Question: Given the diverse privacy policies among registrars, do you foresee ICANN taking any position on privacy rights relative to the application of Carnivore.

Nominee Replies

Barbara Simons - posted on 2000-10-09 21:43:11 I find Carnivore really scary! While I am opposed to having ICANN make policy, I certainly would want to discourage people and organizations from cooperating with any efforts to implement Carnivore. I would not change my current practice of speaking out against widespread monitoring of communications, either by government or by non-governmental organizations or individuals. Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-09-25 00:48:11 No, I do not see ICANN taking a position on Carnivore. It should neither accommodate nor stand in the way. The threat of Carnivore is a debate to be had on the national level with the federal government and its many constituencies -- including voters. With respect to privacy policies among registrars, ICANN should set guidelines and, if not require specific privacy protections, at least require disclosure and opt-out/opt-in options for domain holders. ICANN should encourage its registrars to maintain the highest level of privacy, whether Carnivore exists or not. Donald Langenberg - posted on 2000-09-24 11:50:25 I believe ICANN is (or ought to be) an essentially apolitical organization dedicated to helping make the world's evolving electronic neural system work optimally for all its users. Accordingly, I do not think ICANN should take formal public positions on issues UNLESS they have important potential impacts on ICANN's pursuit of its own mission. My analog here is a university. Universities generally do not take sides on political or ideological issues, except for those that bear on the university's fundamental dedication to the open and free pursuit of knowledge and truth. Carnivore provides an interesting case in point. All I know about it is what I read in the popular press. That tells me that Carnivore's developers may be seeking university help in its further development. I would expect that none of my university system's institutions would take a public stance for or against Carnivore. However, if some of my IT faculty wished to work on such a project, I would defend their right (and academic freedom) to do so provided their work met our usual requirements about open publication of research results, limited protection of proprietary information, etc. (What those same faculty might choose to do as private consultants is their affair.) Harris Miller - posted on 2000-09-23 16:58:18 I believe that as important as issues like privacy are, they are squarely outside the bounds of ICANN's specific mandate. There are more developed and effective fora in the U.S. and around the world which can deal with privacy questions more effectively. ICANN should have the discipline to focus. Lyman Chapin - posted on 2000-09-22 07:05:15 ICANN might decide to establish consistent privacy policy criteria for all registrars for a given TLD registry, but I don't foresee it taking positions on the legitimacy of specific national government activities. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-09-22 05:09:42 ICANN has no role in setting privacy policy. Its role is to assure the policies chosen by policy makers (governments) can be implemented within the Net's design. ICANN should resist changes that would make it hard for one nation's strong privacy policy to be implemented within the structures of the Net. ICANN does have an important role in assuring its own rules comply with privacy policies. It is not clear that they do just now.