News Review | ICANN EPDP Chair Quits After Vote on Final Report Delayed

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2019-02-24) with analysis and opinion: Features • 1) ICANN EPDP Chair Quits After Vote on Final Report Delayed, 2) Other ICANN news: a. Namazi New GDD Sr. VP, b. New gTLD .AMAZON, and more, 3) a. Google's Extortionate Domaining, b. Booking.com Trademark Case, 4) ICYMI: Personal Data, Data Protection, Data Privacy, Access to Data, and more, 5) Most Read.

1) ICANN EPDP Chair Quits After Vote on EPDP Final Report (Phase 1) Delayed 

"For a set of personal and professional reasons, I am writing to resign my post as Chair of the EPDP for Registration Data. I was honored to be selected by the GNSO Council leadership for the post and attempted to live up to the position expectations and requirements at every moment since I began in July. I will stay on for as long as it takes to find a replacement Chair and smoothly transition the responsibilities ..."--resignation email from Kurt Pritz to GNSO Council Chair Keith Drazek, February 21, 2019, after deferral of the GNSO Council vote on the EPDP Final Report (Phase 1) (pdf) until March 4, 2019, as requested by the Business Constituency (BC) and supported by the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC).

Response from GNSO Council Chair Keith Drazek: Hi Kurt, Thanks for your email, and more importantly for your commitment, sacrifice and service over the last seven months. I will follow up with another email soon, but I wanted to acknowledge receipt of your message and express my gratitude and appreciation on behalf of the GNSO Council. I also appreciate and welcome your willingness to continue as Chair during the transition to Phase 2 and the next Chair. Best regards, Keith.

Prescient email Feb. 20, 2019, below, from EPDP team member Dr. Milton Mueller (NCSG - Georgia Tech), responding to an earlier email from EPDP Chair Kurt Pritz wherein Pritz stated: "I chose not to conflate the number of groups with the voting scheme of the GNSO Council. I think that is the province of the Council, i.e., discussion at the Council level and the voting scheme will come into play there as items with “Strong Support" are considered."

"Sorry Kurt, but that’s not your call. As chair you can designate consensus levels but you do not have the authority to redefine the groups upon which consensus determinations are based. The CSG [Commercial Stakeholder Group] and the NCSG [Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group] both have 6 members on this EPDP team because they are both equivalent stakeholder groups in the chartering process. This was a point of considerable discussion in the formation of the EPDP and the result is not something you can toy with. Doing so leaves you and the whole process subject to legitimacy and bias challenges. The fact that CSG’s 3 constituencies [IPC, BC, ISPCP] insist on independent representation is a choice they have made and can make but it does not change their status as a single SG, a single group for the purposes of consensus determinations. I am sure you don’t want our painstaking work product to be further delayed by procedural and legitimacy challenges, including an independent review process [IRP], but I assure you that is what will happen if you try to disenfranchise an SG by double or triple counting the constituents of another SG." (emphasis and link added)

EPDP Timeline (as of Feb 24, 89 days until the Temporary Specification expires 25 May 2019):

source: icann.org

Analysis & Opinion Editor's note: Kurt Pritz has a long history with ICANN according to his outdated bio on the ICANNwiki, having been appointed as a Vice President of ICANN in 2003. He was heavily involved in ICANN's controversial new gTLDs program as ICANN's Chief Strategy Officer, but suddenly resigned on November 15, 2012, due to an undisclosed conflict of interest. After he left ICANN he became Executive Director of the Domain Name Association, a domain name industry group principally representing the interests of new gTLD registry operators. He resigned from that position in 2015, and thereafter has been involved with various domain name industry firms, including Allegravita, and Architelos (which filed for bankruptcy after being hit with a judgment in a lawsuit brought by registry services provider Afilias), and most recently has been involved with the new gTLD .ART.

I have no idea why Pritz wanted to be EPDP Chair, nor why the GNSO Council appointed him in July, 2018, but I think Pritz saw the handwriting on the wall, and had the good judgment to realize he had already had enough of chairing the EPDP, a task for which he seemed ill-suited from the start. Pritz readily admitted he was far out of his depth, and as Chair, he failed to develop and follow a cogent work plan for Phase 1, apparently relying instead, on ICANN support staff who were as ignorant about the intricacies of the GDPR as he was. Last year, wasting weeks trying to "redline" the Temp Spec per Pritz's directions, EPDP team members repeatedly tried to steer the group back to functionality, with Thomas Rickert finally stating the obvious: "We are trying to fix a document (Temp Spec) that can hardly be fixed." 

It is actually painful to go back and read those transcripts from last year's EPDP meetings. Almost every meeting reeks of dysfunction and lack of direction, and many EPDP members knew it at the time, and often expressed their frustrations on the record. But that is all water under the bridge now. The EPDP Phase 2 will deal with difficult "access issues" and unfortunately, Phase 1 failed to fix or adequately address many core issues, such as controllership, upon which access policy decisions may be dependent. Ideally, the EPDP team needs a Chair who is both knowledgeable about the GDPR, as well as experienced in GNSO PDP consensus processes and procedures. Perhaps Co-Chairs, with one who is knowledgeable about GDPR, and the other experienced in GNSO PDP consensus processes and procedures.

More info: EPDP team mail list and wiki; GNSO mail list and calendar; EPDP Final Report (pdf); EPDP Charter (pdf); Bird & Bird legal memos; EPDP legal mail list; ICANN's controllership legal memo (pdf); last week's News Review. There will be no EPDP meetings until after the GNSO Council vote on March 4, 2019.

2) Other ICANN News

a. Cyrus Namazi promoted to Senior Vice President of ICANN's Global Domains Division (GDD), succeeding his crony, at Conexant and ICANN, former GDD President Akram Atallah, who resigned last year to become CEO of new gTLDs registry operator Donuts, Inc. The ICANN announcement indicates that Atallah's former title of "GDD President," (given to him by his crony, long-time friend and ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehade, in June, 2013) has been abolished. ICANN didn't disclose whether Namazi is receiving the same extravagant compensation package as Atallah did.

b. New gTLD .AMAZON UPDATE
21 Feb 2019 Letter from Achilles Zaluar* to ICANNBoard (pdf)--*Achilles Zaluar is Director, Department of Technological Promotion, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil--excerpt:

"We regret that our invitation to the ICANN CEO and his team to join Brazil and several other Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) member states in a video conference on 19 February on the “.Amazon” issue was not accepted. Our common goal is still to find a mutually acceptable solution for the “.Amazon” applications .... despite our best efforts, time seems to have ran out to work on a mutually acceptable solution before ICANN 64 in Kobe. We remain committed to do it in the coming months, with a view to develop a solution that fulfills GAC´s request to the ICANN Board. We therefore kindly request that the ICANN Board postpone a final decision on the .Amazon applications to ICANN 65, with a view to allow the eight Amazon countries and Amazon Inc. to find a mutually acceptable solution ..." 

Letter (pdf) from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to Secretary General PS/ACTO Alexandra Moreira:

See also 13 Feb 2019 Letter from Alexandra Moreira to Göran Marby.

c. IDNs: Letter from ICANN GDD Cyrus Namazi to Wang Wei et al. 15 Feb 2019, re: Root Zone LGR Generation Panels, excerpt:

".... The CJK GPs correctly note that visual similarity of strings causing confusability should be resolved by String Similarity Panels during TLD string evaluation, String Confusion Objection and String Contention Mechanisms ... an important part of the Procedure and helps ensure that the RZ-LGR satisfies the “Contextual Safety Principle” which asks to minimize the risk of malicious use of IDN labels. As well noted in your communication, the visually similar strings, which are not deemed identical, will continue to be evaluated by the String Similarity Review processes. Due to the independent nature of the working of the IP [Integration Panel], as stipulated by the Procedure, ICANN org suggests that the CJK GPs continue discussions with the IP in order to find a mutually agreeable solution based on the Procedure. ICANN org will organize a face to face meeting of the GPs and IP at the ICANN64 meeting in Kobe, Japan to continue to support this dialogue."

d. ICANN Notice of Breach to Registrar (pdf), excerpt:

e. 13 February 2019 Letter to ICANN (pdf), excerpt below, and ICANN response (pdf).

"... despite several attempts of communication with the reseller and registrar neither parties are responding to my requests. I act for Mr Khan as his IT consultant. I am unable to access the domain so I cannot prevent it from expiring and I cannot access my account or update nameservers or WHOIS information. This is causing me to suffer an immense loss of business. Please, can you get involved and somehow shake these rogue traders up so that they comply and cooperate?" (emphasis added)

f. Public Comments Close 5 Mar 2019 23:59 UTC on First Consultation on a 2-Year Planning Process | ICANN.org.

g. Technical Study Group (TSG) Advances Draft Model--icann.org: The Technical Study Group on Access to Non-Public Registration Data is developing a detailed draft of the Technical Model for Non-Public Registration Data. "... In the coming weeks, the team members, working together with ICANN org representatives, will further develop the draft Technical Model in order to share it with the community before heading to Kobe. During our face-to-face meeting, we also discussed how to present our work outside of the ICANN community, including to the European Commission. When we finish our work on the Technical Model after Kobe, we will send our report to ICANN President and CEO Göran Marby. We look forward to sharing these discussions with you in more detail at ICANN64 and invite you to a community engagement session we are planning ..."

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Google Does Domaining Like Big Time Extortion | i-programmer.info: "Google Domains has the rights to the .dev Top Level Domain and intends to make as much money from it as possible - $11,500 just for early access to the scramble to register the most desirable names." 

b. Trademark case of Booking.com v. USPTO (pdf) embed below,  decided Feb 4, 2019 (45 days for Petition for En Banc Rehearing). See also Unprotectable Generic Trademarks + Top-Level Domains = Protectable Trademarks--jdsupra.com, and Fourth Circuit Confirms Booking.com is Protectable But Company Must Pay the USPTO’s Fees on Appeal--jdsupra.com.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

Personal Data, Data Protection, Data Privacy, Access to Data:

• OpenSRS’ Tiered Access Directory: a look at the numbers--opensrs.com: "We have received more than 2100 data access requests since our Tiered Access system started last May, and of these requests ... 65% of all requests came on behalf of a single requestor; only 21% of these requests resulted in the provision of data, as the majority did not provide sufficient legitimate purpose, nor did the requestor respond to our request for more information. Perhaps surprisingly, 70% of data access requests are not fulfilled because the requestor did not respond to Tucows’ requests for additional information ..."

• WHOIS disclosure requests: Getting the facts--internetgovernance.org.

• Patients, health data experts accuse Facebook of exposing personal info--thehill.com.

• Access  to Data: What’s the Emergency? Keeping International Requests for Law Enforcement Access Secure and Safe for Internet Users--eff.org.

Copyright Law Versus Internet Culture--eff.org.

India: Not just porn, Indian users say telecoms are blocking access to many websites. Most of the complaints have come from Indians using Jio connections, followed by Airtel--scroll.in. See also India Proposes Chinese-Style Internet Censorship--NYTimes.com.

Press freedom organisations urge Nigeria to keep internet on during election period--ifex.org

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

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

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

3. Amazon $AMZN Biggest Tech Employer, Tesla $TSLA Employees Anxious

4. Inside the Gorilla Glass Factory of Corning $GLW (video)

5. Rivian Electric Pickups & SUVs Coming for Tesla $TSLA (video)

-- John Poole, Editor • Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review | IGF2019 Open Consultations & MAG Meeting Jan 28-30

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2019-01-27 with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) IGF2019 Open Consultations & MAG Meeting Jan 28-30,  2) ICANN news: EPDP Meetings Jan 29 & 31, EPDP Recap, TSG and more, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: Expired Domains, and more, 4) ICYMI: China Blocks Bing, Google Struggles in Russia, 5) Most Read.

1) IGF2019 Open Consultations & MAG Meeting Jan 28-30

In preparation for the fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which will be hosted by the Government of Germany in Berlin from 25 to 29 Nov 2019, the first face-to-face 2019 Open Consultations and MAG meeting will take place on 28-30 January 2019 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. A Call for Issues has been published and all submissions were due by Thursday 24 January 2019--among the proposed issues submitted in the Category: "Evolution of Internet Governance"--#37 "A middle ground between the vested-interest capture of multi-stakeholderism and government capture of multi-lateralism is badly needed. How can IGF stimulate such innovation?" with the following comment:

Agenda of the IGF 2019 First Open Consultations and MAG Meeting​--Register (open thru Jan 30) for online participation.

Geneva date and time: 

Additional issues may also include:

• How could the IGF respond to the recommendations made by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres during his speech at the IGF 2018 Opening Ceremony? 
• How could the IGF respond to French President Macron’s “call for action” made during his speech at the IGF 2018 Opening Ceremony?

2) ICANN News

a. EPDP Meetings are scheduled for Tuesday, 29 Jan 2019, and Thursday, 31 Jan 2019, at 14:00 UTC (9am EST) for 3 hours each. The EPDP Final Report (Phase 1) is due Feb 1, 2019, but EPDP Chair Kurt Pritz indicated on Jan 24, 2019 (transcript pp. 51-52), that the final report may actually be submitted sometime after February 1:

"... the [ICANN EPDP] support team is figuring out sort of a drop dead date for putting a version – or the final report version in front of the GNSO Council ..." 

UPDATE: Jan 29 chat transcript (pdf) and Jan 31 chat transcript (pdf).

Observers may use Adobe Connect, or audiocast via browser / app. Links: Draft Final Report info,  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) of small team agreements. ICANN Controllership Memo (pdf).

b. EPDP recap for week ending Jan 26 [Editor's note: the dysfunctional EPDP rolls on]:

Jan 22 EPDP meeting wiki page and Jan 24 EPDP meeting wiki page (with action items); Legal committee Jan 23, and Data Elements Jan 22 and Jan 24.

Jan 22 chat (pdf): Milton Mueller (NCSG): (08:16) Will [Attorney] Ruth [Boardman] (Bird & Bird) be on these calls? Kurt Pritz: (08:17) @Milton - generally no but can be called in as required ... and we will refer questions that come out of each meeting to her.

Jan 22 transcript (pdf) p.35: Diane Plaut (IPC): "... I think that it really – a starting point that’s an absolute necessity is to get ICANN to define its role. We all have been presented with the ICANN Legal memo [pdf] with regard to the roles (unintelligible) or position on joint controllership relationship or a sole controllership ..." [link added]

Email to EPDP Mail List Jan 23, 2019: "I am really mystified, having taken the time to examine the records and mailing list of the TSG-Access-RD which Benedict mentioned, that we were not briefed on the meetings, the group, and the questions they are settling, many of which depend on policy decisions. I am also mystified as to why this appointed group of technical experts has funding to their Washington meetings and to Kobe [ICANN64}, and our group does not have funding for Kobe. Further, it looks as if they need some legal advice. I recommend they consider adding Ruth [Boardman, Bird & Bird] as an independent outside counsel, and add a policy person to think up the questions to ask her."--Stephanie Perrin, EPDP member & NCSG Chair (links and emphasis added).

Revised draft charter (pdf) of ICANN's TSG-Access-RD (Technical Study Group on Access to Non-Public Registration Data).

GNSO Council Chat Transcript Jan 24, 2019  Rubens Kuhl (RySG): "TSG will be yet another dead body in the decades of failed WHOIS-related projects, like EWG." 

25 January 2019 Letter from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to Willem Debeuckelaere, President, Belgium DPA, re: ICANN Contractual Compliance Data Processing Activities and the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). See 15 Jan. 2019 Letter from Willem Debeuckelaere to Göran Marby (pdf) excerpt: "In your letter of 9 August 2018, you indicate that ICANN has only a single regional office on EU territory, namely in Brussels."

Excerpt from EU GDPR January 2019 Fact sheet (pdf)

"The [ICANN Technical Study] group will base its work on the following assumptions ... 3. ICANN is the sole party that authorizes access to non-public registration data in the gTLD space."--TSG revised draft charter, supra. 

TSG mail list: "... As noted on Tuesday's call, I think it's important to remember that ICANN org's understanding is that whatever solution ICANN proposes for third-party access to redacted registration data is unlikely to eliminate liability for the contracted parties. ICANN org's goal is to explore ways to diminish that liability to the extent possible. To that end, the TSG is tasked with developing a technical solution that ICANN org may test against the law to determine if a unified access model is possible. The memo on independent controllership was drafted by ICANN org as part of the EPDP's discussion on processing activities. The EPDP has not yet tackled third-party access to gTLD registration data. They anticipate discussing that during Phase II ..."--Eleeza Agopian, ICANN Strategic Planning and Initiatives Sr. Manager. [link added]

Editor's note: it appears ICANN org has a competing ongoing top-down policy-making and implementation process (TSG-Unified Access model) moving simultaneously in parallel to the GNSO's EPDP process.

More info on Jan 22-24 EPDP meetings on last week's News Review.

GDPR Related:

• More than 95,000 complaints have been filed with EU Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect May 25, 2018, the European Commission said Friday.

• Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, are among eight tech firms (pdf) named in a complaint filed in Austria by non-profit organization noyb (noyb.eu), based upon failure to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

• Google to appeal €50 million GDPR fine imposed by France's Data Protection Authority (DPA) CNIL (cnil.fr),  which "observed two types of breaches of the GDPR"--violation of the obligations of transparency and information and violation of the obligation to have a legal basis for ads personalization processing.

• Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) is "currently investigating Twitter’s compliance with its obligations under the GDPR to implement technical and organisational measures to ensure the safety and safeguarding of the personal data it processes. This investigation commenced in November 2018 following receipt of a number of breach notifications from the company since the introduction of the GDPR. The DPC has this week opened a new statutory inquiry into the latest data breach it received from Twitter on 8 January, 2019. This inquiry will examine a discreet issue relating to Twitter’s compliance with Article 33 of the GDPR"--dataprotection.ie.

• Businesses that invest in data privacy see benefits when they do experience a breach--a new Cisco study (pdf) of 3,200 security professionals in 18 countries found that preparing for the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) lessened the impact of data breaches.

c. ICANN New gTLDs .GCC, .PERSIANGULF, .MUSIC, .GAY, .HOTEL, .HALAL, .ISLAM,  and .WEB

ICANN CEP and IRP Status Update – 11 January 2019 (pdf) excerpts:

One Active Independent Review Process (IRP) Proceeding: .WEB

• Date ICANN Received Notice of IRP: 14-Nov-2018
• Date IRP Commenced by ICDR: 26-Nov-2018
• Requestor: Afilias Domains No. 3 Limited
• Status: Panel Selection: IRP commenced on 26 November 2018; one panelist has been appointed; awaiting appointment of remaining two panelists.
• Materials: Written submissions, Declaration(s), and Scheduling Order(s) are here.
• Hearing(s): No hearings are currently scheduled.

d. ICANN Open Public Comment periods closing in February, 2019

at 23:59 UTC on the days indicated below (subject to change by ICANN org):

• Work Track 5 on Geographic Names at the Top Level - Supplemental Initial Report of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process 1 Feb 2019

• Proposed Changes to The Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG) Charter 5 Feb 2019 

• ICANN Draft FY20 Operating Plan and Budget and 5-Year Op. Plan Update 8 Feb 2019

• Updated Operating Standards for Specific Reviews 11 Feb 2019 

• ICANN Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021 – 2025 11 Feb 2019 

• Amendment to the IANA Naming Functions Contract, Annex A 18 Feb 2019

• First Consultation on a 2-Year Planning Process 20 Feb 2019 

• Initial Report on CSC Effectiveness 25 Feb 2019 

e. Implementation of the Procedure for Release of Two-Character Labels | icann.org. Documents also available on the Two-Character ASCII Labels information page. See also the 22 January 2019 Letter (pdf) from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to GAC Chair Manal Ismail.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Expired domains do not help for rankings: "Google understands when domains change ownership so it won't necessarily rank for the queries it used to rank pre change of ownership. So if the sole purpose of buying a domain is to get search traffic from the old domain, I would suggest against doing so since there's no benefit."--Aaseesh from the Google Webmaster Trends Analysts team.

b. EFF Client Responds to Ludicrous “Collusion” Trademark Threat--eff.org.

c. Yes, domain names are covered by the USMCA (successor to NAFTA)--Lexology.com.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

China blocks Microsoft's search engine Bing (domain: cn.bing.com):

"The situation appears to be a DNS (domain name system) corruption, one method for China to block websites through its intricate censoring system called the Great Firewall. When a user enters a domain name associated with a banned IP address, the Firewall will corrupt the connection to stop the page from loading."--techcrunch.com.

UPDATE: according to a report in reuters.com, the Bing outage in China was due to a technical error, not censors' block.

As of December, 2019, Bing only had a 2% share of China’s search market compared with 70% share for Baidu. The Chinese version of Bing had been the only major foreign search engine accessible from within China, and Microsoft had censored its search results in accordance with Chinese government policy.

Google is blocked in China, but nevertheless still has about 90% global market share for internet search. Google lags behind in Russia, where homegrown competitor Yandex has 55% of the market due to superior Russian language search capabilities and willingness to comply with Russia's restrictive laws. See Why Is Google Struggling In Russia? Yandex | YouTube.com.

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

1. News Review 1) EPDP Meetings After Toronto F2F, 2) .WEB UPDATE

2. Tech Review:1) Breakup Amazon? Google? 2) China's Growth Rate Slows

3. Tech Review | Why Communist China Has So Many Tech Billionaires

4. IBM $IBM Q4 2018 Earnings LIVE Webcast Jan 22, 5pm EST

-- John Poole, Editor • Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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Why Big Tech Wants Access to Your Medical Records (video)

Why Big Tech Wants Access to Your Medical Records

Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Jan 9, 2019: Tech giants like Amazon and Apple are expanding their businesses to include electronic health records -- which contain data on diagnoses, prescriptions and other medical information. That’s creating both opportunities and spurring privacy and data protection concerns. Here’s what to know.

"Healthcare truly is the next big opportunity for Apple"--SeekingAlpha.com.

xealth is a Seattle based digital health startup (domains: xealth.com and xealth.io).
Tweets by xealthinc

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review 1) ICANN Org vs EPDP Access? 2) New gTLDs Next Round?

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-09-30 with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) ICANN Org vs EPDP Access? 2) New gTLDs Next Round? 3) Other ICANN news: a. .AFRICA Litigation, and more, 3) Names, Domains & TMs: Malicious Domain Names, and more, 4) ICYMI: US-China Internet Bifurcation, Bad Internet Laws, Digital Cooperation, 5) Most Read.

1) ICANN & GDPR: ICANN Org vs EPDP Access?

Next ICANN EPDP Team Meetings scheduled for Tuesday Oct 2, and Thursday Oct 4, 13:00 UTC, 9am EDT. Non-members of the EPDP Team can follow the EPDP meetings (including "small team" meetings Wednesday and Friday this week) via Adobe Connect or audio cast via browser or application.

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

Fri. Oct 5 EPDP small group meeting (wiki link) 13:00 UTC (9am EDT): meeting transcript (pdf),
MP3, Adobe Connect replay, chat transcript (pdf), Background document embedded below:

Oct 4 EPDP Meeting (agenda), meeting transcript (pdf), chat transcript (pdf), Adobe Connect replay, MP3, Purpose N (pdf). Data elements workbooks. Editor's note: meeting discussions were led by 2 CBI facilitators, Gina Bartlett and David Plumb.

Wed. Oct 3 small group meeting: background document (pdf). Editor's note: 2 facilitators from CBI.org were at this meeting--Gina Bartlett led the meeting and David Plumb was present--so apparently CBI.org has been retained for further "facilitation and mediation" although the details are not known. The Wednesday small group EPDP members present: Alex Deacon (IPC), Laureen Kapin (GAC), Ben Butler (SSAC), James Bladel (RrSG), Marc Anderson (RySG), Margie Milam (BC). NCSG (6 EPDP members) was MIA (missing in action) for most of the meeting with no explanation or apologies noted--Stephanie Perrin (NCSG) did appear more than an hour after the meeting started.  

The Wednesday small group did not address the implicit flaws in the present WHOIS data fields (which if corrected would clearly distinguish between a legal entity or person as the actual registrant), instead they appeared to reach 'rough' consensus on adding more WHOIS data fields (before Perrin appeared). So much for data minimization! Meeting transcript (pdf), Notes & Action Items, Adobe replay, MP3, chat transcript (pdf) excerpt:

Stephanie Perrin (NCSG): "note that the registrars will be held accountable for how well informed the individual is. If they give away their rights because they were not well informed, it will be the registrars fault."
Ben Butler (SSAC): "Thank you Stephanie. That would seem to raise the importance of getting the educational resources item right."
Stephanie Perrin (NCSG): "Caution is required here ....if civil society were to sue under the GDPR, in my view (remember, I am not even a lawyer let alone a litigator) the strategy would be to go for ICANN as data controller responsible for the policy, and the registrar as data controller for the client relationship data."

Oct 2 Meeting (agenda, documents, high level notes and action items), chat transcript (pdf) embed below; and Meeting Transcript (pdf);

• Adobe Connect replay, MP3, F2F Action Items and F2F High-Level Notes (pdf); EPDP Planning (pdf) updated Oct 1;
• Agenda item 3) Legal basis for purposes and related processing activities: Lawful Basis memo (pdf);
• Agenda item 4) Review data elements workbook for purpose C - Enable communication or notification to the Registered Name Holder and/or their delegated parties of technical and/or administrative issues with a Registered Name (see https://community.icann.org/x/5AC8BQ).

Oct 2 Chat Transcript:

Highlights of the EPDP F2F Meeting Sep 24-26 in LA:

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

Best Quote of the entire F2F Meeting was from Stephanie Perrin [NCSG] on the first day:

"... about the only valid primary purpose for gathering data from the registrant is so that you can give the registrant the rights to a domain name that’s--that is the most legitimate purpose there is."

Biggest controversy: ICANN CEO Goran Marby on Tuesday

Marby's presence in the ePDP was profoundly divisive, exacerbating divisions between those who want ICANN to do anything to create a unified access model and those who think the multistakeholder process should be driving policy

— IGP Alert (@IGPAlert) September 26, 2018

ICANN CEO Goran Marby met with the EPDP working group Tuesday (transcript embedded below) the day after his controversial blog post:

Clueless to the end, ICANN CEO Goran Marby’s final statement to the EPDP working group: "It was fun" (transcript, supra, p. 32). Marby's Tuesday EPDP session Adobe Connect replay and MP3 audio.

ICANN CEO Marby sends a profoundly mixed message: he says repeatedly the community makes policy and he doesn't want to preempt it. At the same time he invites governments to sanction ICANN as an authority. Doesn't that fundamentally pre-empt what the community does?

— IGP Alert (@IGPAlert) September 26, 2018

Many members of the ePDP wanted to adjourn they were so depressed after Marby's appearance. As the mediators urged us to move beyond that, Board member @chrisdisspain pulls us back into rancor by defending Marby

— IGP Alert (@IGPAlert) September 26, 2018

The key problem is that most ePDP members, especially contracted parties and NCSG, think @ICANN has taken sides and is engaged in a parallel process to create unified Whois access model

— IGP Alert (@IGPAlert) September 26, 2018

Other highlights:
Day One--Welcome & Introductions:
Kurt Pritz, EPDP Chair: "I’m certainly aware of the concerns and even criticism of our progress to date, so I've taken, you know, every comment I’ve heard on board. And in hindsight we might [have] do[ne] some things differently ... while I wish we were further ahead, I don't feel so bad about it ... You know, personally, I don't think that the multistakeholder model can take [any] more of these top down temporary specifications before it falls in on itself ..."

Milton Mueller (NCSG): "Hi. I’m Milton. I spoke to Margie Milam of the Business Constituency who has disappeared but I didn't do it."

Alan Greenberg (ALAC): "I talked to Farzi [Badii] who the last time I heard her introduce herself, introduced herself as Farzaneh Badass. And she’s a ... concert violinist in the making."
David Plumb (facilitator): "Yes, not surprising."
Alan Greenberg: "Badass or concert violinist?"

Editor's note: there is no question some substantive work was done during the F2F, but whether it was enough to meet the EPDP's tight timeline is questionable. We may have a better idea after the EPDP meeting(s) this coming week, depending on how well the EPDP working group, and its Chair Kurt Pritz, function without the three facilitators from CBI.org who led most of the F2F meeting sessions.

"I mean, from some of the things I’ve seen in the chat it looks like the third party mediators were a positive thing, but it’s not clear to me whether or not any substantive progress was actually made at the face-to-face or are we going to end up in yet another RDS PDP type situation? The other thing as well is, I mean, the – whether or not this kind of outside the EPDP lobbying by certain groups – whether that’s having any impact on the general morale of people involved within the EPDP."--Michele Neylon (RrSG), GNSO Council Meeting, Thursday, 27 Sep 2018 transcript (pdf), p. 38.

More info on the EPDP F2F meeting in last week's News Review.

Note also: 

• Whois Reform Grinds forward--by Milton Mueller, InternetGovernance.org, Sep 28, 2018. [Editor's note: Professor Mueller, a NCSG member of the EPDP, provides a deep dive into the current status of the EPDP issues.]

• NTIA [US gov] Seeks Comment on New Approach to Consumer Data Privacy--RFC--25 Sep 2018.

• ICANN Webinar (one hour) data protection/privacy (GDPR) update now scheduled for Oct 8, 2018, 15:00 UTC (11am EDT) via Adobe Connect. Dial-in info, questions, etc., here. 

• Verisign Requests One-Year Extension (pdf) of current implementation deadlines under ICANN's Thick WHOIS Policy.

• Tim Berners-Lee announces Solid (domain: solid.inrupt.com), an open source project to decentralize the web and give users control of their data, and Inrupt (inrupt.com), a startup to guide the project.

2) New gTLDs Next Round? 

Comments closed Sep 26, 2018, to the Initial Report on the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process (Overarching Issues & Work Tracks 1-4).

Editor's note: all submitted comments are here. Of particular note, are the comments submitted by:

• Public Interest Community (pdf) members: Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org), Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), Public Knowledge, Martin Silva Valent, Esq. (Professor at Universidad de Palermo), Kathryn A. Kleiman (Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University), Leah Chan Grinvald (Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School), Eve J. Brown (Professor at Roger Williams University), A. Michael Froomkin (Professor, University of Miami School of Law), Bryan Bello (Center for Media and Social Impact, American University).

• Christopher  Wilkinson

• Council of Europe (pdf)

• ICANN Board of Directors (pdf)

• ICANN Org (pdf)

• Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) (pdf)

• The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) (pdf)

• At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) (pdf)

• Registry Operator XYZ

and my submitted comment (pdf) embed below. I thank the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, for their affirming response which I received Friday.

See also New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP September 2018 Newsletter (pdf).

3) Other ICANN News

a. .AFRICA new gTLD litigation UPDATE:

Future Hearings:

Jan 25, 2019 at 08:30 am Final Status Conference;
Feb 6, 2019 at 10:00 am Trial.

b. Pre-ICANN63 Policy Open House webcast:

ICANN63 is in Barcelona, Spain, Oct 20-25, 2018.

Thursday, 11 October 2018, 10:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC. The open house will run in English with simultaneous Spanish interpretation. The presentation materials will be translated into Spanish, and posted following the open house with the recordings of the sessions here. Register via this form by 8 Oct 2018. More info here.

c. Issues and Challenges Impacting Domain Name Registrants (pdf):

--ICANN.org blog 26 Sep 2018. See also icann.org/registrants.

d. Open for Public Comment at ICANN Closing in October (23:59 UTC on the respective date indicated below--subject to change by ICANN):

• Next Steps On Reviews 5 Oct 2018

• Proposals for Devanagari, Gurmukhi, and Gujarati Scripts' Root Zone‬ Label Generation Rules 8 Oct 2018
• Proposals for Kannada, Oriya and Telugu Scripts' Root ZoneLabel Generation Rules 8 Oct 2018
• Proposed gTLD-Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) Profile 13 Oct 2018

e. SSR2 Restart, Terms of Reference Update (pdf).

f. ICANN's new gTLD .BRAND extortion racket loses two more: .spiegel and .blanco.

4) Names, Domains & Trademarks

a. Malicious Domain Names often use a trusted TLS certificate and appear to be safe for online shoppers who unknowingly provide sensitive account information and payment data reports Venafi.com. Among the key findings from the research:

• The total number of certificates for look-alike domains is more than 200% greater than the number of authentic retail domains.
• The growth in look-alike domains appears to be connected to the availability of free TLS certificates; 84% of the look-alike domains studied use free certificates from LetsEncrypt.org.

b. Zoho.com says its domain name registrar, TierraNet (tierra.net), pulled Zoho's website offline for a few hours after receiving three phishing complaints in two months related to Zoho-hosted email users. Zoho is now looking for a new domain name registrar according to TechCrunch.com. [Editor's note: Zoho may want to check out Cloudfare Registrar. Early access sign up.]

c. Intellectual property and e-commerce: Alibaba’s perspective | wipo.int.

5) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

US-China Internet Bifurcation:

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts the internet will bifurcate into Chinese-led and US-led versions within the next decade: "I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America."--CNBC.com.

Bad Internet Laws:

The spectre of bad Internet laws in Europe should be a warning shot for Canadians https://t.co/bogvr2dbcW

— EFF (@EFF) September 20, 2018

UN Sec-Gen High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation:

1st mtg of High-level Panel on #DigitalCooperation underway during #UNGA with co-chairs @melindagates & #JackMa and 20 diverse experts ranging from economists to civil society activists, young entrepreneurs & govt Ministers talking about a digital future that works for all pic.twitter.com/B240uNeIIk

— High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (@UNSGdigicoop) September 24, 2018

More information: digitalcooperation.org and @UNSGdigicoop.

6) Most Read Posts this past week on DomainMondo.com: 

1. News Review: ICANN & GDPR, EPDP F2F Meeting in LA, Sep 24-26

2. Tech Review: Digital Outdoor Advertising Growth Due To GDPR? (video)

3. Tech Review: 1) First Major Global eSports League; 2) eSports in China

4. US Senate Hearing To Examine Safeguards for Consumer Data Privacy

-- John Poole, Editor • Domain Mondo 

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