Subject: Re: [antitrust-policy] Who enforces an Antitrust Policy for the IETF

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Jan 2012 20:08:40 -0500

Temporarily skipping over the question of what practical problem this
is supposed to solve, I have some practical questions.

>If you observe behavior in violation of these guidelines at an IETF
>meeting, please do not be silent; formally object.

What does that mean?  I hear two guys in the next row talking about 
product pricing.  I say, hey, you can't talk about that. They laugh at me 
and continue.  Now what?

Or if this instruction or something like it goes into the Note Well,
it's making every IETF attendee responsible for the behavior of
everyone else.  If someone's hauled into court, they're going to say
well, gee, the IETF specifically tells people to police anti-trust
violations, nobody said anything to us about it, so the IETF agreed
with what we did.

I have trouble imagining a problem this mess is supposed to solve that
is anywhere near as ugly as the swamp it's leading into.

R's,
John

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:05:23 +1300

On 2012-01-16 14:08, John R Levine wrote:
> product pricing.  I say, hey, you can't talk about that. They laugh at
> me and continue.  Now what?

I once heard someone interrupt a speaker by saying "If you don't
stop talking about that right now, I will leave the room, because
of advice from my anti-trust lawyer" (or words to that effect; this
was many years ago). Since this was a pretty prominent IETF
individual, the speaker shut up immediately.

The point was that by being in the room during such a conversation
you could possibly be deemed to have taken part in it. So I'd
say it would be in your own interest to object or walk out. IANAL.

> is anywhere near as ugly as the swamp it's leading into.

Yes, wouldn't it be better to position this item as a guideline on
how to avoid anti-trust issues rather than as a formal rule? The
responsibility should be clearly on the individuals, not on the IETF.

   Brian

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Jan 2012 22:45:37 -0500

> individual, the speaker shut up immediately.

The speaker was protecting his own interests, which is a perfectly 
reasonable thing to do.  That's quite different from drafting us all into 
the IETF's anti-trust enforcement squad.

"You're not allowed to talk about that."  "Yes, I am."  Then what?  Are WG 
chairs supposed to arbitrate?  The session pauses while they call the 
lawyer?  I'm not trying to be unduly difficult, I'm trying to envision a 
way that this proposal won't lead to absurd situations.  If we delete the 
bit about telling people to object, now we have a rule with no enforcement 
mechanism, which is probably worse than no rule at all.

> responsibility should be clearly on the individuals, not on the IETF.

An informative memo outlining anti-trust law for IETF participants would 
be fine.  (Don't forget a version that also reflects EU law, in time for 
the Paris meeting.)  But trying to make rules based on it is a tar pit. 
Since, as I understand it, the IETF has never been involved in an 
anti-trust suit, I'm still trying to understand what concrete problem this 
exercise is trying to solve beyond the generic Someone Might Sue Us.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:05:58 -0500

Dear Brian;

> responsibility should be clearly on the individuals, not on the IETF.

Many IETF discussions under the NOTE WELL do have some
sort of moderator present - e.g., WG Chairs, BOF Chairs & ADs. If X
feels that Y is saying something improper,
X is likely to complain to the Chair. (When I have seen complaints of abuse of
process before at the IETF, they were directed at the Chairs, not the
person speaking, and I doubt this would be
any different.) It seems to me (but IANAL) that
the Chair will respond in some sense officially, with some
responsibility on the IETF on what they say.

So, this can be a guideline, but there would have to be (IMO) some
IETF responsibility to make sure that Chairs did the right thing.
WG Chair training on this subject might suffice.

Regards
Marshall

>   Brian
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