In advance of the ICANN meeting in Toronto, ICANN and the Registrars are posting two documents on the status of negotiations of amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). Since Prague, significant progress has been made, though certain key issues remain open. There were six negotiation sessions, including a full day session with participants from the Governmental Advisory Committee and representatives of law enforcement. As reported earlier, there is agreement in many areas, including nearly all law enforcement recommendations. In the two remaining recommendations still under discussion, ICANN and the registrars are much closer to reaching a negotiated position on Whois verification and data retention.
On Whois verification, a framework for improving Whois accuracy has been developed, however, ICANN and the registrars still have not reached agreement on the number of fields that are to be verified.
On data retention, discussion among law enforcement representatives, registrars and ICANN indicates there is agreement in principle on a two-tiered retention schedule to account for differing data privacy obligations. More detail on each of these items, as well as status of negotiations on the other law enforcement requests, are provided in the documents posted today:
RAA Negotiation Update [PDF, 96 KB]: A memo providing detail on the negotiations since the Prague meeting and providing some questions for further community input.
Summary Chart of Status of Negotiations [PDF, 180 KB]: Detailed status of negotiation on each of the 12 law enforcement requests, noting the remaining items remaining for discussion. Key requests from Registrars and ICANN for additional terms in the RAA are also identified at the end of the chart.
Because the negotiations have been focused on these key areas, ICANN and the Registrars have not yet reached a fully negotiated agreement on all terms and provisions within the RAA. When available, a full draft will be posted for public comment. Until that time, ICANN and the Registrars welcome feedback on the discussion topics identified in the summary memo to help inform the community discussions in Toronto. Comments can be forwarded to the RAA Negotiations Status Wiki.