Following is a Call for Volunteers for a Drafting Team to craft the charter for the Thick Whois PDP. This is the PDP with the original intent of investigating a thick Whois for the Verisign managed TLDs. However, the Issue Report (link below) would also allow the PDP to address wider issues. The ALAC statement on the Preliminary Issue Report (http://www.atlarge.icann.org/correspondence/statement-prelim-issue-report-on...) expressed concern that if the PDP had too wide a scope, it could be derailed trying to address far wider (and complex) Whois questions. There are also those who would like to see the PDP address whether all other TLDs should adopt the thin Whois model. I encourage all who have an interest in this subject and are willing to do their homework reading the documents listed below to volunteer. Please distribute to those who may be good volunteers within your regions as well. Note that this is not the PDP WG which will form once the charter is adopted by the GNSO, but working on this DT will provide a good background for the PDP WG. Alan
From: Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@icann.org> To: "council@gnso.icann.org" <council@gnso.icann.org> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 15:06:24 -0700 Subject: [council] Call for volunteers - 'thick' Whois PDP Drafting Team
Call for Volunteers for Drafting Team to develop Charter for thick Whois PDP WG
Introduction
At its meeting on 14 March 2012, the GNSO Council initiated a Policy Development Process (PDP) on thick Whois (see <http://gnso.icann.org/en/resolutions#20120314-1>http://gnso.icann.org/en/resolutions#20120314-1). Following a short delay, the GNSO Council decided at its last meeting that a group of volunteers should now be convened to draft the charter for the PDP Working Group, which is to be approved by the GNSO Council.
Task of the Drafting Team
The Drafting Team will be tasked with developing a charter for the PDP Working Group on thick Whois. The elements of the Charter should include, at a minimum, the following elements as specified in the <http://gnso.icann.org/council/summary-gnso-wg-guidelines-06apr11-en.pdf>GNSO Working Group Guidelines: Working Group identification; Mission, Purpose and Deliverables; Formation, Staffing and Organization, and; Rules of Engagement. The proposed charter will be submitted to the GNSO Council for its consideration.
Volunteers
If you are interested to participate, please send an email to the GNSO Secretariat (<mailto:gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org>gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org). You will be required to complete a Statement of Interest in order to participate.
Background Information on the Issue
For the generic top-level domain (gTLD) registries, ICANN specifies Whois service requirements through the registry agreements (ICANN 2009 Registry Agreements) and the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). Registries satisfy their Whois obligations using different services. The two common models are often characterized as thin and thick Whois registries. This distinction is based on how two distinct sets of data are managed. One set of data is associated with the domain name, and a second set of data is associated with the registrant of the domain name. A thin registry only stores and manages the information associated with the domain name. This set includes data sufficient to identify the sponsoring registrar, status of the registration, creation and expiration dates for each registration, name server data, the last time the record was updated in its Whois data store, and the URL for the registrars Whois service. With thin registries, Registrars manage the second set of data associated with the registrant of the domain and provide it via their own Whois services, as required by Section 3.3 of the RAA 3.3 for those domains they sponsor. COM and NET are examples of thin registries. Thick registries maintain and provide both sets of data (domain name and registrant) via Whois. INFO and BIZ are examples of thick registries.
The GNSO Council requested an Issue Report on thick Whois at its meeting on 22 September 2011 noting that the Issue Report should not only consider a possible requirement of 'thick' WHOIS for all incumbent gTLDs in the context of IRTP, but should also consider any other positive and/or negative effects that are likely to occur outside of IRTP that would need to be taken into account when deciding whether a requirement of 'thick' WHOIS for all incumbent gTLDs would be desirable or not.
The Final Issue Report was submitted by ICANN Staff on 2 February 2012 (see <http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/final-report-thick-whois-02feb12-en.pdf>http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/final-report-thick-whois-02feb12-en.pdf) and in this report a number of issues are outlined that will need further consideration should a PDP proceed. The staff recommendation notes that staff has confirmed that the proposed issues are within the scope of the ICANN policy process and the GNSO and notes that it is reasonable from the staffs perspective to expect that further investigation of thick Whois for all gTLDs would be beneficial to the community generally, as it would allow for an informed decision by the GNSO Council as to whether thick Whois for all gTLDs should be required or not.
Recommended Reading for Volunteers
* Final Issue Report on Thick Whois (<http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/final-report-thick-whois-02feb12-en.pdf>http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/final-report-thick-whois-02feb12-en.pdf)
* GNSO Working Group Guidelines, including charter guidelines (<http://gnso.icann.org/council/annex-1-gnso-wg-guidelines-08apr11-en.pdf>http://gnso.icann.org/council/annex-1-gnso-wg-guidelines-08apr11-en.pdf)
Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat <mailto:gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org>gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org