Thanks, Marika. I also wanted to provide a comment pertaining to Question 2 in the attachments (relating to periodic checks).

In a few of the recent discussions, there's been some reference to criminals always or nearly always being untruthful in their Whois records (even if privacy-protected), leading to the conclusion that there is little purpose in having a registrar or any third party have to verify or re-verify the information (especially if it is difficult to prove that the data is falsified). I wanted to share our experience and observations on that point, in the hope that it's relevant to future discussion regarding Question 2.

Our consistent observation has been that when it comes to a particular sub-category of criminal activity, spam, phishing, malware, and so forth, it's probably safe to say that that statement is true -- the registrant's Whois information is nearly always inaccurate. Even in cases, such as some where we've worked with law enforcement, when the Whois record for a domain name involved in spam, phishing or malware is privacy-protected and is subsequently unmasked, the Whois record is still not accurate behind the privacy curtain. There are probably exceptions, but that's what we've seen well over 95% of the time. On occasion, it's a real address and phone number, just not one genuinely connected to the registrant.

But there are other types of criminal activity where the Whois record is not so regularly obfuscated. For example, we investigate a lot of websites selling tainted dietary supplements that end up containing some toxin or adulterant that harms people. In those cases, we've overwhelmingly seen that even if the Whois record is privacy-protected, the trend is that the underlying Whois record is accurate. The same has been true for illegal or counterfeit medical device websites that we've researched. On illegal Internet pharmacies not engaged in spam, it's probably 50-50. (It might be a shell corporation, but that's still valuable information.)

One important point to consider is that the Whois registration can be relevant information from a banking perspective for commercial entities. That is, some banks are going to look at an online merchant's domain name registration record and if it's either inaccurate or protected, they may require disclosure, or ask about any discrepancy, which can be an incentive for criminals selling products online who nevertheless want to get paid via credit card to have an accurate Whois. Hackers, malware providers and spammers will find a way around that, but they don't necessarily constitute "most" criminal activity.

The point here is, I think verification can still be a useful and necessary tool in either scenario, even if it doesn't uncover useful information a portion of the time. I realize that only pertains to a portion of the issues related to Question 2, but I hope that our observations on that are relevant.

Thanks,

John Horton
President, LegitScript

On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 2:39 AM, Marika Konings <marika.konings@icann.org> wrote:

Dear All,

Following our call yesterday, please find attached the updated templates for Category B – questions 1 & 2. Please review these templates to make sure the WG discussions have been accurately reflected and feel free to share any comments / edits you may have with the mailing list. We've created a page on the wiki where we'll post the templates that have been finalised for now (noting that for some of these the WG will need to come back to the template at a later date), see https://community.icann.org/x/ihLRAg.

The WG will continue its deliberations on Category B – Question 2 next week. Some of the questions that came up during the conversation yesterday and which you are encouraged to share your views on (and/or add additional questions that need to be considered in this context) are:

What would be the arguments for not using the same standards / requirements for validation and verification as per the 2013 RAA?
Should there be a requirement for re-verification, and if so, what instances would trigger such re-verification?

In case of affliction between the P/P service and the registrar, if the registration information has already been verified by the registrar, should this exempt the P/P provider from doing so?
Should the same requirements apply to privacy and proxy services or is there a reason to distinguish between the two?

Best regards,

Marika

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