Latin American and a Spanish speaking community person. This community is growing quicker then the main Internet growing and we have several specific needs that are indeed different then the rest of the Internet. They can focus them on the names and the trademarks that are quite different in South and Latin American than in the states for example. So
I think that there a lot of things to do about this on the new names council.
I think the first objective of this meeting was reached. We have built consensus on some basics. Of course we are gaining baby steps but are the most important baby steps, first baby steps. And we were successful on moving the ball straight forward. I think next meetings should contribute on consolidating this meetings consensus and especially development new consensus points, having in mind among other things the original stakeholders meetings. Thanks very much, see you on the Internet and maybe in Geneva.
Mr. Azumi: Good afternoon, I'm Azumi Aizu, yes, I started as a new Secretary General succeeding latter since this June for the APIA, Asia and Pacific Internet Association. First of all I would like to express our, you know, I really appreciate all the efforts of the organizers and the steering committee members including Barbara who is not here now and we know it's such a short timeframe, many conference calls and reporting what's happening during your preparation. It was very helpful for us to decide to come and try to contribute and learn. So we really appreciate that. And also I'm very much impressed with your efforts here for the two days to accommodate as much as possible the diverse opinions and positions and conflicting interests and stakes that we can learn also a lot for the common good for the Internet, for the whole community.
I think although I have stressed a lot about these differences of the cultures and the values perhaps on we have seen some difference perhaps of the methodologies that this kind of open say debate or discussion workshop may not necessarily work in Asian context, which we're trying to figure out how to follow-up or come up with some counter proposals or trying to compliment each other by inviting, organizing our meetings in Singapore. We are now please to be able to announce that at least four organization groups from Asia/Pacific, namely AP&G, Asia Pacific Networking Group, it's new membership, very fragile organizations which produce many other offsprings of the AP stars we call, so Asia Pacific Networking Group agreed to co-host that. APNET, one of the three industries, just last night they voted on e-mail and they decided to join us to co-organize. Also APIA which I represent, that's SG, Asia Pacific Internet Association is trying to represent business community of the Internet business industry in Asia and Pacific. But we felt although APIA tried to initiate, to organize the regional meeting, but we see that the stake or interest, much broader than the industry per se, so we try to accommodate all the co-host organizers. Of course we'll go under the IFWP umbrella, but we may also try to come up with maybe different touches and flavors perhaps from Asia which is I think will be also contributing to your thoughts. So we'll of course be going to Geneva, all day we are discussing on how to make some Asia Pacific discussion in Geneva as well to carry on all the work you have done so far. And I think it is a very good learning process, so you're the teacher, some may be very bad students to come up with more interesting stuff. Thank you very much.
Ms. Green: Well, as Azumi mentioned I'm with the Asia Pacific Policy Legal Group which is basically anybody who subscribes under the mailing list as a member of Apple and anybody who turns up for the meetings is a member of Apple. As Azumi mentioned, Apple has actually been involved in this whole discussion of Internet governance way back as early of 1996. And Apple basically, the whole objective of the creation of Apple was for the question of exchanging information, because a lot of things happen here in Washington, DC, but it's not the world and we sometimes don't get that information.
So we started off by trying to facilitate information flow and also look at it a neutral forum to bring together all the different parties. So it's like trying to go beyond people's baggage and history and sit down and talk. We're very much encouraged by what we see here through the IFWP process and I think people who walk out of this room, whether you walk out with disappointment or whether you walk out with, you know, real great, you say wow, it's a successful meeting has a lot of do with what your expectations were to start with. If you came here thinking you were going to have created this new entity, okay, you're going to be probably terribly disappointed. But if you came here recognizing that there is a process that needs to go through to the creation of that entity, then I think this has been very, very successful. We are very encouraged to see parties that have baggage, okay, sitting together in a room trying to be a part of this whole process to get dialogue, get, you know, to what's the creation of this new entity.
So from that point of view I'd like to stress that to me I would like to see the IFWP represent and process of inclusion. We don't have to necessarily say that IFWP is, has already succeeded at that, this has been a great start to the process. Question now is to start getting others to buy into the process by having the regional meetings that allows people who can't fly up to Washington, DC who may not, you know, have the kind of access that you all have to participate, so that way you increase global awareness, global participation. Two words you find in the white paper and we'd like to see that be more than just lip service, motherhood statements. Put it into process and hopefully we can have a voice in what's happening as well.
But I think one point I'd like to note is that while I recognize a lot of people may have pros and cons about the white paper, I am a little concerned when I see people trying to reinvent the white paper. Because if you're going to do that each regional meeting we'll never get anywhere. So to me to some extent the white paper is if used as a basis, perhaps as we create dialogue in that session and include everybody's views in the process, then we would probably see a coalescence to what maybe someone suggested a fourth meeting to then get down to getting the work done. So from that perspective I'm very encouraged in the Asia Pacific region that we have all the four groups working together and as Azumi said, we'd really like to invite all of you. I think he omitted to mention the dates which maybe Pindar can do when he comes up on stage. And we'd like to have you be part of this process online, off-line, physical, welcome to Singapore. Thank you.
Mr Wong: First an introduction. I'm Pindar Wong, I'm from Hong Kong. And I wear a number of hats in many of the regional organizations. And I would like to thank you for this opportunity to comment on observations over the last two days. I would want to reiterate as far as success, I think one of the greatest things that we could take away with us from this conferences is that it is the beginning of a process.
Now with respect to consensus and with respect to substance, you've heard very many and wide views over the last two days. Sitting in the audience here are distinguished members of the academic community, the legal community, the technical community. And Dr. Frankel mentioned at the very beginning to expect consensus from this very wide set of interest groups. She suggested that we look on areas where we could find common ground, and areas where we found differences.
Before I begin my observation I would like to ask the audience to trust me. Put another way more conversely, I would like to ask the audience not to trust me for your own different reasons. A few minutes ago Dr. Frankel mentioned I think one very important point which is this point of trust. Now my observation is that as far as consensus, at the end of the meeting we had failure rapid consensus over a number of points after a very wide and open discussion. But the consensus was not so much on the substance, but more in terms of the principles, those principles such as openness, fairness, accountability, legitimacy, we can all talk on these general terms and in some sense many of those consensus points do conform to these general principles. But why, and this is my observation.
My observation is that although we come from many different perspectives, this process which we have started is essentially a human process and as human beings we have our own set of cultures and own set of suspicions and what have you. And that's why at the beginning I asked the audience to say, well, I want you to trust me or you may want to take the other view which is I don't trust you.
There may be a default, but one way to dispel this issue of trying to build consensus is actually to try and build the trust. And I believe that this meeting where we can meet face-to-face, put faces to e-mail addresses can help to build this first issue which is trust. I believe that we have to address more of this issue of trust then first, and then work on consensus. Why, because my observation is that sometimes while there are good points to be made by virtue by who it came from, those points are automatically disregarded. Some of the groups at the very beginning of the meeting said, well, there is this white paper but let's just put it aside and as Lana put it reinvented the wheel.
Now in Asia we have a very wide set of cultures, languages, what have you. And something that we potentially may be able to offer and assist in this process is a way of trying to build consensus. And the way we do try to build consensus is getting to try to know the other party as human beings, not as your company, my company, not as you're a lawyer, I'm an engineer. But, you know, I have kids, you have kids, your wife, you know, at this human level and from that basis and we spend a lot of time in restaurants and taking people out in meals before we get into the details. And so I believe that my observation, again, let's work on the trust by this first set of meetings is a point which I think you can take away with you because it's a great opportunity now, we've exchanged name cards, we've met a lot of people.
So in Asia where we have very divergent views as Laina and Azumi has mentioned, four different and sometimes conflicting groups. We've managed to say that, well, it's in our combined interest to be able to foster a greater understanding by attending these meetings in DC, 18 hours flying over here and the flight back and put aside our differences and realize that it's in our common good. So as friends of the Internet community, I implore you and invite you to participate in our meeting in Asia which is on August 12th at the ANA Hotel in Singapore. We will also be attending the Geneva meeting. And I would like at this opportunity to here to have a show of hands to see how many in this room are planning to go to Geneva. Okay. I would like to invite you, again, to Asia and I hope the same people can continue this trust building process in and over the next two months. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wood: Thank you. My name is John Wood and I represent CSSA. And some of us have been going for two years and there were times in meetings we would say, it's different but it's the same. The same faces came along and it was different in the sense that we were a bit further down the process and the issues we were dealing with seem to be different, but at the end it was always the same.
What I think is so exciting about the IFWP and what we've got here is some may characterize and I use a biblical scripture which says that this was the beginning of the end, but I think this is the end of the beginning. And I think it's very exciting for us to stand here today and look back on this time and say, we could characterize the last two years and you could write some amazing Tom Clancy novels. I sort of figured that maybe I should go into the Tom Clancy business with all the skull drudgery and the things that went on and the lip service we provide. Endless chapters of excitement, sort of collusion, and terrorism that was going on behind the scenes. And incredible neanderthal activity and esoteric passages of discourse that was so wonderfully obtuse, but didn't see to get us anywhere. I'm sure all of us have participate in this. And then someone out there would say, but what have you done, you know, what have you achieved. You've spent my money, you got on plans, but what did you do. Well, we discuss things. And I think that we can come from this meeting and say we have a deliverable. We talked and we agreed. We agreed to continue. We agreed to communicate. And it's great to see people that others had characterize would carry the sword and I don't know how many knives I was meant to have in back, front, and side, and how many knives I was meant to put in the back, front, and side of everybody else. But I can today that we're going to melt down our swords and build plowshares. I think we can say today that even though we need to be as wise as a serpent, we can be as gentle as a dove.
And I think we can say quite honestly that victory is ours if we decide to make it ours. It's amazing that if we say let's talk about what we agree as opposed to finding a list serve about what we disagree how far we can get. And if we just take one step at a time, and I think that's the most important thing. Not to get overly ambitious, but realize that we've begun the race, and that we will run the race, and not to get burdened by all of the distractions, but to recognize our goal. And to recognize and commit to the fact that if we run the race we will finish it.
I'm very glad to announce that as Jim is saying that we are having a meeting next on July 24th and 25th in Geneva. I'm glad to announce that we will have Dr. John Postel at that meeting talking, and also we'll have Ira Magaziner. I'm glad to announce that we're going to be working in partnership with other Internet stakeholders, including the Internet Society, and I think that we have a real opportunity and it is a very timely opportunity, because this is our last best chance. And I am so glad that we can say that when the gauntlet was put down to the private sector and said, it's now your turn to put up or shut-up we can say to Mr. Magaziner, we've decided not to shut-up, but to come up to bat and let's play ball.
MALE SPEAKER: I'd like to agree with everything you said and emphasize one point. The problem with the mailing list was not that they were mailing lists, the problem was the lack of transparency. So I would like to say let's see no more conference organizers hand over to conference organizers without telling anyone. Let's see no closed meetings that have no minutes. I'd just like to say transparency, transparency, transparency. Thank you.
Dr Frankel: All right. I have a few minutes to five and I'll finish even before that. But I want to say something personal about Barbara Dooley. We owe her a real debt of gratitude because she has done tremendous leg work to put it together, I didn't, she did that. And she has also has done the same thing with respect, she gave the impetus to the future meetings. Her husband is very, very ill and I can say, I think, for all us that we pray now for him. So I take this opportunity to tell her from this podium that we pray for him.
And I would like to thank you for your participation in this meeting. For making it a success. For agreeing to continue the process. And I can tell you for myself there is nothing more exciting then to see the emergency of this unique conglomeration of communities taking shape. God Bless. Thank you.
