[registrars] WHOIS/Privacy discussions scheduled for the ICANN meeting in Montreal

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>]

Hello All,

The GNSO Council in its meeting on 22 May 2003, voted to request the
ICANN President to put together a public workshop to obtain factual
information about usage of WHOIS and evidence of privacy abuses.

I note this has been scheduled across two mornings.
(see http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-23may03.htm)

Tuesday 22 June 2003, 9am to midday (ICANN public forum part 2)
Wednesday 25 June 2003, morning (ICANN Public forum part 3)

The planned teleconference for 30 May 2003 may wish to consider what
presentations/information would be most useful for the Montreal
meetings.

I think it would be useful for registrars to present statistical
evidence of use of their WHOIS (possibly aggregated across several
registrars).   E.g how many queries per hour and how correletaed these
queries are (e.g from a few IP addresses, or queries moving through the
WHOIS database alphabetically).
It would be good to present evidence on mis-use of WHOIS - e.g for
unsolicited renewal notices.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin
Registrars Rep on the GNSO Council