2021-05-20 EPDP Team Phase 2A - Meeting #24

Notes/ Action Items

Please refer to the project spreadsheet for action items.

EPDP Phase 2A - Meeting #24

Proposed Agenda

Thursday 20 May 2021 at 14.00 UTC

1.                     Roll Call & SOI Updates (5 minutes)

2.                     Welcome & Chair updates (Chair) (5 minutes)

• Please take note of the Initial Report template that was distributed yesterday
• The substantive portion of the report is still being worked on using separate documents
• Reminder of the hard deadline of the 31 May for publication of the Initial Report
• In his message, Keith has noted that there will not be minority statements in the Initial Report; any outstanding areas of disagreement will be reflected in the report and posed as questions. Groups may submit their minority statements as public comments or preserve them for the Final Report
• There will be an update from Keith and Philippe during today’s Council call re: the status of EPDP Phase 2A

3.                     Feasibility of unique contacts (15 minutes)

i. Whether or not unique contacts to have a uniform anonymized email address is feasible, and if feasible, whether it should be a requirement.

ii. If feasible, but not a requirement, what guidance, if any, can be provided to Contracted Parties who may want to implement uniform anonymized email addresses.

1. Questions to be considered by the EPDP Team

Note, in a number of instances suggestions were made by some members of the team, which others objected to. Those items have been flagged as changes not applied in the redline version – EPDP Team members are encouraged to reach out to each other to see if a compromise can be reached and communicate these back to the full team for consideration.

1. No specific proposals have been put forward in relation to the topic of web-forms. Various approaches have been suggested during previous calls such as providing guidance to phase 1 IRT, referring this issue back to the GNSO Council for further consideration, not making any reference here but direct those that have expressed concern about web-forms to the phase 1 IRT and/or ICANN compliance from which the issue can be escalated, if necessary.

o  Which approach should the EPDP Team follow for the purpose of the Initial Report?

o  Are there any volunteers that would be willing to write up a proposal on the agreed approach on this topic for the EPDP Team to consider? 

• Alan G. to work with Mark Sv. on a draft proposal by tomorrow’s deadline
• Uncomfortable that this in included at all – this is out of scope for this team’s work. Impress upon the leadership to consider what is in scope. If the webform is not working, complaints should be raised through the proper channels. Due to the tight timeline, we should not be increasing the scope.
• Any diverging views can be included in the Initial Report
• This is in scope because we were asked to determine Phase 1 recommendations.
• Part of the reason that some stakeholders are noting that pseudonymous emails are necessary is because the current implementation of webforms does not facilitate communication with the registrant.
• The scope of this group is not to revisit every recommendation in Phase 1 – just rec. 17. Please see the relevant comment in the chat.
• If we ask for public feedback on an item that will ultimately be ignored, that would be tone deaf.
• Web forms are not working very well because the sender cannot be sure that the email would be forwarded. Email, if it is addressed to the registrant via the registrar will lead to a lot of spam. This pseudonymous email is trying to achieve a way of reaching the registrant and cross-correlating emails. This is a separate issue that needs to be addressed separately.
• If the group believes the Council should undertake further work on this topic, the group could not this.
• This group is trying to fix two problems that were not addressed in Phase 1. If pseudonymous emails are not going to be further considered, the group needs to ensure that web forms actually work as intended.

b. Confirm next steps – EPDP Team to review updated version of write up and flag any comments or suggested edits in the form of comments to the document by Friday 21 May. 

• Team to consider specific proposals provided by the deadline of tomorrow, Friday, 21 May.

4.                            Legal vs. natural (45 minutes)

i. Whether any updates are required to the EPDP Phase 1 recommendation on this topic (“Registrars and Registry Operators are permitted to differentiate between registrations of legal and natural persons, but are not obligated to do so“); 

ii. What guidance, if any, can be provided to Registrars and/or Registries who differentiate between registrations of legal and natural persons.

Consensus policy question write up

1. Staff walk through of updated recommendation concerning standardized data element.

• Following Tuesday’s call, the Support Team included additional text for the Team to consider regarding a possible data element.
• On Tuesday, staff walked through the Phase 1 work on workbooks, purpose 3, and the minimum public data set.
• While the approach of analyzing data processing helpful, the group fell short with the use of optional, and this is something the IRT is still trying to recover from.
• For this text, we are using more specific terms of MUST, MUST IF, or MAY
• Here, there is a new data element entitled “registrant legal person,” and there are three options that make up that data element, “yes” “no” or “unspecified”. MAY means registrars will be able to choose if they will allow the registrant to self-designate as a legal person. IF the data element is processed, need to consider the proceeding downstream. The further text goes into the transfer (to registries and data escrow agents) and display. 

b. Initial feedback & reactions from EPDP Team

• This field should be considered for purposes of sharing with the SSAD.
• Agree this field should be shared with the SSAD
• In terms of “if collected,” we’re not on track to specify specific requirements
• There are 3 options to this flag – if the RNH does check the box that they are a legal person, that would flip the flag to “yes”. If there is option for a natural person, and that is checked, it would be “no”. If there is nothing in the field, it is probably an indicator that the registrar is not offering the field.
• Suggest changing legal person to legal entity. For the policy matter, because there is an unspecified field, we would like this to be mandatory.
• Seems as though all comments registries submitted were ignored, though the feedback will likely be recycled. This seems to be asking the wrong question – the question is does the registration data contain information related to a natural person. Making it MUST IF COLLECTED to transfer from the registrar to the registry makes it no longer optional for a registry. This is unlikely to be supported in the registry comments.
• Many of us believe that this is an important field. This may not be a definitive field, but it is important to many. There is also a recommendation that says “please publish all of my data”. This is akin to that recommendation with a different flavor. In terms of a registry having to add this – it is really adding to a database table, it is not a particularly onerous requirement.
• Registries disagree that this is not an onerous requirement

c. Confirm next steps - EPDP Team to review updated version of write up and flag any comments or suggested edits in the form of comments to the document by Friday 21 May.   

• Welcome input on the document by COB tomorrow.

Guidance write up – outstanding issues

d. In light of ICANN org input on how guidance/best practices would be implemented by ICANN org (seehttps://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-epdp-team/2021-May/003904.html) is there:

1. Any need for further updates in relation to EPDP Team expectations for implementation of guidance / best practices or is it sufficient to point to this response to clarify how guidance / best practice recommendations would be treated?
2. Any need to further consider possible incentives for CPs to follow this guidance, noting that some concerns were previously expressed that “linking of acceptance of risk to the data rights of registrants in exchange for certain incentives, especially monetary in value” could be problematic? Is this a potential question for which input can be sought during the public comment forum?

• Incentives are not a mandate of the EPDP – this seems to be a contractual negotiation. The only enforcement part is if we recommend the new data element, that is policy.

1. No indication has been provided that there would be a difference in treatment between guidelines/guidance/best practices – what term should be used in the Initial Report?

5.                            Homework assignments reminder 

·         By Friday 21 May, EPDP Team to review the updated LvN consensus question i write up for the Initial Report (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_k0hVA6c2SvQPLiaZAlUllTKdplssofYlRHDkeR4mJ8/edit?usp=sharing). Please provide comments, suggestions and proposed edits in the form of comments.

·         By Friday 21 May, EPDP Team to review updated version of feasibility of unique contacts write up for the Initial Report (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wpZWZzCNcDsAYuy3FqxV67POgDV2hrOvrwGa3kjddOc/edit?usp=sharing). Please provide comments, suggestions and proposed edits in the form of comments.

Next steps / Timeline reminder

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17qLMYb3HC7qGYPQveXbUq5ZSzvedrQ3t8AdVdrRIdrw/edit#gid=0

6.      Wrap and confirm next EPDP Team meeting (5 minutes):

      a. EPDP Team Meeting #25 Tuesday 25 May at 14.00 UTC

      b. Confirm action items

      c. Confirm questions for ICANN Org, if any