Hi Susan, Kathy - I've been following your exchanges on Thick/Thin with interest. Susan mentioned Lutz's proposal on a central repository/portal run by ICANN. Here is his text for ease of reference. How about the two of you consider this outline and see whether this could meet your concerns/requirements (or if not, how could it be adapted to do so?) Kind regards Emily ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lutz Donnerhacke <lutz@iks-jena.de> Date: 9 November 2011 11:22 Subject: [Rt4-whois] Centralized Whois Query system run by ICANN To: rt4-whois@icann.org Proposal: Summary: ICANN should set up and maintain a web interface to access all the WHOIS services in order to ease access to the WHOIS data. Presumption: The AoC requires that "ICANN implement measures to maintain timely, unrestricted and public access to accurate and complete WHOIS information, including registrant, technical, billing, and administrative contact information." Observation: An User Insight Report came up with the following results: + Almost nobody is aware of whois + Almost nobody is able to query a whois server correctly + Whois queries were done on websites which occur first in the search engine results. Usually those pages are overloaded with advertisments. Detailed recommendation: ICANN should set up a dedicated, multilingual website to allow "unrestricted and public access to accurate and complete WHOIS information" even for those people which have problems with the plain WHOIS protocol. The WHOIS information should be collected by following the thin WHOIS approach starting at whois.iana.org. The service should display the contractural relationships which are revealed by the WHOIS referals in a clear and understandable way. The results should be mark clearly the relevant information "including registrant, technical, billing, and administrative contact" data. The server needs to be run by ICANN itself, because the "timely, unrestricted and public access" is usually rate limited, stripped or even blocked by the various WHOIS server administrators for uncontractual third party access. ICANN itself is the only party having the power to overcome those limits using its contratual compliance. _______________________________________________ Rt4-whois mailing list Rt4-whois@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/rt4-whois -- * * 76 Temple Road, Oxford OX4 2EZ UK t: +44 (0)1865 582 811 • m: +44 (0)7540 049 322 emily@emilytaylor.eu *www.etlaw.co.uk* Emily Taylor Consultancy Limited is a company registered in England and Wales No. 730471. VAT No. 114487713.