[council] Response to request from GNSO Council for follow up information on WHOIS studies

[Liz Gasster]

All,

On the GNSO Council's 1 April 2010 call, Council members began to discuss staff's recent report analyzing information gathered to-date on proposed studies of WHOIS. That report is posted here: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-studies-report-for-gnso-23mar10-en.pdf , summarized by slides: http://gnso.icann.org/correspondence/whois-studies-presentation-01apr10-en.pdf.

On the call, Council members suggested that it would be helpful to identify the WHOIS policy issues that each proposed study is intended to inform.  Recognizing that there is a long history of debate, Council members also wanted to understand better the nature of the concerns and viewpoints about these studies that have been expressed to-date.  The following is an initial response to that request.  Most of the content was extracted from the original study proposals themselves, since study proposers were asked to specifically state the "utility" of each study being proposed. That means that the ideas stated are often in the words of the study proponents and may not be considered "neutral".  Some additional ideas were gleaned from past council and working group discussions.  While I'm at it, in the attached I also offer some thoughts and insights shared by others on the potential policy "relevance" of other pending WHOIS studies.  It might be helpful to mention that as I assembled this list I noticed that the list includes many things we might learn; it is less expansive on precisely how policies might change.  It also might be worthwhile for the Council to talk more about that in your upcoming discussion.

Note that I did not wade into speculating on who the likely proponents or critics of various studies would be.  I tried to extract ideas that have been stated already and I would encourage the Council members to offer the views of their stakeholder groups and constituencies, including amplifying, clarifying or correcting anything I've included in this document.

Note: This is a working document and does not constitute or reflect the views of ICANN on any pending or proposed WHOIS study.

Thanks, Liz

Liz Gasster
Senior Policy Counselor
ICANN

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