Notes RDS PDP WG Meeting - 28 March 2017:

These high-level notes are designed to help PDP WG members navigate through the content of the call and are not meant as a substitute for the transcript and/or recording. The MP3, transcript, and chat are provided separately and are posted on the wiki here.

1. Roll Call / SOI / WG Expected Standards of Behavior

• Attendance will be taken from AC
• Please remember to state your name before speaking and remember to mute your microphones when not speaking
• SOI Updates: Maxim Alzoba, Rod Rasmussen
• Remarks from Chair regarding WG Expected Standards of Behavior
• See email from Marika Konings 27 March with WG participation guidelines and links to expected standards of behavior
• Link to WG guidelines: http://gnso.icann.org/council/annex-1-gnso-wg-guidelines-08apr11-en.pdf
• Link to Charter: https://community.icann.org/display/gTLDRDS/WG+Charter
• Must get past "us vs. them" mentality in order to succeed. All WG members are asked to try to avoid this - represent viewpoints consistent with your interests but in a constructive way. Aim for solid understanding of all viewpoints. For example, data protection laws are new and we are trying to understand those now, but that is not the only view to be considered. Try to stay on task and allow incremental progress - jumping ahead delays progress. Try avoid getting emotional, political statements - debate is ok but try to be factual. Chair implores all WG members to heed this guidance.

2) Review 15 March Poll on Purpose results:

• See SummaryResults-Poll-on-Purpose-from-15MarchCall.pdf
• 25 participants
• Staff to reconfirm all participant responses are included. One WG member may be missing but intended to disagree with all.

Q2: 68% agreed to rewording "1) A purpose of gTLD registration data is to provide information about the lifecycle of a domain name and its resolution on the Internet."

• Is domain name resolution part of a DN registration lifecycle or a DN lifecycle?
• Staff is working to update previous graphic definition of gTLD DN lifecycle. Noted that WG needs definition to support this specific purpose.
• Separate out "A purpose of gTLD registration data is to provide information about resolution of a domain name on the Internet." from specific purpose 1) -- or is this the purpose of DNS not RDS?
• Alternative: "A purpose of gTLD registration data is to provide information useful in trouble-shooting problems in resolution of a domain name on the Internet."
• There is information in the RDS that tells you whether a DN ought to resolve (e.g., status).
• Hold discussion of "thin" v "thick" until we review Andrew's proposal.
• Reminder: This is only "a" purpose. Not "the" purpose.

Proposed Agreements (to be confirmed by polling):

"1) A purpose of gTLD registration data is to provide information about the lifecycle of a domain name."

"N) A purpose of gTLD registration data is to provide information useful in trouble-shooting problems in resolution of a domain name on the Internet."

Q3: 84% agreed to rewording "2) A purpose of RDS is to facilitate dissemination of authoritatively-sourced gTLD registration data, such as domain names and their domain contacts and name servers, in accordance with applicable policy."

• "Dissemination" is not intended to imply public display or gating
• Is exact wording important at this stage, or can these be refined as we move forward. Look at these as principles; do we agree in spirit if not on precise wording of each purpose?
• Note that there was 50% support for a version of this purpose without "authoritative" - have we lost that in polling on this revision? Yes, this proposed rewording reflects discussion on authoritativeness at ICANN58. Should authoritativeness be separated out or placed in brackets - this difference of opinion does need to be dealt with, is now the time? Is authoritative data a requirement?
• The term "authoritative" is often used in Registry Registrar Agreement (RRA) to cite which data is authoritative when there is a conflict beetween Registrar and Registry databases. This is a important definition which has real world implications.
• Definition used in the Thick WHOIS final report: "Authoritative, with respect to provision of Whois services, shall be interpreted as to signify the single database within a hierarchical database structure holding the data that is assumed to be the final authority regarding the question of which record shall be considered accurate and reliable in case of conflicting records; administered by a single administrative [agent] and consisting of data provided by the registrants of record through their registrars." A proposed shorter version is "the data set to be relied upon in case of doubt". Definition may not be broadly applicable and so may not be best definition for this WG to use for RDS.

Proposed Agreement (3 alternatives, to be determined by polling): 
Poll on three versions of this specific purpose 2): with brackets, without brackets, without "authoritatively sourced"

Action: WG members invited to propose a definition of "authoritative" to the WG list to assist in reaching closure on this purpose.

Q3: 71% agreed to rewording "5) A purpose of RDS policy is to facilitate fulfilling requirements for the accuracy of gTLD registration data."

• Is original version clearer and closer the WG's discussion on this point?
• What is the role of RDS in accuracy? To facilitate accuracy? To facilitate fulfilling accuracy requirements?
• From chat: If accuracy is going to be a requirement of registration data, SOMETHING has to enable enforcing it. It makes sense some of this should be built-in to RDS, but that need not be only place. For instance, something to flag the various domains rigestered with phone numbers of 000 000 0000 etc.
• Difficulty may lie in discussing "accuracy" before defining accuracy requirements.
• Should we footnote the term for later definition? Proposed footnote: "Accuracy" as it pertains to the RDS will be defined later in this PDP.

Proposed Agreement (to be confirmed by polling):
Existing text (not revised text in Q3) with a footnote: "Accuracy" as it pertains to the RDS will be defined later in this PDP (see Charter question on Accuracy).

3) Form a subgroup to draft questions for ccTLDs

• On-list interest expressed in working on questions for ccTLDs to learn what they are doing on their Purpose Statements to comply with GDPR
• Volunteers have come forward to work on this; is it time to do this now or wait until ccTLDs have gotten further along?
• Can they already give us basic outlines when it comes to current directive?
• Volunteers: Vicky Sheckler, Alex Deacon, Theo Geurts, Nathalie Coupet, Stephanie Perrin, Susan Kawaguchi (coordinator)

4) Work plan & target for this WG’s first initial draft report

• We are at a point where we need to try to speed up our progress; GNSO Council encouraged us to set a target for our first initial report
• Our work plan calls for two initial reports: first deals with 5 fundamental questions and initial answer to question of whether a new RDS is needed
• By ICANN60, could we be ready to start drafting our first initial report?

Action: Staff to add thin/thick distinction to work plan to serve as clear indication of tasks to be completed prior to first initial report: https://community.icann.org/x/oIxlAw

5) Request feedback on creating a separate “priority messages” list

• Email messages containing notes and poll invitations are assigned priority and contain a keyword in the Subject line for filtering
• Action items and proposed agreements are being copied into the mail message above the notes themselves.
• At this point, have not created a separate mailing list for notes and poll invitations as doing so may add complexity for WG members. Feedback invited.

Action: Staff to distribute email summarizing these steps to the WG.

6) Andrew Sullivan's proposed approach to define purposes for each data element:

• See Sullivan-SuggestionForPurposeInDetail.pdf
• Deferred to next week's call

7) Confirm action items and proposed decision points

8) Confirm next meeting date: 4 April, 2017 at 16:00 UTC

Materials:

• Sullivan-SuggestionForPurposeInDetail.pdf and doc
• KeyConceptsDeliberation-WorkingDraft-7March2017.pdf and doc
• 15MarchCall Poll on Purpose -
  
  • Link to participate: Poll closed on 26 March
  • PDF of Poll Questions: Poll-on-Purpose-from-15MarchCall.pdf
  • SurveyMonkey PDF of Summary Poll Results: SummaryResults-Poll-on-Purpose-from-15MarchCall.pdf
  • SurveyMonkey Zip of Poll Raw Results: RawResults-Poll-on-Purpose-from-15MarchCall.zip