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2012-06-28-RAA-1
GAC Advice
2012-06-28-RAA-1
N/A
Consensus met
2012-06-28-RAA-1
Communication
ICANN’s role in the development of contracts
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- The GAC welcomes the publication by ICANN of the draft new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). It appears that this draft contains many changes from the current RAA, and has clearly been informed by a number of LEA/GAC recommendations.
- Several questions relating to privacy and data protection issues and the accountability of resellers remain outstanding. As discussed in the public meeting with the Board, the GAC stands ready to assist in these discussions. The GAC encourages the Board to provide written questions on any privacy and data retention matters to the GAC to facilitate an early response.
- The GAC emphasises the need for all ICANN contracts to be clear, unambiguous and enforceable, and welcomes ICANN’s efforts to enhance its compliance and termination tools as a part of the RAA negotiation process. The timeliness of this work is increasingly important.
The GAC advises the Board
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- that this work should be finalised as a matter of priority, and
- that all the necessary amendments and procedures should be in place in advance of the delegation of any new gTLDs.
The GAC reiterates its interest and availability to assist with the resolution of these issues.
Communication
ICANN’s role in the development of contracts
-
- The GAC welcomes the publication by ICANN of the draft new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). It appears that this draft contains many changes from the current RAA, and has clearly been informed by a number of LEA/GAC recommendations.
- Several questions relating to privacy and data protection issues and the accountability of resellers remain outstanding. As discussed in the public meeting with the Board, the GAC stands ready to assist in these discussions. The GAC encourages the Board to provide written questions on any privacy and data retention matters to the GAC to facilitate an early response.
- The GAC emphasises the need for all ICANN contracts to be clear, unambiguous and enforceable, and welcomes ICANN’s efforts to enhance its compliance and termination tools as a part of the RAA negotiation process. The timeliness of this work is increasingly important.
The GAC advises the Board
-
- that this work should be finalised as a matter of priority, and
- that all the necessary amendments and procedures should be in place in advance of the delegation of any new gTLDs.
The GAC reiterates its interest and availability to assist with the resolution of these issues.
GAC Acknowledgement of Register Entry
27 July 2012
Next Steps/Required Action
Due: 3 August 2012
Responsible Party
ICANN Board
Current Status/Communications Log
Board-Response-to-GAC-Prague-Communique_20121013.pdf
Negotiations between ICANN and registrars are progressing on each of the 12 law enforcement recommendations, GNSO recommendations, ICANN requests and registrar requests. ICANN and Registrars have held several negotiating sessions since Prague. A face-to-face meeting, including law enforcement representatives, was held in September in Washington, DC. Discussions have focused on the most important issues: Whois verification/validation; development of a proxy service accreditation model; and obtaining privacy law expertise through the GAC to inform data retention discussions. The meeting enabled the law enforcement representatives to clearly convey the purposes of their recommendations and there was discussion where registrars or law enforcement might make concessions.
As is stated in other published material, registrars have agreed to amendments addressing all law enforcement requests – there remains a difference in the degree of change with regard to verification of Whois information. However, there is now agreement in the area of data retention, that agreement was confirmed in the recent meeting in Washington, DC.
The key remaining issues concern the law enforcement recommendations regarding Whois validation and data retention.
For Whois validation, law enforcement appears to be in agreement that verification of registrant data can occur after the domain name resolves. With this agreement, the discussion is now focused on how many points of data are to be verified. Law enforcement requests verification of both the registrant’s email and phone number. Registrars propose that they verify the email and/or the phone number, at their election. This is going to be focus of discussion at the Toronto meeting. There also appears to now be agreement in principle that re-verification could occur after a triggering event, such as a bounced email or a change of registrant data, instead of on a regular calendar schedule. The discussions now are focusing on what will be the appropriate triggers for this reverification requirement. Significant progress has been made on this issue since Prague.
For data retention, we have also seen significant progress. It is our understanding that law enforcement will agree to the two-tiered retention schedule proposed by Registrants, requiring some data elements to be retained for two years after the expiration of the domain name, while some of the more sensitive data elements will be retained for only 6 months. The discussion on this issue is now focusing on the proper way to address and consider situations where a registrar claims that it will still be in violation of its national data retention and privacy laws under this retention schedule. Proposing the ICANN Procedure for Handling WHOIS Conflicts with Privacy Law as a model, the registrars and ICANN have jointly approached the GAC for input on whether this may be sufficient. We expect to provide the GAC shortly with some proposed revisions to the ICANN Procedure, for consideration and input.
These are important areas - the crux of the negotiations. ICANN will continue to work with law enforcement and registrars to develop an agreement that meets law enforcement goals. Until agreement is reached in these key areas, ICANN has postponed the posting of a jointly negotiated agreement.