[Rt4-whois] Short update on gTLD Whois studies approved by the GNSO Council

[Liz Gasster]

All,

I thought it might be helpful to provide a short update on Whois studies that have been under consideration for some time by the GNSO Council.  Since several of these studies were originally proposed by the Government Advisory Committee in a letter to Peter Dengate Thrush of 16 April, 2008, I reference those original proposal numbers where relevant.  Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can provide more information.

As of 9 July, the GNSO has approved four significant studies of Whois:

1.            Whois "Misuse" - This study will assess whether public WHOIS significantly increases harmful acts and the impact of anti-harvesting measures.  There are actually two studies included in this effort, an experimental study that will register test domains and measure harmful messages resulting from misuse; and a descriptive study that will analyze misuse incidents reported by registrants, researchers, data protection authorities and law enforcement.  This study is related to GAC data set 2 (the second bullet in the GAC letter) and GAC proposal # 3.  The study was approved by the GNSO Council in September 2010 and was initiated in April 2011. The cost will be about $150,000 (USD), and the project was awarded to Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.    It will take about one year to complete.

2.            Whois Registrant Identification - This study will examine information about how domain name registrants are identified and classify the various types of entities that register domains, including natural persons, various types of legal persons and Privacy and Proxy service providers.  This study is related to GAC Proposal #5, GAC  #6, GAC  #9, and GAC #10.  The cost will be approximately $150,000 (USD) (subject to change as study terms are revised), and take about one year to complete.  This study was modified slightly before Council approval (on 9 June 2011) as an exploratory data-gathering effort that is not hypothesis-driven.  This will also provide more consistency with related GAC proposals offered in 2008.  A research entity has been selected to conduct this study and an announcement will be made once a contract has been finalized.

3.            Whois Proxy and Privacy "Abuse" -- This study will compare a broad sample of Privacy & Proxy-registered domains associated with alleged harmful acts to assess: 1) how often bad actors try to obscure identity in WHOIS; 2) how this rate of abuse compares to overall use of proxy and privacy services; and 3) how this rate compares to alternatives like falsified WHOIS data, compromised machines, and free web hosting.  This study is related to GAC proposal 1 and GAC #11.  It was approved by the Council on 28 April, 2011, a contract is being finalized, and the study will cost approximately $150,000 (USD) to complete.

4.            Whois Proxy and Privacy Relay & Reveal Study -- The original study would analyze communication relay and identity reveal requests sent for privacy- and proxy-registered domains to explore and document how they are processed, and to identify factors that may promote or impede timely communication and resolution.  Potential bidders were unsure of the feasibility of this study, especially obtaining a sufficient data sample, so we proposed a pre-study to survey potential participants to determine if launching a full study is feasible to do.  The Council approved the pre-study survey on 28 April 2011, it will cost $80,000 (USD), and will take approximately four months to complete.  Interisle Consulting Group will be conducting this survey.

Best regards, Liz

Liz Gasster
Senior Policy Counselor
ICANN

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