[whois-sc] Memorandum From ICANN CEO Paul Twomey Concerning Whois

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-18sep03.htm

Memorandum From ICANN CEO Paul Twomey Concerning Whois

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

WHOIS is a topic of much interest to the ICANN community. The future
path for WHOIS service requires the resolution of numerous important
issues, some of which fall within ICANN's purview, but many of which may
arise from statutory or regulatory provisions of national law that have
no direct relationship with ICANN's technical coordination mission, but
that may have implications for ICANN policies. Despite these challenges,
ICANN will continue to encourage and facilitate the spirit of
cooperation and collaboration that the ICANN community and WHOIS
stakeholders brought to ICANN's WHOIS workshop in Montreal. To advance
work on WHOIS in a coordinated and cooperative manner, ICANN will:
support key fact-finding and analysis; promote cross-constituency and
WHOIS stakeholder dialogues, including a WHOIS workshop in Carthage in
October 2003; and establish a "President's Committee on WHOIS," to
support the work of ICANN's community.

Before providing details on these steps to be taken, however, it is
important to ensure a common understanding of the context of ICANN's
WHOIS work. 

Updating and Establishing ICANN WHOIS Policy

To update and establish ICANN WHOIS policy, many critical issues need to
be addressed. Some of these arise from the need to update a
twenty-year-old WHOIS system; other issues are related to ICANN WHOIS
policy and principles; and many are the result of the growth of the
Internet, associated dependencies by users of WHOIS, and the interest of
national governments in WHOIS information.

In recent months, ICANN has made progress in addressing long-standing
concerns about the WHOIS services by which users of the Internet may
obtain information on the registrants of domain names and related
information about holders of Internet protocol (IP) addresses. After
nearly two years of work, ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organization
(DNSO) (now the Generic Names Supporting Organization, GNSO) WHOIS Task
Force made recommendations concerning bulk access to and accuracy of
WHOIS information. These recommendations were developed as a consensus
policy by the GNSO, adopted by the ICANN Board on 27 March 2003, and are
in the process of being implemented.

One of these recommendations, the "WHOIS data reminder policy" (WDRP),
was recently put into practice. It calls for ICANN-accredited registrars
to provide domain-name registrants with an annual listing of their WHOIS
data and to remind registrants of the need to correct inaccurate or
out-of-date information. Registrars have agreed in their accreditation
agreements with ICANN to comply with the WDRP.

Subsequently, a successful WHOIS workshop was organized and held during
the Montreal ICANN meeting in June 2003 to examine a myriad of
outstanding WHOIS issues. The workshop featured presentations from
subject experts on WHOIS, and addressed such issues as privacy, consumer
protection, and law enforcement access. This event engendered productive
discussions among the major constituency groups and WHOIS stakeholders
that will help move us toward a future WHOIS environment that meets the
expectations of the ICANN community, the broader Internet community, and
national governments.

Steps Forward

As I stated at the Montreal workshop, advancing WHOIS will require
further cross-constituency collaboration and bottom-up policy
development. I asked groups to come together and pursue joint efforts,
rather than take the "silo approach" of one constituency developing
recommendations in isolation. In response, members of ICANN's community
have offered suggestions on how to advance ICANN's WHOIS work in a
collaborative manner. ICANN must continue to build a base of WHOIS good
practice, and address policy matters that need attention, to ensure that
the expectations of the community for accurate and accessible WHOIS data
are met with due regard for registrant privacy.

Members of the community and ICANN staff are undertaking several data
gathering and analysis projects intended as prepatory work that will
contribute to the development of "best practice" models for WHOIS in a
bottom-up, consensus development process. Several parallel efforts are,
or soon will be, underway and interested individuals and organizations
are encouraged to contribute: 

1) CRISP Review. The Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF's)
Cross-Registry Information Service Protocol (CRISP) Working Group will
define a standard mechanism that can be used to support commonly
required queries for domain registration information. Participation is
encouraged. The CRISP protocol may, at a future date, be adopted and
affect the services currently implemented in WHOIS. The CRISP Working
Group is in the process of refining requirements (identifying the
community of users, deciding on scope, identifying needs, and
determining features), and has called for comments on the functional
requirements statement contained in the IETF's draft request for
comments (RFC) on the CRISP protocol. The GNSO Council, under the
direction of Bruce Tonkin (GNSO Council Chair), will be launching such a
review and is encouraging its constituencies and liaisons to
participate.

2) WHOIS Data Element Review. With ICANN staff support, an analysis will
be conducted on the existing uses of the registrant data elements
currently captured as part of the domain name registration process. The
intent is to determine whether all of the data elements now collected
are necessary for current and foreseeable needs of the community, and if
so, how they may be acquired with the greatest accuracy, least cost, and
in compliance with applicable privacy, security, and stability
considerations.

3) Domain Name Registrant Classification. At the Montreal workshop,
there was discussion about whether it was feasible to distinguish
different classes of domain name holders such that the WHOIS information
collected from them, and made available to the community, could reflect
differing types of use and potentially different privacy considerations.
The Government Affairs Committee (GAC) WHOIS Working Group, chaired by
Robin Layton (GAC's US Accredited Representative), is investigating this
possibility.

4) Best Practices Information. Another useful endeavor identified at the
Montreal workshop, is the collection of current best practice
information, especially with regard to privacy matters, from selected
country code registries and registrars. Under the leadership of the GAC
and the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) (which is
under formation), contributions to this data gathering effort are
encouraged to help ensure that our WHOIS efforts benefit from the global
community's successes.

Carthage Workshop and President's Committee on WHOIS

To help advance these efforts and encourage coordination and
collaboration, two activities are planned for ICANN's Carthage meeting
in late October. ICANN will sponsor a second WHOIS workshop focusing on
identifying the priority WHOIS issues to be addressed by ICANN and
discussing applicable "best practices." Participation is encouraged.
Additional information will be available (here) in the near future. 

Because WHOIS issues cut across many ICANN constituencies, a
"President's Committee on WHOIS" will be established to support
coordination and collaboration in further fact-finding and analysis, and
Supporting Organization development of draft policy and practice
recommendations. The Committee will be broadly representative of ICANN
constituencies interested in WHOIS issues, and comprised of
knowledgeable individuals who are committed to understanding a broad
range of views and working together to help prioritize WHOIS issues and
move the community forward. Please send recommendations of individuals
to serve on the Committee to Twomey@xxxxxxxxxx 

ICANN constituencies and WHOIS stakeholders are encouraged to
participate in and support the activities outlined above. Your
cooperation and collaboration are vital to creating a future WHOIS
environment that meets the expectations of the ICANN community, the
broader Internet community and national governments.