Hello All, The report on the Registrant Identification Study has been published. See: http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/whois-regid-15feb13-en.htm and attached. The key conclusions are: (1) Percentage of registrants that are natural versus legal persons: - 39 percent (± 2.4 percent1) appear to be registered by legal persons - 33 percent (± 2.3 percent) appear to be registered by natural persons - 20 percent (± 2.0 percent) were registered using a privacy or proxy service. - We were unable to classify the remaining 8 percent (± 1.4 percent) using data available from WHOIS. (2) Percentage of domain name uses that are commercial versus non-commercial: - When pay-per-click ads are included in the monetary activities that make up potentially commercial activity, 57 percent (± 2.4 percent) of all sampled domains were perceived to have potentially commercial activity. - When pay-per-click ads are not included in the monetary activities that make up potentially commercial activity, approximately 45 percent (± 2.4 percent) of all sampled domains were perceived to have potentially commercial activity. (3) Relative percentage of Privacy/Proxy use among legal persons: - 15.1 percent (± 2.9 percent) of domains used by legal persons were registered using a privacy or proxy service. (4) Relative percentage of Privacy/Proxy use among domains with commercial use: - 22.9 percent (± 2.7 percent) of domains with potentially commercial activity were registered using a privacy or proxy service. Additional interesting findings related to the three focus questions for this study are: 5) Differences in how domains are used based on registrant type Domain names registered by legal persons were - More likely to be used by legal persons—52.2 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 36.6 percent. - Equally as likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity —59.9 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent. - Equally as likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—59.4 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent. - More likely to be both registered and used by the same legal person—27.8 ± 3.5 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 16.8 percent. - More likely to be used by a for-profit entity—39.9 ± 3.8 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 25.6 percent. (6) Domain names registered by natural persons were - More likely to be used by natural persons—10.4 ± 2.6 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 5.4 percent. - Equally as likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity as the overall sample—55.4 ± 4.3 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent. - Less likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—46.0 ± 4.3 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent. - More likely to have undetermined domain user/registrant relationships—72.5 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 54.8 percent. - More likely to be used by a non-business entity—11.8 ± 2.8 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 6.4 percent. (7) Domain names registered using a Privacy/Proxy service were - More likely to be parked—30.7 ± 5.0 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 20.5 percent. - More likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity—64.6 ± 5.2 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent. - More likely to be registered with a WHOIS address in the U.S.—74.3 ± 4.8 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent. - More likely to have a user/registrant relationship of a customer of a privacy/proxy service—92.8 ± 2.8 percent,3 as compared to the entire sample’s 20.4 percent. - More likely to be used by an entity with an unclear business structure—71.4 ± 4.9 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 65.7 percent. 8) Differences in how kinds of domains users identify themselves based on domain registrant type Domain names used by legal persons were - More likely to be registered by legal persons—55.1 ± 4.0 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 38.6 percent. - More likely to be used for some kind of potentially commercial activity—79.8 ± 3.2 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent. - Equally likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—54.9 ± 4.0 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent. - More likely to also be registered by that legal person—35.5 ± 3.9 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 16.8 percent. - More likely to be used by for-profit businesses—60.7 ± 3.7 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 25.6 percent. Domain names used by natural persons were: - More likely to be registered by natural persons—60.4 ± 10.2 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 32.8 percent. - Less likely to have potentially commercial activity—36.8 ± 10.1 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.6 percent. - Equally likely to have WHOIS addresses in the U.S.—49.9 ± 10.4 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 56.9 percent. - More likely to be registered by that natural person—69.7 ± 9.6 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 16.8 percent. - Never used by a business; this is by design—when coding apparent business structure, if the user was a natural person, then the business structure was coded as not a business. 9) Differences in domains with potentially commercial activity (pay-per-clicks ads included) Domain with detected potentially commercial activity were - More likely to have legal person users—51.5 ± 3.3 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 36.6 percent. - Less likely to have user/registrant relationships that cannot be determined—44.8 ± 3.2 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 54.8 percent. - Less likely to have an unclear business structure—55.2 ± 3.2 percent, as compared to the entire sample’s 65.7 percent. For both Apparent Registrant Type and Registrant WHOIS Address County/Region of the World differences between the relative percentage among domains with potentially commercial activity and the entire sample’s percentage are small. Thus, knowing that a domain has potentially commercial activity does not provide any additional insight as to the registrant type or the WHOIS address of the registrant.