I believe that we discussed this over many months (years?), there was no agreement thus it was put forward as an individual proposal and there was also insufficient consensus on it then. And as Phil said last week, now is not the time to put forward brand new proposals,

This was my proposal, not George Kirikos'

Cynthia is correct about the interpretation of the INTA comment.

I've lost the narrative on this one. Haven't we covered this 2-3 times now already?

Furthermore, th suggestion in that comment about limited/accredited access in the event the TMDB was opened was not a new idea, so I don’t really understand why it has been latched on to as a basis for further discussion on something where there is clearly a lack of consensus

+1 Cyntia. Thanks for the clarity of your intervention.

What new ideas?

We DID discuss the proposal. It was the majority view that there would be no consensus.

I haven’t seen anyone explain how the burden for further substantive discussion has been met based on new ideas in public comments.

Agree wit Griffin; there were no new ideas.

That premise seems to be based on a misunderstand or falsely equating the INTA comments as being a new idea

There is an oversight function, as Cynthia explained

ICANN has the power to audit TMCH/TMDB under its existing contracts

@Jasn - your comment is factually incorrect & objectionable.

The question is whether this proposal is properly before the WG.

Can I ask people to please comment on point No. 2 in Lori's email, i.e., that the premise for the revised proposal was revoked/misunderstood -- we have already discussed the substance of the openness of the TMCH at length over the years.

"Reasonable oversight and review" by who?

Oversight already exists. Period. It's in the TMCH contracts. It's just not an open function.

We don't have substantive evidence of any such problem with the TMCH. Only supposition and suspicion.

or whether it got there based on a misunderstanding of the INTA proposal,

There is no evidence of harm.

We have discussed this issue for years.

Exactly. We did not reach conensus on the original proposal.

Because it’s a brand new proposal being put forward at a time when I thought we weren’t supposed to be entertaining new proposals

Why wasn’t this proposal put forward at the time when we were collecting individual proposals?

@Griffin, that’s why staff ventured to suggest that there is a distinction between the issue (opening the TMCH) and a new proposal.

Lori's note has been on the screen quite a while. Can we see Michael's proposal since it is being alluded to repeatedly?

I don’t think anything new came to light in the public comment about the concerns with open TMCH access

Those concerns were known for years

So the fact remains that folks who made proposal 7 chose to go that route instead of putting forward a proposal that addressed those known concerns from the outset

We have no new information, or any new data. This is a new proposal that was not put forward at the correct time.

Discussion of the substance of the proposal is out of order until we address the procedural question.

Where?

ICANN has audit power of the TMCH and TMDB under its contracts with Deloitte and IBM

A reminder that the information is given out to people who get Notices--it's not secret.

The procedural question is whether this is in front of use because of bootstrapping off a misreading of the INTA proposal.

We don't know that. To the best of our knowledge, Analysis Group was the first to review this database.

Third bite. WG talked about it endlessly. No consensus. First bite. Geo K. put forward proposal to overturn non consensus. Discussed endlessly. No consensus. Bite two. Now we have bite three based, partly, on a misunderstood INTA position and aren't even giving Lori the courtesy of moving this to the next call as requested. Folks, if the goal is run the time out on this PDP, this is the formula.

Exactly Rebecca - so why is a more generalized audit function needed?

Agree with Cyntia and Paul.

Among other things, so that we know how many of the top 100 notice triggers are like the top 10--generic words with no particular brand attached, like cloud and hotel

People would have found that out if they sought to register such domains and got a notice

Here are links btw to contractual documents between ICANN and Deloitte/IBM in which the ICANN audit function is referenced:

https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/validation-framework-02jul13-en.pdfhttps://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/database-framework-02jul13-en.pdfhttps://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/database-platform-sow-02jul13-en.pdfhttps://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/sunrise-claims-sow-02jul13-en.pdf

@Rebecca - as you have peviously pointed out regarding the GDPR & Whois, info used to notice individuals for enforcement is not the same as open seachability of a database.

It wasn’t even an “INTA proposal"

It was a comment clearly couched as a caveat

Or with a caveat

It’s not a “misreading”. It says what it says. If they want to shift their position - that’s a separate questions

That’s not what INTA says it says.

INTA’s comment clearly says: Do Not Support Proposal

It's true that would-be wrongdoers have this information available to them, but that just undercuts the "strategy" objection. People interested in what the TMCH as a whole (not a TM owner) is doing can't do that

@Rebecca - they can't do this by design. It was part of the consensus originally reached when the RPM was developed.

Greg -- just checking, old hand?

Because the procedural threshold needs to be met before we can reach substance...

The "substance" does not have consensus. It never has.

Of what "abuse" of the TMCH do we have evidence?

You have evidence of abuse despite the closed database, plus existing mechanisms for addressing such abuse.

That's incorrect, @Kathy. An audit function exists in the current contracts w/ IBM & Deloitte.

So why is a change needed?

Why are we still having an out of order discussion. Can the chairs decide where we are? As chairs?

Completely disagree, respectfully, Kathy.

Because 15/22 was not a new proposal…. It was just a consolidation and reconfiguration of two other proposals

Great!

Just to clarify - the Working Group did not find widespread evidence of “abuse” of the TMCH. There was some agreement that there may have been a certain extent of abuse by some trademark holders and domain investors.

Thank you, Mary.

Agree that in light of Lori's explanation, there is no basis for reopening our entire process to allow this new individual proposal to proceed to discussion as part of our review of the Public Comments. Personally, I believe the TMCH could be opened for some analysis of data under some protections. However, this topic has been addressed extensively and no change in the status quo (i.e. closed TMCH) has been agreed to. Time to move on.

A limited public open audit power of the TMDB could be the subject of its own EPDP

To check for abuse - and operation outside of policy.

@Cyntia -- Agree.

+1 Cyntia

There is public discussion outside of the WG of abuse so we as a group have a decision to make. Do we wish to just ignore abuse?

We knew prior to the publication of the IR that we did not have consensus for making the TMCH database open to the public. This individual proposal would have been in order prior to IR publication.With the INTA clarification there is no longer a procedural basis for consideration of this proposal at this point in our deliberations.

I don’t think we are ignoring it. We have decided as WG that the abuse is not so widespread that it requires a disproportionate policy response such as opening the TMCH. There exist mechanisms to challenge perceived improper TMCH records, which those who believe there is abuse have not apparently made any use of.

+1 Griffin.

+1 Griffin

We don't know the full extent of the abuse. How much abuse is "acceptable" We are ignoring a problem.

We are now 44 minutes into this.

BTW I am planning to withdraw URS proposal 15/22 from further consideration

Moving on.

@Jason - even if true that rampant abuse exists, there is a current mechanism to address it.

Griffin withdrew the proposal

Thanks, Cyntia. I would like to see more on the current mechanism. If so, then that could be useful if put to use.

Well, this one is easy then. Griffin, thanks for your work on this.

@Jason and I do appreciate your offers to discuss 15/22 so I hope you don’t feel short-shifted given our decision to withdraw in lieu of further work on it

This is the analysis doc for Sub Group A: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10mftuhNy7YMgtCIu2ZRwsCleDgbP8AAAFz_jMHBFL70/edit#

Hand up

I think we should give David the courtesy that we didn't give Lori.

Thanks Paul… ultimately just didn’t see a reasonable path forward, and frankly don’t have the energy after 4 years of this to keep running into more dead ends

No problem, Griffin. Looking forward to other discussions with you.

Right so fort TMCH Rec 1 we are just clarifying what the status quo is for part 3 in particular, which caused some apparent confusion among commenters

The suggested change was to clarify the work done by the WG and does not modify the actual recommendation.

I agree we should probably revise this rec to clearly state specifically what the status quo being maintained is for each item

Makes sense; clarity is always useful!

yep noted

Agreed

Paul raises a good point…. Should we drop out from final report anything that doesn’t make a change, I.e. anything that just reaffirms the status quo?

Would certainly make it lighter and easier to get through

Although perhaps maintaining them to keep the record of the discussion is needed

Thanks Mary!

THanks Kathy. I'm happy either way, I just don't recall seeing status quos affirmed in Recommendations before.

I don’t think we need to lose all the discussion, agree it is important to preserve that for the record, but perhaps kept separately from affirmative recommendations - just a question of making the final report a more useful document from an implementation standpoint

In this case, with so many possibilities for change evaluated, it's good to make clear where we landed :-)

@Griffin, @Paul, all - yes, the purpose of the Final Report is different from that of the Initial Report, the latter being meant to drive meaningful public comments.

good~!

To clarify--any language review will be done as part of our overall review of the Final Report, not as a separate item?

Is Staff OK with this?

Sorry to join so late. I had an IPC call.

Yes, we can help with the drafting

Good question - Phil.

Yes - any proposed new language for recommendations will certainly need to be reviewed by the WG.

To be clear, I want it done as part of the WG's overall review of FR

The work plan foresees time for the WG to review the final language for all recommendations as well as the overall final report.

sorry I couldn't join sooner - conflicting call

@Mary -good news, thanks.

No objections

To continuing

No objection

The difference between reviewing the final recommendation text and the overall final report is that, for the former, we need to make sure we got it exactly right (i.e. captured the WG’s consensus level and the actual recommendation intended). For the report, the purpose is to make sure it reflects the work that was done rather than wordsmithing. As a reminder, the final report is not mean to include every topic discussed but rather act as a summary of the overall work (with links as appropriate).

I think it's worthwhile to review each of these items where there is no change for a few minutes each, so that there are no surprises when we review FR text.

@Phil, yes, doing this now should ensure the WG will not need to spend weeks going through the final report page by page :) As mentioned, the focus during the final weeks needs to be on setting consensus and agreeing on the final text of the actual recommendations.

Can a brand owner deduce from WHOIS that a name is likely reserved (it would show as unregistered by not available, right?)?

do any registries/registrars want to address?

@Paul - not sure … in some cases there just wouldn’t be a WHOIS record at all I think

I guess Maxim’s suggestion is that where a Sunrise registration is rejected without explanation, the prospective Sunrise registrant should just contact the registry to find out why, rather than have this sort of whois check

registries already have the right to speak

@Paul - the problem was in certain cases when you would go to register the domain name in Sunrise you would get merely a message "Name Not Available."

or more accurately "Not Available"

@Maxim - true, .CO does that.

Maxim - we understand why ROs reserve certain names, that’s not the question

I don’t think anyone is asking ROs to reveal their plans for a reserved name or why it is being reserved … just a facile way of confirming that a name is not available in Sunrise bc it has been reserved by the RO....

So to be clear: if a registrant gets an "unavailable" message, they just need to ask the Registrar why and they'll say that its reserved, Maxim?

FYI, I have to leave the call at 10:25 to run another call at 10:30...so that will explain my somewhat premature departure

Bye/see you Thursday

I hope the irony isn't lost that some are pushing for trademark owners to publish their sensitive trademark lists via the TMCH but can't get any traction for registrars to publish their reserved names list...

Sorry I have to go for another meeting,

Many thanks to Ariel and Mary for presenting the Sub A report so far.

Pleasure to help, David

@Cyntia - “…. the WG does not recommend mandatory publication by Registry Operators of their Reserved Names lists”

Paul: and yes most CPHs do of course want to run a clean business so we shouldn't assume any unproven "abuse. The same courtesy would be welcomed for all brands - including the very many SME brands.

@Jason - I think you’re not wrong, generally speaking, I think the idea was to have something more consistent and uniform to avoid having to rely on those Linds of ad hoc communications to get the information

*kinds of

I don't understand why this is a discussion about publishing reserved names lists. the proposal was just that if someone does an RDAP lookup for a name which isn't available there's a notification that its reserved

Sorry, have to jump off

Perhaps we capture it, as Susan very succinctly put it, as a voluntary option for registries / registrars to consider

+1, Griffin and Susan.

We can capture the gist of the discussion in the contextual language of the recommendation, if it works for the WG

Thanks, Ariel!

Tx Brian!

Next call: Thursday, 06 August 2020 at 17:00 UTC for 90 minutes.

Thanks Brian, staff and all

Thanks Brian

+1 @Griffin

thanks Brian, bye all

Bye!

bye all