[council] WHOIS Registrant Identification Study

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello All,

The report on the Registrant Identification Study has been published.

See:  http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/whois-regid-15feb13-en.htm and attached.

The key conclusions are:

(1) Percentage of registrants that are natural versus legal persons: 

- 39 percent (± 2.4 percent1) appear to be registered by legal persons

- 33 percent (± 2.3 percent) appear to be registered by natural persons

-  20 percent (± 2.0 percent) were registered using a privacy or proxy service.

-  We were unable to classify the remaining 8 percent (± 1.4 percent) using data available
from WHOIS.


(2) Percentage of domain name uses that are commercial versus non-commercial: 

- When pay-per-click ads are included in the monetary activities that make up potentially
commercial activity, 57 percent (± 2.4 percent) of all sampled domains were perceived to
have potentially commercial activity.

- When pay-per-click ads are not included in the monetary activities that make up
potentially commercial activity, approximately 45 percent (± 2.4 percent) of all sampled
domains were perceived to have potentially commercial activity.


(3) Relative percentage of Privacy/Proxy use among legal persons: 

- 15.1 percent (± 2.9 percent) of domains used by legal persons were registered using a privacy or proxy service.


(4) Relative percentage of Privacy/Proxy use among domains with commercial use: 

-  22.9 percent (± 2.7 percent) of domains with potentially commercial activity were
registered using a privacy or proxy service.



Additional interesting findings related to the three focus questions for this study are:

5) Differences in how domains are used based on registrant type

Domain names registered by legal persons were

- More likely to be used by legal persons—52.2 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to the entire
sample’s 36.6 percent.

- Equally as likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity —59.9 ± 3.9
percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent.

- Equally as likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—59.4 ± 3.9 percent, as compared
to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent.

- More likely to be both registered and used by the same legal person—27.8 ± 3.5 percent,
as compared to the entire sample’s 16.8 percent.

- More likely to be used by a for-profit entity—39.9 ± 3.8 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 25.6 percent.


(6) Domain names registered by natural persons were

- More likely to be used by natural persons—10.4 ± 2.6 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 5.4 percent.

-  Equally as likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity as the
overall sample—55.4 ± 4.3 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent.

- Less likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—46.0 ± 4.3 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 56.9 percent.

- More likely to have undetermined domain user/registrant relationships—72.5 ± 3.9
percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 54.8 percent.

- More likely to be used by a non-business entity—11.8 ± 2.8 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 6.4 percent.


(7) Domain names registered using a Privacy/Proxy service were

- More likely to be parked—30.7 ± 5.0 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 20.5 percent.

- More likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity—64.6 ± 5.2
percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent.

- More likely to be registered with a WHOIS address in the U.S.—74.3 ± 4.8 percent, as
compared to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent.

- More likely to have a user/registrant relationship of a customer of a privacy/proxy
service—92.8 ± 2.8 percent,3 as compared to the entire sample’s 20.4 percent.

- More likely to be used by an entity with an unclear business structure—71.4 ± 4.9
percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 65.7 percent.


8)  Differences in how kinds of domains users identify themselves based on domain registrant type

Domain names used by legal persons were

- More likely to be registered by legal persons—55.1 ± 4.0 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 38.6 percent.

- More likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity—79.8 ± 3.2
percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent.

- Equally likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—54.9 ± 4.0 percent, as compared to
the entire sample’s 56.9 percent.

- More likely to also be registered by that legal person—35.5 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to
the entire sample’s 16.8 percent.

- More likely to be used by for-profit businesses—60.7 ± 3.7 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 25.6 percent.


 Domain names used by natural persons were:

- More likely to be registered by natural persons—60.4 ± 10.2 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 32.8 percent.

-  Less likely to have potentially commercial activity—36.8 ± 10.1 percent, as compared to
the entire sample’s 56.6 percent.

- Equally likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—49.9 ± 10.4 percent, as compared
to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent.

- More likely to be registered by that natural person—69.7 ± 9.6 percent, as compared to
the entire sample’s 16.8 percent.

- Never used by a business; this is by design—when coding apparent business structure, if
the user was a natural person, then the business structure was coded as not a business.


9) Differences in domains with potentially commercial activity (pay-per-clicks ads included)

Domain with detected potentially commercial activity were

- More likely to have legal person users—51.5 ± 3.3 percent, as compared to the entire
sample’s 36.6 percent.

- Less likely to have user/registrant relationships that cannot be determined—44.8 ± 3.2
percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 54.8 percent.

-  Less likely to have an unclear business structure—55.2 ± 3.2 percent, as compared to the
entire sample’s 65.7 percent.

For both Apparent Registrant Type and Registrant WHOIS Address County/Region of the World
differences between the relative percentage among domains with potentially commercial activity
and the entire sample’s percentage are small. Thus, knowing that a domain has potentially
commercial activity does not provide any additional insight as to the registrant type or the
WHOIS address of the registrant.
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