BC Members, Per the Member's Call last Friday, please find below brief comments regarding the renewal of the .COM contract: The BC supports VeriSign's continued operation of the .COM Registry. However, we strongly urge ICANN to take this opportunity to require the maintenance of Thick Whois by VeriSign for the .COM Registry. We believe that requiring all Registries to comply with Thick Whois is an important first step in improving Whois. The BC has previously stated the importance of timely, unrestricted, and public access to complete and accurate Whois information. While the BC recognizes that Thick Whois does not improve accuracy, it does address the requirements for timely, unrestricted and public access of Whois information. The BC expects that other ongoing ICANN projects will improve Whois accuracy and responses by privacy/proxy services to relay / reveal requests. In particular, we expect improvements to result from: - current negotiations on the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA); - implementation of SAC 051 recommendations (link<http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/sac-051-draft-roadmap-18feb12-en...>); and - policy development indicated by results of five pending Whois studies (link<%20http:/gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/studies%20>). Rapporteur for this Discussion Draft: Elisa Cooper These comments are due Thursday, May 17th. The comments are in line with our stated position, however, please let me know if you have any additions, or edits as soon as possible. Best, Elisa Elisa Cooper Director of Product Marketing MarkMonitor 208 389 5779 PH