[nc-whois] RE: informal whois briefing in amsterdam this week

["Sapiro, Miriam" <MSapiro@verisign.com>]

for those constituencies interest, fyi this should be posted on the ga list
today.....regards, miriam

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For those interested in the ongoing development of a Universal Whois
Service, as required by Appendix W of VeriSign's Registry Agreement with
ICANN, VeriSign is participating in two working groups at the Jan 14-18,
2002, RIPE meeting taking place in Amsterdam.  Members of the VeriSign R&D
team will be attending the CENTR DNR Forum and Database working group
meetings later in the week to provide an update since the last RIPE session,
and to seek further input.  

The RIPE meeting agenda is available from http://www.ripe.net

If you are not attending RIPE, but will be in the Amsterdam area at that
time, the VeriSign team would be pleased to meet with you separately --
please contact Leslie Daigle (ldaigle@verisign.com) to set up a time.


*  *  *  *  *
Background:

VeriSign is undertaking development of Universal Whois Service
that will allow public access and effective use of Whois
across all Registries and all TLDs, as required by Appendix W of its
Registry Agreement with ICANN.

VeriSign conducted three formal consultations on the research and 
development effort specified in its Registry Agreement.  The first 
consultation was hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on August 15, 
and focused on input from business, intellectual property and law 
enforcement interests.  The second consultation was held on November 15, 
and was intended to reach out to the international community attending 
the ICANN Annual Meeting.  The third consultation was hosted by the Center
for Democracy and Technology on November 19, and focused on getting input 
from civil liberties and other NGO groups.

In addition to these formal consultations, VeriSign has held, or plans 
to hold, informal consultations on the margins of key international 
technical meetings for those attendees, including:
· 
RIPE - October 3-4, 2001 (DNR Working Group and Database Working Group), 
Prague
· 
NANOG - October 23, 2001, Oakland
· 
ARIN - October 29-31, Miami
· 
RIPE - January 14-19, 2002, Amsterdam
· 
APRICOT  - March 3-7, 2002, Bangkok (tentative)

We have also set up a website to enable anyone, anywhere, to provide 
input.  It can be accessed at http://uwho.verisignlabs.com.