Hi All,
I hope that you are all having a great week so far!
I spent some time reviewing the WHOIS Policy Review Team's Final Report
from May 2012 with the goal of extracting relevant information regarding
the purpose of registration data. This has been a challenging task because
of two reasons:
1. There is a lack of clearly defined purpose for collecting
registration data within the existing WHOIS system (it is not surprising
that the SSAC's report SAC055 is entitled "Blind Men and An Elephant")
2. Significant emphasis is given on topics such as compliance, data
accuracy and data access which all seem to share an intangible common
underlying (or over-arching) purpose/principle
I have the impression that the purpose implicitly evolves around the
concept of achieving and ensuring "trust" - a term that is used a number of
times throughout the document.
Many, if not all, stakeholders involved with or affected by WHOIS, may be
interested in achieving and ensuring trust in the online environment (which
may in turn represent a reasonable basis for achieving consensus regarding
purpose), but as Chuck said, at this point we should restrain from
deliberating on that topic even though it may look like a tempting starting
point for discussing the fundamental question:
*What should the over-arching purpose be of collecting, maintaining, and
providing access to gTLD registration data?*
In this context, I compiled some relevant excerpts from the final report
regarding trust that we may want to consider when preparing our concise
summary. The excerpts are given as follows (some parts are highlighted for
improved readability and navigation throughout the excerpts):
*"The WHOIS Review Team’s scope, guided by the Affirmation of Commitments
was to review the extent to which ICANN’s WHOIS policy and its
implementation are effective, meet the legitimate needs of law enforcement
and promote consumer trust." (page 6)*
*"Part of the WHOIS Review Team’s scope was to evaluate the extent to which
ICANN’s current WHOIS policy and implementation “promotes consumer
trust”... This found that drivers of consumer trust include knowing the
entity with whom they are dealing, and being able to find reliable contact
information." (page 9)*
*"...the current implementation of WHOIS services does not help to build
consumer trust, and more could be done to raise awareness of the service,
and to improve its user-friendliness." (page 10)*
*"The low level of accurate WHOIS data is unacceptable, and decreases
consumer trust in WHOIS..." (page 12)*
*"ICANN will organize a review of WHOIS policy and its implementation to
assess the extent to which WHOIS policy is effective and its implementation
meets the legitimate needs of law enforcement and promotes consumer trust."
(page 20)*
*"The Review Team found the definition of Consumer Trust, something the
ICANN Community is also exploring in the context of its policy-making
processes, to be particularly challenging. Consumer Trust can be narrowly
construed to mean the level of trust Internet users have in available WHOIS
data; or more broadly as the level of trust consumers have in Internet
information and transactions in general." (page 23)*
*"Thus, lack of support of non-ASCII characters introduces an additional
barrier for non-ASCII users to provide accurate and consistent domain name
registration data. This has implications for their tractability for law
enforcement and associated organizations. Further, many people attach some
pride and fondness to the correct representation of their name and other
data. While this is not a purely technical or administrative requirement,
it is relevant in the context of Consumer Trust." (page 46-47)*
*"The Review Team was clearly told in written and oral comments that
inaccurate WHOIS data can also significantly impact consumer trust and
confidence in the Internet." (page 51)*
*"Consumers engaged in online purchases, in our Consumer Research Study
agreed: findings showed that factors which positively supported consumer
trust included knowing the company with whom they were dealing with, and
being able to verify their contact details online." (page 51)*
*"A significant number of public responses to the WHOIS discussion paper,
and input from law enforcement agencies via the review team’s targeted
questionnaire, argued that privacy and proxy services undermine the
effectiveness of the WHOIS service, both in terms of its ability to meet
the legitimate needs of law enforcement and to promote consumer trust."
(page 61)*
*"The GAC WHOIS Principles similarly note that WHOIS data can contribute:
to user confidence in the Internet ... by helping users identify persons or
entities responsible for content and services online" (page 67)*
*"Part of the WHOIS Review Team’s scope was to evaluate the extent to which
ICANN’s current WHOIS policy and implementation “promotes consumer trust”.
Having struggled with what “consumer” means in the context of WHOIS, and
aware of the Affirmation of Commitments’ observation that there are key
stakeholders who do not engage in the ICANN environment, the WHOIS Review
Team commissioned consumer research. This found that drivers of consumer
trust include knowing the entity with whom they are dealing, and being able
to find reliable contact information. The vast majority of consumers were
unaware of the existence of the WHOIS service, and many struggled to
understand the format of WHOIS outputs. This led us to conclude that the
current implementation of WHOIS services does not help to build consumer
trust, and more could be done to raise awareness of the service, and to
improve its user-friendliness." (page 84)*
I hope that this input would be helpful for our small team and I am looking
forward to working with all of you.
Best regards,
Maryan
