Participation in the WHOIS protocol debate

[Valentin Höbel <valentin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

To the ICANN WHOIS reviewing team

Dear members of the WHOIS reviewing team,

I am participating in the WHOIS protocol debate, having the view of  
someone who worked at a German web hoster and therefore daily was  
involved in discussions or the usage of the WHOIS service.
Currently I am working with Linux, servers, migration concepts (from  
<every IT environment> to our own Linux distribution and am  
participating to the Open Source and IT communities worldwide in my  
spare time.
For me, the WHOIS service has always been an important tool for  
receiving information about domains and their registrar. But at the  
same time, I was struggling explaining to my customers why their  
sensitive personal data is published in the Internet while citizens of  
other countries are able to use proxy services or even provide their  
domain registrars with wrong data on purpose.
Today, having seen how many people abuse the WHOIS data, I am  
struggling to find reasons why the WHOIS entry of a domain still has  
to contain real personal data of the Owner, Admin C and so on.
So my view would be to remove all personal data from the WHOIS entry,  
but at the same time, keep the WHOIS service alive by making it more  
important for technical questions.
For clarification I will now respond to the questions you are asking  
in this document sheet:
http://www.icann.org/en/reviews/affirmation/whois-rt-discussion-paper-09jun11-en.pdf


1. What measures should ICANN take to clarify its existing WHOIS policy?
=============================================================================
- Remove all personal data of the owner and therefore revoke the duty of
  both the domain owner and domain registrar to provide accurate  
personal data.
- Instead, introduce a data field which contains a contact address for all
  who want to contact the owner. The contact address should be an e-mail
  address of the domain registrar, who forwards incoming and outgoing  
messages.
- Remove the annual reminder for domain owners to keep their data up to date.


2. How should ICANN clarify the status of the high level principles  
set out in the Affirmation of Commitments and the GAC Principles on  
WHOIS?
=============================================================================
- See my comments above, they already include the answer to this question.


3. What insight can country code TLDs (ccTLDs) offer on their response  
to domestic laws and how they have or have not modified their ccTLD  
WHOIS policies?
=============================================================================
- See my comments above.


4. How can ICANN balance the privacy concerns of some registrants with  
its commitment to having accurate and complete WHOIS data publicly  
accessible without restriction?
=============================================================================
- Allow proxy services and introduce the possibility for domain registrars to
  legally provide such a service for the domain owners.
- Personal data should not be publicly accessible for others.
- The personal data should only be provided to the domain registrar.
  The registrar may only offer personal data of the domain owner for local
  authorities.
- Domain owners should be able to provide personal WHOIS data if they want to.
- The wish of having accurate and complete WHOIS data may not affect the wish
  of the domain owner to have his/her private data being protected.
- Accurate and complete WHOIS data maybe provided and being publicly  
accessible
  for domains which are owned by companies, authorities and institutions.


5. How should ICANN address concerns about the use of privacy/proxy  
services and their impact on the accuracy and availability of the  
WHOIS data?
=============================================================================
- Allow proxy services.


6. How effective are ICANN’s current WHOIS related compliance activities?
=============================================================================
Having worked at a German web hoster, I frequently was confronted with ICANN's
activities to keep the WHOIS data accurate. In those cases one of our domain
registrars asked us to take action, otherwise the affected domain  
might get "lost".
For me, mailing the domain registrars for having a look at the WHOIS  
entry data
is indeed a good way. I can not think of any other way how to do this,  
besides sending letters with the same message content (which would be  
far too expensive and ineffective).

7. Are there any aspects of ICANN’s WHOIS commitments that are not  
currently enforceable?
=============================================================================
Item 2, regarding to allow users to determine if a domain is available:
Fortunately this is a good way for users, but at the same time, there are
many services claiming that they look for free domains by checking them for
WHOIS entries. When enough requests for specific domains are submitted,
those services register the domain in question on their own.

The ICANN therefore should find a way how to prevent such methods, if  
even possible.
Item 6, regarding the confidence of users in the Internet, can not be  
"enforced".
Today, most Internet users are not aware of the WHOIS service.

Item 7, regarding the assistance of business and organizations, is not
enforceable when a proxy service is used and even domain registrars
provide inaccurate WHOIS data (which has happened before).


8. What should ICANN do to ensure its WHOIS commitments are  
effectively enforced?
=============================================================================
- Promote and explain the WHOIS service to normal users.


9. Does ICANN need any additional power and/or resources to  
effectively enforce its existing WHOIS commitments?
=============================================================================
- I don't think so.


10. How can ICANN improve the accuracy of WHOIS data?
=============================================================================
- Provide a service which lets domain owners update their data directly
  on an ICANN website. The intermediate step of having the domain registrar
  to update the WHOIS data often failes since some of them don't update
  the information.
- Remove all prices for domain updates. Updating a domain should be free.


11. What lessons can be learned from approaches taken by ccTLDs to the  
accuracy of WHOIS data?
=============================================================================
- I am not aware of the approaches taken by ccTLDs.


12. Are there barriers, cost or otherwise, to compliance with WHOIS policy?
=============================================================================
- Costs!
- The fact that the domain registrar updates the WHOIS data is amusing, since
  many hosters simply don't update WHOIS entries.


13. What are the consequences or impacts of non-compliance with WHOIS policy?
=============================================================================
WHOIS entries are no longer seen as a reliable source of information.


14. Are there any other relevant issues that the review team should be  
aware of? Please provide details.
=============================================================================
- Some providers don't update WHOIS entries.
- The community should be more included in the way of WHOIS service
  and protocol development.


--
Valentin Höbel
http://www.xenuser.org