At the 31 October meeting in Los Angeles, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council voted to conduct several studies of the WHOIS system, concluding that a comprehensive, objective and quantifiable understanding of key factual issues regarding the gTLD WHOIS system will benefit future GNSO policy development efforts. Before defining the details of these studies, the Council is soliciting suggestions from the community for specific topics of study on WHOIS that community stakeholders recommend be conducted. Possible areas of study might include a study of certain aspects of gTLD registrants and registrations, a study of certain uses and misuses of WHOIS data, a study of the use of proxy registration services, including privacy services, or a comparative study of gTLD and ccTLD WHOIS.
If you would like to offer suggestions about topics of study on WHOIS, please do so by completing the online form available by clicking on the following link: http://forms.icann.org/cgi/study-suggestions. Please submit a separate online form for each study that you recommend should be conducted and answer all questions with as much detail as possible. Please limit your online answers to 1-2 paragraphs per question. Additional detail and any supporting materials may be emailed to: whois-comments-2008@icann.org. You are also encouraged to comment on proposed studies that have already been posted. To do so please reference the specific proposal you are commenting on. Lastly, you may also provide input via email, instead of posting online via the form provided. To do so, please send email to whois-comments-2008@icann.org.
More information about policy activities related to WHOIS can be found at: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/.
Source ICANN Press Announcement – 8 January 2008