[ispcp] [SECRETARIAT] Public comment period is open on the GNSO Council's WHOIS reports and recommendations.

[Mark McFadden - ISPCP Secretariat]

All:

Note that the public comment period on the GNSO Council's WHOIS reports and
recommendations is now open until 00:00 UTC (17:00 PDT) on 30 
October 2007.

The public forum is located at:

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

The gNSO provided this helpful piece of background information:

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-12
mar07.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 to examine how legitimate interests will access unpublished 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/.


Mark McFadden
Secretariat, ISPCP Constituency
mcfadden at ispcp.info