As the new guy, I am willing to tilt at windmills and so want to offer this motion for consideration at the next meeting of the GNSO Council

Cheers,

John Berard

Whereas:

In October 2007, the GNSO Council concluded that a comprehensive and objective understanding of key factual issues regarding the gTLD WHOIS system would benefit future GNSO policy development efforts (http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/).

Before defining study details, the Council solicited suggestions from the community for specific topics of study on WHOIS. Suggestions were submitted (http://forum.icann.org/lists/WHOIS-comments-2008/) and ICANN staff prepared a 'Report on Public Suggestions on Further Studies of WHOIS', dated 25-Feb-2008 (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/Whois-privacy/Whois-study-suggestion-report-25feb08.pdf).

On 28-Mar-2008 the GNSO Council resolved to form a WHOIS Study Working Group to develop a proposed list, ifany, of recommended studies for which ICANN staff would be asked to providecost estimates to the Council (http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-gnso-27mar08.shtml).

The WHOIS Study WG did not reach consensus regarding further studies, and on 25-Jun-2008 the GNSO Council resolved to form a new WHOIS Hypotheses working group to prepare a list of hypotheses from the 'Report on Public Suggestions on Further Studies of WHOIS' and the GAC letter on WHOIS studies (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/karlins-to-thrush-16apr08.pdf). The WG reported to the Council on 26-Aug-2008. (https://st.icann.org/Whois-hypoth-wg/index.cgi?Whois_hypotheses_wg#Whois_study_hypotheses_wg_final_report).

On 5-Nov-2008, the Council convened a group of Councilors and constituency members to draft a resolution regarding studies, if any, for which cost estimates should be obtained. TheWhois Study Drafting Team further consolidated studies including those from the GAC (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/karlins-to-thrush-16apr08.pdf).  The Team determined that the six studies with the highest average priority scores should be the subject of further research to determine feasibility and obtain cost estimates.

On 04-Mar-2009, Council requested Staff to conduct research on feasibility and cost estimates for selected Whois studies and report its findings to Council.  (See Motion 3, http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#200903).

On 23-Mar-2010, Staff presented a report on the feasibility and cost estimates for the Whois “Misuse” and Whois “Registrant Identification” Studies, finding that each study would cost approximately $150,000 and take approximately one year to complete. (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-studies-report-for-gnso-23mar10-en.pdf).  The Whois Registrant Identification study would gather info about how business/commercial domain registrants are identified, and correlate such identification with the use of proxy/privacyservices. 

The ICANN Board approved in Brussels a FY2011 budget that includes at least $400,000 for WHOIS studies (see http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-25jun10-en.htm#8).

On 8-September-2010 the GNSO Council approved a resolution requesting staff to proceed with the Whois “Misuse” Study, which would explore the extent to which publicly displayed WHOIS data is misused, http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#201009.

On 5-October-2010, staff provided feasibility and cost analysis for a Whois Privacy and Proxy “Abuse” study, http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/gnso-whois-pp-abuse-studies-report-05oct10-en.pdf. This study would compare broad sample of domains registered with a proxy orprivacy service provider that are associated with alleged harmful acts withoverall frequency of proxy and privacy registrations.  This study was estimated to cost $150,000 and take less than a year to complete.

On 11-February-2011, staff provided a feasibility and cost analysis for a Whois Proxy and Privacy “Relay and Reveal” study, http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-pp-relay-reveal-studies-report-11feb11-en.pdf, which would analyze relay and reveal requests sent for Privacy and Proxy-registered domains to explore and document how they are processed.  The staff analysis concluded that it was premature to conduct a full study, and recommended that a pre-study “survey” be conducted first, to determine if launching a full study is feasible to do.

Resolved:

Council requests ICANN staff to proceed with the WHOIS Registrant Identification Study, as described in Staff's 23-Mar-2010 Report, using the vendor selection process described in Annex of that same report. (http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-studies-report-for-gnso-23mar10-en.pdf).

Further resolved, that the Council requests ICANN staff to proceed with the Whois Privacy and Proxy “Abuse” study, as described in staff’s 5-October-2010 report, using the vendor selection process described in that same report, http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/gnso-whois-pp-abuse-studies-report-05oct10-en.pdf.

Further resolved, that the Council requests ICANN staff to proceed with the Whois Privacy and Proxy “Relay and Reveal” pre-study survey, as proposed in staff’s 11-February-2011 report, http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-pp-relay-reveal-studies-report-11feb11-en.pdf.

Further resolved, that the Council request that the Board authorize additional funding for FY 2012 forWhois studies, to make up the shortfall of $130,000 between the amount of “at least $400,000” that was allocated for Whois studies in FY 2011 (and remains unspent), and the total amount needed to conduct the Whois Misuse Study ($150,000); the Whois Registrant Identification Study ($150,000); the Proxy/Privacy “Abuse” Study ($150,000); and the Proxy and Privacy “Pre-study” ($80,000), total of $530,000.

Further resolved, in recognition that there is a substantial amount of coordination needed to direct this research, that staff be given the discretion to manage the studies serially or in parallel, with a goal of expediting completion of the studies as efficiently as possible.