Hi All,
Tx for bearing with me on our call on Wednesday. I think we are coming close, but something still seems too broad. So let me try again – with great thanks to the work of the Consumer Trust Subteam:
Current Working Definition of Consumer by Consumer Trust Subteam: Individuals/organizations who are providing/maintaining/utilizing WHOIS data for commercial/non-commercial purposes.
1. I don’t think the gTLD organizations/companies (registrars, registries) who maintain the Whois data are consumers – their use is business-to-business and governed by ICANN contract, so I would recommend we take them out of the definition.
2. At that point “providing the data” has a little ambiguity as there will be the registrants who provide the data, and the companies that make it public.
3. I think the differentiation that James has set out below resolves the ambiguities I see. If everyone agrees, would it be possible to set these out as two definitions of consumer out separately?
Best and tx,
Kathy
Emily et al:
Perhaps it's just me, but I'm concerned that we are blurring some definitions (or I am over-thinking them).
When I think "Consumer" in the context of WHOIS, two categories come to mind:
* The person or organization that has created a record, and submitted their contact details to WHOIS. In other efforts we have termed them PRODUCERS of WHOIS data; and,
* The person or organization that is querying the WHOIS system in search of further information about a domain name. To my knowledge, we are calling these folks "Consumers" when they are probably only part of that category. Recommend we call them END-USERS.
The term "Consumer Trust" means, to me, that both PRODUCERS are confident that their personal data is being managed properly, -and- that the END-USERS are confident that the WHOIS system is returning accurate results.
Not really requesting any actions or changes to the language, but wanted to propose a discussion about these two distinct types of "Consumers." If this subject has already been beaten to death in another forum, please forgive my oversight.