ICANN Marching Towards New Whois Policy
After years of debate, ICANN is moving towards adopting policy recommendations that will reform the gTLD whois system and allow registrants a greater degree of privacy, certainty of ownership and control over their internet identity.
Law.com has a decent write up on the whois issue, albeit with a decidedly pro-intellectual property slant.
An organization that polices the domain name system is likely to decide this year — after several years of debate — to adopt a new policy that would let Web site owners keep most of their contact information confidential when they register for a name. Instead, they would be allowed to list a separate go-between point of contact.
The basic issue at stake is whether or not intellectual property lawyers should continue to have unfettered access to your customer data or not. The usual suspects – the RIAA, MPAA and curiously, internet heavyweights like Microsoft and Yahoo! say yes, definitely. Naturally, Tucows came out on the side of the customer and held the line to ensure that basic personal privacy rights are respected as far as domain registration data goes.
The upcoming ICANN meeting in Lisbon will certainly see more discussion on these issues, but the recent closure of the Whois Task Force is a great step in the right direction.
Tucows has been at the forefront of this issue since the beginning, we'll definitely keep you informed as it progresses.
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