The Scope of the Whois Review Team is to assess the extent to which existing WHOIS policy and its implementation:
- is effective,
- meets the legitimate needs of law enforcement, and
- promotes consumer trust.
The WRT will identify and document ICANN's existing WHOIS policy.
The WRT will identify and document ICANN's implementation of its Whois Policy.
It will define and identify law enforcement, and the term "legitimate needs of law enforcement."
It will define consumer trust and analyse what factors promote consumer trust in the context of the Whois.
It will identify the areas, if any, in which the interests above may be in conflict with each other.
It will assess applicable laws and analyze issues possibly including:
- contractual obligations vs. national law obligations
- differing global laws and ICANN obligations
It will review the extent to which ICANN's existing WHOIS policy is effective in meeting the legitimate needs of law enforcement and promotes consumer trust.
This assessment will include an evidence-based approach, and seek to identify good practice in other areas of the domain space (as a benchmarking tool).
The WRT will undertake an analysis and determination of ICANN's performance against the AOC requirement that ICANN implement measures to maintain timely, unrestricted and public access to accurate and complete WHOIS information, including registrant, technical, billing, and administrative contact information, and what impact such requirement have on the legitimate needs of law enforcement and promoting consumer trust.
