See the public comment announcement on this topic: WHOIS Policy Review Team – Discussion Paper.
The first draft of this ALAC statement, by Carlton Samuels, reflects the views of the At-Large Community (based on its members' written and spoken comments). Please use the "Add Comment" function below to leave comments.
DRAFT ALAC STATEMENT ON WHOIS REVIEW DISCUSSION PAPER
The ALAC welcomes the Discussion Paper as a laudable step in the WHOIS Review Team’s goal to solicit structured feedback as guidance for your continued work from the community. We also heartily endorse the series of community-specific conversations that the Review Team hosted during the ICANN 41st International Meeting at Singapore, at which time members of the ALAC and others of our community participated and observed.
The ALAC is on record as to its concerns with aspects of certain WHOIS-related matters from which we do not retreat. [See ALAC Statement <add link here>.] And having participated and observed the interactions with other communities, we are now more convinced than ever that the single most important objective for the Team is to report a perspective and/or recommend a set of policy initiatives or refinements to existing policy that realize a balancing of the competing interests in regard the entire WHOIS ecosystem. We are particularly seized of the possibility that having executed as we now see, the Team would be in a position to make an unambiguous recommendation as to where the focus of the attendant policy work should be in the near to mid-term.
With respect to process and while our community has concerns about whether this new consumer-focused study now authorized by Board funding [See link to Board Resolution <add link here>] will add any new information, the ALAC on general principle will always be for more and complete information as possible on this knotty issue, if only to satisfy ourselves that all possible sources of information and the interests of all sectors are fully aired and considered before a decision. To reiterate, it is our view that this Team must treat with and declare whether the WHOIS construct as originally devised is yet necessary. Secondly, we know and are severally agreed that the use of WHOIS has expanded well beyond its original intent. In reference, we would surely expect some guidance from the Team as to whether these additional uses made of WHOIS ought to be officially recognized. In the end, grappling successfully with these two issues will allow thoughtful interpretations as to whether the present WHOIS dataset is good and sufficient to meet these needs – and others that might be contemplated - and if the processes now in production to provide output in meeting such needs are fit to purpose. Using this framework, the Team may be able to chart and recommend some workable solution that acknowledges and fully embrace privacy concerns, including ways that these may be answered in a balanced way.
With regard to compliance, the ALAC now believes that maybe the time has come for a change in the philosophical approach to WHOIS compliance. Over the years, it has become almost an article of faith that ICANN Compliance is responsible for WHOIS data accuracy. There is also widespread acceptance that the registry/registrar community is responsible and must bear the cost and burden of both data accuracy as well as availability. We now acknowledge the complexity of these issues and on record, reject these views as too simplistic in definition and, thusly, undermine the opportunity to be effectively addressed. We are also severally minded that this area in particular has a great need for exercising a balanced approach. Undoubtedly, accuracy is a cost/value proposition in the WHOIS context. And while laudable as an objective, 100% accuracy may not just be unobtainable as a working proposition but in the present dispensation, places an unfair burden on one set of constituents of members of the ICANN community even as it creates an insurmountable threshold for ICANN Compliance, even with their best effort and more resources available to them. We believe that the public interest may be better served all-round by recognizing that the risks from fraudulent actions by bad actors for which WHOIS is key to response is not the same throughout and tends to be cyclical, following the establishment of new domains and decreasing thereafter. Neither is it rational for the same risk in class or kind to be ascribed to all domains, whether used primarily for support of business transactions on the web or for more personal or informational pursuits. As such, certain adjustments in approach to compliance and our expectations of impact from compliance might benefit from this change in the philosophical construct.
The ALAC remains keenly committed to the Review Process and awaits the outputs with heightened anticipation.
