On May 15, 2013, at 7:50 PM, David Farmer <farmer@xxxxxxx> wrote: > So lets play a little hypothetical here; What if an RIR or ICANN through a global policy decided Whois Data no longer should be public for overriding privacy reasons. My read of Section 5, is that would be proper path for such a change, and long as the technical guidance of the IETF is considered in the process. But then through RFC 2860 and Section 5, if the IETF objected on technical or architectural grounds, and formally through the IESG, then the IAB would essentially adjudicate the issue. And ICANN or the RIR are obligated to accept the decision of the IAB. Do I have that right? To be abundantly clear, you are hypothesizing a difference of opinion between the IETF/IESG and the ICANN/RIR communities, wherein the technical guidance of the IETF was considered during the ICANN/RIR decision process, but in the end the outcome was contrary to IETF expectations. This would be an unfortunate (but not impossible) situation, as many folks in the combined community would likely have been involved during the process trying to figure out why there is such a significant difference in views and facilitating sharing of the beliefs and thought processes that underlie the situation. (btw, these types of efforts happen in more contexts than just the hypothetical one you suggest, and are a good reason to ask "Have you hugged your AD recently"? ;-) > To be clear, I'm not advocating Whois should or shouldn't remain public, or that anything is wrong with the Section 5. This just seemed like a plausible hypothetical to explore how the puzzle pieces work together to make the Internet Numbers Registry System. Also, I just want to fully understand what Section 5 really means. Ultimately, your hypothetical situation could result in the breakdown of the present relationship between IETF and ICANN/RIR organizations (ref: RFC 2860, section 2), with otherwise indeterminate consequences... i.e. "It would be bad." When the various Internet organizations are aligned in the coordination of Internet critical resources (DNS, IP addresses, protocol & parameter #'s), then the result is well understood. We lack experience with the alternative, and it is not clear whether chair remains upright when missing one or more legs. FYI, /John p.s. Disclaimer: My views alone.