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<p class=MsoNormal>All,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=default><span style='font-size:11.0pt;color:windowtext'>Please note
that ICANN today released an RFP to solicit costs and feasibility from
independent researchers to conduct a </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>WHOIS-related
Privacy and Proxy Abuse Study which would methodically analyze a representative
sample of gTLD domains associated with a variety of illegal/harmful Internet
activities. By measuring how often these alleged and confirmed “bad
actors” use Privacy/Proxy registrations, compared to the overall
frequency of Privacy/Proxy registrations, this study would attempt to prove or
disprove the following hypothesis:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=default><span style='font-size:11.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=default><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>A significant percentage of
the domain names used to conduct illegal or harmful Internet activities are
registered via Privacy or Proxy services to obscure the perpetrator’s
identity.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Please see the following link for details: <a
href="http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-18may10-en.htm"><span
style='color:windowtext'>http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-18may10-en.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Responses are due by 20 July 2010, and I will be analyzing
them and providing a report to the Council shortly thereafter. Please
feel free to contact me if you have any questions<span style='color:#1F497D'>.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Best regards, Liz<o:p></o:p></p>
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