[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] NTIA letter to ICANN re whois

[Sam Lanfranco]

At the risk of being further drummed out of this RDS camp, I find the 
letter neither bad nor amusing. The limiting of WhoIS access by one 
registrar is an early warning that if ICANN does not resolve these 
issues within its multistakeholder process, other stakeholders will take 
independent action in their own self-interest as they perceive it. Both 
nature and policy abhor a vacuum

Second, the security of domain name ownership and the process of 
ownership transfer sit right in the crosshairs of evolving distributed 
ledger (e.g. blockchain) solutions to handing ownership and transfers. I 
have a bottle of wine bet with a friend that a distributed ledger 
application will dis-intermediate the handling of domain name ownership 
and transfers. Registrars will have to survive on value added services, 
with ICANN facing reduced fee revenues.

Any distributed ledger application is not likely to be a private 
distributed ledger, which would probably be seen as a cartel in 
restraint of competition, and more likely will be a federated or 
consortium solution. It could be a public solution if the stakeholder 
community moves slow enough. As John B. says, the choices are on the 
table, and the slower the response the higher the probability of actions 
(including dis-intermediation) from others.

Sam L.


On 4/18/2018 3:15 PM, John Bambenek via gnso-rds-pdp-wg wrote:
> Please include the following in documents for this wg.
>
> https://regmedia.co.uk/2018/04/17/ntia-icann-whois-apr18.pdf
>
> -- 
> John Bambenek
>

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