All,

 

Attached and following, please find an update on the Whois studies that the policy staff has been working on.

 

I.                    Background:

 

The GNSO Council concluded that a comprehensive, objective and quantifiable understanding of key factual issues regarding the gTLD Whois system would benefit future GNSO policy development efforts. In March 2009, the GNSO Council asked ICANN staff to conduct research on feasibility and cost estimates to study several high priority aspects of WHOIS, and to report back to the Council with that information for further decision-making. Staff has categorized these studies into three areas (the first three areas listed in the attached chart), and is soliciting bids from independent researchers to help determine costs and feasibility issues in each area using an RFP approach.  The GNSO Council resolution making this request can be found here:  http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#200903.

 

II.                  Update:

Following is a list of the study RFPs that are being issued (may include more than one study), with a short update on each:

 

1.       WHOIS Misuse -- Studies will assess extent of misuse of public Whois data to generate spam or for other illegal or undesirable activities.   One Misuse study will survey registrants about specific acts they have experienced that they believe occurred using Whois contact data; survey registrars about how Whois can be queried, and survey others about reported incidents from cybercrime, research and law enforcement organizations.  A second Misuse study will measure a variety of harmful acts by classifying messages sent to unpublished test domain names registered specifically for the study using a representative sample of registrars. The study will compare harmful acts associated with public vs. non-public addresses and examine impact of public Whois and anti-harvesting measures. An RFP was released on 28 September and closed on 27 November 2009.  3 responses were received. Staff review and analysis is underway.

 

2.       WHOIS Registrant Identification – Study will explore Whois registrations and the extent to which domains used by legal persons (commercial entities) or for commercial purposes are: 1) not clearly identified as commercial entities in Whois (perhaps their identity is obscured or suggests the registrant is a non-commercial entity); and 2) are correlated to use of privacy and proxy services. An RFP was released October 23 and closed on 23 December 2009.  5 responses were received. Staff review and analysis is underway.

  1. Whois Proxy and Privacy Services – Studies will look at: 1) the extent to which domain names used to conduct illegal or harmful Internet activities are registered via proxy and privacy services to obscure the perpetrator’s identity; and 2) the degree to which proxy and privacy services impede or delay timely identification of perpetrators. More information about these studies will be available in the coming weeks.

 

III.                Next steps and timeframe:

There is a significant amount of work involved in drafting RFP terms of reference for the third set of studies at the same time that we are analyzing responses for the first two study areas. Staff is taking great care with the analysis and budget implications, and the third set of studies is complex.   Due to delays in preparing an RFP for the third set of studies, we have been delayed in our review of the RFP responses. We are just beginning that analysis now, and following that review, we will then be presenting information to the GNSO Council for its consideration and action.  For these reasons, the staff analysis on the first two sets of studies will likely take several more weeks to complete.  

 

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like more information.

 

Thanks, Liz