Antitrust Guidelines for IETF Particiants
draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-00
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Joel M. Halpern , Brad Biddle , Portia Wenze-Danley | ||
| Last updated | 2021-08-30 | ||
| RFC stream | (None) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Stream | Stream state | (No stream defined) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
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draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-00
Network Working Group J. M. Halpern, Ed.
Internet-Draft Ericsson
Intended status: Best Current Practice B. Biddle
Expires: 3 March 2022 Biddle Law PC
J. Daley
IETF Administration LLC
30 August 2021
Antitrust Guidelines for IETF Particiants
draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-00
Abstract
This document provides guidance for IETF participants on compliance
with antitrust laws and how to reduce antitrust risks in connection
with IETF activities.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 3 March 2022.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text
as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Legal Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4. Existing BCPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Recommended Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6. Escalation of antitrust-related concerns . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
Standards development frequently requires collaboration between
competitors. Cooperation among competitors can spark concerns about
antitrust law or competition law violations (antitrust law and
competition law are used here synonymously). Certain actions taken
by a company that holds a dominant market position can similarly
spark concerns about competition law violations. This document
provides guidance for IETF participants about how to reduce antitrust
risks in connection with IETF activities.
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. Legal Compliance
The IETF does not provide legal advice to participants, and instead
encourages participants to obtain independent legal advice as needed.
This document does not contain legal advice.
All IETF participants must behave lawfully when engaged in IETF
activities, including by following applicable antitrust laws.
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4. Existing BCPs
Compliance with the BCPs that document the established rules and
norms of the IETF facilitates compliance with antitrust law, as the
IETF structure and processes are intended to mitigate antitrust
risks. As a reminder, participants are already required to comply
with the following policies documented in the BCPs:
* The Internet Standards Process as described in BCP 9 [BCP9], which
is designed to "provide a fair, open, and objective basis for
developing, evaluating, and adopting Internet Standards," and
provides robust procedural rules, including an appeals process.
* The Working Group Guidelines and Procedures described in BCP 25
[BCP25], which emphasize requirements for "open and fair
participation and for thorough consideration of technical
alternatives," and describe IETF's consensus-based decision-making
processes.
* The IETF framework that participants engage in their individual
capacity, not as company representatives, and "use their best
engineering judgment to find the best solution for the whole
Internet, not just the best solution for any particular network,
technology, vendor, or user," as described in BCP 54 [BCP54].
* The IETF's intellectual property rights policies as set forth in
BCP 78 [BCP78] and BCP 79 [BCP79]; these policies are carefully
designed to "benefit the Internet community and the public at
large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others."
* The established conflict of interest policies, such as the IESG
Conflict of Interest Policy, the IAB Conflict of Interest Policy
or the IETF LLC Conflict of Interest Policy, if and when
applicable.
5. Recommended Behavior
As the IETF is a standards development environment where
representatives from competitors are highly likely to be present,
participants should not discuss the following topics:
* product pricing
* profit margins
* business relationships between specific vendors and customers
* details of particular supply chains
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* specific market opportunities
* employee compensation or benefits
While not all discussions of these topics would necessarily be
antitrust violations, prudence suggests that avoiding these topics
altogether best mitigates antitrust risks.
In addition to avoiding specific topics of discussion, IETF
participants, particularly those in an IETF leadership position,
should not engage in the following:
* behavior that may be considered abuse of a dominant position
* behavior that amounts to an agreement to restrain marketplace
competition.
6. Escalation of antitrust-related concerns
Participants should report potential antitrust concerns in the
context of IETF activities to through the following channels: IETF
Chair (chair@ietf.org), the IETF LLC executive director (exec-
director@ietf.org), the IETF legal counsel (legal@ietf.org), or via
the IETF LLC whistleblower service.
7. IANA Considerations
No values are assigned in this document, no registries are created,
and there is no action assigned to the IANA by this document.
8. Security Considerations
This document may be considered to document means to avoid risks to
the IETF and IETF participants related to antitrust. One may
consider those to be security considerations. Other than that, this
document introduces no known security aspects to the IETF or IETF
participants.
9. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
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[BCP9] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
Dusseault, L. and R. Sparks, "Guidance on Interoperation
and Implementation Reports for Advancement to Draft
Standard", BCP 9, RFC 5657, September 2009.
Housley, R., Crocker, D., and E. Burger, "Reducing the
Standards Track to Two Maturity Levels", BCP 9, RFC 6410,
October 2011.
Resnick, P., "Retirement of the "Internet Official
Protocol Standards" Summary Document", BCP 9, RFC 7100,
December 2013.
Kolkman, O., Bradner, S., and S. Turner, "Characterization
of Proposed Standards", BCP 9, RFC 7127, January 2014.
Dawkins, S., "Increasing the Number of Area Directors in
an IETF Area", BCP 9, RFC 7475, March 2015.
Halpern, J., Ed. and E. Rescorla, Ed., "IETF Stream
Documents Require IETF Rough Consensus", BCP 9, RFC 8789,
June 2020.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp9>
[BCP25] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
Wasserman, M., "Updates to RFC 2418 Regarding the
Management of IETF Mailing Lists", BCP 25, RFC 3934,
October 2004.
Resnick, P. and A. Farrel, "IETF Anti-Harassment
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 7776, March 2016.
Resnick, P. and A. Farrel, "Update to the IETF Anti-
Harassment Procedures for the Replacement of the IETF
Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) with the IETF
Administration LLC", BCP 25, RFC 8716, February 2020.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp25>
[BCP54] Moonesamy, S., Ed., "IETF Guidelines for Conduct", BCP 54,
RFC 7154, March 2014.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp54>
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[BCP78] Bradner, S., Ed. and J. Contreras, Ed., "Rights
Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378,
November 2008.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp78>
[BCP79] Bradner, S. and J. Contreras, "Intellectual Property
Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 8179, May 2017.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp79>
10. Informative References
Authors' Addresses
Joel M. Halpern (editor)
Ericsson
P. O. Box 6049
Leesburg, VA 20178
United States of America
Email: joel.halpern@ericsson.com
Brad Biddle
Biddle Law PC
650 NE Holladay Street, Suite 1600
Portland, OR 97232
United States of America
Email: brad@biddle.law
Jay Daley
IETF Administration LLC
New Zealand
Email: exec-director@ietf.org
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