--On Monday, November 28, 2011 14:10 -0500 IETF Chair
<chair@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ted:
>
>> The IETF legal counsel and insurance agent suggest that the
>> IETF ought to have an antitrust policy. To address this
>> need, a lawyer is needed. As a way forward, I suggest that
>> IASA pay a lawyer to come up with an initial draft, and then
>...
>> Sorry, can you expand on the threat model here? Are we
>> developing one in order to defend against some specific worry
>> about our not having one? Because it has become best
>> practice in other SDOs? Because the insurance agent wishes
>> to see something in particular?
>...
> Recent suits against other SDOs is the source of the concern.
> The idea is t make it clear which topics are off limits at
> IETF meetings and on IETF mail lists. In this way, if such
> discussions take place, the good name of the IETF can be kept
> clean.
Russ,
I haven't tracked the question of who is suing which SDOs and
over what in recent years but my recollection from longer ago is
that the antitrust ("anticompetitiveness" in other vocabularies)
issues fell into three categories, all having to do with issues
of conspiracies to do bad things:
(i) what can be discussed under the umbrella of the SDO
(ii) who can have a conversation with whom except under
controlled circumstances
(iii) who can do what to whom
YOur note seems to address the first. Unless things have
changed, it is almost pointless to do so without also addressing
the other two. The document Sam and Dave suggested would help
a lot here.
But, before starting down this path, we should also be aware
that the second and third issues tend to be expressed in terms
of companies and industrial sectors. As an example of one such
policy, "participants from two companies in the same industrial
sector cannot meet and have a discussion unless neutral third
parties (also defined in industry sector terms) are present" has
been used, as have ones that divide participants up into
"industry", "user/consumer", and "government" sectors and
establish rules on that basis. Similarly, decision-making
bodies in which participants from two or three companies in a
particular industry are present but others are not are often
considered suspect if not outright prohibited.
So establishing an antitrust policy could easily take us away
from the "participation as individuals" path and toward a
"participation as representatives of companies" one, with all
that implies. I'd encourage you, and the IAOC/Trust, to get
legal advice as to whether initiating a public process to define
such rules and then possibly deciding that they are
inappropriate could not, itself, increase our vunerability.
Modulo the above, I think your suggested procedure is reasonable.
john
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