All,

Following is a short update on the WHOIS studies I am working on, including a short turn-around request for review of the revised Terms of Reference for a Privacy/Proxy Reveal Study.

1. WHOIS Misuse – The GNSO Council approved resolution to proceed with this study at its last meeting.  Staff is working with the top bidder to revise their proposal to address the areas that we noted in our 23 March memo to the Council  required more clarity and to address the additional items included by the Council in the 8 September resolution.  We will then finalize a contract and initiate the study. Target end of October to finalize contract.

2. WHOIS Abuse – The top two RFP responders have provided additional information as requested and we hope to have an analysis prepared by the end of September. 

3. WHOIS Reveal --    A revised, hopefully final draft of the RFP Terms of Reference is attached for your review.  We received a lot of helpful input from Council members and SG/C “delegates” so this language is substantially revised – so much so that I decided not to send a redline as it was essentially illegible.  I want to acknowledge and thank Wendy Seltzer, Statton Hammock, Michele Neylon, Kathy Kleiman, Steve Del Bianco, Lee Eulgen and Adam Scoville for their guidance and insights.  At the recommendation of the group, the study has been recast as an exploratory study of a sample of relay and reveal requests and does not include a testable hypothesis per se.  The thought behind this essentially is to learn enough about an area that is not well enough documented or understood so that more concrete testable hypotheses might then be formulated and then studied if need be, based on the data collected by this effort.  Other edits adjusted certain language regarding the specific community proposals to be more neutral and to clarify outputs.

We would like to post the Proxy/Privacy Reveal study RFP as soon as possible, so please review and give me any final edits by Monday 27 September at 15:00 UTC. 

I’m happy to answer questions or address concerns.

Thanks!  Liz