Proposed whois system change

["Niels Lehmann" <Niels.Lehmann@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN,

I am responding to the new proposed changes to the Whois policy changes.

In my capacity of Intellectual Property Attorney I very often deal with
the problems related to Whois. We deal with app. 350 domain name
recovery cases per year and in 50% of all cases we face Whois problems.

We have clients from all over the world requesting assistance with the
recovery of lost or cyber squatted domain names. Too often these
domainers/cyber squatters hide behind Whois privacy protection services
offered by many Registrars. 

This causes a great deal of problems as it is very difficult to get the
contact information to the registrant hiding behind the privacy
protection contact details. Often the Registrars refuse to give away
this information unless a UDRP Complaint has been lodged against the
registrant. 

Also, too often, registrants provide inaccurate/incomplete or false
registrant contact information as they know how difficult it is to get
the correct information from the Registrars. They often speculate in
this and have sites set up where they get paid per click/visitor. These
sites can exist up till several months before they can get shut down as
we are not able to get the correct contact information in time.

I am therefore a strong believer that Whois is important for trademark
owners, consumers and businesses - to help and protect their online
rights - and that the GNSO Council should adopt Motion 2 and reject
Motions 1 and 3.

Also, now that the Internet is developing into the new market and still
is growing rapidly it is of utmost importance that we can ensure and
protect the rights of legitimate trademark owners, consumers and
businesses - otherwise we will face an uncontrolled registration and
usage of third parties trademark rights online that would have an
uncontrolled impact on the online business.

I hope that ICANN will take this seriously and reconsider.

Thank you.

________________________________________ 
Niels Lagerkvist Lehmann, LL.M. 
Intellectual Property Attorney 

Valea AB 
Lindholmspiren 5 
SE-417 56 Gothenburg 
Sweden 

Phone:  +46 31 507 700
Direct: +46 31 507 729 
Mobile: +46 733 823 762 
Fax:    +46 31 779 06 40 

niels.lehmann@xxxxxxxx 
www.valea.se 
________________________________________ 

NOTICE: 
This e-mail message and all attachments transmitted with it may contain
legally privileged and confidential information intended solely for the
use of the addressee. If the reader of this message is not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any reading, dissemination,
distribution, copying, or other use of this message or its attachments
is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error,
please notify the sender immediately and delete this message and all
copies and backups thereof.
Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for
the presence of viruses. The company accepts no liability for any damage
caused by any virus transmitted by this email. 
Valea AB, Sweden, www.valea.se.
Thank you