News Review | GNSO Council Votes Feb 21 on ICANN EPDP 'Final Report'

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2019-02-17 with analysis and opinion: Features • 1) GNSO Council Votes Feb 21 on ICANN EPDP 'Final Report', 2) EPDP Meetings Feb 19 & 20, 3) ICANN64 Prep, DNS Attacks, RDAP, Privacy/Proxy, 4) GoDaddy $GDDY Q4 2018, Verisign $VRSN, Tucows $TCX, 5)ICYMI: Paul Vixie on GDPR, Germany v. Facebook, and more, 6) Most Read.

1) GNSO Council Votes February 21 on ICANN EPDP 'Final Report'

GNSO Council Meeting Thursday, Feb 21, 2019 12:00 noon UTC (7am EST in US); GNSO Council Meeting Audio Cast via browser or app. Transcripts and recordings on GNSO Calendar. Agenda embed further below. Note latest via GNSO email list including request to delay the vote until March 4.

UPDATE February 21, 2019: GNSO Council Chair Keith Drazek granted the request for deferral of the vote on the EPDP Final Report to the March 4, 2019, GNSO Council meeting. Noting the GNSO's 10-day requirement for delivery of a final report before a GNSO Council vote (EPDP Final Report revisions continued through Feb 20), Drazek said the delay will "protect us from any claims of process violations." The request for deferral was made by the Business Constituency (BC) and supported by the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC). Drazek announced that there will be no further meetings of the EPDP team until after the GNSO Council vote on March 4th. Editor's note: as a result of Drazek's ruling, both Agenda Items 4 and 5 below were deferred to March 4, 2019.

Agenda Item 4: COUNCIL VOTE - Adoption of the Final Report (updated 'clean' pdf) on Expedited PDP on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data (40 minutes); voting threshold: Supermajority, ICANN Bylaws, Section 11.3(i)(xix): A "GNSO Supermajority" shall mean: (A) two-thirds (2/3) of the Council members of each House, or (B) three-fourths (3/4) of the Council members of one House and a majority of the Council members of the other House. See also the motion and documents for GNSO Council meeting 21 February 2019. 

Agenda Item 5: COUNCIL DISCUSSION - Expedited PDP on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data - Phase 2 Work (15 minutes)

Final Proposed Agenda embed below:

2) ICANN EPDP Plenary Meetings scheduled for Feb 19 and Feb 20:

Click on the graphic above to read or download the EPDP Final Report (updated)

Last Chance, Last Dance email (Feb 18) from EPDP Chair with attachment (pdf) (EPDP Quiet Period Summary Of Comments And Recommended Actions).

• EPDP meeting Tuesday Feb 19, 2019, at 14:00 UTC (9am EST) for 3 hours. Notes & action items.

• EPDP meeting Wednesday (agenda), Feb 20, 2019, 14:00 UTC (9am EST) 3 hours. See also EPDP mail list. EPDP Consensus Designations. Notes and action items here.

Observers use Adobe Connect, or audiocast via browser / app.  EPDP Team Timeline:

Links: Latest version of the EPDP Final Report (Phase 1), the EPDP Initial Report (pdf) and public comments to the Initial Report; PCRT Public Comment Review Tool; GNSO Council EPDP page and updates; links to EPDP meeting transcripts and recordings are on the GNSO calendar. Other EPDP links: wiki; mail list; action items; Temp Spec; EPDP Charter (pdf); Data Elements Workbooks (pdf), packet (pdf) small team agreements, ICANN's legal memo on Controllership (pdf), Bird & Bird legal memos are here. EPDP legal mail list.

The EPDP Final Report was filed with the GNSO Council Feb 11, 2019, for the Council to begin its  deliberations and Council vote no later than March 4, 2019. In the meantime revisions to the Final Report continue, with stakeholder groups or vested interest groups filing statements, such as this "Issues and Comments" (pdf) from the gTLD registries stakeholder group (RySG), and also the EPDP Chair distributed (via email) legal advice on Saturday, Feb 16. Editor's note: in short, it's a 'Hot Mess.'  See EPDP mail list for more dysfunction. See also updates on last week's News Review for more EPDP news for the week ending Feb 16, 2019.

3) Other ICANN News

a. ICANN64 Prep Week | ICANN.org: the public is invited to register and attend ICANN64 Prep Week webinar sessions:

• Multistakeholder Strategy and Strategic Initiatives (MSSI) Webinar at 16:00 UTC on Wednesday, 27 February. Topics include:General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); ICANN Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025; the latest update and progress on various ICANN Reviews; the next steps on WorkStream 2 recommendations.
• Contractual Compliance Update Webinar at 23:00 UTC on Wednesday, 27 February.
• Policy Update Webinar at 16:00 UTC on Thursday, 28 February.
• Finance/Operating Plan and Budget Planning Webinar at 23:00 UTC on Thursday, 28 February.

Register and submit any questions via this form by Friday, 22 February 2019. The webinars will be in English. Recordings and materials will be posted here. More information at the first link above.

b. Alert re: Published Reports of Attacks on the Domain Name System (DNS)--icann.org:  ICANN announced Feb 15, 2019, it is aware of several recent public reports regarding malicious activity targeting the Domain Name System (DNS)--"We have no indication that any ICANN organization systems have been compromised, and we are working with relevant community members to investigate reports of attacks against top-level domains (TLDs)"--more information here.

c. Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)--icann.org: The RDAP pilot discussion group and ICANN org are continuing discussions on RDAP implementation. ICANN org continues to work with the contracted parties to reach agreement on proposals for gTLD RDAP service level agreements (SLA) and registry reporting requirements. While RDAP delivers registration data similar to WHOIS, its implementation is expected to help standardize registration data access and query response formats. The Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data requires gTLD registry operators and registrars to implement a RDAP service within a 135-day period after notification from ICANN. More info at icann.org/rdap.

d. Privacy and Proxy Service Provider Accreditation Program--icann.org: ICANN org will implement the Privacy and Proxy Service Provider Accreditation Program at a pace that accounts for the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Team’s work on an access model for non-public generic top-level domain (gTLD) registration data. The EPDP Team is nearing completion of the first phase of its work. It is expected that EPDP Phase 2, during which the team will consider the possibility of developing an access model for non-public gTLD registration data, will begin shortly after submission of the EPDP Team’s Final Report to the GNSO Council. More information about the implementation review team (IRT) on privacy and proxy service provider accreditation is available on the implementation status page.

4) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE: GDDY), Fourth Quarter And Fiscal Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call--GoDaddy management will host a conference call and webcast Wednesday, February 20, 2019, at 5:00 p.m. EST. To hear the call, dial (833) 286-5800 in the United States or (647) 689-4445 from international locations, with passcode 6529529. A live webcast of the call will also be available on GoDaddy's investor relations website at https://investors.godaddy.net. Following completion of the call, a recorded replay will be available on the investor relations website.

$GDDY

With over 18 million customers worldwide and more than 77 million domain names under management, GoDaddy is the world's largest domain name registrar.

GoDaddy Inc. (godaddy.com) also announced that Ray Winborne, GoDaddy Chief Financial Officer, and Andrew Low Ah Kee, GoDaddy Chief Revenue Officer, will present at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco on Monday, February 25, 2019 at 12:00 pm PST. (3:00 pm EST). The live audio webcast will also be available on GoDaddy investor relations website investors.godaddy.net. Following the presentation an audio replay will also be available on the investor relations website.

b. Feb 15, 2019: Verisign $VRSN Annual report (pdf) provides a comprehensive overview of the company for the past year (2018).

c. Tucows $TCX: until Monday, February 18, shareholders, analysts and prospective investors can submit questions to Tucows’ management at ir@tucows.com. Management will post responses to questions of general interest to http://www.tucows.com/investors/financials/ on Tuesday, February 26 at approximately 4:00 p.m. ET. "All questions will receive a response, however, questions of a more specific nature may be responded to directly."

5) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

Dr Paul Vixie in the irishtimes.com:“GDPR  is in my opinion a well-structured law. Some thought went into making sure that it had teeth ... I think it’s interesting right now [that] the first generation of knee-jerk reaction to GDPR among the American tech companies is to try to evade the intent of the law.”

Germany's antitrust and competition regulator FCO ordered Facebook to stop combining WhatsApp and Instagram data without consent in Germany; Facebook says it will appeal decision--bbc.com. See also Bundeskartellamt prohibits Facebook from combining user data from different sources--bundeskartellamt.de.

The Wired Guide to Your Personal Data (And Who Is Using It)--wired.com.

India: websites and services continue being blocked without explanations--newindianexpress.com.

Russia reportedly plans to test a kill switch that disconnects the country from the internet and implement a web traffic filtering system like China's Great Firewall, but also a fully working country-wide intranet. See also: Sovereign Runet: What Does it Mean? (pdf)

6) Most Read this past week (ending Feb 16) on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review | EPDP (Draft) Final Report to ICANN GNSO Council Feb 11

2. Tech Review: 1) Why Apple Is Losing In India, 2) Amazon $AMZN Alarm?

3. Tech Review: 1) What Will Replace Facebook? 2) Jeff Bezos in 1999 (video)

4. Cisco $CSCO Q2 FY19 Earnings LIVE Webcast, Feb 13, 4:30pm EST

-- John Poole, Editor • Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review: GDPR, ICANN EPDP Dysfunction, & WHOIS Misuse

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-09-09) with analysis and opinion: Features • 1) GDPR, ICANN EPDP Dysfunction, & WHOIS Misuse,  2)a. ICANN v. EPAG, b. SSR2, c. RDAP, and more, 3) a. Donuts, Domains, Fadi Chehade, Abry Partners & The Greater Fool Theory, b. Dumb Domainers, c.ICANN Survey, 4) ICYMI, 5) Most Read & Top Geolocations.

1) GDPR, ICANN EPDP Dysfunction, & WHOIS Misuse

Definition of "train wreck" -- a chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a peculiar fascination for observers.

ICANN EPDP Team Meetings coming up: Tuesday Sep 11, and Thursday Sep 13, 13:00 UTC, 9am EDT. Non-members of the EPDP Team can follow the EPDP meetings via Adobe Connect: https://participate.icann.org/gnso-epdp-observers, or audio cast via browser or application.

Editor's note: links to the transcripts, Adobe Connect recordings, and MP3 audio, will be posted in UPDATES below (as made available by ICANN). Note that links to EPDP meetings' transcripts are usually posted on the GNSO calendar within 24 hours). See also EPDP Team wiki, mail list, Temp Spec, EPDP Charter (pdf), GNSO's EPDP page, & weekly updates to GNSO Council.

Thursday Sep 13, 2018, EPDP Team Meeting (wiki page); Agenda in slides embed below:

Notes:
a. 9/13 Meeting transcript (pdf), Chat transcript (pdf) embed below, Adobe Recording, and MP3.

b. 9/13 Notes & Action items (embed below), Action Items; re: agenda item 4 (Introduction to Appendix A), see DSI for Appendix A here; The data matrix for item 3 can be found here (under background documents).

c. EDPB Advice (pdf)(embed below):

Tuesday Sep 11, 2018, EPDP Team Meeting (agenda in meeting slides embed below).

Notes:
a. 9/11 Meeting Transcript (pdf)  Adobe Recording, MP3, Chat transcript (pdf) embed below; notes and action items;
b. 4.4. purpose overview by Thomas Rickert here and attachment; Google Sheet EPDP Team input (last 3 columns) by 19.00 UTC on Friday 14 September to allow the leadership team to work with Thomas and Benedict to prepare the subsequent discussion on this overview.

9/11 Chat transcript (highlighting added):

c. GDPR Training--Ayden Férdeline (NCSG) Sep 10: "This training is hopelessly inadequate and intended to ‘check a box’ rather than impart in EPDP members any new knowledge. The course is intended to take 45 minutes to complete and, from what I understand, has a retail price of £20 per user. The course offers no training on the powers of supervisory authorities, on how to perform a data protection impact assessment, or on privacy by design, among other obvious deficiencies in its curriculum. I was under the impression we were looking for a course that would take at least three hours to complete, if not one day. We cannot be taught too much in one day, but we could be taught a lot more than can be learned in this 45 minute course (which can be completed a lot quicker than that actually) intended for front-line employees. This is so disappointing and really does us a great disservice. This is not the training we needed, and it should have been obvious from the price alone it was not intended to be used by those who would be tasked with designing a GDPR-compliant policy or system." 
Chris Disspain: "Do you have an example of the sort of training to which your refer?"
Ayden Férdeline: "Yes, I would be looking to the catalogue of courses offered by the [International Association of Privacy Professionals](https://iapp.org). They have a number that I think would be sufficient for our purposes (some that looked suitable to me were those at the “train”, “GDPR ready”, “engage”, and “expertise” levels, but NOT “awareness”). We need to know how to implement the GDPR in a way that meets regulatory requirements while minimising risk to ICANN and the contracted parties, which is exactly what the 45-minute £20 course ICANN has found us does not help with (and was never intended by the provider to do)."
d. Triage Report 

Triage Report to be submitted to the GNSO Council Sep 11, 2018, excerpt: "The objective of this Triage Report is to document the EPDP’s level of agreement on specific provisions within the current Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data .... essentially no section of the Temporary Specification will be adopted without modifications. " (emphasis added)

* * * * * * *

Highlights from last week's ICANN EPDP Team meetings--excerpts from EPDP meeting Sep 6, 2018, transcript (pdf), references are to the transcript page number:

Kurt Pritz (the inept EPDP Chair appointed by the GNSO Council): "the triage report, you know, to me does not constrain us in any way in our future deliberations. I’m going to go ahead and [send] this [the triage report] to the GNSO Council ..." transcript, p. 4.

Kurt Pritz: "Can somebody from staff answer that? I think I know the answer but I’ve screwed up before." p. 5.

Alan Greenberg (ALAC): "I must admit I’m somewhat confused. Milton had suggested that we put together, you know, drafting teams, I think anyway, I think what he said is to not have competing individual positions suggested. I’ve heard that we have assigned or asked specific people to try redrafting. I haven't heard about any actual multi-group, multi-person teams being put together to try to find a consensus drafting which Amr sort of implied when in his intervention, and we are clearly getting competing proposals here. So I’d like some clarity on how are we supposed to move forward? We seem to be doing – going in three different directions at once and I’m not sure that’s really helpful." p. 12.

Mark Svancarek (BC): "Sorry for piling on with complaints about us having to review the last  document submitted last night as the first document to review this morning, but I just have to pile on. I really think this conversation has been pretty ineffective ..." p. 32.

Alan Greenberg (ALAC): "I have to say I find this whole thing surreal. We’re discussing this as if these are definitive changes and should we accept them or not but James has said these were largely drafted from registrar point of view ignoring other ICANN needs, so I’m not quite sure why we're doing this but I’ll continue ..." p. 36.

Thomas Rickert (ISPCP): "So I’m struggling with this entire discussion and I think that if we ask whether this group – what people think we're trying to achieve here we will probably get as many answers as we have participants on the call ..." p. 39.

More info and updates on last week's meetings in last week's News Review. Note also:

• The EPDP Team will finally get its requested GDPR training;

• Early Input from ICANN AC/SOs to EPDP Team;
• Comment on the 20 August 2018 “Draft Framework for a Possible Unified Access Model" from RySG & RrSG (pdf);
• 4 September 2018 Letter from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to Tucows CEO Elliot Noss (pdf) re: ICANN Registration Data Privacy, in reply to 7 June 2018 Letter from Elliot Noss to Göran Marby (pdf), embed below:

• Worth Reading Again: September 25, 2017 Memo (pdf) to ICANN's failed RDS WG re: Final responses to EU data protection questions re gTLD Registration Directory data.
•  Letter from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to GAC Chair Manal Ismail 04 Sep 2018 - Request for Guidance on GDPR and Providing Access to Non-Public WHOIS Data marby-to-ismail-04sep18-en.pdf [pdf, 305 KB].
•  Letter from Independent Compliance Working Party to ICANN (Jamie Hedlund), et al. 06 Sep 2018, re: ICWP Priorities, icwp-to-hedlund-et-al-06sep18-en.pdf [pdf, 132 KB].

• WHOIS Misuse Study:

WHOIS Misuse of Registrants' Data--from the EPDP mail list (emphasis and links added): "Piscatello’s blog post is almost pure fiction. For example, he claims that there’s no evidence that Whois affects spam, when systematic research commissioned by ICANN itself concluded: “The main finding of the descriptive study is that there is a statistically significant occurrence of WHOIS misuse affecting Registrants’ email addresses, postal addresses, and phone numbers, published in WHOIS when registering domains in these gTLDs. Overall, we find that 44% of Registrants experience one or more of these types of WHOIS misuse. Other types of WHOIS misuse are reported, but at a smaller, non-significant rate. Among those, a handful of reported cases appear to be highly elaborate attempts to achieve high attack impact.”"

Editor's note: the draft study (pdf) and final study (pdf) referenced above. Comments to the final WHOIS Misuse Study commissioned by ICANN are here. Of note are the comments submitted by the At-Large Advisory Committee (pdf): "The ALAC will support any useful measure to abate misuse," and the Noncommercial Users Constituency (pdf): "measures must now be taken to protect Registrants."  Excerpt below:

See also: https://whois.icann.org/en/file/misuse-study-final-13mar14-en.

2) Other ICANN News

a. ICANN v. EPAG Domainservices, GmbH--English Translation of ICANN's Response to EPAG's Comment on ICANN's Plea of Remonstrance  [PDF, 178 KB]. Original filing in German here (personal identifiable information was redacted by ICANN). More case documents here.

b. SSR2: The ICANN Security, Stability, and Resiliency of the Domain Name System Review Team (SSR2) finally re-started its work, holding an in-person meeting 22-23 Aug 2018, after being paused by the ICANN Board of Directors in October 2017. Read more here.

c. RDAP: Moving Forward with RDAP | ICANN.org (RDAP is an eventual replacement for WHOIS protocol).

d. KSK Rollover: Preparing for the KSK Rollover | verisign.com: the KSK rollover is currently scheduled for 11 Oct 2018, subject to final approval by the ICANN Board of Directors.

e. ICANN Board Genval Workshop: September 14-16, the ICANN Board will be convening in Genval, Belgium, a town just south of Brussels, to hold its fifth workshop of calendar 2018. More here. Also, the ICANN Board will be holding a public Board meeting in Genval, Belgium: 16 Sep 2018, 08:00 – 09:00 UTC / 4am-5am EDT (US), in English only, via listen-only Adobe Connect: https://participate.icann.org/opencommunity/
Participant Code: 5542211258; Additional access numbers here.

f. ICANN Global Domains Division (GDD) General Operations Handbook for Registrars in Chinese 面还提供其他语种：2018年8月21日registrar-handbook-21aug18-zh.pdf [pdf, 409 KB]

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Donuts, Domains, Fadi Chehade, Abry Partners & The Greater Fool Theory

FLASHBACK--US Senator Ted Cruz: ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade Is Misleading the United States Senate--"Chehade Should Recuse Himself From All ICANN Decisions That Could Impact The Chinese Government"--February 23, 2016.

Definition of "Donut" (American English) In informal speech the phrase is used to highlight stupidity, e.g., "You Donut"

1. An individual who is extremely stupid. Lacks intelligence and common sense.
2. An idiot. A mild insult often used in the work places of southern England.
3. Somebody who does something incredibly stupid. An idiot.

Editor's Analysis and Opinion: Fadi Strikes (Out) Again! The largest new gTLDs registry operator (more than 200 new gTLDs), Donuts Inc., announced Sep 5, 2018, that it had entered into an agreement "to be acquired by Abry Partners," a private equity firm in which former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade is now a partner. Terms and timing of the agreement were not disclosed, but Abry's investment is reportedly only for a majority stake in privately held Donuts, and does not provide any additional cash for the company, instead, it provides a way for original investors in Donuts to exit.

While still ICANN CEO, Chehade announced in May, 2015, he would leave ICANN in March 2016, long before his contract ended on June 30, 2017, and did not disclose his reasons for serving as ICANN CEO for only 3½ years, instead of his full term. In August, 2015, he announced that after leaving ICANN he would be a "Senior Advisor on Digital Strategy" at Boston-based Abry Partners, adding, "I expect to add other roles to my portfolio and will update you all as appropriate." Later in December 2015, Chehade announced from Wuzhen, China, that he would serve, after he left ICANN, as Co-Chair of an advisory committee to the government of China's World Internet Conference (WIC), described by Professor Milton Mueller as "[l]ike almost everything in China, the WIC is unabashedly state-driven ... a vehicle for the Chinese [Communist] Party-state’s policy agenda ..." 

As ICANN CEO, Chehade's pet project was the NetMundial Initiative, which "crashed and burned" when ICANN and the World Economic Forum stopped funding it in 2016. In February, 2015, at a DNA meeting during ICANN52, Chehade stated, "I need to understand it [the domain name industry] more and spend more time in it, no question."  While at ICANN, Chehade was known for hiring and promoting his cronies to management positions within ICANN. Chehade promoted, in June, 2013, his childhood friend and former co-worker, Akram Atallah, to the then second-highest paid position at ICANN, President of the Global Domains Division (GDD), which is now the highest paid position at ICANN at  $745,615.00 per the most recently available IRS 990 (pdf), p.56 of 81.

Perhaps it was for some or all of these reasons, that Abry Partners decided to venture into an industry where it has no experience--the domain name industry--despite what Abry says on its website, abry.com: "Abry invests in private equity, preferred stock and debt securities within our sectors of expertise."

The Abry-Donuts deal may be both getting out while the getting's good (for the original investors in Donuts) and an example of the greater fool theory. If so, it may be just another version of what is described in the article at the next link below, only at the TLD (top-level domain) level.

b. Domaining: The “Dumb Domainer” Industry and How it Operates | ricksblog.com.

c. Trademarks & Domain Names: Participate Now in the Sunrise and Trademark Claims Survey | ICANN.org. [Editor's note: I've already completed the survey, and I encourage all registrants to complete the survey which takes less than 15 minutes.]

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

a. Why the Whole World Should Be Up in Arms About the EU's Looming Internet Catastrophe--eff.org:

"The link tax means that only the largest, best-funded companies will be able to offer a public space where the news can be discussed and debated. The censorship machines are a gift to every petty censor and troll (just claim copyright in an embarrassing recording and watch as it disappears from the Internet!), and will add hundreds of millions to the cost of operating an online platform, guaranteeing that Big Tech's biggest winners will never face serious competition and will rule the Internet forever."

b. California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 becomes effective on January 1, 2020. It includes some aspects of the EU’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), such as the right to be forgotten, "but it raises the ante"--jdsupra.com.

c. New GDPR-Inspired Data Laws In Brazil And India--jdsupra.com.

d. Cyber Norms: A Farewell to Norms |  internetgovernance.org: "Exhibit A: Russian 'meddling'--The current hysteria about Russian influence operations in the U.S. is deserving of a Sherlock Holmesian title: “Russian Influence Operations and the Curious Case of the Inverted Norm."

e. Facebook: How Duterte Used Facebook To Fuel the Philippine Drug War | buzzfeednews.com: due to "heavy subsidies that keep Facebook free to use on mobile phones, Facebook has completely saturated the country. And because using other data... is precious and expensive, for most Filipinos the only way online is through Facebook ..."

5) Most Read this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review: 1) ICANN EPDP Struggles; 2) New gTLD .WEB Updates

2. Tech Review | Tesla $TSLA And Elon Musk's Wild August Ride (video)

3. Tech Review: 1) Apple $AAPL 9/12 Event; 2) Facebook $FB HQ Expansion

DomainMondo.com's readers by geolocation--top 3 countries--results the same for week and month:

1. United States of America (US)
2. People's Republic of China (CN)
3. Federal Republic of Germany (DE)

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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