Comments needed by 2/8 on Purpose of Whois Report

[KathrynKL at AOL.COM]

All:  As we finish one round of comments, another is due.  On Wed., February 
8th, public comment will close on the "Purpose of WHOIS."  This is important 
because after we decide on a Purpose, ICANN must then only collect that data 
that is "relevant and not excessive to that purpose."  That means that in the 
future, ICANN may not feel compelled to publish the home addresses, home phone 
numbers and personal emails of individuals involved in small political 
organizations, or engaged in personal and political speech.   

The WHOIS Task Force was completely unable to reach an agreement.  
Intellectual Property (together with Business and ISP) want to use all the Whois data to 
go fishing -- to find the home address, phone and personal email of anyone 
whose website content they disagree with (expressed in "Formulation 2").  
Presenting a united front, NCUC, Registrars and Registries created FORMULATION 1 -- 
that WHOIS data should be used for technical purposes.

If you would, please take a minute to write a short comment on behalf of your 
organization (or yourself) in favor of * Formulation 1.*  As support, you 
might use any danger or abuse of the Whois personal data you have heard about or 
fear might occur.   (Formulations 1 and 2 below.)

The GNSO page with Task Force report and formulations, email for comments and 
archives (nothing submitted yet) can be found at 
http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-18jan06.htm.   

Many thanks!
Kathy (Longtime NCUC representative to WHOIS Task Force together with Milton) 
 

------------------------------------------- Formulation 1   
----------------------------------------------
"The purpose of the gTLD Whois service is to provide information sufficient 
to contact a responsible party for a particular gTLD domain name who can 
resolve, or reliably pass on data to a party who can resolve, issues related to 
the configuration of the records associated with the domain name within a DNS 
nameserver." 

------------------------------------------- Formulation 2  
----------------------------------------------
"The purpose of the gTLD Whois service is to provide information sufficient 
to contact a responsible party or parties for a particular gTLD domain name who 
can resolve, or reliably pass on data to a party who can resolve, technical, 
legal or other issues related to the registration or use of a domain name."  
    


    
    



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