Re: Working Group Last Call for draft-ietf-httpbis-legally-restricted-status

[Tim Bray <[e-mail]>]

I’ll leave most of your points for others, but did want to provide
background on the specific phrase “legal demand”.  The earliest drafts said
something else, it may have actually been “legal requirement”.  At the time
I was a Google employee and consulted with a Google attorney who has
expertise in this area.  She explained that it would be wise to avoid any
phrases that suggested acknowledging the demand was justified or
legitimate, as this could be prejudicial should it come to litigation.
She recommended the use of “legal demand”, because this is just a statement
of a fact: Someone made a demand, and we decided to block access.  Thus,
the last few drafts have been careful to stick with that phrase.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Amos Jeffries <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 30/09/2015 4:29 p.m., Mark Nottingham wrote:
> > Everyone,
> >
> > After talking with the editor and our AD, I think this document is ready
> to progress; the only remaining action on it is to add the registration
> template for the new link relation.
> >
> > So, this is the announcement of WGLC for:
> >
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-legally-restricted-status-02
> >
> > Please review the document carefully, and comment on this list.
> >
>
> Section 1:
>
>  "for use when a server operator has a received a legal demand to deny
> access to a resource"
>
> This is a lot more restrictive than what I understood was being agreed
> to. This phrasing implies that a specific-URL DMCA type notice is
> required before the status may be used.
>
> It would be a lot more reasonable to also allow the status to be used
> when a blanket law requirement was levelled on the operator. For example
> schools following laws on porn fitering, or national level restrictions
> on categories of traffic. In cases like these operators dont receive
> per-resource demands, they often receive a one-off notice "law X applies
> to you" and are then expected to censor proactively to the best of their
> ability and face the court on overlooked URLs.
>
> Probably this can be resolved with s/legal demand/legal requirement/.
>
> There are other "legal demand" phrase uses elsewhere to keep in sync.
>
> If "legal demand" is being used with a meaning other than a specific
> warrant DMCA takedown etc. Then that definitely needs to be explained.
>
>
> Section 1:
>
>  "This transparency s/may be/is/ beneficial"
>
>  How much benefit and in what ways is the questionable part IMHO. Not
> whether there is benefit.
>
>
> Section 4:
>  "A human readable response body, as discussed above, is the appropriate
> location for discussion of administrative and policy issues."
>
>  This is specification document, not a discussion one. I suggest
> rephrasing along the lines of:
>
>  "A human readable response body, as defined above, is the appropriate
> location for text regarding administrative and policy issues."
>
> and/or with a reference to section 3 instead of just "above".
>
>
>
> Amos
>
>


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- Tim Bray (If you’d like to send me a private message, see
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