[AfrICANN-discuss] Public comments are invited on the GNSO Council's WHOIS reports and recommendations.

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-14sep07.htm
Public comments are invited via email until 00:00 UTC (17:00 PDT) on
30 October 2007 on the GNSO Council's WHOIS reports and
recommendations.

Submit comments to: whois-comments-2007 at icann.org.
View comments at http://forum.icann.org/lists/whois-comments-2007/.

Background

In March, 2007, a WHOIS Task Force convened by the GNSO Council in
June, 2005 completed its final report. The Task Force was asked to
address important questions related to WHOIS. Key questions included
the purpose of WHOIS service, which information should be available to
the public, how to improve WHOIS accuracy and how to deal with
conflicts between WHOIS requirements and relevant privacy laws. In the
final report, a simple majority of members of the WHOIS Task Force
endorsed a proposal called the "Operational Point of Contact" (OPOC).

Under OPOC, every registrant would identify a new operational contact
and the technical and administrative contact details would no longer
be displayed. The final WHOIS Task Force Report of 12 March, 2007 is
posted at http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/whois-services-final-tf-report-12mar07.htm.

Following completion of the Task Force Report and public comment
period, on 28 March the GNSO Council issued a resolution creating a
WHOIS Working Group to examine three issues and to make
recommendations concerning how current policies may be improved to
address these issues:

   1. to examine the roles, responsibilities and requirements of the
OPOC, and what happens if they are not fulfilled;
   2. to examine how legitimate interests will access unpublished
registration data; and
   3. to examine whether publication of registration contact
information should be based on the type of registered name holder
(legal vs. natural persons) or the registrant's use of a domain name.

The Whois Outcomes Working Group Report was finalized on 20 August,
2007. It is posted at
http://gnso.icann.org/drafts/icann-whois-wg-report-final-1-9.pdf [PDF,
213K]. On 6 September 2007, the GNSO Council approved a resolution
which, among other things, establishes a schedule for consideration of
the WHOIS Task Force Report and the WHOIS Working Group Report. This
schedule includes solicitation of further public comments and
culminates in a public Council discussion and vote on 31 October 2007
during the Los Angeles ICANN.

In addition, the resolution calls for ICANN staff to prepare a type of
"draft final report" that references the Task Force Report, the
Working Group Charter and the Working Group Report and which includes
an overall description of the process. The following document,
entitled, Staff Overview of Recent GNSO WHOIS Activity [PDF, 77K], has
been prepared in response to the Council Resolution. It contains the
full text of the GNSO resolution and the schedule for GNSO Council
consideration of the reports.

Again, further public comments are invited via email until 00:00 UTC
(17:00 PDT) on 30 October 2007 on the GNSO Council's WHOIS reports and
recommendations referenced above and summarized in the Staff Overview
of Recent GNSO WHOIS Activity [PDF, 77K]. Submit comments to:
whois-comments-2007 at icann.org. View comments at
http://forum.icann.org/lists/whois-comments-2007/.