Planet Communications Computing Facility <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Privacy is a very important issue - on the net, to the consumer, and to
> government organizations in the free world.
I certainly wouldn't disagree! But I think some clarification is in order;
perhaps you overestimate the "intrusion" remote participation is alleged to
make.
The remote participation sign-in screen (which will become available shortly
before the first webcast begins) asks for a total of six pieces of
information:
The first three go together in my mind: first name, last name, and company
(if any). I understand that physical attendees of the Santiago meeting will
be asked to provide this same information as a part of the sign-in process
there. (This seems awfully reasonable to me... and I do recall at least the
Geneva IFWP meeting doing the same.) It seems only reasonable that the same
should be done online, and while a list of names and companies of remote
participants will be posted as a part of the archive, I've never received a
request not to be listed there, though I would fulfill such a request if I
received it.
Fourth, email address, which will be accompanied by the following
disclaimer: "we will not share email addresses; however, we may use contact
information obtained here to send announcements pertaining to remote
participation in this meeting or future similar events." As I've received
some feedback from prior remote participants thanking me for letting them
know of upcoming ICANN public meetings, I'm inclined to continue collecting
email addresses of remote participants for this purpose, especially as the
field can be left blank by those who prefer not to receive such messages.
Does anyone think this is a bad idea as currently implemented?
Fifth, connection speed. Not disclosed to anyone outside the Berkman staff.
(Currently used only for our informational purposes; it's important for us
to know how many users access the webcast at what speed so that we can make
the necessary arrangements for higher-bitrate webcasts in the future, if the
data entered in this field suggests that high-bandwidth content would be
usable by a significant number of participants.)
Sixth, continent. Labeled optional in the sign-in form. May be disclosed
in aggregate form (i.e. "60% of online participants were from outside North
America") but not about any single participant as an individual. Intended
use is to help us plan geographic locations of mirrored Realservers for
increased performance & stability in the future. If it turns out, say, that
there are quite a few Asian users of the webcast, it's good for us to know
as much so that we can arrange a Realserver there and thereby enhance the
quality of the Asian audio and video feeds while reducing overall network
utilization.
I must say, I think these fields are exceptionally reasonable -- each
justified for a legitimate logistical reason, with privacy policies clearly
stated on the sign-in form itself. Nonetheless, if there are
counterarguments re why the above should be done differently (or not at all,
I suppose...), I'd be open to hearing them, on or off-list.
Ben Edelman
Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Harvard Law School
